She looked into the parlor, where the chair and the table were having a shoving match. “Stop that!” she barked.
They ignored her. She marched in and pulled them apart, whereupon the table ran to the far end of its tether and stood by the back wall, turning back and forth, while the chair rocked side to side in what looked like a dance of triumph. The ropes that connected them all to the line in the chimney had gotten somewhat tangled, but Kilisha decided it was not worth trying to separate them; the furniture would undoubtedly just tangle them up again.
She hoped none of the furnishings managed to damage each other; that might complicate the restoration spell.
She glanced at the mirror over the mantle, then crossed the room, stepping carefully over the ropes, and asked, “Are you all right?”
I AM AS WELL AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED, it replied.
“Have you remembered what that is cooking in the workshop?”
NO.
“Do you have any idea where the couch might have gone? We have all the other pieces.”
NO.
Kilisha wondered whether the mirror might have some link to the other objects that it was not even aware of. “Did you know part of Ithanalin wound up in the spriggan?” she asked.
NOT UNTIL YOU SAID SO YESTERDAY.
Well, that would seem to indicate that no link existed. She turned away and looked at the furniture—and a thought struck her.
“Where is the spriggan?”
She hardly spared a glance for the mirror’s I DO NOT KNOW as she dashed for the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The front door was, to her relief, still locked—but that did not necessarily mean very much with the latch animated. The spriggan might well have escaped into the street, and the latch could have locked itself afterward.
Kilisha opened the door and leaned out, and saw only the normal morning traffic of Wizard Street; no spriggans were anywhere to be seen. She closed the door again, locked it, then hurried to the workshop.
The spriggan was nowhere in sight—but there were dozens of nooks and crannies among the shelves and drawers and clutter where it might have hidden. She peered into the most obvious openings without locating the creature.
Then she heard a thump overhead, and a faint sound that might have been a child’s giggle—or a spriggan. She turned and ran for the kitchen stairs.
The dim drawing room at the top of the stair was empty, but she heard thumping and laughter from the front of the house; she hurried into the sunlit day nursery and found Telleth and Lirrin chasing a spriggan back and forth across the toy-crowded Sardironese carpet.
“Stop!” she shouted.
Telleth and Lirrin skidded to a stop and turned to look at her; the spriggan kept running and giggling, bounced off the far wall, then glanced over its shoulder and realized its pursuers were no longer pursuing. It stopped, too.
“Chase?” it said.
Kilisha glared at it.
It was the right spriggan, anyway—the face and voice were familiar. She had been worried for a moment.
“Is something wrong?” Telleth asked.
Kilisha started an angry reply, then stopped.
Really, was anything wrong? So the spriggan had come upstairs to play with the children; where was the harm in that? If anything, it would keep the little pest out of her way.
And Ithanalin had played with his children sometimes; he hadn’t been as aloof as Kilisha’s own father. The bit of his spirit trapped in the spriggan was probably enjoying this foolishness.
“No, I suppose there isn’t anything wrong,” she said. “I’m just worried about your father—it’s got me nervous that we haven’t found the couch yet, and that we still don’t…well, I’m nervous.” She looked at the children’s faces—Lirrin was openly worried, while Telleth was clearly trying to hide his own concern and look grave and mature. “It’ll be fine. You go ahead with your game. In fact, if you can keep an eye on this spriggan, I’d appreciate it.”
“Sure!” Telleth said, managing a smile.
“Chase?” the spriggan said.
“I don’t think I want to play anymore,” Lirrin said; Kilisha saw the girl’s face, and regretted mentioning Ithanalin’s condition.
“We have fun!” the spriggan insisted. It ran up and tugged on the hem of Lirrin’s tunic. She batted it away.
The spriggan danced around her hand and tugged at the tunic again.
“Stop that,” Lirrin said angrily. Telleth quickly tried to grab the spriggan away from his sister, but it dodged. He ran after it.
