Thrice Bound

by Roberta Gellis

  Hekate thanked her and went up to her room as soon as she finished her meal. Kabeiros had eaten exactly the same food for which Hekate had paid a guest's price even though Rakefet offered to feed him free on scraps in the kitchen.

  "I can't take the chance that it's tidbit-passion that keeps him with me," she said, hoping to divert Rakefet from the notion that Kabeiros was a familiar. "We go along together as friends and companions, not mistress and slave. He has to remember that."

  She wasn't sure she had convinced Rakefet, but she found she didn't care much. Being a familiar was about equally more safe and more dangerous. No one would try to steal a familiar; on the other hand a fanatic might try to kill one. Still, Batshira and Rakefet seemed more interested than frightened and what Batshira had said implied that they were accustomed to witches' familiars.

  In any case, they were safe once the door to their room was closed—at least from too great curiosity. Kabeiros sneezed and Hekate followed him a moment later. The odor of the herbs confined in that small space was overpowering. Hekate rushed—all of two steps—to open the window. Both had sneezed again, but in moments opening the window displayed an advantage of the tiny room Hekate hadn't thought of. Although the window was small, it let in enough air to cool the whole space very comfortably. And the scent of herbs diminished quickly until it was merely refreshing.

  Sheets had appeared while they were eating. Hekate tucked them over the mattress, aware that they were rather harsh and stiff with recent washing, aware too of the way her arms ached and a great desire to just drop across the bed and close her eyes. She was more exhausted than she had realized, having been supported by excitement. She had to force herself to unroll the bedrolls for Kabeiros and to undress. Then, groaning with weariness she tumbled into bed.

  CHAPTER 12

  Hekate woke with Kabeiros prodding her with his wet nose. *We have to be more careful,* he said. *The sun rises on the other side of the building and the alley is almost dark until near noon. I think you've missed breaking your fast. I only woke because I heard Rakefet making the bed next door. She wasn't pleased about something the guest had done.*

  Hekate stretched and yawned. *I can set a time ward if it's necessary, but I'm just as glad we slept late. We can break our fast in the market, which will give us a chance to roam around in it. The only other thing I have to do is to bring the ass to the caravan master. That will fill what's left of the morning. Somehow I don't feel that sorcerers are early risers, so the afternoon will be the best time to call on Yehoraz. If my guess is wrong, no doubt one of his servants will tell us what time to come tomorrow morning.*

  Her guess, however, was accurate enough. Yehoraz was seeing clients when Hekate arrived with Kabeiros. She was pleased to see others in the waiting room of the small house and she examined the people with interest, if surreptitiously. From their modest clothing and quiet manner, she assumed they were merchants and craftsmen and women who needed the kind of commercial sorcery that the caravan master used. From their number, it seemed that Yehoraz was honest and reliable. From the fact that no one stared at Kabeiros, she guessed that Yehoraz had dealings with other workers of magic.

  If so and he were willing to make some arrangement with her, it would be a good ending to an excellent day. She had had a profitable morning, richer by five shekels of silver as agreed for the price of the ass. In addition she had secured a place in the market where she could sell her salves and potions.

  Contemplating how well everything had gone since she arrived in Colchis made Hekate slightly uneasy, but the feeling was not justified by her meeting with Yehoraz. He was old, but still straight of body and healthy looking, and his scowl relaxed just a trifle when she told him he had been recommended to her by the caravan master.

  "To what purpose?" he asked. "I see by your dog that you know magic already."

  "Not your kind," Hekate replied honestly, "but magic is not my reason for seeking you out today. I am an herb-wife, a good one. I have rented a place in the market—"

  "I know nothing about herbs," Yehoraz interrupted, starting to rise from his chair.

  "Nor did I think you did, or I would not have come here. I don't expect assistance from those I might come to rival. What I desire from you is to learn the language of Colchis. Trade tongue will not do for explaining the use and the purpose of some of my salves and potions."

  "Ah, you wish me to teach you the language quickly by magic."

  "Exactly. Can you do it? Will you do it? And how much will it cost me?"

  Yehoraz's scowl relaxed completely. He almost smiled. "The three essential questions and with no extra words. Unfortunately, I cannot be as succinct. I can do it, but it is a long and complex spell and requires that I invade your mind. And the price and whether you are willing to pay comes before whether I am willing. The price is a mina of silver—"

  "Sixty shekels!" Hekate exclaimed. "That's high."

  Lips twisted, Yehoraz said, "I didn't set that price. It's set by the merchants and crafts guilds and it's set to prevent those like you from flooding into the city and taking away the work and the livelihood of those born in Colchis. I would make a greater profit if I could do the spell for many for a reasonable price instead of asking a ridiculous price and getting one or two clients a year."

  Hekate nodded. "And if you don't keep to their price, no member of the guilds will come to you for spells. I see." She frowned. "But who does pay such a price?"

  "Ambassadors to the court of Colchis. Occasionally a merchant or trader who is involved in a legal case. Others are content to learn the language slowly and less perfectly, which is what I advise you to do."

