Taking Flight

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  "Only a league," Irith said, before Kelder could remember.

  Asha nodded. "What about the one after that?"

  Irith had to stop and think about that. "From the town of Amramion to Hlimora Castle must be, oh . . . three leagues? Four?"

  "Amramion?" Asha asked. "Are we near Amramion?"

  "Of course," Irith said, startled. "I think it's less than two to the border."

  "Maybe I should go home," the little girl said uncertainly, peering down the highway.

  "What about your father?" Kelder asked quietly.

  Asha looked down at the table and began to pick carefully at a protruding splinter. She gave no answer, and the subject was dropped.

  They ate in silence for a moment and then Asha said, "At least it's all over for Abden. He's out of it all."

  No one said anything in response to that.

  "I think we'll stop at Amramion for the night," Kelder said, breaking the silence.

  That was what they did.

  They were questioned briefly by the guards at the border post, but they knew Irith and could see no harm in an old man and a child. Kelder they had reservations about, but even­tually they took Irith's word that he was harmless and let him pass.

  The party reached the village of Amramion a little past midafternoon, where they stopped at the Weary Wanderer and took a room; Irith admitted after they left the building that her funds were now running low, and they would need to find some way to obtain more, or else would need to start relying on charity or theft.

  With that in mind, the party split up; Kelder went to look for work in the village, while the other three climbed the little hill to the castle and knocked at the postern gate, seeking a consultation with the king's wizard, Pirra the Mage. Irith was recognized immediately, and the three of them were ushered in.

  Kelder heard about it that night at supper, as he massaged sore muscles and wondered why the only work he seemed to get was chopping wood. It wasn't work he enjoyed at all.

  Of course, he knew that was why he was able to get it— nobody else liked it, either. And it was simple—anyone with strong arms could do it, and you didn't need to worry about coaxing hostile animals or tying knots wrong or anything like that. It was something you could trust to a stranger who might be clumsy or halfwitted.

  Of course, since it meant giving him an ax, you didn't want to ask a stranger who looked dangerous to chop your wood.

  Thinking that through, he only half listened to the tale of how everybody at the castle had recognized Irith, and how Pirra had been eager to talk to her, and then had been really disappointed when she discovered that Irith didn't remember how to prepare all the spells she used.

  ". .. and she'd heard of Fendel's Whatever-it-is Love Spell," Asha said, "and she was pretty sure there's a simple countercharm, but she doesn't know what it is. She knows a different one of Fendel the Great's love spells, Fendel's Aph­rodisiac Philtre, and she knows one that's a lot like Irith's, but it's Cauthen's Remarkable Love Spell, and it's different, it uses mare's sweat and stallion hairs, and she says that there are two countercharms for that that she knows, but she doesn't know any for Irith's spell."

  That caught Kelder's attention.

  "Did she say what the two countercharms are?" he asked. "Maybe we could try them—if the spells are alike, they might work."

  "I don't think so," Irith said.

  "Well, would it do any harm to try?" Kelder persisted. "Did she say what the charms are?"

  Irith and Asha exchanged glances; Irith let out a sigh.

  "Yes, she said," the shapeshifter admitted. "But, Kelder, I don't think we want to try them. Not until we know they're the right ones."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, because they're difficult," Irith said.

  "What are they?"

  "The easy one," Irith said, "is for the victim to drink a cup of virgin's blood each night at midnight, for four nights. A full cup. Without spilling a drop, or choking, or throwing up. And he has to go to sleep immediately afterward; if he speaks a word or sets foot on the ground, it won't work." She gri­maced. "Have you ever drunk blood? The hardest part has to be not throwing up. And all the blood has to come from a sin­gle fertile virgin human female who has never been enchanted—no mixing blood from different people, or any­thing."

  Kelder looked at Asha, who shook her head and said, "I'm too young."

  "No," Kelder said hurriedly, "I know that, I didn't . . . I just. . . I mean, is that really what Pirra said? I know Irith has trouble remembering magic . . ." He trailed off, flustered.

  "It's right," Asha said. "And that's the easy one."

