Ithanalin's Restoration

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “No, because I wasn’t certain,” Nuvielle said. “I did say I’d seen one like it once, and would make some inquiries, and here I am. You say it escaped?”

  “Yes, my lady. A tax collector interrupted one of my master’s spells, then left the door open, allowing the couch to escape.”

  “A tax collector? One of my tax collectors?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  For a moment the two women stared at one another, then Nuvielle said, “That was very careless of him.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “And you want the couch back?”

  “Very much so, my lady.”

  “The overlord rather likes it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, my lady, as we really must insist upon its return.” Kilisha’s voice was unsteady as she said this—she was defying the lords of the Hegemony! “My master’s indisposition is related,” she explained. “We must have the couch to restore him to health.”

  “Ah. And you say one of my tax collectors is responsible?”

  “Only indirectly, my lady. A spriggan was involved, as well, and simple misfortune.”

  “Still,” she mused, “it would seem that I owe it to you to make amends.”

  “If you could aid us in recovering the couch…”

  “I can get you into the Fortress and to the overlord’s door,” Nuvielle said, “but beyond that I’m afraid it’s between you and Wulran.”

  “Wulr…Wulran?”

  “My nephew Wulran. The overlord.”

  “Of…of course, my lady.” Kilisha’s voice squeaked embarrassingly as she spoke. Between her and Wulran? But “Wulran” was Wulran III, Overlord of Ethshar of the Rocks, Triumvir of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, Commander of the Holy Armies and Defender of the Gods. And she was just Kilisha of Eastgate, a mere apprentice.

  “Would you care to accompany me back to the Fortress right now, to take care of this?”

  Kilisha started to say yes, then stopped.

  All her life, and never more than these past few days, she had always rushed into things, never planning ahead but just doing whatever she thought needed doing. She had gone chasing cats without stopping to think, had gone chasing furniture unprepared, and had just generally hurried off thoughtlessly. Ithanalin had spent the past five years trying to teach her to plan out her actions, to make sure everything was ready before she began a spell; she had been lectured repeatedly about the dangers of haste, especially where something as dangerous as wizardry was involved. While she had finally learned to prepare spells properly, she still often dashed headlong into everything else.

  This time, though, she wouldn’t. This time she would take the time to plan and prepare, to think it through.

  For one thing, Yara had ordered her to stay in the house.

  For another, she wanted to have suitable magic ready, in case she needed it.

  For a third, tackling something as big and smart as the couch alone seemed foolhardy. It clearly was clever—whatever portion of Ithanalin’s spirit it had gotten had plainly included the wiles necessary to get past the Fortress guards and into the overlord’s apartments, and furthermore it had chosen to do so, so its motivations were, to say the least, not obvious. Kilisha thought she might want all the help she could get.

  “I must make some preparations, my lady,” she said. “The couch may not be entirely cooperative, and I want to be ready.”

  “As you choose. When shall I expect you, then?”

  Kilisha hesitated. Surely, the Lady Treasurer of Ethshar of the Rocks was not about to rearrange her schedule to suit the preferences of a wizard’s apprentice!

  “Would mid-morning suit you, perhaps?” Nuvielle suggested.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes, tomorrow; shall we say, two hours before noon, at the north door of the Fortress?”

  Kilisha bowed deeply. “That would be excellent, my lady. I am most grateful for your assistance.”

  “Tomorrow, then,” Nuvielle said, acknowledging the bow with a nod. She turned.

  Kilisha stood in the door and watched her go, then stepped inside. She closed the door, made certain the latch was behaving itself, and then allowed herself a broad smile.

  “Tomorrow!” she said. “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow!”

  Behind her the spriggan giggled, and chirped happily, “Tomorrow!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When Yara returned home to prepare supper she encountered Kilisha standing in the kitchen, grinning foolishly. “I found it!” the apprentice said.

  Yara started to smile; then her brows lowered and she frowned. She called in the children and sent them upstairs with a few quick pats, then turned back to Kilisha. “You found the couch?”

