Lawrence Watt-Evans: Taking Flight

“I know,” Kelder said. Irith looked down at her plate.

“Iridith should be back in a couple of days,” Valder went on, “and I’m sure she knows what to do-it’s probably something very simple, really.”

“She’s not here?” Irith looked up.

“No, she’s up at the other inn,” Valder replied.

“What other inn?” the Flyer asked.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?”

Irith shook her head.

“We bought another inn, up in Sardiron, in The Passes,” Valder explained. “The man who built it was getting old and wanted to retire to his grandson’s farm. It’s called the Crimson Wolf, and it’s in a really good location, on the road from the Tazmor mines to Sardiron of the Waters. I figure that every so often I’ll move up there, and then my son can come back and run this place a few years later.”

“Your son?” Kelder asked.

“He doesn’t have a son, silly,” Irith explained. “That’s how he keeps people from realizing he’s two hundred years old.”

This confirmation that Valder really was ancient, and that he and Irith apparently did share a good many secrets with one another, was reassuring. It meant the innkeeper was neither lying nor mad. “I see,” Kelder said.

“I guess we’ll just have to put up with him until she gets back,” Irith said.

Kelder nodded agreement.

“Well, you’re welcome to stay until then,” Valder said. “You may have to double up if it gets busy, though-I don’t usually have three empty rooms.”

“That would be fine,” Kelder said, “but we don’t have much money…”

“Don’t worry about that,” Valder said. “I never charge Irith or her friends.”

“Oh,” Kelder said. “If you’re sure…”

“I’m sure.”

“Well, thank you.”

“And I’ll do what I can to keep liquor away from the old man,” Valder continued, “but it probably won’t do any good.”

“I know,” Kelder said. “Thank you anyway.”

Valder waved his gratitude aside. “That takes care of him, then,” he said. “But I don’t think he was the only problem you brought with you. What about the little girl?”

Kelder and Irith looked at each other, then back at Valder. “Her father beat her,” Irith said, “so she ran away from home. She was going to stay with her brother, who had joined a party of bandits in Angarossa, but they tried to rob a caravan that had hired a demonologist as a guard.” She shuddered delicately. “The merchants are getting mean about Angarossa, now.”

“The brother’s dead?” Valder asked.

“Oh, yes,” Kelder said. “We built his pyre ourselves.”

“Any other sibs? Or her mother?”

“Her mother’s dead,” Kelder replied, “and there weren’t any other sibs.”

“She’s very stubborn,” Irith remarked.

“Tough, too,” Kelder said. “I think that if she just had a roof over her head and steady meals, she could take care of herself just fine.”

“Do you want to keep her with you?” Valder asked him.

Kelder hesitated, then said, “The problem is, I don’t have a roof over my head, or steady meals.”

“Do you have a home somewhere?”

“Well, my parents are back in Shulara,” Kelder explained, “but I don’t think they’d take Asha in. Or maybe they would-I don’t really know.” He hadn’t really considered it. He had planned on taking Irith back to Shulara as his wife, but the idea of taking Asha there had simply never occurred to him.

“Can she work?” Valder asked.

Kelder and Irith looked at each other again.

“I don’t know,” Kelder answered.

“If she can,” Valder said, “and if she wants to, she can stay here. I’m not short-handed right now, but Thetta keeps talking about leaving, and Semder wants to leave and find an apprenticeship now that he’s old enough, so I probably will be short-handed soon enough. The work’s not hard, really.”

“You’ll have to ask her,” Kelder said, “but it sounds good to me.”

“Me, too,” Irith agreed.

“Well, then,” Valder said, rising, “I guess that’s everything.”

“I suppose so,” Irith said, also rising, “and I’m going to bed-I’m tired, and I’ve been using the bloodstone spell too much lately.”

“I’ll be up in a few minutes,” Kelder said. He sat where he was, and watched Irith walk gracefully up the stairs. She was wearing a plain woolen tunic of Thetta’s, simple and unadorned dark blue, with a black wool skirt, and neither garment was particularly attractive; even so, she was astonishingly beautiful.

Valder watched, too, and then looked at Kelder. He sat down again.

“You’re in love with her, too, aren’t you?” he asked.

Reluctantly, Kelder admitted, “I think so.” He started to say more, to tell Valder about Zindre’s prophecies, then stopped. The innkeeper seemed like a trustworthy sort, the kind of person one wants to confide in, but really, Kelder thought, it wasn’t any of his business.

“Do you think she might have used the spell on you, too?”

Kelder considered that, but shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m certainly not as obsessed with her as Ezdral is. And Irith says that if she had used it on me, I wouldn’t argue with her so much.”

“Do you argue with her?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then you’re right, you’re probably not enchanted.”

It was a relief to hear that from a knowledgeable third party. “Thank you,” Kelder said. “She is, though,” he added a moment later.

“Is what?”

“Enchanted,” Kelder explained. “I’d like to break that, too.”

Valder’s eyes widened. “There isn’t any love spell on her,” he said, “is there? I didn’t think that was possible-she’s supposed to be immune to magic.”

Kelder shook his head. “I didn’t mean a love spell,” he said. “I meant Javan’s whatever-it-is.”

“Oh, that,” Valder said. “She doesn’t want to break that, though.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well,” Valder said slowly, “Iridith offered to try to break the spell, years ago, and Irith wasn’t interested.”

“She might be now, though,” Kelder said.

Valder shrugged.

“She might,” he said.

That night, lying in bed alone, Kelder thought long and hard about his future.

He had had his fill of traveling. The towns along the Great Highway were all very well, but he had no place in them, and he had no great urge to spend his life wandering from one to the next, working odd jobs and living in inns. He was ready to settle down again, at least for awhile.

But did he really want to go home to Shulara?

Zindre had said he would go back, so he had taken it for granted, but did he want to go back? Back to the rolling green hills, the hard, boring work on the farm, his oh-so-superior older sisters? Returning covered in glory might be fun, but living there again-somehow, after all his traveling, Shulara seemed smaller and duller than ever in retrospect. The Great Highway hadn’t been lined with magicians and minstrels, he hadn’t seen a single dice game or bedded any serving wenches; the World was not the bright roaring carnival he had hoped for. It was, instead, larger and more complicated than he had imagined.

Going back to Shulara-he didn’t think it would work.

But if he didn’t want to go on wandering, and didn’t want to go back, what was left?

He could settle somewhere else, of course-find a home, a steady income. Friends, maybe.

He remembered Azraya, who intended to become a sailor, and thought that might be the best of both paths, in a way-your ship was your home, your crewmates your friends, yet you traveled the World, seeing its wonders.