Taking Flight

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  "Kelder," she said, watching the dove. "All right."

  "You're heading east, on the Great Highway?" he asked.

  "No," she said.

  "West, then? Back to Ethshar?"

  "Probably. Which way are you going, back to Shulara?"

  "No, to Ethshar."

  She nodded. "So this is where you hit the highway, coming from Shulara?"

  "No, I reached the highway in Hlimora at first and went east to Shan on the Desert. Now I'm heading west."

  She looked up, interested. "You've been to Shan?"

  Kelder nodded.

  "What's it like?"

  He shrugged. "We didn't stay long," he said. "I think it's seen better days." He was becoming more comfortable speak­ing Ethsharitic, now that he'd had a little practice.

  "Oh," Azraya said, disappointed. "What about the other towns along the way?"

  "Well," Kelder said, "this place, Krithim, is the nicest I've seen yet."

  "Oh," Azraya said again. She tossed another pebble and the dove flapped wildly for a moment, then wheeled into the air and flew away. "I guess I'll be going back to Ethshar, then."

  "Why were you traveling in the first place?" Kelder asked.

  "None of your—oh, damn it, it doesn't matter." She slumped forward, chin on her hands, elbows on her knees.

  At first, Kelder took this to mean that she was going to an­swer his question, but after a moment it became clear that she wasn't going to say anything without further urging.

  "Maybe it doesn't matter," he said, "but I'm curious."

  She turned her head to glare at him around an errant ringlet of hair. "Why?" she demanded.

  "Oh, I just like to know things," Kelder said rather feebly.

  She turned back to staring at the cobbles.

  "When I was eight," she said, "my parents died of a fever."

  Kelder, realizing he was about to get the whole story, nod­ded encouragingly.

  "We couldn't afford a theurgist to pray over them," Azraya continued, "or a witch to hex them, or a wizard to cast spells on them, so they died. Two of my brothers died, too, and my older sister—the neighbors were all so afraid of catching it that they wouldn't come near us, they shut up our house with us inside. That left me, and my younger sister Amari, and our baby brother Regran. I was the oldest, so I tried to take care of them, and I would sneak out of the house and steal food and things for them. And when the fever was gone, I took the boards off the doors, and then the tax collectors came and took the house away because we couldn't pay, we didn't know where our parents had hidden their money—if they had any."

  Kelder made a sympathetic noise.

  "So we all went to the Hundred-Foot Field and lived there, with the beggars and thieves." Azraya went on. "In the block between Panderer Street and Superstition Street, in the Camptown district. Our house was in Eastwark, but our old neighbors . . . well, we thought we'd do better in Camptown, and the Hundred-Foot Field goes all the way around the city."

  Kelder had no idea what this meant—he had never heard of the Hundred-Foot Field or anything else she mentioned. Inter­rupting to ask for an explanation did not seem like a very good idea, however, so he let her go on.

  "I didn't steal," she said, "not after we lost the house. I think Amari did, but I didn't. I begged when I had to and ran errands for people when I could—one good thing about Camptown, the soldiers usually had errands we could run, taking messages to their women, or fetching things from the Wizards' Quarter for them, or even just standing lookout when they were supposed to be on duty and wanted a nap, or a little time in bed with someone, or a game of dice." She took a deep breath. "Regran died when he was two, just be­fore my tenth birthday," she said. "I'm not sure what he died of, he just got sick and died. Somebody had kicked him, maybe that did something, I don't know. We'd done every­thing we could for him, even found a wetnurse and paid her half what we earned for a few months, but sometimes babies just die. After that, Amari and I didn't stay together much anymore, and I lost track of her after a while. I haven't seen her in a couple of years now. She might be dead, too." She paused, remembering.

  Kelder wanted to say something comforting, but before he could think of anything and phrase it in Ethsharitic, Azraya resumed her story.

  "I told you we lived near Panderer Street," she said. "Well, the panderers noticed me, after a while, and I started avoiding them. And by the time I was thirteen I didn't run any more errands on Pimp Street or Whore Street, either."

  Kelder did not recognize the Ethsharitic words for pan-derer, pimp, or whore, but he could make a guess what she was saying.

