The old man stood, a trifle unsteady at first, and brushed at the mud that caked the front of his robe, shaking mud and water from his hands between strokes. He ignored the torrents of drying blood. When he decided that he had removed what he could, he stood, dripping, and gazed through the smoky gloom at the crater where his home had been.
When the sight had had time to sink in, he turned on Valder, fists clenched and shaking, and screamed, “You stupid fool! You led them right to me! Now look what they’ve done!”
“Don’t shout,” Valder whispered desperately. “We don’t know how far they’ve gone, or how well shatra can hear.”
The wizard ceased shouting and glanced at the distant line of trees, faintly visible in the moonlight. When no menacing figures appeared, he pointed an accusing finger at the crater. “Look at that!” he cried.
“I’m sorry,” Valder said with genuine contrition, uncomfortable speaking to what looked like a mangled corpse. “I didn’t know they would do anything like that.”
“You didn’t know,” the wizard mocked. “Well, soldier, you know now. And what do I do, now that they’ve blown my house to powder looking for you? Do you know that? I haven’t even had my dinner!”
“I’m sorry,” Valder repeated helplessly. “What can I do?”
“Haven’t you done enough? Why don’t you just go away and leave me alone? The moons are up; you’ll be able to see.”
“Oh, I can’t just leave; what would you do, here alone?”
“What would I do? I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll rebuild my house, just as I built it before, restock my supplies somehow, though I don’t know how, and go on with my research just as if you had never come along, you blundering idiot!”
“Your supplies? All those bottles and jars?”
“That’s right, all those jars. I had everything from dragon’s blood to virgin’s tears, twenty years of careful scrimping and saving and pilfering, and the gods alone can know how I’ll ever replace it all!”
“I’ll stay and do what I can to help...”
“I don’t want your help! Just go away!”
“Where am I supposed to go? The patrol thinks I’m dead, but I’m still cut off, a hundred miles behind enemy lines. I might as well stay here and help you rebuild; I can’t go home.”
“I don’t want your help.” The wizard’s tone had changed from righteous fury to petulance.
“You’re stuck with it, unless you can figure out how to get me back to friendly territory.”
The wizard stared at him resentfully. “Just walk back. No one will bother a walking corpse.”
“The spell is permanent?” Valder was horrified. The idea of spending the rest of his life gushing illusory blood was unappetizing, to say the least.
“No,” the wizard admitted. “It wears off in a day or so.”
“It took me two months to come this far north!”
“Well, I can’t fly you out with my supplies all gone! Even the simplest levitation I know needs ingredients I haven’t got any more.” He paused; before Valder could speak, he continued, “I have an idea, though. Give me your sword. You’ve been waving it about; we might as well use it.”
“What?” Valder realized he was still holding his drawn sword; he had never sheathed it after cutting through the wall of the hut and had picked it up without thinking when he got to his feet. “What do you want it for?”
“I want to get rid of you, idiot.”
“How? By killing me?”
“No, of course not. You may be a fool, but that’s not enough reason to kill you. I don’t kill anybody. Besides, you are an Ethsharite, even if you are an idiot, and I’m still a loyal Ethsharite myself, even out here.”
“Then what do you want my sword for?”
“I’m going to enchant it. I’m going to put every spell I can find on it, every enchantment I can come up with that might help you fight your way back and out of my life forever.”
“Can you do that without your supplies?”
“I can do something; I know a few spells that don’t take anything fancy, and a couple of them are good ones. It may not be the greatest magic sword in the world when I’m done, but it will get you home, I promise you. I’ve got one spell I invented myself that I’m sure will do it, and it doesn’t need any ingredients I can’t find here in the marsh. If you stay around here very long, I may kill you, Ethsharite or not — and neither of us wants that to happen.”
Valder was still reluctant to give up his weapon, though the offer was tempting. He had not really wanted to build a boat and sail down the coast; he was no sailor, and storm season was approaching. He couldn’t even swim. “How do I know I can trust you?” he asked.
The wizard snorted. “You don’t need to trust me. You’re twice my size and a third my age; I’m a feeble little old man and you’re a trained, healthy young soldier. Even if I had the sword, you could handle me, couldn’t you? You’ve got the knife on your belt; I’m not leaving you defenseless.”
Valder remained wary. “You’re a wizard, though, not just an old man.”
“Well, then, if I’m a powerful enough wizard to handle you, how much difference can that stupid sword make? I’ve already got my own dagger, if I need a blade for some spell. You can’t have it both ways; either I’m too old and feeble to worry about, or I already have the advantage. Look, soldier, I’m in no hurry. I can’t do any magic to speak of until morning, because I’ll need to see what I’m doing. You can either get yourself out of here before dawn, or you can stay and let me enchant your sword — or you can stay and annoy me enough that I’ll turn you into... into something unpleasant. That would be better than killing you, at least. You suit yourself. Right now I’m going to try and get some sleep and see if I can forget that I haven’t had my dinner and that my house is a pile of ash. You do as you please.” He turned and stamped his way up out of the marsh onto the mounded rim of the crater.
Valder stood for a moment, sword in hand and his bare feet in briny muck, thinking it over.
After due consideration he shrugged and followed the old man.
CHAPTER 3
The rain began around midnight, Valder judged, though after the clouds covered the moons it was hard to be sure of the time. It trailed off into morning mist an hour or two before dawn. He was soaked through and had slept very little when the sun’s rays managed to slip through the trees to the southeast and spill across the marsh, slowly burning away the mist. Worst of all, he was dreadfully thirsty and ravenously hungry; he was unsure whether a splash of marsh water was responsible, or the blood of the Sanguinary Deception, but something had disrupted his Spell of Sustenance. The bloodstone was still secure in its pouch, but his fast had been broken.
The wizard had stayed dry throughout the rain, Valder noticed when the morning light illuminated the old man’s white hair; it was still a tangle of knots and fluff smeared with phantasmal blood but not plastered to his head as Valder’s was. The soldier assumed that the hermit had achieved this enviable state of desiccation by somehow keeping the aversion spell going.
The old man did not appear very comfortable, though; at first light he was up and pawing through the debris that lined the crater where his house had stood, spattering unreal gore in all directions.