“Like what?”
“Like what the reward was,” Azraya said bitterly. “The recruiter lied. Oh, there were a thousand pieces of gold, and a position in the king's service, but those weren't the reward; those were his daughters’ dowry. The reward was that whoever killed the dragon got to marry one of his daughters. He had five of them, not counting the married one, so he was sending the hunters out in five-man teams. Five men."
“Oh,” Kelder said, understanding the situation immediately. Surplus princesses were a well-known phenomenon in the Small Kingdoms, a common subject of lewd jokes—there were never enough princes to go around, and custom decreed that princesses could only marry commoners under exceptional circumstances. Slaying a dragon qualified a commoner as exceptional.
“I don't know if they'd have sent me back to Ethshar,” Azraya said. “I didn't wait to find out. I just set out, to see where I went. I've been wandering for months, through Ekeroa and Pethmor and Ressamor, doing what odd jobs I could, stealing when I couldn't eat any other way, and last night I arrived here in Krithim, and now I need to decide whether to give up and go back to Ethshar, or to keep looking.”
“Looking for what?” Kelder asked.
“I don't know,” she said. “Just someplace to live, I guess, where I won't have to beg or whore or sleep in the mud.”
She paused. Kelder thought she had finished, and was about to say something, when she added, “Or sell my blood to some slimy old wizard.”
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* * *
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“We're staying at the Leaping Fish,” Kelder told Azraya as they parted. “If you'd like to meet us there for supper...”
“Don't count on it,” Azraya said.
Kelder watched her go, then turned and headed back for the castle. The guards might have misdirected him before, but it still seemed like the best place to look for work. Azraya disagreed, and was going her own way.
He rather regretted that; he liked her.
Maybe, he told himself wryly, he was just a sucker for sad stories and losers. Maybe Zindre had guessed that, and had suggested he would champion the lost and forlorn not from magical foreknowledge, but just from his character. Asha, with her abusive drunkard of a father; Ezdral, with his love spell and alcoholism; even Irith, with her unbreakable enchantments—they were all among the unfortunates of the World.
And poor orphaned Azraya was another.
Azraya wasn't looking for a champion, though; she could obviously take care of herself.
The four of them made a boring life on a farm in Shulara look pretty good by comparison.
This time, when Kelder asked, the soldiers at the castle gate made no jokes and grinned no grins; the one who had directed him to Senesson was apologetic, the other sullen.
“Sorry,” the first said. “If Senesson can't use you, I don't have any suggestions. There must be merchants who could use some help loading their wagons, I suppose.”
Kelder was about to say something more when a cat meowed by his feet. He turned, and Irith was standing beside him.
“Gods and demons!” one of the soldiers exclaimed.
“What's the matter?” Kelder asked him.
“She just appeared, out of nowhere!” the guard said. “It startled me—I thought my heart would burst!”
“That's Irith the Flyer,” the other one said. “She can do that.”
“I know who she is," the first guard said, “but I never saw her do that before, and it startled me, all right?”
“Hello,” Irith said. “I'm here to see the king's wizard—he does still have one, doesn't he?”
The guards looked at one another.
“He had one last time I was here,” she said. “Her name was Perina something.”
“Perina the Wise,” one guard said. “She's still here. There are also two witches and a sorcerer.”
“I'm only looking for wizards, thanks,” Irith said. “May we go in?”
“We?”
“He's with me,” Irith said, taking Kelder's hand.
The guards exchanged glances again, and then one of them shrugged.
“What the hell,” he said, “let them in.”
“I think we better send an escort,” the other replied.
The first considered, and agreed.
“Wait here,” he said. Then he turned and hurried inside.
While they were waiting, Kelder remarked, “There's a wizard a few blocks over that way by the name of Senesson of Yolder—do you think he might have a counterspell?”
“Who knows?” Irith said. “I know who you mean; he's a nasty old man, but we can ask him when we're done here.”