  He waved at the door, and it opened. Hekate could not detect the smallest feel of magic. Kabeiros sniffed and then lifted his head to look at her. Suddenly an idea came to Hekate; before she could think or the fear of using magic could restrain her, she created a mage light—a large one, bright enough to light up the rather dim room. Yehoraz gasped.

  "How did you do that? What is it?"

  "Are you unacquainted with mage lights?"

  "Magic torches I know, but a light that has nothing to which to cling?" He gasped again as Hekate elevated the light and took away her hand. "It will stay where you place it? For how long?"

  "That depends on the power with which you invest it," Hekate replied. "If you can connect it to some source of power or contrive some other way to feed it, yes. It will stay wherever you will it to stay, or follow you about, and stay bright as long as it has power."

  "But . . . but I felt no power when you lit it," Yehoraz whispered.

  "And I felt none when you opened the door."

  On the words, Yehoraz gestured again and the door closed. "I hope no one heard us," he said.

  "Why? This is the house of a sorcerer. Surely the casting of spells is a common thing?"

  "Common enough, but the mage light isn't common here, it's unknown. And magic that can't be detected . . ." His eyes were large, avid.

  Hekate shook her head. "I wish I could use that for barter, but I haven't the faintest idea why you don't sense my magic or I yours." Hekate wished she did know. When she left Colchis it would be good to be able to do a kind of magic no one could sense. She didn't mention that to Yehoraz, though, only said, "That's too deep a mystery for me, I fear. Let's start with simpler things. I will teach you the spell for the mage light. If you can use your own power to cast it and it works with your magic, we will have a better basis to talk."

  "Not now," Yehoraz said uneasily. "This is my time for clients and visitors. Tell me where your house is, and I will come to you."

  "I have no house. I am in the Inn of the Black Genie and I'm not sure the innkeeper would be pleased if we were casting spells in her parlor."

  "No, that wouldn't do. We'll have to use my workroom. Unless I . . . No, the workroom will be best. Can you return here after dark?"

  "I'm not too eager to be abroad after dark."

  "You have no warding spells?"
/>
  Hekate found she couldn't admit she didn't like to use magic. Yehoraz might well not believe her, since she had just done so. "If no one can feel the wards, would they protect me?" she asked. "One man or two I don't fear. Kabeiros could drive them away, but if a troop of armsmen is looking for pleasure . . ."

  "I'll send a servant for you." A calculating look lit his eyes. "Can you put a mage light into his hand or set it over his head?"

  Hekate giggled. "So anyone in the street will see that your servant has something new and wonderful? Yes, I can do it, but that will take a shekel off the mina I will owe you if you give me the language of Colchis."

  To her surprise, the lines of habitual discontent on Yehoraz's face relaxed and he laughed heartily. "I will need to be careful," he said, "or I will end up owing you metal for bespelling you into knowing our language."

  Hekate laughed too as she left, but the way home was not as uneventful as the walk to Yehoraz's house. Almost at the meeting of Porters Way with Sorcerers Road, one of the guards passing with a small train of pack asses reached out to seize Hekate where she stood flattened against a building to be well out of the way. She twisted away, before his hand could close and Kabeiros came in front of her snarling. The guard reached for his sword, but another man pulled him away to keep up with the pack asses, telling him as they walked not to be a fool; killing a dog that size was no small piece of work and would probably involve all the men. The woman would resist him even more if he killed her dog and scream her head off. He would be unable to take her with him, and he would be reported if he left the train. Worst of all, the pack train would be opened by the confusion to attack by thieves.

  They were gone up the road before the reasons to leave her alone ran out, but Hekate resolved no matter how uneasy it made her feel that she would use the look-by-me spell as soon as there was no one to see her cast it. Which made her wonder suddenly why she had agreed to return to Yehoraz's house? Why did he want her at night when she would be alone with him and his servants, when there were no other clients to hear if she made a disturbance?

  She didn't know whether the spell would cover Kabeiros, but she put her hand on his shoulder and, swallowing her fear and reluctance, found a deep doorway and cast the spell. She could feel a vein in the earth flicker in response to her draw; she could feel her magic as it took hold; and she could tell when they passed two porters with one guard and a bit farther along another train of pack asses, that the spell was working. She left it in effect as she walked up Sorcerers Road, only dismissing it as they stepped under the lintel of the Black Genie.

  Over her evening meal, which she again took in a private corner, Hekate puzzled not so much over the important and incomprehensible absence of the "sense" of power in the magic done by Colchis' sorcerers but over Yehoraz's peculiar reactions. It was not unreasonable that he should be pleased when she told him a past client had recommended him, and his eagerness to learn a showy and harmless spell like that for the mage light and how to perform magic with undetectable power were both completely normal behavior. But why couldn't she teach him the spell then and there? It wasn't difficult. And why had he laughed and joked when she demanded a price for her spell in contradiction to his previously dour manner? She had thought he would be angry. It was strange but she liked him . . .

  *What did you think of Yehoraz?* she asked Kabeiros.

