When I came back into the main room Naji was dressed like a right gentleman, in a white shirt and dark brown trousers, no black anywhere on him. Eirnin handed me a ceramic mug filled with something warm and sweet-smelling. I knew I shoulda been more cautious, but I'd been soaked through and cold and more shaken from my encounter with the Mists than I cared to admit, so I sipped some and it washed warmth all the way down my throat. It was some kind of liquor, sweet like honey but spicy, too. I sat down next to the fire and drank and drank.
"Can you help me?" Naji asked.
Eirnin laughed. "Help you with an impossible curse?" he said. "I don't know. Tell me about it."
Naji looked down at his own mug. "What do you want to know?"
"Anything you can tell me."
The room got real quiet. All I could hear was the fire crackling in the hearth and the rain whispering across the roof.
"You know you're safe here," the Wizard Eirnin said. "I don't traffic with the Otherworld."
Naji tightened his fingers around his mug. The firelight carved his face into blocks of darkness and light.
"I was in the north," he said. "I had an assignment. To track down the leader of a splinter group that had fled there." He sipped his drink. "It was winter. Dark, cold. I had tracked the leader to the settlement of one of the northern tribes. They'd taken him in. I wound up killing some of their tribesmen. I didn't intend to, but the leader had expected me – or someone like me…" Naji's voice trailed off.
"So which one of those, ah, accidental deaths got you the curse?" Eirnin asked.
"I don't know. They caught me – the only time I've ever been caught – and dragged me out into the snow. Everything was white. And then a woman came out of one of the tents. She looked like she was carved out of ice. And she was ancient, older than the mountains.
"She told me that someday someone would save my life. When that happened, she said, I would be indebted to them forever. I would have to protect them."
"I take it that's you?"
Eirnin's question broke the spell of Naji's voice. I jumped about a foot and spilled some of my drink down the front of my dress. Naji didn't look at neither of us, just stared into the fire.
"Yeah, it's me," I said. "I told him he didn't have to, but–"
"Well, it's a curse," Eirnin said blandly. "He can't help it." Then, to Naji: "What happens if you don't keep her safe?"
"It hurts me."
"Care to be more specific?"
"A headache, or a pain in my chest or my joints. It depends on the level of the threat."
I thought about meeting with Echo in the woods, about the cold curling mist.
Eirnin nodded.
"So can you help me?" Naji twisted around and the expression on his face was so desperate that, for a moment, my stomach twisted up in empathy.
"No," said Eirnin.
All the air went out of the room.
"What?" said Naji, and his voice was cold and dangerous, like the blade of his knife.
Eirnin didn't do nothing, though, didn't shrink back, didn't even act like he was scared. "What did you expect, Jadorr'a? It's an impossible curse. You know that. Even that one knows it." He tilted his head at me.
Naji's face twisted up with rage.
"I do know that woman, though, that ice-woman. She's quite traditional. Always casts her spells in the old northern style." Eirnin paused. His eyes flashed again. "The north is different from the hot civilized places of the world. We have different understandings of things. Of words."
No one spoke. The house pulsed twice with the manic energy of magic. I realized I was holding my breath.
"What the magicians of the Empire call an impossible curse is not what we call an impossible curse. A northern curse is not impossible in the sense that is incurable."
Naji leapt to his feet, his body hard and tense beneath his clean clothes. The sword gleamed at his side. "Then why did you say you couldn't help me?"
"It's not my place to cure your curse." Eirnin leaned back in his chair and pressed the tips of fingers together. "If you want to break one of the old north's impossible curses, you have to complete three impossible tasks."
The energy that crackled through the house like lightning died away. But Naji kept his eyes on Eirnin, his gaze strong and sure.
"Do you at least know what they are?" Naji said.
"I do. Smelled them on you the minute you walked through the door." Eirnin smiled but didn't say anything more.
Naji glared at him. "Well?" he asked. "What are they?"
"Impossible," Eirnin said.
I figured by this point it was taking all of Naji's willpower not to launch at the guy the way he had Ataño. I figured Eirnin knew it, too. You could see how he'd have gotten along with Leila.
"Perhaps you'd like to write them down," Eirnin said. "I have parchment around here–"
"No," said Naji. "I don't."
Eirnin smiled. I wanted to hit him myself. "Alright. First one: Find the princess' starstones and hold them, skin against stone."
Well. I'd no idea what a starstone was, but I didn't think that sounded too bad. Lots of princesses around. Naji just kept on staring at Eirnin, though.
"Second one. Create life out of an act of violence."
Naji's face darkened. "Are you talking about rape?"
"I'm afraid it's not that specific."
Naji pressed his hands against the side of the mug, his face all twisted up in anger. I waited for the mug to shatter.
"You want to hear the third one?" Eirnin asked.
"You know that I do."