  "What's the other?" Kelder asked, though he didn't really expect it to be any better.

  "It's just one drop of blood on the back of the tongue," Irith said. "Dragon's blood."

  "Well, what's so difficult about that?" Kelder asked, puz­zled. "I thought wizards used dragon's blood all the time."

  "They do," Irith agreed, "but there's another requirement. The blood has to come from a gelded dragon."

  Kelder thought about that.

  "Oh," he said. He sighed. "Maybe we could find someone . . ." he said.

  "Kelder," Irith said, "that's a quart of virgin's blood—if she's as small as I am or smaller, I think that taking that much could kill her, and we don't even know if it would work. It probably wouldn't; it really is a different spell, and I already told you that magic doesn't make sense. You can't use phos­phorus for brimstone and still work Thrindle's Combustion, and I don't think you can break Fendel's Infatuous Love Spell with virgin's blood."

  "Well, maybe if you got a young enough dragon . . ."

  The others just stared at him.

  "You're right," Kelder admitted, "it's not the same spell. So it's on to Ethshar, then."

  "On to Ethshar," Irith agreed.

  And that, Kelder thought as he took a bite of pear, wasn't really anything all that terrible. It would be exciting to see Ethshar—the largest city in the World! Another city, and an­other prophetic phrase would be satisfied.

  But it would have been nice, he thought as he watched Ezdral down a large mug of wine, if they'd been able to break the love spell that much sooner.

  The meal continued in silence, for the most part. Asha seemed to be thinking about something; Ezdral was drinking heavily and alternately staring at Irith and forcing himself not to look at her. Irith grew increasingly uneasy under his gaze, quickly becoming too nervous to talk—not that she had any­one to speak to anyway, as Kelder was too tired.

  When they had all eaten their fill, and a drudge had cleared away the plates—but left the wine bottle, which Ezdral guarded—Asha leaned over and asked Irith quietly, "Could you do something for me?"

  Relieved to be able to talk to someone who wasn't Ezdral, Irith asked, "What is it?"

  "Could you fly home . . . I mean, to my father's house and tell him about Abden? And that I'm all right?"

  Irith's relief vanished; she bit her lower lip and looked at Kelder worriedly.

  "Go ahead," Kelder told her. "He won't hurt you; he doesn't even have to see you."

  "I'm really sort of tired . . ." the Flyer began.

  "Oh, do it!" Kelder snapped. "I've been out chopping wood to earn a lousy copper, which your old boyfriend there just drank up—I think you should earn your keep!"

  "Don't you speak to me like that!"

  Kelder started to say something else, but then a shadow fell over him. He turned to see Ezdral standing over him, fists clenched, the neck of the wine bottle in one of them.

  "You don't talk to Irith like that," he said hoarsely.

  For a moment the four of them were frozen into position, Kelder and Irith sitting on one bench, Asha on the other, the three of them gaping at Ezdral standing at the end of the table brandishing the bottle.

  "No, it's all right," Irith said, breaking the impasse. "He's right, I'm not really tired. I think it's really sweet that Asha's worried about her father, and I'd be glad to
go tell him."

  Ezdral wavered.

  "Thank you, Irith," Asha murmured.

  "Sit down, Ezdral," Irith said.

  Kelder, tired and fed up with the whole situation, said, "Yes, sit down." Angry that the man he was trying to help was turning against him, he added the crudest thing he could think of. Then, remembering the nature of the spell Ezdral was under, he immediately regretted it. "Have a drink," he said.

  Chapter 25

  For much of the next morning the Forest of Am­ramion was visible off to their left, and Ezdral, once he had sobered up sufficiently to focus, marveled at it. He hadn't seen a forest in over a decade.

  The guards at the border post between Amramion and Hlimora waved a greeting to Irith but made no attempt to hinder the party.

  Irith had been quiet ever since returning from Abden the Elder's house and didn't return the guard's greeting. She had given no details of her encounter with Asha's father, but had merely said that the message was delivered.

  Shortly after crossing the border into Hlimora, though, she burst out, "Asha, how could you live there?"

