Lawrence Watt-Evans - Taking Flight

“And don’t stare at me,” Irith said pettishly. “It’s rude.”

Ezdral quickly averted his gaze, looking at the rug instead.

“Irith,” he said, “it’s been so long…”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “I guess it must have been pretty awful.”

“I love you,” Ezdral said.

“I know,” Irith replied. “You can’t help it.”

“I’ll always love you,” the old man insisted.

“Well, maybe not,” Irith said. “we’re hoping to fix that.”

Ezdral blinked, and risked a quick look at Irith.

The window faced southeast, and the sun was pouring in behind Irith, turning her freshly-brushed hair into a halo of golden fire, outlining her in light. Ezdral gasped in awe.

“Kelder,” Irith said beseechingly, “you tell him.” She looked away, out the window.

“Tell me what?” Ezdral asked, still staring at Irith. Kelder could see him trembling at the sight of her.

“Ezdral,” Kelder said gently, “do you know why you love Irith so much, even after she deserted you and you haven’t seen her in so long?”

“Because she’s the most perfect, beautiful creature in the World…” the old man replied, before his voice trailed off uncertainly.

“No,” Kelder told him uneasily, “it’s because she enchanted you.”

Ezdral frowned, and glanced quickly at Kelder before turning back to his object of worship.

“She enchanted you, Ezdral,” Kelder insisted. “She used a love spell on you, a charm called Fendel’s Infatuous Love Spell, and it’s permanent, and she didn’t know how to take it off! It’s all magic! It’s just a spell, a trick!” His voice rose until he was shouting as he concluded, “That’s why you love her!”

Ezdral frowned again.

“No,” he said, “that can’t be it. I mean, maybe she did, but I’d love her anyway, I know I would. By all the gods, just look at her! Have you ever seen anything so radiantly lovely?”

Involuntarily, Kelder looked, and had to admit to himself that in fact no, he had never seen anything else so radiantly lovely-but he didn’t say it aloud. That didn’t matter. Ezdral was enchanted, and besides, looks weren’t everything.

She certainly was beautiful, though; Kelder had to swallow hard before he could continue.

“It’s a spell, Ezdral, really. Maybe you would have loved her anyway, but it probably wouldn’t have been such an obsession. Anyway, we talked last night, and we all agreed that it wasn’t right for you to be enchanted like this, and we’re all going to take you to Ethshar of the Spices and find a wizard who can break the spell. Or maybe we’ll find one on the way.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Ezdral said, his gaze still fixed entirely on the object of his adoration. “I’m perfectly happy like this.”

“But you wouldn’t be,” Kelder said desperately, “if Irith weren’t here.”

Ezdral’s head snapped around. “She’s not leaving, is she?” he asked. It snapped back. “Irith, you aren’t leaving?”

Irith put down the hairbrush and let out a sigh. She stared helplessly at Kelder.

“No, she’s not leaving,” Kelder said, “as long as you agree to come with us to Ethshar and get the spell removed.”

“All right,” Ezdral said. “Whatever you want, Irith, I’ll be glad to do it. If you want the spell off, that’s fine.”

“I want the spell off,” she said. “And don’t stare at me like that!”

Ezdral’s gaze instantly dropped to the floor again.

“Whatever you want,” he mumbled. “Anything, Irith, anything at all-just don’t leave me again.”

Kelder watched this display of utter devotion with growing dismay. Ezdral was so abject, so docile, so completely at Irith’s disposal.

No one, Kelder thought, should ever be so much in someone else’s power.

If this was what a love spell did, he told himself, they shouldn’t be allowed.

Before they left the inn Irith decreed that Ezdral must be cleaned up; Irith refused to go anywhere with him in his filthy, bedraggled state. Ezdral yielded to this without protest, and while the girls ate their breakfast, Kelder and two members of the inn’s staff set about the task.

Hair and beard were trimmed; a comb was brought, and promptly lost in tangles. Hair and beard were trimmed again, and the comb recovered and put to use.

One assistant cook, male, tackled that, while the other, female, took away the tunic and breeches to see what could be done with them.

Kelder drew a bath, and vigorously applied washrags and sponges to the old man’s back while Ezdral addressed the front himself.

Once dried, Kelder thought, he might be almost presentable.

Then the old man’s clothes were returned.

The breeches had come apart; the thread holding the seams was rotten, and had given way under the stress of cleaning.

The tunic was still in one piece, but looked worse than ever-some of the stains had come out, but others had darkened, and yet others had bleached, giving the garment a much wider range of colors than it had had before. Threadbare patches were more obvious with the protective layer of grease removed.

Kelder looked at the fabric in despair.

“Now what do we do?” he said. “You can’t go marching down the highway naked!”

The assistant cooks conferred quietly, the female one casting occasional smirking glances at Ezdral’s nudity.

“Do you have any more money?” the male asked.

Kelder looked up at the young man, then at Ezdral, who shrugged. “I don’t know,” Kelder said. “Irith might.”

“Well, I’ve got some old clothes I’d sell,” the cook said. “They ought to fit.”

“I don’t have any better idea,” Ezdral said.

Irith did have money, and the clothes did fit.

“This is getting expensive,” she complained as the four of them trudged away from the inn.

Kelder glanced at Ezdral, who was now neatly clad in a light green tunic trimmed with yellow, and a dark green kilt with black embroidery at the hem. The old man was barely recognizable as the drunk who had accosted them in Shan.

“Isn’t it worth it, though?” Kelder said. “And I think you owed him something.”

Irith didn’t reply.

Due to their late start they didn’t reach the village of Sinodita until mid-afternoon, and by then both Asha and Ezdral were too tired to continue. They settled in at the Flying Carpet and rested.

Kelder apologized to Bardec the Innkeeper, but even so, that gentleman insisted that Irith pay for the room and meals in advance.

Irith grumbled, but paid, and Kelder spent the remainder of the afternoon looking around the town for odd jobs whereby he could earn a few coins. By sunset he had accumulated seven bits in copper and a pouch of dried figs by chopping wood, stacking it, and helping capture an escaped goat. He had also heard scandalous gossip about the company Queen Kirame kept in her bedchamber, gripes about the idiocy and malevolence of King Caren of Angarossa, theories that Irith the Flyer was actually a minor goddess in disguise and her presence an omen of good fortune, and considerable discussion of the prospects for the coming harvest in the richer farmlands to the south, and what the effects would be on markets and the local livestock-based economy.

It was rather pleasant, really, to hear the everyday chatter of ordinary people, to listen to voices other than Irith’s velvet soprano, Asha’s high-pitched whine, and Ezdral’s oushka -scarred muttering. When he joined the others for supper he was tired, but in high spirits.

Kelder was too tired to even mind particularly when he discovered the sleeping arrangements-the largest bed was too narrow to hold two adults, so Irith and Asha shared that, while he took the other bed and Ezdral got a pallet on the floor.