Kelder nodded. He was about to say something about meeting Azraya there when the soldier returned, accompanied by yet another soldier. “I'll escort you to the wizard's workshop,” the new arrival said, without preamble.
“Thank you,” Kelder said. “Lead on.”
The wizard's workshop proved to be at the top of a distressingly long staircase; as they finally neared the top, Kelder panting and Irith making a great effort not to, the Flyer turned to her companion and muttered, “You can do what you like, Kelder, but I'm flying down.” She touched the bloodstone at her throat and then stood up straight, her fatigue seemingly vanished, as she took the last few steps.
“I don't blame you,” he wheezed back. “I would, too, if I could.”
The guardsman seemed untroubled by the climb. He paused for a few seconds at the top of the stair to allow them to catch their breath—not enough seconds, in Kelder's opinion, but a few—and then rapped on the blackened wood door.
A complex and unfamiliar rune glowed white against the black, and a hollow voice asked, “Who goes there?” It spoke in Trader's Tongue, Kelder noticed.
“Two visitors to see Perina the Wise,” the soldier said in what Kelder took at first for awkward Ethsharitic, then recognized as Krithimionese. “I know one to be Irith the Flyer; the other I do not recognize.”
“Kelder of Shulara,” Kelder volunteered, wondering why the man was answering one language with another.
For a moment, nothing happened; then the door swung open and a woman's voice called out, in the Krithimionese dialect, “Come in, Irith, and bring your friend! Thank you, Kelder, you may go.”
As Kelder hesitated, the soldier bowed quickly, turned, and headed back down the staircase.
“Wait,” Kelder called after him, “she said Kelder...”
“That's me,” the soldier called back. “Kelder the Tall. No jokes, please.” Then he was gone, around a bend in the stair.
Kelder muttered, “I'd hardly be the one to joke about the name, would I?” Then he followed Irith through the door.
The workshop was a large room, with windows on three sides, tables and bookcases here and there, fur rugs on the floor, and a spiral stair in the center. Standing on the stair was a handsome middle-aged woman, a streak of white in her black hair.
“Irith,” she said, descending to the floor, “how good to see you!” She spoke Krithimionese, but Kelder could follow it well enough.
“Hello, Perina,” Irith said in the same tongue as she stepped into the room far enough to close the door. “This is Kelder of Shulara; he's been very helpful lately.”
That was not exactly Kelder's idea of a great introduction, but he smiled and said, “Hello.”
“I haven't seen you for more than a year,” Perina said to Irith, ignoring Kelder as she crossed the room. “What brings you here now?”
“Well, I need a spell,” Irith said. “Or a counterspell, really.”
Perina came and took the girl by the hand. “Come and sit down and tell me all about it,” she said, as she led the way to a small settee, upholstered in gold-embroidered burgundy velvet.
Kelder, feeling out of place, followed.
“Well, it seems I enchanted someone,” Irith said, as she sank onto the cushions. “I didn't really mean to, exactly.”
Perina nodded encouragingly and sat down as well; Kelder, seeing no space remaining, stayed standing, and began to wander toward a nearby shelf as if that was what he had intended all along.
“I put this spell on him, and I sort of thought it would wear off, but it didn't, and now he's an old man and he still has this spell on him, and it's pretty awful, so I'd really like to know how to break it,” Irith said. Kelder looked over the tidy row of skulls atop the bookcase, trying to identify them all; the human was easy, of course, and he was pretty sure of the cat and the horse, but some of the others puzzled him.
“It sounds terrible,” Perina said, patting Irith on the knee. “Which spell was it, my dear?”
“Fendel's Infatuous Love Spell,” Irith said. Then she added, “I think.”
Kelder glanced at her, forgetting about the odd skull with the horns. This was the first time he had heard her say that she wasn't entirely certain about which spell it was.
“Oh, that's a bad one,” Perina said, clicking her tongue in rebuke. “It's tricky, you know; it can go wrong in ever so many ways.”