  Asha looked up, startled but silent.

  "She couldn't," Kelder said quietly. "That's why she's here."

  "It stank," Irith said. "The whole place, and it was filthy, and the house was practically falling down, and one shed had fallen down. And your . . . that man was drunk and singing to himself, and when he saw me he . . . When I gave him the message and told him his son was dead he started crying, and that wasn't so bad, I expected that, but then he started com­plaining about how there was no one to help him, and you'd run off, and when I told him you were all right he got angry and started swearing and saying all kinds of horrible things, and he tried to grab me, but I turned into a bird and flew away, and I heard him crying again as I left." She shuddered. "My father was never like that."

  Asha didn't say anything.

  Irith looked at Ezdral and said angrily, "He was even worse than you were, when we found you!"

  Kelder expected for Ezdral to make some cutting reply, or to stand silently on his dignity, but instead the old man mut­tered, "I'm sorry, Irith; please don't be mad at me."

  Kelder shuddered.

  Ezdral's subservience was appalling—but on the other hand, Irith seemed to be showing more compassion than was her wont. Kelder wondered if she might be learning some­thing from Asha and Ezdral.

  He certainly hoped so.

  And his own presence might not hurt, either.

  They were two and a half hours from the border when Kelder stopped and looked closely at the hillside to their left.

  "What is it?" Asha asked.

  "This is where I first saw the Great Highway," Kelder ex­plained. "I slept on the slope there. And it's where I met Irith."

  The Flyer nodded. "That's right," she said, "I remember. At first I thought you were going to just turn around and go back to your farm in Shulara."

  "I thought so, too," Kelder admitted.

  It occurred to him that he could do that now—he could simply head south, up that hill and down the other side, and go back home to his family and not worry about where his next meal was coming from, or Ezdral's love spell, or Asha's homelessness.

  He started to think about it. He turned to look at the others.

  He saw Irith's face and forgot the whole notion. She was obviously not yet ready to go with him and settle down to the life of a Shularan peasant, and he wasn't yet ready to give up on Zindré's predictions and go home without her.

  "Come on," he said, "we've still got a long way to go."

  They had scarcely covered another hundred yards when the turrets of Hlimora Castle came in sight. Kelder remembered how hungry he had been that morning—when was that, a sixnight ago? If he had known how close the castle was, he would never have turned east.

  And in that case, he might never have met Asha or Ezdral—but he might have met other people instead. There was simply no knowing what might have happened—not without magic, anyway.

  Zindré would have known, he supposed. She must have known that he would go east, as he had—or perhaps she hadn't known any details at all, just the generalities. Perhaps he had been fated to meet someone lost and forlorn, but ex­actly who had not been predetermined.

  The whole question of prophecy was an interesting one; despite his obsession with Zindré's predictions, he had never really thought about the mechanics before. Were all his ac­tions predetermined? Some, but not others? If so, why?

  If everything he was to do was predetermined, then he didn't really have any control over his own life at all, and nothing he did or thought mattered. That was an unsettling notion.

  But if he did have control over some of it, then how could any of it be so certain that Zindré could predict it? That was certainly something to think about, and think about it he did, as the little party trudged onward.

  They reached Hlimora Castle perhaps two hours after noon, and the question then arose of whether to stay the night or press on.

  "The next village is Urduron Town," Irith said.

  "Well, how far is it?" Kelder asked.

  Irith pursed her lips, thinking. "I don't remember," she ad­mitted. "Three leagues, maybe?"

  Kelder considered this. "They say a man's normal walk will cover a league in an hour," he said. "The sun won't be down for about four hours yet."

  "Come on, then," Irith said.

  Naturally, Ezdral agreed with her, and that made the vote three to one. Asha protested in vain.

  "Maybe you could be a horse for a little while, Irith?" she asked.

  Kelder expected her to hesitate, or refuse, but Irith simply said, "All right." She vanished, to be instantaneously replaced by the white mare.

  Ezdral stared as Kelder helped Asha up onto Irith's back; he crept nearer and reached out to touch the horse's flank.

