Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Hakin’s mouth fell open. “Wizards can create worlds?”

  “Well, maybe. Or maybe they just find new ones that already existed but no one knew about; we really aren’t sure. At least, I’m not sure. And I don’t know any of the spells that do anything like that; that’s far beyond my abilities!”

  “But she may still be in this world,” Tarker said.

  “Yes, and we’re looking here, too! But we don’t know what her form is; you could have passed her in the street just now.”

  Tarker started to speak, then stopped.

  “It might be able to smell her,” Hakin said. “That’s what it was going to say, that it would have recognized her scent. But it can’t be sure. Her smell may have been transformed, along with her appearance.”

  Tarker grunted agreement.

  Shenna looked at the demon. “Maybe it can tell us something useful. Would it be all right if some wizards asked it questions?”

  “Ask it,” Hakin said.

  She turned to the demon, swallowed hard, then asked, “Would you answer questions for us?”

  “I will do anything that will help me find Karitha the Demonologist,” Tarker replied.

  The wizard nodded. “I’ll tell the others.”

  For a moment, no one spoke. Then Hakin asked, “Was there anything else?”

  “No, I think that’s everything, at least for now,” Shenna said. “If there’s any news, I’ll tell you as soon as I can; if it’s after curfew I’ll send a dream.”

  “Demons do not dream,” Tarker rumbled.

  “But I do,” Hakin said. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll stop by once a sixnight to let you know how it’s going,” Shenna added, “even if there isn’t any real news.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Hakin said.

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll see you again, then.”

  Hakin bowed. He was not sure that bowing to a wizard was the correct etiquette, but he thought it would demonstrate respect. By the time he had straightened again, she was marching westward at a good pace.

  For a moment Hakin watched her go; then he looked up at Tarker. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go get supper.”

  He knew by now that demons did not eat, at least not in the material plane, that Tarker’s fangs were purely weapons, but he was hungry, even if Tarker wasn’t. He led the way into camp, the demon at his heels.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Morvash of the Shadows

  24th of Leafcolor, YS 5238

  Pender proved very useful. His Ethsharitic seemed to continue to improve rapidly; apparently Ariella’s witchcraft had triggered an ongoing development, not merely a temporary boost, drawing on everything he had heard since he first set foot in the Hegemony.

  Morvash discovered that the Tazmorite was a decent cook, and a quick and obedient assistant in the workshop. He was untroubled by the presence of magic; many people were nervous around wizardry, worried about what might go wrong, but Pender seemed completely comfortable with it. Morvash supposed that growing up in a village that existed entirely to serve a wizard’s whims would do that.

  The diamond Pender had given his new master was sold; the proceeds paid off all Morvash’s bills, and stocked both the pantry and the workshop cupboards. Morvash laid in plentiful stocks of all the ingredients needed for Javan’s Restorative—a dozen each of two kinds of peacock plumes, a large jar of touch-me-not, three pounds of incense that the supplier attested had been properly prepared on a black stone concealed in fog, a gallon of thrice-purified water, a brass tripod supporting an engraved crystal bowl, and ten pounds of charcoal. The recipe did not actually require that the water be pure, or that it be boiled in a specific vessel, but Morvash had been taught as an apprentice that higher quality ingredients improved the chances that a spell would succeed. He had never heard this from anyone except his master Avizar, so he had some doubts, but better ingredients couldn’t hurt, and at least for the moment he could afford them.

  He spent much of his time practicing spells, concentrating on some of the most difficult he knew, to build his puissance—but there were a few he did not attempt, some because they could be seriously dangerous if they went wrong, and some because they were dangerous even if they went right. He did not feel any need to cast curses on Pender merely to increase his own expertise in magic.

  He also tried to stop into the gallery at least once a day to talk to the statues, reassuring them that he was working toward their salvation, and he was pleased to discover that Pender also talked to them on occasion. After being told which ones had spoken Sardironese as their native tongue, the slave even made a point of addressing each in the appropriate tongue—though of course, he did not know the Northerner’s language or any of the Small Kingdoms dialects.

  Morvash brought Ariella in for further consultation a few times, and noted down everything he could learn about the wizards who had transformed the various statues. Several of the transformed had no idea who was responsible, while others knew exactly who to blame, and the rest fell somewhere in between, with partial information or perhaps just a suspicion. Prince Marek, for example, could offer not even the vaguest guess, but Darissa had seen a tall woman in a blue robe around Melitha Castle who she thought might have been the wizard who enchanted them.

  Morvash consulted Ithinia and the Guild records regarding the names he was able to obtain. Of the few wizards who could be identified with any certainty, at least half appeared to be dead—after all, most of the victims had been petrified for decades or centuries. There was no reason to think any of the survivors still cared what became of their victims—for example, Morvash contacted Poldrian of Morningside, who had enchanted Sharra the Charming some thirty years ago, and was told that Poldrian had no interest one way or the other. He had long ago returned the statue to Sharra’s family and thought no more about it.