Kelder looked at her hopefully, then quickly turned back to the shelves. Directly below the skulls was an impressive array of strangely-shaped bottles, none of them labeled, and he wondered not just what might be in them, but how Perina could tell.
“Do you know it?” Irith asked.
“No, not really,” Perina admitted. “I've heard about it, but the Infallible Love Philtre is so much more convenient that I never bothered with it—all those stories about people falling in love with the wrong person, or even with animals!” She shook her head in dismay. “Fendel was a brilliant man, but even the best of us isn't perfect, and that spell is just nothing but trouble. Whyever did you use it?”
“It's the only love spell I have,” Irith said. “I didn't see any others in Kalirin's book when I was an apprentice.”
“Well, I don't suppose old—Kalirin, was it? Your master?” Perina asked.
Irith nodded.
“Well, I don't suppose he had much call for love spells, after all,” Perina said. “It's too bad.”
Kelder wondered why anyone would make a bottle with two necks, both of them twisted into complete loops. And was there a reason to use blue glass for it?
“So you don't know the counter?” Irith asked.
“I'm afraid not, my dear,” Perina admitted, patting Irith's knee again. “I'm so sorry.”
The third shelf held even more bottles, but these were more ordinary—that is, if Kelder ignored the fact that something was moving in that big one second from the left, and that the one fourth from the right was watching him with green glass eyes.
“I do believe it has blood in it somewhere,” Perina said thoughtfully. “I've heard that.”
“Virgin's blood?” Irith asked.
Perina shook her head. “No, I don't think so,” she said, “but I'm really not sure. Oh, dear.”
Something thin and black from the bottom shelf was reaching out for his leg, Kelder realized; he stepped back suddenly, and almost trod on Irith's foot. The tendril, or whatever it was, retreated.
“Listen,” Perina said, “if you do find a counterspell, you tell me about it, won't you? Please? It could be useful, you know.”
“Sure,” Irith said. “And if you hear anything, you'll tell me?”
“Oh, assuredly!”
The bottom shelf held jars; most of them had no lids, and they all appeared to contain plants, none of which Kelder recognized. The tendril came from something resembling a malevolent cabbage.
Did that qualify as a strange beast, in the terms of Zindre's predictions? Did those peculiar bottled things? Certainly there was much magic here, though he didn't know how mighty it was.
“Is there anyone you think might know the countercharm?” Irith asked. “We're heading west—we thought someone in Ethshar might know.”
Perina considered that carefully, as Kelder moved on to another bookcase. This one actually held books on most of its shelves, which seemed less dangerous.
“I'm sure there are people in Ethshar who would know,” Perina said. “That nice Thorum the Mage, on Wizard Street—if he doesn't know himself, I'm sure he can find you someone who does, he's just the sweetest man.”
Irith nodded. Kelder tried to read the titles on a few bindings, and found most were in unfamiliar languages.
“Iridith of Ethshar, if you can find her,” Perina went on. “She seems to know just about everything, I think. But I don't have any idea at all where she lives—she won't say.” She smiled oddly, and said, “And of course there's always Fendel the Great himself—the rumor is that he's still alive, living like a hermit somewhere in Tintallion or some such place.”
Kelder looked up at that, then back, and blinked. Hadn't that title been different before?
“For that matter,” Perina mused, “is your old master ... What was the name?”
“Kalirin the Clever,” Irith supplied.
“Yes, Kalirin—is he dead?”
“Oh, I think so,” Irith said. “I heard that he was, and I haven't seen him since, oh, 5025, I think it was.”
“That's almost two hundred years ago,” Perina said, “so I suppose he must be dead.” She sighed.
Kelder decided that maybe he would do better to just look out a window, and strolled over to one.
“So you don't have any more ideas?” Irith asked.
“No, I'm afraid I don't,” Perina admitted.
Kelder looked out the window and decided maybe that was a mistake after all, because it wasn't Krithimion on the other side of the glass at all, it was someplace where waves were smashing against black rocks at the foot of a high, curving cliff and ancient, crooked buildings of rough stone stood atop it; the window seemed to be somewhere on the clifftop, looking along the rim, with the sea to the left and the buildings to the right.
