Ithanalin's Restoration. Lawrence Watt-Evans

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СКАЧАТЬ hours later, around the middle of the afternoon, she finally headed homeward, a tightly-stoppered vial of dark blood tucked in the purse on her belt. She owed the priestess Illuré a favor for this, and she hoped it wouldn’t be too difficult to repay.

      At least a priestess wouldn’t want anyone turned into a newt or otherwise seriously harmed; the gods didn’t approve of that sort of thing.

      It seemed silly, spending all this time, half the day, just getting a little cat’s blood. She knew Ithanalin had always said that the hardest part of any spell was getting the ingredients, but if it took this long for something simple like cat’s blood…

      Well, that was how wizards’ suppliers like Kara or the infamous Gresh stayed in business, and why they could charge so much.

      At least this way Ithanalin had probably had plenty of time for his spell and his mysterious customer, whoever it was—not many spells took more than a few hours. Yara and the little ones wouldn’t be back yet, and the wizard had had the whole morning without an apprentice underfoot.

      She came within sight of the shop and noticed that the drapes were still drawn. She sighed. Yara would never have allowed that, had she been home. Usually Ithanalin agreed that the drapes should be open during business hours, but sometimes, when he was busy, he forgot.

      The door was open, though, so people would know that the wizard was home.

      And he must be done with his spell, if he had left the door wide open. Kilisha hurried the last few paces.

      “Hello, Master,” she said, as she stepped into the dim room. “I’m sorry I…

      She stopped dead in her tracks. Something was wrong here.

      Something was very wrong.

      Ithanalin was crouching on the floor just a few feet inside the door, as if in the process of rising from a sitting position, but he was not moving. He wore his grubby working tunic and a worn leather apron, and he was utterly, perfectly still, his face frozen in a beard-bristling expression of severe annoyance.

      Kilisha stared at him for a moment, then looked straight down at her own feet, not realizing why she did it until she saw that she was standing on bare planking.

      The rag rug was gone.

      She stared, then quickly looked around to see whether it might have slid off to one side.

      It hadn’t. It was gone.

      And the red velvet couch was gone.

      And the square black endtable was gone.

      And the humpback bench was gone.

      And the coat-rack was gone.

      And the straight chair was gone.

      Everything was gone—the room was totally empty except for herself, Ithanalin, and the mirror above the mantle.

      “Master?” Kilisha said.

      Ithanalin didn’t respond.

      She stepped closer, and, very carefully, reached out and touched the immobile wizard.

      He was still warm—that was something, anyway—but he didn’t react, didn’t move; his skin felt lifeless and inert, like sun-warmed leather rather than living flesh.

      “Master, what happened?” she wailed. She stared wildly around the empty room. She wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t let herself cry; she wasn’t a baby, she was seventeen years old, almost a journeyman.

      This was magic, obviously. Ithanalin was clearly alive, but somehow frozen, and surely nothing but magic could freeze a person like that.

      But was it hostile magic, or had something gone wrong?

      She couldn’t imagine who would have done this to her master deliberately. Ithanalin might not be the best-loved man in Ethshar, or even close to it, but he wasn’t bad. She knew people who didn’t like him, but she couldn’t name anyone she would really call an enemy.

      And if anyone attacked him—well, it would have to be another wizard, because if anyone else were to use magic on him that person would be risking the wrath of the Wizards’ Guild. Nobody who was stupid enough to do that could be powerful enough to do something like this.

      And why would a fellow wizard do it?

      She wished she knew some decent divinations, but Ithanalin had never been much interested in such things. She had to rely on common sense to figure out what had happened here.

      It might have been a wizard with some old grudge she didn’t know about—but it might also be that something had gone wrong. After all, why would a wizard have stolen all the furniture?

      She blinked, and looked around.

      Why would anyone take the furniture? Most of it wasn’t anything very special; the couch was unique, but so far as she knew it wasn’t especially valuable. Probably the most valuable piece was the mirror, with its Shan glass and perfect silvering, and that was the only thing still here!

      She reached back and closed the door; then she tiptoed carefully past the frozen wizard and peered through the doorway at the back of the parlor.

      The workshop appeared to be undisturbed; the shelves and benches and stools were all still there, still cluttered with the detritus of wizardry. The chests of drawers where Ithanalin kept his ingredients were all in place, their drawers tidily closed. An oil lamp was burning in one corner of the workbench, warming a small brass bowl on a tripod—Kilisha had no idea what that might be for. Several spells required heating things, but none of the ones she knew seemed likely to have been in progress.

      Cautiously, she ventured through the workroom to the kitchen at the rear of the shop, and then on up the stairs, checking for intruders, damage, or simply some sign of what had happened.

      The ground-floor kitchen was untouched, just as she had left it that morning. The day nursery and drawing room on the next level were intact. A quick look in the bedrooms farther upstairs found nothing out of place.

      Only the front parlor was affected.

      She hurried back.

      Ithanalin was still there, still motionless, still warm to the touch; everything else was still gone, save the mantel, hearth, and mirror.

      What was so special about the mirror, then? Why was it still here? It wasn’t bolted to the wall, or impossibly heavy; she had seen Yara take it down for cleaning once, a couple of years ago, and she hadn’t had to strain to move it. If all the other furniture had been stolen, then why had the thieves left the most precious piece? Kilisha crossed the room and peered up into the smooth glass.

      She saw her own image, and Ithanalin’s, and the empty room. As she watched, though, shadows appeared; she spun around, expecting to see whatever made them.

      Nothing was there. The room was empty and still.

      She blinked, then slowly turned back to the mirror.

      She knew the glass came from Shan on the Desert, far to the east, and there were СКАЧАТЬ