They had arrived shortly before midday; the flight from Ethshar of the Spices had been quite brief, just across the peninsula to the southern shore. It had been Valder's first flight in more than forty years and quite a refreshing experience; he had forgotten how exciting it was to soar above the landscape and remembered wryly how he had taken it for granted during his time as an assassin.
"You'll sleep in the parlor," Iridith told him, "if you have no objection."
"I'm scarcely in a position to object," he replied. "But how long do you expect me to be staying here?"
"I can't really say; until I've gotten the approval of the elders of the Guild and gathered the ingredients I need for Enral's Eternal Youth Spell."
"Oh? What are the ingredients?"
"I don't remember them all; I'll need to look it up. I do know that I'll want powdered spider, blue silk, cold iron, dried seaweed, candles colored with virgin's blood, and the tears of a female dragon; I don't recall the others offhand."
"Virgin's blood and dragon's tears?"
"I think you'll be staying for a while; those are the easy ones."
"Oh." He looked around. "The parlor should do just fine."
He had been at the wizard's house for five days, days spent strolling along the beach enjoying the fine spring weather or reading the many strange books that she loaned him from her workshop—in addition to assorted grimoires and magical texts, she had a wide variety of histories and books of philosophy. She, in turn, spent her time in the workroom, consulting with other wizards by various magical methods and trying to locate the needed ingredients for the spell. In addition to those she had remembered, she needed the ichor of a white cricket, the heart of an unborn male child, and the hand of a murdered woman.
"It could be worse," she had told him at dinner that first night, a dinner she had prepared herself by perfectly natural methods and which they ate in the kitchen. "Any woman killed by another person will do, I think. She needn't have been a virgin, or a mother, or whatever. I should be able to find one eventually. And an aborted or miscarried child should work."
He had agreed without comment.
"Don't worry," she said, sensing unease. "I'm not going to kill someone myself just to help you. I'm not that sort of wizard." '
That had relieved him somewhat; the remainder of the meal had passed in amiable silence for the most part.
Since then he had seen only brief glimpses of her, other than at meals. At breakfast she would usually be planning the day's investigations, and by supper she would be too tired to talk much, but at luncheon she chatted freely, exchanging reminiscences of the war and the changes that they had both seen in their lifetimes. She reacted to his admission that he had been an assassin with a sort of horrified fascination, even while admitting that it was certainly no more morally repugnant, logically, than her own wartime work of more straightforward wizardly slaughter. After that first dinner, his own longstanding habits prevailed, and he played host, preparing and serving the meals.
Between meals she was always in her workshop, using various divinations to try and locate what she needed. Powdered spider, cold iron, and candles colored with virgin's blood she had on hand; she explained that all three were useful in many spells. The iron was meteoric in origin, but, she assured him, that could only add to its efficacy. Blue silk was easily acquired in a short jaunt back to the city. The seaweed Valder provided himself after a walk on the beach, bringing back a mass of dripping weed to hang over the workshop hearth and dry.
That left the dragon's tears, cricket's ichor, baby's heart, and severed hand. Iridith was cheerfully optimistic about all of them. "I found them once," she said repeatedly.
That was how things stood on the fifth day, when she emerged unexpectedly from the workshop in the middle of the evening, holding a small pouch.
"What's that?" Valder asked, looking up from a book that purported to describe the now-dead religion of the ruling class of the Northern Empire. "Find something?"
"No," she answered. "But I now have explicit consent from enough of the Guild elders to go ahead with the spell, and besides, I thought I needed a break, so I made this as a sort of celebration and a token of my esteem."
"What is it?"
"It's a bottomless bag, made with Hallin's Spell."
"What's a bottomless bag?"
"Well, I'll show you. I noticed that that sword seems to get in your way sometimes, but that you don't like to leave it lying around—and as you probably noticed back in Ethshar, it's not the fashion these days to wear a sword, in any case. So you can put it in this." She held up the tiny pouch, smaller than the purse he wore when traveling.
"Oh, one of those!" he said, remembering. He had seen bottomless bags in use during the war, though he had never known what they were called; an entire army's supply train could somehow be stuffed into one and then pulled out again as needed. It made transport over rough country much easier. The major drawback was that the only item one could retrieve was the one most recently put in, so that, if a great many items were stuffed into it, getting out the first one could take quite awhile. Careful planning was needed to use such a bag efficiently.
He accepted the bag and managed to slip it onto the end of Wirikidor's sheath. He watched with amused wonder as the full length of the sword slid smoothly into the little pouch, vanishing as it went. When it had entirely disappeared, leaving only a small bulge, he tied the pouch to his belt.
"Much more convenient," he said. "Thank you."
"You're quite welcome," Iridith answered.
He looked up at her; she was smiling warmly.
"I don't really understand why you're being so generous with me," he said. "You're doing far more than you need to."
"Oh, I know," she said. "But I like to be generous. I have everything I could ever want, you know; why shouldn't I share it? I've spent too much time alone; wizards have a tendency to do that. So many spells require isolation or such strict concentration that one dares not allow anyone else near! And it's so depressing to be around other wizards, who all distrust one another and want only to learn new spells without revealing any of their own little secrets, or around ordinary people, who are frightened hah to death of me, and who I know will grow old and die in just a few years."
