as seen from the ship, had been no illusion. He marched on, deeper into the metropolis.
The streets leading out the south end of the second market were a confusing tangle, and Tobas found himself doubling back and going in directions he did not care to go before he finally emerged onto a broad avenue running due south. He followed this for a few blocks, then paused when it crossed another avenue just as broad and busy, full of the clatter of cartwheels and the acrid smell of hot metal from somewhere farther on.
By this time the shadows were beginning to lengthen; where the buildings topped four floors, their shade reached clear across the avenue and partway up the faces of the structures on the east side. Tobas was hopelessly lost and knew it. Reluctantly, he tugged the sleeve of a strolling passerby and again asked for directions to Wizard Street.
The Ethsharite, richly clad in black velvet, smiled at the ignorant foreigner and explained, “Follow High Street through the New City, then turn southeast on Arena Street, and about a quarter of a mile past the Arena you’ll see the signboards.” He pointed east along the cross avenue to indicate High Street.
Tobas thanked him profusely and set about following the directions.
By the time he arrived at his destination, he was tired, hungry, footsore, and convinced that he could not be surprised by anything else the city might have to show him; he had walked past mansions and collapsing slums, past the huge arena, among people of every description, for a greater distance than he had imagined could be enclosed in a city’s walls. The sun was invisible behind the buildings on the west side of the street, and the sky above them dimmed to red, when he finally reached Wizard Street, just in time to see torches and lanterns being lit to illuminate signboards and storefronts.
He knew Wizard Street immediately, beyond question; he had passed any number of signboards that afternoon, but none like these.
At a corner a broad green board announced, “TANNA the Great, Wizardry for Every Need, Love Charms a Specialty.” The next shop proclaimed in red letters on peeling gold leaf, “Alderamon of Tintallion, EXPERT WIZARD”; a third was labeled “THORUM the MAGE, Love Charms, Curses, Sundry Other Spells.” Similar advertisements hung on every shop on both sides of the street for as far as he could make out the writing. Strange sounds, thumps, and flutterings, trickled from the surrounding shops; colored lights flickered eerily in one nearby window, and a smell resembling fresh lye soap, but somehow not exactly right, reached him.
Tanna the Great sounded slightly intimidating, so Tobas skipped by that door and knocked at the next, beneath the board announcing Alderamon of Tintallion. He hoped, also, that a fellow foreigner might not be upset by a Freelander accent.
The door opened to reveal a large, middle-aged man wearing a black tunic, brown suede breeches, and a carefully trimmed reddish beard. An odd, squarish black cap adorned his head and, Tobas guessed from the visible expanse of gleaming brow, hid a sizable bald spot.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“I hope so,” Tobas replied. “I’m a wizard myself — sort of — and I’d like to ask a favor.” He looked hopefully up at the red-bearded wizard.
Alderamon stared at the stranger for a moment, seeing a ragged and exhausted youth plainly on the brink of despair. He stood aside. “Come in,” he said, “and tell me about it.”
The interior of the shop was draped in red velvet and gold brocade, and furnished with three low black tables and six velvet-upholstered chairs. Tobas noticed, even in his weary state, that the upholstery looked somewhat worn; he could not decide if that was good, because it meant the man had a lot of customers and was therefore presumably a success, or bad, because it meant that he was too poor or too lazy to pay for new fabric.
It was clean, at any rate.
At Alderamon’s invitation, he sank into one of the chairs, infinitely relieved to be off his feet; the wizard sat across the table from him.
“A little wine?” he offered.
“Yes, please,” Tobas agreed.
The wizard rose again and vanished through a draped doorway at the back of the shop, to emerge again a moment later with a tray bearing a decanter, two glasses, and a few small cakes.
“I’m afraid the cakes are a bit stale,” he apologized.
Tobas saw no need for the apology as he wolfed down all but one of the cakes and drained a glass of thin golden wine.
When he had recovered himself somewhat, he sat back, a little shamefaced at his display of ill manners, and tried to think of the best way to begin.
“You said you’re a wizard?” Alderamon prompted.
“In a way; I was apprentice to Roggit of Telven, but he... he died, before the apprenticeship had gone very far.”
“Oh? How far had it gone?”
Tobas was too tired and desperate to lie. “A single spell; he taught me one spell.”
“Which one?”
“Thrindle’s Combustion.”
“Hmmm.” Alderamon stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, then asked, “May I see your dagger, please?”
Puzzled, Tobas drew his athame and handed it to the wizard.
Alderamon drew his own knife and very carefully touched the two blades together, point to point.
A sharp crack split the air; multicolored sparks showered the table, and an odd smell that reminded Tobas of the air after a heavy thunderstorm filled the room. “I didn’t know it would do that!” he exclaimed.
“Now you know,” Alderamon said, as he handed back the knife. “You are indeed a wizard, beyond question, since you own a true athame. An athame has many special properties, including that sensitivity to others of its kind; even the experts don’t know everything an athame will do.”
“Roggit never told me that; he just said that I would need it for most of my spells and that it was the mark and sign of a true wizard.”
“It is that and rather more; did you know that so long as you touch its hilt, you cannot be bound? No rope or chain can hold a wizard so long as he has his athame. Touching the points, as I have just demonstrated, will tell you whether another knife is an athame or just a dagger, and thereby whether its owner is a wizard or a fraud; the intensity of the reaction varies with the proximity of the rightful owner, so that, had you stolen the knife from him who made it, the noise and sparks would have scarcely been noticeable.”
Tobas was fascinated. “Really?”
“Really.”
Tobas stared at the dagger in his hand for a long moment, then recalled himself and returned the blade to its sheath.
“Now, you say your master died after teaching you only one combustion spell?”
“Yes.”
“When was this?”
“He died about three sixnights ago.”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” Tobas admitted reluctantly.
“And in five years he taught you just one spell?”
“Ah... I was older than twelve when he took me on, and he was a very old man, slow to teach me.” He stared at the worn floorboards, wondering what Alderamon would do about this confession of unforgivable irregularities in his apprenticeship.
“Oh, well, it’s none of my concern,” Alderamon said. “What’s done is done, and you’re a wizard now, however it happened. What do you want of me?”
“Well, I’m alone in the world now, my parents are dead, my master is dead, my cousins have thrown me out. I was hoping that the Wizards’ Guild would take care of one of its own and help me out. I have no money, no place to stay, and no prospects as a wizard with a single spell. Could it be arranged that I be taught more spells, so that I can earn a living?”
Alderamon stared at him for a moment. “Why did you come to me?” he said at last.
