Ithanalin’s Restoration

Chapter Four

Since he had been interrupted in the middle of a spell, Ith-analin’s book of magic was lying open on the workbench when Kilisha found it; that voided most of the protective spells that would ordinarily prevent anyone other than Ithanalin himself from using it. Of the other wards Kilisha was exempted from some, and the mirror was able to tell her how to counteract the last few.

With a glance at the mysterious oil lamp and tripod, Kilisha picked up the book and carried it into the front room. There she paged through it, reading anything that looked even vaguely relevant and holding it up for the mirror to read when she had any questions.

She had already gone through her own book of spells, which contained the instructions for the fifty-three assorted spells she had learned to date, before touching Ithanalin’s. None of those fifty-three were of any obvious use in restoring her master to normal, so she had resorted to Ithanalin’s own book, which held, by her hasty count, one hundred and twelve.

Even distraught as she was over the accident, Kilisha was somewhat annoyed by the discovery of just how many of her master’s spells she had not yet learned; she had hoped and expected to complete her apprenticeship within the coming year and become a journeyman at the age of eighteen, but she doubted she could learn another fifty-nine spells properly in that time when it had taken her five years to get this far. She had known there were all the various animation spells, but glancing through it was plain that there were a good many others, as well.

She was sure she could have learned faster if Ithanalin had taken the trouble to teach her. She wondered whether his one previous apprentice, Istram-now a journeyman and well on the way to becoming a master himself-had learned all these, or whether he had gone out into the World only partially educated. Perhaps some of these spells were deemed unfit for mere apprentices or journeymen, and Kilisha would have to wait years to learn them.

Right now, though, Kilisha needed to find a spell to undo the botched animation, and once she found it she would probably need to teach it to herself from the book, so she certainly hoped she would be able to handle it, even if she was just an apprentice.

She hoped she would be able to read the instructions properly, that Ithanalin hadn’t used any secret codes in writing up his book. She had never before been permitted to work directly from Ith-analin’s written instruction; spells were taught orally, and by demonstration, never in writing, so that the master could watch the apprentice every step of the way. And the apprentice was required to write down the spell in her own words, rather than copying the master’s, to make sure that she would always be able to understand it.

The spell that had gone wrong, the mirror told her, was the Servile Animation, a sixth-order spell requiring, among other things, dragon’s blood, seeds of an opium poppy, virgin’s tears- Kilisha had provided those tears herself, she realized, unsure whether to be offended that Ithanalin had correctly assumed she was qualified for the purpose, and had not bothered to ask her whether she was still a suitable donor-and red hair from a woman married more than a year.

Yara’s hair was dark brown; Kilisha wondered where Ithanalin had found a red-haired woman.

It didn’t really look all that difficult when she read the instructions, but the mirror assured her that it was far harder than it appeared.

The spell had no specified counter, and was not inherently reversible. Kilisha sighed. She went paging onward through the book.

“Here,” she said at last, holding the volume up to the mirror. “Will this work?”

She had found a spell called Javan’s Restorative; according to the description Ithanalin had written, this spell would restore a person or thing to a “natural healthy State, regardless of previous Enchantments, Breakage, or Damage.” It wasn’t one she had ever attempted, or one she would have had any business attempting unaided for some time yet under ordinary circumstances, but she was fairly sure she had seen Ithanalin use it once, and she was willing to give it a try.

If she couldn’t make it work, perhaps she could find a more experienced wizard who could handle it-if it was the right spell.

“Will it work?” she repeated.

IT SHOULD, read the reply.

“Good,” Kilisha said. She lowered the book and looked at the ingredients the spell called for.

Two peacock plumes, one of them pure white-that was easy; Ithanalin kept a vase of them in the corner of his workshop, a vase Yara occasionally put out on display in the parlor, but which Ithanalin always took back as soon as he noticed its absence.

Boiling water was easy, too.

Jewelweed... Kilisha had never heard of jewelweed, but she assumed she could get it from any good herbalist. She would check on that.

A quarter-pound block of a special incense, prepared in fog or sea mist-Kilisha hurried to the drawers in the workshop.