  She shied away and whinnied unhappily; Asha grabbed at the mane to keep her balance.

  "Don't touch," Kelder advised the old man.

  Ezdral didn't touch Irith again, but he stared intently.

  It was plain to Kelder that Ezdral's interest was more than just an appreciation of equine grace. At first he was puzzled by the old man's attitude; certainly Irith was a good-looking horse, but she was scarcely as attractive in this form as in hu­man shape. For his own part, his physical interest in Irith van­ished when she was in any shape but human.

  Then he remembered the love spell and realized that it didn't distinguish on the basis of appearance—or, it seemed, even on the basis of species. Ezdral was still just as infatuated with Irith as ever, regardless of her shape. To him, in his en­chanted state, the important change had not been that Irith was now a horse, but that she was now virtually naked.

  That added a whole new level of repulsiveness to the spell, in Kelder's opinion; he watched the old man lusting after the mare and felt nothing but revulsion. Even the pity he had felt for Ezdral was overwhelmed by distaste.

  He was more determined than ever to see the spell broken, though—not for Ezdral's sake, or Irith's, or because of his prophesied role, but just because it was disgusting and unnat­ural.

  They had gone too far to be worth turning back by the time Kelder and Irith realized that just because a man can walk a league in an hour, that doesn't mean a sick old man, a child, and a horse can walk three leagues in three hours. They had not allowed for rest breaks, or even the occasional call of na­ture; they had not allowed for Ezdral's unsteady shuffle, or the fact that the terrain here was hilly, the road carrying them up and down one slope after another.

  With Asha on Irith's back, the real holdup was Ezdral's pace; he was simply not interested in moving quickly. Kelder and Asha could urge him on, but with little result; he would speed up for perhaps three or four steps, then slow again.

  He might have listened to Irith, but she was unable to speak while in equine form.

  Kelder tried to find a solution. The obvious one would be to put Ezdral on horseback, bu
t that was out of the question. Irith, he was sure, wouldn't stand for two riders at once, es­pecially not if one of them was the old man. Asha would be no faster on foot than was Ezdral—and besides, Kelder didn't want Ezdral any closer to Irith than absolutely necessary, under the circumstances; putting him astride her back was asking for trouble.

  Finally, though, he hit upon a much simpler and more sat­isfactory method of accelerating the pace; he simply whis­pered in Irith's ear to go a little faster and not worry about Ezdral keeping up.

  Ezdral gradually dropped back as the other three marched on unheeding, until finally he called out, "Hai! You're going too fast! Wait for me!"

  Kelder called back, "No; sorry, Ezdral, but we need to get to Urduron. If you can't keep up, you can find us there."

  "Wait," he puffed, "Irith!"

  Irith neighed but did not slow down.

  Kelder glanced back every so often, and somehow, though Ezdral puffed and panted and struggled, he never fell back far enough to let Irith out of his sight.

  Kelder felt slightly guilty about exploiting the love spell in such a way—but only slightly. After all, they were taking Ezdral along to cure him, for his own good—why let him slow them up?

  The distance to Urduron turned out to be somewhat more than three leagues; Kelder judged it at at least ten miles, pos­sibly eleven, but unquestionably between three and four leagues. They finally arrived as the sun sank before them.

  Here, Irith had sufficient credit and goodwill to obtain ac­ceptable room and board at an inn inexplicably called the Stone from the Sky—but only a small room, so small that Ezdral and Asha took the two tiny beds, Kelder slept on the floor, and Irith took the form of a cat and spent the entire night curled up on Asha's feet. A fourth human being would have been too much, but they didn't have the money for an­other room, and Irith's credit wasn't that good.

  The next day's travel was the four-league distance from Urduron to Ophera; they got an early start and made no at­tempt to go any farther, but instead set about earning a little money in Ophera, to help defray expenses.

  Irith made a few aerial deliveries—primarily flying a packet of wizard's supplies back to Urduron, for which she was paid three bits in silver. She tried to demand more, but gave in when the Opheran wizard threatened to simply con­jure up a sylph for the job instead.