Taking Flight (Ethshar)

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Have a drink,” he said.

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  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  For much of the next morning the Forest of Amramion was visible off to their left, and Ezdral, once he had sobered up sufficiently to focus, marveled at it. He hadn't seen a forest in over a decade.

  The guards at the border post between Amramion and Hlimora waved a greeting to Irith, but made no attempt to hinder the party.

  Irith had been quiet ever since returning from Abden the Elder's house, and didn't return the guard's greeting. She had given no details of her encounter with Asha's father, but had merely said that the message was delivered.

  Shortly after crossing the border into Hlimora, though, she burst out, “Asha, how could you live there?”

  Asha looked up, startled but silent.

  “She couldn't,” Kelder said quietly. “That's why she's here.”

  “It stank," Irith said. “The whole place, and it was filthy, and the house was practically falling down, and one shed had fallen down. And your ... that man was drunk and singing to himself, and when he saw me he ... When I gave him the message and told him his son was dead he started crying, and that wasn't so bad, I expected that, but then he started complaining about how there was no one to help him, and you'd run off, and when I told him you were all right he got angry and started swearing and saying all kinds of horrible things, and he tried to grab me, but I turned into a bird and flew away, and I heard him crying again as I left.” She shuddered. "My father was never like that.”

  Asha didn't say anything.

  Irith looked at Ezdral, and said angrily, “He was even worse than you were, when we found you!”

  Kelder expected for Ezdral to make some cutting reply, or to stand silently on his dignity, but instead the old man muttered, “I'm sorry, Irith; please don't be mad at me.”

  Kelder shuddered.

  Ezdral's subservience was appalling—but on the other hand, Irith seemed to be showing more compassion than was her wont. Kelder wondered if she might be learning something from Asha and Ezdral.

  He certainly hoped so.

  And his own presence might not hurt, either.

  They were two and a half hours from the border when Kelder stopped and looked closely at the hillside to their left.

  “What is it?” Asha asked.

  “This is where I first saw the Great Highway,” Kelder explained. “I slept on the slope there. And it's where I met Irith.”

  The Flyer nodded. “That's right,” she said. “I remember. At first I thought you were going to just turn around and go back to your farm in Shulara.”

  “I thought so, too,” Kelder admitted.

  It occurred to him that he could do that now—he could simply head south, up that hill and down the other side, and go back home to his family, and not worry about where his next meal was coming from, or Ezdral's love spell, or Asha's homelessness.

  He started to think about it. He turned to look at the others.

  He saw Irith's face and forgot the whole notion. She was obviously not yet ready to come with him and settle down to the life of a Shularan peasant, and he wasn't yet ready to give up on Zindre's predictions and go home without her.

  “Come on,” he said. “We've still got a long way to go.”

  They had scarcely covered another hundred yards when the turrets of Hlimora Castle came in sight. Kelder remembered how hungry he had been that morning—when was that, a sixnight ago? If he had known how close the castle was, he would never have turned east.

  And in that case, he might never have met Asha or Ezdral—but he might have met other people instead. There was simply no knowing what might have happened—not without magic, anyway.

  Zindre would have known, he supposed. She must have known that he would go east, as he had—or perhaps she hadn't known any details at all, just the generalities. Perhaps he had been fated to meet someone lost and forlorn, but exactly who had not been predetermined.

  The whole question of prophecy was an interesting one; despite his obsession with Zindre's predictions, he had never really thought about the mechanics before. Were all his actions predetermined? Some, but not others? If so, why?

  If everything he was to do was predetermined, then he didn't really have any control over his own life at all, and nothing he did or thought mattered. That was an unsettling notion.

  But if he did have control over some of it, then how could any of it be so certain that Zindre could predict it? That was certainly something to think about, and think about it he did, as the little party trudged onward.

  They reached Hlimora Castle perhaps two hours after noon, and the question then arose of whether to stay the night, or press on.