The spriggan doubled back and ducked between Lirrin’s legs.
“Hai!” the girl shouted; then she, too, grabbed for the creature.
A moment later they were chasing the spriggan back and forth across the room again, just as they had been when Kilisha came in. The apprentice smiled, then slipped quietly back out of the room and down the stairs.
Once she was back in the workshop, though, she stopped. What was she supposed to do here? She had no jewelweed, so she couldn’t practice the Restorative, and she couldn’t think of any other useful magic to do, given that her potions were all prepared and Yara had forbidden any further love spells. Yara had also ordered her to stay in the house, so she couldn’t levitate again to see whether the morning light might give a better view than had late afternoon.
That reminded her to check on the potions. She found the three vials where she had left them after completing the last spell and was relieved to see that yes, she had remembered to label them the night before, though the labels were nowhere near as clear and neat as Ithanalin would have made them.
Each vial held seven sips, seven doses. She read the labels—OPT. STRENGTH, VAREN’S L., TRACEL’S L.—then carefully tucked all three into her belt-pouch, next to her mostly-empty vial of brimstone and a tiny, tightly-sealed bottle that held a single drop of dragon’s blood. A chip of chrysolite, necessary for conjuring the Yellow Cloud, was wrapped in a bit of rag and tucked behind the brimstone.
With the potions in there, the next time someone like Kelder asked her whether she had any magic with her she would have something better than the Yellow Cloud to use. Being able to levitate to see over the rooftops might yet be very useful in finding the couch—if she only had some hint where in the city to look for it.
She was just closing the pouch when someone knocked on the front door.
“Kelder,” she said to herself. “Maybe he can check the gates.” She hurried through the parlor, almost tripping over the bench’s tether as it wandered toward the door, clearly curious about who had knocked. “I’ll be right there!” she called.
The latch apparently decided that meant the new arrival was welcome, and clicked itself open. The door swung inward slightly.
“Kilisha?” a voice called—a female voice. Kilisha stopped, her hand just short of the latch.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Nissitha. Nissitha the Seer.”
Kilisha swung the door wide. “What can I do for you?” she asked, looking out at her neighbor and trying to display polite interest, rather than mere puzzlement, at this unexpected visit.
“Adagan told me you wanted help finding a runaway couch?” Nissitha said hesitantly.
“Yes!” Kilisha smiled hopefully. “Have you seen it?”
“Well, no,” Nissitha admitted. “I was hoping you could tell me more about it—what it looks like, where it was last seen, that sort of thing.”
“Oh.” Kilisha’s smile faded. “Come in, and I’ll tell you.”
Nissitha stepped in. The bench stepped aside to make room for her while the chair rocked a little closer. The coat-rack cowered back into its corner, and the table moved to one side for a better view. Nissitha looked around, her eyes wide.
“They won’t hurt you,” Kilisha assured her.
“You said some furniture had been animated…” Nissitha said, her voice trailing off.
“Yes, and we’ve found most of it, but w
e still need the couch. The one that used to stand over there.” She pointed.
“Oh,” Nissitha said. “What did it look like?”
Startled, Kilisha blinked. “Oh, you must have seen it. It’s been there as long as I’ve been Ithanalin’s apprentice!”
“I’ve never been in here before,” Nissitha said. “What did it look like?”
Trying to hide her astonishment that someone who lived just next door had never before been in Ithanalin’s parlor, Kilisha said, “It’s modest in size, enough to seat two comfortably, but three adults would be crowded. The wood is stained dark, and the front legs are carved in reverse curves, with claws on the bottom. The upholstery is red velvet, and the arms are partially upholstered as well as the back and seat. It looks almost new—Ithanalin put a preservation spell on it when Telleth first started walking, so the children wouldn’t damage it.”
Nissitha nodded. “And it’s animated?”
“Just like the others,” Kilisha confirmed, a sweep of her arm indicating the chair, bench, and table.
“Where was it last seen?”
