The Sorcerer's Widow

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “What? Oh.” She peered at her magical boot-heel. Then she pointed. “Five yards that way.” She held up the talisman so Kel could see her finger in its light.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Wait here.”

  “What, wait? Are you…” But then Kel was gone, and she was alone in the tunnel.

  Ezak had long ago cleaned and oiled the hinges on the secret door into the old cellar, and Kel had been careful to keep them in good shape, so he was able to slip in without a sound, but that had been wasted effort; Ezak had the shutters to the air-shaft open, and enough of the setting sun’s light made its way down the shaft to dimly illuminate most of the room’s familiar confines, from the sand spilling through the crumbling east wall to the pile of rags in the northwest corner where Kel sometimes slept. Kel was plainly visible to anyone in the room.

  So was Ezak. He was crouched ten feet from the door, holding a knife ready to throw, looking directly at Kel. For a moment Kel froze.

  Then Ezak relaxed. “Oh, it’s you!” he said. He smiled, and tossed the knife aside. “It’s good to see you, Kel! I thought you were killed in that explosion!”

  “I’m fine,” Kel said. He looked around, and immediately spotted Dorna’s bag; Ezak had made no attempt to hide it. It was sitting on the floor, midway between the door and the air-shaft. It looked just as full as Kel remembered it; Ezak had clearly not yet sold much, if any, of its contents.

  Ezak noticed his gaze. “It’s still all there,” he said. “I looked through it when I made camp, but I couldn’t make any sense of any of those things. I didn’t do much experimentation; I didn’t want anything to start screaming. I’m planning to take a few of them to Wizard Street tomorrow, and see what they tell me. I’m going to say I found them in the ruins of a sorcerer’s house after an explosion, I think. Or maybe the sorcerer should be my grandfather, so I’ll have a real claim to them, and not just salvage rights?”

  “That sounds good,” Kel said.

  “So what happened back there? What exploded? Was Dorna killed?”

  “The Northern sentry thing exploded,” Kel said. “When Dorna blasted it with her husband’s sorcery.”

  “She died, though, didn’t she? Did you get the fill-dirt-presses back, or was it smashed, too?”

  “We got it back,” Kel said.

  “We?” Ezak was suddenly wary.

  “She wasn’t killed,” Kel said, as he swung the door behind him wide, letting the dim light spill out into the tunnel beyond.

  Dorna stepped in, the black weapon in her hand. She pointed it at Ezak.

  “You have some of my belongings,” she said.

  Ezak stared at her for only an instant before diving for the canvas bag, grabbing it up, and cradling it in his arm as he scrambled for the cellar’s other exit. Kel had not yet decided what he should do about that when the weapon went off.

  This time Kel was upright and watching, not diving for the grass; he saw the eerie blue gobbet of magic that shot from the talisman, struck the stone wall behind Ezak, and exploded. Kel closed his eyes, but there was no blinding white flash following the blue flash this time, and the sound was loud, like a sledgehammer shattering a stone block into gravel, but not the earth-shaking roar that the Northern device’s destruction had produced. Apparently most of that explosion’s power had come from the Northern magic, rather than the weapon that destroyed it.

  Ezak screamed, dropped the bag, and fell to his knees on the sandy floor. “Don’t kill me!” he said.

  “Get away from the bag,” Dorna said.

  Ezak shoved the bag toward her, then backed away. “Why did you bring her here?” he asked Kel.

  Kel did not answer; he simply stood and watched as Dorna crossed the room, snatched up her bag, and slung it on her shoulder. She dropped the boot-heel talisman into the bag, but kept the weapon ready in her hand.

  “Thank you,” she said, as she straightened up. “Kel asked me not to kill you, so for his sake, I won’t. I won’t even turn you over to the magistrates. But if you ever try to take anything of mine again, I will kill you. You understand that?”

  Ezak nodded vigorously.

