Ethshar 08 - Ithanalin's Restoration

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  For now, she intended to just rely on the creature's self-interest.

  It had been a good morning so far. She had Ithanalin's body, and the rug and table and bowl and spoon and coatrack and latch and spriggan, and most of the ingredients for Javan's Restoration. She still needed the chair and bench and couch, and jewelweed, whatever that was.

  And Kelder had locked the bench and chair in a storeroom near the shipyard.

  She had finally remembered her intention to levitate above the city and see if she could spot the missing furniture, and she might still do that later to locate the couch, but fetching the bench and chair seemed more immediately helpful.

  Carrying them by herself might be something of a challenge— she could use the Spell of Optimum Strength, even if the potion wasn't ready, but they might struggle, and it might take two trips, which seemed a waste of time—and besides, this soldier Kelder knew where they were and she didn't.

  "Kelder," she said, "can you help me bring the bench and chair home?"

  "Of course," the guardsman said.

  "Then let's go," Kilisha said.

  "Do you want to bring anything? Any magic spells?"

  "Oh!" Kilisha paused; she realized she hadn't thought about that very hard. She considered for a moment.

  Tracel's Adaptable Potion wasn't ready, and since she would have Kelder along to help carry, it didn't seem worth taking hours to work the Spell of Optimum Strength—and what other magic did she have that would be useful in carrying furniture? She could think of only one really useful thing to bring, and it wasn't exactly a spell.

  "Just a minute," she said, running back to the kitchen.

  A moment later she returned with a coil of rope slung on her shoulder. "Let's go," she said.

  Kelder looked curiously at the coil. "Is that magic?" he asked.

  Startled, she looked up at him. "No," she said, "it's rope."

  "Oh." He stood, looking slightly foolish, as Kilisha pushed past him and opened the front door; then he followed her out into the street.

  The morning was wearing on; the sun was high overhead as the pair of them set out toward the waterfront. Kilisha had closed the shop door securely and ordered the latch to behave itself, but all the same she was slightly worried about it, and not really surprised at all when, after they had gone no more than two blocks, the spriggan came running up beside her.

  "Like you!" it said. "We have fun!"

  Kilisha looked down at it and sighed.

  Kelder looked as well, and stopped walking. "Shall I catch it for you, and take it back?"

  "No," Kilisha said. She already knew that spriggans were expert at getting in and out of places—their ability to turn up in the workshop at inconvenient times proved that. And this spriggan had an athame's magic, making it impossible to bind; it was probably smarter than the average spriggan now that it held a portion of Ithanalin's intelligence, and might well have a bond of sorts with the animated latch on the front door. The chances of keeping it restrained against its will, even with cages and the Spell of Impeded Egress, were amazingly poor—and if she tried to confine it and it escaped, it would be that much more reluctant to be recaptured.

  She would just have to rely on its common sense and the fact that it liked her.

  She grimaced. Relying on a spriggan's common sense? Had she gone mad?

  No, she told herself, she had simply not been given any better options.

  "Fun!" the spriggan said.

  "Your legs will get tired if you run after us," Kilisha suggested.

  "Don't care. We have fun!" It grinned an impossibly wide and foolish grin.

  The silly creature was clearly determined to accompany them, rather than staying sensibly at home. Kilisha glanced at Kelder. "I don't suppose it could ride in your pouch?"

  Kelder looked at her, at the spriggan, at his pouch, then back at Kilisha. "No!" he said. "That's the overlord's property. I keep important things in there; I can't have a spriggan playing with them!"

  "All right, all right," Kilisha said. "It was just a suggestion." She looked down at the spriggan. "Would you like to ride on my shoulder? You can hold onto my hair to keep from falling off." That would keep it within her reach.

  "Ooooooh!" the spriggan said, eyes widening. "Ride is fun! Yes, yes!"

  Kilisha stooped down, and the spriggan ran up her lowered arm to perch on her shoulder. It grabbed a healthy handful of hair and shook it, like the reins of an oxcart.

  "Ow!" Kilisha protested, as she straightened up. "Not so hard."

  "Sorry, sorry!"

