At the creator’s end, the Eye occupied an onyx ring the size of the circle made by the tips of his thumb and forefinger set together, and at the far end it manifested as a fuzzy loop floating in air. His initial attempts to control it resulted in wild oscillations of the view from the forest to the river to the sky. Soon, though, he learned to hold it steady no matter how quickly he moved it, and to adjust distance and direction with delicate precision. In most places, the smoky loop appeared to go unnoticed. Certainly, when he practiced spying on Boreal Verge, neither his father nor Fluvio paid it any attention.
Bosk led Turjan to believe that homesickness was his motive for generating the Eye, but his true goal was the hall of Chun the Unavoidable. He had little trouble locating the ruins north of Kaiin, and the hall, the only undamaged structure there, was easy enough to identify. He circumnavigated the exterior, watching for Chun to emerge, and when twice he glimpsed the creature from afar, he immediately terminated the spell, each time allowing some days to pass before taking up his vigil again. When the singularly grotesque Chun, wearing a cape studded with golden-irised eyeballs, came forth a third time, Bosk observed him recede beyond the city before attempting to slide the Eye inside.
The hall was a surprisingly spare dwelling, with a few pillars supporting the roof and walls as pale and blank as alabaster. There was no couch, no hearth, no curio cabinet; its sole furnishing was a small, round table set in an alcove opposite the entrance. Upon the table rested a graceful tourmaline vase, green below and magenta above. But there was no golden thread wrapped about its slender neck.
Sharply disappointed, Bosk searched the hall again, to no avail.
At supper that night, Turjan looked so long and so silently at Bosk that the boy squirmed in his chair. “Have I done something wrong, sir?”
“I received a visitor this afternoon,” said Turjan.
Bosk waited, both curious and apprehensive.
“I believe you know something of him. Chun the Unavoidable.”
Bosk stopped breathing.
“He asked that you leave off spying on him. He said it in stronger terms, but that is the gist. We spoke of Chun when you first arrived, and now I realize that I did not sufficiently warn you against him. Fortunately, you are safe within these walls. However, he did require payment for his discomfiture. Breathe, boy, else you’ll fall over in a faint.”
Bosk gulped air. “Sir…do you intend to dismiss me?”
“We all do foolish things occasionally. We can hope none of them cost us more than a vat-grown golden eye.” One side of his mouth quirked. “It seemed an appropriate exchange for your use of that other Eye.”
“Then…you don’t intend to dismiss me?”
Turjan leaned back in his chair. “On the contrary, I am pleased you were able to use the Eye so well. Therefore, this is not such a negative as you might think. Now, what were you seeking at Chun’s hall”
“Nothing,” said Bosk. “It was simply experimentation.”
Turjan sighed. “It is early in your apprenticeship to lie to your master. Subterfuge, I expect.” He glanced at his daughter, who immediately looked down at her plate. “But outright lying is a poor basis for a master-student alliance.”
Bosk straightened his back. “Sir, I was seeking a golden thread ripped from a tapestry.”
“Ah. Lith.”
Bosk nodded. “But he did not seem to have it.”
“I believe I suggested that Lith was a lady to be avoided.”
“I owe her my life, sir. I would prefer not to remain in her debt.”
“Or perhaps she saved you in order to establish that debt?”
Bosk turned that over in his mind, and he did not find it an outrageous suggestion. Even so, he could not forget the sadness in Lith’s eyes as she spoke of Ariventa. “At any rate,” he murmured,” I don’t know what else I can do for her. Unless Chun can be persuaded to reveal its location, the thread is gone.” He gazed at Turjan hopefully. “Perhaps another golden eye?”
“I would prefer not to deal with Chun again, young Bosk.”
“The Twk will know where the thread is,” said Rianna.
Bosk turned to her.
“You’ll have to pay them, of course.”
The boy looked back at Turjan. “You know the things they covet. I will repay you, I swear it.”
“This is your endeavor, young Bosk,” said Turjan. “Continue your studies. Perhaps someday you will find a way to achieve your desire.”