  That left the question of how Sharra had wound up in Lord Landessin’s collection, but Morvash decided there was no need to get obsessive in his research. He was content that he found no evidence that either the victims or perpetrators, with the possible exception of Karitha the Demonologist, posed a real threat to anyone once he succeeded in breaking the enchantments.

  Morvash began to run through the basic motions of Javan’s Restorative, though without his athame or any other source of actual magic. He wanted to be as prepared as possible when he attempted it for real. He practiced several other harmless spells as well, to advance his general facility with magic, and saw a gradual but significant improvement.

  Finally, on a rainy afternoon some five months after his arrival in Ethshar of the Spices he felt himself to be ready. After getting everything in place and lighting the charcoal, he handed Pender a jar from the kitchen and a wooden mallet.

  “Smash it,” he said.

  Pender’s Ethsharitic vocabulary still had a few gaps. “I don’t know ‘smash,’” he said.

  “Break it,” Morvash said. “Hit it with the mallet as hard as you can.”

  Pender looked at him uncertainly. “As hard as I can? I can hit hard. I got strong dredging the canals.”

  “All right, not that hard, but I want it broken into many pieces.”

  Pender still looked doubtful, but he raised the mallet above his head and brought it crashing down onto the jar, which shattered in a thoroughly satisfactory manner.

  “Good!” Morvash said. “Now, stand back!”

  “What should I do with the hammer?”

  “Just hold onto it,” Morvash said, a trifle annoyed. The question had disrupted his concentration, and it took a moment to get his mind focused again. When he felt ready, he drew his athame and began the incantation.

  He was not sure exactly where it went wrong, but fifteen minutes later, when the magical energies should have been building, they suddenly drain
ed away, leaving him sitting cross-legged in a cloud of charcoal smoke and incense, coughing uncontrollably. The crystal bowl of boiling water cracked and began dripping onto the charcoal fire, adding steam to the mess, and Morvash tried to call to Pender, but could not stop coughing long enough to get out both syllables.

  Fortunately, Pender had been waiting just outside the workroom door and thrust his head in when he heard the coughing.

  “Should I put it out?” he called.

  Morvash nodded, sheathing his dagger and staggering to his feet as he looked around for a way to clear the smoke.

  In the end, once the fires were out, he and Pender had to leave the workshop until the fumes dissipated. As they sat by an open window in the gallery, gulping fresh air from the street outside, Morvash finally managed to clear his throat enough to say, “Well, that didn’t work.”

  “No, it did not,” Pender agreed. “What next?”

  “I’ll try it again tomorrow,” Morvash said. “By the time the room airs out it will be too late to try again tonight.”

  “I should clean up the broken glass, and then find another empty jar?”

  “No, no. I can use the same one.”

  Pender paused, then asked, “There is no magic on it now? It will not change the spell?”

  “It shouldn’t,” Morvash said. He hesitated, wondering whether Pender might have a point, but then he remembered that his entire purpose here was to use the spell on enchanted things. “I’ll use the same jar.”

  “You are the wizard and I am not,” Pender said, turning up an empty palm.

  Morvash did not reply, but sat and stared at the workroom door.

  He had had spells go wrong before, back when he was an apprentice and even once or twice since, but none had been so complex or powerful. They were lucky that the magic had merely dissipated, rather than doing something unpredictable and bizarre. When a spell went wrong, anything could happen; the famous Tower of Flame in the Small Kingdoms was said to have resulted when a simple first-order spell, Thrindle’s Combustion, misfired.

  But he could not stop now. He had committed himself to saving these poor petrified people. He would just have to keep practicing until he got it right.

  The next morning the workshop had a lingering sharp salty smell to it that Morvash guessed was from the incense. He hoped that would not affect anything.

  His first attempt that day was aborted almost before it began, when his tongue tripped over the words of the opening incantation and he had to stop less than a minute into the proceedings. He tidied up a little, and then tried again, with the same pot of boiling water—an ordinary copper pot from the kitchen this time, rather than expensive, fragile, and now cracked crystal—over the same charcoal fire. This time he had also opened the flue and built the fire just in front of the fireplace, in hopes of keeping the smoke under better control.

  He took a deep breath, raised his knife, and began the chant, and this time it went smoothly; he lit the incense, and had a sudden sensation of magic surging up around him.

  He had felt magic before, of course; he wouldn’t be much of a wizard if he hadn’t. On this particular occasion, though, the sensation was stronger than he had ever experienced before, almost overwhelming in its intensity.

  So this was what high-order magic felt like! He just hoped it was the right high-order magic. He moved on to the next step, taking jewelweed leaves into both hands and rolling them on his palms, then crushing them.

  Step by step, he worked his way through the spell. Once again the room filled with smoke, but this time his throat remained completely untroubled; he felt in control. When the time came, perhaps three-quarters of an hour into the operation, he used his athame to shape the smoke, turning it into a sort of helical form that settled over the broken glass on the floor.

