With A Single Spell

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Then, one night, at a most inconvenient time, one of the magical emergency alarms Derithon had set back in the real World had been triggered somehow — she didn’t know how, or what the alarm was, or how Derithon had known, since she had seen and heard nothing — and, assuring her that it was probably nothing and he’d be right back, or if it was serious he’d be right back to get her to safety, he had left. She had really not felt like going anywhere just then; neither had Derithon, but he had quickly thrown on a tunic and breeches and gone, all the same, leaving her alone in the castle.

  And that was the last time she had seen him — or for that matter, any human being but herself and Tobas — for what Tobas now told her was a few sixnights less than four hundred and fifty-nine years.

  “He tried to get back to you,” Tobas said when she began crying. “He was reaching for the tapestry when he died; that was how we found him.”

  She glared at him through her tears. “How could you have found him,” she demanded, “if he was dead four hundred years ago?”

  “We found his skeleton — at least, somebody’s skeleton, with a silver dagger and several rings, wearing an embroidered tunic — that was him, wasn’t it?”

  “Aaagh!” She burst out in renewed weeping, and Tobas realized that he had been tactless. He waited for her hysterics to subside. She seemed to be struggling to control her reactions, and Tobas had enough sense to see that his arrival and the news he brought must have come as quite a shock; after centuries of isolation he could not fault her for her display of emotion. He thought no less of her for it. In fact, he was quite impressed by her; not only was she beautiful, but she spoke well, and had already begun adjusting her accent so that it was closer to his own, making her speech more easily understood. Furthermore, if her story was true — and he had no reason to doubt it — she had lived here alone for centuries without losing her sanity or otherwise visibly degenerating. He was unsure he could have done that.

  When she had at last regained control of herself she went on with her story.

  At first, she had simply stayed in bed, waiting for Derithon to return. When she was quite certain that several hours had passed she had gotten up and gotten dressed and puttered about the castle, tidying up and poking around, waiting for Derithon to return.

  Eventually she had gotten worried and had tried to use her witchcraft to establish contact with him, but without success. She had put that down to being in an entirely separate reality.

  Finally, she had decided to go and see for herself just what had happened, and had gone to the tapestry that was supposed to lead back to the flying castle, and had discovered that it did not work. She was unable to step through it.

  This was something of a shock; up until then, returning to the World had simply been a matter of walking right through the tapestry into the private chamber of Derithon’s flying castle. The thought that she might be trapped in this strange other world had never occurred to her.

  However, it became quite clear that she was, indeed, trapped.

  Eventually she had gotten up her nerve to consult Derithon’s great Book of Spells, to see if she could get the tapestry to function again. She had found the spell that created it, but had been unable to use it to get the tapestry to work. She had then experimented with other spells, right down to the elementary little training exercises for beginners, and had not yet found any that she was sure she could use. There were one or two that might work, but required items she did not have in order to be sure — such as living subjects. A hypnotic spell she had attempted had given her an eerie feeling that something was happening, but without someone to test it on she couldn’t be sure she wasn’t simply imagining things.

  And nothing she had tried, with wizardry, witchcraft, or sheer random experimentation, had gotten her back to Ethshar. She had simply lived on, waiting, talking to the invisible servants Derithon had left to take care of her — even though they could not speak to answer her — tending the magical garden that provided her food, and trying to keep from going mad with loneliness. She had taken to sleeping for days at a time; she knew spells that allowed her to do that without harming her health. Several times she had tried putting herself in a trance that would last until Derithon returned or until her body needed food desperately, and each time she had awoken on the verge of starvation, with Derithon still absent.

  And now, finally, Tobas had come pounding on the door.

  “There’s another tapestry?” Tobas asked when it was obvious that she was done.

  “Yes, of course,” she answered. “Each one only works one way.”

  “Could I see it?”

  “First tell me who you are and how you got here.”

  Tobas started to explain, describing how his father’s ship had been sunk, and almost immediately Karanissa interrupted.

  “Do you mean you’re a Northerner?” she asked, shocked.

  “A what?”

  “A Northerner? An Imperial?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Tobas answered, confused. He had never considered the matter, since the only Northerners he had ever heard of had supposedly been wiped out to the last man centuries before. Caught off-guard, he did not realize at first that Karanissa had been out of touch since before that extinction happened; instead, he thought she was using the word Northerner in some unfamiliar way.

  “Then why would an Ethsharitic demonologist sink your father’s ship?”

  Comprehension dawning, Tobas answered, “Because my father was a pirate — or a privateer. The Great War ended two hundred years ago, my lady; the Northern Empire was completely obliterated. There are no more Northerners, as you mean the term. But Ethshar doesn’t rule everywhere; part of the western coast threw off the overlords’ rule and became the Free Lands of the Coast — or the Pirate Towns, as I believe they’re known in Ethshar and the Small Kingdoms.”

  “What are the Small Kingdoms?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Oh, well, Old Ethshar fell apart, toward the end of the war. The generals set up the new Ethshar — the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, as it’s properly called — and the old Ethshar fell apart into the Small Kingdoms.”

