The Sorcerer's Widow

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Ezak shook his head. “The runes are Ethsharitic, but the words are gibberish. Those little blue things, shiny on one side and dark on the other? They’re listed as gob opo zishin. That doesn’t sound like any language I ever heard!”

  “I guess sorcerers must have their own secret language,” Kel said, as much to himself as to Ezak.

  Other than the feast, which had been the best meal he had eaten in years, Kel’s favorite part of the preparations was that in all the confusion Irien neglected to collect what Ezak and Kel owed her for their stay at the inn. That was very welcome, since so far as Kel knew, they did not actually have the money. Ezak had spent what little coin they had when they arrived on assorted small purchases, in an attempt to make them look wealthy—after all, he was still pretending to be a sorcerer, and magicians always had money. Kel thought it would be far more convincing if he had actually demonstrated some sort of magic, but that was beyond Ezak’s ability; his very limited skills in sleight of hand might possibly pass as minor wizardry, but bore no resemblance to any sorcery Kel had ever seen.

  In the end the little company did get under way one cool still morning, with all the talismans loaded in the big open wagon Dorna had bought from Grondar, while the personal possessions of all four travelers were on the much smaller covered wagon Irien had bought from Hullod. A heavy yellow cloth was tied down over the sorcerous devices in Dorna’s wagon, to keep them from bouncing out. Ezak expressed some concern about whether that would be sufficient in the event of rain, and Dorna almost laughed at him. “Didn’t your master ever tell you that talismans are waterproof?” she asked.

  “I don’t recall that the subject ever came up,” Ezak replied, a bit stiffly. He stalked over to the big wagon and climbed up onto the driver’s bench.

  Once they were moving out onto the road Irien took the lead with her wagon, with Kel riding beside her; Dorna and Ezak were in the rear, aboard the larger wagon.

  They had been traveling for perhaps half an hour and had covered perhaps a mile in silence interrupted only by creaking wheels and an occasional bird when Kel finally said, “I’m sorry you aren’t getting to ride with your friend.”

  Startled, Irien looked down at him. “I’ll have plenty of time with her when we get to Ethshar,” she said.

  “Yes, but…well, then I’m sorry I’m not better company.”

  Irien snorted, and turned her attention back to the oxen. “I’d rather have you here than someone who’s talking constantly.”

  Kel could not think of a good answer to that at first, but after a few more minutes he said, “Why aren’t you riding with Dorna? Then you could talk to your friend. Ezak and I could drive one wagon, and you could drive the other.”

  Irien turned again to stare at him for a moment, then answered, “Do you really need to ask that?”

  Confused, Kel leaned out to the side and looked back over his shoulder at Dorna and Ezak, on the driver’s bench of the other wagon, then at Irien. “Yes,” he said. “Why?”

  Irien’s mouth twisted up at one side. “Because we don’t trust you, of course. What would stop you from driving away with one of our wagons?”

  “Oh,” Kel said. He thought for a moment, then said, “But you could chase us if we tried that.”

  “Your friend says he’s a sorcerer; what if he has magic that can hobble our oxen?”

  “But you could run faster than oxen! They’re slow!”

  “You might be surprised—oxen can run if they need to. But again, what if your friend has magic that can stop us?”

  “I don’t…” Kel stopped, trying to decide what he should say. Finally he simply turned up an empty palm and said nothing.

  Two miles and another hour later, he asked, “Why are you letting us travel with you at all, if you don’t trust us?”

  Irien smiled at him. “If it was up to me, we wouldn’t.”

  “Oh. Dorna wanted us to come?”

  “Yes.”

  Kel considered that carefully, then asked, “Do you know why?”

  Irien shifted in her seat, then said, “Because, she says, more hands make less work for each of us, and the sight of two men may make us a less tempting target for bandits than if we were two women alone. Not that there are a lot of bandits around here, but we’ve heard that a few have been seen in recent years.” She grimaced. “Besides, she felt we owed it to you. I’m told that it was your idea for me to come, and Dorna wouldn’t have asked me if you hadn’t suggested it. She had originally planned to make the trip alone.”