“The tax collector followed it, but he lost sight of it on the East Road heading west, where Low Street forks off.”
“So it could be anywhere?”
“I’m afraid so.” Kilisha hesitated, reluctant to say anything rude, but she was puzzled by Nissitha’s presence and questions. If she was a true seer, why would she need to ask all these questions? And if she was a fraud, why would she bother to ask all these questions? She had never before shown any signs of going out of her way to be helpful in the five years Kilisha had lived there. “Are you going to help search?”
“I thought I might,” Nissitha said, with a toss of her head that sent a ripple down her lush mane of black hair.
It popped out before Kilisha could stop herself. “Why?”
Nissitha grimaced. “I don’t suppose you’d believe it’s just neighborliness.”
“Not…uh…well, you know,” Kilisha said.
“Well, it is neighborliness, partly,” Nissitha said, “but I admit it’s directed more at Adagan than at you or Ithanalin.”
Sudden enlightenment burst in Kilisha’s mind as a dozen scattered incidents over the past year suddenly fell together. Nissitha wasn’t married; neither was Adagan, and Adagan was a handsome, charming fellow perhaps a year or two younger than Nissitha—close enough in age that the difference didn’t seem significant, in any case.
Kilisha had suspected for some time that Adagan preferred men to women, but perhaps she was wrong—or perhaps Nissitha either hadn’t noticed or hoped to change that. Nissitha clearly wanted to impress Adagan with her enterprise and helpfulness by finding the runaway couch.
“And it would be good advertising, don’t you think,” Nissitha added, “to find this couch that a wizard can’t find?”
“I suppose it would,” Kilisha agreed. And it really didn’t matter why Nissitha wanted to help; any help was welcome. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, is there anything else you can tell me about it?”
Kilisha turned up an empty palm. “I can’t think of anything.”
“Does it have any known likes or dislikes?”
“No.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“I don’t know,” Kilisha admitted. “It’s big and heavy enough that I suppose it could do some damage if it wanted to. It shouldn’t be particularly aggressive, but I don’t really know which personality traits it got.”
“Can it do any magic?”
Startled, Kilisha considered that for a moment. A couch had no voice for incantations, no hands to gesture with, and the spriggan had gotten at least part of the athame’s magic…
“I don’t see how it could,” she said.
“Can it talk? Or fly?”
“No.”
“Why haven’t you found it? Did you try any divinations?”
“I don’t know any,” Kilisha said. “And all the diviners Yara asked were too busy with some big crisis in Ethshar of the Sands.”
“I heard something about that,” Nissitha said. “Someone’s declared herself Empress and led a bunch of beggars from the Wall Street Field in taking over the overlord’s palace.”
“You mean Soldiers’ Field?”
“They call it Wall Street Field in the Sands,” Nissitha said. “It’s a better name, if you ask me, but the Soldiers’ Field name is traditional here, so it’ll probably never change.”
“But there are beggars in the Fortress there?”
“Palace,” Nissitha corrected. “No Fortress there. And yes, this Empress invited a bunch of beggars and thieves to be her court.”
“How could she do that? Why didn’t the guard stop her?”
“Because she’s a magician. Some one-of-a-kind freak who came out of nowhere, and no one knows what to do with her. It’s a little like the Night of Madness, I guess.”
Kilisha didn’t remember the Night of Madness, when warlockry first appeared; that had happened seven or eight years before she was born. Nissitha would have been a little girl at the time. Kilisha had heard about it, of course; it was supposed to have been much worse in the other two Ethshars, where there were more warlocks, but even here there had been trouble.
The idea that this trouble in Ethshar of the Sands might be something similar hadn’t occurred to her; she had been too caught up in Ithanalin’s situation to give it much thought. “Is it really that bad?” she asked.
It was Nissitha’s turn to raise an empty palm. “Who knows?” she asked. “Do you think this thing with Ithanalin and your furniture might be connected?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Kilisha said. “The master tripped on a spriggan and spilled a half-finished potion, there wasn’t anything inexplicable about it.”