Fortunately, though Ithanalin might be a careless housekeeper elsewhere, he kept some things tidy and neatly labeled; each block of incense was wrapped in tissue and tied with string, with a tag on the string that said, in Ithanalin’s crooked runes, exactly when and how the incense had been made, and what ingredients had been used.

The right block was in the first drawer Kilisha checked, about halfway back and one layer down. She lifted it out and set it carefully on the workbench.

And that, once she had bought the jewelweed and fetched the feathers and boiled the water, was everything-except, of course, for a wizard’s athame and the parts of whatever was broken.

She blinked.

Well, she had her own athame. She’d had it for years, she’d made it when she was not quite thirteen. And of course she had to have the pieces of whatever was broken; that was obvious. Something about it bothered her, though. She read through the instructions carefully, to sec if she had missed anything.

No, it all seemed fairly straightforward. It was a higher-order spell than anything she’d ever done, but she could at least attempt it. She just needed to either work the spell in the front room, or bring Ithanalin and the mirror into the workshop...

She blinked again.

And, she realized, all the furniture.

She needed to have all the pieces. The instructions were quite clear that if any significant portion was absent, the spell would not work.

And a part of Ithanalin-presumably each one significant- had animated each object now missing from the parlor.

In addition to the mirror and her master’s body, she needed the rag rug, and the couch, and the end table, and the bench, and the chair, and the coatrack, and the dish, and the spoon.

She looked through the open doorway into the bare room. She would need the front door latch, too, but that was still where it belonged.

Almost nothing else was.

“Oh,” she said, staring.

She would have to collect all the furniture. It had all run out the front door and vanished, and she would have to find it all and bring it back here. Her lips tightened into a frown.

Then she relaxed a little. Really, how hard could that be? After all, animated furniture wasn’t exactly a common sight in the streets of Ethshar. It should be easy enough to find. The rag rug, the couch, the end table, the bench, the coatrack, the chair, the bowl, and the spoon-eight items.

She hoped she wasn’t forgetting anything. She would want to consult the mirror carefully before actually attempting Javan’s.spell.

She sighed, and put the block of incense back in the drawer. She didn’t dare close the book of spells, in case Ithanalin’s magic might keep her from opening it again, but she placed it carefully on a shelf and covered it with a soft cloth.

She looked at the oil lamp, and the brass bowl. Something was bubbling darkly in there-presumably some minor spell her master had had brewing on the side while he performed the Servile Animation. She hoped it wasn’t dangerous.

Well, it shouldn’t be hard to find out. She went back out to the parlor and asked the mirror, “What’s in that brass bowl Ith-analin was heating?”

The mirror clouded, but no runes appeared at first. Kilisha frowned.

“Hello?”

WHAT BOWL?

“The brass bowl over the oil lamp,” Kilisha said.

The mirror clouded again for a long moment, but finally admitted, I DON’T REMEMBER. PERHAPS SOMETHING ELSE RECEIVED THAT PARTICULAR MEMORY.

“Oh, that’s just wonderful,” Kilisha muttered. She returned to the workshop and looked at the bowl again.

The stuff looked thick and oily, a brown so dark it was almost black. It smelled spicy and very slightly bitter, but not at all unpleasant. She didn’t recognize it.

The obvious assumption was that something brewing in a wizard’s workshop was a spell of some sort, but this smelled more like food. Ithanalin didn’t cook-Yara didn’t allow it, due to an unfortunate incident a few years before Kilisha’s arrival-but perhaps this might still be something other than a spell. Kilisha drew her athame and held it out cautiously toward the bowl to check.

The point of the knife glowed faintly blue, and she could feel magic in the air. Whatever was in that bowl was definitely magical.

So it was a spell, and one she didn’t recognize.

“Oh, blast,” she said.

She sheathed her dagger and stared at the bowl for a moment, then glanced at the book of spells on the shelf above the workbench. She had no idea which of them might have produced this stuff, and simply going through and looking at the ingredients would not tell her-magic didn’t work that way; the dark goo might bear no resemblance at all to its ingredients.

It didn’t look dangerous, at least not yet, but she really needed to restore Ithanalin to health quickly, before that concoction set off some other weird spell, or blew up, or went bad.

