He remembered that awful day when the news of his father’s death had arrived. The weather had been horribly inappropriate, a beautiful sunny spring day, the fields warm and green, the sky a perfect blue strewn with fluffy white clouds. He had been lying on the hill behind the house, doing nothing in particular, just lying there enjoying the weather, when his second cousin Peretta had come trudging up looking for him, her hair tangled and her face serious. He had known right away that something was wrong; Peretta was never serious and would leave her hair unbrushed only for the direst of emergencies.
She had wasted no time, but simply announced, “There’s bad news from Shan. Your father’s dead; a demon got his ship and pulled it under. There were no survivors, and no salvage has been found; it’s all gone.”
He had stared at her, he recalled, just stared at her; her words hadn’t seemed real. Not until her parents packed up his meager belongings for him and told him to be out by sundown did he really believe that his father was dead and his old life gone. No one would have dared to offend Dabran while he was alive, but when he was gone and no more support money was to come, they were all too eager to be rid of his lazy, worthless son. Family ties don’t count for much, compared to silver.
That had hurt. One disaster had come right after another.
Well, he told himself as the flames roared loudly up among the overhanging branches of the swamp trees, at least this would be the last disaster. He had nothing more to lose.
Times had been bad at first after the ship went down, after his cousins threw him out, very bad indeed; he had slept in a few doorways and cornfields and gone without several meals. Old friends had quietly ignored him. He had thought it a great stroke of luck when, just sort of resigning himself to a lifetime career of theft or beggary, he had convinced old Roggit to take him on as an apprentice, despite his age.
Tobas was not quite so certain, as he watched the cottage burn and in its burning destroy his second inheritance, that the apprenticeship had been good luck, after all. He was homeless again, older and with fewer prospects than before.
A particularly bright flame rose up for a moment with an intense crackling, followed by a muffled explosion; Tobas caught an odd smell, one he could not place. The flames must have reached more of old Roggit’s combustible supplies, the special sealed boxes he had carefully kept well away from the more ordinary wizardly necessities, such as powdered spider and tannis root.
Tobas frowned slightly. Trivial as such a detail might be in the face of catastrophe, he was irked to realize that now he would never know what all those things had been for.
He heard shouts and rattlings and turned to see the fire brigade from the village finally arriving, far too late to do any good, at least half an hour after he had sent his nearest neighbor calling for help. He recognized most of them: old Clurim, who, with his two wives, was the subject of most of the bawdy jokes told in Telven; Faran, the village’s only blacksmith and expert on fires of all sorts; and Vengar and Zarek, who had been his companions as children but had avoided him since his father’s death. Tobas sighed; they had come too late to do much good. He had long since given up any hope of saving anything beyond the foundation and perhaps the outer walls, and even as he watched the brigade arriving, he could see that the walls were going.
After he had come shouting out the door, had gathered his wits somewhat, and had found that helpful neighbor and sent him puffing off over the hill toward the village, he had struggled briefly with the thoughts of a heroic dash into the inferno. His common sense had quickly prevailed over his daring, however. After all, he told himself, what would he have saved? The Book of Spells would have been almost the first thing to go, since it had been directly beneath where the fire had started, and the only other items whose value he really knew were the athame that hung on his belt and the vial of brimstone in his pouch. Roggit’s semiprecious stones would perhaps have been worth retrieving had Tobas known where they were, but the old man had hidden them well.
It occurred to him now, far too late, that a change of clothing and a pair of boots might have been a good idea. The water pail, too, might have been of service in fighting the blaze.
Tobas had to admit that, once they had arrived, the people of Telven had set to willingly enough, filling their buckets from the swamp and flinging the water onto the flames, where it hissed and sizzled with little visible effect. Those who had no buckets, like himself, stood by and watched, admiring the pretty colors that erupted here and there as the old wizard’s arcane powders, one by one, fell from their heat-shattered jars and burned away, filling the air with a variety of perfumes and stenches.
For the most part the villagers avoided the old man’s unfortunate apprentice, quietly ignoring him. Tobas was not so insensitive as to miss this, or misinterpret it, and he accepted it as the final proof that the time had come to do what he had been resisting for years. The time had come to leave Telven, leave his native village behind forever, and go out into the wide World to seek his fortune.
He shuddered. What an awful thought!
He had never wanted to leave. He was a homebody, happy with the people and places he knew, with no particular desire to see any others. Telven had been his home. He had always chosen to stay in Telven when his father went off to sea, though time after time, before every voyage from infancy on, Dabran had invited Tobas along. He had stayed in Telven when his father had died, lingering in the village even while homeless, struggling to find a way to remain in the only place he really knew. He had had no career, no steady girlfriend or prospects for marriage, and no close friends, but Telven had still been home. He had succeeded in staying by convincing Roggit that he was still young enough to qualify for apprenticeship.
When he had accomplished that bit of deceit, Tobas had thought that his place was secure and that he would live out his life in his native land. Right up until he had opened the Book of Spells, he had thought he would stay.
Who could have known that the old man had put such powerful protective spells on the thing?