  “Yes!”

  “But I told you to stay here!”

  “I did stay here!” Kilisha protested.

  “You used magic?” Yara said, the frown softening.

  “No,” Kilisha admitted. “Someone told me where it is. I’ve arranged to meet her tomorrow morning, and we’ll go get it.”

  “What if it runs away again tonight, though?”

  “I don’t think it will,” Kilisha said. “It’s in the Fortress.”

  Yara blinked. “How did it get in there? There are guards everywhere!”

  “I don’t know. Nobody seems to know. That’s where it is, though.”

  “Why are you waiting until morning?”

  “Because I promised you I wouldn’t leave the house today! And besides, I want to have some time to prepare, and I want to bring along some help—I was thinking Opir and Kelder and Adagan would be good, if they’re willing. The couch is heavy, and it might be hard to catch.”

  “Do you think so? Will the four of you be enough to carry it all the way down from the Fortress, then, and up here?”

  “Oh, once we’ve caught it and gotten it outside I intend to levitate it,” Kilisha said. “I’m a wizard, after all.”

  “You’re an apprentice.”

  “And a wizard, Mistress,” Kilisha insisted. “I’m a member of the Guild, even if I am just an apprentice.”

  Yara looked at her silently for a moment, then said, “I suppose that’s true. You’re sure you can levitate it safely?”

  “Absolutely sure, Mistress. I have the spell already prepared and tested.” She patted her belt-pouch. “It’s in a potion.”

  Yara considered her husband’s apprentice a moment longer, then said, “Good. Then help me with supper.”

  A few minutes later, as Kilisha lifted a heavy pot of water onto the stove and Yara trimmed a leg of lamb, Yara said, “I’m not sure Opir and Adagan and Kelder will all be stopping by this evening.”

  “That’s all right,” Kilisha said as she pushed the pot into place on the hottest spot. “I’ll send them a message tonight.”

  Yara put down the knife she had been wielding. “How? I don’t want you or Telleth running around the streets…”

  “The Spell of Invaded Dreams,” Kilisha interrupted. She stepped back from the stove, then glanced at Yara. “At least, I know I can reach Opir that way. I’m assuming Kelder told the guard at the Fortress his true name, and I think I remember it. Adagan I’m not sure about, since so many magicians use false names, but he lives so close that I could stop by easily enough.”

  “The Spell of Invaded Dreams?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “And you thought of that yourself, instead of rushing out on foot?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Then you really are starting to think like a wizard, finally!”

  Kilisha smiled. “Yes, Mistress,” she said.

  Yara picked up the knife and went back to work. It was several minutes later that Kilisha heard her mutter, “Good!”

  That night Kilisha gave the spriggan careful instructions, laced with the most terrifying threats she could think of, then went to bed early.

  The spriggan obeyed, awakening her around midnight—though she wished that it had found ano
ther method, rather than jumping up and down on her head shrieking, “Wake, wake! You said wake!”

  “Shut up!” she hissed, grabbing for the creature in the dark but missing it as it danced aside. “You’ll wake the whole house!”

  “You said wake,” it insisted.

  “I said wake me,” Kilisha said, sitting up. “Just me, nobody else!”

  “Sorry, sorry,” the spriggan replied.

  Kilisha yawned, blinked, and then reluctantly said, “Thank you. You did well.”

  “Happy happy!”

  “Now shut up and go downstairs.” She knew she shouldn’t tell even the tiniest part of her master to shut up, but the spriggan could be so stupid and annoying…

  The spriggan bounced away, and she groped for her robe.

  A few moments later she was in the workshop, preparing the Lesser Spell of Invaded Dreams, which would let her send a message to one of her chosen assistants as he slept, a message that the recipient would, at least in theory, remember clearly when he woke up, without the fuzziness of ordinary dreams.

