With a Single Spell

CHAPTER 23

Karanissa did not come to the study again for some time after that; she ate her meals with him in one of the lesser halls and spoke civilly when she encountered him here or there about the castle, but she carefully avoided the study and his bedchamber.

He noticed this quickly enough, but it was several sleeps before he worked up the nerve to ask about it.

Finally, though, as they ate a meal of baked chicken — picked from the last little bush in the garden and prepared by one of Karanissa’s two airy servants — but indistinguishable from any fowl raised in a barnyard and cooked by an ordinary mortal, he asked, “Have you been avoiding me?”

She looked down at the table, then paid careful attention to buttering a roll for a moment before answering.

“Yes, I suppose I have,” she said.

“Why?” He could think of no tactful way of phrasing his question.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s just that I’m afraid I might become too attached to you.”

He had hoped for that answer. “Why shouldn’t you become attached to me, if you like?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated. “It’s just that it seems unfair. I’m waiting for Derry; I shouldn’t...” Her voice trailed off. Collecting herself again, she continued, “Besides, it’s not fair to you, either. I’ve been alone here for so long, four hundred years, you tell me, that probably I’d fall half in love with any man who turned up. Once we’re out in the World again, it might not last. You seem wonderful now, brave and sweet and clever, but I’m not sure whether that’s because you really are, or just because you’re here. Besides, you’re just a boy, still in your teens.”

He nodded. “I think I understand,” he said. “You’ve been avoiding me so you wouldn’t get carried away, then?”

“Yes, exactly,” she said.

“Well,” he said after a moment’s hesitation, “I haven’t been alone for four hundred years, and I know that I wouldn’t mind a bit if you were to allow yourself to be carried away, and I’d do my best to keep your interest once we’re out, but if you don’t want to risk it, I understand.”

“You are sweet,” she said. “You remind me so much of Derry sometimes!”

He was unsure how to answer that and, following her example, concentrated intently on buttering a roll.

After the meal, while the servants were clearing away the dishes, he rose and announced, “I’ll go get back to work.”

“I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind,” she said. “I love watching a wizard at work.”

Surprised, he smiled and said, “I’d be glad of the company.”

It seemed perfectly natural to both of them when his arm went around her waist as they walked down the corridor. Discussing her reasons for avoiding him seemed almost to negate them.

When they reached the study, she looked around in surprise. “It’s different,” she said.

“Well, yes, a little,” he admitted. He had rearranged things somewhat to make room for his experiments and to keep his more frequently used materials close at hand and had cleared out a great many containers that were either empty or held things that had not survived the centuries of neglect unscathed. A distressing variety of common ingredients had suffered, severely limiting what magic he could attempt.

“What’s this doing here?” she asked, reaching out and lightly tapping an astonishingly ugly statuette that stood on a corner of the worktable. “Wasn’t it down in the green gallery before?”

Before Tobas could reply the figure began singing, loudly and off-key but in a pleasant enough baritone. “The Sorrows of Sarai the Fickle.”

Embarrassed, Tobas reached over and tapped it again before it could get past the opening lines. Those lines, describing Sarai’s anatomy with succinct obscenity, were quite enough without letting it go on to detail her nocturnal activities.

The music stopped the instant his finger touched stone.

“Galger’s Singing Spell,” he explained sheepishly in the sudden silence. “It works better with rowdy drinking songs.”

“Oh,” Karanissa said, smothering a smile. “What’s that?” This time she pointed.

Tobas explained each of the half dozen or so relics of his recent spell-casting.

“There are some in the book that I’d love to try,” he said when he had finished his explanations. “But even when I have all the ingredients, I don’t always have any way of knowing if a spell actually works when I try it. Some of them need a subject. This one, for example.” He turned to the page he wanted. “It’s called the Lesser Spell of Invaded Dreams. If I could be sure it worked, I might be able to use this to send a message to someone back in the outside world and get him to come help us.”

She looked at the brief description. “You could try it on me,” she pointed out.

“Oh,” Tobas said, feeling foolish. “Yes, I could, couldn’t I? I hadn’t thought of that, since we usually sleep at the same time.”

“I don’t know what good it would be though,” she said. “What could someone outside do?”

“I don’t really know,” Tobas confessed. “I was thinking that perhaps a rope could be thrown through the tapestry that still works, so that we could be pulled out.”

Karanissa frowned. “I don’t think that would work,” she said. “Would it? It sounds too easy.”