  “By herself? That would be dangerous.”

  “Maybe,” Irien said.

  Half an hour later, Kel asked, “How did you become an innkeeper?”

  Irien’s answer took several minutes, and led to a long explanation of her family history—the short version was that she had inherited the place from her father’s childhood friend. Kel kept encouraging her to continue adding details; Ezak always said that it was smart to let the other person talk. Not only might you learn something useful, but it would make them like you more, since people like talking about themselves and appreciate a good listener.

  Also, if Irien was talking, Kel wasn’t, and he wouldn’t need to worry about saying anything he shouldn’t. If she was talking about herself, she wouldn’t be asking any awkward questions about Kel or Ezak.

  Finally, the little caravan stopped for a rest and a meal, and as they stretched their legs Kel had a chance to talk to Ezak out of earshot of the two women.

  “They don’t trust us,” he whispered.

  “Oh? What makes you think that?”

  “Because Irien told me they don’t.”

  Ezak frowned. “Did she?”

  “Yes. That’s why they didn’t ride together, so each one could keep an eye on one of us. They were worried that if we had one wagon to ourselves we might just drive off with it.”

  “That wasn’t what Dorna said. She told me that she wanted to get to know me, since I’d known her husband long ago.”

  Kel had no answer for that.

  “She asked me about my apprenticeship with Jabajag the Magnificent. She said Nabal never talked about him, so she was curious.”

  Kel blinked, then asked, “What sort of name is Jabajag?”

  Ezak turned up a palm. “Who knows? A sorcerer’s name, I suppose. At any rate, I talked myself hoarse, telling her stories about her husband’s master, and about my career as a sorcerer in Ethshar, and about my family.”

  Kel chewed his lower lip apprehensively.

  “Oh, don’t look so worried, Kel!” Ezak said, slapping him on the back. “She believed every word, I’m sure! Not a bit of it was true, but she believed it all!”

  “I hope so,” Kel murmured.

  “What did you tell the innkeeper? We want to keep our stories straight.”

  “Nothing,” Kel said. “I let her do all the talking. I asked her how she became an innkeeper.”

  “Ah, excellent! Surprisingly clever of you, Kel!”

  “You said that was smart. You said it was better to listen than to talk.”

  “That’s right, I did, didn’t I?” He laughed. “And very fine advice it was! Did you learn anything useful?”

  “I don’t know,” Kel said. “Did you?”

  Ezak’s laughter stopped, and his frown reappeared. “No,” he said. “She kept asking me questions, so I was too busy answering them to ask any of my own.”

  “Oh,” Kel said.

  “She might have become suspicious if I didn’t answer.”

  “Oh,” Kel said again.

  For a moment both men were silent. Then Ezak said, “If they really don’t trust us, then perhaps we should act swiftly, before they’re ready.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, they know we’re from Ethshar, right? So they probably expect us to steal the big wagon once we’re near the city, or even inside the walls. But if we were to steal it tonight, while they’re asleep, when we’re still days away from the city, they
wouldn’t be expecting it, and we could get a good start on them.”

  Kel considered this unhappily. “Maybe we shouldn’t steal the wagon at all,” he said.

  Ezak started to wave this idea away, then stopped. “Hmmm,” he said. “You know, we don’t care about the wagon at all. We just want the magic. What if, while they’re sleeping, we replace some of the talismans with worthless junk? We can hide the sorcery somewhere, then come back for it later.”

  That had not been what Kel meant, but he did not want to argue. Besides, Dorna had so many of those magical things; she could spare a few.

  “Hai!” Irien called, interrupting their quiet conversation. “Are you two ready to go?”

  “Just a moment!” Ezak called back. Then he leaned over and whispered to Kel, “You be ready tonight—don’t go to sleep. Pretend if you have to.”

  “All right,” Kel answered uncertainly.