  The witch stared at him. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Of course I’m sure!” Tobas found it difficult to deal with someone who questioned the most elementary historical facts.

  She sighed. “I can see you mean it, unless my witchcraft has deserted me completely. But it’s all so hard to believe! The war over? The Empire gone? Ethshar gone? I knew that the civilian government was in disarray, but I didn’t think...” Her voice trailed off into uneasy silence; she shook her head to clear it, and said, “Go on with your story.”

  Tobas explained how he had talked Roggit into accepting him as apprentice, how the old man had died after teaching him a single spell, and how he had gone off adventuring. He did not bother with any of the sordid details of signing up to kill a dragon; instead he merely said that he had come to Dwomor hoping he might find himself a place, and that he had wandered up into the mountains and found the fallen castle. He mentioned the strange lack of magic, and explained how he had been sure the tapestry was valuable, and had hauled it back down toward Dwomor.

  And finally, he explained, he had taken shelter in a deserted cottage waiting for a dragon to move on, and had decided to take a closer look at his prize, and here he was.

  “Dwomor is a kingdom now?” Karanissa asked, bemused.

  “Yes,” Tobas replied. “One of the Small Kingdoms. There are a lot of them.”

  “Dwomor isn’t just a military administrative district under General Debrel?”

  “No, it’s a kingdom, ruled by His Majesty Derneth the Second.”

  She sighed again. “How very strange.” She stared off into space for a moment, then shook her head and looked at Tobas again. “And you’re a wizard, you say?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “Do you know the Guild secrets?”

  “Well, not all of them, certainly.
..” Tobas began cautiously.

  “I mean, do you think you might be able to use some of the spells in that book, where I can’t?”

  “I don’t know,” Tobas admitted. “I might; I’d have to see it. I don’t know whether wizardry would work the same way here as it does in the World.”

  “Do you think you could get the tapestry working again?”

  “I don’t know; I’d have to see it, and study the spell first.” A horrible thought occurred to him. “For all I know,” he added, “wizardry won’t work here any more than it did in Derithon’s other castle.”

  “But some wizardry still works; I’m still young, and the garden still bears its fruit, and the servants still do what I tell them to.”

  Tobas nodded, greatly relieved. “You’re right; that shouldn’t be a problem.” He resolved, however, to test his own spell at the first opportunity. “Could you show me this tapestry that’s supposed to take you back?”

  “All right.” She stood, and Tobas followed suit.

  As she led the way through the castle he quickly became lost in the maze of rooms and corridors; there was nothing traditional whatsoever about the layout of this fortress, and it was far larger inside than it had appeared from the outside. The walls were all of gray and black stone, some hung with drapes or tapestries, but the majority bare. The carved faces were only in a few passageways, not everywhere. Most of the corridors were dark and gloomy; Karanissa carried a torch so that they could see their way. The windows they passed were not particularly comforting, as the light that poured in was the now-familiar red-purple glow that seemed to have no source, but permeated the void around the castle.

  At least the wind could not penetrate; the interior of the castle seemed a trifle warm and dry, but not truly uncomfortable, and a welcome change from the cold and damp of the hills of Dwomor.

  Finally, when Tobas had lost all idea of where they were, they arrived in a small room on an upper floor where one wall held a tapestry that was just as odd, in its own way, as the one Tobas had taken from the downed castle.

  The scene depicted in this tapestry was so utterly simple as to be almost an abstract design; it was done entirely in black and dark gray, and showed a bare stone chamber that Tobas recognized, with a start, as the room where the other tapestry had originally hung, seen from a point two or three feet in front of the tapestry’s wall, looking back toward the passageway that led to the wizard’s study.

  Looking closely, Tobas could make out the patterns in the stonework and other details that established it, beyond question, as the same room. The scene was exactly as he had seen it when taking down the tapestry, save that Derithon’s skeleton was missing.

  He reached out and ran a hand over the tapestry, and felt only cool, smooth fabric. He had hoped that he might be able to use it, that some protective spell prevented only Karanissa from stepping through, but that was obviously not the case.

  After another moment’s study he shrugged and turned away. He could see nothing odd about the tapestry that might explain why it had stopped functioning.

  “Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll need to see that book of spells.”

  He tried very hard to sound calm, but it was difficult, very difficult, when he realized he might at last be about to achieve his long-sought goal of learning more magic. If he could learn a few of the enchantments from Derithon’s book and somehow return to the World he would be ready to start a career.

  These, however, were no circumstances he had ever imagined that achievement might be made under. He was trapped in an other-worldly castle with a beautiful witch four or five hundred years old, trying to make an unfamiliar spell work in order to return to the real World.

  What a strange way he had found to finally see a powerful wizard’s book of spells!

  Chapter Twenty-One

  As he followed her along the dim corridor to Derithon’s study Tobas watched the way Karanissa walked, her long black hair swirling about her. He had already noticed, on the way to the tapestry, that she moved with grace and confidence. It was obvious that she knew every inch of the castle intimately — but then, that was hardly surprising after she had spent more than four hundred years trapped in it.

