by Larry Niven
“No money?”
“Coins in a belt. He never took it off. There wasn’t much in it…not enough, anyway.”
Bayram Ali scowled. “Very intelligent of you, dear. Still, a pity. He left this for you.” He tucked two fingers into his wide cummerbund and fished out a pair of silver coins. “Perhaps you’ve found a new calling. One for you and one for me, hmm?”
Sparthera smiled, letting her strong, even white teeth show. “And how much did he pay you last night?”
“Six pieces of silver,” Bayram Ali said happily.
“You sold me so cheaply? You’re a liar and your mother was insulted on a garbage heap.”
“Well. He offered six. We settled for eight.”
“Four for you, four for me, hmm?”
He looked pained. Sparthera took her five pieces of silver, winked, and departed, wondering what Sung Ko Ja had really paid. That was part of the fun of bargaining: wondering who had cheated whom.
But this time Sparthera had the pointer.
On a bald hill east of the village, Sparthera took the bronze teardrop from her sleeve, along with a needle and the cork from one of Sung Ko Ja’s bottles of wine. She pushed the base of the needle into the cork, set it down, and balanced the pointer on the needle. “Pointer! Pointer, show me the way to Gar’s treasure!” she whispered to it, and nudged it into a spin.
Three times she spun it and marked where it stopped, pointing north, and northwest, and east.
She tried holding it in her hand, turning in a circle with her eyes closed, trying to feel a tug. She tried balancing it on her own fingernail. She studied the runes, but they meant nothing to her. After two hours she was screaming curses like a Euphrates fishwife. It didn’t respond to that either.
Sitting on the bare dusty ground with her chin in her hands and the pointer lying in the dirt in front of her, Sparthera felt almost betrayed. So close! She was so close to wealth that she could almost hear the tinkle of golden coins. She needed advice, and the one person who might help her was one she had vowed never to see again.
A faint smile crossed her face as she remembered screaming at him, throwing his bags and gear out of the tiny hut they had shared, swearing by the hair on her head that she’d die and rot in hell before she ever went near him again. That damned tinker! Pot-mender, amateur spell-caster, womanizer: his real magic was in his tongue. She’d left her home and family to follow him, and all of his promises had been so much air.
She’d heard that he lived up in the hills now, that he called himself Shubar Khan and practiced magic to earn a living. If he cast spells the way he mended pans, she thought sourly, he wouldn’t be of much use to her. But perhaps he’d learned something…and there wasn’t anyone else she could go to. She stood up, dusted herself off, and bent to pick up the bronze teardrop.
The sky was clouding over and the scent of rain was in the air. It matched her dismal mood.
What about her vow? It had been a general oath, not bound by a particular god, but she had meant it with all her heart. Sometimes vows like that were the most dangerous, for who knew what wandering elemental might be listening? She leaned against Twilight, smoothing his tangled mane and staring out over his back at the rolling foothills and the mountains beyond. Life was too dear and Gar’s treasure too important to risk either on a broken vow. She took her knife from its sheath and started to hack at her own long tawny hair.
Shubar Khan’s house, hardly more than a hut, was both small and dirty. Sparthera reined her horse to a halt before the door. She looked distastefully at a hog carcass lying in the center of a diagram scratched in the hard dry ground.
She had sworn never to speak his name, but that name was Tashubar. She called, “Shubar Khan! Come out, Shubar Khan!” She peered into the dark doorway. A faint odor of burning fat was the only sign of habitation.
“Who calls Shubar Khan?” A man appeared in the doorway and blinked out at her. Sparthera swung herself down from Twilight’s back and lifted her chin a little arrogantly, staring at him.
“Sparthera?” He rubbed the side of his face and laughed dryly. “Oh-ho. The last time we saw one another you threw things at me. I think I still have a scar somewhere. You wouldn’t care to see it, would you? Ah, well, I thought not.”
He cocked his head to one side and nodded. “You’re still beautiful. Just like you were when I found you in that haystack. Heh, heh, heh. I like you better with hair, though. What happened to it?”