Nissitha blinked. “He tripped on a spriggan?”
Kilisha immediately regretted her words, but it was too late to call them back. “Yes,” she admitted.
“The great Ithanalin the Wise tripped on a spriggan?”
Kilisha sighed deeply. “Yes,” she said. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go around telling everyone that, though.”
“Oh, of course, of course, I’ll keep it quiet.” Nissitha’s grin belied her words. “So you don’t know anything more about where this couch is?”
“Nothing,” Kilisha confirmed.
“Then I suppose I had best go and start looking.” The self-proclaimed seer tucked her skirt clear of the chair’s inquisitive approach, then turned and stepped back out into the street. She called over her shoulder as she departed, “I’ll let you know as soon as I find it.”
“Thank you,” Kilisha called after her, but she did not feel very grateful. She closed the door, locked it, and ordered the latch, “Stay locked until I tell you…”
She had not finished the sentence when a knock sounded.
“Never mind,” she told the latch, as she opened it again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Kilisha stared when she saw who had knocked, but she quickly gathered at least a portion of her wits. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
The young man on the doorstep smiled. “It’s good to see you, too, Kili.”
Kilisha swung the door wide. “Come in!” she said. “I mean, I’m glad to see you, Opir, but what are you doing here? You know it’s not permitted for family to interfere with an apprentice’s training!”
“I’m not here to interfere in anything,” her brother replied. “I’m here to see whether there’s any truth to the rumors I’ve heard.” He looked around, taking in the furniture as it moved about the room and the tangled ropes leading from the various pieces to the fireplace, and added, “I’d say there must be some truth in them, all right.”
“What rumors?” Kilisha asked. “What have you heard?”
“That some sort of magic has run wild and started bringing all your furniture to life, and nobody’s seen Ithanalin in days. He’s supposed to be holed up somewhere work
ing on a counter-spell. Or maybe he got turned into a coat-rack—is that him in the corner?” He pointed.
“No,” Kilisha said, not wanting to be distracted by explanations just now. “Go on.”
“Or that he’s been spirited away by the Empress Tabaea, or that he’s secretly working for her, or that he’s been transformed into you, and the real Kilisha of Eastgate is imprisoned somewhere dreadful.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? What did you call your toy pig when you were little?”
Kilisha stared at him. “You mean Gruntpuppy?”
Opir smiled broadly. “It’s you, all right—I can’t imagine you’d ever tell anyone you named that pig Gruntpuppy.”
Kilisha shrugged. “I’d tell Ithanalin if he asked, because he’s my master and I’m an apprentice—but he’s never asked, and there’s no reason he would.” She closed the door behind Opir. “Where did you hear all these rumors?”
“From Mother, mostly. She collects them.”
Kilisha blinked, then grabbed the chair and sat down. “Lock, please,” she ordered the latch. The chair shifted beneath her, and she told it, “Hold still.” She gestured to Opir. “You can catch the bench if you like.”
Opir eyed it uneasily, then said, “I’ll stand.”
“Please yourself. Now, tell me more about where Mother’s been getting all these stories. I mean, Ithanalin’s only been…gone for about two days.”
“So he is gone?”
“Not really.” Kilisha sighed. “He’s in the workshop. But he can’t move—a spell went wrong and transferred his life into all the furniture.”
“So you’re sitting on him?”
Kilisha closed her eyes and bit her lip as the chair shifted slightly. Her older brother had always had a knack for making everything she said or did sound stupid. “After a fashion,” she admitted. “Mostly, though, I’m sitting on the straight chair we keep here in the parlor. It just happens to have a little bit of Ithanalin’s spirit in it at the moment.”
“And the bench, too? And the coat-rack?”
“All of it,” Kilisha said.
Opir looked around the parlor. “Where’s the couch?” he asked.
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