Lawrence Watt-Evans: The Sorcerer's Widow

Ezak seemed to appear out of nowhere in the doorway, but Kel was not impressed; he knew that trick himself. Ezak had taught him when they were both just boys. “ Hai !” he called, with a wave of his fan. “Come in out of the sun!”

Ezak sauntered in, looking around appraisingly at the elegant little tables, the stylish silk-upholstered chairs, the shelves of cups and teapots and canisters-and the bare spaces that had once again sent Irien to Ozya’s shop; they had not yet finished furnishing the place.

“Very fancy,” Ezak said. “Uncle Vezalis said I could find you here.”

“I’m glad to see you,” Kel said. “How are you?” He was gradually learning to talk more freely, now that he had no secrets to hide and needed to please customers. It was hard to make out details with the sun silhouetting Ezak against the door, but Kel could see that Ezak was wearing an unfamiliar tunic, one that fit better than most. His boots were still reinforced with rags, though, and the fact that he was wearing boots at all in this heat meant he had no sandals. The top of his ear was still missing, but the wound had healed, and the missing hair had mostly grown back.

“I’m doing just fine,” Ezak said. “See this?” He plucked at the front of his tunic. “Look at that embroidery!”

Kel, who knew the tunic had almost certainly been snatched off a clothesline somewhere, was no more impressed by this than by the appearing-around-the-corner trick. “It’s nice,” he said. He did not point out his own new tunic, which was plain white cotton, but had been acquired legally.

“We haven’t seen you in Smallgate lately,” Ezak said. “Nor in Grandgate Market.”

“I’ve been busy,” Kel said. “I live here in Nightside now. My room’s upstairs.”

“She’s keeping you prisoner?”

Kel blinked in surprise. “No,” he said.

“Then why are you still here?”

“I like it here!”

Ezak snorted. He looked around appraisingly, then he came closer and leaned across the polished wooden counter. “Some of this stuff looks expensive.”

“Some of it was,” Kel agreed.

“The door’s wide open, and the nearest guard’s at least three blocks away.”

Kel simply stared at him. He realized he shouldn’t be surprised that Ezak’s immediate reaction was to think about robbing the place, but somehow he was surprised. Maybe he really had stopped thinking like a thief.

“Does she still have any of her husband’s magic?”

Kel carefully did not look at the cooling talisman under the counter not three feet from his knee. “Yes,” he said. “But it’s all safely locked away.”

Ezak nodded, and looked around the shop again, completely failing to see what was going through Kel’s mind.

Kel, for his part, was realizing that he had just lied to Ezak, and Ezak had accepted it immediately. He had never been able to fool Ezak before.

“So if you took one of those fancy teapots and came home with me, could she track you?” Ezak asked.

“Probably,” Kel said. He suppressed a smile at the idea of stealing a teapot when the cash box was right there under the counter, and held at least ten rounds in copper and a few bits in silver-not to mention that there was the cooling talisman, and the various sorcerous devices in the back room, that he could take.

For that matter, the savings he had tucked away under the floorboards of his room upstairs might be more than the teapot was worth, and were almost certainly more than they could get for it from a fence.

Now, if the animated teapot Dorna had ordered had been there, that might have been worth stealing, but it wasn’t due to be delivered for another twelvenight.

“That explains why you’re here alone, I guess,” Ezak said. “She knows you don’t dare steal anything.”

“I guess,” Kel said. He saw no point in trying to explain to Ezak that it wasn’t fear that restrained him.

Ezak stepped closer and leaned on the counter, looking down at Kel. “So when are you coming home? Aren’t you tired of this yet?”

Kel blinked up at him, and thought for a moment before replying honestly, “No.”

“Oh, come on, Kel! She has you running stupid little errands and sitting here all day and saying please and thank you and bowing to all these rich bastards who come in here paying ridiculous prices for a bunch of boiled leaves. How can you stand it?”

“I like it,” Kel said. “I like sleeping in a good bed, and eating three meals a day, and talking to people who aren’t afraid I’m going to steal their purses. I like not having to run and hide, and not worrying whether I’m going to be dragged in front of the magistrates and sentenced to another flogging.”

“But you’re trapped here!”

“I can leave any time I want, Ezak. I just don’t want to.”

“How can you not want to?”

“I’m comfortable here.”

“But people are telling you what to do all the time!”

Kel turned up a palm. “I’m used to that, Ezak. It’s just that it always used to be you telling me what to do.”

“I did not! I’m your friend! I always took care of you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” Kel agreed. “But I’m a grown man now. I can take care of myself.”

Ezak stared at him. “You didn’t think so a couple of months ago.”

“I know,” Kel said. “I was scared.”

“Well, yes! It’s a big nasty world, and you’re a small fellow. You need someone to protect you.”

Kel shook his head. “No, I don’t,” he said.

“Of course you do,” Ezak said bitterly. “You just think the sorcerer’s widow can do it better than I can now.”

“No,” Kel said. “She doesn’t take care of me; she showed me that I could take care of myself.”

“ I took care of you!”

“You did,” Kel agreed again. “But I don’t want you to anymore. I do it better myself.”

“Better? You call this better ?” He waved at the shop.

“Yes.”

“It’s a trap! A prison! You’ll need to work your whole life, until you fall over dead!”

“At least I won’t starve, or get a knife in the back,” Kel replied.

“You’ll certainly never get rich!”

“I didn’t get rich with you, either.”

“Not yet , but one of these days I’ll find a way, and I’ll do it without taking orders from anyone.”

Kel looked at him. “You never wanted to be a potter, did you?”

“What? Of course not! My uncle made me take that apprenticeship.”

“You got kicked out on purpose.”

“Yes, of course!”

“You didn’t really try to join the guard that time, did you?”

“No, I just told Uncle Vezalis that.”

“ I tried, when I was about sixteen. I was too short.”

“I…you did?” Ezak stepped back from the counter.

Kel nodded. “I don’t want to be a thief, Ezak. I never wanted to be a thief.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

Ezak stared at him. “Never?”

“Never.”

Obviously shaken, Ezak said, “I don’t believe you!”

Kel turned up both palms.

For a moment Ezak simply stared. Then he stepped forward and leaned on the counter again. “She has you under a spell , doesn’t she?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

“No,” Kel said, amused.

“But you might not know ,” Ezak insisted. “She could have ensorcelled you without you knowing it.”

Kel shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He thought, but did not say, that if he had been under anyone’s spell, it was Ezak’s-his words and attention had been as effective as magic in keeping Kel’s loyalty. But the spell was broken now. All it had really taken was some time away from him, in the company of honest people. That, and watching how Dorna had set about building a new life when her husband’s death destroyed her old one.