  The creature did not sound the least bit sorry, but Kilisha did not argue. "Lead the way," she told Kelder, ignoring the stares of the other pedestrians.

  Kelder led.

  Half an hour later he stopped at the door of an ugly brick structure on Shipyard Street . "This is it," he said.

  Kilisha tried the latch. "It's locked," she said.

  "Of course it is," Kelder agreed. "I didn't want them getting out."

  The spriggan, which had been tugging with one hand at the coil of rope Kilisha carried while its other hand remained tangled in her hair, looked up. "Get out?" it said.

  "Yes, there is furniture in there we didn't want to get out," Kilisha said.

  "More furniture?" The spriggan shuddered. "Didn't like rug and table. Got squeezed." It pulled its hand out of the loop of rope.

  Kilisha tried to turn her head far enough to look at the creature, but it was pressing up against her ear, making this impossible.

  "But they're other pieces of the same person!" she said.

  "Other pieces of wizard," the spriggan corrected her. "sprigganalin is spriggan and Ithanalin. Spriggan doesn't like furniture."

  "Is that why you followed us?"

  The spriggan buried its face in her hair, and she could feel it nodding.

  "We need to find the foreman," Kelder said, pointedly ignoring her conversation with the spriggan. "He's the one with the key."

  "You don't have the key?" Kilisha asked, startled.

  Kelder looked at her, equally startled. "I'm a guardsman assigned to collect taxes for Lady Nuvielle—why would I have a key to a shipyard storage shed?"

  "Because you put my master's animated furniture in the shed!"

  "It's still not my shed," Kelder said. "You wait here; I'll find the foreman."

  "Which foreman?" she asked.

  "Arra the Carpenter," Kelder said, pointing at the nearest hull. "He should be in there."

  Kilisha looked at the mud, the rickety-looking walkways and their utter lack of handrails, and the large, dirty workers. She took a good whiff of the stench of mudflat.

  "Go ahead," she said. "I'll wait here."

  Kelder glanced at her, then spread an empty hand. "As you please," he said. He crossed the street, looked hesitantly at the steep, rocky slope that separated the street from the shipyards, then started trudging down the road toward Ramp Street, the nearer of the two ramps that led down into the yards themselves.

  Kilisha turned and looked out across the shipyards, hundreds of yards of muddy tidal flat spread out at the foot of the steep drop-off on the other side of Shipyard Street . The flats were covered with wooden frameworks of one sort or another. Some were the partially built hulls of new ships, suspended on wooden frames over muddy ditches; others were the cranes and scaffolding used to construct those hulls and put masts and decking into them; and still others were the wooden walkways and bridges connecting everything, keeping the workers up out of the worst of the mud. Assorted sheds and huts were scattered among the frames, and dozens, perhaps hundreds, of muddy workers were moving about, hauling ropes and timbers and metalwork hither and yon.

  The whole thing stank of sawdust, seawater, and rotting vegetation. When a spring tide came in the entire flat would be awash, most of it no more than ankle deep, but the channels cut beneath the hulls would fill; completed ships could be lowered, released, and if the workers were quick enough in catching the tide, floated down th
e broad canal known as the Throat and out to the sea.

  If a storm surge came sweeping in through the Throat the solid hulls and scaffolding would survive, and most of the walkways, but the huts and loose pieces would all be washed away; that typically happened once or twice a year. When the Lord Shipwright's budget allowed, magical warnings or protections prevented any serious loss of materials or men, but in bad years the shipbuilders just accepted the risks as part of doing business.

  Of course, anything really important or valuable was stored outside the shipyard proper, in the sheds and warehouses lining the outer side of Shipyard Street, well above the high-water line.

  Kilisha counted four ships abuilding; one had masts up, two were solid hulls, and one was still little more than an oaken skeleton. Kelder appeared to be heading directly for the nearest, a solid but mastless hull.

  She was still watching him when she heard a thump on the door of the shed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kilisha leaned close to the locked shed door and called, "Is anyone in there?"

  Another thump sounded, but no one answered her. She knocked on the door and called again, "Is someone in there?"

  A series of thumps was followed by what sounded like a high-pitched giggle.