  His control began to slip, but at that point the spell was almost complete. Morvash’s eyes began to water, forcing him to blink repeatedly, and the instant he finished the final incantation he began coughing again and almost dropped his knife.

  But then the smoke abruptly cleared, and Morvash was sitting cross-legged on the floor, trembling from exertion, coughing, half-blind with tears, and staring at a perfectly restored glass jar.

  It had worked. He had performed Javan’s Restorative.

  At lunch that day Morvash celebrated by drinking almost half a bottle of oushka. He was not ordinarily much of a drinker, but on this occasion he felt something stronger than beer was called for. He was still shaking, and thought the liquor might steady him.

  It steadied him to the point he fell asleep in his chair. Pender made sure he was positioned securely, leaning against a wall next to the chair where he was unlikely to fall, and then left the wizard there to sleep it off.

  When he finally came to the sun was setting and his head ached, but he did not really care. “I did it!” he said, as he had several times that morning.

  “Yes,” Pender agreed. He did not seem impressed—but then, he had undoubtedly seen plenty of magic before, and putting a shattered jar back together was not particularly showy. Morvash thought Pender did not realize just how difficult that spell was, even if the test run had not accomplished anything spectacular.

  “Tomorrow we’ll see if it can remove an enchantment,” the wizard said, straightening in his chair.

  “You will try one of the statues?”

  “No, not quite yet. I want to try it on something easier first. I’ll put a spell on you, and then see if I can take it off.”

  Pender froze. “What did you say?”

  “I’m going to cast a spell on you, an easy one—maybe Lugwiler’s Dismal Itch—and then see if the Restorative will take it off.”

  “But…what if it does not?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. There’s a simple counterspell. It has to be spoken by the wizard who cast the spell in the first place, which will be me, but so long as I don’t get killed or turn myself into a teapot or something, I’ll do that if the Restorative doesn’t work.”

  It occurred to Morvash that it might not have been wise to give Pender that much detail; the man looked seriously concerned. Perhaps the effects of the oushka had not entirely worn off. It would definitely be unwise to attempt any more magic just now—not that he had intended to.

  “I think I’ll take a walk,” he said. “Clear my head a little.”

  Pender made no objection, so Morvash got to his feet and wobbled up out of the kitchens—just as someone knocked at the front door.

  Startled, Morvash looked back at Pender. “Are we expecting someone?”

  “No.”

  Morvash looked down at his rumpled working robe and said, “Go see who it is.”

  Pender went, and Morvash tried to straighten his clothes and smooth out the worst wrinkles. If this was someone important he could not keep whoever it was waiting while he changed into something better, but he preferred not to look totally unconcerned with his appearance.

  Pender reappeared. “It is your uncle,” he said. “The man who paid for me.”

  “Uncle Gror?” Morvash said, astonished. “What’s he doing here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, bring him in, sit him in the parlor! I’ll be right there!” Morvash gave his robes another quick brushing, then hurried to the parlor, arriving there just as Pender led Uncle Gror in.

  “Uncle!” Morvash said. “What an unexpected pleasure! Sit down, please. What brings you here? And so late in the day?”

  “It’s not going to be a pleasure, Morvash,” Gror said. “At least, I don’t think so.” He settled onto a chair Pender held for him, and Morvash took a seat nearby.

  “Why?” Morvash asked. “What’s happened? Has something gone wrong back home? Is anyone sick?”

  “No, no,” Gror said quickly, di
smissing the notion with a wave. “It’s nothing like that. But I’ve had a visitor.”

  “What sort of a visitor?”

  “One with a pretty thick Small Kingdoms accent—somewhere in the northern kingdoms, and inland, from the sound of him.”

  “And…”

  “And he’s looking for one of those statues you took.”

  Morvash blinked. Of all the things he might have imagined this mysterious visitor wanting, that would have been very, very low on the list. “Which one? Did he say?”

  “Oh, yes,” Gror said. “He was very specific. It’s the one of the young couple.”

  “You mean the prince and the witch?”

  It was Gror’s turn to be surprised. “Is that who they are? How can you tell, when they’re stark naked?”

  “I’m a wizard, Uncle, remember?”

  “Oh. Yes. But you know the one I mean, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course I do. What does this person want with it?”

  “He won’t say. Believe me, I asked.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Well, he came to the door, and asked to see Lord Landessin, and Karn—my footman, you remember—said that Landessin had been dead for years. That seemed to upset him, but then he asked to see whoever was the master of the house, so I met with him, and he explained that he was there on behalf of his employer, who had once seen that statue and was now determined to own it and would pay five rounds of gold for it.”

  “I don’t know the art market, Uncle; is that a fair price, if it were just a statue?”

  “Fair, maybe, but not especially generous for a piece like that one.”

  “It might have just been an opening bid.”

  “Oh, of course it was! He got up to eight rounds before I convinced him that I really didn’t have it anymore.”