"I'm an ordinary person," Valder said.
"No, you aren't! You aren't going to die, are you? That sword won't let you. And you aren't afraid of me."
"Why should I be afraid of you?"
"That's just it, you shouldn't! I could roast you in an instant with a fireball, just as I did that thief, but I'm not going to, any more than you would turn that unbeatable sword on a friend—but so many people don't understand that. They only see my power; they don't see that I'm still a person. The power isn't important; you'd be just as dead stabbed with an ordinary pocketknife as with a wizard's dagger, or killed in a brawl instead of mangled by some high-order spell. Anyone is dangerous—so why should people be scared of wizards more than of each other?"
"I don't know," Valder said, thoughtfully. "I suppose it's just that it's unfamiliar power, unfamiliar danger. Everyone understands a sword cut, but most people have no idea how wizardry works. / don't have any idea how wizardry works."
Iridith grinned. "Do you want to know one of the great secrets of the Wizards' Guild? Most of us don't, either."
Valder grinned back.
Chapter 32
Iridith located the dragon's tears the day after giving Valder the bottomless bag; a wizard in Sardiron had a bottleful and was willing to trade. The same wizard was able to direct her to a cave where white crickets could be found and had a friend with a bottled fetus on hand, taken from a woman dead of a fever.
That left only the hand of a murdered woman.
The two celebrated the evening of this discovery by drinking a bottle apiece of an ancient golden wine Iridith had stored away a century or so earlier. The stuff was past its prime, but still potable, and the wizard got quite tipsy, giggling like
a young girl at Valder's every word. Valder himself had long ago developed one of the necessities of the innkeeper's trade, the ability to consume vast quantities of alcohol without suffering noticeably from its effects, and watched with great amusement as the usually calm and mature magician deteriorated into kittenish silliness. Around midnight she dozed off; Valder warily picked her up and carried her to her bed, his aged muscles straining. He had half feared that some protective charm would strike him for daring to touch her, but nothing of the kind happened.
He stared down at her, marveling that this handsome, fresh woman could be more than four times his own age, then turned and found his way to the divan where he slept.
The next morning Iridith was far less pleasant; her curative spells prevented an actual hangover, but she obviously regretted her juvenile behavior. "We haven't got them yet," she pointed out over breakfast. "I still have to go to Sardiron and fetch them. Something could go wrong."
Valder shrugged. "Certainly it might," he agreed.
She looked at him rather sourly, as if annoyed that he was agreeing so calmly, then realized how absurd that was and broke into a crooked grin.
"You know, Valder the Innkeeper, I like you; you don't let things upset you."
He shrugged again. "I learned long ago to accept things the way they are; usually, they're pretty good. I've had a good life, overall, better than I expected—I never thought I'd live to see the end of the Great War, and here it's been over for two-thirds of my life. If things go wrong now, I still don't have any cause for complaint."
"A healthy attitude—and a very, very unusual one." She pushed her chair back. "I had best be going."
The journey to Sardiron took three days in all, even flying; Valder found himself wandering aimlessly about the house on the shore, unable to interest himself in reading anything, while Iridith was gone. Meals seemed particularly lonesome.
He tried to tell himself that he was simply homesick and wanted to return to the Thief's Skull, but he didn't entirely believe it.
On the third day, Iridith returned safely, with the heart in a sealed jar, a flask of tears—Valder was surprised to see they were a faint yellowish green, rather than clear as he had always supposed tears to be, regardless of their origin—and a large, loudly chirping box of crickets. "I'm not sure how much ichor I need," she explained.
With all but one of the ingredients, the two of them settled down to wait for an opportunity to arise to obtain the hand of a murdered woman. "People are killed in Ethshar every day," Iridith said. "Sooner or later, I'll find one that will do. I don't know why I haven't already."
"I don't either," Valder replied. "Surely, a woman's been murdered somewhere in the World in the past few days!"
"Oh, certainly," Iridith answered. "But I need one whose family is willing to sell her hand; I mustn't steal it. That sort of thing gives wizardry a bad name. The Guild wouldn't like it. That baby's heart was sold by the woman's husband—I suppose he was the child's father."
"Oh," Valder said, startled; he had not realized she was being so scrupulous.
For the next several days, she spent each morning in her workshop, checking her divinations, and then spent the afternoon with Valder, sitting about the house and talking, or walking on the beach, or levitating to an altitude of a hundred feet or so and drifting with the wind. On one particularly warm day, as they were strolling along the shore, Iridith suddenly stopped and announced, "I'm going swimming."
"Go ahead," Valder said. "I never learned how, really, and I'm too old to learn now."
Iridith smiled as she pulled her tunic up; her face vanished behind the cloth as she tugged the garment up over her head, but her muffled voice was still audible. "You won't always be," she said.
"Then maybe I'll learn, someday."
"You'll have plenty of time, Valder, I promise you that." She had her tunic off and reached down to remove her skirt.
