Lawrence Watt-Evans: Ithanalin's Restoration

She couldn't imagine who would have done this to her master deliberately. Ithanalin might not be the best-loved man in Ethshar, or even close to it, but he wasn't bad. She knew people who didn't like him, but she couldn't name anyone she would really call an enemy.

And if anyone attacked him-well, it would have to be another wizard, because if anyone else were to use magic on him that person would be risking the wrath of the Wizards' Guild. Nobody who was stupid enough to do that could be powerful enough to do something like this.

And why would a fellow wizard do it?

She wished she knew some decent divinations, but Ithanalin had never been much interested in such things. She had to rely on common sense to figure out what had happened here.

It might have been a wizard with some old grudge she didn't know about-but it might also be that something had gone wrong. After all, why would a wizard have stolen all the furniture?

She blinked, and looked around.

Why would anyone take the furniture? Most of it wasn't anything very special; the couch was unique, but so far as she knew it wasn't especially valuable. Probably the most valuable piece was the mirror, with its Shan glass and perfect silvering, and that was the only thing still here!

She reached back and closed the door; then she tiptoed carefully past the frozen wizard and peered through the doorway at the back of the parlor.

The workshop appeared to be undisturbed; the shelves and benches and stools were all still there, still cluttered with the detritus of wizardry. The chests of drawers where Ithanalin kept his ingredients were all in place, their drawers tidily closed. An oil lamp was burning in one corner of the workbench, warming a small brass bowl on a tripod-Kilisha had no idea what that might be for. Several spells required heating things, but none of the ones she knew seemed likely to have been in progress.

Cautiously, she ventured through the workroom to the kitchen at the rear of the shop, and then on up the stairs, checking for intruders, damage, or simply some sign of what had happened.

The ground-floor kitchen was untouched, just as she had left it that morning. The day nursery and drawing room on the next level were intact. A quick look in the bedrooms farther upstairs found nothing out of place.

Only the front parlor was affected.

She hurried back.

Ithanalin was still there, still motionless, still warm to the touch; everything else was still gone, save the mantel, hearth, and mirror.

What was so special about the mirror, then? Why was it still here? It wasn't bolted to the wall, or impossibly heavy; she had seen Yara take it down for cleaning once, a couple of years ago, and she hadn't had to strain to move it. If all the other furniture had been stolen, then why had the thieves left the most precious piece? Kilisha crossed the room and peered up into the smooth glass.

She saw her own image, and Ithanalin's, and the empty room. As she watched, though, shadows appeared; she spun around, expecting to see whatever made them.

Nothing was there. The room was empty and still.

She blinked, then slowly turned back to the mirror.

She knew the glass came from Shan on the Desert, far to the east, and there were rumors that Shan had been full of strange magic during the Great War, centuries ago-could there be some lingering spell that had been triggered by today's events, whatever they were? She stared intently at the reflected scene.

The shadows were still there; in fact, they were darker and sharper than before, and she realized that they couldn't be a reflection-they didn't move when she shifted angle. They were there in the mirror itself, somehow-not on the surface of the glass, but in the famously perfect silvering. That dark line wasn't across Ithanalin's face, and that one wasn't on the far wall…

They grew and darkened as she watched, but it took another few seconds before she could adjust her vision and look at the thick black strokes properly. Finally, though, the runes fell into place.

HELLO, KILISHA, they said.

She blinked. "Hello," she said warily.

The shadow runes broke apart and vanished. The image of the empty room, her motionless master, and her own worried face was clear once again.

"Who are you?" she asked, after a moment of entirely ordinary reflections.

Curls of darkness swirled for a moment; then new runes appeared reading part or ithanalin the wish.

Her eyes widened as she realized that in fact the runes were in the familiar, slightly crooked handwriting she had seen so often-she had no doubt that the words were true. "Master!" she said. "You're trapped in there? Your spirit?"

NOT exactly, the mirror replied.

Before Kilisha could react, the runes shifted again.

I AM PART of ITHANALIN, they said. The three runes of the word "part" were larger and more ornately curved than the rest.

"Well, of course," Kilisha said. "Your body is right over there." She pointed.

I AM ONLY PART OF ITHANALIN’S SPIRIT, OR GHOST. NOT ALL OF IT. The runes had to be somewhat smaller to convey this longer message, and squeezed together awkwardly.

"Oh," Kilisha said, crestfallen. She had been thinking this would be simple-if she had Ithanalin's body, and his soul was trapped in the mirror, surely there would be some way to put them back together. "What part? How many… I mean…"

I AM MOST OF THE WIZARD'S MEMORY, the mirror said.

"Oh. Then… then do you remember what happened?"

YES.

The single word hung there for a moment. "Then what was it?" Kilisha asked, almost wailing, when no further explanation materialized. "Why is your memory in the mirror, and your body petrified-or paralyzed, or whatever it is?"

Then the mirror explained the whole thing, in line after line of shadowy runes, and Kilisha stared until her eyes hurt, reading silently.

Ithanalin had been working on the animation spell for his important new customer-the man wanted a bed brought to life, for reasons that Ithanalin had not inquired very closely into, once the wizard had assurances that the customer's wife knew and approved, and that nothing murderous was planned.

Kilisha wondered about that-a living bed? She was a normal adolescent girl, with a normal interest in sex, no experience at all, and an overheated imagination; what would a living bed be for? Wouldn't that be, well, strange"!

But people often were strange, especially those rich and eccentric enough to buy Ithanalin's spells. She tried not to think about the bed as the mirror continued.

The spell had Finally been going well, after a couple of false starts, and was nearing completion; a spriggan had gotten into the workshop somehow, despite the locked front door, but Ithanalin had managed to shoo it out of the workshop and into the front parlor while he continued the mixing. He was at a point in the six-hour ritual where he had to stir a large bowl of goo for an hour without stopping-those people who made jokes about how wizards didn't need to keep their bodies fit obviously didn't know what went into some of these spells, Kilisha thought.

Then someone had knocked at the door.

At first Ithanalin had ignored it-Kilisha or Yara or the children would have the sense to realize he was busy, and could wait- they weren't due back yet, in any case-and he was not interested in talking to any customers or neighbors when he was in the middle of a spell. The door was closed and the curtains drawn, so it should have been plain that the wizard was not open for business; all the same, someone had rapped loudly.

Ithanalin had assumed that the caller, upon being ignored, would conclude no one was home and go away.

Whoever it was didn't take the hint, though-he pounded harder and started shouting, and Ithanalin had picked up the bowl, still stirring, and had marched out into the front room with the bowl tucked in his left arm, stirring spoon in his right hand. He had intended to order whoever it was to go away, and threaten to lay a few choice curses, but then he had made out some of the words being shouted-it wasn't a determined or angry customer at all. It was the overlord's tax collector on his more-or-less-annual rounds, and wizards had to pay just like anyone else.