Lawrence Watt-Evans: The Sorcerer's Widow

Dorna looked at her talisman, ignoring the locals. “There’s something over that way that’s interfering,” she said, pointing to the west.

“Wizard Street is about eight blocks in that direction,” Kel said.

“That would account for it,” she acknowledged.

They marched on, past Uncle Vezalis’ house; Kel did not point it out, and the talisman apparently did not react to it. Ten minutes after emerging from the alley they reached the intersection of Archer and Smallgate, where Archer Street ended. Dorna stared at the tenement ahead of them as if its existence was a personal affront, then looked down at the talisman. “It’s still pointing straight ahead,” she said. “About…two hundred yards, maybe?”

Kel nodded. “This way,” he said, turning right.

Dorna reluctantly followed, keeping an eye on the talisman and glancing now and then at the two- and three-story buildings that lined the south side of Smallgate Street.

“Smallgate Street doesn’t actually go to the gate,” Kel remarked, trying to distract her. “It ends at Wall Street maybe a quarter-mile from the gatehouse. It’s just called Smallgate Street because it leads straight from the Palace to the district of Smallgate. The only streets at the gate itself are Wall Street and Landsend Street.”

“All right,” Dorna said, obviously not listening.

Kel sighed. “This way,” he said, turning left into an alley.

Dorna followed, still focused on the golden boot-heel as Kel led her around the corner into the shadowed passage. She was oblivious to their surroundings, trusting Kel and her sorcery to guide her.

“Dorna?” Kel said, as they walked on.

“Right,” she said, staring at the talisman.

“ Dorna !”

She looked up, annoyed. “What?”

“You might want to be less obvious about that thing you’re holding.”

Dorna looked around, suddenly realizing that they were in a cramped, crooked alley between two buildings that had seen not merely better days, but better centuries. The plaster walls on either side were webbed with cracks and patches, and the patches themselves were cracked and patched-or sometimes not patched; wattle was exposed several places. The ground beneath their feet was packed garbage, not sand. The few windows within ten feet of the ground were tightly shuttered, or completely bricked up. The windows on the upper floors were more varied-open, closed, shuttered, barred, or broken-and she could see at least two pairs of eyes staring down at them from open casements. Little sunlight managed to find its way through the narrow gap between the roofs overhead. There were no other pedestrians in sight.

“This isn’t a safe place for outsiders,” Kel said. “Or for anyone, really.”

“Oh,” Dorna said. Instead of putting the talisman out of sight, though, as Kel had hoped she would, she merely switched it to her other hand and drew the black weapon from her belt and held that ready.

“It’s going to get worse,” Kel said.

She threw him a glance. “Why? Isn’t there a safer route?”

“To where we usually live when Ezak’s uncle won’t let us in? No.”

“No?”

“We needed a place so bad slavers wouldn’t come in and catch us while we were sleeping.”

She stared at him for a moment, then said, “Oh.” She looked around the alley again. “How do you know he isn’t at his uncle’s house?”

“Because we went right past it, and your magic didn’t point at it.”

Dorna looked at her talisman, then at Kel. “We did?”

Kel nodded. “Uncle Vezalis lives back on Archer Street,” he said, pointing back the way they had come. “A block north of Smallgate Street. I don’t think Ezak would trust his uncle with stolen magic in the house.”

“Oh.”

“I think I know where Ezak is, though.”

“Go on, then,” she said, gesturing with the weapon.

Kel went, leading the way through a broken gate at the back of the alley, across a shadowy courtyard that stank of things Kel did not care to think about, along a stretch of alleyway that had been walled off and no longer connected to any other streets, through the ruins of a building where the roof had fallen in years earlier, along another alley, and then down a set of steep steps into a dim, damp, stone-walled tunnel. The sandy floor squashed wetly beneath their feet.

Now that she had been alerted to the situation, Dorna grew more apprehensive as this journey through the maze of Smallgate wound on; in that first alley at least the eyes watching them from those upstairs windows had been human. By the time they crossed the ruin the only living creatures she saw were rats and spiders, and the rats were bolder than any she had ever encountered, staring at her, making no move to hide or flee.

“How can a place like this exist in Ethshar?” she whispered, as she ducked into the tunnel. “A place this deserted and decrepit?”

Kel looked back at her, startled. “It can’t all be palaces,” he said.

“I know that, but this …”

“We wanted a place the slavers couldn’t get us,” Kel said. “Somewhere with more privacy than the Wall Street Field.”

“Well, you found that ,” Dorna said.

They were far enough into the tunnel now that the only faint light came from her gently glowing talisman. Kel was feeling his way along one wall; then he stopped, and whispered, “What does your sorcery say?”

“What? Oh.” She peered at her magical boot-heel. Then she pointed. “Five yards that way.” She held up the talisman so Kel could see her finger in its light.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Wait here.”

“What, wait ? Are you…” But then Kel was gone, and she was alone in the tunnel.

Ezak had long ago cleaned and oiled the hinges on the secret door into the old cellar, and Kel had been careful to keep them in good shape, so he was able to slip in without a sound, but that had been wasted effort; Ezak had the shutters to the air-shaft open, and enough of the setting sun’s light made its way down the shaft to dimly illuminate most of the room’s familiar confines, from the sand spilling through the crumbling east wall to the pile of rags in the northwest corner where Kel sometimes slept. Kel was plainly visible to anyone in the room.

So was Ezak. He was crouched ten feet from the door, holding a knife ready to throw, looking directly at Kel. For a moment Kel froze.

Then Ezak relaxed. “Oh, it’s you!” he said. He smiled, and tossed the knife aside. “It’s good to see you, Kel! I thought you were killed in that explosion!”

“I’m fine,” Kel said. He looked around, and immediately spotted Dorna’s bag; Ezak had made no attempt to hide it. It was sitting on the floor, midway between the door and the air-shaft. It looked just as full as Kel remembered it; Ezak had clearly not yet sold much, if any, of its contents.

Ezak noticed his gaze. “It’s still all there,” he said. “I looked through it when I made camp, but I couldn’t make any sense of any of those things. I didn’t do much experimentation; I didn’t want anything to start screaming. I’m planning to take a few of them to Wizard Street tomorrow, and see what they tell me. I’m going to say I found them in the ruins of a sorcerer’s house after an explosion, I think. Or maybe the sorcerer should be my grandfather, so I’ll have a real claim to them, and not just salvage rights?”

“That sounds good,” Kel said.

“So what happened back there? What exploded? Was Dorna killed?”

“The Northern sentry thing exploded,” Kel said. “When Dorna blasted it with her husband’s sorcery.”

“She died, though, didn’t she? Did you get the fill-dirt-presses back, or was it smashed, too?”