  "What's going on in there?" she called. She glanced after Kelder, but he had apparently not heard anything; he was already at the corner, starting down the long, curving ramp into the shipyards.

  Kilisha frowned, then leaned over and put her ear to the door.

  Thump, thump, rattle, another giggle, and then a squeaky voice shrieked, "Fun!"

  "Oh, no," she breathed.

  There was a spriggan in the shed. She looked quickly at her own shoulder, and was reassured to see Sprigganalin, as it called itself, still perched there, clutching a hank of her hair.

  "Hai!" she said. "How did one of you get inside there?"

  "Spriggan inside?" The spriggan blinked at her, and grinned broadly. "Oh, fun!"

  "Not fun," Kilisha said angrily. "I think the furniture is trying to stomp it to death."

  "Oh, stomping not as easy as you think! We go in and help?"

  "The door's locked," Kilisha reminded it. "And besides, we don't want to let the furniture out yet."

  "Not?"

  "Not."

  "But—"

  Something slammed heavily against the door, and Kilisha was certain she heard a high-pitched shriek.

  "Oh, death," she said, putting a hand on the door. It still felt solid, but she was sure something had rammed it, hard, from the other side.

  It was probably the bench, she thought.

  "Open door?" the spriggan on her shoulder asked.

  "I told you, it's locked,' Kilisha growled.

  "We unlock it, have fun! Spriggans like fun."

  "We don't have the blasted key," Kilisha said, exasperated.

  "Don't need key," the spriggan said, as it released her hair and scampered down her arm.

  "What?" She stared down at it, frozen in astonishment.

  "Don't need key," the spriggan repeated, as it wrapped its legs around her wrist and leaned down toward the lock.

  "What are you doing?" she demanded—but she left her hand where it was. She couldn't risk flinging the spriggan aside, and losing a bit of Ithanalin's soul.

  "Open lock!" the spriggan said, thrusting a long, thin forefinger into the keyhole.

  Kilisha stared, and suddenly saw the solution to a mystery. Here was how spriggans kept getting into the house, no matter how careful she and Yara and Ithanalin were about closing shutters and locking doors. The spriggan's fingernail was a natural lockpick, and the creatures apparently had an instinctive understanding of locks—or at least of how to open them.

  The spriggan wiggled and twisted its finger, grimacing, its huge pointed ears flexing as it concentrated on its task—and then the lock clicked open.

  "Blood and death," Kilisha swore, still staring.

  The spriggan paid no attention as it slid the latch aside and gently pushed the door open.

  Something suddenly rammed the door from the inside again, and Kilisha started back as the heavy wooden slab slammed against the frame, then bounced open. The spriggan on her wrist clung harder and whooped with excitement.

  "Hello?" Kilisha called, peering into the dark interior of the shed.

  She was answered by the pounding of half a dozen wooden feet and the squeaking of not one, but several spriggans.

  "Oh, no," she said. She pushed the door open and stepped in.

  The interior of the shed was dim and dusty, the only good light coming from the door behind her, but she could see well enough to make out immense coils of rope stacked to the ceiling along one side, and boxes and shelves of black ironmongery along the other.

  Unfortunately, one stack of ropes had toppled over, and three boxes of ironmongery had broken open, their contents scattered across the floor.

  The familiar straight chair from Ithanalin's parlor stood in one far corner, tipped at an angle, two of its four legs braced against a coil of rope; it was rocking back and forth, plainly trying to dislodge a spriggan that clung, squealing, to its back.

  And the heavy oaken bench was standing in the middle of the floor, quivering while four spriggans sat on it; the spriggans were grinning broadly. The bench had obviously been what had rammed the door, and Kilisha guessed it had been trying to knock the spriggans off.

  "Ride! Ride!" one of the spriggans called happily, slapping the bench.

  "Get off!" Kilisha shouted back. "It's not your bench!"

  The nearest spriggan looked up at her in wide-eyed surprise. Not?" it asked, in an amazingly sincere tone.

  "No, it's not," Kilisha said angrily, stepping forward and reaching for the spriggan.

