had been knifed ignominiously in a brawl in 4999 or 5000. He had no idea what had become of the wizards. Sometimes it seemed as if most of the world’s wizards had vanished after the war; once the army’s control was gone, the Wizards’ Guild’s compulsion for secrecy, which had done so much to restrict wizardry’s effectiveness in the war, had taken over unrestrained. Now even simple spells could be difficult to obtain or prohibitively expensive. Certainly there were still wizards around, but most seemed to be severely limited in what they would undertake.
That virtually eliminated the possibility of having Wirikidor’s enchantment removed, even if he decided he so wanted. When last he had sent an enquiry to the city, he had been told that no wizard in Ethshar would attempt to remove an eighth-order spell for less than a thousand pieces of gold. Valder was not sure whether Wirikidor’s enchantment was in fact eighth-order, but he remembered a mention of that number. A thousand pieces of gold was considerably more money than he had ever had in his life and far more than he had at present, as business had trailed off slightly. Furthermore, as he grew older, he turned more and more of the work over to his helpers, which meant he needed more helpers — all three of Tandellin and Sarai’s children now worked for him — and that meant more money. He had more than enough to live comfortably on, but he was not rich.
Karannin was dead. Gor was dead. Anaran was dead. Terrek was dead. It seemed as if all the men who had fought the war were dead or dying. Valder had not seen a man in a wartime uniform in decades; the soldiers of the Hegemony, such as were posted in the guardhouse at the bridge, had long ago switched to a new one, with a yellow tunic and a red kilt replacing the old familiar brown and green and with no breastplate at all.
Azrad was still alive, of course, and still ruled over the seas and the southwestern portion of the Hegemony, from the Small Kingdoms halfway to Sardiron — but he was a doddering old man now, three-quarters of a century old and showing it. He had not aged well.
And Valder of Kardoret still lived, no longer the young scout, or the desperate assassin, but the aging proprietor of the Thief’s Skull Inn — the skull had fallen and been buried years ago, but the name still lingered. Valder wondered if his younger customers even knew the name’s origin; he rather expected that the name would soon change again, perhaps back to the Inn at the Bridge.
He finished his ale and put down the mug, signaling that this time young Sarai was not to refill it. A pleasant young woman, that, more like her father than the mother she was named for.
Life was still good, Valder told himself, and as long as it remained so, he need do nothing about Wirikidor. Gor’s death did not change anything.
Still, he could feel himself growing older. He knew that he would have little chance in a fair fight, either with swords or unarmed, against almost anyone. He would not stay healthy forever.
When the time came that his health was irretrievably going, he promised himself, he would take decisive action to free himself from Wirikidor’s curse. There was always a way out; he had only to find it. He reminded himself of that resolve periodically from then on and even wrote it down, lest he forget. When the time came, six years later, that he could no longer deny that he was losing his sight, he made his decision.
He could put it off no longer. His vision was slowly deteriorating, and he was certain that in a year or two he would be blind. The thought of spending an eternity helpless in the dark was more than he could take, particularly when he realized that he would become a perpetual invalid, with no prospect of dying, and that Tandellin and his family would be forced to care for him indefinitely. He had heard — his hearing was still good — his patrons speak with scorn of old Azrad, who still clung to his life and his throne despite his eighty years of age and poor health. He did not care to engender similar scorn. Azrad could abdicate, if he so desired, and be taken care of in luxury for as long as he lived; Valder did not have that option. Tandellin and Sarai were not his family and had no obligation to stay on if he fell ill, but he was sure, nonetheless, that they would. They were far from young themselves, as evidenced by the recent birth of their second grandchild; where else would they go? They had lived their lives as his helpers at the inn; it was all they knew. If he became an invalid, they would have little choice but to tend him for as long as they could. He would not saddle them with a blind old fool who would live forever; that would be unforgivably unfair.
And if he were to reach a point where death became preferable to living on, how could he die, if he had grown too old and feeble to draw Wirikidor?
He saw only one course of action. He would take Wirikidor and go to the city. He would seek out a wizard there, or several wizards, and learn whether Wirikidor’s enchantment could be removed, allowing him to live out a normal life. Once that was done, finances permitting, he would also have his fading eyesight restored, so that he might live out his remaining years more pleasantly. He was ready and willing to pledge everything he owned toward the cost of such spells.
If the enchantment could not be broken, then he saw no option but suicide. He refused to live out all eternity as a blind, senile cripple. Blindness alone he might learn to live with, were he still young and healthy, but in time he knew his other faculties would go. He would have to kill himself with Wirikidor while he still had the strength to do so.
If Wirikidor would not kill him immediately, he knew he might have to kill however many other men it would take to use up the spell. That might be difficult, but he was sure he could manage it somehow.
With that firmly resolved, he made his plans and preparations. On the third day of the month of Greengrowth, in the year 5041, he set out for Ethshar of the Spices, riding as a paying passenger on an ox-drawn farm wagon, with Wirikidor on his hip.
CHAPTER 26
The wagon’s owner knew nothing about magicians of any sort and, in fact, expressed doubts as to the authenticity of most spells, so Valder thanked him politely and disembarked as soon as they reached Westgate Market. The guards at the gate were more helpful, but the directions they gave him to reach the Wizards’ Quarter were not as detailed as he had hoped. He was to follow High Street for half a league or so — he had forgotten the city was that big — and then turn right onto a diagonal cross-street, a big one called Arena Street, and follow it past the Arena itself and on into the Wizards’ Quarter, down toward Southgate. That sounded simple enough, but there were so very many cross-streets that he was not at all sure he would know the right one when he found it.
The guards had also strongly advised him against carrying his sword openly on his belt. The overlord did not approve of such martial displays, and some people took it upon themselves to enforce the old man’s whims, even though at the moment there was no valid decree in effect on the matter. Valder thanked them, but left Wirikidor where it was. He thought that the sword might discourage thieves who would otherwise be tempted to attack an old man with a fat purse. He had brought all his accumulated funds from forty-odd years as an innkeeper; magic, he knew, did not come cheap.
The crowds and dirt and noise were overwhelming at first, particularly as he was already weary from his long ride. Oxen were slow-moving beasts, and the farmer had been in no great hurry, so the trip had taken a day and a half. He had arrived at mid-afternoon of the second day, the fourth of Greengrowth, his back aching from toes to shoulders. He had not realized, sitting around the inn, just how much age had affected him.
Objectively, he knew at a glance that the crowds were nothing compared to the mobs that had overwhelmed the city when first he saw it, but he still found them daunting as he made his way along High Street, watching for the diagonal cross-street the guards had described.
He passed inns and taverns clustered around the gate-side market and assorted disreputable lodgings. He passed block after block of varied shops, built of stone and wood and brick, selling everything imaginable, from fishhooks to farm wagons and diamonds to dried dung — but very little magic, and none of the signboards boasted of wizardry or witchcraft. A passing stranger, when asked, told him that these shops made up the Old Merchants’ Quarter; there was also a New Merchants’ Quarter to the south. The Wizards’ Quarter was much further on.
He came to a broad diagonal avenue that he took at first for Arena Street, but it was angled in the opposite direction from what the guard had led him to expect, so once again he asked, this time inquiring of a shopkeeper dealing in fine fabrics. The shopkeeper explained that this avenue was Merchant Street and that Arena Street was further on, past the New City district.
Valder trudged on along High Street and found himself passing mansions. Some faced upon the street,
