Lawrence Watt-Evans - Taking Flight

Kelder nodded, and looked at the others.

It seemed to him that they had all seen quite enough of each other for awhile. “Asha,” he said, “you go on and play, if you like, but be at the inn for supper. The Leaping Fish, it’s called, over that way-if you can’t find it ask someone for directions.”

“All right, Kelder!” She ran off, and a moment later she was shouting and playing with the other children.

Kelder looked at Irith and Ezdral.

Ezdral was eyeing the wineshops-but he was also watching Irith. The love spell had as strong a hold as ever, and he wasn’t going to leave her side, not even to get liquor. Kelder sighed, trying to think what he should do.

Irith, however, had also seen the situation, and had her own solution. She vanished.

“Irith!” Ezdral screamed, “Irith, come back!”

People turned to stare at the green-clad old man, standing in the middle of the square, whirling about as if trying to look in every direction at once, groping madly with his arms outstretched, as if he were blind and searching for something.

“Ezdral,” Kelder shouted, grabbing one flailing arm, “Ezdral, it’s all right! She’ll be back! She’ll meet us tonight at supper, at the Leaping Fish!”

It took him several minutes to calm the old man; during that time, from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a small, graceful black cat hurrying away, dashing between legs and scampering around boots. He saw the cat turn and deliberately wink at him before disappearing into an alley.

Ezdral did not notice the cat; he was too distraught to remember Irith’s other shapes. Kelder supposed that if he had seen the cat, he would have been in love with it-with her-but that had not happened.

Which was all for the best.

Eventually, Ezdral did calm down, and stood, drooping and silent, by Kelder’s side. “She’ll meet us tonight,” Kelder assured him.

Ezdral nodded dismally, and without a word headed for the nearest wineshop.

Kelder watched him go, and then looked around, realizing that he was alone in this pleasant and interesting place. He would have preferred Irith’s company, but he saw no sign that she was returning, and could not see any way to be with her out in the open without having Ezdral along-and he did not want Ezdral along, fawning over Irith, following her everywhere as closely as he dared, constantly lusting after her. The old man was terrible company.

Alone, then, in Krithimion-that wasn’t so terrible. He smiled, threw Asha a glance and a wave, and set out toward the castle with the intention of exploring the town a little before finding work.

An hour or so later, after he had had his fill of window-shopping, Kelder arrived at the castle gate, which seemed as likely a place as any to ask for employment. The gate was open, and two guardsmen were chatting idly in the archway.

“Hai,” Kelder called in Trader’s Tongue, “excuse me!”

The guards turned to consider him. They did not speak, giving him no clue as to whether or not they knew the language in its unadulterated form. Here on the Great Highway, though, they really ought to know it, Kelder told himself. He forged onward.

“Hello,” he said, approaching to a polite distance and still speaking Trader’s Tongue. “I’m passing through, and a little short of cash; would you happen to know of any way I might earn a little money around here?”

“There must be a dozen merchants in town…” one soldier began, in the same language, but his companion’s hand on his arm startled him into silence.

“You’re looking for a way to earn money?” the other asked, grinning.

Not pleased by the grin, Kelder nodded. “That’s right,” he said.

“Well, it just so happens,” the grinning soldier said, “that I know of a wizard who said he’d pay well for some help.”

Kelder did not like the guard’s attitude at all, but on the other hand he remembered that Irith had been paid in silver for her errand in Ophera. Wizards did have money, generally, and were free enough with it.

He suspected he had been badly underpaid for the work he had done in the last few towns, but as a beggar, to all intents and purposes, what could he do about it?

Here, though, he had a chance to do better-maybe.

“What sort of help?” he asked suspiciously.

“Oh, just help,” the guard said, exchanging a smirk with his comrade.

It couldn’t hurt to check it out, Kelder thought. “Where?”

“Senesson of Yolder, on Carter Street,” the guard said, pointing. “Down the hill here, turn left at the little blue shrine, turn right on the second cross street, and look for the shop with the green tile over the door.”

“Green…” Kelder said. “Green what?” He had never encountered the word for “tile” in Trader’s Tongue before.

“Green roof,” the guard said.

That Kelder understood. “Thank you,” he said, with a polite half-bow.

Down the hill he went, strolling slowly until he spotted the blue shrine-it was a fountain, built into the outside corner of a bakery, with a bright blue ceramic glaze lining it and a small golden statuette of a goddess, no more than a foot tall, set into the wall behind it. The gold leaf on the idol had flaked a little, and the water that sprayed from beneath the goddess’ feet was slightly discolored. He turned left, between the bakery and an iron-fenced garden.

The first cross-street was a muddy alleyway, but he counted it anyway, and turned right onto a narrow, deserted byway. He had gone almost three blocks, and was just deciding that he should not have counted the alley, when he spotted a shop with a rather complex facade. A five-sided bay window, its innumerable small panes hexagonal in shape, took up most of the ground level front, while the upstairs displayed turrets and shutters with elaborate carvings. The front door, just beyond the bay window, was of oiled wood bound in brass, with designs etched in the metal and monstrous faces carved in bas relief on the wood.

And above this door was a small decorative overhang, and on top of the overhang were three rows of curved green tile.

There was no signboard, and the window display was an incomprehensible array of arrangements of silver wire, but it looked like the right place, and when he stepped up to the door he found that the design etched into the brass bar at eye level included a line of Ethsharitic runes reading, “Senesson of Yolder, Wizard Extraordinary.”

Kelder was about to knock when the door swung open; before he could react even enough to lower his fist, a girl charged directly into him, knocking him back a step.

“Get out of the way, stupid,” she snarled in Ethsharitic.

“Excuse me,” Kelder said in the same language, “but I wanted to work…”

“So did I, but I won’t do it here!” She tried to push past him, and Kelder stepped back, but then he reached out and caught her arm.

She whirled, aiming a punch at his belly, but he sidestepped in time to miss most of it, keeping hold of her other wrist. She was short and thin, her strength unremarkable, so maintaining his grip was not particularly difficult.

“Wait a minute,” he said, inadvertantly slipping into the Trader’s Tongue he had been using almost exclusively for more than a sixnight, “I need to talk to you.”

She yanked her arm free, and he let it go. “I don’t speak that,” she said, still in Ethsharitic, “whatever it is.”

“Sorry,” he said, switching back to Ethsharitic. “I need to talk to you.” For the first time it occurred to him that she might have been speaking the Krithimionese patois-but then she would have understood Trader’s Tongue, surely.

“No, you don’t,” she said, turning away.