  “Excellent! Then let us be off!” He stood up and strode back toward the wagons.

  Kel followed, and in moments they were back on the wagons, heading south. This time, though, Dorna suggested a change of partners, and Kel found himself riding in the larger second wagon with Dorna, while Ezak and Irien took the lead in the smaller wagon.

  “So,” Dorna said, once they were rolling, “tell me about yourself, Kelder of Ethshar.”

  Kel hesitated, then said, “There isn’t much to tell.”

  “Oh, there must be. You’re from Ethshar of the Sands?”

  “Yes.”

  “From Morningside?”

  Kel blinked in surprise. Morningside was one of the wealthiest districts, and although the tunic he wore had been a good one when it was new, he had thought its shabby, worn condition, along with his lack of a hat or other accessories, would make it clear that he was not rich. “No,” he said.

  “Where, then?”

  “Smallgate.” Desperate to change the subject before he gave anything away, he added, “Are you from that village?” He gestured back over his shoulder.

  “Me? No.”

  “Where are you from, then?”

  “Oh, another village.”

  “What village? What was its name?”

  “We called it Gaffrir.”

  “Is that a Northern name?”

  It was Dorna’s turn to hesitate. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “It doesn’t sound Ethsharitic.”

  “No, it doesn’t, does it? Not like Smallgate.” She smiled at him. “Tell me about Smallgate.”

  Kel looked around at the countryside, at the blue sky and green fields and tidy white and brown farmhouses, hoping for inspiration, then turned up a palm. “It’s just like any part of the city, I suppose—streets and houses and shops.”

  “You’ve lived in Smallgate all your life?”

  “More or less.” He looked down at the footboard, wishing she would change the subject.

  “Did you serve your apprenticeship there?”

  Kel turned to stare at her. “Apprenticeship? I never served an apprenticeship.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No!”

  “But I thought Ezak said…”

  Kel shook his head vigorously. “I was never an apprentice. If Ezak told you otherwise he was joking. He does that, sometimes—makes jokes. I don’t always understand them. They aren’t usually very funny.”

  Dorna smiled. “No? I think he’s funny.”

  “You’re smarter than I am.”

  Dorna seemed to consider that for a moment before saying, “Tell me about your family.”

  “Don’t have one,” Kel answered, looking away. “Ma died when I was eight.”

  “What about your father, or your grandparents?”

  “I don’t have any, so far as I know.”

  “Is that why you never served an apprenticeship?”

  “That, and other things. I didn’t especially want one.” That was not entirely true, but he did not care to discuss his background with the sorcerer’s widow.

  “No? You didn’t want to be a sorcerer, like your friend Ezak?”

  Kel spread empty hands.

  “Did you ever have any brothers or sisters?” Dorna asked.

  “Don’t know. Did you?”

  “I have a younger sister. I haven’t seen her in years.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…well, she doesn’t live around here.”

  “What about your parents? Are they back in Gaffrir?”

  “No. My father’s dead, and my mother went home to her parents, in Aldagmor.”

  “So you do have grandparents?”

  Dorna shook her head. “No,” she said. “At least, I don’t think so, not anymore. But they were still alive when my father died.”

  Kel nodded.

  They rode on in silence for a few minutes, then Dorna asked, “How did you meet Ezak?”

  “Don’t remember,” Kel said.

  “You don’t?”

  “We were little.”

  “Oh. So you’ve been friends all your lives?”

  Kel nodded. “Our mothers were friends. He looked after me after my mother died.”

  “So you went with him when he was apprenticed?”

  Kel knew that Ezak’s real apprenticeship, to a potter, had lasted all of a sixnight before Ezak’s master threw him out for stealing, but he knew Dorna meant Ezak’s imaginary training in sorcery. He certainly wasn’t going to try to tell a bunch of complicated lies about that that might or might not match Ezak’s; instead he told one simple half-truth. “No,” he said. “I stayed in Smallgate and looked after myself. I was bigger by then.”

