Ithanalin's Restoration

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  The top, largely invisible to anyone but a magician, was a little more interesting than the sides; the battlements were mere elevated walkways surrounding a stone courtyard where Kilisha could see guardsmen marching in formation. There were guards posted along the ramparts, as well, which seemed foolish in a city that had been at peace for more than two centuries.

  But then she remembered that a usurper had just driven out the overlord of Ethshar of the Sands. Perhaps the walls had not always been manned, but were now guarded against this Tabaea and her followers.

  In any case, the Fortress guards were not her concern. She was trying to find the couch.

  She could see nothing the right shade of red anywhere along the East Road, nor in the Fortress rooftop courtyard, nor on Wizard Street. The streets and alleys of Hillside, the district surrounding the Fortress, were so steep and tangled that she could see very little of what might be on them.

  The other high hill in the city was Highside, to the northeast of Hillside, and that was dominated by the mansions of the city’s wealthiest families; there she could see into not just streets and courtyards, but gardens and plazas. Instead of being crowded together, as the homes were throughout most of the city, the mansions of Highside were elegantly placed amid lawns and fountains and flowers, all behind high fences and walls—but from her present height the fences and walls were meaningless. She glanced in that direction—and froze.

  Red! The deep, rich red she remembered…

  She leaned forward, peering down, and then snorted at her own foolishness. That was a rose garden. And over there was a flowerbed of something else nearly the right color.

  The couch might be there somewhere, of course, perhaps under the willows, or in one of the pergolas or gazebos, or simply behind a mansion, where she couldn’t see it from her present position.

  And that was in the open terrain of Highside. Beyond it, to the west, to the north of Hillside, lay the mazes of alleys and passages of Bywater. That had been a fishing village supplying food to the troops during the Great War, and the city had absorbed it but had never straightened out its tangled streets. Upper stories of the older structures there were often cantilevered out, shading the street beneath; it was said that in some neighborhoods lovers could hold hands by leaning out the upstairs windows on either side of the street. If the couch was beneath one of those overhangs…

  And beyond Bywater was Northshore, and then Cliffgate, and then eastward along the city wall Northgate and Northmark, to Farmgate in the northeast corner. Then Eastgate and Eastside and Wargate and Newgate, and the New Quarter in its own little walled-in area outside the original wall, and in the south end Grandgate and Southgate, and closer in Southport and Southside and Bath and Arena and Crafton and Seagate and Norcross and Lakeshore and Center City and Northside and the Merchant Quarter, each district a tangle of streets and buildings and courts.

  The city was just too large for one person to search, even from the air, without some sort of guidance.

  For one person.

  She would need to find help. All those districts, all those streets and houses, were full of people, and surely someone must have seen where the couch went. If she really wanted to find the couch she would need to enlist the aid of as many of those people as she possibly could, and keep on asking until she found someone who knew where it had gone.

  Either that, or she would need to find some magic that would locate the fugitive furniture.

  She sighed. It would have been so much simpler if she had spotted it from up here—but she could see no sign of it.

  She took another step, but this time let her forward foot sink below the other, beginning her descent.

  Her other task remained to be done, of course, so the spell hadn’t been a total waste of time, and she would also keep looking on the way down, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the couch, but her earlier high hopes had vanished. Her steps were heavy as she marched down the air.

  A flicker of movement in an alley caught her eye at one point, but appeared to be merely a dog; other than that she descended without incident until she was walking just a dozen feet above Ithanalin’s own roof, the rope trailing across the slates.

  And here she slowed, spiraling in carefully toward the chimney that vented the parlor hearth. While still holding the lantern she caught up the dangling rope across her forearm, working it across until the free end hung down just a few feet. She twisted and maneuvered it, working intently until that loose end slid down into the open chimney.

  She smiled, and quickly began feeding the line down the flue as she continued to walk in slowly-sinking circles around the opening.

  Finally the entire rope was hanging down into the chimney, just inches below her; she reached down and dropped the axe into place across the opening.

  Now all she had to do was go back into the house and fish the bottom of the rope out of the fireplace. As long as the knots held, anything tied to that line was going to stay in the parlor. No bench or chair or couch could possibly pull that axe down the chimney!

  That done, she raised the lantern high as she marched out over the street and back down to earth.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  By suppertime Yara had paid Kelder the household’s tax and the guardsman had gone about his business, though he promised to stop in later to check on the situation—he said he still felt partially responsible for Ithanalin’s condition. Kilisha had secured the table, chair, bench, and coat-rack in the parlor with various cords and leashes tied to the rope in the chimney, had taken the rug from the pantry and packed it into a solid box, and had then moved the locked boxes containing the dish, spoon, and rug into the workshop, to have them all in one place. The latch was still firmly attached to the front door, and the mirror still hung in its accustomed place on the parlor wall. Ithanalin’s body was in the workshop with a sheet draped over it, so that any visitors would not see what had happened—and so Kilisha wouldn’t feel as if her master was watching her whenever she tried to do any magic.

