Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Find the wizard?” Pender asked.

  “That’s going to be challenging, when you can’t tell me his name—his, right? Not her?”

  Pender nodded.

  “And you haven’t seen him for thirteen years, but you know he lived in Ethshar of the Spices? Do you know that?”

  Pender nodded again.

  A wizard missing for years…a thought struck Morvash. He frowned. That would be quite a coincidence, he thought. There were almost certainly other missing wizards. Still, he had to ask.

  “Was his name Erdrik the Grim?”

  Pender’s eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. “How…?”

  “Oh, blood and death,” Morvash said. “Oh, the twisted sense of humor of the gods! Erdrik the Grim was your patron?”

  Pender nodded. “How did you know?”

  “I’m living in his house. He disappeared eleven years ago, and no one has seen him since.”

  “Eleven years? Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. No one knows. He’s just gone.”

  “But…but how…”

  Morvash looked at Ariella, who exclaimed, “I don’t know where he is!”

  “My guess,” Morvash said, “is that a spell he was attempting went wrong. Maybe it killed him, or transformed him somehow, or transported him somewhere he can’t come back from—another world, perhaps. But no one knows.”

  “Well,” Ariella said, “was there anything else?”

  Morvash considered, but could think of nothing specific. He still had plenty of questions, but it seemed likely that Javan’s Geas, or whatever the enchantment was, would keep Pender from answering any of them. “I suppose not,” he said. “Thank you.” He looked at Pender. “I don’t really want to keep him enslaved, but he’s not really in any shape to fend for himself, is he?”

  “Not yet,” Ariella said. “But he’s learning quickly.”

  “And I’m living in Erdrik’s house—I can’t think of anywhere he’d be more likely to learn more about his village’s fate.”

  “Neither can I.”

  “All right,” Morvash said, getting to his feet. “Let’s go home.” He was not entirely happy to be leaving his translator, but he could not stay with her forever; if Pender was going to live with him, the two of them would need to get on without Ariella’s assistance. He looked down at Pender’s waistband, where the silk purse was concealed. “I know this isn’t fair,” he said, “but those diamonds would be very useful in paying my expenses. That would cover your food and lodging.”

  “Help find the wizard?” Pender asked.

  “I don’t know,” Morvash admitted. “The Guild said they couldn’t find him, so I don’t know how I could, but if we find any clues in his house I’ll be happy to follow them.”

  Pender fumbled with the drawstring of his breeches, then pulled out the little purse, fished a single diamond, and handed it to Morvash. The wizard accepted it. “Thank you,” he said. He looked down at the stone, then slipped it into his own purse. “It’s getting late; I’ll sell this tomorrow. Let’s go.”

  Pender nodded, and the two young men left the witch’s shop.

  They reached the house on Old East Avenue as the sun reached the western rooftops, and once inside Morvash lit the lamps with a simple spell. Pender smiled at this evidence that his new master really was a wizard.

  Marvash wondered if the poor fool knew just what it meant to be a slave. Yes, he had spent a few months dredging canals, but did he realize he had been brought here so Morvash could test spells on him?

  The wizard considered that, and resolved to do nothing to keep the Tazmorite from escaping. If he wanted to stay, that was fine, but if he wanted to leave and make his own way, Morvash would not stop him. As far as the wizard was concerned, the diamond in his purse had bought Pender’s freedom.

  But since Pender had come to Ethshar to find Erdrik, and they were living in Erdrik’s house, Morvash doubted Pender would leave.

  “Let me show you around,” Morvash said. “We’ll find somewhere for you to sleep, and I’ll show you the other guests.”

  Pender looked startled. “There are others?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Morvash said. “You’ll see when we get to the gallery.” With that, he began a tour of the house, pointing out magical items, telling the new arrival which ones were known to be dangerous, and warning him which ones were still unidentified.

  When they came to the gallery he tried to explain that these statues were all people who had been turned to stone, but Pender seemed surprisingly slow to grasp the concept. Morvash wondered about that; he knew that Erdrik had petrified those miniature soldiers, but apparently he had not displayed this particular spell in Hindfoot Village.

  Eventually, though, Pender understood, and nodded as Morvash explained that he intended to turn everyone back. “Good,” he said. “You come to Tazmor?”

  “What? No. Or at least I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “But…” Pender frowned.

  “Is there someone there who was turned to stone?”

  “No, no.”

  “Then I don’t see why I should.”

  Pender was clearly struggling to say something.

  “Does this have something to do with Erdrik’s secret project?” Morvash asked.

  Pender managed a jerky, obviously painful nod; even a yes or no answer was apparently more than the geas wanted to allow.

  “But…no one was turned to stone?”

  Pender shook his head.

  “I don’t understand,” Morvash said, “but maybe I will come, to see what Erdrik was up to, once I’m done with these poor people.” He waved at the statuary.

  “Not…not sooner?”

  “No,” Morvash said. “These come first.”

  Pender sighed, but did not argue.