  “The next village is Urduron Town,” Irith said.

  “Well, how far is it?” Kelder asked.

  Irith pursed her lips, thinking. “I don't remember,” she admitted. “Three leagues, maybe?”

  Kelder considered this. “They say a man's normal walk will cover a league in an hour,” he said. “The sun won't be down for about four hours yet.”

  “Come on, then,” Irith said.

  Naturally, Ezdral agreed with her, and that made the vote three to one. Asha protested in vain.

  “Maybe you could be a horse for a little while, Irith?” she asked.

  Kelder expected her to hesitate, or refuse, but Irith simply said, “All right.” She vanished, to be instantaneously replaced by the white mare.

  Ezdral stared as Kelder helped Asha up onto Irith's back; he crept nearer, and reached out to touch the horse's flank.

  She shied away and whinnied unhappily; Asha grabbed at the mane to keep her balance.

  “Don't touch,” Kelder advised the old man.

  Ezdral didn't touch Irith again, but he stared intently.

  It was plain to Kelder that Ezdral's interest was more than just an appreciation of equine grace. At first he was puzzled by the old man's attitude; certainly Irith was a good-looking horse, but she was scarcely as attractive in this form as in human shape. For his own part, his physical interest in Irith vanished when she was in any shape but human.

  Then he remembered the love spell, and realized that it didn't distinguish on the basis of appearance—or, it seemed, even on the basis of species. Ezdral was still just as infatuated with Irith as ever, regardless of her shape. To him, in his enchanted state, the important change had not been that Irith was now a horse, but that she was now virtually naked.

  That added a whole new level of repulsiveness to the spell, in Kelder's opinion; he watched the old man lusting after the mare and felt nothing but revulsion. Even the pity he had felt for Ezdral was overwhelmed by distaste.

  He was more determined than ever to see the spell broken, though—not for Ezdral's sake, or Irith's, or because of his prophesied role, but just because it was disgusting and unnatural.

  They had gone too far to be worth turning back by the time Kelder and Irith realized that just because a man can walk a league in an hour, that doesn't mean a sick old man, a child, and a horse can walk three leagues in three hours. They had not allowed for rest breaks, or even the occasional call of nature; they had not allowed for Ezdral's unsteady shuffle, or the fact that the terrain here was hilly, the road carrying them up and down one slope after another.

  With Asha on Irith's back, the real hold-up was Ezdral's pace; he was simply not interested in moving quickly. Kelder and Asha could urge him on, but with little result; he would speed up for perhaps three or four steps, then slow again.

  He might have listened to Irith, but she was unable to speak while in equine form.

  Kelder tried to find a solution. The obvious one would be to put Ezdral on horseback, but that was out of the question. Irith, he was sure, wouldn't stand for two riders at once, especially not if one of them was the old man. Asha would be no faster on foot than was Ezdral—and besides, Kelder didn't want Ezdral any closer to Irith than absolutely neces
sary, under the circumstances; putting him astride her back was asking for trouble.

  Finally, though, he hit upon a much simpler and more satisfactory method of accelerating the pace; he simply whispered in Irith's ear to go a little faster and not worry about Ezdral keeping up.

  Ezdral gradually dropped back as the other three marched on unheeding, until finally he called out, "Hai! You're going too fast! Wait for me!”

  Kelder called back, “No; sorry, Ezdral, but we need to get to Urduron. If you can't keep up, you can find us there.”

  “Wait,” he puffed. “Irith!”

  Irith neighed, but did not slow down.

  Kelder glanced back every so often, and somehow, though Ezdral puffed and panted and struggled, he never fell back far enough to let Irith out of his sight.

  Kelder felt slightly guilty about exploiting the love spell in such a way—but only slightly. After all, they were bringing Ezdral along to cure him, for his own good—why let him slow them up?

  The distance to Urduron turned out to be somewhat more than three leagues; Kelder judged it at at least ten miles, possibly eleven, but unquestionably between three and four leagues. They finally arrived as the sun sank before them.