  "And after a while, I decided that I was tired of it. I was tired of the Hundred-Foot Field, the mud and the flies and the lunatics talking to themselves and the thieves going through your bedding every time you were out of sight, and I was tired of being harassed by the pimps, and I was tired of the soldiers and their errands—they were propositioning me, too, by this time. So I went to the markets to find work, but I didn't find anything at first, just more pimps, and slavers, and farmers who wouldn't take me as a field hand because I'm not big enough. I was too old to apprentice—I should have found something when I was twelve, but I didn't, I missed my chance."

  Kelder nodded in sympathy. Maybe he should have found an apprenticeship on his own, regardless of what his parents wanted—but he hadn't.

  "Anyway, eventually I got to Shiphaven Market, and I thought I would sign up to be a sailor, but there was someone there looking for volunteers to join a dragon hunt in the Small Kingdoms, and I thought that would be wonderful. It was a way out of the city, and I may be small, but I'm not stupid, and I'm stronger than I look—I thought I might help in a dragon hunt. So I signed up."

  "A dragon?" Kelder looked at her with renewed respect. She was brave, anyway—either that, or crazy.

  She nodded. "The reward was a thousand pieces of gold, he said. I knew I couldn't kill a dragon myself, but I thought maybe I could help out and get a share."

  "Where was this dragon?" Kelder asked. "How big was it?"

  "It's in a place called Dwomor," Azraya said, "south of here. I don't really know how big the dragon is—as far as I know, it's still there."

  Kelder had heard of Dwomor; it was one of the larger Small Kingdoms, up in the high mountains in the central re­gion. If one was looking for a dragon, that was a likely place to start, he had to admit. "You didn't kill it?" he asked.

  "I didn't try," Azraya said.

  "Why not?"

  She sighed.

  "They signed up a whole boatload of us," she said, "and we all sailed off across the Gulf of the East, and up a river to Ekeroa, and then they loaded us in wagons and took us to Dwomor, and we all got introduced to the king, and it all looked good, nobody bothered me, nobody tried to touch me, all they cared about was the dragon, I thought. Dwomor wasn't exactly beautiful, but it was different, anyway. The whole castle was full of dragon-hunters, and they were form­ing into teams, and I thought I'd be able to join a team and get a share—and then the Lord Chamberlain took me aside and explained a few things."

  "Like what?"

  "Like what the reward was," Azraya said bitterly. "The re­cruiter lied. Oh, there were a thousand pieces of gold, and a position in the king's service, but those weren't the reward; those were his daughters' dowry. The reward was that who­ever killed the dragon got to marry one of his daughters. He had five of them, not counting the married one, so he was sending the hunters out in five-man teams. Five men."

  "Oh," Kelder said, understanding the situation immedi­ately. Surplus princesses were a well-known phenomenon in the Small Kingdoms, a common subject of lewd jokes—there were never enough princes to go around, and custom decreed that princesses could marry commoners only under exceptional circumstances. Slaying a dragon qualified a commoner as exceptional.

  "I don't know if they'd have sent me back to Ethshar," Azraya said. "I didn't wait to find out. I just set out, to see where I went. I've been
wandering for months, through Ekeroa and Pethmor and Ressamor, doing what odd jobs I could, stealing when I couldn't eat any other way, and last night I arrived here in Krithim, and now I need to decide whether to give up and go back to Ethshar, or to keep look­ing."

  "Looking for what?" Kelder asked.

  "I don't know," she said. "Just someplace to live, I guess, where I won't have to beg or whore or sleep in the mud."

  She paused. Kelder thought she had finished, and was about to say something, when she added, "Or sell my blood to some slimy old wizard."

  Chapter 28

  "We're staying at the Leaping Fish," Kelder told

  Azraya as they parted. "If you'd like to meet us there for supper . . ."

  "Don't count on it," Azraya said.

  Kelder watched her go, then turned and headed back for the castle. The guards might have misdirected him before, but it still seemed to be the best place to look for work. Azraya disagreed and was going her own way.

  He rather regretted that; he liked her.

