Gresh waved a farewell as the carpet rose. Tobas waved back as it glided away with a faint whoosh, rising as it went.
Gresh stood in the familiar street for a moment, watching as the people of Ethshar went about their everyday business. Then he turned and walked back into his shop. He paused there, as well, taking in the tidy but heavily laden shelves, the locked cabinets, the vault door, the velvet chairs, and all the rest of it.
This comfortable and familiar shop was his and would be his as long as it lasted. He had just earned himself a way out of aging and eventual inevitable death. Oh, he could still die, certainly, but it was no longer guaranteed.
That was a very pleasant thought.
And all in all, the errand had not been so very difficult or time-consuming.
And there might be other benefits, besides his official pay. He ambled down the passage to the kitchen.
“Oh, there you are!” Twilfa said, looking up at his entrance. “We were just discussing where Esmera would sleep.”
“Anywhere she likes, I suppose,” Gresh said. He smiled. “She’s certainly welcome in my bed!”
Twilfa made a disgusted noise, but before she could say anything more, Esmera said, “Then I won’t be needing that cot made up after all.”
Twilfa stopped and stared at her, then turned her astonished gaze on Gresh.
He was struggling to hide his own pleased surprise. He hadn’t expected it to be quite that easy. He turned up an empty palm.
Twilfa’s astonishment turned to disgust. “Oh, you two are just hopeless,” she said, as she stamped away.
Esmera and Gresh looked at one another, smiling.
Then they were in each other’s arms and using their mouths for something a little more intimate than smiling.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I had thought better of Tobas,” Esmera said, as she stretched in the morning sun. “Abandoning me here without even a farewell.” She was standing naked by the window of Gresh’s bedroom.
“He already has his Karanissa,” Gresh said, as he watched her admiringly from his bed. “I think he was afraid that if he allowed himself to have anything to do with you, he’d wind up with three wives, and Alorria would never forgive him.”
“I suppose — but it still isn’t very considerate of my feelings! I was married to him for six years, after all — or at least, that’s how I remember it.”
“But it’s not what he remembers.”
“Hmph.” She stepped away from the window and returned to the bedside.
“Is your very enjoyable presence here a sort of retaliation for how he mistreated you, then?” Gresh asked.
“Not exactly — but being cast aside so very definitely certainly made it easier to be here. There’s no lingering regret.” She turned and looked at him intently. “If Tobas has managed to avoid making any comparison between Alorria and myself for six years, I would hope I can do the same after a single night.”
“I didn’t say a word!” He grimaced. “I can see that being married to a witch could have its drawbacks.”
She stared at him silently for a moment, then said, “I won’t hold you to whatever might be implied by that mention of marriage.”
“And I won’t rush you,” Gresh said. “I haven’t offered; you haven’t accepted. Marrying a witch might not be the best idea for keeping peace in my family and business, in any case. All of my sisters except Tira might consider it inappropriate favoritism, and my customers, almost all wizards, might think it odd. I’ve been happily unmarried all my life, though a few women have clearly been willing, so why should I change? All that said, though, right now, looking at you and listening to your voice, I think it might be worth it.”
“That’s very sweet — and I have no intention of rushing into anything.” She turned to the window. “For one thing, I think I might like to travel before settling down. I’ve seen so little of the modern World! When I did travel, it was always with Tobas and Alorria — Alorria would not allow me to go much of anywhere without her.”
“You aren’t Karanissa anymore,” Gresh reminded her. “She was the one Alorria insisted on accompanying.”
“But it’s hard to stop talking of myself as if I were. I am her, in so many ways!”
“Of course. I expect you’ll grow apart in time, though, as you each have your own experiences.”
“I suppose we will.” She sighed. “I might want to go back to Dwomor briefly, to visit her.”
“Really? Alorria wouldn’t like that.”
“Really. Who cares what Alorria wants? She isn’t family anymore.”
“But her father is still king of Dwomor. Was living with her so very difficult?”
“Sometimes. Not always. Not even usually. She was generally pleasant when she wasn’t being jealous.” She sighed. “She was much better before the baby came.”
“Then perhaps you’re the lucky one, abandoned outcast that you are, being free of her. It almost makes me feel sorry for Karanissa.”
Esmera did not answer; she stood, still looking out the window.
“But you miss Tobas,” Gresh said.
“I’m sure I’ll get over it in time,” Esmera said. “But yes, these last few days have not been pleasant, having him shun me.”
“If you go back to visit Karanissa and see him again?”
She turned up an empty palm.
Gresh was no witch nor seer, but he was fairly sure he could guess what Esmera was planning. “You’re thinking of trading places with her for a while, aren’t you?”
“Possibly. No one would ever know, not even Tobas.” She turned. “Not even you.”
“You may be underestimating us.”
“I suppose I might be.” She did not say aloud that she doubted it, but Gresh could almost hear the words, all the same.
“And which of you would come back to me, here in Ethshar?”
“What makes you think either of us would?” She turned to glare at him.
“My high opinion of myself.”
She smiled. “Well, you might be right. One of us might come back. Karanissa would probably be curious about you, if nothing else.”