  Here, Irith had sufficient credit and good will to obtain acceptable room and board at an inn inexplicably called The Stone from the Sky—but only a small room, so small that Ezdral and Asha took the two tiny beds, Kelder slept on the floor, and Irith took the form of a cat and spent the entire night curled up on Asha's feet. A fourth human being would have been too much, but they didn't have the money for another room, and Irith's credit wasn't that good.

  The next day's travel was the four-league distance from Urduron to Ophera; they got an early start, and made no attempt to go any farther, but instead set about earning a little money in Ophera, to help defray expenses.

  Irith made a few aerial deliveries—primarily flying a packet of wizard's supplies back to Urduron, for which she was paid three bits in silver. She tried to demand more, but gave in when the Opheran wizard threatened to simply conjure up a sylph for the job instead.

  Kelder had to settle for coppers, but at least this time he avoided chopping wood, and instead spent a solid three hours weeding the gardens behind the inn Irith had chosen. That covered their room and board in full.

  Asha was too young to do any real work, but picked up two bits by watching babies while the mothers went about business.

  Ezdral insisted that he had looked for work and failed to find any; he contributed nothing to the common purse.

  Both wizards connected with Irith's errand, the sender in Ophera and the recipient in Urduron, knew love spells and countercharms; neither of them, however, admitted knowing a counter for Fendel's Infatuous Love Spell.

  “I don't care for Fendel's spells,” the Opheran remarked. “They're tricky, and usually much more powerful than they need to be. Oh, they're easy to work, but they don't always work the way you want. The man was trouble; I can spot one of his spells from the style, and they're all trouble.”

  Somehow, this did not surprise Kelder at all.

  He found himself thinking rather dismally about the ease with which Irith had flown, twice, the distance they had taken most of the day to cover on foot. It made walking seem vaguely futile.

  On the other hand, he realized suddenly, it was a sign of Irith's attachment to himself—and, he supposed, her attachment to Asha, and perhaps guilt about Ezdral's enchantment as well—that she was willing to walk all this way when she could fly.

  That was cheering. He had begun to wonder if he would ever be sufficiently sure of her affection to propose marriage, and this provided some encouragement.

  That night, despite half-hearted attempts by the others to prevent him from doing so, Ezdral downed three bottles of wine and had to be carried to the room. The only good aspect of his early retirement was that it meant that he got the floor, and Kelder got a bed; there were three cots this time, all narrow.

  The leg from Ophera to Krithimion was another relatively short one, and at breakfast Kelder suggested pressing on through Krithimion to Bugoa.

  “What's the hurry?” Irith protested. “Ethshar isn't going anywhere. It'll still be there if we take a few days longer to get to it.”

  Kelder pointed to the semi-conscious Ezdral, who was leaning against the dining room wall, mouth hanging open, bits of fried egg in his beard. “The sooner we get him there,” Kelder said, “the better.”

  “The way we're rushing isn't helping him any,” Irith replied. “His feet are all blistered—you shouldn't have done that, making him keep up with me the day before yesterday, when we were trying to reach Urduron.”

  “I'm sorry,” Kelder said, shamefaced.

  “Besides,” Irith persisted, “we haven't been checking all the wizards all that carefully, the way we just rush from one kingdom to the next—we might miss someone who knows the cure because of your rushing!”

  “I doubt it,” Kelder said, recovering some of his composure. “If you want good wizards, you need to go to Ethshar—that's what my grandmother always said.” He wondered for a moment whether the time might be ripe to mention the prophecies, with the mention of great cities, plural, but he decided against it.

  “Well, I'm not turning into a horse again, Kelder,” Irith said, lifting her chin.

  “Listen,” he suggested, “let's just get to Krithimion, and we'll see how we're doing, and maybe we'll go on, or maybe we'll stay a night there. All right?”

