Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “I never heard of it,” Morvash admitted.

  “It’s an eighth-order spell; not many people can perform it.” She glanced up, then back at Morvash. “It will bring anything to life—won’t work on anything that’s already alive, but stone, brick, metal, wood, bone, cloth, it will affect any of those.”

  He wondered whether she had guessed his suspicions. “That’s amazing,” he said. “Why ‘Immortal,’ though?”

  “Oh, well, that’s one of the potential drawbacks,” Ithinia said. “Once you bring something to life with this particular spell, it can’t be killed. Ever. By anything. If you break it into pieces, each piece will still be alive. That can be inconvenient. The wizard who taught it to me had a big jar of shattered bits hidden away, and the way they kept moving was…disturbing. I have a small jar of powdered pottery myself—a certain individual created a nasty little monster he sent to attack one of his enemies, and we intercepted it and smashed it, but we couldn’t kill it. Fortunately, ceramic dust is fairly harmless even when alive.” She looked up once more. “I love my gargoyles, but I doubt I’ll ever use that spell again.”

  A dozen questions popped into Morvash’s head—had she ever smashed one of her own creations? How could she be sure there wasn’t a spell that could kill them—a reversal or restoration spell, perhaps? What would happen if he tried Ellran’s spell on one of the petrified people? What if he brought some of Lord Landessin’s other statuary to life?

  But it was an eighth-order spell. He had never managed anything above fifth order, and was not comfortable even at that level. And he had no business asking the Guildmaster nosy questions.

  “Good night, Guildmaster, and thank you for your help.”

  “Good night, journeyman,” Ithinia said. Then she finally closed the door.

  He headed around the corner, and south on Canal Avenue.

  At breakfast the following morning he explained the situation to his uncle. Gror, despite not being a wizard, had heard of Ithinia of the Isle, and told Morvash that her house was on Lower Street.

  “I didn’t know the address,” Morvash admitted. “I found it by magic.”

  Gror nodded. “You didn’t know who she was?”

  “Not until she introduced herself. I was just looking for a Guildmaster, any Guildmaster.”

  Gror frowned. “So she’s helping you?” he asked. “A virtual stranger, and one of the most powerful people in the city agreed to help you?”

  Morvash nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Just helping out a Guild member, I think. And it’s not as if she’s teaching me anything herself; she’s just giving me a few names and a referral on a house.”

  “Hmph.”

  Morvash did not let his uncle’s distrust trouble him; Gror was a merchant, not a wizard. Wizards cooperated with one another, while merchants competed. He finished his meal, tidied up, and then set out for Ithinia’s home.

  Canal Avenue looked different in bright morning sun, and was significantly more crowded, so that Morvash almost turned onto High Street before catching himself and continuing another block to Lower Street. He had remembered the house as being at the end of the first block, and was momentarily puzzled not to see the distinctive gargoyles, until he realized that he had missed another cross-street in the dark, and the house was on the north side of the next block.

  He thought Fang was watching him as he approached, and was so focused on the gargoyles that he didn’t notice the woman waiting for him until he was only a few yards away.

  She was not young—at least Uncle Gror’s age, Morvash judged. She was wearing a white tunic and dark blue skirt, very conservative, and had her waist-length hair pulled back and tied at the nape of her neck. She had spotted him before he saw her, and was waiting for him to come close enough to address without shouting. He hurried to oblige.

  “Morvash of the Shadows?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he acknowledged, stopping a few feet away. “And you are…?”

  “I am the Guild’s agent. Call me by any name you like. Alir would be fine.”

  “Ah,” Morvash said, slightly taken aback. “Alir, then.”

  “I was told to give you this list of wizards who may know the spells you seek.” She held out a rolled paper; Morvash accepted it, then hesitated, unsure whether he should look at it immediately, or save it for later.

  “I have also been instructed to show you the Guild’s vacant house on Old East Avenue.”

  Morvash tucked the paper in his belt, then looked at Alir again. “I look forward to seeing it.”

  “Then follow me.” She turned, and marched around the corner onto the street paralleling Canal Avenue one block to the east. Morvash followed. As they walked he let his hand fall to the hilt of his athame and adjusted it slightly, muttering a brief incantation.

  The agent appeared to be human, and not an illusion or homunculus, but he could sense magic around her—protective spells, most likely. That was no surprise.

  They walked steadily southward up the slope; after the third major cross-street the avenue began curving gently westward, toward the very peak of the hill that marked the end of the New City district. They had proceeded perhaps two hundred feet around the curve when the agent stopped and pointed ahead, to the right.

  “There,” she said.

  The house she indicated was tall and dark, very unlike its neighbors. Where most of the mansions on this part of Old East Avenue were white or red or yellow, half-timbered or built of brick, this one was black stone, with deep-set windows and with turrets and small gargoyles adorning the roof-line, though he saw no sign these gargoyles were animated. A few spriggans were staring at the house from across the street, but none went near it.

  Morvash smiled at the sight of the dark stone walls; the house reminded him of home. “Tell me about it,” he said.