  From the gallery Morvash led Pender to his workshop. “We’ll probably be spending most of our time here,” he said. “I’m trying to learn a spell that can restore those people. Uncle Gror sent you here to help me, so I can learn it faster, and maybe try out a few things…” He trailed off as he realized that it would be neither kind nor wise to say that Pender was there to be experimented on, and to serve as a test subject for various enchantments.

  He showed Pender where he would be sleeping—there were several small rooms available on the second floor, and Morvash had chosen one within easy shouting distance of his own bedchamber. It had a decent mattress, but little else; since Pender had not come with any possessions beyond the clothes on his back and his hidden purse Morvash did not see a need for a wardrobe.

  And that completed the tour.

  “I think it’s time for supper,” he said, and led the way down to the kitchens.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Hakin of the Hundred-Foot Field

  15th of Longdays, YS 5231

  Hakin found it slightly surprising how many things the city guard wanted torn down or smashed, but he was pleased by the discovery. It gave Tarker something to do, and the demon was always happier when it was busy. Sitting around doing nothing drove it into a fury of frustration. Far better, Hakin though, for it to knock down the remains of buildings too damaged by fire or neglect to be worth restoration, or to clear out temporary structures that had been put up in places where they shouldn’t have been.

  The knowledge that in theory every single structure in the Hundred-Foot Field was illegal and subject to this sort of demolition troubled him; Hakin did not want to see all his friends and former neighbors rendered homeless. No one had cleared the field in two hundred years or so, but everyone knew that it might happen; the overlord’s men regularly issued warnings to keep the field’s inhabitants aware that their crude shelters existed by the city’s sufferance, and could be wiped away at any tim
e.

  Generally, though, the only time the overlord or the guard had anything removed from the Field was when some idiot broke the rules and tried to build something permanent. A tent or a shack was ignored, but lay a single foundation stone and you could expect to be dragged away and cast out the nearest city gate, the stone (or stones) flung after you.

  But Tarker was not assigned to work in the Field, to Hakin’s relief. There were enough abandoned houses and shops, or illegal stages and stalls set up in the streets and squares, to keep it busy elsewhere.

  Hakin’s job, when Tarker was knocking down walls with its fists or grinding bricks to powder, was simply to watch, and make sure no one wandered too close to the demon. Sometimes he called encouragement or suggestions to his charge, but usually he just watched. Tarker needed no advice in destruction.

  The latest assignment, the last of the day, was a simple one; someone had put a merchant’s stall in Southgate Market so that it blocked one of the gates and kept it from closing. Tarker’s job was to clear the gate’s path by any means necessary, which meant demolishing the wood and cloth structure. The stall’s owner was nowhere to be seen; the other merchants said she had brought two wagon-loads of shellfish from somewhere out on the peninsula, set up the stall, sold her wares, and then departed again, leaving the booth where it was.

  Tarker ripped one of the posts from the ground and flung it out into the square; the attached awning tore in half, but not before pulling down the other three posts. A single step brought him to the next post, which followed the first.

  “Can it break them up for firewood?” the lieutenant commanding the gate guards asked.

  “Certainly,” Hakin replied. “But this time of year, what do you need firewood for?”

  “We don’t,” the lieutenant replied. “But we will in a few months, so why waste this?”

  Hakin nodded. “As you please, then.”

  Tarker had removed the other posts while they spoke, so Hakin walked over to tell him about the request for firewood. Snapping the posts into suitable chunks with nothing but its four hands took no more than another five minutes; the demon then tucked the wood under its arms and delivered it to the corner the lieutenant indicated. That done, Hakin and Tarker turned their steps to the northeast and headed back toward Camptown.

  “This is not what I was meant for,” Tarker growled as they turned left onto Oystershell Street.

  “I know,” Hakin said. “But the magicians are trying, I’m certain.”

  “It has been six days.”

  “I know,” Hakin repeated. “I’m sure we’ll hear something soon.”

  Indeed, when the pair turned right onto Camp Street, within sight of the camp’s gates, Hakin saw a woman in a green robe and pointed hat waiting for them. Upon seeing the demon she waved vigorously, and Hakin waved back, albeit less energetically. Tarker snorted, and Hakin smelled smoke, offal, and hot metal.

  As they approached, the woman called, “Hakin?”

  “Who else walks around with a seven-foot demon beside him?” Hakin replied, annoyed.

  “I am Shenna of the White Dagger. Lord Borlan sent me.”

  Hakin glanced up at Tarker, but could not read the demon’s expression. “Has Karitha been found?” he asked, still walking toward the woman.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Shenna replied. “Not yet. But I can tell you a little more about what happened.”

  Hakin stopped about six feet away, still out of reach, for fear Tarker might harm her should its temper get the better of it. He ignored the various people on the street who were staring at them, some of them clearly trying to hear what was being said. “Go on,” he told her.

  “Lord Borlan has hired several magicians of different schools to determine what happened to Karitha, and whether there is some way to send Tarker home. Several of them were unable to provide any information at all—warlocks simply don’t have any relevant skills, and demonologists couldn’t see anything more than Tarker itself could. A theurgist managed to speak with the goddess Unniel about it, but her answers were useless or incomprehensible—apparently the gods don’t understand wizardry and either can’t or won’t say anything about demonologists, including Karitha.”

