She turned and headed west at a brisk trot.
Chapter Five
It was very hard to imagine a bowl rolling all the way across Cross Avenue without being stepped on, kicked, or otherwise battered, but Kilisha had found no trace of the missing dish anywhere in the first three blocks of her search, so she had to assume it had somehow managed it. Animated objects could be amazingly clever and persistent, as she well knew; they never tired, the way living creatures did, and they couldn't be distracted by hunger or other discomforts. She hurried across the broad avenue, then stopped abruptly.
She had heard something-something that might have been the sound of a spoon hitting a bowl. That wasn't a sound one ordinarily heard outside a kitchen. It was followed by a man's voice, swearing.
The oaths meant trouble. Kilisha winced, then turned, trying to locate the source.
The swearing continued, and Kilisha determined that it was coming from a little way south on Cross Avenue. She hurried in that direction.
"… stop struggling, blast you!" she heard, followed by the sound of something whacking flesh.
That might not be any of the lost furnishings, but it sounded like something that needed investigation, in any case. Ordinarily she might have left it to older, wiser heads than her own, but it might involve one of her master's pieces.
The voice was coming, she realized, from the covered entryway of a tavern on the west side of the avenue, half a block from the intersection with Wizard Street. A sort of small porch made by cutting doorways through the two sides of an immense barrel sheltered the tavern's doorway while advertising the business, and that echoing barrel had served to amplify the sounds that had attracted her attention.
It was a remarkable piece of good fortune, if that was indeed where her quarry had gone, and as she hurried toward the tavern she murmured a quick prayer of gratitude to any gods who might have been involved.
She reached the outer doorway and peered into the barrel.
A man stood there, clutching a bowl under one arm and a wooden spoon in his other hand-but the spoon was writhing about wildly, twisting and bending, slapping at the man's arm. He was holding that arm straight out, holding the spoon as far from his body as he could; presumably it had tried to strike at other portions of his anatomy, as well.
These were unquestionably the bowl and spoon Kilisha was looking for; although one wooden spoon looked much like any other, and the earthenware bowl was undistinguished, how many animated wooden spoons were on the streets of Ethshar on this particular afternoon?
And this man did not look at all like a wizard; he was dressed in a workingman's brown woolen tunic and leather breeches, both filled out by an overlarge belly, and he had more hair in his close-trimmed beard than atop his head.
"Hold still! I'm not going to hurt you, confound it!"
"Excuse me," Kilisha said, "but I believe that's mine."
The man started; he had plainly been too involved with his struggle to notice her arrival. Now he turned to stare at her.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"My name is Kilisha the Apprentice," she said, her hand dropping to the hilt of her athame. "Apprentice wizard."
The man stared at her a moment longer before speaking, and Kilisha was uncomfortably aware of her own rather drab and un-imposing appearance. Ithanalin had the physical presence to impress his customers, and Kilisha had long known that she did not- at least, not yet; she hoped it would come with age.
"Then why aren't you in a wizard's robe?" he asked.
"Because I wasn't dealing with customers," she snapped. "I was working, and those-" she drew her dagger and pointed it at the bowl and spoon "-escaped from my master's house."
The man looked down at the bowl. The spoon was no longer struggling; it seemed to be listening.
"How do I know they're really yours?" he asked. "I found them on the street."
"I told you, they escaped."
"But how do I know they escaped from you? You don't look like a wizard. That dagger doesn't prove anything!"
Kilisha, who had already had far more trouble than she expected that day, and who knew much more still lay ahead, almost growled. She should have prepared…
No, she told herself, she shouldn't need to prove anything- but in fact, she could demonstrate that she was a wizard. She had a few ingredients in the pouch on her belt. She could show this troublesome person a few things. Fendel's Spectacular Illusion required dragon's blood, which was too expensive to waste like that, but she had a chip of chrysolite she could use to conjure the Yellow Cloud…
But that would cover almost the entire width of the street, and hide everything for a minute or so, and he might turn and run, and she wouldn't be able to see any better than he could. She tried to think what else she had available.
Thrindle's Combustion, of course. Her free hand dropped to the pouch, and with the skill born of long practice she used two fingers to pop the lid off her vial of brimstone. She made a gesture and spoke a word, and an inch or so of the hem of the man's tunic suddenly burst into flame.
Startled, he slapped at it and quickly extinguished the flames- but to Kilisha's surprise and annoyance, he did not drop the bowl or spoon.
As he beat out the embers, she said, "Do you really want to argue with a wizard, a member in good standing of the Guild?" she said. "You admit those things aren't yours-why should you think they aren't mine?"
"Because they're valuable," the man said, frowning as he tugged at the blackened, crumbling fabric. "You're just an apprentice, you said so yourself. I found them, and I was planning to sell them. They were just lying in the street-"
"They were not," Kilisha snapped. "They were moving. That's how you knew they were worth stealing."
"It wasn't stealing!" the man protested, looking up as he brushed ash from his breeches. "You're the one trying to steal them!"
"They're mine," Kilisha said. "Or my master's, at any rate."
"Prove it! Fine, you're a wizard, but how do I know you aren't trying to steal these from the wizard who really owns them?"
Kilisha frowned, amazed at the man's stubbornness. How in the World was she supposed to prove it? There was no Spell of True Ownership on them, no names written on them, no distinctive marks she could point out-they were a completely ordinary bowl and spoon that happened to have parts of Ithanalin's soul in them.
"Give them to me, and I'll show you," she said, sheathing her athame and holding out a hand.
She had no way of proving ownership. Her actual plan was to simply grab them and run, and hope that she could lose the man in the streets, or at least get back to the shop before he caught her. He was considerably larger than she was, but he didn't look particularly fast or agile-and if he had any sense, he would not want to anger any wizard.
The man looked from her to the spoon, then back.
"Here," he said, holding it out. "I'll hold onto the bowl until you prove they're yours."
Kilisha hesitated for half a second, remembering the way the spoon had been writhing about and slapping at the man's arm. If she took it, and it struggled, she might still run with it, but how would she ever get the bowl? She didn't want to rely on threats; the Guild didn't approve of outright extortion.
The spoon didn't look particularly violent just now, though; it had twisted around so that its bowl was turned toward her, leaning forward as if listening to her. She took it, holding it just below the bowl.
The instant the man released it, it wrapped its handle around her wrist, bent its bowl down, and began rubbing against her wrist, like a cat asking to be petted.