  The agent coughed, clearly surprised by his smile. “They say it’s about two hundred years old,” she replied. “A wizard called Erdrik the Grim built it not long after the Great War, when the New City was still actually new. It was the first house on this block.”

  “Did he use magic to build it?”

  “I don’t know,” the agent admitted. “He certainly used enough magic after it was built, though.”

  “Was he from Ethshar of the Rocks, by any chance? It looks something like the architecture there.”

  “I don’t know that, either. To be honest, nobody seems to know much about him—or if they do, they haven’t told me. He wasn’t originally from Ethshar of the Spices, and he was already extremely rich and powerful when he came to the city, but that’s about everything I know. He wasn’t very friendly, from what I hear. In fact, he appears to have been quite the recluse, as well as a troublemaker. Half the time the neighbors didn’t know whether he was still here, and when they did it was usually because he was fighting with someone, or disturbing everyone with magical lights and noises.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s all ancient history,” Morvash said.

  “Uh…not that ancient. He lived here until eleven years ago last Rains.”

  Morvash had been gazing up at the four-story tower on the south corner; now he turned, startled. “Eleven years ago?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you said he built it two hundred years ago?”

  “Well, he was a wizard,” the agent said.

  Morvash nodded. “What happened to him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Morvash was starting to become annoyed at the woman’s ignorance. Ithinia had sent her to show him the house; shouldn’t she know more about its history? “Well, did he die? Is that why it’s available?”

  “I don’t know; they didn’t tell me. All I know is that the Wizards’ Guild says he’s gone for good and left no heirs, so afte
r ten years all his possessions, including the house, went to either the Guild or the tax collectors. The taxes have all been paid, everything’s settled, so the Guild owns the house. They would like to sell it, but because there’s still magic in it, they’ll only sell to a wizard. And there aren’t any interested wizards at the moment, so Ithinia is willing to let you rent it.”

  “They think there’s still magic in it?” Morvash looked up at the gargoyles. None of them were moving, but now he wondered whether any of them might be animated after all.

  “A wizard lived here for two hundred years; what do you think? And they know there’s still magic in it. You’ll see.”

  Morvash had no answer for that. Instead he said, “Shall we go inside?”

  Chapter Six

  Darissa the Witch’s Apprentice

  15th of Harvest, YS 5199

  Darissa refused to let Marek introduce her to the king, even though she could sense that he was disappointed by her reluctance. She could tell that he was not at all intimidated by His Majesty—but then, why should he be? To him, the king was merely his father.

  She, however, was terrified at the prospect of such a meeting. A prince was one thing, a king another. She knew of too many cases where witches had wound up in deep trouble for their dealings with royalty. Kings had a habit of thinking it would be very useful to have a courtier who could sense emotions, tell truth from lies, detect poisons, heal minor injuries, and do all the other magic witches could do. While it could be profitable to cooperate with such requests—or demands!—it could also lead to deeper and deeper entanglement in politics, with a very real risk of angering more powerful magicians, such as the Wizards’ Guild.

  And refusing royal commands—or even requests—was equally dangerous. Marek seemed harmless enough, and had asked nothing of her, but he was merely a relatively minor prince, third in line for the throne and likely to drop back in the succession when his older brothers started siring sons of their own. He was not a reigning monarch.

  Her brief encounter with Princess Hinda had confirmed her reluctance; she had sensed a very different personality than her brother’s. Hinda was harder, more selfish; her heart was colder. Darissa was very glad Marek had not told his sister that Darissa was a witch.

  They did stay long enough to hear the king listen to a petition requesting an unsafe bridge be rebuilt, but then Darissa slipped away.

  She had not insisted Marek accompany her; in fact, she had not even told him she was leaving. He had reluctantly stopped trying to convince her to meet his father, and the two were merely standing side by side when she stepped back and headed for the door.

  She used just a little bit of magic to keep her departure from being noticed by anyone else, but Marek realized immediately and was just a step behind when she left the great hall. The spell was not strong enough to block someone who was already very aware of her presence.

  He said nothing at first, but once they were out in the courtyard he asked, “Is there anything else I can show you? The family apartments, perhaps?”

  She smiled. “Isn’t it a bit soon to be inviting me up to your room?”

  “Oh, I…” Then he saw her expression and caught himself. “Ah, you knew I didn’t mean it like that. I see this witchcraft thing has its advantages—you know my intentions, probably as well as I do myself.”

  “Better,” Darissa said with a grin.

  He grinned back, but the smile quickly faded into an expression of intense interest. “Really?” he said. “How is that possible?”

  He was quick; she had expected him to take it as a mere joke. If he was going to take it seriously, then she would answer his question seriously.

  “For all of us, no matter who we are, there are things we don’t want to admit to ourselves,” she said. “We hide them so we can tell ourselves we are good and unselfish, with only the very best motives. But with a little effort the right sort of witch can see those, even when they’re hidden.”

  “Oh, now that raises several questions,” he said, carefully not directing their steps toward the royal apartments. “Does everyone do this, hide things from themselves?”