  “I knew that,” Tarker interrupted.

  Shenna seemed startled by the sound of the demon’s voice; she flinched visibly before continuing, “Yes, well. A band of ritual dancers performed a summoning to bring Karitha back, but so far it hasn’t worked.”

  Tarker snorted again, and Hakin coughed.

  “Wizardry seemed like the best chance, since Wosten’s magic seems to be responsible for her disappearance, so Lord Borlan hired four of us…”

  “You’re a wizard?” Hakin interrupted.

  “She is,” Tarker rumbled. “I can smell it. She stinks of magic.”

  “Yes,” Shenna said. “I’m a wizard. Only a journeyman, though.”

  “Go on.”

  “The problem is that both Wosten and Karitha had several wards and protections around them, far more than most magicians maintain,” she replied. “Mostly to protect themselves from each other, according to the neighbors. I don’t know what started their feud, but it’s apparently been gradually escalating for the last two or three years, and they had both built up a lot of magic directed at one another. It’s actually rather amazing that they both managed to get through the other’s defenses; Tarker coming in through the roof used the only opening in Wosten’s primary wards, the opening he had left for his sylph to use, and even then, the demon still had to get through four different protective spells. As for Karitha, she was guarded against not just spells, as we’d expect, but against anything solid and anything visible, so not much could get at her, but the sylph, being made of air and invisible, could—we think it came down her chimney in order to carry the powder. She couldn’t block the chimney against fine powder if she wanted it to let smoke out. However it got in, the sylph used Wosten’s powders once it was inside, past her protections.”

  “All right, it was difficult, but they did get through. So what happened?”

  “We don’t know,” Shenna said. “All those barriers have kept our own spells from seeing what happened. The Spell of Omniscient Vision is our usual method for looking at things like this, but it can’t get a clear image through the wards. We tried Fendel’s Divination several times—that magically answers any question, spelling the answer out in letters of smoke, but we never got a useful response. We tried several different questions, and the answers were either unhelpful or the spell simply didn’t work. One of us was convinced that Karitha must be dead, despite what Tarker thought, so we tried Bizen’s Necromancy, and Fendel’s Necromancy, and the Spell of the Necromantic Mirror, but they all agreed that wherever Karitha is, she isn’t dead.”

  “Why are you bothering us, then?” Tarker demanded.

  “Well, we’ve learned a little,” Shenna said. “We analyzed Wosten’s powders, and we had a couple of witches look at the two workrooms, and we did manage some quick glimpses, one way or another. We know that Wosten didn’t want anyone to know what he had done—he wanted Karitha to simply disappear. Which worked. And he didn’t want to kill her, though I’m not sure why.”

  “If you have all that necromancy, can’t you ask him?” Hakin asked.

  Shenna shook her head. “We’re trying, but we haven’t been able to contact him yet. Not everyone who dies can be reached, you know.”

  “I didn’t. But go on.”

  “Anyway, he gave the sylph powders for two spells—a transformation of some kind, and then…something else. The first one turned Karitha from a human being to something else, and the second one made whatever that was vanish. We couldn’t see the transformation clearly, but whatever he turned her into was dark, and hard to see. It wasn’t a bug or a mouse, it was much bigger than that, and it was onl
y there for an instant before the second spell made it disappear.”

  Tarker growled. Still, Hakin had to admit that this was progress. “All right,” he said, “so she’s alive but not human anymore?”

  “Apparently, yes.”

  “So where is she?”

  “We don’t know. We haven’t yet been able to determine anything about the second spell. She may still be right there in her workroom, but invisible and intangible. Or if it was a teleportation spell, she could be anywhere in the World, anywhere at all. If it was a portal, she could even be in another world entirely. We don’t know. We’re still working on it. And we’re still trying to talk to Wosten’s spirit.”

  “I killed him. He cannot be reached,” Tarker said.

  Shenna blinked. “You’re sure of that?”

  Tarker hesitated. “No,” it admitted. “There may be ways his essence could still exist.”

  “Then we’ll keep trying.”

  “So you haven’t found her,” Hakin said, “and you know she’s still alive, but not human anymore.”

  “That’s right.”

  Hakin looked at Tarker.

  He had never intended to become a demon’s keeper, but it wasn’t really so bad; he had food and shelter, and companionship from the soldiers, even if he didn’t see any of his old friends from the Hundred-Foot Field. He had clean clothes, even if he could not yet afford new ones; the barracks laundry had seen to that. But how long would Tarker put up with its situation?

  “You’ll keep looking?” he asked Shenna.

  “As long as the demon does as it’s told, we’ll keep looking,” she replied.

  Tarker growled, a deep, angry growl, but it did not reach for the wizard. Hakin told it, “They’re trying!”

  “We are!” Shenna said hastily. “We’ve sent messages, asking if any other wizards can help. I said she might be in another world, so people are checking all the other worlds we know of—but there are many of them, hundreds, maybe thousands, and we don’t know how to get to all of them. And Wosten may have created a new one.”