Finally, I thought that I might as well pay him. I had no use for the money, unless to buy poison, and I could always get more from the Green priests. I took what I had and went hunting Wizard’s Row. That I had found myself carrying Floradazul’s empty basket downstairs with me did not make me like The Magician any better.
Wizard’s Row was square and white in the morning sunshine. The shutters of Number 17 were closed. I stamped up the green walk, wondering where the yew tree was, and yanked at the tongue of the gargoyle.
“Where have you been?” it sang, and the door swung open.
So I had all the anger I had been saving for the gargoyle’s questions to use on The Magician.
He was waiting for me in the hall, wearing red. His bracelets had been polished since I saw him last. In his right hand he held a black kitten, the unlovely kind with spiky fur sticking out in all directions. In his left hand he held a green collar with a silver buckle and three opals.
I thought I would choke before I got the words out. “By the holy, you monster, did you dig her up?”
“No,” said The Magician, in an icy voice that quelled my anger instantly, “and I advise you not to do so. Take your cat.”
“My cat is dead, and you lied to me, or else you know nothing. Where did you get that collar?”
“It came with the kitten. Your kitten. Take her.”
“That is not my kitten!”
“Look at it,” said The Magician. “Call it.”
I looked at the kitten. It was a most unattractive animal; it had a face like a fruit bat’s. It sat bolt upright on The Magician’s palm, looking unconcerned. I looked again. Any cat will sit upright and wrap its tail around its forepaws. Floradazul had always wrapped hers from left to right. So did this kitten. Floradazul had also done what I never saw any other cat do: curl the tip of her tail up between the forepaws instead of wrapping both of them. So did this kitten.
“Floradazul,” I croaked.
The kitten stood up and squeaked. The Magician put it down, and it bounded over with its foolish tail in the air, jumped as high as it could, and climbed the rest of the way, tucking its damp nose into my neck. I looked at The Magician. I was beyond feeling, and even in that moment, I remember, I wished this state would last.
“I thought you knew,” said The Magician. “Cats have nine lives. I told you yours was in her first.”
“Why did she come here?” This was not what I had meant to say.
“This is a center of power,” said The Magician, in the tone of one who does not intend to explain further.
“But the cat’s body died. Didn’t you bind my luck to that? Are you sure you didn’t bind it to the collar by mistake?”
“Entirely,” said The Magician. “I could have bound your luck to its body. You did not ask me to. You asked me to bind it to the cat. The cat has nine lives. Therefore, your luck has nine lives. And therefore, so have you.”
I considered his face. He did not sound completely certain, but I doubted he would tell me anything more. The kitten had begun to purr.
“I don’t suppose you’d like a cat?”
“I have one.”
He could stand there for days making similar answers, with the same quiet face. “Thank you for this late information,” I said. “How much?”
The Magician bowed to me. “Consider this a part of the former service,” he said, thus depriving me of the pleasure of throwing the money at him.
I went outside and stood in the dusty street. I wondered what I could say to Givanni, whose offer of a kitten I had refused. I wondered what I could say to Verdialos, who had offered me a mere ten years’ servitude. Even if Floradazul never learned caution, I would have three times that with her.
I left Wizard’s Row and took my cat home.
Liavek, year 3318
Of Fish and Fools
By Patricia C. Wrede
Sunlight played over the floor of the neat little house on the Street of Trees, while an assortment of cats lounged on windowsills and furniture and Granny Carry frowned at the nearly completed tapestry on her loom. It wasn’t often that one of her weavings went wrong without warning, but the last five passes contained four skipped warps, three reversed twists, and three holes where the threads had unaccountably not locked properly when the color changed.
Granny’s eyes narrowed. No coincidence, this. Still frowning, she began carefully unweaving the last flawed inch of tapestry as she contemplated her next move. Even setting aside questions of duty, it was not in her nature to simply ignore the matter.
An hour later, the weaving was finished, this time without imperfections. Granny cut it free of the loom and set it aside to be hemmed later. Methodically, she unwound and removed the remaining warp and swept up the trimmings that had fallen to the floor. Only then did she reach for the drawer of colored chalks in the little sewing table beside the loom.
She hesitated briefly, then with a wry smile took a dark blue stick from the drawer and began chalking symbols on the legs of the loom. When she was young, she’d have chosen the yellow and tried to divine the problem directly, never mind the difficulty or the fact that she had no idea what was going on, why it was going on, or who was behind it.
Now she knew better. What she needed first was information; the ritual she’d chosen would call quietly to someone who could give it to her. The call would spread out as she wove the hanging, not insistent enough to override anyone’s will, but subtle and persistent.
It was far less taxing than a divination ritual would have been, which would leave her more luck to deal with whatever the problem turned out to be, and it had almost no potential to unbalance matters further.
Also, the spell would dissolve once Granny had the information she needed, allowing the hanging to be sold or given away later, like her more ordinary weavings. Guarding Liavek was all very well, but if she’d had to keep every spell-weaving she’d created in the past couple of centuries, the house would be full to the rafters.