  “Everyone I’ve ever met, at any rate, and my master says he’s never found an exception.”

  “And what about you? Do you do it?”

  She nodded. “Yes. And yes, I can use my magic to sense my own hidden motives, but it’s much harder than sensing anyone else’s, because part of me is fighting it.”

  “What about your master? His witchcraft is stronger than yours, isn’t it? So can you sense what he wants to keep hidden?”

  Darissa grinned as she looked up at him. “You ask good questions! Maybe you should have been a witch yourself.”

  He smiled back. “Maybe, but I was born into the wrong family for that. You haven’t answered my good question; are you going to?”

  She turned up an empty palm. “It’s complicated,” she said. “He can hide things from me if he consciously tries to, but sometimes I can tell he’s hiding something, even if I don’t know what it is. Sometimes I sense things he doesn’t know are there; other times I don’t. And he’s my master, so I don’t pry. In fact, I don’t generally pry into anyone’s mind; people have a right to privacy. But sometimes, as you saw, I overhear things in the market, and sometimes I see things through windows, and sometimes, whether I intend it or not, I know people’s thoughts. When I’m talking to someone it’s hard not to know the thoughts behind the words, and I don’t usually worry about it. And as for people’s moods, their strong emotions, what’s heavy on their minds, I can’t avoid sensing that, any more than I can avoid seeing their faces. My master gives away less than most people—it’s as if he’s whispering instead of shouting—but I can still sense some of what he’s thinking and feeling, whether he wants me to or not.”

  “It is complicated!”

  “I told you it was.”

  “You said this was something the right sort of witch does; is there a wrong sort?” They were about to walk into a wall, and he turned left. She turned with him.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Different witches have different specialties. Some know everything there is to know about herbs, for example, but have no idea what’s going on in any head but their own. Some can open locks, or purify water, or any number of other skills, but can still be as easily fooled by a misleading expression as any ordinary person.”

  “And you?”

  She smiled crookedly. “My specialty is moods and thoughts. Nondel has made his living by seeing what people want and finding a way to satisfy them, and that’s what he’s teaching me. If someone comes asking for a love potion or a prophecy, we’ll see why they want it, and what we can do instead.”

  “You can’t just give them love potions and prophecies?”

  She shook her head. “Witches don’t make love potions, not really. That’s wizardry, or maybe sorcery, not witchcraft. There are some herbal things…but they aren’t true love potions. And prophecies—well, there are witches who can see into the future a little, or sometimes more than a little, but we can’t do it, Nondel and I, and I’m not sure it counts as actual prophecy. A theurgist would be better for prophecy. But if someone comes to us asking for a love potion, we’ll see why he wants it, and try to find a way to help him.”

  “You do real healing, though.”

  “Yes, we do. And other magic. But knowing what our customers are thinking and feeling is our most important skill.”

  “Interesting!” He looked up, just short of walking into a clothesline, and stopped. Darissa stopped as well.

  “Have you ever heard of Klathoa?” Marek asked.

  “Of course!” Darissa guessed that every witch in the Small Kingdoms knew about Klathoa, the tiny realm forty or fifty miles to the west of Melitha where there was no king or queen or royal family, and witches ran
everything.

  “I begin to see how they manage without any of the usual trappings of government,” he said. “If their rulers always know what everyone wants, and who is dissatisfied, that would make it much easier to keep everyone happy.”

  “I suppose it would,” Darissa agreed.

  “Have you ever considered moving there, so that you could be a member of the ruling class?”

  “Oh, I’m happy here in Melitha. It’s where I was born,” she replied. “And my master tells me that the witches of Klathoa are really very limited in what they can do, living in constant fear that the Wizards’ Guild will decide it was a mistake to leave them in power.”

  “That might be true,” Marek acknowledged. Then abruptly changing the subject, he pointed to a door in the courtyard wall, just behind the clotheslines. “This is the laundry; would you like to see that, perhaps?”

  She laughed. “Why not?”

  And in the end, it proved very interesting. She had never seen anything like the castle laundry before, with its steaming vats and scores of drying racks and hot, swampy air. It was far more elaborate than the simple washtub she and Nondel used.

  But then, some of the clothing and linens in the castle were far more elaborate than anything she and Nondel had!

  The laundry workers—mostly women, but with a few children of both sexes helping out—did not seem especially surprised to see the prince; in fact, he greeted several of them by name, which prompted Darissa to ask, once they were back outside, “Do you go there often?”

  “Oh, not that often. Maybe once a month.”

  “Once a month? Why?”

  “Well, in the winter I like to stop in there because it’s always warm. And the rest of the year it’s a cheerful, busy sort of place, and I enjoy that. I’ve known some of the women there since I was a little child, I used to hide there when my parents were angry with me, and I like to stop in and say hello to them sometimes. In the summer, if it’s really hot, I try to remember to bring them something cool to drink—something that won’t stain, though, if they spill it on my father’s robes, so it’s more likely to be lemonade than beer.”