  Unfortunately, she would have no way of knowing whether the spell had worked properly. If Kelder had been given late-night duty, or Adagan had sat up late working on his witchcraft, then her message might not go through—the recipient had to be asleep. If that happened she wouldn’t know it until they failed to show up in the morning, so for those two she intended to use the much more difficult Greater Spell of Invaded Dreams—or at least attempt it. For her brother Opir, who always liked his sleep, she could use the Lesser.

  It took half an hour of ritual with her athame, incense, and a pinch of dust, but she was fairly certain it had gone properly and her message had been sent.

  That done, she started on the Greater, directed at Kelder, which called for blood and silver as well as the other ingredients. For this one, by the end of over an hour of preparation she had worked herself into a trance, and although she knew she was still sitting cross-legged on the workshop floor she felt herself standing in a strange stone room where half a dozen men lay sleeping on narrow cots. This, she supposed, was a barracks room somewhere in the city, and the men were presumably soldiers.

  One of them was Kelder. She called to him.

  He sat up, startled, knocking his blanket aside, and she saw he was naked. She blushed, and almost let the spell break, but caught herself at the last instant.

  “It’s me,” she said. “Ithanalin’s apprentice, Kilisha. I’m in your dream.”

  “Well, that’s nothing new,” he said, pulling up his blanket.

  “No, I…” Then the meaning of his words sank in, and she blushed again. She gathered herself up mentally, then decided that she needed to assert her power a little more obviously. She waved her hands, and the barracks room disappeared. Kelder’s uniform appeared, and the two of them were standing side by side on the city wall, looking out over the farms to the southeast.

  Kilisha had never been on the city wall, though she had levitated high enough to see over it; she supposed she had somehow pulled this scene from Kelder’s memory.

  “This dream is magic,” she said. “I’m using the Spell of Invaded Dreams to tell you that I want your help. I’ve learned that the couch is in the Fortress, and I would be grateful if you could meet me at the north door tomorrow morning, two hours before noon, and help me retrieve it.”

  “Two hours before noon? I think I have collection duty…”

  “Tell your officer that Lady Nuvielle sent for you,” Kilisha interrupted. “She’s the one who found the couch and will be letting us into the Fortress.”

  “The Treasurer herself found it? The overlord’s aunt?”

  “That’s right,” Kilisha said. “Please be there!” She twisted the spell’s magic, and the two of them were standing at the north door of the Fortress, with the sun two-thirds of the way up the eastern sky. “Here, at this hour.”

  “I’ll try,” Kelder said. “If I remember.”

  “You’ll remember,” Kilisha told him. “That’s how the spell works. That’s how you’ll know it was magic, and not just an ordinary dream.”

  “I think I’ve heard about that,” Kelder said. “I’ll be there, if I can.”

  Kilisha smiled at him. “Good!”

  He smiled back. “Now what?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I mean here we are, in a perfectly good dream, and you’ve delivered your message—what do you want to do next? I see you can change the scenery, and make clothes appear and disappear; how long will the dream last? What else can we do?” He stepped toward her.

  “I…I need to get some sleep,” Kilisha said, pushing him away. “I’ll see you in the morning.” She broke the spell.

  Then she sat there on the floor as the smoke dissipated and said, “Stupid. That was stupid. I should have…”

  But she didn’t know what she should have done. The thought of spending more time with Kelder was certainly not unpleasant, but really, she had far more urgent things to deal with. And he had been dreadfully forward…

  But it was a dream, not real, and she couldn’t decide whether that made his attentions more or less acceptable.

  She sat there a moment longer, trying to forget about Kelder and concentrate on preparing a final iteration to contact Adagan. Finally she said, “Oh, to the Void with it. It’s late and I’m tired and I’m not even sure it’s his real name. I’ll go down there in the morning.”

  “We go together?” the spriggan asked.

  “Ask me in the morning,” Kilisha said as she got to her feet and headed for the stairs.

  She slept later than she had intended, and rushed through her breakfast. As she ate she tried to plan out the rest of the morning. Should she talk to Adagan first, then come back and get herself ready, or should she make her own preparations and then stop at Adagan’s shop on the way?