“I swore an oath,” she said shortly, wondering a little at what passing time could do to a man. He had been a good thirty years old to her fourteen when they met. Now she was twenty-six, and he was potbellied and sweaty, with a red face and thinning hair and lecherous little eyes. He wore felt slippers with toes that turned up, and five layers of brightly striped woolen robes. He scratched now and then, absentmindedly.
But he still had the big, knowing hands and strong shoulders that sloped up into his neck, and hadn’t he always scratched? And he’d never been thin, and his eyes couldn’t have shrunk. The change was in her. Suddenly she hungered to get the matter over with and leave Shubar Khan to the past, where he belonged.
“I’ve come on business. I want you to fix something for me.” She held out the piece of bronze. “It’s supposed to be a pointer, but it doesn’t work.”
A small dirty hand reached out for the pointer. “I can fix that!”
Sparthera spun around, reaching for her knife.
“My apprentice,” Shubar Khan explained. “How would you fix it, boy?”
“There’s a storm coming up.” The boy, hardly more than twelve, looked at his master with sparkling eyes. “I can climb a tree and tie the thing to a branch high up. When the lightning strikes—”
“You short-eared offspring of a spavined goat!” Shu-bar bellowed at him. “That would only make it point to the pole star if it didn’t melt first, and if it were iron instead of bronze! Bah!”
The boy cringed back into the gloom of the hut, which was filled with dry bones, aborted sheep fetuses, and pig bladders stuffed with odd ointments. There was even a two-inch-long unicorn horn prominently displayed on a small silk pillow.
Shubar Khan peered at the silver runes. He mumbled under his breath, at length. Was he reading them? “Old Sorcerer’s Guild language,” he said, “with some mistakes. What is it supposed to point at?”
“I don’t know,” Sparthera lied. “Something buried, I think.”
Shubar Khan unrolled one of the scrolls, weighted it open with a couple of bones, and began to read in a musical foreign tongue. Presently he stopped. “Nothing. Whatever spell was on it, it seems as dead as the gods.”
“Curse my luck and your skill! Can’t you do anything?”
“I can put a contagion spell on it for two pieces of silver.” He looked her up and down and grinned. “Or anything else of equal or greater value.”
“I’ll give you the coins,” Sparthera said shortly. “What will the spell do?”
Shubar Khan laughed until his paunch shook. “Not even for old time’s sake? What a pity. As to the spell, it will make this thing seek whatever it was once bound to. We’re probably lucky the original spell wore off. A contagion spell is almost easy.”
Sparthera handed over the money. Gar’s treasure had already cost her far too much. Shubar Khan ushered her and his apprentice—loaded down with phials, a pair of scrolls, firewood, and a small caldron—to a steep crag nearby.
“Why do we have to come out here?” Sparthera asked.
“We’re just being cautious,” Shubar Khan said soothingly. He set up the caldron, emptied a few things into it, lit the fire the apprentice had set, and handed the apprentice the bronze teardrop and one of the scrolls. “When the caldron smokes, just read this passage out loud. And remember to enunciate,” he said as he grabbed Sparthera’s arm and sprinted down the hill.
Sparthera looked uphill at the boy, “This is dangerous, isn’t it? How dangerous?”
“I don’t know. The
original spell isn’t working, but there may be some power left in it, and there’s no telling what it may do. That’s why magicians have apprentices.”
They could hear the boy chanting in his childish treble, speaking gibberish, but rolling his R’s and practically spitting the P’s. The clouds that had been gathering overhead took on a harsh, ominous quality. The wind came up and the trees whipped and showered leaves on the ground.
A crack of lightning cast the entire landscape into ghastly brightness. Shubar Khan dived to the ground. Sparthera winced and then strained her eyes into the suddenly smoky air. There was no sign of the boy. Thunder rolled deafeningly across the sky.
Sparthera ran up the hill, heart thumping. The top of the crag was scorched and blackened. The iron caldron was no more than a twisted blob of metal.
“Ooohhh!”
Shubar Khan’s apprentice pulled himself to his feet and looked at her with huge eyes. His face was smudged, his hair scorched, and his clothing still smoldered. He held out a blackened fist with the bronze piece in it.