“Karanissa is married to someone else. That doesn’t bother you?”
“Tobas has two wives. Would it really be so terrible for Karanissa and I to share two husbands?”
“I thought you weren’t ready to marry me.”
“I’m not. I’m just considering possibilities.”
“Ah, I see. Would it bother you if Karanissa shared my bed for a time?”
“I’ve never been the jealous type — not with Derry, not with Tobas, not with you. Would it matter to you if it were Karanissa here, instead of me?”
Gresh hesitated.
“I hope so,” he said. “You aren’t the same person anymore. You’re the one I want here.”
She laughed. “You couldn’t tell the difference!”
“I don’t know. I think I might.”
She laughed again — and then her laughter changed, and she was crying. He leapt from the bed and took her in his arms.
As he stood there, holding her and trying to comfort her for the loss of her husband and her past life, he kissed the top of her head and wondered whether he would know if she traded places.
He hoped he would never have occasion to find out. He wanted this one to stay. He wanted her to stay for a long, long time.
Thanks to Enral’s Eternal Youth, it might prove to be a very long time.
Epilogue
Piffle slipped into the room as silently as it could — and as it was a wiry young spriggan, that was very silently indeed. It looked around.
There was the black box, just as the stories said, atop the giants’ table. Piffle looked up at the looming structure, then grabbed one of the table legs at head height and began pulling itself up.
It was perhaps halfway up the table-leg when a gigantic hand closed around it, pulling Piffle off its perch. It found itself swept up in the air and turned to
face the immense hairy face of a He-Giant.
“Now, what do you think you’re doing?” the giant demanded, in its impossibly deep, rumbling voice.
“Nothing!” Piffle said. “Do nothing, really!”
A She-Giant appeared beside the He-Giant, looking at Piffle. Her incredibly long, lush hair spilled down around her. Piffle had never before seen a She-Giant’s hair so close up, and he was impressed.
“It just looks like an ordinary mirror,” she said. “You don’t need to see it. There’s nothing special about it — except when giants are climbing out of it. If you look at it, that might just happen.”
“I would think you’d consider eight of us to be quite enough,” the He-Giant said. “Especially after we smashed up those shops when we first appeared.”
“Yes, yes!” Piffle said, nodding wildly. “Enough giants!”
“Then don’t open the box!” the He-Giant bellowed.
“Yes yes yes! Put Piffle down now? Please?”
With a snort, the He-Giant set Piffle back on the floor. Piffle turned and scampered away. The He-Giant watched it go.
“Silly spriggan,” he said.
“They’re just curious,” the She-Giant told him.
“And attracted to magic.”
“That, too.”
The He-Giant glanced at the box. “Do you think more giants would really come out of it? Or did our mysterious message-writer have some other motive?”
She spread empty hands. “Who knows?”
“If more giants appeared — well, it might be nice to have more company.”
“Female company, you mean? I’m not enough for you?”
“Of course you are! I didn’t mean that. But where we’re all so much alike, the four of you sisters and my three brothers and me — aren’t there any different people wherever it is we came from? It might be nice to talk to someone who isn’t just like us.”
“Just talk? So you aren’t hoping that someday a beautiful woman might come climbing out of the magic mirror, so you’d have a choice, and not just the four of us with the same boring face?”
“You’re more than beautiful enough! Besides, now that I think about it, it’s just as likely to be another man, and I’m not interested in sharing you. Better we keep everything balanced, four and four.”
“Or maybe we’d get worse monsters next time,” the She-Giant mused. “Remember, we got those funny false spriggans before. We could get anything — it’s not as if we have any idea how the magic works, or where we actually came from.”
“Right.” He glanced at the black box, still securely sealed.
He wondered who had sent that message, sixnights ago, not much more than an hour after their own arrival — “SHUT THE MIRROR IN A SOLID BOX, AND NOTHING ELSE WILL COME OUT OF IT.” Why had it been written across a false spriggan’s belly? Why hadn’t the mysterious magician sent a piece of paper?
He shook his head.
They would probably never know — but they would do their best to see that the mirror stayed safely locked away. It was just too dangerous to let out.
They didn’t really need any more giants. The fact was, the He-Giant rather liked being one of only four men in a world of spriggans, an object of awe to all the millions of little green creatures. It was really quite enjoyable — so long as there were four women, as well!
Notes Regarding Gresh’s Family
Keshan the Merchant married Piri of Ethshar before the Magistrate of Bywater in Ethshar of the Rocks on the tenth day of Newfrost in the Year of Speech 5187. Their first child, a daughter, was born on the nineteenth of Greengrowth, 5188, and named Dina, a name they mistakenly believed to mean “fortunate.” (The actual root means “leader.”)
Dina showed a keen mind and an interest in magic from the first. As Dina the Clever she was apprenticed to a wizard, Ziridin of Farmgate, in Summersheat 5200. She completed her apprenticeship on the fourth of Summersend, 5206, and after various occupation as a journeyman, purchased a shop on Wizard Street in her native city of Ethshar of the Rocks in Icebound, 5212, and set up in business under the rather unimaginative name Dina the Wizard. She was granted master status by the Wizards’ Guild, allowing her to train apprentices, in Rains, 5213. Despite offers, she has never married.