  Then for a moment the three of them remained where they were—Kel standing by the door to the tunnel, Dorna standing in the middle of the room with her bag and weapon, Ezak kneeling near the hole in the wall where one could climb up to the next level—each waiting for someone else to do or say something. Finally, Dorna turned and headed back toward the tunnel. “Come on,” she said.

  “What?” the two young men said simultaneously.

  “Not you,” Dorna said to Ezak. “Him.” She pointed at Kel.

  “Me?”

  “Yes! I need you to show me the way out of this place.”

  “Oh,” Kel said, hurrying to follow her through the door. He had not realized she was one of those people who could not reliably retrace her steps. He knew such people existed, and had met them before, but he did not really understand them; he might not always know where he was, but anywhere in the city he always knew how he got there, and how to get back out. It was part of his nature.

  But Dorna wasn’t from Ethshar, she was from a little village somewhere, and her nature apparently differed from his. Besides, she had been so intent on her talisman that she probably hadn’t really seen the route.

  Once out of the room Kel took the lead. Neither of them spoke as they trudged back out and up the steps to the alley. Dorna paused to glance up at the narrow strip of sky visible above them; it was noticeably darker than when they had come the other way. Then she turned to Kel, who was watching her. “I could probably have found my own way out, especially now I have my bag back, but I wanted to talk to you.”

  That was mildly surprising. Kel looked at her expectantly.

  “You thought I was going to just go off and leave you here, didn’t you?” she asked.

  She seemed to want an answer. “Yes,” he said.

  “I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t just walk away and leave you in a place like this.”

  Kel looked around. The alley was a rough, ruinous place, but it was one he knew well. “I live here,” he said. “Sometimes, anyway.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t.”

  He could think of no sensible reply to that, and blinked silently at her.

  “I’m going to open a tea shop,” she said. “I’m going to import my favorite teas from the Small Kingdoms. I used to buy them from a trader named Vezalis who came to deal with Nabal; I’d ask him to bring me a new variety each trip he made, and to bring more of the ones I liked. I hadn’t known there were so many kinds until I met him!”

  “That’s Ezak’s uncle,” Kel said. He had no idea why she was telling him about her plans, but he thought she might want to know.

  “What?” That seemed to have jarred her out of her planned speech.

  “Vezalis, the trader your husband dealt with. He’s Ezak’s uncle. That was how we found you.”

  She stared at him. “You’re serious? I thought it was just a coincidence that they were both named Vezalis.”

  “Yes. The trader is Ezak’s uncle.”

  “That stupid, troublesome…” She stopped abruptly, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then said, “Never mind that. My point is, I’m going to open a tea shop.”

  Kel nodded. She had already said that.

  “I’m going to spend a lot of my time dealing with tea merchants, and trying out different blends.”

  Kel nodded again. He knew almost nothing about running a tea shop, and in fact had never seen a tea shop, but this sounded reasonable.

  “I’ll need an assistant to look after the shop when I’m busy elsewhere. I’d like to hire you as my assistant.”

  Kel blinked; at first the words didn’t seem to make sense. Eventually he managed to work out their meaning, but it still didn’t seem reasonable. “But I’m a thief,” he said. “No one hires a thief!”

  “You wouldn’t be a thief anymore,” Dorna said. “You’d be
a tea shop assistant.”

  That was too bizarre to grasp immediately, but Dorna was looking at him, clearly expecting a response. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “The position would include room and board, and pay a round a sixnight to start,” she said.

  “Room and board?” He glanced back at the tunnel mouth, remembering the room they had just visited, where he had so often lived.

  She nodded. “A room above the shop, and at least three meals a day,” she said.

  That knocked all thought of the room out of his head. Kel had never in his life eaten three meals a day; he had trouble comprehending such luxury. He stared at her, only just barely keeping his jaw from dropping.

  “Why don’t you give it a try?” Dorna said. “You can always quit if you don’t like it.”

  Kel tried to imagine how someone could dislike eating regularly and sleeping indoors, and decided maybe someone could, but he was not that someone.

