Ithanalin's Restoration

Kilisha studied the remaining portion of the rune with interest; she had never seen that particular spell before. Clearly it was a single-use spell; she could sense no lingering magic in it, even with her hand on the hilt of her athame. She did not actually touch the nine, with either her hand or her dagger, any more than she had touched that bowl on Ithanalin's workbench; she knew better than to handle unfamiliar magic so carelessly as that.

It couldn't be a very high-order spell if Chorizel had thrown it away so casually on an unimportant visitor. She wondered whether Ithanalin knew it, whatever it was. The voice had sounded like Chorizel's own…

She was still studying it when the door behind her opened and Chorizel stepped in. She turned at the sound, and bowed deeply.

"Guildmaster," she said.

"Apprentice," he replied, acknowledging the bow with a nod. "Did Kaligir send you to escort me?"

"Uh…"

"Then is there more news?"

"More news? Guildmaster, I am here on behalf of my master, Ithanalin…"

Chorizel frowned, and for the first time Kilisha noticed that there were two more people behind him, a man and a woman, looking over his broad shoulders.

"Ithanalin?" he asked. "What does be have to do with any of this?"

Kilisha blinked in confusion. "Any of what, Guildmaster?"

"The rebellion, of course! The murders! The usurper!"

For a few seconds Kilisha wondered whether this entire long day was actually some ghastly, confusing nightmare. "What rebellion, Guildmaster? What murders?"

Chorizel put two ringers to his forehead and rubbed, staring at her. "You haven't heard?" he asked.

"Heard what?"

Chorizel glanced at the door, and the man behind him hurried over and pushed it shut.

"Last night in Ethshar of the Sands," he said, "a mad magician named Tabaea led a mob from the Wall Street Field to the overlord's palace, chased Ederd and his lords out, and declared herself empress of Ethshar."

"What kind of magician?" Kilisha asked, as she struggled to absorb this information.

"We don't know," the woman at Chorizel's elbow said. "She has an enchanted dagger-it's probably wizardry, but it's possible it's sorcery or demonology or something new."

Kilisha tried to go over everything Chorizel had said, to make sense of it. "If she's in Ethshar of the Sands, why are you concerned, Guildmaster? That's a hundred leagues away!"

"Not quite sixty, really," Chorizel said. "And she's murdered wizards, including Guildmaster Screm. That makes it the Guild's business. Not to mention she's declared herself empress of the entire Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, not just the one city."

"Oh," Kilisha said. No other response to this astonishing news really seemed appropriate. Murdered wizards? Empress of the Hegemony? The three-overlord system had been in place for over two hundred years, and the idea of someone trying to disrupt it simply made no sense. And who, other than the Guild itself, would dare to kill wizards?

"Kaligir has been conferring with Telurinon, Serem's successor," Chorizel said. "We're all supposed to meet with Kaligir to discuss the situation. I thought he'd sent you to fetch us."

"Oh," Kilisha said again-though she had no idea who Kaligir, Telurinon, or this murdered Guildmaster Serem might be. "No," she added, "he didn't send me."

"Then why are you here?"

That was the cue Kilisha had been waiting for; words spilled out of her mouth so quickly they almost tripped on one another.

"My master Ithanalin has had an accident, he tripped over a spriggan in the middle of a spell and it spilled all over him and now his life force is in our furniture and it's escaped and I need help collecting it all and using Javan's Restorative to put him back together."

Chorizel stared down at her for a moment. "Is he alive?" he demanded.

"Well, technically, yes," Kilisha said.

"Is he in any immediate danger? Will he die if we don't help you?"

"I don't think so…" Kilisha began, hesitantly.

"Then it can wait. Weren't you listening, girl? Ederd IV has been overthrown, and Serem the Wise has been murdered!"

"But-"

"But nothing. You go on about your business, apprentice, and come back when we've settled matters with this usurper."

"There's another spell involved…"

"What spell?"

"I don't know. It's cooking on the master's workbench."

"Can it wait?"

"I don't know."

"Well, it will have to. We can't spare the time."

"But the furniture-"

"Blast the furniture! Go away, child!" He thrust a pointing finger toward the door, and the man who had closed it a moment before swung it open.

Kilisha stared at him.

"Come on," Chorizel said, ignoring her. "Kaligir is waiting." He led the others toward the street.

Kilisha stood at the foot of the stairs, staring helplessly, as the three marched out of the house.

"You know better than to stay in a wizard's home unwanted, don't you, apprentice?" Chorizel called back over his shoulder.

"Yes, Guildmaster," Kilisha said. Reluctantly, she followed them out, and pulled the door closed behind her.

She stood on the stoop for a moment, watching Chorizel and his two companions striding westward down Wizard Street. Then, frustrated, she turned her own steps back toward Ithanalin's home.

She was still on her own, it appeared. She would have to find the remaining furniture herself. She did not want to wait-this political disaster m Ethshar of the Sands might last for months, and a delay like that would ruin Ithanalin's business, prolong her apprenticeship, and leave the poor children without their father for much too long, not to mention that that brown mixture might explode or start spewing poison or something. And the furniture might wander off where she would never find it, or get itself smashed somehow.

She couldn't afford to wait. She had to find it somehow.

She tried to think of some way to use one of the spells she already knew, but nothing came to mind. She didn't know any divinations; she didn't think Ithanalin knew any to teach her, though she resolved to take another look through his book of spells.

She might be able to spot some of the furniture by levitating up to where she could see half the city at a time-but only if it was still out in the open, and not hiding under someone's porch roof.

Or perhaps she could make the furniture come to her, or at least stay where she could find it. Just last month she had learned Javan's Geas, and that could be used on someone who wasn't present. If she put a geas on each piece of furniture she could, at least, prevent it from doing stupid or dangerous things-the geas could not compel anyone to do something, but only not to do something. Javan had been one of the finest research wizards in history, but his geas wasn't an especially powerful or versatile one.

And, she remembered, it required knowing the victim's true name.

What was a couch's true name-Ithanalin's Couch? Or if it held a part of Ithanalin, would bis true name work?

She didn't know Ithanalin's true name. Only a fool of a wizard would trust his apprentice with such knowledge. A major reason many wizards used pompous, made-up names like Ithanalin or Chorizel was so their true names would not be known.

And of course, exotic names also helped the mysterious image that wizards cultivated to attract business.

She wondered whether even Yara knew Ithanalin's true name. It seemed unlikely. Ithanalin wouldn't have wanted to tell her, and Yara wouldn't have cared.

And besides, if Kilisha put a geas on the furniture, the geas would still be there when Ithanalin was restored, and he would probably not be pleased at all to learn that he could no longer leave the city, or whatever.