Tales of Ethshar

The two girls played princess-and-hero with the dolls, and romantic rivals (a stick served as the object of their competing affections), and various other games — but Shala balked when Darranacy suggested playing wizards.

“My Dad doesn’t like magic,” she said. “He says it makes people lazy and careless — they figure if anything goes wrong, magic can fix it.”

Darranacy blinked in surprise. “But magic’s hard,” she said. “And dangerous and expensive. You don’t use it for stuff where you don’t have to.”

“Some people do, my Dad says,” Shala said darkly. “He talks about that a lot — he says the overlord depends on magic more than he ought to, and since he’s the overlord, it doesn’t matter how hard or dangerous or expensive it is.”

“But...” Darranacy began.

Then she stopped.

If Shala’s father didn’t like magic, then she was in the wrong place. Both her parents had been magicians, after all, and she was proud of that — even if it had gotten them killed in the end.

Magic was hard and dangerous, and shouldn’t be used if you didn’t need it, but there wasn’t anything wrong with it.

If there were... well, right now her whole life depended on magic. Without her enchanted bloodstone she’d be a beggar starving in the Wall Street Field, instead of...

Well, so she was a beggar living in the Wall Street Field, but she wasn’t starving, and she wasn’t going to stay there.

“Come on,” Shala said, “we can have your doll be an evil magician, and my doll will be a hero who has to kill her without getting turned into a newt or something.”

“Okay,” Darranacy said, a bit reluctantly. “What kind of magician? A sorcerer?”

“What’s that?”

Darranacy blinked, and struggled for an explanation. Her parents had taught her the differences among all the various schools of magic, but that didn’t mean she could explain them to Shala.

“How about a magician who can call up demons for my doll to fight?” Shala asked.

“A demonologist?” Darranacy said. “But they’re not really evil, they just have a bad reputation.” She saw Shala’s expression, and quickly amended that. “At least, my father always said some of them weren’t evil.”

Before Shala could reply, the housekeeper’s voice called her name from the back door.

“It must be dinner time,” Shala said. “Do you want to eat dinner with us? Would your parents mind?”

This was her chance, Darranacy realized. If she were going to say anything, learn anything useful from Shala, this would be the time.

“I don’t have any parents,” she said.

Shala blinked.

“They’re dead,” Darranacy continued.

“Oh, Darra, I’m sorry! So do you live with your grandparents, or something?”

Darranacy shook her head. “No,” she said. “I live by myself. In fact, I was here today looking for someone who might adopt me.”

“Oh!” Shala stared at her.

“Shala of Morningside, get in here!” Shala’s mother called from the door.

“I have to go — Darra, come on in! I’d love it if you could stay here — maybe not permanently, but maybe you could stay for a little while? I bet my Dad could find a place for you!” Shala grabbed Darranacy’s hand and began tugging her toward the house.

Darranacy came reluctantly. Now that she finally had the chance, she was losing her nerve. This wasn’t the right place, with a father who hated magic, and this big strange house — but it might be the only chance she would get.

At the door Shala announced loudly, “This is my friend Darra — can she stay for dinner?”

“No, I can’t,” Darranacy said quickly, even though the mouth-watering smells of roast beef and fresh-baked bread were incredibly, unbearably tempting.

But she couldn’t eat anything, or the spell would be broken and she would starve.

“Hello, Darra,” Shala’s mother said. “I saw you two playing so nicely out there — we’d be pleased if you stayed.” She gestured at the dining table.

“No,” Darranacy said weakly. “Thank you.”

She stared at the lavish meal that was set out — sliced roast beef and several different vegetables and hot buttered bread, steaming on the table.

It had been so long since she had eaten anything, and there was so much here, and it looked so good! This wasn’t the mess in Mama Kilina’s stewpot, this was real food.

Korun was almost right after all, she thought — right now she almost wished she didn’t have the spell on her.

But she needed the spell. She couldn’t trust these people, they wouldn’t want to keep the daughter of two magicians, and when they threw her out with her magic gone she’d have nothing left at all, she’d starve in the Wall Street Field.

This might be her chance to find a home — but it was too much to risk.

“Thank you for inviting me,” she said politely, “but I really can’t stay.”

“But Darra, you said you didn’t have any family!” Shala protested. “Why can’t you stay?”

Darranacy looked at Shala, and at her mother, and her father, and the housekeeper, all of them standing around the table and staring at their ungrateful guest. She patted the purse on her belt and felt the reassuring shape of the bloodstone.

“I just can’t,” she said. Her eyes felt hot and her throat thick, as if she were about to start crying.

“Well, all right,” Shala’s mother said. “If you can’t stay, you can’t, but we won’t let you go away empty- handed.” She picked up something from the table, and stepped over closer to Darranacy.

“Here,” she said, “just a little something.”

And as Darranacy started to refuse, Shala’s mother popped a candy into Darranacy’s mouth.

Darranacy froze, then started to spit the candy out, then stopped.

It was too late; she could feel it. The spell was broken, and her empty stomach growled, for the first time in four months.

And then she did start weeping, sobbing hysterically as she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Shala’s entire family rushed to comfort her. It took twenty minutes before she had calmed down enough to make a clear explanation, and the food was cold when the five of them finally ate, but it was still the best dinner Darranacy had ever had.

She stayed three years.

And when the time came she was not apprenticed to a wizard, nor a demonologist, nor any other magician, but instead, at her own request, to a cook. The bloodstone, no longer enchanted, paid for her apprenticeship fee.

Cookery was a magic she could trust.

About “Ingredients”

Given the workings of wizardry as I described it in all the stories, it was clear that finding the ingredients for one’s spells might be the hardest part of the entire spell-working process. That was an obvious source of stories. I also wanted to give readers a glimpse of the political situation in the Kingdoms of Tintallion. This tale was the result.