"I don't know."
"Hmph. Well, I'll see."
"Thank you."
Yara withdrew, and Kilisha looked around at the drawers and shelves and cabinets, Ithanalin might already have jewelweed tucked away somewhere. It wasn't an ingredient in any of the spells Kilisha had learned as yet, but presumably he might have kept a supply on hand in case he ever wanted to perform Javan's Restorative.
Where would it be, then?
Kilisha began exploring the workshop, with special attention to the less-familiar areas-though she was not foolish enough to open anything with a visible rune or seal on it. Unless (jewelweed had some very special properties, she couldn't see why Ithanalin would have put magical protections on it.
She had gone through perhaps half a dozen drawers, and was sneezing uncontrollably at some fine gray powder she had stirred up when a sticky drawer finally popped open, when Yara and the children trooped past her and out the front door.
Wiping her nose on the back of her hand, Kilisha blinked her watering eyes and stepped into the parlor to make sure they were safely on their way, and that the door had been closed behind them.
The coatrack rattled enthusiastically at the sight of her, and the door latch popped open.
"Stop that," she said. She had forgotten that the latch, too, was animated; she would need to be careful to include it in the spell when she attempted Javan's Restorative on her master. She crossed to the door and was about to close it when someone knocked on the frame.
Startled, she said, "Mistress?"
"Open, in the name of the overlord!" a deep male voice said.
Astonished, Kilisha opened the door a crack and peered out.
A guardsman in full uniform-red kilt, yellow tunic, gleaming helmet and breastplate-was standing there, one fist resting on the doorframe as he looked her in the eye. Her own gaze dropped, and that was when she saw the big leather pouch on his belt, the overlord's seal prominently displayed on the flap.
A tax collector.
Well, that was no surprise, really; the one who had come yesterday had not managed to collect what Ithanalin owed.
"My master isn't in," Kilisha said.
"You're an apprentice? A wizard?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then I'll speak with you, if you'll let me in."
Kilisha blinked in surprise. "I-I don't think I'm allowed to pay the taxes…"
"That's not why I'm here." The soldier hesitated, then said, "Well, it's not the only reason I'm here, anyway. Could you let me in, please?"
Puzzled, Kilisha opened the door and moved aside. The guardsman smiled and stepped into the parlor. He looked around at the almost-empty room, and at the coatrack leashed in the corner.
"I see the furniture isn't back," he said.
"No," Kilisha said. "You're the tax collector who was here yesterday?"
"Yes. My name's Kelder."
"I'm Kilisha."
"You said your master isn't in? But he's all right?"
"Well-not exactly."
"He looked sort of frozen yesterday."
"He was. A spell went wrong."
"I thought so, when all that furniture came charging out. Will he be all right?"
Kilisha hesitated, then admitted the truth. "He will be if I can get all the furniture back."
"Ah. Well, that's why I'm here. When I left here yesterday, I followed the furniture-I thought maybe it wasn't supposed to be running loose like that. It split up, though, and I lost track of some of it, but I did catch a chair and a bench."
"You did?" Kilisha's face lit up. "Where are they? Do you have them with you?"
He shook his head. "No, I couldn't manage both of them- they squirm." After dealing with the coatrack, Kilisha could sympathize. "I had some of the other guards help, and I cornered them, and they're locked in a storeroom."
"Where?"
"In the shipyards, near Wargate High Street."
Kilisha blinked. "The shipyards? How did they get there'?'"
"They ran," Kelder said dryly.
Chapter Twelve
After explaining that she couldn't leave the house until her mistress returned from shopping, Kilisha escorted Kelder to the kitchen, where she questioned him for the better part of an hour-and answered a few of his questions, as well, though she didn't go into detail about exactly what spell had gone wrong, or how, or why she needed the furniture back before she could restore Ithanalin to full mobility.
Kelder told her that when the door had opened and he had stepped inside, it had seemed as if the entire roomful of furniture was charging at him. He had stepped back and lifted his truncheon-guards did not ordinarily carry swords or spears when on tax-collection duty-and had shouted for the furniture to stop, but it had ignored him.
A few pieces had run out the door, and he had run after them, and the rest had all come rushing after him, and he had been afraid he would be trampled. He had retreated a few yards cast on Wizard Street.
The furniture had all headed west, in a pack; he wasn't sure whether it was all trying to get away from him, or what. He had followed, a bit warily.
The faster pieces had galloped down the three blocks to Cross Avenue, leaving the slower-the rug, the coatrack, and what he called "the little stuff "-behind. The coatrack had been the first to change course, when it turned up an alley to the north; Kelder had hesitated, and almost lost sight of the main group, whereupon he decided to let the small slow ones go and concentrate on the bigger pieces, which were presumably the more valuable and more potentially dangerous or disruptive.
The street had been almost deserted-after all, a tax collector had been at work-and most of the people who saw the furniture also saw him in hot pursuit, and stayed out of the way. The furniture had therefore made its way unimpeded around the corner onto Cross Avenue northbound, then left again onto East Road.
"They stayed together?" Kilisha asked.
"Mostly," Kelder said. "For a while."
In fact, they had split up at the fork where the East Road bore right and Low Street bore left. There the couch had taken the East Road, and the chair and bench headed southward down Low Street, toward the shipyard.
"What about the table?" Kilisha asked. "Or the rug?"
Kelder had lost sight of those well before reaching the fork, he explained. There were only the three left by then, and he had followed the pair of smaller pieces. They had dodged westward again on Wargate High Street, but he had finally caught up at the corner of Shipyard Street, and with the help of some other guards had cornered and apprehended both. He had then locked them in a materials shed and gone to report to his superiors.
"Why didn't you come back here yesterday?" Kilisha asked.
"Because I wanted orders first. I went to my captain, and he sent me to the tax commissioner, who sent me back to the captain because this didn't have anything to do with taxes, and then he sent me to see a wizard named Zorita, and she sent to to see someone named Kaligir, only I couldn't get in to talk to him because of some sort of emergency meeting, and then I got orders to go back to Wargate because there was talk about calling out the entire guard to march off to Ethshar of the Sands because someone's thrown the overlord there out of his palace… " Kelder sighed. "I only got here this morning because the captain was too distracted to object when I said I was coming."
"I couldn't get to see Kaligir either," Kilisha said.
"Who is Kaligir?" Kelder asked.
"Oh, he's an official in the Wizards' Guild," Kilisha said, realizing she might have been on the verge of saying too much. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that you can show me where some of my master's furniture is, and help me get it back here where it belongs!"
"Then you do want it back?"