The only good side she could see was that Chorizel would probably be at home, getting ready for supper, rather than out somewhere.
Unless, of course, he had an invitation to dine elsewhere. She picked up the pace, almost running.
Chorizel did not have an ordinary shop, with a signboard and front room; instead he had a house, and the only sign that it was a place of business was a small card set in one window that read simply:
CHORIZEL
WIZARDRY
Kilisha had passed by it any number of times in the five years she had lived on Wizard Street, but had never set foot inside. She had only spoken to Chorizel two or three times in her life, all of them when she and Ithanalin happened to encounter the Guild-master on the street and the two master wizards had made polite conversation. After the first such meeting Ithanalin had explained that Chorizel was the local Guildmaster, and their connection to the Guild hierarchy, but Kilisha had never been especially interested in Guild business, and she had never paid any particular attention to Chorizel.
Now, though, she took a moment to look over the Guild master’s house, and to try to remember everything she could about him. It wasn’t much. He was a plump old man with a ragged white beard and a tenor voice.
The house was three stories tall and unremarkable, with heavy black timbers crisscrossing their way up to a steep slate roof. The plaster filling between the beams was yellow, and decorated with finely painted red flowers surrounded by twining green vines. The windows were tall and narrow, the leading between panes simple. Because of the street’s slope the front door was at the top of a stoop, two steps at one side, three steps at the other. The stone doorframe was carved into the likeness of two doglike creatures sitting on their haunches, facing one another, their impossibly tall ears supporting the lintel.
Kilisha mounted the steps, looked for a bell-pull or knocker, and seeing none she rapped on the door with her knuckles.
The carved dog-things opened their stone eyes and looked at her.
“What is your business here?” the left-hand creature asked, in a hissing, grating, and thoroughly inhuman voice.
Kilisha was mildly impressed; most of Ithanalin’s creations couldn’t speak that clearly, if they spoke at all, and stone was said to be hard to work with. “I need to speak to Guildmaster Chori-zel,” she said. “There’s been an accident.”
“Who arc you?” the right-hand doorpost asked, in a deeper, grinding voice.
“Kilisha of Eastgate,” she said. “Apprentice to Ithanalin the Wise.”
“Enter, then,” the left-hand creature said. The latch clicked, and the door swung open.
That, she supposed, was the Spell of the Obedient Object at work-it was probably triggered by the doorpost’s voice saying “Enter.” These things were usually set up to make animated objects seem far more intelligent and independent than they really were.
She stepped inside and looked around.
The entry hall was fair-sized, with a lovely thick carpet on the wooden floor, a couch against one wall, stairs leading up, and closed doors on either side. It was dim, lit only by a window at the top of the stairs, and the dark wood wainscotting made it seem even darker.
A black and brownish-red rune drawn on the wall at the foot of the stairs spoke in a pleasant tenor, saying, “Please wait here.” Then the brownish-red part evaporated into thick, foul-smelling smoke.
Kilisha studied the remaining portion of the rune with interest; she had never seen that particular spell before. Clearly it was a single-use spell; she could sense no lingering magic in it, even with her hand on the hilt of her athame. She did not actually touch the nine, with either her hand or her dagger, any more than she had touched that bowl on Ithanalin’s workbench; she knew better than to handle unfamiliar magic so carelessly as that.
It couldn’t be a very high-order spell if Chorizel had thrown it away so casually on an unimportant visitor. She wondered whether Ithanalin knew it, whatever it was. The voice had sounded like Chorizel’s own...
She was still studying it when the door behind her opened and Chorizel stepped in. She turned at the sound, and bowed deeply.
“Guildmaster,” she said.
“Apprentice,” he replied, acknowledging the bow with a nod. “Did Kaligir send you to escort me?”
“Uh...”
“Then is there more news?”
“More news? Guildmaster, I am here on behalf of my master, Ithanalin...”
Chorizel frowned, and for the first time Kilisha noticed that there were two more people behind him, a man and a woman, looking over his broad shoulders.
“Ithanalin?” he asked. “What does be have to do with any of this?”
Kilisha blinked in confusion. “Any of what, Guildmaster?”
“The rebellion, of course! The murders! The usurper!”
For a few seconds Kilisha wondered whether this entire long day was actually some ghastly, confusing nightmare. “What rebellion, Guildmaster? What murders?”
Chorizel put two ringers to his forehead and rubbed, staring at her. “You haven’t heard?” he asked.
“Heard what?”
Chorizel glanced at the door, and the man behind him hurried over and pushed it shut.
“Last night in Ethshar of the Sands,” he said, “a mad magician named Tabaea led a mob from the Wall Street Field to the overlord’s palace, chased Ederd and his lords out, and declared herself empress of Ethshar.”
“What kind of magician?” Kilisha asked, as she struggled to absorb this information.
“We don’t know,” the woman at Chorizel’s elbow said. “She has an enchanted dagger-it’s probably wizardry, but it’s possible it’s sorcery or demonology or something new.”
Kilisha tried to go over everything Chorizel had said, to make sense of it. “If she’s in Ethshar of the Sands, why are you concerned, Guildmaster? That’s a hundred leagues away!”
“Not quite sixty, really,” Chorizel said. “And she’s murdered wizards, including Guildmaster Screm. That makes it the Guild’s business. Not to mention she’s declared herself empress of the entire Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, not just the one city.”
“Oh,” Kilisha said. No other response to this astonishing news really seemed appropriate. Murdered wizards? Empress of the Hegemony? The three-overlord system had been in place for over two hundred years, and the idea of someone trying to disrupt it simply made no sense. And who, other than the Guild itself, would dare to kill wizards?
“Kaligir has been conferring with Telurinon, Serem’s successor,” Chorizel said. “We’re all supposed to meet with Kaligir to discuss the situation. I thought he’d sent you to fetch us.”
“Oh,” Kilisha said again-though she had no idea who Kaligir, Telurinon, or this murdered Guildmaster Serem might be. “No,” she added, “he didn’t send me.”
“Then why are you here?”
That was the cue Kilisha had been waiting for; words spilled out of her mouth so quickly they almost tripped on one another.
“My master Ithanalin has had an accident, he tripped over a spriggan in the middle of a spell and it spilled all over him and now his life force is in our furniture and it’s escaped and I need help collecting it all and using Javan’s Restorative to put him back together.”
Chorizel stared down at her for a moment. “Is he alive?” he demanded.
“Well, technically, yes,” Kilisha said.
“Is he in any immediate danger? Will he die if we don’t help you?”
“I don’t think so...” Kilisha began, hesitantly.