Valder watched admiringly. "Lovely," he said. "If I were twenty years younger I'd do something about it."
"Don't worry," she said. "You will be—but whether I let you do anything about it is another matter entirely." With that, she tossed him her clothing and ran splashing into the surf.
On an evening a few days later, as they were walking up to the house with feet wet from splashing in the tidal pools, Iridith asked, "What are you planning to do when I've completed the spell?"
"I'll go home, of course," Valder replied.
"To Kardoret?"
Startled, he almost shouted, "No!" Calming, he added, "I'm not even sure it's still there; it wasn't much of a place to begin with. No, I meant my inn, the Thief's Skull—or the Inn at the Bridge, as it was originally called."
"Sounds dull."
"Oh, no! It isn't, really. We get travelers from all over, from Sardiron and the Small Kingdoms and all of the Hegemony, and hear their stories. Every sort of person imaginable stops at an inn sooner or later, and after a day on the road most are eager to talk, so it's never dull. I hear news that never reaches the city and get many of the great adventures described firsthand. It's a fine life. This house you have here, it's a splendid house, but it's rather lonely, isn't it? Your nearest neighbors are fishermen a league down the coast in either direction, or farmers half a league inland."
"I got tired of people decades ago," she answered. "After the war, I didn't think I ever wanted to see ordinary people again. I've taken on apprentices, of course; I wasn't really lonely here."
"I see," Valder said as they reached the steps to the veranda.
They crossed the plank flooring of the porch in silence, but, as Valder opened the door to the parlor, Iridith said, "You know, nobody will recognize you when you go back. They know you as an old man, not a young one."
"I hadn't thought of that," Valder admitted.
"You had best claim to be a relative of some sort— you'll have a strong family resemblance, after all."
"Will anyone believe that?"
"Certainly! Why shouldn't they?"
"Oh, I don't know. Of course, I don't think I really have any relatives still alive; I haven't heard from any in thirty or forty years and I've told people that."
"All the better; none will turn up to dispute your story. Surely you could be an illegitimate son, or long-lost nephew, or something!"
"I suppose I could; I'll want to warn Tandellin, though. He had probably thought that he would inherit the place; he may not be overjoyed to have a new heir turn up."
"He'll have to live with it. Nothing's perfect; giving you eternal youth can't solve all your problems for you."
Valder smiled. "It's a good start, though."
Chapter 33
The eighth day of the month of Longdays, a sixnight after Valder made a visit to the inn to reassure his friends that all was well, was rainy and gray, but the wizard and innkeeper paid no attention to such trivia; Agravan had sent a message that he had at last acquired the final ingredient. A young streetwalker had run afoul of a gang of drunken soldiers and died in consequence; her body had been sufficiently abused that her brother saw no reason to object to further mutilation, if the price was right. The circumstances were depressingly sordid, but the precious hand was finally in their possession.
Valder was pleased to hear that the soldiers responsible were to be hanged; the Lord Executioner would have a busy day, for once.
The hand was safely delivered that evening, and Iridith then locked herself in her workshop, telling Valder to eat well and rest; the spell would require twenty-four hours without food or sleep and would make great demands upon both mind and body.
At midday on the ninth, while rain splashed from the eaves, Iridith called for Valder to join her in the workshop, and the spell began.
Most of it was meaningless to him; following the wizard's directions he sat, stood, knelt, swallowed things, handled things, closed his eyes, opened his eyes, spoke meaningless phrases, and in general performed ritual after ritual without any idea of the underlying pattern. Aroun
d sunset he began to feel strange, and the remainder of the enchantment passed in a dreamlike, unreal state, so that he could never recall much about it afterward. All he knew, from about midnight on, was that he was growing ever more tired.
When he came to himself again, he was lying on his couch, feeling utterly exhausted. He looked out the nearest window and saw only gray skies that told him nothing save that it was day, not night—yet something seemed wrong. His vision seemed unnaturally clear.
He got to his feet, slowly, feeling very odd indeed. His every muscle was weak with fatigue, yet he felt none of his familiar aches and twinges; it was as if he had become another person entirely.
That thought struck him with considerable force; if he were another person, then was he still Wirikidor's owner? He reached for his belt and found no sword. He looked down.
His hands were young and strong, fully fleshed, no longer the bony hands of an old man, and he seemed to see every detail with impossible clarity—yet the hands seemed completely familiar, and he found the little pouch at his belt that, he now remembered, magically contained Wirikidor despite its size. He opened the drawstring, reached in, and felt the familiar hilt.
He was obviously still Valder—but he was also obviously a young man. The spell had worked.
He found a mirror and spent several long, incredulous minutes admiring himself and being pleased, not just by what he saw but by how well he saw it. He appeared twenty-five or so—scarcely older than when Wirikidor was first enchanted.
Tandellin would never have recognized him; he congratulated himself on having taken Iridith's advice and informed his employees on his recent visit that he was retiring and leaving the business to his nephew, Valder the Younger. Tandellin had not been happy about it and had in fact demanded to know why he had never heard of this nephew before, but he had conceded Valder's right to do as he pleased with his property.
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