  Maybe, he told himself wryly, he was just a sucker for sad stories and losers. Maybe Zindré had guessed that, and had suggested he would champion the lost and forlorn not from magical foreknowledge but just from his character. Asha, with her abusive drunkard of a father; Ezdral, with his love spell and alcoholism; even Irith, with her unbreakable enchantments—they were all among the unfortunates of the World.

  And poor orphaned Azraya was another.

  Azraya wasn't looking for a champion, though; she could obviously take care of herself.

  The four of them made a boring life on a farm in Shulara look pretty good by comparison.

  This time, when Kelder asked, the soldiers at the castle gate made no jokes and grinned no grins; the one who had directed him to Senesson was apologetic, the other sullen.

  "Sorry," the first one said, "if Senesson can't use you, I don't have any suggestions. There must be merchants who could use some help loading their wagons, I suppose."

  Kelder was about to say something more when a cat meowed by his feet. He turned, and Irith was standing beside him.

  "Gods and demons!" one of the soldiers exclaimed.

  "What's the matter?" Kelder asked him.

  "She just appeared, out of nowhere!" the guard said. "It startled me—I thought my heart would burst!"

  "That's Irith the Flyer," the other one said. "She can do that."

  "I know who she is," the first guard said, "but I never saw her do that before, and it startled me, all right?"

  "Hello," Irith said. "I'm here to see the king's wizard—he does still have one, doesn't he?"

  The guards looked at one another.

  "He had one the last time I was here," she said. "Her name was Perina something."

  "Perina the Wise," one guard said. "She's still here. There are also two witches and a sorcerer."

  "I'm only looking for wizards, thanks," Irith said. "May we go in?"

  "We?"

  "He's with me," Irith said, taking Kelder's hand.

  The guards exchanged glances again, and then one of them shrugged.

  "What the hell," he said. "Let them in."

  "I think we better send an escort," the other replied.

  The first considered, and agreed.

  "Wait here," he said. Then he turned and hurried inside.

  While they were waiting, Kelder remarked, "There's a wiz­ard a few blocks over that way by the name of Senesson of Yolder—do you think he might have a counterspell?"

  "Who knows?" Irith said. "I know who you mean; he's a nasty old man, but we can ask him when we're done here."

  Kelder nodded. He was about to say something about meeting Azraya there when the soldier returned, accompanied by yet another soldier. "I'll escort you to the wizard's work­shop," the new arrival said, without preamble.

  "Thank you," Kelder said. "Lead on."

  The wizard's workshop proved to be at the top of a dis­tressingly long staircase; as they finally neared the top, Kelder panting and Irith making a great effort not to, the Flyer turned to her companion and muttered, "You can do what you like, Kelder, but I'm flying down." She touched the bloodstone at her throat and then stood up straight, her fatigue seemingly vanished, as she took the last few steps.

  "I don't blame you," he wheezed back. "I would, too, if I could."

  The guardsman seemed untroubled by the climb. He paused for a few seconds at the top of the stair to allow them to catch their breath—not enough seconds, in Kelder's opin­ion, but a few—and then rapped on the blackened wood door.

  A complex and unfamiliar rune glowed white against the black, and a hollow voice asked, "Who goes there?" It spoke in Trader's Tongue, Kelder noticed.

  "Two visitors to see Perina the Wise," the soldier said in what Kelder took at first for awkward Ethsharitic, then recog­nized as Krithimionese. "I know one to be Irith the Flyer; the other I do not recognize."

  "Kelder of Shulara," Kelder volunteered, wondering why the man was answering one language with another.

  For a moment, nothing happened; then the door swung open and a woman's voice called out, in the Krithimionese di­alect, "Come in, Irith, and bring your friend! Thank you, Kelder, you may go."

  As Kelder hesitated, the soldier bowed quickly, turned, and headed back down the staircase.

  "Wait," Kelder called after him, "she said Kelder . . ."

  "That's me," the soldier called back. "Kelder the Tall. No jokes, please." Then he was gone, around a bend in the stair.

  Kelder muttered, "I'd hardly be the one to joke about the name, would I?" Then he followed Irith through the door.

  The workshop was a large room, with windows on three sides, tables and bookcases here and there, fur rugs on the floor, and a spiral stair in the center. Standing on the stair was a handsome middle-aged woman, a streak of white in her black hair.