It would probably be strongly advisable to restore him before that lamp ran out of oil, too. She peered into the reservoir; it looked fairly full.

She needed to find the missing furniture and get it back here as soon as she could. She took a final glance around, then hurried back out to the street, calling a quick farewell to the mirror.

She’d already spent the whole morning and half the afternoon tracking down cat’s blood, an hour or more consulting the mirror and the books of spells, and she was not looking forward to spending the rest of the day hunting furniture...

She had reached the middle of the street when she realized that the cat’s blood was still on her belt. She did not want to risk spilling it, after all the trouble she had gone to to obtain it. She sighed again, and trudged back into Ithanalin’s workshop, where she placed the vial of blood in a rack, then looked around again.

Was there anything else she was forgetting?

Of course there was. Yara and the children. What would they think, when they came home and found Ithanalin petrified and the furniture gone?

She found a piece of paper and wrote a note-Yara and Telleth could read, and Lirrin was learning.

“Master’s spell went wrong,” she wrote. “Am seeking ingredients for antidote. Mirror is enchanted, can answer questions. Back as soon as I can be.” She signed it, “Kilisha, app.”

Just as she finished something chimed-the brass bowl on the tripod had rung like a bell. She looked at it, startled.

It looked exactly the same-the lamp was burning, the brown goo was bubbling, and the spicy smell was stronger than ever.

Presumably the chime was some part of the enchantment; probably it was a signal that something was ready, or something needed to be done to continue the spell. Unfortunately, Kilisha had no idea what it meant or what should be done. She stood there for a moment, her note in one hand, staring at the bowl and trying to decide what to do.

Eventually she decided that the best thing she could do, in her present state of ignorance, was to leave the thing completely alone and hope for the best while she did everything she could to restore her master. If the brass bowl exploded or started spewing dragons she would deal with it then. For now, she wanted to leave her note and get on with the furniture hunting.

She considered adding a line or two advising Yara to leave the lamp, tripod, and bowl alone, but surely a wizard’s wife would have the sense to do that without being told by a mere apprentice. The note would be fine as it was.

She thought about where to post it, and for a moment she considered leaving it on Ithanalin’s lap, but she decided that would be disrespectful. Instead, she laid it carefully on the floor just inside the front door.

Then she stepped out into the street, closed the door cautiously behind her, and looked around. She wanted to recover the furniture-but where should she start?

She was on Wizard Street, in one of those ill-defined parts of the city that weren’t really part of any recognized district-the magistrates said this was part of Lakeshore, but no one else thought so. Ithanalin’s shop was on the north side of the street, in the middle of a long block. Two blocks to the north-a little over a hundred yards-was the East Road, which ran through the center of the city from just below the Fortress to the market at Eastgate; a couple of blocks beyond that was Wizard Street again, as it looped back on itself half a mile to the east, making a U around Eastgate Circle.

To the west Wizard Street ran through the valley between Center City and Highside and down to the shipyards, then wound its way southeast to Wargate.

A hundred feet to the east and across the street was the entrance to Not Quite Street-so named because it stopped two blocks short of the East Road at this end, and one block short of Cross Avenue at the other.

Kilisha could see a good two hundred yards in either direction-the street was surprisingly uncrowded for this time of day- and saw nothing out of the ordinary. No end tables or couches were anywhere to be seen, nor any crowds of curious bystanders that animated furniture might have attracted.

She trotted quickly over and peered down Not Quite Street, and saw nothing down that way.

She had come home, she remembered, along Wizard Street- Illure’s little temple was up to the east, toward Eastgate. She hadn’t seen any furniture along that route.

Walking furniture would attract attention, she thought; why weren’t there crowds around the missing pieces?

Frowning, she went back toward Ithanalin’s shop, but stopped at the shop next door and rang the bell.