Difa was born on the thirtieth of Greengrowth, 5190. Despite her parents’ attempts to prevent it, she spent much of her childhood as Difa the Sneaky, a name her older sister had bestowed upon her. On the fourth of Summerheat, 5202, popularly referred to as “the Night of Madness,” she had not yet been found an apprenticeship. Having been disappointed to discover that this new magic had bypassed her, she was delighted when the Council of Warlocks was established and an announcement was made that warlocks were to operate on the same basis as other magicians. She leapt at her chance, and on the twenty-ninth of Summerheat became the first girl in Ethshar of the Rocks to formally apprentice herself to a warlock, a former mason named Senden of Crafton.
She completed her apprenticeship on the thirtieth of Greengrowth, 5208, worked as a journeyman for three years, and was recognized as a master warlock by the Council in Summerheat, 5211. After sharing quarters with two other warlocks for a time, she bought her own shop in Rains, 5213. In Harvest of 5215 she married a magistrate’s aide by the name of Zarek of Hillside; they have two sons and a daughter.
Tira of Eastgate was born on the thirtieth of Snowfall, 5191, served as apprentice to Sensella the Witch from the fifth of Rains, 5204, to the sixth of Rains, 5210, and remained as Sensella’s associate until Sensella’s death in 5226, whereupon she inherited the shop. Tira married a theurgist named Dar of Norcross Street, some ten years her senior, on the sixth of Leafcolor, 5210. They have four children, two of each sex.
Chira the Clever — known as Chira the Also Clever until her oldest sister began her apprenticeship and moved out of the family home — was born on the seventeenth of Leafcolor, 5193. She served her sorcerous apprenticeship from 18 Leafcolor 5205 through 16 Leafcolor 5214 under the famous Thellesh of Tazmor and wed Cardel the Locksmith on the eleventh of Newfrost, 5214, setting up her business in his existing storefront at the corner of Wizard Street and Tinker Street in Eastgate. They have seven children; five girls and two boys.
Pyata was born on the third of Newfrost, 5195, and apprenticed to Alladia the Priestess on the first of Newfrost, 5208. She never formally completed her apprenticeship, leaving Alladia’s home and shrine in 5213 when she felt her master was behaving unreasonably. The tantrum that prompted this turned out to be an early symptom of Alladia’s final illness; Alladia died before Pyata could be convinced to return. Under the name Pyata the Divine she has done well for herself despite her lack of credentials, thanks to an unusually high success rate in her invocations. She has never married.
Shesta was born on the twenty-first of Thaw, 5196, and apprenticed to Garven the Demonologist at an undetermined date in Rains, 5209. She completed her apprenticeship some time late in 5214 and took the name Shesta the Black, but for health reasons did not actively go into business until 5220 — demonology is not a healthy business. She was able to make ends meet by hiring herself out as an intimidating presence, more or less.
In 5220 Garven made a fatal error of some sort, though the resulting fire was put out by neighbors before his home and shop were destroyed. His last apprentice, Neran of Pawnbroker Street, sold the ruins and remaining supplies to Shesta at a bargain price and gave up demonology.
Shesta married Ferral the Black, a warlock, in 5224. None of their three children survived infancy; demonic influence is suspected.
Gresh was born on the twenty-second of Greengrowth, 5198, and served an apprenticeship with his father from 5210 to 5216 before setting himself up as Gresh the Supplier. He has not yet married and is unaware of having sired any children.
Setta was born on the nineteenth of Icebound, 5199, and studied herbalism under multiple masters from 5211 through 5220 before using her family’s money and contacts to go into business as Setta the G
reen. She married Abran the Chandler, son and heir of one of her father’s oldest friends, on the fifth day of Festival, 5224. They have one daughter, Tarissa the Fair, born on the thirteenth of Midwinter, 5226.
Akka the Graceful was born on the second of Midwinter, 5201, and admitted into the Eastgate Circle as a trainee in Summersheat, 5214. She married Tresen the Handsome, of no fixed address or recognized occupation, on the twenty-fifth of Thaw, 5218. She was elevated to full participation as a ritual dancer in the Circle on the third day of Festival, 5220. She and Tresen have no children.
Neva the Strong was born on the seventh of Greengrowth, 5204, and went to sea as a deckhand aboard the freighter Swift Profits in the summer of 5217. She married Derath the Pilot on the fourteenth of Longdays, 5221. They have one son and two daughters.
Deka the Strong — known in childhood as Deka the Also Strong — was born on the twenty-sixth of Longdays, 5206, and enlisted in the city guard of Ethshar of the Rocks on the fourth of Newfrost, 5222. She married Kelder the Armorer on the fourth of Newfrost, 5224. They have one daughter, Piri the Younger, born in 5226.
Ekava the Nimble was born on the thirtieth of Icebound, 5207, and apprenticed to Inririan the Dressmaker from the sixteenth of Thaw, 5219, to the seventeenth of Rains, 5226. She married Agaram of the Golden Dagger, a journeyman wizard, on the thirtieth of Longdays, 5227; they have no children as yet.
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