  Adagan, she decided, might have his own preparations to make. She would talk to him first.

  She had just decided this when Yara asked her, “Did you reach everyone last night?”

  “I talked to Kelder,” she said, “and I sent Opir a message. I didn’t get to Adagan.”

  “I’ll send Telleth, then,” Yara replied—and that, Kilisha saw, was the best solution all around.

  When she had finished eating she went to the workshop, and as she began gathering supplies she heard the rear door slam as Telleth left on his errand.

  Her athame was in the sheath on her belt, but everything else she needed would have to go in her belt-pouch. She took a quick inventory of the little leather container.

  There were the three potions she had prepared, with their smudged labels. She frowned, pulled them out, and found a pen, planning to make new labels.

  Then she paused. Each vial held seven doses, all she had of each spell. What if one of them were to be spilled? She wanted to plan for every eventuality, for once. Maybe there was such a thing as being too cautious—but then she glanced over her shoulder at Ithanalin, crouching in the corner.

  Things could go wrong. Things often did go wrong. Best to be ready when they did.

  Accordingly, she found three more vials, smaller ones, and wrote new labels for them: STRENGTH, V’S LEV., T’s LEV. Then she poured part of the contents of each of the original vials into the appropriate new container, so that she had, as best she could tell, four doses of each spell in the old vials and three of each in the new. She capped them all securely, wrapped them in a soft cloth, and tucked them back in the pouch.

  Her vial of brimstone, useful for Thrindle’s Combustion, was almost empty; she refilled it.

  The tiny bottle of dragon’s blood was still in its place; she debated adding more, but decided against it, as Ithanalin’s supply was limited—and really, there was no point in taking the ingredients for any spell that required more than a few heartbeats to prepare, and the only really quick spell she knew that needed dragon’s blood was Fendel’s Spectacular Illusion. She could imagine how that might pos
sibly be useful once, but not how repeating it could help.

  There were a few fast spells that called for nothing more than a pinch of dust, and the bottom of the pouch looked a little too clean, so she quickly wiped a handful of powder and fluff from the tops of a row of jars, then poured it into the pouch.

  The bit of chrysolite she kept ready for conjuring the Yellow Cloud was still in its rag wrapping, where it belonged.

  That was everything in the pouch; she looked over the shelves above the workbench, trying to decide what to add—and trying to ignore the brown goo in the brass bowl atop the oil lamp. She had been refilling that lamp faithfully ever since Ithanalin’s accident, and the stuff in the bowl had cooked down from a liquid to an ugly paste that was now starting to dry out and crack; she hoped that wouldn’t do anything terrible to whatever magic it might hold—if it held any, and wasn’t just a forbidden sauce or gravy.

  She spotted the big earthenware jar where the entire family stored any spiders they were able to catch and crush. There were at least two handy spells that called for powdered spider and took no more than half a minute, so she added an envelope of that, and then took a mummified bat’s wing from the drawer and tucked that in, in case she wanted to use the Spell of Stupefaction.

  If the couch wasn’t feeling cooperative the Spell of Stupefaction might be very helpful. In fact, putting the Spell of Stupefaction in a potion, instead of Tracel’s Levitation, might have been clever, but she hadn’t thought of it at the time and it was too late now.

  And of course, she couldn’t really be sure it would work on something that was animated, but not truly alive.

  The Displaced Whistle might be useful as a distraction, and she started to reach for the required curly seashell, but then she remembered that it also called for a fresh-plucked blade of grass. She could hardly hope to find grass growing inside the Fortress. She left the seashell where it was, and looked around thoughtfully.

  Ash might be useful; the Polychrome Smoke used ash. Usually she assumed that she would be able to find that readily wherever she went, but perhaps the overlord’s hearth was cleaned regularly—especially since it was still summer, and not yet chilly enough to really need a fire even at night. She made a quick trip to the kitchen and returned with a vial of fine grey powder from the stove.