  "Irith," she said, descending to the floor, "how good to see you!" She spoke Krithimionese, but Kelder could follow it well enough.

  "Hello, Perina," Irith said in the same tongue as she stepped into the room far enough to close the door. 'This is Kelder of Shulara; he's been very helpful lately."

  That was not exactly Kelder's idea of a great introduction, but he smiled and said, "Hello."

  "I haven't seen you for more than a year," Perina said to Irith, ignoring Kelder as she crossed the room. "What brings you here now?"

  "Well, I need a spell," Irith said. "Or a counterspell, re­ally."

  Perina came and took the girl by the hand. "Come and sit down and tell me all about it," she said as she led the way to a small settee, upholstered in gold-embroidered burgundy vel­vet.

  Kelder, feeling out of place, followed.

  "Well, it seems I enchanted someone," Irith said, as she sank onto the cushions. "I didn't really mean to, exactly."

  Perina nodded encouragingly and sat down, as well; Kelder, seeing no space remaining, stayed standing and began to wander toward a nearby shelf as if that was what he had in­tended all along.

  "I put this spell on him, and I sort of thought it would wear off, but it didn't, and now he's an old man and he still has this spell on him, and it's pretty awful, so I'd really like to know how to break it," Irith said. Kelder looked over the tidy row of skulls atop the bookcase, trying to identify them all; the human was easy, of course, and he was pretty sure of the cat and the horse, but some of the others puzzled him.

  "It sounds terrible," Perina said, patting Irith on the knee. "Which spell was it, my dear?"

  "Fendel's Infatuous Love Spell," Irith said. Then she added, "I think."

  Kelder glanced at her, forgetting about the odd skull with the horns. This was the first time he had heard her say that she wasn't entirely certain about which spell it was.

  "Oh, that's a bad one," Perina said, clicking her tongue in rebuke. "It's tricky, you know; it can go wrong in ever so many ways."

  Kelder looked at her hopefully, then quickly turned back to the shelves. Directly below th
e skulls was an impressive array of strangely shaped bottles, none of them labeled, and he wondered not just what might be in them but how Perina could tell.

  "Do you know it?" Irith asked.

  "No, not really," Perina admitted. "I've heard about it, but the Infallible Love Philtre is so much more convenient that I never bothered with it—all those stories about people falling in love with the wrong person, or even with animals!" She shook her head in dismay. "Fendel was a brilliant man, but even the best of us isn't perfect, and that spell is just nothing but trouble. Whyever did you use it?"

  "It's the only love spell I have," Irith said. "I didn't see any others in Kalirin's book, when I was an apprentice."

  "Well, I don't suppose old—Kalirin, was it? Your master?" Perina asked.

  Irith nodded.

  "Well, I don't suppose he had much call for love spells, af­ter all," Perina said. "It's too bad."

  Kelder wondered why anyone would make a bottle with two necks, both of them twisted into complete loops. And was there a reason to use blue glass for it?

  "So you don't know the counter?" Irith asked.

  "I'm afraid not, my dear," Perina admitted, patting Irith's knee again. "I'm so sorry."

  The third shelf held even more bottles, but these were more ordinary—that is, if Kelder ignored the fact that something was moving in that big one second from the left and that the one fourth from the right was watching him with green glass eyes.

  "I do believe it has blood in it somewhere," Perina said thoughtfully. "I've heard that."

  "Virgin's blood?" Irith asked.

  Perina shook her head. "No, I don't think so," she said, "but I'm really not sure. Oh, dear."

  Something thin and black from the bottom shelf was reach­ing out for his leg, Kelder realized; he stepped back suddenly and almost trod on Irith's foot. The tendril, or whatever it was, retreated.

  "Listen," Perina said, "if you do find a counterspell, you tell me about it, won't you? Please? It could be useful, you know."

  "Sure," Irith said. "And if you hear anything, you'll tell me?"

  "Oh, assuredly!"

  The bottom shelf held jars; most of them had no lids, and they all appeared to contain plants, none of which Kelder rec­ognized. The tendril came from something resembling a ma­levolent cabbage.