  “So Ezak came back and found you when he was a journeyman?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what do you do for a living? Are you his assistant?”

  “No. We’re just friends. I do odd jobs. What about you?”

  Dorna stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “I’m a housewife,” she said. “Though I did help Nabal look after his things.”

  Kel gestured at the wagon. “So you know what all those things back there do?”

  Dorna hesitated. “Some of them,” she said.

  Kel knew this was his opportunity to learn something really useful, to find out what some of the talismans did, and maybe which ones would be most worth stealing, but he couldn’t think of how to phrase a useful question. Talking to Dorna wasn’t like talking to Irien; it had been easy to get Irien talking about herself, about innkeeping, and about her family, but Dorna didn’t seem to want to say much. Her answers seemed short and uninformative—just as Kel tried to keep his own answers. She kept asking him new questions, instead of saying more about herself.

  Ezak was going to be disappointed if Kel wasted a chance to find out more about sorcery, but he just could not come up with a good lead-in. And after all, it wasn’t as if Ezak had done all that well himself.

  Finally, Kel just said, “Oh?”

  “Some of them,” Dorna repeated. Then she leaned back on the wagon-bench and looked at the road ahead, ignoring Kel.

  They rode most of the rest of the afternoon in silence.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kel was embarrassed to realize, when Ezak’s shaking awoke him, that he had dozed off. He lay propped against a wagon-wheel in the night-shrouded stableyard behind the Golden Rooster, the only inn in the village of Shepherd’s Well, and until he started out of his slumber his head had been slumped on his shoulder.

  He and Ezak were outdoors in the chilly dark, instead of inside the nice warm inn, because they had not had the money to do otherwise. They had claimed they were going to take turns guarding the wagons, to explain why they didn’t take a room; Ezak did not want to admit they couldn’t afford a room.

  Dorna and Irien, of course, had taken a room. At the time Kel had not seen anything odd about that, but now, as he sat up and looked around in the dark, he wondered about it. Irien had told him that the women didn’t trust them, so why had they been allowed to stay out here wi
th the wagons? Something didn’t feel right about that.

  “Come on,” Ezak said. “Get up. I want your help with this.”

  “With what?” Kel asked, struggling to see his surroundings. Ezak was holding a shuttered lantern, and the stars were out, but neither moon was visible, leaving most of the yard in deep shadow.

  “This mounting block.”

  “This what?”

  “This mounting block! Come on, sleepyhead!”

  It took Kel a moment to remember what a mounting block was—a big block of wood or stone that a young or otherwise undersized rider could stand on to make it easier to climb onto a horse. When he did recall it, he asked, “What do you want a mounting block for? I didn’t see any horses.”

  “There aren’t any horses. I intend to swap it for that big boxy thing in the sorcerer’s collection.”

  Kel remembered the device, or talisman, or whatever it was, that Ezak was referring to. The second-largest of all the magical objects Dorna had loaded into the wagon, it was mostly made of something that gleamed like silver, but was not quite the right color for silver. It was more or less rectangular, but had several odd ribs protruding along its long sides, and dozens, maybe hundreds, of little square inlays in every color of the rainbow were set into its smooth top. “Why?” Kel asked. “What does that one do?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea, but Kel, a hunk of magic that big must be worth a fortune! If we can get it out, and put the mounting block in its place, the sorcerer’s widow will never know it’s gone. We can bury it or hide it somewhere and come back for it later.”

  Kel hesitated. “Wouldn’t it be safer to steal a few little ones?”

  “It might be safer, but it wouldn’t be as profitable. Come on, Kel, give me a hand.”

  With a sigh, Kel got to his feet and followed the dim glow of the lantern to the corner where the mounting block sat. There he and Ezak stooped down, each of them taking one side of the stone block, and lifted.

  It came up easily. “It’s not as heavy as it looks,” Kel said.

  “Heaving it over the side of the wagon without smashing anything is the hard part,” Ezak said. “Come on.”