  It was also obvious that that four hundred years hadn’t affected her beauty at all; Tobas could see why Derithon had taken an interest in her. She was probably the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  He wondered if her witchcraft, or Derithon’s wizardry, had contributed anything to that.

  At first, when she had led him into the castle, she had seemed a trifle hesitant and unsure, presumably because of Tobas’ startling arrival and unfamiliar presence — but she was over that now. She had already outwardly adjusted to the abrupt change in her circumstances.

  Karanissa opened the heavy door of the study and ushered Tobas inside; he paused for a moment to stare around at the shelves upon shelves of jars, bottles, boxes, and apparatus before reaching for Derithon’s Book of Spells.

  The book had a place of honor, centered on one end of the long worktable in the vast cluttered study. It was big and thick, bound in black hide, and a heavy metal clasp lay unlocked and open. Tobas hesitated just before his hand touched the cover. “Are you sure there aren’t any protective spells?” he asked Karanissa.

  “No,” she replied, “I’m not sure of anything about it, but I never had any trouble opening it. I just couldn’t get the spells to work.”

  That, Tobas thought, might mean that Derithon had attuned the protective spells to accept her, and her failure to make any of the magic work might indicate that some sort of confusion spell was in use; the book could still be dangerous, but he decided to risk it. He reached down and lifted the cover.

  Nothing happened. The book opened as easily as any ordinary volume, revealing the blank flyleaf. A faint musty odor reached Tobas.

  He lifted the flyleaf in turn, revealing the title page, which read, in sprawling, awkward runes, “Derithon of Helde, His Spells, Begun in The Thirteenth Year of His Age, The Four Thousand, Five Hundred, and Twenty-Third Year After the Gods Taught Men to Speak, During the Great War Against the Northern Empire.”

  Tobas marvelled at that for a moment; that meant that this book was almost seven hundred years old. He guessed that it must bear some powerful preservative spell, as the paper was still white and supple and the ink only slightly faded.

  Carefully, handling the book with great respect, he turned past two blank pages. The next page was smudged and indecipherable; he skipped over that to the next.

  The writing on this page was still sharp and clear, and Tobas stared at it for a long moment, a smile gradually spreading across his face.

  The page was neatly headed, “Thrindle’s Combustion,” and described that familiar spell accurately and succinctly. There was obviously no confusion spell at work.

  A footnote at the bottom of the page caught his eye; the handwriting and ink was slightly different, leading him to assume it had been added later. It read, “Use caution! Application of the Combustion to anything already burning seems to result in an explosion out of all proportion to the materials involved.”

  He had more or less found that out for himself back in Roggit’s little cottage, but it was somehow reassuring to see it confirmed independently.

  A moment’s study also revealed why Karanissa had been unable to make the spell work. Under “Ingredients,” Derithon had listed only “brimstone” and a small cross-shaped mark that appeared to be a mere decoration or space-holder. Similarly, in describing the two motions that the spell required, one was also marked with the little cross.

  No mention was made, anywhere, of an athame, or even of a dagger; the gesture marked with the cross was the one made with the athame, while the unmarked motion was, as Tobas well knew, made with the free hand while flinging a speck of brimstone.

  Even in his private book of spells, Derithon had done his best to keep the Guild’s secrets. Karanissa, being a witch, would have no athame —
at least, so far as Tobas knew no equivalent to the athame was used in witchcraft — and would not have guessed at the little symbol’s meaning. She would have no reason to think it had any meaning; Derithon had done a good job of making it appear to be no more than a flourish.

  Not every wizardly spell required an athame, though — or at least, so he understood. He flipped quickly through several pages, however, and found the little athame symbol on virtually every one. Derithon had apparently not cared for spells that did not use the athame — or perhaps he had simply never come across many.

  Tobas did find one, but as it was indeed a hypnotic spell he could see how Karanissa would have had great difficulty testing it, as she had said. Much farther on he found a love potion that did not call for an athame, but she would have had little use for that, either.

  He wondered for a moment, though, whether Derithon had often used such a potion — perhaps even on Karanissa.

  Quite aside from his discovery of the athame symbol, he found an amazing and fascinating variety of spells, more than he had known existed; the book was a fat one, several hundred pages long, perhaps even a thousand, and after the few blank pages at the front it was solidly filled with spells until a mere five pages from the end. Had Derithon lived to learn more spells he would have needed a second volume very shortly.

  If he were to keep this book for himself and master every spell in it, Tobas realized, he would, beyond any possible doubt, become one of the greatest wizards in the World. That was a very tempting thought. He would not need to eke out a living selling charms and removing curses; he would be able to conjure up almost anything he pleased, or sell single spells for roomfuls of coin.

  He noted with mild interest that the handwriting changed from the boyish scrawl of the earliest pages to a smaller, neater, more legible hand as Derithon had aged. Learning and recording these spells had obviously taken the mage a long time; Tobas guessed that Derithon had kept on adding new spells long after he completed his apprenticeship, though it was not clear how he came by them. From a comparison of the lettering, he judged that the footnote to Thrindle’s Combustion had been added at a time when Derithon had filled fifty or sixty of the book’s pages.