The God in Red

unstained by the soot in the flue, and stepped out of the fireplace. “No,” he said, with a shake of his head. “They aren’t up there.”

“I guess we didn’t get them,” Darrend said.

“And you don’t know any other way to get back where you belong?”

Santa Claus shook his head. “No. And... excuse me if this sounds strange, but while I was up there I looked at the sky, and the horizon — this isn’t Earth, is it?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I think this is an entirely different world from the one I live on. You have a pink moon.”

“Yes,” Alir said.

“And an orange one,” Darrend added.

“My world just has a big white one.”

Alir and Darrend exchanged glances again. “Other worlds?” Alir sighed. “Theurgists don’t do other worlds. For other worlds you need wizards.”

“And you two aren’t wizards?”

Alir drew herself up to her full height. “Certainly not!” she said. “We are theurgists, and proud of it!”

“Theurgists aren’t wizards?” The fat man looked so puzzled that his usual smile vanished. “You’re all magicians, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but there are many kinds of magicians.” She shrank back down a little. “And if you’re really from another world, you need a wizard to get you home.”

“Ah. Well, I think we’d best find a wizard, then, because millions of children are counting on me. And it’s only a few....” He paused, looking baffled again. “Sixnights? A few sixnights until Christmas.” He shook his head. “Where I come from, we use seven nights, not six.”

“But that’s silly,” Darrend said. “Seven doesn’t divide evenly.”

Santa laughed. “No, it doesn’t, does it? Well, well.”

“We need to find you a wizard,” Alir said. “And if you’re really in a hurry, the sooner the better.” She frowned. “I just hope this isn’t going to be too expensive; professional courtesy only goes so far.”

“Oh, dear,” Santa said. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

“No, it’s not your fault; my apprentice scrambled the summoning. It’s just one of the costs of doing business.” She sighed. “Come on, then.”

A few minutes later they were two blocks away, at a run-down shop on Wizard Street, explaining the situation to Alir’s old friend Tazar the Magnificent.

“He’s a spirit?” Tazar said, looking at Santa. “He looks solid enough.”

“Perhaps a better word would be avatar, or incarnation,” Alir said. “That’s not the point. The point is that we inadvertently hauled him from his own realm to Ethshar, and now we want to send him back, and theurgy isn’t suitable to the job.”

Tazar nodded. He turned to the fat man. “Where are you from, then?” he asked.

“I live in a magical workshop at the North Pole,” Santa replied. “On a world called Earth.”

“Oh, an earth elemental? Fertility-related, perhaps?” Tazar gestured at the visitor’s generous belly.

“No,” Santa said. “The world is called Earth; I’m not, and I’m not the spirit of Earth. I’m a jolly old elf who brings presents to all good little boys and girls on Christmas morning.”

Tazar frowned. “Elves are extinct in our World, and a good thing, too.”

Santa looked hurt.

“Can you get him home?” Alir demanded.

Tazar sighed. “Other worlds — I hate other worlds. No, I can’t, but I know how it can be done, if I can find someone who knows the spell.” He turned. “Can you draw?” he asked the red-clad stranger. “Or even better, paint?”

Santa’s usual smile returned. “Oh, certainly! I like to think I’m quite an artist, really, though I do my best work carving, rather than painting.”

“Then I’ll need you to paint me a picture of your home, as detailed and accurate as possible, just as it was at the instant you left. If we get it right you’ll be able to step right back to it, and it will be as if you’d never been gone — well, except that you’ll be a year older.”

“Oh, age isn’t a problem for me,” Santa assured him. “But why a year older? Is that a part of the spell?”

“No,” Tazar said. “But the spell takes a year to prepare.”

At that, Santa, Alir, and Darrend all looked shocked and dismayed.

“And it’s very expensive,” Tazar said to Alir.

“Oh,” Alir said unhappily.

When a wizard said something was very expensive, that implied a level of cost beyond the imagination of most people. Alir didn’t have that sort of money, but she would need to find it somehow.

“It would seem you’ll be my houseguest for a year,” the theurgist told the red-clad spirit.

“Well, that’s very kind of you,” Santa said.

Alir waited for a second, hoping he would say something about payment — after all, he was supposed to be a spirit of generosity, and he had that bag, which might have valuables in it.

He didn’t.

She sighed again. It looked as if she might be paying this off for the rest of her life — or at least, until Darrend completed his apprenticeship and started repaying her for his error.

“How are you going to send him home?” Darrend asked.

“A Transporting Tapestry,” Tazar said.

That explained to Alir why it would take a year, and why they needed a picture of the destination — a wizard would have to weave a perfect life-sized image of the fat man’s home, and that took time.

And that was also why it was so expensive; paying for a full year of a wizard’s time could hardly be anything else.

“If I’m going to find someone who can do this, I had better get started,” Tazar said. “And you should start on preparing a picture, while you should start raising the down-payment.”

“Of course,” Alir said.

“And the picture must be as exact, detailed, and accurate as you can make it,” Tazar warned the fat man. “Don’t let your imagination contribute anything!”

“I think I can manage,” Santa said.

With that, Alir, Darrend, and Santa took their leave, and returned to Alir’s shop to settle the sleeping arrangements.

Alir really, really hoped that some sort of payment would be forthcoming, and hinted broadly, but the old man paid no heed. He inspected the spare bed in the attic, and pronounced it good; he ate his share of the ham at supper with relish, and drank two pints of Alir’s best beer. He accompanied Darrend down to the shops in Southgate and helped the apprentice pick out a good large board and half a dozen paints, but made no offer to pay for these materials. Throughout, he laughed and smiled; in the street he stopped several times to talk with children and ask them whether they had been behaving themselves. In general, he seemed to be having the time of his life, completely untroubled by his enforced exile.

Alir’s mood, on the other hand, sank steadily as she realized just how little cash she had on hand, how few favors she could call in, and how expensive her houseguest appeared likely to be.

Over the next few days Santa spent some of his time familiarizing himself with Ethshar of the Spices and the rest working on his painting, while Alir sent Darrend out to solicit whatever business he could. Tazar searched for a weaver-wizard capable of creating the tapestry, and willing to tackle the job.

When she had a free moment, Alir watched the other-worldly spirit industriously painting a strange scene of a quaint, toy-cluttered wood-shop decorated with holly and bright red ribbons. It was still sketchy, of course, but looked quite bizarre.