“Perhaps,” said Bosk, but he felt helpless.
He thought of Lith that night, as he had on many a night. But recalling the fear he had felt at the possibility of dismissal, he also thought of his own home. Would they have welcomed him back, as Turjan once assured him, or was his father as glad as Fluvio to be rid of him? As the ageing sun was just beginning to illuminate his bedchamber, he decided to send the Insinuating Eye to Boreal Verge, perhaps to find some evidence one way or the other. Morning twilight showed his old room just as he had left it; not even dust had accumulated, as if the place were being held in readiness for his return. For a moment, that made him feel better; then he realized that the servants would never allow any part of the manse to become dusty.
He did feel the touch of homesickness then. The memories of his childhood were in that room—a handful of green serpentine pebbles, collected on his first journey to the mines, a few fragile bird skulls, found under a shrub on the estate, a cup he had molded from clay and fired in a makeshift kiln. The cup was blackened and cracked, remnant of the flames that had spread from the kiln and destroyed the outbuilding he had been using as his workshop. His father had not been happy about that.
He shifted the Eye close to the pebbles. He wished now he had taken one with him. Such a small thing, it would have fit easily in his pocket. Through the Eye, it seemed close enough to touch. With the tip of one finger, he tapped at the space within the onyx ring, expecting some sort of resistance, but there was none. He pressed his finger into it, and when he withdrew, the finger seemed unharmed, and so he pushed more boldly, trying to touch the pebbles, but they were farther away than they seemed. He pulled out his knife and slipped it through the ring, but the point fell short. He ran downstairs to the kitchen, where a sleepy cook was just beginning to prepare rolls for the morning meal and had no objection to lending him a pair of kitchen tongs and a skewer the length of a sword. Both fit through the ring, but only the skewer could reach the pebbles, and it was so difficult to control that it knocked several to the floor. He pulled it back, wondering if he could fasten a pouch to its tip or daub it with some sort of glue. Neither notion seemed likely to work. He could think of only one other possibility.
He propped the onyx ring against his pillow and slid his copy of the Second Evolution of Mazirian’s Diminution into his pocket. Then he shrank himself to doll size and stepped through the ring. He only had to dip his head slightly to fit.
That single step revealed a tunnel, cool and dark, with walls slick as polished metal. The far end was no longer the clear view of his old room that had been visible to full-size Bosk; rather, it was merely a speck of light in the far distance. He moved toward it, hands braced against the walls, the curved floor making for uncertain footing in the darkness. The speck expanded slowly, and after a time he could discern a blur of green within it, which he guessed must be the pebbles. He walked faster and finally began to run. The light loomed, and he emerged from the tunnel and fell headlong over one of the pebbles, boulder-size to his shrunken self. He clutched at it, the breath knocked out of him. The pebble had not moved at the impact, and he realized that he did not have the strength to transport any of the stones back to Miir. But he did not care. He felt triumphant at merely making the journey. He was a true sorcerer now. He pulled himself up to sit on the pebble and contemplate his old room grown huge.
A soft noise startled him. It might have been the door opening, perhaps a servant coming in to clean. He did not wait to find out. He turned to the faint gray r
ing of the Eye, dived into it, and ran. He stumbled a few times on the curve of the tunnel floor, and once his head grazed the ceiling, but he managed to reach Miir. Leaning against the pillow, he reached into his pocket for the Second Evolution.
It was gone.
He thought it must have fallen in the tunnel or among the pebbles at Boreal Verge, a speck of paper that no one would ever notice. He was not greatly concerned, though, for the spell was clear in his memory. He spoke it.
Nothing happened.
He tried several more times before admitting to himself that he truly needed the written version. With a sigh, he pushed the onyx ring under the pillow and settled himself over it, hoping that Rianna would be the one to find him. He was disappointed in that. Turjan himself read the Fourth Evolution from the book of spells and restored him to his normal size.