He shook his head in dismay. He still didn’t know exactly what he had done wrong or how the protective spell had worked; he had never noticed Roggit speaking any countercharms or doing anything special when he consulted the book. The old man would simply reach over and open it, as he would any other book. Tobas had just tried to do the same.
But the protective spell had obviously been there, and here he was, watching the fire destroy his last link to the village.
All he had ever wanted was a home and a quiet, comfortable life; was that too much to ask of the gods?
The front wall of the house sagged, bent, then crumbled inward with a grinding crash, and Tobas turned away. He had nothing left here, nothing and no one to keep him in Telven, and no way to live if he stayed. It was home no longer. He saw no point in drawing out the ordeal; he trudged off into the gathering twilight, away from the heat and light and sound of the fire, with tears in his eyes that, he told himself firmly, were caused by the smoke.
CHAPTER 3
The sun was well up the eastern sky when he awoke. His first waking thought was surprise at finding himself curled up in a field of tall grass rather than in his own bed in Roggit’s cottage, but he quickly remembered the events of the previous day and night.
After leaving the swamp, he had wandered aimlessly in the dark with no thought to where he was going, until at last he had collapsed and gone to sleep. Now he was awake again, stiff from sleeping awkwardly, utterly dejected over his loss, and still with no idea where to go.
He sat up, the grass rustling beneath him, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He tried to think. Where could he go? He had no skills that would earn him a living; he was not particularly strong or fast or even handsome. A little thin, just over average height, with ordinary features and dull brown hair and eyes, there was nothing unusual about him at all physically, nothing that would suggest a career. As far as his education was concerned, he had learned the usual basics of reading, writing,
and arithmetic and had heard the stories that made up Freelander history and religion; but except for his apprenticeship to Roggit, his learning and experience were nothing in any way special. He had never been more than three leagues from Telven in his life, save for one short voyage his father had taken him on out of Shan on the Sea, along the coast for a few leagues and then back. He knew what little geography every boy in the Free Lands learned, but no more. To the west and south was the ocean, to the north and east was the Hegemony of Ethshar. If one went far enough to the southeast, along the Ethsharitic coast, one reached the semimythical Small Kingdoms that had once been Old Ethshar. If one went far enough north, one reached the barbarian nations. Beyond those, the northern edge of the world was sealed in ice, the eastern edge was burning desert, the west was wrapped in fog, and to the south the ocean went on forever, so far as anyone knew. He had heard descriptions of mountains and forests but had no idea where such things might lie; all he had ever seen were the familiar rolling green hills, graveled beaches, and villages of the Free Lands and the vast empty ocean to the south.
Shan on the Sea, the only real town he knew at all, was less than a day’s walk to the southwest. But if he went there, what would he do? A dozen people in Shan knew him as his father’s son and would undoubtedly spread the word about his bad luck, or, worse, try and collect on his father’s old debts, both real and imaginary. They would know his history, know that he had nothing to offer. He was now far too old to fool anyone into offering him an apprenticeship; even poor, half-blind, sometimes-senile old Roggit had been suspicious about his age. He couldn’t go to sea any more than he could take an apprenticeship; he had heard that among Ethsharites a sailor might start as late as age sixteen, and he might have passed for that, but in the Free Lands the captains preferred to start their people young, at twelve or thirteen.
He needed to go somewhere no one would know him, that was obvious. Anywhere in the Free Lands someone might eventually recognize him.
That meant he would have to go to Ethshar. The Hegemony of Ethshar was the only nation sharing borders with the Free Lands.
But how could he do that? The border was dozens of leagues up the coast, he was sure, and such a journey would mean days of walking, days in which he would have to beg for his food or starve. And once across the border, where would he be? In an enemy land! In the wilderness! He knew little of Ethshar but was fairly certain that nothing of importance lay anywhere near the Free Lands.
A league to the south lay the ocean, and every ship sailing the coast of Ethshar passed by here, the survival of Shan and the rest of the Free Lands depended on that fact, since, without the plunder brought home by the privateers, the town would starve. No Ethsharitic ship ever put in at Shan willingly, and no ship sailed from Shan bound for Ethshar, so he could not board a ship in town. But what if he were to intercept one while at sea? He would need a boat of some kind, swimming out to a ship was not practical.
Could he build a boat? He asked himself that question and immediately knew the answer.
No, he could not. He had always intended to live a fat and lazy life on his inheritance, whether his father’s gold or his master’s spells; he was forced to admit to himself that he barely knew how to hold a hammer.
In that case, he told himself, he would obviously have to find a boat that had already been built and acquire the use of it somehow.
Well, he thought, that sounded simple enough and shouldn’t be too difficult. He got to his feet and turned southward, thinking he could already smell the salt of the sea on the gentle breeze that ruffled the grass.
The sun was almost straight overhead when he finally topped the last little rise, a row of dunes, and staggered down onto the beach. A league had never seemed like very much when he had been sitting at home talking or dreaming, three miles, a mere six thousand yards, nothing much, but walking it in the hot sun, with no breakfast, wearing shoddy house sandals rather than boots, had proved to be an exhausting enterprise for one so out of shape as himself. His tunic was soaked with sweat, and he wished that some other garments, in addition to what he wore, had survived the fire. He sat down heavily on the pebbles and stared south, squinting at the blazing midday glare on the waves, his stomach growling. The breeze had died, and the damp, still air did little to cool or dry him.