  On the other hand, he knew someone who would look on this with a great deal of suspicion. “What about Ezak?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m only offering to hire you, Kel. You helped me when you could, and you’ve been as honest with me as a thief could be.” She smiled wryly at that, then continued, “You’re smarter than you realize, and I think you deserve a chance to use your wits for something better than stealing old clothes.”

  “But Ezak helped me,” Kel said. “He’s always helped me.”

  “But he stole from me. And he did nothing to help me or you after he sent the fil drepessis off looking for something to fix.”

  Kel hesitated.

  Dorna saw his uncertainty and sighed. “Think about it,” she said. “For now, get me out of here and back to the Three Feathers before it’s too dark to see where we’re going.”

  That was something Kel could understand and accept. “This way,” he said.

  By the time they got back to Grandgate and found Irien sitting in a quiet corner of the inn, Kel had made up his mind. Three meals a day! A dry room! And some money! How could he resist?

  He couldn’t. He didn’t. He was hired on the spot, and given his own room at the inn at Dorna’s expense.

  He hoped Ezak wouldn’t be too upset.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Kel had never realized how complicated starting a business was.

  Irien took charge of finding a suitable location, while Dorna set about selling some of her husband’s magic to fund the tea shop. Both of them used Kel as an errand boy, a job he had done before, but it was different this time—he didn’t need to hold out his hand for a coin after each errand, and at the end of the day he sat down to a generous supper without worrying about how to pay for it, or where he would sleep.

  He also served as a local guide for Dorna as she roamed up and down Wizard Street, talking to sorcerers and sorcerers’ suppliers, gathering references and making appointments, and dickering over prices. He sometimes accompanied Irien as she traveled around the city, talking to landlords and property owners and magistrates and tax collectors about what spaces might be available for rent or purchase, what debts might be attached to them, and so on. He went along on several visits to the city vaults under the north barracks, and helped carry various sorceries to prospective buyers. Every night, when his work was done, he slept in a good bed at the Three Feathers, a bed he had all to himself, with no rats or roaches or centipedes around.

  It was nice to have all that space and comfort, but sometimes at night he missed Ezak, and wondered where he was and what he was doing. Dorna and Irien kept Kel too busy to go back to Smallgate and check.

  A sixnight after his return to Ethshar, Dorna informed Kel that he was now going to escort her to Vezalis’ house, so that she could make arrangements for the trader to supply the shop with the teas Dorna wanted.

  “I can show you which house it is,” he said.

  “I want you to talk to him with me, too.”

  “That might not be a good idea,” Kel warned her. “He doesn’t like me.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Dorna said. “This is business.”

  Kel did not find that entirely convincing, but he did not argue further. He led Dorna back to Archer Street, but this time without any shortcuts—since Kel knew where they were going, they turned onto Archer at its northern end, in Grandgate, and walked it for the full length of Soldiertown, with no need to dodge through alleys and courtyards. When they neared Vezalis’ house, Kel pointed it out. It was much like the other houses on the street—two stories with a steep-gabled attic, half-timbered, with painted plaster between the heavy wooden beams. The paintings on the trader’s house were of ships under full sail, though, rather than the more customary gardens and crockery.

  “It’s not very big,” Dorna remarked.

  Kel turned up an empty palm. He was no judge of house sizes; they all seemed big to him.

  “You’re sure that’s it?”

  Kel nodded.

  “All right,” Dorna said. “Come on.” She marched toward the door.

  “Maybe I should wait here,” Kel said, staying in the middle of the street.

  Dorna stopped and beckoned to him. “No,” she said. “You’re coming with me. I told you that. You work for me, and you’ll probably need to deal with him later, so you might as well get used to it.”

  Reluctantly, Kel followed her.

  This would be the first time he ever approached Vezalis the Merchant with anyone other than Ezak present. It would be the first time he had come to this house when he was neither accompanying Ezak, nor looking for Ezak. He was not at all sure how Ezak’s uncle would take that; would he think Kel was a traitor, abandoning the friend who had raised him?

  Dorna waited on the front step until Kel came up behind her, then knocked loudly on the big red door. Kel waited apprehensively.