“These are difficult spells,” Turjan said, closing the book. “Even the greatest of us have some difficulty maintaining more than three or four of them in our memories at any one time. You are fresh at the lore to recall even two.”
“Which is why I wrote down the Second Evolution.”
“Perhaps you should have inked it on your arm instead of on paper.”
Bosk brightened. “I’ll do that next time.”
Turjan laughed. “As you wish, young Bosk. Then you’ll have no trouble restoring yourself at either end of the Eye.” At Bosk’s wary expression, he added, “Oh come now—don’t you think I know every instance of sorcery within these walls? Now, if you intend to range so far at the size of a caterpillar, you should know another spell to keep you safe. I would not wish to tell your father that a house cat ate his son.”
Bosk swallowed hard.
For the rest of the day, he and Turjan were cloistered in the anteroom to Turjan’s own quarters while Bosk learned the spell of the Omnipotent Sphere. When he was certain he had it, Turjan tested him again and again. In the end, Bosk did write it on his arm in indelible ink.
“Write it and rewrite it,” said Turjan. “Until you have it so committed to memory that you will never forget it.”
Bosk nodded.
“We will repeat the test from time to time.”
Bosk nodded again.
“Now go ask the Twk where your golden thread can be found.”
“But sir, I have nothing with which to pay them.”
Turjan smiled at him. “Are you so sure of that?”
Bosk raised his hands in perplexity.
“Well, young Bosk, perhaps it will help you to know that the Twk are very fond of mushrooms.”
“But I have none,” said Bosk.
“Indeed? What a shame.”
And then it was time for dinner, which included no mushrooms at all.
In his bedchamber that night, Bosk searched through his panniers, but as he had thought, his mushrooms had all been used up in the journey to Ascolais. He climbed into bed, and when he slid his hand beneath the pillow to tuck it against his cheek, there was the onyx ring of the Insinuating Eye.
And he realized that mushrooms, even fresh ones, weighed far less than pebbles.
With the dawn, he was in the cold pantry of Boreal Verge, where the family’s private stock of fresh mushrooms was kept. He could only carry one at a time, and so he made half a dozen trips from there to his bedchamber at Miir.
At the morning meal, he asked how one of the Twk could be summoned.
“They visit when it suits them,” T’sain said. “They answer no one’s call.”
“Then I must go to them,” said Bosk. “Can someone give me directions for the journey?” He looked to Turjan.
Turjan glanced at Rianna.
“I’ve been to Twk town,” she admitted.
In the library, she drew a map. The Twk lived in the forest, with no signposts showing the way, but there was an unmistakable pattern of boulders and trees leading to them, with the largest tree of all the destination. “If you stand below and call for Dandanflores, he will come,” she said. “Tell him you’re there at Rianna’s request.”
That afternoon, in his bedchamber, he guided the Eye to the Twk town, a cluster of perhaps a hundred hollowed-out gourds set high in the branches of that enormous tree. For a time, he watched the Twk and their dragonfly mounts ferrying goods to homes that were as large to them as his room was to him. He peeked inside a few gourds and found Twk families gathered at tiny tables and chairs, searching in tiny chests and cabinets, or napping in silky hammocks, each no larger than the finger of a glove. Seeing them so, he could well understand Rianna’s wish for Twk to live in her doll house.
He set the far end of the Eye near the round entrance of one of the larger gourds, shrank himself to Twk size, and perched at the terminus of the tunnel, legs dangling over the edge of the smoky ring. Presently, a dragonfly emerged from the gourd and hovered beside him, and the draft from its wings was strong enough to make him hold tight to his seat. At his size, the rider’s voice seemed deep as any human’s.
“Who are you,” said the Twk-man.
“Rianna sent me. I am Bosk, and I seek Dandanflores.”
The dragonfly darted away. Shortly, another rider arrived. “I remember you,” he said. “You were formerly larger.”
“It’s Rianna’s spell,” said Bosk.
“Oh, has she put you in her doll house?”
“I have visited it.”