When he had caught his breath and his eyes had adjusted to the brilliance, he turned and looked first east, then west.
He saw no sign of a boat and sighed heavily. More walking would be needed.
He got slowly to his feet, brushing off his breeches, then paused to choose a direction.
Either way, if he walked far enough, he would eventually reach Ethshar; the Free Lands bordered on nothing but the ocean and the Hegemony. To the west, however, he suspected it would be a good deal farther, and Shan was in the way. Besides, the richest Ethsharitic cities were said to lie to the east.
He turned east and started walking.
He had gone less than a mile when he suddenly stopped again to reconsider. He didn’t want to walk to the border, he wanted a boat. Shan’s docks were full of boats. For all he knew, though, there wasn’t a boat to be had between where he now stood and the nearest Ethsharitic city. He glanced back.
The beach back that way, with his footprints drawing a lonely line across the sandy patches, was too familiar. He couldn’t face it. No more looking back, he told himself; face forward! If he had to walk all the way to Ethshar, he would walk, but surely, if he didn’t starve first, he would find a boat eventually. He glanced out to sea.
A sail was visible on the horizon, far to the southwest, but working its way east; apparently a little wind was still moving out on the water, as it was not ashore. An Ethsharitic trader, he guessed, already safely past Shan and its privateers; if he could only reach it, he would be well on his way, but he had no boat as yet. He trudged onward.
Scarcely a hundred yards farther along, as he rounded a dune, he spotted a boat pulled up on the sand some distance ahead. He stopped, astounded by his good fortune.
It was a small boat, without sails or deck so far as he could tell; it was either a rowboat or one intended for magical propulsion. It was the right way up, which was encouraging.
No one was in it, and he could see no one anywhere nearby; a gull cried overhead, startling him, but he saw no people.
He wondered why the boat had been left where it was, untended. He saw no house on the shore above it. Probably, he thought, it was an old wreck, and he had neither the means nor the knowledge to repair it.
Or maybe, it occurred to him, it was propelled and protected by magic, so that its owner could leave it anywhere without needing to worry about it.
Why here, though? He could see nothing that anyone would want on this stretch of sand.
No, it was probably a wreck, or a ship’s boat washed overboard in a storm and cast up here.
It was certainly worth investigating. He tried to work up some enthusiasm, breaking into an awkward trot — awkward because his feet hurt from their unaccustomed efforts, and because the battered sandals were not meant for such use.
As he neared the boat, his hopes rose steadily; by the time he reached it, he was actually cheerful. His luck had obviously changed. The little craft looked quite intact indeed, more than adequate to get him out to sea, where he might still catch that trader he had spotted. The boat was even partially equipped; a sound pair of oars was neatly tucked under the thwarts, and a canvas sack of some sort was wedged into the stern. He could still see no one around who might be the owner. If there were any magical protections on it, of course, he might not be able to use it. In that case, he might need to rely on his status as a fellow wizard to avoid trouble, assuming the owner was a wizard, and not a witch or a priest or a demonologist or one of the mysterious new warlocks or some other sort of magician.
His heart suddenly plunged into the pit of his belly. The owner, no, owners, had not vanished without a trace and left him their boat, after all. The lines of
footprints wound their way across the beach and up the nearest dune.
Something looked odd about those footprints, however. He stared at them, puzzling.
One set was large and deep, the other smaller and shallower. They were very close together; not on top of each other, as they would be had one person followed the other, but very close to each other and exactly parallel. Not straight, by any means; they wove back and forth like a snake’s spine. In two spots the lines were broken by a small trampled area.
Tobas stared, and realization came to him, accompanied by a slow smile. He knew why these two people had pulled up on this lonely stretch of sandy beach, so far from anywhere, in the middle of the day, and why they had walked up over the dune, leaving the boat unguarded. People in love did foolish things, that well-known fact was why most people avoided romance and married for comfort and money. These two had probably had their arms about each other, accounting for how close their steps were to each other’s, and the trampled areas were undoubtedly where they had paused to kiss, an appetizer to the main course that was surely under way somewhere in the dunes, inaudible over the hiss of the surf. An open boat, he imagined, would be too crowded and too unsteady a place.
They might return at any moment, though. Hurriedly, he shoved the boat down into the water. The keel scraped heavily over the sand, then floated free on an incoming wave. Tobas pushed it out until he stood knee-deep in the surf, then grabbed the gunwale and steadied it.
He was just clambering in when a bearded, black-haired head appeared above the dune where the footprints had led.
“Hey!” the man called, plainly upset by what he saw.
The woman’s head appeared beside him.
Tobas ignored them both and yanked the oars from their stowage. “Hey, that’s our boat!” the man called. He was clambering up the dune now, tugging his sandy tunic into place.
Tobas got the oars into the oarlocks, splashed their blades into the water, leaned forward, and pulled, refusing to worry about any damage he might do if the oar blades caught on rocks hidden in the sand.
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