Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Sorcerer's Widow

Kel followed her as she marched through the gate into the stableyard.

Ezak was nowhere to be seen, but that did not surprise Kel; his friend was good at hiding. Kel thought Ezak might still be there, concealed in some dark corner, or he might have fled, but at any rate he was not sitting on the wagon, or standing in front of it.

Dorna stamped across the yard to the wagon and held the lantern up above her head, lighting the immediate area, but Ezak was still not visible.

“Idiot,” she muttered. Then she climbed up on the driver’s bench step and looked down into the wagon, poking at the flung-back cover and shoving some of the talismans about. She fumbled with one about the size of a dinner plate, then set that aside and pulled out a golden object roughly the size and shape of a man’s boot-heel. “Here we go,” she said.

“We do?” Kel asked.

“Yes, we do,” she said, looking at the thing in her hand. “Kel, go inside and tell Irien I need to talk to her.”

“But it’s the middle of the night!”

Dorna looked up and turned to glare at him. “Do you think anyone is still asleep after all that noise?”

“Oh,” Kel said. “Probably not.”

“Then go get Irien.”

Kel went.

He found Irien, the innkeeper, and the innkeeper’s son sitting at a table in the common room, looking half-asleep-but only half. A single thick candle burned in the center of the table, lighting their faces, so Kel could see their expressions; they did not seem pleased to be there. They looked up as he stepped in, but did not say anything.

“Dorna wants to talk to you, Irien,” Kel said. “She’s in the stableyard.”

Irien stood up, and looked as if she was about to say something, but then thought better of it and simply marched out the door, shoving past Kel without a word.

Kel hesitated, gave the other two a quick glance, called, “I’m sorry we disturbed you,” then followed her out.

Dorna was still in the stableyard, but now had a large canvas bag slung over one shoulder, and was carefully choosing talismans from the wagon and putting them in the bag. She looked up.

“Good, you’re back,” she said to Kel, before turning to her friend and saying, “Irien, these fools have sent one of my husband’s devices rampaging about the countryside, and I’m going to go retrieve it. I would very much appreciate it if you could stay here and watch our belongings until I return.”

“How long will that be?” Irien asked.

“How should I know?” Dorna snapped. Kel cringed at the anger in her voice.

Irien frowned. “Right. I hope it won’t be too long.”

“It shouldn’t be. I can track the fil drepessis with this.” She held up the boot-heel thing.

Irien nodded. “When are you leaving?”

“Immediately,” Dorna answered. “If we’re very lucky, we may be able to catch it quickly and be back in a few hours.”

“We?” Irien looked at Kel.

“Yes, ‘we.’ I’m taking Kel and Ezak with me, to make sure they don’t cause any more trouble.”

“You are?” Kel said, startled.

“Yes, I am. Now, go fetch Ezak out of the tack room, grab those packs of yours, and let’s get going.”

“Tack room?”

“Over there,” Dorna said, pointing at a door in the corner of the stableyard that Kel had not really noticed before. “You really didn’t know where he hid?”

“I really didn’t,” Kel said. “How did you know?”

“Sorcery. Now, get him out here, and let’s get moving. You interrupted my sleep, and I’m not going to be able to get back to bed for some time, so I don’t have much patience for your stupidity.”

“Sorcery?”

“Just get him out here!”

Kel ran for the tack room door.

The little room beyond was dark and smelled strongly of leather and oil; Kel peered into the gloom, trying to make out what was inside. As his eyes, already used to the night, adjusted, he saw walls hung with oxbows and harnesses-and sure enough, Ezak was crouching in a corner, behind a rack holding a couple of saddles.

Ezak held a finger up to his lips.

Kel hesitated.

Dorna called from behind, “Tell Ezak that he really doesn’t want me to come in there after him. My late husband provided me with magical weapons to protect myself when he was away, and I have one of them in my hand right now.”

“Did you hear that?” Kel whispered.

Ezak sighed. “I heard,” he said, getting to his feet. “You know, if you had told her I wasn’t in here, instead of whispering to me, she might have believed you.”

“Oh,” Kel said. “I didn’t think of that.”

“I know,” Ezak said. “You never do.” He straightened his tunic, lifted his chin, and said, “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

“I still don’t understand it,” Ezak murmured to Kel, glancing at Dorna as she marched through the green wheat fields a few yards ahead of them. They had left the road about a mile back and were marching northeastward cross-country, following the sorcerer’s widow. The weather had warmed up, but it was still a pleasant spring day. “How is she doing this?”

“Doing what?” Kel asked.

Ezak swept a hand across the World, from the golden dawn in the east to the lesser moon peeping through drifting wisps of fog to the west. “All of it!” he said. “How did she know where I was, back at the inn? How does she know where that thing went? How does she know what it is ? A…a fill trespasses, or whatever she said.”

“Magic,” Kel said. It seemed perfectly obvious to him, and she had said she used sorcery to find Ezak’s hiding place.

“But how can she work magic? Her husband was a sorcerer; she isn’t.”

“He must have taught her.”

“But why would he do that?”

Kel turned up an empty palm. “I guess because he loved her.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Ezak shook his head. “Magic is supposed to be secret . Magicians only reveal the secrets to their apprentices, not their families.”

Kel had no answer.

“Or maybe,” Ezak said, as if suddenly coming to a great realization, “she is a sorcerer. Maybe they were both sorcerers. Maybe that’s why he married her!” He stared at Dorna with new interest.

Kel was not concerned with this theorizing. Obviously, Dorna did know something of sorcery; what did it matter how she knew it? No one was surprised when the baker’s wife made delicious cookies, or when the weaver’s husband could tell good cloth from bad; why should it be a surprise that a sorcerer’s widow knew something about sorcery?

A thought struck him. “If she’s a sorcerer, why would she want to open a tea shop?”

“She wouldn’t,” Ezak said. “She must have said that to trick us.”

“Trick us into what?”

“I don’t know,” Ezak said, frowning.

Kel did not say anything more, but he did not think Dorna was a sorcerer. He thought she had picked up a little of her husband’s knowledge, nothing more, and really did intend to open a tea shop, but he knew he had no evidence for this that would convince Ezak.

And Ezak did have evidence that she was a magician, in the form of Dorna herself, leading them through the fields with that little golden thing in her hand. Kel had gotten a glimpse of the glyphs on its gently-glowing surface and had been unable to make any sense of them, but he could barely read ordinary Ethsharitic, let alone any sort of magical symbols, so that didn’t mean much. He thought he had heard it murmuring, but he hadn’t been able to make out any words, or tell what language they were. Obviously, the thing was a sorcerer’s talisman, but Kel didn’t believe that meant only a sorcerer could use it. He had seen people back in Ethshar using magical items they had bought-protective runes, animated teapots, and the like-without anyone assuming they were magicians, and this just seemed like more of the same. Presumably Dorna’s husband had shown her how to use the boot-heel talisman at some point, just as the magicians who created those other things had shown their customers how to use them.