  The spriggan was unsecured, and that worried the apprentice, but she saw nothing she could do about it while the athame’s magic resided in the creature and its fingernails served as lockpicks. Any cords used to bind it would fall away uselessly, and any attempt to lock it into a box or closet would only hold it for the few seconds it needed to spring the lock. Asking the rug to hold it might work, but she didn’t really feel as if she could trust the rug unless Yara kept an eye on it, and Yara had better things to do with her time.

  Perhaps if they found a box that relied on bolts and bars too heavy for the spriggan to work, or arranged so it couldn’t reach them…

  But spriggans were much stronger than they looked, and inhumanly flexible, and she really couldn’t be sure anything could hold it. Better, she thought, to avoid antagonizing it and to instead rely on the fragment of Ithanalin’s personality it held. After all, she might well need its active cooperation during the restorative spell.

  The dark brown goo on the workbench was still simmering over the oil lamp, and Kilisha still had no idea what it was; she had asked the spriggan and received merely a turned-up palm and “Don’t remember” as a reply. The mixture’s savory smell had turned to a sort of burned odor, then that had faded away, leaving a faint sourness in the air. Kilisha was fairly sure that it was no longer fit for whatever it had been intended to do or be. Still, she could see nothing sensible to do but leave it where it was. Thinking it the safest course she had refilled the lamp when it burned low, her hands trembling in case that altered the spell and triggered some catastrophe, but nothing untoward had happened.

  She had not yet had a chance to practice Javan’s Restorative; the pursuit of the chair and bench, and the levitation to look for the couch and put the line down the chimney, had eaten up most of the day, and besides, she still had no jewelweed. She could not attempt the spell until she had all the ingredients.

  Of course, she also did not yet have the red velvet couch. That was the only pie
ce of furniture still missing.

  She had most of what she needed to restore her master, though, after less than two full days. She was reasonably pleased with herself as she sat at the kitchen table with the children, eating the boiled supper Yara had prepared—but still, every so often she glanced uncomfortably at the empty seat at the head of the table.

  “Is Dad going to stay petrified very long?” Lirrin asked, as she reached for the spiced greenbeans.

  “I hope not, sweetie,” Yara said, glancing at Kilisha.

  “He’s not really petrified,” Kilisha said. “He isn’t stone, he’s just…well, de-animated.”

  “Is he going to stay that way?” Telleth asked. Where Lirrin had sounded worried, Telleth sounded belligerent.

  “Not if I can help it,” Kilisha said. “I still need two more things before I can bring him back to normal.”

  “What are they?” Lirrin asked.

  “I still need something called jewelweed for the spell,” Kilisha explained. “I don’t know what it is—a plant of some kind, I suppose. There might even be some in the workshop, but I can’t tell.”

  “We can get that from an herbalist, I’m sure,” Yara said. “Or from Kara, if it’s something only wizards use.”

  “Who’s Kara?” Lirrin asked.

  “Kara’s Arcana, on Arena Street,” Kilisha said.

  “That’s where Dad gets lots of his stuff,” Telleth explained to his sister.

  “I want Daddy back,” Pirra said, clearly on the verge of tears.

  “We all do,” Yara said quickly. Then she turned to Kilisha. “Jewelweed?” she said. “You know, I said I don’t know what it is, but I think I remember it now. It has white flowers, and the leaves have healing properties, if I remember correctly. We can find that.”

  “I’m sure we can,” Kilisha agreed.

  “You said you need two more things. What’s the other one?”

  “The red velvet couch from the parlor.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “No.” Kilisha shook her head. “It ran off to the west, with the other furniture, and Kelder chased it, but he lost track of it. I tried to spot it—I levitated up several hundred feet and looked at all the streets and cortyards I could, but I didn’t see it anywhere. I think I’ll need help finding it.”

  “Who’s Kelder?” Pirra demanded.

  “The soldier who was here today,” Kilisha explained.

  “Oh,” Lirrin said. “There’s a boy across the back court called Kelder; I thought maybe you meant him.”

  “There are a lot of people named Kelder,” Yara remarked.

  “Is the soldier going to bring Daddy back?” Pirra asked.

  “No,” Kilisha said. “We need a spell to do that, not a soldier. But maybe he can find the velvet couch.”

  “Can I help look for it?”

  Kilisha smiled. “Maybe,” she said. “Anyone who can help find it is welcome, as far as I’m concerned. We’ll all start looking in the morning, shall we? And we’ll ask all our friends and neighbors to help.”

  “Couldn’t we look tonight?” Telleth asked. “The torches are bright, and a couch is too big to hide in holes or anything.”

  “I want Daddy back,” Pirra said.

  Kilisha looked at Yara, who said, “We might look a little. But it probably isn’t anywhere on Wizard Street, and I don’t want to go too far in the dark.”

  “Kelder said he last saw it on the East Road,” Kilisha said. “It’s not on the street now, at least it wasn’t when I was looking a couple of hours ago, but it might have ducked in somewhere.”

  “The East Road?” Yara said. Kilisha nodded.

  “Headed for the gates?” Lirrin asked, horrified.

  “No, no,” Kilisha said quickly. “Headed west on the East Road, toward the Fortress.” The idea that it might have doubled back eastward, or turned north or south and headed for one of the gates, was not a pleasant one—but she couldn’t rule it out. Maybe she hadn’t spotted it from the air because she hadn’t looked outside the walls…

  She would want to check on that tomorrow, if the couch didn’t turn up. She would ask the guards at the gates.