  “He may not be home,” he said, when no one answered Dorna’s knock immediately. “He travels a lot.”

  “I know that,” Dorna said, annoyed. “Does anyone else stay here when he’s traveling?”

  Kel hesitated. “He told me not to say.”

  Dorna glanced back at him. “Does he have any family?”

  “Just Ezak.”

  “Does Ezak live here when his uncle’s away, then?”

  “No!” Kel said. “Uncle Vezalis wouldn’t trust him that much.”

  Dorna snorted. “His own uncle doesn’t trust him alone in the house?”

  “His uncle knows him better than anyone.”

  Dorna laughed, then abruptly stopped, staring over Kel’s shoulder.

  Kel turned, and saw Ezak’s uncle standing several yards away, watching the two of them warily. He was a big, burly man in a fraying velvet tunic and well-worn boots, but he seemed in no hurry to confront the short, skinny pair on the steps of his home.

  “Vezalis!” Dorna called, waving. “I need to speak to you!”

  Vezalis sighed, and walked toward them. Halfway there he cocked his head to one side. “Do I know you?” he said.

  “Dorna the Clever,” Dorna answered. “Nabal the Sorcerer’s wife. I mean, widow.”

  “Oh!” The trader quickened his pace and held out a hand. Kel started at learning Dorna’s full name for the first time—up until now she had called herself only “Dorna the Sorcerer’s Widow” in his hearing. But then, he supposed that it would not be wise to call oneself “the Clever” in front of people you were going to be haggling with. “I never expected to see you here!” Vezalis said.

  Dorna took his hand and said, “With my husband gone, I had no reason to stay in the village.”

  “Of course,” Vezalis said. He looked warily at Kel. “You know this boy?” he asked.

  “More or less,” Dorna replied. “He and your nephew Ezak tried to steal some of my late husband’s sorcery.”

  “Oh,” Vezalis said, his expression more resigned than surprised. “I’m afraid I’m not responsible—”

  Dorna shook her head. “That’s not why I’m h
ere,” she interrupted. “He works for me now.”

  Vezalis stepped back. “Works for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you know he’s a thief?”

  “He was a thief. Now he’s my assistant.”

  “I… That’s very generous of you.” He threw a quick glance at Kel, who looked back defiantly.

  “He’s been earning his keep.”

  Vezalis gave Kel an uncertain look; Kel guessed the trader wanted to hear another side of the story. He did not say anything, though.

  “Is Ezak working for you, as well?” the merchant asked.

  “Certainly not! I wouldn’t trust him for a moment.”

  Vezalis’ expression was frankly puzzled, but before he could say anything more Dorna continued, “I’ve come about those teas you sold me.”

  “What about them?” Vezalis asked warily. “Was there a problem?”

  “No, not at all. In fact, I was hoping you could supply me with more—much more.”

  For the first time, Vezalis smiled. “Oh?”

  “Yes. I’m opening a tea shop over in Nightside, at the corner of Aristocrat and Harbor Streets, and I need someone who can keep me stocked with all those lovely varieties you used to bring me at my husband’s shop.”

  “A tea shop?” He smiled, and clapped his hands together. “An entire shop? Wonderful! I’m sure something can be arranged.”

  “When would you like to make those arrangements? Might I come in?”

  “Oh,” Vezalis said. His smile vanished as he glanced at the still-closed door. “No, I’m afraid this is not a good time. Might I perhaps come by the shop, say, this afternoon?”

  Dorna shook her head. “The shop is still being readied. Are you sure this isn’t a good time?”

  “Very sure.”

  “Then perhaps you could meet me at the Three Feathers, in Grandgate, this evening after sunset? And bring samples.”

  “I can do that,” Vezalis agreed. “The Three Feathers?”

  “On Gatehouse Lane, off Wall Street north of the market.”

  “I can find it.”

  “Good! Then I’ll see you there.” Dorna offered her hand again, then stepped back off the stoop and headed up Archer Street.