“Easy!” “Well, not really easy, maybe. But I know that whenever I came through that tapestry with Derry, we couldn’t turn back, no matter how quickly we tried. I couldn’t just put one foot through and step back.”

“You couldn’t?” Tobas asked, disappointed. He had hoped that his own abrupt entrance had been somehow exceptional.

“No, I couldn’t. As soon as even a finger went into the tapestry, I was all the way through.”

“Oh.” He had to admit that accorded closely with his own experience. Dismayed, he stared at the book for a moment. “Oh, well. Maybe we can try it eventually, anyway, if we can’t come up with anything better.”

“Maybe,” she agreed.

Both stood silently for a moment, Tobas staring at the book, Karanissa watching him.

“What are you going to try next?” she asked at last.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve been working my way up; they aren’t marked, but I believe I’m working on second-or maybe even third-order spells now. I wish I knew what I was looking for, though. I’ve been here at least a couple of sixnights now, maybe more, maybe months, and I still don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m learning more magic, certainly — and I’m glad of that — but I’m no closer to finding a way out of here than I was a day or so after you let me in.”

“There’s no hurry, really,” she said.

“Oh, I’m not sure about that. The wine is running out, and the food supply deteriorating, after all. Besides, you may have eternal youth, but I don’t. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here. Oh, it’s not you, the company couldn’t be better, but living here doing nothing isn’t what I had in mind for a career, if you see what I mean. And I’d like to get you out, too, show you the World the way it is now. You deserve better than being cooped up here forever. I don’t know what the chances of someone else finding that tapestry before it’s destroyed are, but they probably aren’t very good; for all I know the dragon’s already burned it up. If I don’t get us out, no one will. And I haven’t got the faintest idea of how to do it.”

“You’ll figure it out,” she said confidently. “I’m sure you will.”

“Not by sitting here practicing singing spells I won’t!”

“Maybe you should try some of the more advanced spells,” she suggested thoughtfully, “instead of working your way up so slowly. Derry’s eternal youth spell should be in there somewhere, shouldn’t it? You could use that on yourself, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about time at all.”

“Oh, it’s here,” Tobas replied. “But I won’t dare use it for years yet; it’s really high-order. I’d probably turn myself into an embryo or something.” He laughed derisively.

“I think you’ve been working too hard at your wizardry,” Karanissa announced. “Stop thinking about it. Why don’t we just go for a walk around the castle?”

“All right,” Tobas agreed. He picked up the candle-holder from the table.

Again, as they left the study, his arm fell naturally around her slim waist, and again she made no protest. In fact, this time she snuggled closer.

Together they strolled down the corridor, leaning against each other, admiring the now-familiar tapestries on the walls and the statuary in the niches. Tobas heard a familiar slobbering behind them and called, “Go away, Nuisance.”

Damp footsteps scampered off, and the two ambled on.

After a considerable time and only a few trivial words exchanged, they came near the room where the dysfunctional tapestry hung. “I want to take another look at it,” Tobas announced.

“All right,” Karanissa said, disengaging herself from his encircling arm.

He tried to replace his hand, but she stepped away. “I’ll wait here,” she said.

“No, come with me,” he said. “Maybe we’ll come up with an idea together that I wouldn’t have by myself.” She hesitated, but finally accepted.

Side by side, but not touching, the two entered the little room with their candle held high, and stared at the dark, empty scene the tapestry depicted. Karanissa shuddered slightly. Tobas stepped nearer, intending to comfort her, but she stepped away again.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s Derry,” she said. “I can’t help thinking about him when I look at that. You said you found his bones lying there in that room; I can’t bear that. I feel as if I ought to be able to see him through the tapestry, somehow, or that he can see us, that he’s watching us.”

“No, Derry, Derithon, is dead,” Tobas said. “He’s been dead for centuries. You’ve mourned him long enough, even if you didn’t know he was really dead. His spirit must be long gone by now.”

“But his bones are still there, in that room...”

Tobas looked at the tapestry. “Yes,” he agreed. “They are, right there...” He started to point to the spot where Derithon’s skull lay, but stopped, his hand raised, as a sudden realization hit him.

The scene in the tapestry had to match the scene in reality exactly, in every detail; this tapestry showed an empty room, while in reality Derithon’s skeleton lay in the corner, half in the room and half around the corner in the hallway.

That was why the tapestry wouldn’t work!