“Did, did…did it work?” he asked in a frightened croak.
Shubar Khan retrieved the pointer and laid it on his palm. It slowly rotated to the right and stopped. He grinned broadly and patted the boy heartily on the shoulder.
“Excellent! We’ll make a magician of you yet!” He turned to Sparthera and presented the pointer to her with a bow.
She tucked it inside her tunic. “Thank you,” she said, feeling a little awkward.
Shubar Khan waved a muscular red hand. “Always pleased to be of service. Spells, enchantments, and glamours at reasonable rates. Maybe someday I can interest you in a love philter.”
Sparthera rode back down the mountain trail with the bronze teardrop tucked in her tunic, feeling its weight between her breasts like the touch of a lover’s hand. Just above Tarseny’s Rest she reined up to watch a small herd of gazelle bound across a nearby hill. Someday she would build a house on that hill. Someday, when she had Gar’s treasure, she would build a big house with many rooms and many fireplaces. She would have thick rugs and fine furniture, and there would be servants in white tunics embroidered with red leaves.
She spurred her horse to the crest of the hill. Down below were the river and the town, and across the valley were more hills, leading away to distant mountains.
“I’m going to be rich!” she yelled. “Rich!”
The echoes boomed back—“Rich, rich, rich!”—until they finally whimpered into silence. Twilight nickered and pulled at his reins. Sparthera laughed. She would have many horses when she was rich. Horses and cattle and swine.
She could almost see the hoard trickling through her fingers in a cascade of gold and rainbow colors. Money for the house and the animals and a dowry.
The dowry would buy her a husband: a fine, respectable merchant who would give her fat, beautiful children to inherit the house and the animals. Sparthera took a last lingering look at the countryside before she swung herself back into the saddle. First, find the treasure!
She cantered back into town, put Twilight into the stable behind the lodging house, and went to her room. It was a tiny cubicle with a pallet of cotton-covered straw and some blankets against one wall. Rough colorful embroideries hung on the wattle-and-daub walls: relics of the days at home on her father’s farm. Another embroidery was thrown across a large wooden chest painted with flying birds, and a three-legged chair with flowers stenciled on the back stood in one corner.
Sparthera uncovered the chest and threw open the lid. It was packed with odds and ends—relics of her childhood—and down at the bottom was a small pouch with her savings in it.
She opened the pouch and counted the coins slowly, frowning. The search might take weeks or months. She would need provisions, extra clothes, and a pack animal to carry them. There wasn’t enough there.
She would have to borrow or beg an animal from her family. She grimaced at the thought, but she had little choice.
It was a four-hour ride to her father’s farm. Her mother was out in the barnyard, feeding the chickens, when she rode in. The elder woman looked at her with what might have been resignation.
“Run out of money and come home again, have you?”
“Not this time,” Sparthera said, dismounting and placing a dutiful kiss on her mother’s cheek. “I need a horse or an ass. I thought maybe Father had one I could borrow.”
Her mother looked at her distastefully. “Always you dress like a man. No wonder no decent man ever looks at you. Why don’t you give up all those drunkards you hang around with? Why don’t you…”
“Mother, I need a horse.”
“You’ve got a horse. You don’t need another horse.”
“Mother, I’m going on a trip and I need a pack horse.” Sparthera’s eyes lit with suppressed excitement. “When I come back, I’ll be rich!”
“Humph. That’s what you said when you ran off with that no-good pot-mender. If your father were here, he’d give you rich all right! You’re lucky he’s in the mountains for a week. I don’t know about horses. Ask Bruk. He’s in the barn.”
Her mother tossed another handful of grain to the chickens, and Sparthera started across the dusty barnyard.
“And get yourself some decent clothes!”
Sparthera sighed and kept moving. Her next-older brother was in the loft, restacking sheaves of last season’s wheat.
“Bruk? Have you got an extra horse?”
He looked down at her, squinting into the light from the open barn door. “Sparthera? You haven’t been here for two months. Did you run out of pockets to pick, or just out of men?”
She grinned. “No more than you ever run out of women. Are you still rolling Mikka in her father’s hayricks?”