  Irith gave that a moment's thought, and then agreed. “All right,” she said.

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  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The town surrounding Krithimion Keep actually had a name of its own, to distinguish it from the kingdom it dominated; it was the town of Krithim, with no ending.

  Krithimionese, Irith explained as they neared the town, was a patois of Ethsharitic and Trader's Tongue; if there had ever been a distinct native tongue, which she doubted, it was now extinct, or perhaps spoken by a few stubborn farmers somewhere.

  “When I was a little girl,” Irith added, “people didn't have all these silly languages. There weren't half so many, and everybody knew Ethsharitic even if they didn't speak it at home.”

  “That must have been convenient,” Kelder acknowledged.

  Krithim was the largest community he had seen since leaving Shan on the Desert, and a closer match to his original expectations for the Great Highway than anywhere else he had yet visited. The king's castle stood almost half a mile to the south of the highway, and the entire distance from castle to highway appeared to be a network of streets and gardens and houses and shops. A few of the major avenues were even paved.

  The Great Highway itself was not paved, but it was lined with plank sidewalks, inns, taverns, brothels, and shops, and three broad flagstone boulevards connected it to a generous market square that lay one block to the south.

  An elaborate fountain occupied the center of the square, with a basin of red marble surrounding a white marble column topped by a statue of a woman pouring water from a jug, water that flowed endlessly. Smaller carvings of various sorts adorned the rim. Kelder was not accustomed to this sort of civic display.

  For a moment he wondered if Krithim constituted a “great city,” but despite the urban niceties he decided it was just a large town—or perhaps a small city, but not a great one.

  Children were running about the market in a vigorous game of tag, ducking out of each other's reach, dodging back and forth. One of them took a short-cut through the marble basin, splashing wildly, and Kelder shouted a protest, but no one else seemed to mind, and the boy ignored him, so he let it drop.

  Asha was watching the carefree game enviously; Ezdral was eyeing the wineshops. Kelder's own feet were sore; they were out of the hills now, but the road from Ophera had been rocky in places.

  “Oh, Hell,” he said, “I guess we'll stay here today and go on tomorrow.”

&
nbsp; Irith smiled radiantly at him.

  “Where's a good inn?” he asked.

  “There are a couple of good ones,” Irith said thoughtfully.

  “A cheap one,” Kelder suggested. “We still don't have much money.”

  “The Leaping Fish,” Irith declared.

  “The Leaping Fish?” Kelder asked dubiously. “Why would they name it that?”

  Irith shrugged. “I don't know,” she said, “but they did.”

  “Are we near the sea?”

  Irith giggled. “No, of course not!” she said. “It must be fifty miles to the sea from here!”

  “A lake, then, or a stream?”

  Irith shook her head. “They just call it that,” she said. “It's over that way, on the Street of Coopers.” She pointed to the west.

  Kelder nodded, and looked at the others.

  It seemed to him that they had all seen quite enough of each other for awhile. “Asha,” he said, “you go on and play, if you like, but be at the inn for supper. The Leaping Fish, it's called, over that way—if you can't find it ask someone for directions.”

  “All right, Kelder!” She ran off, and a moment later she was shouting and playing with the other children.

  Kelder looked at Irith and Ezdral.

  Ezdral was eyeing the wineshops—but he was also watching Irith. The love spell had as strong a hold as ever, and he wasn't going to leave her side, not even to get liquor. Kelder sighed, trying to think what he should do.

  Irith, however, had also seen the situation, and had her own solution. She vanished.

  “Irith!” Ezdral screamed, “Irith, come back!”

  People turned to stare at the green-clad old man, standing in the middle of the square, whirling about as if trying to look in every direction at once, groping madly with his arms outstretched, as if he were blind and searching for something.

  “Ezdral,” Kelder shouted, grabbing one flailing arm, “Ezdral, it's all right! She'll be back! She'll meet us tonight at supper, at the Leaping Fish!”