  *I liked him. A good man. A sad, lonely man.*

  *Lonely? He has clients enough and servants.*

  *But no friends. I suspect the clients are afraid of him and too subservient. I guess because of what the caravan master said about the sorcerers to the northeast of the Royal Way, that they either scorn Yehoraz for taking common folk as his clients or that he was . . . ah . . . expelled from their group for something of which they disapproved.*

  *You don't think he has any nefarious purpose in asking me to come back at night?*

  *He was uneasy about working on the mage-light spell in his own house . . . You remember, he wanted to work in your house.* There was a pause while the dog licked his nose contemplatively. *I wonder if he was thought to be too . . . daring . . . in the spells he tried.*

  *But toward me. It was most peculiar the way he laughed when he should have been angry over my demanding a shekel of silver for the spell.*

  The dog lolled out his tongue. *Spells don't take on me. If you look strange or act strange, there's going to be a very bloody, very frightened sorcerer until you are back to normal. But I don't think he means harm. I think you put him at ease by showing you were his equal, at least in some things, and still being willing to share. With a court so close, I would guess the sorcerers are very jealous of each other, that they try to steal from one another and are punished for violating any strict protocol—*

  "Are you talking to the dog?" Rakefet asked in an undertone, setting down a second beer, which Hekate had not ordered. "Batshira says you aren't to do any spells in the house. Like you or not, that's forbidden."

  "No spells," Hekate assured her, smiling, although she didn't deny she was talking to Kabeiros. "I went to see if Yehoraz would teach me Colchis speech, but he asked such a price that I doubt I can afford his spell."

  "That's the merchant and craft guilds," Rakefet said with a grimace. "They don't want a lot of foreigners with strange ways—and maybe better products—able to talk and teach. As long as a foreigner can't talk right, he's marked for what he is. Innkeepers'd like the spell more common. It'd mean more visitors, but . . ." She shrugged. "Will you be late coming back? Someone will have to let you in."

  "I don't know," Hekate admitted, "but I should be back before the drinking is finished. You won't have to wait up for me."

  Rakefet's innocent confirmation of the reason for Yehoraz's price added to Kabeiros' good opinion of the man and soothed Hekate's doubts. By the time she finished her dinner, Yehoraz's servant was waiting. As soon as she came out, Hekate made a large, bright mage light and set it over the servant's head. He kept looking up at it nervously, and Hekate assured him, swallowing a grin, that it would not fall on him and burn him. She moved it once, to dart threateningly at a group of armsmen coming down the street toward them. The men backed off, wide-eyed, and the mage light obediently returned to hang over the servant's head.

  When they came to the house, the servant said, "Please, my master will wish to see this."

  Hekate obligingly left the light following the servant. Yehoraz came down from his consulting room and gaped at the light, moving wherever the servant went.

  "She can make it move anywhere," the servant said, sounding a trifle breathless. "She made it jump at a bunch of guards, who were making rude remarks. They shut their mouths and stood aside."

  "Will you teach me that too?" Yehoraz asked.

  "It comes with the spell," Hekate replied.

  As she spoke she realized that the spells that attached the mage light to a place or person and for movement didn't really come with the mage-light spell. They were merely used together so often, that they had been sort of curled up together; the separate symbols now blended into one in the mind and the words also blended . . . An excitement began deep in Hekate's gut and spread up to her chest, making her heart pound so that she had to forcibly control her breathing. She fixed the idea in her mind and to cover her excitement, said to Yehoraz, "The spell comes in three parts, but I don't consider one complete without the others, so I will teach you all three."

  "For one shekel of silver?"

  Hekate couldn't help laughing, "Yes, although I admit that if I had thought of it being three parts before I said I would give it to you for one shekel, I might have asked three."

  He smiled at her slowly and his face changed, the hard lines softening and the bright, cold eyes seeming to become a warmer brown. "I will credit you with three shekels gladly . . . if I can learn the spell and make it work." He stared at the mage light and shook his head. "Nothing. I sense nothing at all. I see it is magic. I know it is magic. But I can't feel magic at all
, and that's one of my Talents." He gestured for her to follow him. "Come. I'm most eager to try this spell."

  As they followed him up to his consulting room and out through a well-concealed door at the back, Hekate said, *Kabeiros?*

  He knew what the question meant. *I smell the spell,* the dog replied. "Earth-blood and heat and your special scent.* He was silent while they went down two flights of stairs, the landing between them holding a locked door that Hekate suspected led to a back alley. *They use some other source of power, not the blood of the earth,* he remarked as Yehoraz unlocked a door at the bottom of the second flight.

  *I never thought of that," Hekate said. *Oh, Kabeiros, if we can learn what it is . . . I will explain later, but see if you can get any idea of what Yehoraz draws upon when he casts the language spell.*

  The door opened. Hekate braced herself to repress the revulsion she had always felt in her father's workroom, but no such sensation assailed her. There was no stench of evil, no contorted forms frozen in stasis to recall their suffering. Shelves held jars of magical substances—Hekate recognized hens' teeth, the shavings of a unicorn's horn, a vial that must be dragon's blood—and there were two skeletons, male and female, one of which animated and came forward.

  "Service, master?"

  "No, Naor," Yehoraz said. "I will not need you or Nili tonight." He turned to Hekate. "Will we need artifacts for the spell? I think I have—"

  "Only a sheet of parchment so I can show you the symbols and write the commands."