Ithanalin's Restoration. Lawrence Watt-Evans

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СКАЧАТЬ whatever they were? She stared intently at the reflected scene.

      The shadows were still there; in fact, they were darker and sharper than before, and she realized that they couldn’t be a reflection—they didn’t move when she shifted angle. They were there in the mirror itself, somehow—not on the surface of the glass, but in the famously-perfect silvering. That dark line wasn’t across Ithanalin’s face, and that one wasn’t on the far wall…

      They grew and darkened as she watched, but it took another few seconds before she could adjust her vision and look at the thick black strokes properly. Finally, though, the runes fell into place.

      HELLO, KILISHA, they said.

      She blinked. “Hello,” she said warily.

      The shadow-runes broke apart and vanished. The image of the empty room, her motionless master, and her own worried face was clear once again.

      “Who are you?” she asked, after a moment of entirely ordinary reflections.

      Curls of darkness swirled for a moment; then new runes appeared reading PART OF ITHANALIN THE WISE.

      Her eyes widened as she realized that in fact the runes were in the familiar, slightly crooked handwriting she had seen so often—she had no doubt that the words were true. “Master!” she said. “You’re trapped in there? Your spirit?”

      NOT EXACTLY, the mirror replied.

      Before Kilisha could react, the runes shifted again.

      I AM PART OF ITHANALIN, they said. The three runes of the word “part” were larger and more ornately curved than the rest.

      “Well, of course,” Kilisha said. “Your body is right over there.” She pointed.

      I AM ONLY PART OF ITHANALIN’S SPIRIT, OR GHOST. NOT ALL OF IT. The runes had to be somewhat smaller to convey this longer message, and squeezed together awkwardly.

      “Oh,” Kilisha said, crestfallen. She had been thinking this would be simple—if she had Ithanalin’s body, and his soul was trapped in the mirror, surely there would be some way to put them back together. “What part? How many…I mean…”

      I AM MOST OF THE WIZARD’S MEMORY, the mirror said.

      “Oh. Then…then do you remember what happened?”

      YES.

      The single word hung there for a moment. “Then what was it?” Kilisha asked, almost wailing, when no further explanation materialized. “Why is your memory in the mirror, and your body petrified—or paralyzed, or whatever it is?”

      Then the mirror explained the whole thing, in line after line of shadowy runes, and Kilisha stared until her eyes hurt, reading silently.

      Ithanalin had been working on the animation spell for his important new customer—the man wanted a bed brought to life, for reasons that Ithanalin had not inquired very closely into, once the wizard had assurances that the customer’s wife knew and approved, and that nothing murderous was planned.

      Kilisha wondered about that—a living bed? She was a normal adolescent girl, with a normal interest in sex, no experience at all, and an overheated imagination; what would a living bed be for? Wouldn’t that be, well, strange?

      But people often were strange, especially those rich and eccentric enough to buy Ithanalin’s spells. She tried not to think about the bed as the mirror continued.

      The spell had finally been going well, after a couple of false starts, and was nearing completion; a spriggan had gotten into the workshop somehow, despite the locked front door, but Ithanalin had managed to shoo it out of the workshop and into the front parlor while he continued the mixing. He was at a point in the six-hour ritual where he had to stir a large bowl of goo for an hour without stopping—those people who made jokes about how wizards didn’t need to keep their bodies fit obviously didn’t know what went into some of these spells, Kilisha thought.

      Then someone had knocked at the door.

      At first Ithanalin had ignored it—Kilisha or Yara or the children would have the sense to realize he was busy, and could wait—they weren’t due back yet, in any case—and he was not interested in talking to any customers or neighbors when he was in the middle of a spell. The door was closed and the curtains drawn, so it should have been plain that the wizard was not open for business; all the same, someone had rapped loudly.

      Ithanalin had assumed that the caller, upon being ignored, would conclude no one was home and go away.

      Whoever it was didn’t take the hint, though—he pounded harder and started shouting, and Ithanalin had picked up the bowl, still stirring, and had marched out into the front room with the bowl tucked in his left arm, stirring spoon in his right hand. He had intended to order whoever it was to go away, and threaten to lay a few choice curses, but then he had made out some of the words being shouted—it wasn’t a determined or angry customer at all, it was the overlord’s tax collector on his more-or-less-annual rounds, and wizards had to pay just like anyone else.

      Ithanalin couldn’t stop stirring without ruining the spell, but he thought he could call through the door and explain that he was busy, and ask the tax collector to come back later—the guardsmen assigned to the treasurer’s office were reputed to be stubborn but reasonable, and after all, Ithanalin had sold a miniature dragon to the treasurer herself just the day before, so surely the collector had not been instructed to be unusually difficult.

      The rug by the front door had been humped up again, as usual, and as he walked and stirred Ithanalin had kicked at it, to straighten it out—but this time, instead of flattening, the rug had jumped up at him. The spriggan Ithanalin had chased out of the workshop had been hiding under the hump, and sprang out when the wizard kicked at it.

      Ithanalin had been so startled that he had started to fall backward, and he had flung up his hands instinctively. The dish of magical glop intended for the customer’s bed had gone flying, the spoon had gone flying, and the goo had sprayed all over the parlor in a glowing purple spatter, smearing on the ceiling, dripping down on the furniture, drifting in a thick fog every which way—not like a natural spill at all, but then, the stuff wasn’t natural, it was magic, and an animation magic, at that, already more than half alive.

      Ithanalin had landed heavily on his backside, sitting spraddled on the floor, and had lost his temper enough to shout, “Kux aqa!”

      “What does that mean?” Kilisha asked.

      IT IS AN OBSCENITY IN AN ANCIENT, FORGOTTEN TONGUE, the mirror told her, the shadowy letters sliding across her reflected face.

      “Yes, but what does it mean?” Kilisha insisted.

      I DO NOT THINK THAT ITHANALIN, WERE HE COMPLETE, WOULD WISH TO TELL YOU.

      “But he isn’t complete, and it might be important!”

      VERY WELL.

      “So what does it mean?”

      YOU ARE AWARE THAT PROFANITY OFTEN DOES NOT MAKE SENSE WHEN TRANSLATED LITERALLY?

      “Of course!” Kilisha said, though she hadn’t known any such thing.

      THE PHRASE СКАЧАТЬ