He climbed down from the loft, looking a little glum. “Her father caught us at it twelve days ago, and now I’ve got to trade the rick for a marriage bed and everything that goes with it.” He was a big man, well muscled, with a shock of corn-colored hair, dark eyes, and full, sensuous lips. “Lost your hair, I see. Well, they say that comes of not enough candlewick. Find yourself a man and we’ll make it a double celebration.”
Sparthera leaned against a stall and laughed heartily. “Caught at last! Well, it won’t do you any harm, and beds aren’t as itchy as piles of hay. You ought to be glad. Once you’ve married, you’ll be safe from all the other outraged fathers.”
“Will I, though? They may just come after me with barrel staves. And I hate to cut short a promising career. Oh, the youngest daughter of the family in the hollow has grown up to be—”
“Enough, Bruk. I need a horse. Have you got an extra one?”
He shook his head. “Twilight pulled up lame, did he?”
“No. I’m planning a trip and I need a pack animal.”
Bruk scratched his head. “Can’t you buy one in town? There are always horse dealers in the market square.”
“I know too many people in Tarseny’s Rest. I don’t want them to know I’m taking this trip. Besides,” she added candidly, “I don’t have enough money.”
“What are you up to, little sister? Murder, pillage, or simple theft?”
“Oh, Bruk, it’s the chance to make a fortune! A chance to be rich!”
He shook his head disgustedly. “Not again. Remember that crockery merchant? And the rug dealer? And that tink—”
“This time it’s different!”
“Oh, sure. Anyway, we haven’t got a horse. Why don’t you steal one?”
This time it was Sparthera’s turn to look disgusted. “You can’t just steal a horse on the spur of the moment. It’s not like a pair of shoes, you know. You have to do a little planning and I don’t have the time. You’d never make a decent thief! You’d just walk in, grab it by the tail, and try to walk out.” She pulled at her lower lip. “Now what am I going to do?”
They both stood there, thinking. Bruk finally broke the silence. “Well, if you only want it to carry a pack, you might make do with
a wild ass. They break to a packsaddle pretty easy. There are some up in the foothills. I’ll even help you catch one.”
“I guess it’s worth a try.”
Bruk found a halter and a long rope and led the way across the cultivated fields and up into the hills. The landscape was scrubby underbrush dotted with small stands of trees. There were knolls of rock, and one small stream that ran cackling down the slope.
Bruk stopped to study a pattern of tracks. “That’ll be one…Spends a lot of time here, too…Yup, I’ll bet it hides over in that copse. You go left and I’ll go right. We’ll get it when it comes out of the trees.”
They circled cautiously toward a promising stand of small trees. Sure enough, Sparthera could hear something moving within the grove, and even caught a glimpse of brownish hide. A branch cracked under Bruk’s boot, something brown exploded from the cover of the brush, and Bruk yelled, swinging the loop of his rope.
“Get the halter! Watch out for its hooves. Yeow, oooof!”
The animal whirled, bounced like a goat on its small sturdy legs, and managed to butt Bruk in the middle. Bruk sat down heavily while Sparthera made a frantic grab for the trailing end of the rope.
The little animal, frantically trying to dodge her groping hands, was braying, whinnying, and making occasional high-pitched whistling noises. It was the size of a small pony and had a long, silky mane that almost dragged the ground. Its tail was thick, muscular, and held up at an angle. It had two ridiculous little feathery wings, about as long as Sparthera’s forearm, growing out of the tops of its shoulders.
Bruk staggered to his feet as Sparthera managed to catch and cling to the rope. He launched himself bodily at the beast, grabbed it around the neck, and threw it off balance. It fell heavily to one side, where it kicked its small feet and fluttered its tiny wings to the accompaniment of an incredible cacophony of hoots, whistles, and brays.
Sparthera clapped her hands over her ears and yelled. “That’s no wild ass! What on earth is it? Some sort of magic beast?”
Bruk was busily fitting his halter on their uncooperative captive. “I don’t know,” he panted. “I think it’s half ass and half nightmare. If a sorcerer dreamed it up, he must have been drunk.”