With a Single Spell

CHAPTER 7

Tobas spent the entire day after his arrival talking to wizard after wizard, up and down Wizard Street and all through the Wizards’ Quarter, which, despite the name, also included an incredible variety of other magicians, from warlocks to witches and priests to prestidigitators, seers, sorcerers, and soothsayers, demonologists and necromancers, scientists and ritual dancers.

It was one of the most frustrating and depressing days of his life. Every single wizard acknowledged that Tobas was indeed a true compatriot and member of the Guild, and that he had had amazingly bad luck in having Roggit die when he did, and every single wizard refused to consider teaching him anything at all. His age, obviously well over thirteen, immediately ruled out the possibility of an actual apprenticeship, and his complete lack of money or negotiable skills ruled out any possibility of buying lessons.

And no wizard in all of Ethshar of the Spices gave away trade secrets for free, not even to acknowledged compatriots and fellow Guild members.

Alderamon had been exactly right.

“Listen,” one very sincere young woman had told him after rejecting his desperate offer of a months’ servitude for a single useful spell, since she could get apprentices, why bother with a bondsman? “Why don’t you just forget about being a wizard for now? Go out and make your fortune at something else, then come back and buy spells. All of us can use money, despite what some of these hypocrites may have told you; if we didn’t need money, we wouldn’t be running shops here, would we? You won’t see any really powerful wizards around the Wizards’ Quarter, you know, they can afford better. So go and get rich and you can come back and laugh at us all. Don’t tell anyone you’re a wizard; keep the Combustion a secret, for emergencies. Any spell can be useful if used cleverly, and there are plenty of opportunities for a brave young man.”

“I don’t think I’m particularly brave,” Tobas answered doubtfully.

“Well, a clever young man, then; brains are better than brawn, anyway.”

“But I don’t know how to make my fortune at anything else! I’ve never learned to fight, or farm, or sail, or anything!”

“Well, you’ll have to find something; because, Tobas, you are simply not going to get anywhere as a wizard here in Ethshar. Go up to Shiphaven Market and sign up with one of the recruiters there, that’ll get you started.”

“If it doesn’t get me killed,” Tobas replied under his breath. More audibly, he thanked the wizard for her advice and politely took his leave.

That had been midafternoon; by dusk he was convinced he would need to find some sort of work immediately, even if it meant leaving the city. When the torches and lanterns in front of the shops began to be extinguished or allowed to die, around midnight, he could see no alternative but Shiphaven Market. He had not eaten since Alderamon’s generous breakfast; his feet were tired, and his knuckles sore from rapping on so many doors.

The thing that amazed him, however, was that he had covered less than half the wizards in the area. The competition for magical business here, he decided, would be much too fierce for him, even if he did pick up a few more spells.

He remembered the shipmasters and the dethroned princess and shuddered slightly at the thought of signing up with someone like that, with no clear guarantees of just what might be involved.

He had little choice, however. Reluctantly, he turned north on Arena Street and set out for Shiphaven Market.

Not surprisingly, given his unfamiliarity with the city, he got lost no fewer than three times on the way and in the hours between midnight and dawn there were very few passersby he could ask for directions.

Eventually, however, he arrived at his destination, only to find it empty and deserted, hardly surprising, as dawn was still more than two hours off. He settled down in a doorway to wait.

He was shaken roughly awake and sat up, blinking.

“What in Hell are you doing sleeping there? Don’t you know that’s against the law? If you haven’t got any place of your own, you go sleep on Wall Street with the other beggars, you don’t sleep here! We don’t allow vagrants on the city streets.” The red-kilted soldier glared down at him, his left hand on his hip and his right on the hilt of his sword.

“Oh...” Tobas managed, “I must have dozed off.” Thinking as best he could under the circumstances, he added, “I’m meeting a recruiter here.”

“What kind of a recruiter?” the soldier asked suspiciously. “For the Guards?”

“Ah, no,” Tobas said, hoping desperately that the soldier would not be offended by a lack of interest in a military career. “From the Small Kingdoms.” He was not actually sure what sort of recruiter he would choose, but that seemed reasonable.

“One of those, ha? That’s trouble enough, I’d say, without my adding to it. Suit yourself, boy. But if I catch you sleeping in the streets of Shiphaven again, I’ll flog you half to death and then turn you over to the slavers, this is a respectable neighborhood.”

“Yes, sir,” Tobas agreed immediately.

“I should turn you over to the slavers now, you know; that’s the penalty for vagrancy. Even a foreigner should know that.”

“But I just dozed off! I wasn’t really sleeping here!” Tobas spoke before the significance of that “foreigner” could sink in.

“All right, boy, I said I should, not that I will. You can go, but I’ll keep an eye on you, and you better be telling the truth about waiting for a recruiter.”

Tobas nodded desperately, praying that the man hadn’t recognized his Pirate Town accent. The soldier seemed satisfied. He stepped back and allowed the Freelander to get to his feet.

