Now, a little older and wiser, she felt only a rnild regret that she had not remembered that people might be looking up at her from beneath. She ignored it, and concentrated on the task at hand-or tasks, rather, as she had two purposes in her ascent.
Given the nature of the spell, she decided to start with the one that required greater altitude-searching for the couch. That meant hauling the heavy axe and dangling rope that much farther into the sky, but it really seemed the safer, more sensible approach. She heightened and shortened her stride, climbing upward.
It was really remarkable how very solid the air felt beneath her feet. She needed merely to place a foot as if on a stair, and the stair would somehow be there, invisible but quite firm.
Magic, she thought, was wonderful stuff; at times like this she loved being a wizard.
Of course, she thought as she glanced down along the trailing rope, it was also very dangerous stuff; if she released her hold on the lantern for even an instant those sturdy steps beneath her feet would suddenly once again be nothing but empty air, and she would plummet to the hard-packed earth thirty feet below. From this height the fall probably wouldn’t kill her, but it would not be pleasant-and she intended to go much higher than this. She was level with most of the rooftops now, higher than some, and could see perhaps half a mile along Wizard Street, but most of the city was still hidden.
Magic was dangerous, yes-she was up here in the first place because Ithanalin had discovered that.
She tightened her grip on the lantern and marched onward and upward, passing gables and chimneys; the sharp sea breeze whipped her hair and skirt about her as she cleared the obstructing buildings. Below her the end of the rope finally rose out of Kelder’s reach and began wiggling back and forth, squirming like a snake, as the winds caught it and played with it.
The axe really was heavy, and the climb was long; she wondered whether she should have used the Spell of Optimum Strength, or some other endurance spell, before beginning her ascent.
That would have taken too long, though. She sighed, and continued climbing.
She could see across the shops and houses and courtyards to the north and south now, to the East Road to the north and the tangle of smaller streets to the south. In the slanting light of late-afternoon the gray slate of the steeply angled roofs looked black on the eastern slopes and pale on the west, so that each block of housing looked like a gigantic loop of herringbone. She carefully noted the distinguishing features of Ithanalin’s shop, so that she could find it again on the way down-the shape of the chimney pots, the slightly asymmetrical gable that she knew was the niche where her own bed lay, and so on; four houses from the west end of the block and seven from the east.
The buildings were not what she was up here to look at, though; once she was sure she would recognize her home she forced herself to focus on the spaces between the houses, the streets and courtyards.
A red velvet couch ought to stand out even in the shadows, she thought. Most of the people in the streets wore brown or gray or black or white or blue or green; very few were dressed in red. And a couch would be horizontal, where pedestrians were vertical.
The couch was nowhere to be seen in the long visible expanse of Wizard Street, or in the courtyards on either side.
She climbed higher, turning her steps to the right and spiraling upward, until she could see the blue of the reservoir to the northeast and the red-and-gold banners of the Arena to the south, flickering in the wind. She rose still higher, until the looming gray mass of the Fortress and the twin towers of Eastgate were visible. The people below her looked like little more than dots now; she slowed her ascent but did not stop, because she knew that once she stopped she could not rise any farther.
Beyond the Arena, far to the southeast, she could glimpse the parade ground in Wargate; to the west lay the shipyards, just as she had seen them earlier that day. Market lay beyond the reservoir, and Farmgate beyond that.
And at last she stopped; if she went any higher she thought she might well miss something as small as a couch. She stood in midair and looked down past her bare feet; the wind tore at her hair and tunic, and her skirt flapped like a ship’s pennant. The dangling rope was writhing and coiling madly below her.
She frowned. She had probably, she decided, come too high after all. She could move horizontally, as long as she didn’t change altitude or release the lantern, and hadn’t needed to come up this far.
She shuddered at the thought of dropping the lantern; a fall from this height would kill her, beyond question. At least the chill of the wind kept her hands from getting too sweaty and weakening her hold!
She shifted her grip on the axe and began walking westward; that was the direction Kelder said the couch had gone before he lost sight of it. It had fled up the East Road, toward the Fortress.
The bench had been headed for the Fortress, too-was there something there that had attracted the furniture, perhaps? Before she had thought that perhaps the attraction was Ithanalin’s customer on Steep Street, but the bench had definitely aimed for the Fortress, instead.
That was the original heart of the city, of course. Ethshar of the Rocks had begun as a military outpost during the Great War, at the extreme western limit of Old Ethshar’s power, and a watch-tower had been built atop the cliffs on the headland. The watch-tower had been expanded gradually over the long years of conflict, and then finally torn down and replaced with the Fortress-a massive stone complex dominating the coastline and serving as the headquarters for the entire Western Command. It had been surrounded only by camps at first, but gradually a few other buildings had appeared, and the city walls had been built to protect the camps.
And then, after hundreds of years of fighting, the war ended. General Gor declared himself overlord, and the tents and huts were replaced by houses and shops, the Arena and Baths were built, the shipyards converted from building warships to freighters... but in the subsequent two hundred and thirty years Lord Gor and his heirs had never seen any reason to move themselves or their government out of the Fortress.
The Fortress was the largest and oldest building for fifty leagues in every direction; perhaps it had somehow accumulated some sort of magical attraction that had affected the furniture.
Kilisha didn’t find it very attractive, though, as she walked over the East Road toward it. It was a huge, ugly gray mass. In most of the city, homes and businesses were decorated with carvings and paint, but the Fortress walls were flat slabs of blank stone, the windows-and only the upper floors had any windows-simple unadorned rectangles.
The top, largely invisible to anyone but a magician, was a little more interesting than the sides; the battlements were mere elevated walkways surrounding a stone courtyard where Kilisha could see guardsmen marching in formation. There were guards posted along the ramparts, as well, which seemed foolish in a city that had been at peace for more than two centuries.
But then she remembered that a usurper had just driven out the overlord of Ethshar of the Sands. Perhaps the walls had not always been manned, but were now guarded against this Tabaea and her followers.
In any case, the Fortress guards were not her concern. She was trying to find the couch.
She could see nothing the right shade of red anywhere along the East Road, nor in the Fortress rooftop courtyard, nor on Wizard Street. The streets and alleys of Hillside, the district surrounding the Fortress, were so steep and tangled that she could see very little of what might be on them.
The other high hill in the city was Highside, to the northeast of Hillside, and that was dominated by the mansions of the city’s wealthiest families; there she could see into not just streets and courtyards, but gardens and plazas. Instead of being crowded together, as the homes were throughout most of the city, the mansions of Highside were elegantly placed amid lawns and fountains and flowers, all behind high fences and walls-but from her present height the fences and walls were meaningless. She glanced in that direction-and froze.