• • •
Marithana Govan stared down at her latest patient, frowning. According to his landlord, he’d become feverish after being wounded in a knife fight two days before, and hadn’t responded to any of the normal remedies. A crude bandage at his right shoulder covered the presumed cause of the illness; the visible scars on his chest and arms were long-healed. He was a young man, short and lean; at a guess, he was the sort who would surprise a larger man by his quickness. Marithana hoped he had endurance as well. His skin was an unhealthy ash color, hot and dry to the touch.
“How long has he been like this?” Marithana asked.
“Since last night,” the landlord replied.
Marithana nodded. She stretched out her left hand and gently touched the sick man’s forehead. Like many physicians, Marithana spent part of her time preparing or renewing elaborate ritual spells for later use, as it was seldom possible to take the time needed for a full ritual when a patient was gravely ill. Marithana kept her diagnostic and healing spells in the rings she wore, and now she invoked the silver ring that would show her the cause of the fever.
All three of the rings on that hand flashed tiny pinpoints of light. Marithana pulled back with an exclamation she had not used in years.
“What is it?” the landlord asked anxiously.
It was on the tip of Marithana’s tongue to say “magic”; nothing else could have affected all the rings at once. But if the landlord thought there was sorcery involved, he’d probably throw the sick man out into the street. “It’s more serious than I expected,” Marithana said instead. She fumbled at her belt and removed a small pouch of herbs. “If you would help, pour some boiling water over these and let it rest five minutes. Then bring it to me.”
“Of course, doctor.” The landlord bowed and left.
Marithana did not waste time on a breath of relief. She set her hands on either side of the sick man’s head. She felt the amulet at her throat quiver slightly as the channel to her birth luck opened, and sh
e began moving her hands in the traditional gestures of a protective ritual. As soon as the protective spell was complete, she turned back the bandage to examine the wound itself.
Green pustules blotched the skin around the blackened edges of the knife wound. The evil-smelling sores were symptoms of no disease Marithana knew. She swallowed. This was much worse than she had expected. She called on her birth luck once more and began her work.
The sorcery tormenting the sick man was powerful, and it had a slimy feeling that reminded Marithana of the little eels she had gathered in the salt marshes when she was an apprentice. She focused on one sore at a time, canceling the magic that produced it and hastening the body’s healing, then resting for a moment before going on to the next.
At last she finished, and she sat back, sweating with the effort of a true healing. Almost any wizard in Liavek could cast a spell to make a sick person feel better, but without medical training, such a spell was unlikely to reach the underlying cause of the illness. The illusion of health might last a day or a week, or perhaps even until the wizard’s next birthday, when all his spells would fail while he re-invested his luck. By that time, the unlucky patient of such a wizard was frequently in dire straits.
The treatments provided by physician-wizards such as Marithana were more difficult, but far more lasting. They used their spells as tools to help diagnose an illness, to take the place of clamps and bandages, or, more rarely, to assist the healing processes of the patient’s own body.
The sick man began to toss restlessly, and Marithana reached out with the carnelian ring that would bring his fever under control. As it touched him, he muttered, “…lost, lost forever. S’Rian withers…kill the green rabbit…”
Marithana blinked. The man spoke a version of the desert tongue—not that of her mother’s Tilandre clan, but similar enough to be recognizable. He looked like a Liavekan—but some of the desert clans had come from the ancient city of S’Rian. They had fled when the Liavekans conquered it and founded Liavek in its place. What would bring a S’Rian clansman back now?
The man turned again. “Kill…not that way…I won’t let…Ellishar! No!”
Marithana invoked the spell stored in the ring. It took effect almost at once; the man sighed and relaxed. The doctor’s eyes narrowed as she lowered her hand. The talk of killing hinted at a clan war. Such things spread quickly; anyone who aided either side was assumed to have made an alliance, and treated accordingly. True, this was Liavek, not the Great Waste—but her own mother had been murdered in Liavek during a clan war. The swift justice meted out by the Levar’s courts had been little comfort to Marithana then, and it would be even less now, were she killed for helping a nameless stranger.
Shaking off the memories, Marithana considered. The healing she’d done would be enough for a normal ailment, but if magic was involved, her patient would need special protection. Carefully, she cast a basic warding spell. It would do until she could return with something more potent.
• • •
The Vessel of Dreams was anchored in its usual place near Canalgate when Marithana came down Cat Street. She was glad Thomorin Wiln was in Liavek and not off on one of his voyages; he was one of the best apothecaries she knew, and the most convenient for her. Occasionally she wished he hadn’t chosen to set up shop on a boat. There was still enough of the desert in her blood for her to be nervous about walking over water, however much she enjoyed watching it.
She crossed the narrow gangplank and entered the cabin where Thomorin Wiln sold his wares. He was there, and mercifully not busy. Marithana gave him her list of purchases, and watched in some amusement as he made accurate selections from one little drawer after another without so much as a glance at the labels. She wondered idly, not for the first time, whether he were a wizard. It would explain his accuracy, and one of the lead rings that bound his greying hair could be his vessel of luck…
“Spikenard, snakeroot…alder and tansy?” Thomorin Wiln looked at her questioningly.