  The spriggan already clinging to her wrist squealed, and she stopped. She didn't want to dislodge it; she really didn't want to lose track of which spriggan was which. They all looked very much alike, and while she thought she could recognize the individual she wanted, she was not sure of it.

  She reached out with her other hand, caught Sprigganalin, and tried to pry it loose, to return it to her shoulder.

  Sprigganalin clung more tightly, keening at this abuse.

  "Get back on my shoulder, damn you!" she shouted.

  The keening stopped abruptly. "Shoulder?" it asked.

  "Yes, my shoulder!" Kilisha said. "So I can use my hand!"

  "Fun!" the creature said, releasing its hold and scurrying back up her arm.

  She let out a growl of exasperation, then reached for the spriggans on the bench.

  They all crowded away from her toward the far end of the bench but did not jump off. She stepped to one side, to go around the bench and grab them.

  The instant she stepped to the side, though, and was no longer between the bench and the door, the bench bolted.

  "Hai!" Kilisha called, staring stupidly as the thing charged past her, its four legs churning, its wooden joints creaking, and all four spriggans still clinging to it. "Come back!"

  The bench paid no attention, but dashed out into the sun, pivoted on one leg, and galloped westward along Shipyard Street .

  Kilisha took one look at the chair, then ran to the door and screamed, "Kelder!" at the top of her lungs.

  Several men in the shipyard turned and watched as the bench ran away, but Kilisha did not see anyone in the yellow tunic and red kilt of a guardsman. She hesitated; if she ran after the bench the chair might escape. And the bench was heading westward, into Hillside and the Fortress district, while almost the entire city lay in the other direction; if it didn't double back it would reach the seaside cliffs in a few blocks, and she could corner it there.

  But it could double back, or turn up a side street, or throw itself over the cliff….

  But the chair was behind her.

  She whirled, dove for the chair, grabbed it up, hoisted it overhead with the squealing, giggling spriggan still clinging to its back, and ran for the door. Sh
e promptly whacked the chair into the lintel, almost throwing her off her feet; she was not tall, but even so, the doorframe was not meant for the combined height of a woman and a chair.

  The spriggan on the chair squeaked and fell off, hitting the floor with a thump; the spriggan on her shoulder squealed, "Fun!" and grabbed a double handful of hair while digging its toes under the coil of rope she still carried.

  "Damn," she said as she regained her balance. She lowered the chair and tried again, and this time made it out onto Shipyard Street .

  The bench was still in sight, well around the curve to the west, the four spriggans still riding it and shrieking happily. Kilisha raised the chair over her head again and ran after it.

  The chair finally overcame its surprise and began to wave its feet feebly, joints creaking. Kilisha ignored that and ran.

  The street was not crowded, and both she and the bench easily dodged the occasional passerby, leaving various men and women standing there, staring after her. Kilisha called out, "Stop that bench!" but no one reacted in time.

  The gap between the bench and herself narrowed briefly, then widened again as the bench picked up the pace and Kilisha could not. In fact, she began to slow; running while carrying a chair over one's head was surprisingly tiring.

  "Kelder!" she called again. She kept moving, alternately running and trotting.

  The bench had passed two intersections without turning, but she could see it was nearing the fork where Shipyard Street continued straight ahead, leaving the curving side of the shipyards and continuing up the hillside toward the Fortress and the coastal cliffs, while Old Seagate Street curved down to the left, toward the Throat and the Fortress Docks.

  Old Seagate Street remained open to one side, overlooking the shipyards, though tall old houses replaced the storage sheds on the other side; Shipyard Street beyond the fork was lined with housing on both sides.

  The bench slowed, and for a moment she thought it was going to stop and give her a chance to catch up, but then it seemed to make its decision and went charging on up Shipyard Street, up toward the Fortress.

  If she followed, in a few moments she would be out of sight of the shipyards and Kelder would be unable to spot her—but, she asked herself, what did that matter? She had the chair, even if it was starting to squirm a little, and she could catch the bench soon enough, she was sure—especially if she could get some passing pedestrian to help her. She had rope to tie the bench and chair together, once she had them both cornered, and then she could lead them both home. She didn't really need Kelder.