That was mighty magic, he was fairly certain.
“As long as we're here,” Irith said, rising, “Kelder and I are a little short of money just now. Were there any little errands that you'd like done?”
Kelder stepped to the next window and was relieved to find a perfectly normal view of Krithim, laid out below them like a collection of toys; the only unsettling thing about it was how very high up they were. The wizard's workshop was clearly atop the tallest tower in the castle.
“Oh, I can't think of any just now,” Perina said, as she, too, got to her feet, “but I can loan you a few pieces of silver if you like, and when you find that countercharm that will cover it. It would be worth, oh, I'd say ten pieces to me, and I could give you half of that now.”
“What if we don't find it?” Kelder asked, breaking his silence.
“Oh, Kelder, don't be such a bore,” Irith said.
“Then you'll find some other way to pay me back,” Perina said, dismissing the problem with a wave.
Kelder hesitated, but he was tired of doing stupid little jobs and constantly worrying about where the next meal was coming from. Five pieces of silver—that was fifty in copper, four hundred bits. Added to the handful they had, that would make life a good bit easier all around.
Irith threw him a questioning look, and he nodded.
“Thank you, Perina,” the shapeshifter said, “that would be wonderful.”
“Wait right here, then,” she said. “I'll get my purse.” She hurried to the spiral stair.
That left Irith and Kelder standing a few feet apart, with no one else in the room. Kelder said quietly, “She seems to know a lot.”
“Hmm?” Irith looked at him questioningly.
“Well, I mean, all this magical stuff here, and all those powerful wizards she was talking about—if she doesn't know the countercharm it must be pretty obscure.”
Irith shook her head. “Silly,” she said, “don't let Peri fool you; she's not part of any inner circle or anything. She inherited all this stuff from her mother—she was a great wizard. And she collected stuff, weird stuff—a lot of it
is accidental one-of-a-kind things that nobody knows what they do, things that happened when a spell went wrong. It's not Peri's magic. Peri's just a name-dropper; she met all those people when she was little and they visited her mother, or her mother took her along visiting them, or maybe she just heard her mother talking about them. She probably hasn't seen Thorum in fifteen years, and she probably never met Fendel at all. She probably hasn't read half these books. In fact, she probably hasn't read any of them.”
“Oh,” Kelder said.
“The countercharm could be in one of them,” Irith said, “but we'd never find it. We'd probably get killed by some silly warding spell if we tried to look for it.”
“Oh,” Kelder said again.
Then Perina reappeared, descending the stair, a velvet purse in her hand.
“Here we go,” she said, pulling out a handful of coins.
When the money was safely tucked away—three pieces in silver in Kelder's purse, two in Irith's, and the rest back where it came from—Irith kissed Perina goodbye and stepped to the window.
“Must you go?” Perina asked, as Irith opened the casement.
“I'm afraid so,” Irith said, as wings sprouted from her shoulderblades.
“Well, take care.” She and Kelder watched as Irith stepped up on the sill, and then flew away.
Feeling suddenly awkward, Kelder said, “Well, I guess I'll be going, too.”
Perina smiled at him. “Oh, I'm sure,” she said. “Tell me, though, lad, how did you meet Irith?”
Kelder shrugged. “Just bumped into her on the highway,” he said.
“You've taken a fancy to her, haven't you? I can always tell these things.” She smiled a smile that Kelder supposed was meant to be conspiratorial; it came off as condescending, instead.
“I suppose,” Kelder mumbled.
“It shows,” Perina said. “At least, to someone as experienced as I am, it does.”
“I'm sure it does,” he muttered, embarrassed.
“I might be able to do something for you, you know,” she said.
Kelder blinked.
“I really don't know Fendel's Infatuous Love Spell,” she said, “but I do ... Oh, it isn't you she used it on, is it?”
Taking Flight (Ethshar) Page 21