  At least nobody was likely to have not noticed an animated couch, or forgotten seeing it.

  “It’s in the Fortress, then?” Telleth asked.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Kilisha said. “How would it get inside?”

  “Through a door!” Pirra said.

  “The doors were closed,” Kilisha said. “We were over there today, and it’s all closed up tight because of some trouble in Ethshar of the Sands. The couch might be near there—it was headed in that direction—but how could it have gotten inside with the guards there and the doors locked?”

  “Oh.”

  That ended the conversation for a time, and the five of them ate in silence. A few minutes later Kilisha took a final gulp of small beer, then pushed back her chair. “I need to finish that potion I was making,” she said as she rose. “I thought it might help catch the escaped furniture.”

  “I thought you said you just need the couch and the jewelweed,” Yara said.

  “I do just need the couch and the jewelweed,” Kilisha agreed. “But I didn’t know that when I started the potion last night.”

  “Then why are you finishing the potion?” Telleth asked.

  “Well, partly because it still might be useful in finding and catching the couch,” Kilisha said, “but mostly because if I don’t, who knows what could happen? Unfinished spells can go wrong, the way the master’s did.”

  “You mean you’d turn into a statue?” Pirra asked, her eyes widening.

  “Maybe. Or something else entirely might happen. You never know what might happen when magic goes wrong. They say there’s a place in the Small Kingdoms where there’s a pillar of fire a hundred feet tall that’s been burning for a hundred years because somebody sneezed while doing a spell. And some people say that spriggans come from a magic mirror spell that someone did wrong, which is why they started turning up suddenly just a few years ago.”

  “And Dad accidentally turned Lirrin and me into tree squids once,” Telleth said. “Right here in the kitchen.” He grimaced, and added, “It felt really weird.”

  “Exactly. And he turned Istram into a platypus, as well. The master has always told me how very important it is to be careful with magic, and never leave a spell unfinished, so I’ll be finishing the potion tonight.”

  “What about that stuff on the workbench, then?” Telleth asked. “The brown stuff in the bowl. Isn’t that an unfinished spell?”

  “Yes, it is, but I don’t know what kind,” Kilisha said, frowning. “I don’t know how to finish it, and I want to bring the master back to life as quickly as possible so he can deal with it!”

  “How did you know about that bowl?” Yara asked, glaring at Telleth. “Have you been snooping in your father’s workshop?”

  “I just looked!” Telleth protested. “I didn’t touch anything! I didn’t even breathe on it!”

  “Well, don’t even look unless Thani or Kilisha says it’s all right!” She looked up from her son to the apprentice. “Is there anything we can do while you’re finishing the potion?”

  “I suppose it’s too late to get the jewelweed,” Kilisha said. “The herbalists will be closed by now. But if you can think of any way to find the couch, that would be good.”

  “I could ask around,” Yara said thoughtfully. “Maybe buy a divination from one of the neighbors?”

  “If you think it’s a good idea,” Kilisha said. “I don’t have the money for one.” Before any of the children could speak, she added, “And I don’t know any myself.”

  “Thani never liked divinations,” Yara said. “He said that people always want to argue if they don’t like the answers they get.”

  “He’s probably right,” Kilisha said.

  “So he never learned any,” Yara said. “He said he could always buy one if he needed it.”

 
“Well, if he were animate right now, he could.”

  “I’ll talk to some of the neighbors,” Yara said. “You finish your potion.”

  “Yes, mistress,” Kilisha said, bowing her head politely before she headed for the workshop.

  A few minutes later, as she gathered the materials to complete her potions, she glanced uneasily at the bowl on the lamp; it was still simmering. She sighed.

  It would certainly simplify matters if Yara did hire a magician who could find the couch by magic, but Kilisha had doubts about the idea. At least for wizards, divinations and other information spells tended to do strange things when enchanted objects were involved—which was another reason Ithanalin had never liked them. Some of them would answer the question asked, but in the most useless way possible—for example, if a wizard asked, “Where is the red velvet couch that stood in Ithanalin’s parlor?” the answer might be, “In the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars,” or, “In a house,” or “Seven feet to the north of a purple drape.” Learning to phrase questions so as to obtain useful answers was as tricky as learning the actual spells, so that wizards who did divinations often had no time to learn much of anything else.

  Kilisha suspected that they would do better to question neighbors, or to offer a reward, or even to interrogate spriggans, who seemed to roam everywhere in the city and who could clearly “smell” wizardry, than they would to buy a divination.

  And when they did find the couch, however they managed it, she wanted to be better prepared than she had been that afternoon in pursuit of the bench. Catching the bench in the rope and then dragging the bench and chair home had been difficult and exhausting.

  That was where these potions came in, and why she was so eager to finish them. She had misled the master’s family slightly; while it was certainly true that neglected spells could go spectacularly wrong, the Adaptable Potion was flexible and relatively harmless. She could have left it unfinished for at least another day or so without harm, and simply leaving it entirely uncharged would probably have been safe.