“A vile place,” said the Twk chieftain. “No Twk would consent to inhabit it.”
“So I understand. But I have not come to ask it of you. Rather, I seek information.”
“Many do. And what do you have to offer in exchange?”
“I am Bosk Septentrion. Perhaps you have heard of my family.”
“I have,” said the Twk-man.
Bosk leaned back into the tunnel and brought forth a mushroom larger than his head. “This is an excellent example of our wares,” he said, “and fresh, not dried, with all the nuances of its flavor intact. Steamed, sautéed, or even raw dipped in mustard sauce, it makes a royal dish. It is my gift to the chieftain of the Twk.” He held it out. “I have others to offer if you and I can strike a bargain.”
Dandanflores curved an arm around the mushroom, pinched off a fragment, and popped it into his mouth. He chewed it with a thoughtful expression. After a moment, he said, “Now what could a creature who emerges from nothingness and sits on its edge want from me?”
“The location of a certain golden thread,” said Bosk, “formerly in the possession of Chun the Unavoidable but the property of one Lith, a witch with golden hair and eyes.”
“Oh, that,” said Dandanflores.
Bosk nodded. “I seek to return it to the lady.”
The Twk-man shifted the mushroom to a net behind his left hip. “The thread changed hands in most equitable fashion.”
“Yet it was stolen property.”
“The new owner did not steal it. That fault was Chun’s.”
“If the new owner will not surrender it for the sake of conscience, then I will buy it. To whom shall I make the offer?”
The Twk chieftain cocked his head to one side. “Let us discuss the situation in more detail. My home is nearby, and my steed is strong enough to carry two.”
The chieftain’s home was one of the larger gourds. Within, it was like the other Twk dwellings, the space illuminated by windows cut in the walls and partitioned by shelf-like platforms that held the furniture. A Twk-woman and several children were there. Dandanflores and Bosk dismounted from the dragonfly at the lowest platform and climbed several ladders to the uppermost. From there, the family’s sleeping quarters were within easy reach, a hammock for each suspended from the rounded ceiling, loosely woven of thick fibers and padded with dandelion fluff. The largest hammock was trimmed with spiral-wound golden rope.
“It’s handsome, is it not?” said the Twk chieftain
Bosk made no reply. He knew what he was looking at.
“Part of my bargain with Chun was that I would never return the thread to L
ith. So you can see my dilemma.”
“I am not Lith,” said Bosk. “In fact, the thread has so struck my fancy that I would prefer to keep it for myself. It would make a handsome ornament for my hat.”
“You wear no hat,” observed the Twk-man.
“That can be remedied. What will you exchange for the thread?”
Dandanflores contemplated the hammock. “I am reluctant to part with it.”
“I can offer a large quantity of fresh mushrooms of many varieties.”
“Yet how many mushrooms could my family consume before they spoiled?”
“There could be an ongoing supply over a period of weeks or months.”
“Even so. After a time they would surely pall.”
Bosk had to admit that he understood the complaint. In his memory, he could see his father at the dining table, happily eating his own mushrooms and urging his sons to eat theirs. He wondered if his father had been told of the missing mushrooms. Probably no one had noticed, they were so few. An ongoing supply, though, would have been more obvious, and some servant at Boreal Verge would have been blamed for the theft. Bosk felt suddenly guilty for having no way to pay for the mushrooms he had so blithely offered. Sorcerer or no, he was still a merchant’s son and he had not been raised to cheat the family.
And then, the merchant’s son truly awoke in him. The Twk, small enough to live in Rianna’s doll house, were small enough to pass through the Insinuating Eye.
“I have a proposition for you,” he said, and he outlined a partnership between the house of Septentrion and the Twk-folk. With the Eye as their highway, the Twk would convey fresh mushrooms from the north to the city of Kaiin, where Bosk would purvey them to the jaded appetites of the rich. The Twk would receive a commission for their labors, Bosk would take one for his enterprise, and the Septentrion family would profit from a previously nonexistent commerce.
Dandanflores looked dubious.
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