Nissitha the Seer was not Kilisha’s idea of the perfect neighbor, but she could certainly be worse; she was a fortune-teller, and Ithanalin suspected her of being a fraud. She spent a good bit of her time, when no customers were expected, gossiping in the courtyard out back, but never offered to help out with anyone’s chores. She had refused to mind Pirra a few weeks back, when Yara had been out somewhere with Telleth and Lirrin, and Ithanalin had wanted Kilisha to help with a spell. She kept no chickens or other livestock-just a pampered long-haired black cat. And she made stupid jokes about the supposed similarities between her own talents and Ithanalin’s.

But she didn’t intrude, didn’t make noise other than her courtyard chatter, and kept her place clean.

The door opened, and Nissitha looked down her long nose at Kilisha. The Seer’s long black hair hung loose in curls and ringlets.

“Oh, hello, Kilisha,” she said. “Did you have a question? I’m afraid I don’t work for free for anyone, but I could give you a discount. Is it a boy?”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Kilisha said. “I was wondering if you’d seen our furniture.”

Nissitha blinked at her. “Your furniture?”

“Yes.” Kilisha hesitated, then explained. “There’s been an accident, and some of our furniture was inadvertently brought to life, and it got loose. I was wondering whether you saw which way it went.”

“I’m afraid not,” Nissitha said, staring at the apprentice. “When did this happen?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” Kilisha said. “Sometime today. A tax collector interrupted a spell.”

“Oh!” Sudden comprehension dawned on Nissitha’s face. “Oh, I’m afraid I was hiding upstairs. I saw the tax collector coming, you see, and I just really didn’t want to be bothered.”

“You didn’t want to pay,” Kilisha said.

“I didn’t want to pay,” Nissitha admitted with a smile.

“He’ll come back until he catches you, you know,” Kilisha said.

Nissitha sighed. “I suppose so,” she said, “but I’m in no hurry to be caught.”

Kilisha nodded-then stopped.

What if the furniture was in no hurry to be caught? She’d been assuming it had wandered off more or less at random, but what if it was deliberately hiding from her?

That might make the task of restoring Ithanalin to life considerably more difficult than she had anticipated.

“Listen,” she said, “if you see any animated furniture, let me know, please? It’s very important. I’ll owe you a favor if you help me-I know I’m only an apprentice, but I do know a few spells.”

Nissitha cocked her head to one side. “Oh?”

“Yes. It’s not worth anything to anyone else, really-I mean, no more than any animated furniture-but really, it’s very important to me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Thank you.” Kilisha bobbed in a polite half-bow, then turned away and looked up and down the street.

The furniture had been scared, the mirror said-or at least startled. And it didn’t remember it had been Ithanalin. Any given piece might not remember anything. It might not realize that Ithanalin’s shop was its home.

So where would it go?

A rag rug, a couch, an end table......

Behind her, Nissitha shrugged and closed her door.

Furniture, Kilisha said to herself. Where would furniture go to hide?

The rag rug surely couldn’t hump along very fast, so it would have tried to hide, it wouldn’t just run away. It would probably have tried to slide under something, and the spoon might have done that, too. None of the other items would fit under doors, or down ratholes, or anywhere awful, but the spoon could be anywhere.

The end table had fairly long, thin legs-it could probably move pretty quickly. The bench’s legs were shorter, but straight and strong, and it had a longer... body? Well, it was a body now. Those two might have run for it, in which case they would probably have headed east on Wizard Street.

If they’d taken the right turn when Wizard Street crossed the East Road, they could have run right out the city gate by now.

Except that if they had gone east, Kilisha should have seen some evidence of it, and she had not.

Well, then, perhaps they went west.

The couch and the coatrack had short, curving legs; Kilisha imagined them moving like short-legged dogs, dashing and dodg-uig rather than running flat-out. They might have taken any of the corners; they might be anywhere.

The chair had decent legs, but it would be hobbled by the cross braces; Kilisha couldn’t guess how it would move or what it would do.

And the dish-how could a bowl move at all?

It could roll, she supposed, but how far could it get that way?

If it were rolling, it would tend to go downhill-and that meant west, down Wizard Street toward the shipyards.

That would be the one to start with, she thought. The others might come home on their own, they might be almost anywhere, she might need to use magic to find them, but the bowl-that should be fairly easy to find.

And she had to find it before it was broken, or before someone decided to keep it.

She turned and headed west at a brisk trot.