Kirinna, who knew Dogal well, suddenly understood. “So you stayed to help.”
Dogal smiled. “Yes, of course. I brought her food and water, and she showed me what had to be done so I could work on it while she slept, and since then we’ve taken turns.”
“Wasn’t there some way you could have let us know?”
He turned up a palm. “How? I didn’t dare leave for long enough to go home and come back — besides, I knew that our families might not let me return here. And she can’t work any other spells until this one is completed — that’s part of the magic — so she couldn’t send a message.”
“Would it really have been so terrible if she couldn’t finish the spell?” Kirinna asked wistfully. “We were so worried about you!”
“It might have been. You must have heard the stories about spells gone wrong.”
Kirinna couldn’t argue with that; she had, indeed, heard stories about catastrophes caused by interrupted wizardry. The Tower of Flame, somewhere in the southern Small Kingdoms, was said to still be burning after more than three hundred years, and that had been simply a spell meant to light a campfire in the rain — a spell that had been interrupted by a sneeze.
“What is the spell she’s working on?”
“It’s called a Transporting Tapestry,” Dogal explained. “When it’s finished, touching it will instantly transport one to the place pictured.” He added, “They’re extremely valuable, even by the standards of wizards.”
“I can see why,” Kirinna admitted.
“She’s promised to pay me well for assisting her, as well as for the stone,” Dogal said. “Once it’s done.”
“So you’re staying until then.” It wasn’t really a question; Kirinna knew how stubborn Dogal could be.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll stay, too,” Kirinna declared. She could be stubborn, too. “And I can help with the weaving.”
Dogal frowned. “That’s not necessary,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” Kirinna said. “I’m not leaving my man alone here with a grateful woman!”
Kirinna saw from Dogal’s expression that he knew better than to argue with her, but he said, “What if it takes longer than we thought? Your parents will worry.”
“And we’ll have to put the wedding off for a few days,” Kirinna agreed.
“Your parents will worry,” Dogal said. “In fact, they may come here after us.”
“We’ll send them a message,” Kirinna declared.
“Kirinna, if you go home to tell them, it’s hardly worth coming back — ”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Kirinna declared.
“Well, I’m not, either, until the spell is done. And I already told you Alladia can’t work any other spells. So how do you propose to send a message?”
Kirinna sighed. “Dogal, I love you, but sometimes you just aren’t as clever as you might be. Didn’t you explore this house while you were here?”
He simply stared at her blankly. It wasn’t until she led him into the dining hall and opened the cabinet that he finally understood.
Kirinna’s parents had just sat down to a late, lonely, and worried supper that night when a thumping brought her mother to the front door. She opened the door, and a cream-colored teapot promptly walked in on stubby red legs, a roll of parchment stuck in its spout.
The wedding was postponed a twelvenight, but at last Kirinna and Dogal stood happily together in the village square, speaking the ceremonial oaths that would bind them as husband and wife.
They were dressed rather more elaborately than Kirinna had expected, due to a sudden increase in their personal wealth, and the rather modest wedding supper that had originally been planned had become a great feast. Alladia had paid Dogal a full tenth of the Tapestry’s value — more money than the village had ever before seen in one place.
And Alladia herself watched the vows; Kirinna smiled so broadly at the sight of her that she had trouble pronouncing the words of her promises to Dogal. The wizard stood nearby, slightly apart from the crowd — the other villagers all stayed at least a few feet away from her, out of respect or fear.
When the ritual was complete and she had kissed Dogal properly Kirinna quickly gave her parents and Dogal’s mother and sisters the traditional embraces, signifying that the marriage was accepted by all concerned, then hurried over to hug Alladia.
“Thank you for coming!” she said.
“Thank you for having me, and congratulations to you both,” Alladia replied. She lifted a pack that lay by her ankle and opened it, then pulled out a wrapped bundle. “For you.”
Kirinna blinked in surprise. “You already paid us more than enough,” she said.
“I paid Dogal,” Alladia corrected her. “This is for you.”
The villagers had gathered around to see what the wizard had brought. Wondering, Kirinna opened the bundle and found a fine decanter of glittering colored glass. “It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed.
“It isn’t animated, like my teapot,” Alladia said, “but I thought you’d like it. It’s from Shan on the Desert — I bought it there myself.”
“But Shan on the Desert is more than a hundred leagues from here!” one of the neighbors exclaimed.
Kirinna smiled. She knew what scene was depicted on the tapestry she and Dogal had helped create.
“She knows a shorter route,” Kirinna said.
About “The God in Red”
We’ve been making our own Christmas/Yule/solstice/Chanukah/whatever cards for decades. Usually they’re pretty much your standard card, with a captioned picture on the front and a holiday greeting or punchline inside. Sometimes the art was commissioned, sometimes my daughter Kiri drew it, sometimes it was kludged together somehow. The idea was usually the result of a family conference, occasionally one person’s brainstorm. Some of them have been pretty good, if I do say so myself, and I keep meaning to put a gallery of them up on the web, but I always felt as if, as a writer, I should be writing something more substantial than a mere card. I mean, John M. Ford wrote “Winter Solstice, Camelot Station” as a Christmas card, and I’ve gotten stories in cards, or as cards, from various other writers, ranging from short-shorts to an entire novel, so I felt I should be doing something along those lines. Coming up with a good idea for a Christmas story isn’t that easy, though, and so far I’ve only done it once. This was the result.
And yes, this is an official Ethshar story. It’s in continuity, as they say in comics. It is not necessarily, however, the real Santa Claus who appears.
The God in Red
Darrend the apprentice theurgist paused in his invocation long enough to take a deep breath, then moved his fingers in the odd, jerky rhythm his mistress, Alir of Priest Street, had taught him. He continued, “Awir thigo lan takloz...”
He hesitated. That didn’t sound right. Alir wasn’t stopping him, though, and he could still feel the peculiar pressure of gathering magic. The spell to summon the goddess Piskor the Generous was almost complete. “Takloz wesfir yu! Your generosity is needed!” he finished.
And then he sensed a presence in the room, and he closed his eyes quickly lest he be dazzled by Piskor’s radiance, but there was no burst of light, no increase in pressure, none of the feeling of being somehow both in the World and out of it simultaneously that ordinarily accompanied the presence of a deity.
He opened his eyes, unsure whether he would see the empty room, or the majestic beauty of the goddess Piskor.