“One of my patients may need some defense against magic, and I do not hoard such herbs,” Marithana said.
“I didn’t think you took that sort of work,” Wiln said, turning back to his drawers.
“I spoke of a patient, Thomorin. Not some rich hypochondriac fearful of an enemy’s nonexistent curses. Put up a lot,” she added sourly. “I may need it myself soon.”
Thomorin Wiln looked up in the act of scooping a fine purple powder from one of the drawers. “Trouble, Mari?”
“Perhaps. My patient is a nomad, and I fear he is involved in a clan war. If it is so, and it becomes known that I helped him…” She shrugged.
“If you’re worried, talk to one of the Levar’s Guard.”
“And what should I tell them? Besides, I may be fishing for trouble. The man was raving about S’Rians and killing green rabbits…” Marithana stopped. Thomorin Wiln was looking at her with a peculiarly thoughtful frown. “That has meaning for you?”
Thomorin’s frown deepened. “I hear a lot of things, this close to the docks. Once in a while one of them is even interesting.”
“Are you deliberately mysterious, or is this habit?”
“An apothecary does everything deliberately; has to.” He shook his head and looked up. “There are rumors on the docks about the Windsong’s last voyage. Rumors involving wizardry and a S’Rian rabbit carved in jade. And Windsong shipped fifty or so nomads as new hands that voyage.”
“S’Rian, and a jade rabbit,” Marithana said thoughtfully. “So my patient’s ravings may have meaning. It doesn’t explain why anyone would use magic against him, though.”
“No.” Thomorin scowled, then jerked out a quill and an ink pot and scribbled something on a scrap of paper. “Here. If your patient has anything to do with the old S’Rians, go see this woman. Tell her I sent you. She won’t be polite, but she’ll help.”
“Thomorin—”
“Think of it as an extra service. Or throw it away as soon as you’re off the Vessel. Doesn’t matter to me.”
“Who is this person?”
“A very old customer. She doesn’t approve of me.”
“Why not?”
“She’s never forgiven me for the business with the cat and the Council.” Thomorin Wiln shrugged. “She didn’t care about the Council, but she thought I should have had more respect for the cat.”
Marithana laughed in spite of herself. “I’ll keep your note, my friend, but I’ll not promise to use it.”
“Fair enough. Your order, physician.” Thomorin Wiln handed her the bag of herbs and mixtures, along with the scribbled slip of paper. Marithana gave him a half-levar, and slipped the folded paper into a pocket in the folds of her abjahin. She was more than usually thoughtful as she left the boat.
• • •
The warding spell showed no signs of tampering, and the man was sleeping when Marithana returned. A cursory examination left her well pleased with his progress, and there was no sign of further magical intervention. The patient awoke just as she finished, and regarded her with a wary expression.
Marithana smiled down at him. “I am glad you are recovering,” she said.
“Who are you?” the man demanded weakly.
“My name is Marithana Govan. I am a healer.”
“You’re a clanswoman.”
“My mother was of the Tilandre.”
“Not S’Rian, then.”
“No, nor are you likely to find one who is. S’Rian has been gone for seven hundred years.”
“No!” The man struggled upright, eyes flashing angrily. “Our ancestors were driven out into the Waste, but we remember! We will—”
“Lie still,” Marithana interrupted, pushing him firmly back against the pillows.
“I have healed from worse wounds than this!” the man said, but he did not resist her efforts.
“Undoubtedly,” Marithana said. “Yet allow me to question whether they were infected, or whether magic was used to worsen matters.”
> The man stared at her, his face ashen-pale. “No,” he whispered. “You lie!”
“It is not my custom. Who tries to kill you?”
“That is my affair, not yours.”
Marithana forced her anger down, and said as reasonably as she could, “I do not know whose spell I had to break before I healed you, nor do I care. You are, however, my patient. I have a responsibility to protect you until you are well enough to do so yourself. I would therefore appreciate any guesses you may have as to how skilled a magician I am dealing with and whether the attack is likely to be repeated.”
“I do not know,” the man said, too quickly to be convincing.
Marithana sighed. “How, then, did you come by the wound?”
The man started to shrug, then winced. “A fight in a bar.”
“Over a jade rabbit?” Marithana asked, remembering the rumors Thomorin Wiln had mentioned.
She had meant the question sarcastically, but its effect on the sick man was astonishing. He shoved himself upright and demanded, “Who told you of that?”
“Some of what I know I had from your own ravings, some from a friend. But I would be glad to hear your part in the story.”
“It is a matter of S’Rian,” the man said sullenly.
“It may be a matter of your life.”
“I will…think about it.”
“Then in the meantime I suggest you sleep,” Marithana said, exasperated. “You may have need of your strength.”
The man nodded and closed his eyes. Marithana waited a moment, then stepped into the empty hall. She pulled out the paper Thomorin Wiln had given her, and looked at it without unfolding it. The apothecary had known or guessed more than he had been willing to say, but it would be futile to return and question him. He’d pointed her in what he thought was the right direction; whether she made use of his help was up to her. She sighed, wishing Liavekans did not have such a fondness for intrigue.
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