Beyond the soldier, Tobas could see that the sky was gray with the approaching dawn and that already a few men, and one woman, the princess he had seen almost two days before, were standing here and there about the square, waiting for potential customers. Eager to be rid of the soldier, Tobas headed directly for the nearest, a middle-aged man in green-dyed deerskin.

“Ho, there, boy,” the man said at Tobas’ approach. “Are you looking for a quick and easy road to wealth and glory? I’m looking for a few brave souls who are willing to help my homeland of Dwomor in its hour of need.”

“What sort of hour of need?” Tobas asked warily. “A war?”

“Oh, no, my lad! Not a war at all! Merely a minor nuisance that’s been harrying a few of our far-flung mountain outposts.”

“Bandits?”

Before the recruiter could answer, the soldier was at Tobas’ shoulder.

“Is this the one?” he demanded.

Terrified at the prospect of being caught in a lie and sold into slavery, as either vagrant or enemy alien, Tobas nodded. “This is he, sir.”

“You’re signing this boy up?” the soldier asked the recruiter.

The recruiter was not about to pass up an opportunity like this. “Yes, indeed, sir, it’s all agreed!”

“All right, then; get on with it.” He turned and stalked away.

Tobas watched him go, then turned back to the recruiter and asked, “Now, what’s this nuisance of yours, bandits?”

“First, lad, I’ll ask you to sign here.” He pulled a document from his sleeve.

“Oh, no!” Tobas protested, “not until I know what’s going on!”

“Oh, indeed? Shall I call back that fine soldier and tell him I made a mistake and that I never saw you before this morning?”

Tobas glanced at the soldier’s retreating back and reluctantly accepted the proffered pen. He signed his name neatly, “Tobas of Telven,” then handed back the pen and demanded, “All right, what’s this nuisance?”

“It’s not bandits, it’s a dragon. It’s been eating people up in the mountains, and when it doesn’t eat people, it eats sheep, which is almost as bad.”

“A dragon?” Tobas stared for a moment, then looked after the soldier again, wondering how bad slavery could be.

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” the recruiter said. “And the reward is really something worth having, the hand of a princess in marriage, a respected position for life at Dwomor Keep, and best of all, one thousand gold pieces!”

Tobas gaped stupidly for several seconds. “A hundredweight of gold?” he squeaked at last.

“That’s right.”

After all, he thought, how dangerous could a dragon be? Every well-stocked wizard had ajar of dragon’s blood on his shelves, and the legends said that during the Great War dragons had been tamed and trained. A reward of that magnitude was worth a little risk, with that much money he could, as his advisor had suggested, come back and buy a few spells. Not that he’d need to; he could live quite comfortably for the rest of his life on that much! And all that without even considering the position or the princess.

The princess, he was not at all sure he wanted to marry anyone as yet, princess or otherwise. If one of the prettier young women in Telven had shown an interest, he might well have married, but they had never really taken him seriously after he apprenticed himself to old Roggit, and he was not eager to wed a stranger, someone from an entirely different background. Well, if by some miracle he somehow did kill the dragon, surely he need not accept all the reward; let some worthy prince marry her. Tobas would settle for the money.

Of course, he thought, he mustn’t count the money before he had it; he had no idea how to kill a dragon. He knew almost nothing about dragons. He had never seen any, but they had figured in various stories he had heard as a child; they reportedly came in various sizes and shapes and colors. Some were said to breathe fire; some were said to speak in various languages and to be as dangerous with their clever tongues as with their claws and teeth. During the Great War, both sides had reportedly trained them to kill the enemy. A dragon could be almost anything. He would need to look the situation over carefully and see just what the story was, what sort of a dragon this Dwomor had roaming the hills. If the odds looked too bad, and realism told him that dragon slaying couldn’t be easy, if these people had sent a recruiter all the way to Ethshar to find volunteers, he would simply leave. At least he would be somewhere new; Dwomor, whatever and wherever it might be, might well have more opportunities available to him than Ethshar. He would not be an enemy there simply by virtue of his homeland, either; he had never heard of anyone sinking or capturing ships from any place called Dwomor.

He could not possibly be much worse off wandering in Dwomor than wandering in Ethshar, he told himself, and at least, as a recruited dragon slayer, he wouldn’t have to worry about being sold into slavery as a vagrant.

“All right,” he said. “You’ve got a recruit. When do we leave?”

The recruiter smiled. “Oh, not for some time yet; I’m hoping to bring back a dozen young adventurers like yourself.” He raised his voice and began calling to the handful of Ethsharites entering the market square. “Here’s your chance for riches and glory! A chance to travel and see the world! Come over here, folks, and let me tell you all about it!”

Tobas’ stomach growled, and he sighed. He was committed now; he would either have to face a dragon of unknown size and ferocity or break his signed agreement and desert somewhere in the Small Kingdoms. He could not stay in Ethshar.

At the very least, if the recruiter wanted Tobas to reach Dwomor well enough to go dragon hunting, the blackmailing scoundrel would have to feed him sometime soon.