Irith threw him a questioning look, and he nodded.
“Thank you, Perina,” the shapeshifter said, “that would be wonderful.”
“Wait right here, then,” she said. “I’ll get my purse.” She hurried to the spiral stair.
That left Irith and Kelder standing a few feet apart, with no one else in the room. Kelder said quietly, “She seems to know a lot.”
“Hmm?” Irith looked at him questioningly.
“Well, I mean, all this magical stuff here, and all those powerful wizards she was talking about — if she doesn’t know the countercharm it must be pretty obscure.”
Irith shook her head. “Silly,” she said, “don’t let Peri fool you; she’s not part of any inner circle or anything. She inherited all this stuff from her mother — she was a great wizard. And she collected stuff, weird stuff — a lot of it is accidental one-of-a-kind things that nobody knows what they do, things that happened when a spell went wrong. It’s not Peri’s magic. Peri’s just a name-dropper; she met all those people when she was little and they visited her mother, or her mother took her along visiting them, or maybe she just heard her mother talking about them. She probably hasn’t seen Thorum in fifteen years, and she probably never met Fendel at all. She probably hasn’t read half these books. In fact, she probably hasn’t read any of them.”
“Oh,” Kelder said.
“The countercharm could be in one of them,” Irith said, “but we’d never find it. We’d probably get killed by some silly warding spell if we tried to look for it.”
“Oh,” Kelder said again.
Then Perina reappeared, descending the stair, a velvet purse in her hand.
“Here we go,” she said, pulling out a handful of coins.
When the money was safely tucked away — three pieces in silver in Kelder’s purse, two in Irith’s, and the rest back where it came from — Irith kissed Perina goodbye and stepped to the window.
“Must you go?” Perina asked, as Irith opened the casement.
“I’m afraid so,” Irith said, as wings sprouted from her shoulderblades.
“Well, take care.” She and Kelder watched as Irith stepped up on the sill, and then flew away.
Feeling suddenly awkward, Kelder said, “Well, I guess I’ll be going, too.”
Perina smiled at him. “Oh, I’m sure,” she said. “Tell me, though, lad, how did you meet Irith?”
Kelder shrugged. “Just bumped into her on the highway,” he said.
“You’ve taken a fancy to her, haven’t you? I can always tell these things.” She smiled a smile that Kelder supposed was meant to be conspiratorial; it came off as condescending, instead.
“I suppose,” Kelder mumbled.
“It shows,” Perina said. “At least, to someone as experienced as I am, it does.”
“I’m sure it does,” he muttered, embarrassed.
“I might be able to do something for you, you know,” she said.
Kelder blinked.
“I really don’t know Fendel’s Infatuous Love Spell,” she said, “but I do... Oh, it isn’t you she used it on, is it?”
“No, of course not!” Kelder said uneasily.
He didn’t think Irith had used any spells on him, but how could he be sure she didn’t have others, less powerful than the one she had used on Ezdral? That was an unpleasant notion.
“Oh, good, I didn’t think so,” Perina continued, smiling — smirking, almost. “Well, then. I don’t know that one, but I do know some others. There’s the Infallible Love Philtre, and, well...” She paused and cleared her throat. “There’s the Spell of Aroused Lust, which isn’t exactly a love spell — and others, too. And I was wondering whether you might be interested.”
“To use on Irith?” Kelder asked.
Perina nodded, her smile coy.
For a moment, Kelder seriously considered the idea. He wanted Irith, wanted to marry her, and if she were enchanted, the way Ezdral was, he could have her, for as long as he wanted. She wouldn’t argue with him any more. She wouldn’t get bored and fly away. She would be very much in his power.
It was tempting, no doubt about it.
But it would also be cruel, and unfair, and disgusting. And it might well cause just as much trouble in the long run as the spell on Ezdral. It would be far better to let Irith make up her own mind. She liked him, he knew she did. She would marry him, eventually, without any spells. She would come back to Shulara. Zindre’s prophecy said as much.
Of course, this might have been part of the prophecy, this offer of a love spell; by turning it down he might be voiding Zindre’s promises. All the same, he was resolved to do so. Magically-induced love was not what he wanted.
And then, after he had decided that he wanted Irith to love him naturally if she was going to love him at all, he remembered something.
Spells didn’t work on Irith any more. Wizardry could not affect her. She had challenged wizards to magical duels, and then laughed at them as their spells left her untouched. Any love philtre, potion, or aphrodisiac would be utterly useless on her.
Did Perina know that? Was she trying to trick him?
Or did she have some other purpose in mind?
“I don’t have much money...” he began.
She waved that away. “No, no,” she said, “for you, it’s free.”
“Um... Why?”
“Because I just want to see you youngsters happy, that’s all!”
“Well,” said Kelder, “thank you, I appreciate it, and I’ll think it over.”
“You do that,” she said, as he made his escape, out the door to the stairway.
The question of just why she had made the offer gave him something to think about all the way to the bottom.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The question of Perina’s motives stayed at the back of Kelder’s mind for the rest of the afternoon, nibbling away at his attention as he met Irith at the gate and led her to Senesson’s shop. This time he knocked, and the two of them were admitted to the wizard’s presence.
Senesson was a bent, grey old man; Kelder wondered if he might have found some way to live past his time, but without ever learning any youth spells, because he could easily have been a century old — Ezdral would have seemed to be in the very flower of youthful vigor by comparison. The wizard had no teeth, making his speech hard to understand, and a strand of spittle hung swaying from one corner of his mouth. He cackled when anything amused him, which was often. He leered at Irith in a truly offensive manner, and Kelder could understand why Azraya had stamped out in a rage.
Senesson, who was only recently arrived in Krithimion, claimed to have met Irith before, long ago in another kingdom, but she didn’t recall any such encounter. The wizard invited Kelder to take a seat in the shop while Senesson and Irith talked business in the workroom.
Kelder sat and mulled over Perina’s offer, while in the next room Irith fended off the drooling old fool’s lecherous advances and determined, at least to her own satisfaction, that he knew no countercharm for Fendel’s Infatuous Love Spell. Kelder did pay attention to the conversation, however, and intervened when Senesson’s lust threatened to get out of hand.
Irith was not as angry upon departing as Azraya had been, but she came close.