Harry Turtledove - Wisdom of the Fox

He felt confident as he launched into the chant. His right hand was clumsy, but seemed to be doing what he required of it. He poured rose water over the earwigs he'd imprisoned in a bronze bowl. They didn't drown quite as fast as he'd thought they would, but surely that degree of exactitude wouldn't matter.

"My ear feels strange," Rihwin remarked. He brought his hand up to the ruined flap of flesh. "You've not changed it yet, but the potential for change is manifestly there."

"Shut up," Gerin said fiercely, though Rihwin had given him good news. The donkey had to know he didn't need to be distracted, not when he was coming to the climactic moment of the spell. His right hand twisted through the last pass; he grunted in satisfaction at having done it correctly. He cut a red wool thread with a bronze knife he never used for any other purpose and cried, "Transform!"

"You've done it!" Rihwin said exultantly. "I can feel the change."

Gerin turned to see what his magic had wrought. He suffered a sudden coughing fit, and hoped his face would not betray him. He had changed Rihwin's ear, but not quite in the way he'd intended. It was indeed whole, but not pink and round: it was long and pointed and hairy.

He knew what had gone wrong. He'd called Rihwin a donkey, and then thought of him as a donkey when he'd spoken up at the wrong time. Somehow, the resentful thought had leaked into the conjuration and left his fellow Fox with a donkey's ear.

A fly buzzing around the inside of the shack chose that moment to light on the new-formed appendage. As a donkey's ear will, it twitched. The fly flew away. Rihwin started violently and clapped a hand to his head. The evidence, alas, was all too palpable. "What have you done to me, you muddler?"

"Muddled." Gerin kicked at the dirt floor of the shack, feeling smaller and more useless than the earwigs he'd drowned.

"Well, what are you going to do about it? You were going to give me an ear, you—you moldy pigeon dropping, not this—this excrescence." Gerin had never heard an unwounded man scream through three consecutive sentences before; in the abstract, the feat was to be admired.

"I'll try my best to set it right," Gerin said. "I should be able to manage a simple reversal of the spell." He reached for the grimoire.

"You said the spell itself would be simple, too," Rihwin reminded him. He wasn't screaming any more, but sarcasm sharp and sour as vinegar dripped from his tongue.

"So I did," Gerin admitted. "Look, if all else fails, I'll buy you a hat." That sent Rihwin's voice back into the upper registers.

Gerin tried to ignore him, though it wasn't easy. In theory, reversal spells were simple. Both the law of similarity and that of contagion applied and, since he'd just essayed the spell he wished to overturn, the links were temporally strong. On the other hand, given the sorcerous ineptitude he'd just demonstrated— He made himself not think about that. A magician needed to believe he'd succeed.

A magician also needs talent , part of him jeered. The rest of him made that part shut up. He plunged headlong into the first reversal spell he found. The more time he spent thinking about it, the more he'd hesitate later. If you fell out of a jouncing chariot, you needed to get back in and ride again.

By luck, most of the passes were for his left hand. He went through them with care, but not with confidence—he wondered when, if ever, he'd have confidence in his magic once more. Rihwin sat in the chair, arms folded, glaring stonily at him. Normally, having Rihwin keep quiet while he cast a spell would have been a blessing. As things were, it just disconcerted Gerin more.

He raced through the cantrip at a pace a practiced wizard would have hesitated to match. One way or another, he'd know soon. His fingers twisted through the last and hardest pass of the spell. "Let all be as it was!" he yelled.

"Something happened," Rihwin said. "I felt it." But he didn't raise his hand to discover exactly what it was. Maybe he was afraid. He asked Gerin, "Did you deck me out with an octopus tentacle?"

"I haven't even seen octopus tentacles since that Sithonian eatery I used to frequent in the City of Elabon," Gerin replied. He stared at the place where the donkey's ear had sprouted from Rihwin's head.

"That's not a responsive answer." Rihwin sighed theatrically. "Very well, since you won't tell me, I shall just have to find out for myself." Slowly, he brought his left hand up to his head. His eyes grew as wide as Gerin's. "It's my ear," he whispered. Then, even more amazed, he added, "And it's whole—isn't it?"

"It certainly looks that way," Gerin said. "Does it feel so, too?"

"By Dyaus, it does. How ever did you manage that?"

"If I knew, I would tell you." Gerin cudgeled his wits for an explanation. At last, he said, "The reversal spell must have undone your wound as well as my magic—that's all I can think of."

Rihwin felt of his ear. "There's the hole through which the hoop passed. You must be right, lord Gerin; like you, I can think of no other explanation that fits." Now that his ear was restored, he started to laugh. "My fellow Fox, you are the best bad magician I have ever known."

"I'll take that for a compliment." Suddenly Gerin started to laugh, too. Rihwin's elastic features showed curiosity. Gerin explained: "If I could do on purpose what I did by accident, think of the demand I'd be in from wenches who wanted to frolic and yet be wed as maidens."

Rihwin leered. "Aye, and think of the fee you could charge, too."

"I'm surprised women don't already have a magic like that," Gerin said. "Or maybe they do, and just don't let on to us men."

"It could be so," Rihwin agreed. He felt his ear again, as if not believing Gerin had, no matter how erratically, accomplished exactly what he'd said he'd do. "Now I have to wait until Otes or another jeweler passes through, so I can have a new hoop made to replace the one I lost."

"If you get your ear torn again on account of that foolish southron conceit, don't expect me to fix it for you," Gerin said.

"If I come to you again to have my ear fixed, I deserve to wear a donkey's in its place," Rihwin retorted. Gerin mimed taking an arrow in the ribs; Rihwin had won that exchange.

* * *

One of Gerin's warriors who held the Elabon Way open through Bevon's holding brought disquieting news back to Fox Keep. "Lord prince, it's said Bevon and two of his sons have made common cause with Adiatunnus—and with the monsters from Ikos," he said between swigs from a jack of ale.

"Said by whom?" Gerin demanded, not wanting to believe Elabonians could fall so low as to align themselves with the creatures.

"By Bevander, another of Bevon's sons," the soldier answered. "He came to us calling down curses on past enmity and saying he'd sooner cast his lot with you than with a bunch of things."

"I wonder what he meant by that," Gerin said, "the monsters, or his father and brothers?" The warrior who'd brought word started, then snorted as he was swallowing, which made him choke and spray ale over the tabletop.

Gerin plucked distractedly at his beard. He'd reckoned Adiatunnus' embrace of the monsters a hideous aberration. If more and more lords proved willing to use the creatures to further their own ends, they would gain a permanent place in the northlands. He wondered which lord who favored them they'd first end up devouring.

"What will you do, lord Gerin?" the soldier answered.

"Do about what, Captain?" Van called from the stairway. He and Fand were coming down into the great hall hand in hand. By the foolish grins on their faces, Gerin had no trouble imagining what they'd been doing up on the second floor. Fand smirked at him, just in case he had had trouble. She wanted to make him jealous—her door stayed closed to him these days.