He had been at the wizard’s house for five days, days spent strolling along the beach enjoying the fine spring weather or reading the many strange books that she loaned him from her workshop — in addition to assorted grimoires and magical texts, she had a wide variety of histories and books of philosophy. She, in turn, spent her time in the workroom, consulting with other wizards by various magical methods and trying to locate the needed ingredients for the spell. In addition to those she had remembered, she needed the ichor of a white cricket, the heart of an unborn male child, and the hand of a murdered woman.
“It could be worse,” she had told him at dinner that first night, a dinner she had prepared herself by perfectly natural methods and which they ate in the kitchen. “Any woman killed by another person will do, I think. She needn’t have been a virgin, or a mother, or whatever. I should be able to find one eventually. And an aborted or miscarried child should work.”
He had agreed without comment.
“Don’t worry,” she said, sensing unease. “I’m not going to kill someone myself just to help you. I’m not that sort of wizard.” ’
That had relieved him somewhat; the remainder of the meal had passed in amiable silence for the most part.
Since then he had seen only brief glimpses of her, other than at meals. At breakfast she would usually be planning the day’s investigations, and by supper she would be too tired to talk much, but at luncheon she chatted freely, exchanging reminiscences of the war and the changes that they had both seen in their lifetimes. She reacted to his admission that he had been an assassin with a sort of horrified fascination, even while admitting that it was certainly no more morally repugnant, logically, than her own wartime work of more straightforward wizardly slaughter. After that first dinner, his own longstanding habits prevailed, and he played host, preparing and serving the meals.
Between meals she was always in her workshop, using various divinations to try and locate what she needed. Powdered spider, cold iron, and candles colored with virgin’s blood she had on hand; she explained that all three were useful in many spells. The iron was meteoric in origin, but, she assured him, that could only add to its efficacy. Blue silk was easily acquired in a short jaunt back to the city. The seaweed Valder provided himself after a walk on the beach, bringing back a mass of dripping weed to hang over the workshop hearth and dry.
That left the dragon’s tears, cricket’s ichor, baby’s heart, and severed hand. Iridith was cheerfully optimistic about all of them. “I found them once,” she said repeatedly.
That was how things stood on the fifth day, when she emerged unexpectedly from the workshop in the middle of the evening, holding a small pouch. “What’s that?” Valder asked, looking up from a book that purported to describe the now-dead religion of the ruling class of the Northern Empire. “Find something?”
“No,” she answered. “But I now have explicit consent from enough of the Guild elders to go ahead with the spell, and besides, I thought I needed a break, so I made this as a sort of celebration and a token of my esteem.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a bottomless bag, made with Hallin’s Spell.”
“What’s a bottomless bag?”
“Well, I’ll show you. I noticed that that sword seems to get in your way sometimes, but that you don’t like to leave it lying around — and as you probably noticed back in Ethshar, it’s not the fashion these days to wear a sword, in any case. So you can put it in this.” She held up the tiny pouch, smaller than the purse he wore when traveling.
“Oh, one of those!” he said, remembering. He had seen bottomless bags in use during the war, though he had never known what they were called; an entire army’s supply train could somehow be stuffed into one and then pulled out again as needed. It made transport over rough country much easier. The major drawback was that the only item one could retrieve was the one most recently put in, so that, if a great many items were stuffed into it, getting out the first one could take quite awhile. Careful planning was needed to use such a bag efficiently.
He accepted the bag and managed to slip it onto the end of Wirikidor’s sheath. He watched with amused wonder as the full length of the sword slid smoothly into the little pouch, vanishing as it went. When it had entirely disappeared, leaving only a small bulge, he tied the pouch to his belt.
“Much more convenient,” he said. “Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome,” Iridith answered.
He looked up at her; she was smiling warmly.
“I don’t really understand why you’re being so generous with me,” he said. “You’re doing far more than you need to.”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “But I like to be generous. I have everything I could ever want, you know; why shouldn’t I share it? I’ve spent too much time alone; wizards have a tendency to do that. So many spells require isolation or such strict concentration that one dares not allow anyone else near! And it’s so depressing to be around other wizards, who all distrust one another and want only to learn new spells without revealing any of their own little secrets, or around ordinary people, who are frightened half to death of me, and who I know will grow old and die in just a few years.”
“I’m an ordinary person,” Valder said.
“No, you aren’t! You aren’t going to die, are you? That sword won’t let you. And you aren’t afraid of me.”
“Why should I be afraid of you?”
“That’s just it, you shouldn’t! I could roast you in an instant with a fireball, just as I did that thief, but I’m not going to, any more than you would turn that unbeatable sword on a friend — but so many people don’t understand that. They only see my power; they don’t see that I’m still a person. The power isn’t important; you’d be just as dead stabbed with an ordinary pocketknife as with a wizard’s dagger, or killed in a brawl instead of mangled by some high-order spell. Anyone is dangerous — so why should people be scared of wizards more than of each other?”
“I don’t know,” Valder said, thoughtfully. “I suppose it’s just that it’s unfamiliar power, unfamiliar danger. Everyone understands a sword cut, but most people have no idea how wizardry works. I don’t have any idea how wizardry works.”
Iridith grinned. “Do you want to know one of the great secrets of the Wizards’ Guild? Most of us don’t, either.”
Valder grinned back.
CHAPTER 32
Iridith located the dragon’s tears the day after giving Valder the bottomless bag; a wizard in Sardiron had a bottleful and was willing to trade. The same wizard was able to direct her to a cave where white crickets could be found and had a friend with a bottled fetus on hand, taken from a woman dead of a fever.
That left only the hand of a murdered woman.
The two celebrated the evening of this discovery by drinking a bottle apiece of an ancient golden wine Iridith had stored away a century or so earlier. The stuff was past its prime, but still potable, and the wizard got quite tipsy, giggling like a young girl at Valder’s every word. Valder himself had long ago developed one of the necessities of the innkeeper’s trade, the ability to consume vast quantities of alcohol without suffering noticeably from its effects, and watched with great amusement as the usually calm and mature magician deteriorated into kittenish silliness. Around midnight she dozed off; Valder warily picked her up and carried her to her bed, his aged muscles straining. He had half feared that some protective charm would strike him for daring to touch her, but nothing of the kind happened.