be true; nothing ever bothered Doran of Shiphaven, master of the sixth-largest trading fleet in the city’s harbor.
“Just call?” he asked.
Thetheran nodded.
“Call who?” Doran asked.
Thetheran sighed. “What would you like?” he asked.
What Doran really wanted was to take Dumery and go home and forget all about any involvement with wizards or magic, but Dumery wanted to be here, and it was pouring rain outside, which made the prospect of strolling about for an hour extremely unappealing.
He didn’t understand what the wizard was talking about, telling him to just call for what he wanted, but right at that moment he thought he could use something warming to drink. “Oushka,” he said. “I’d likeoushka.”
Thetheran nodded. “Oushka!” he called in a firm, clear voice, pointing at Doran.
With a sudden swirl, the curtain hiding the back room was swept aside, as if by a strong wind, and a silver tray sailed out into the room, unsupported and rotating slowly. Upon it stood a brown earthenware jug and a small crystal glass.
It sank gently onto the chair next to Doran, who stared at it-fearfully?
Distastefully? Dumery wasn’t sure.
Then Thetheran took Dumery by the hand and led him through the doorway, and he saw no more of his father or the magical tray for quite some time.
Chapter Three
At Thetheran’s behest Dumery seated himself on a tall stool that stood close beside the wizard’s littered workbench. He sat there, staring at the room around him, while the mage puttered about with various mysterious objects.
This room was as large as the front parlor, maybe a bit larger, but far more crowded. The parlor had held six chairs around the hearth, a few small tables, and a divan, with a few assorted knicknacks and oddments here and there; the walls had been mostly bare. In this workshop Dumery couldn’t evensee the walls, behind all the clutter!
A stair leading to the upper storey ran along one side, and an incredible miscellany of pots, pans, and boxes was jammed under it, stacked every which way. On the opposite side several hundred feet of shelving were piled high with books, scrolls, papers, pouches, boxes, bottles, jars, jugs, and other wizardly paraphernalia. The great stone workbench ran down the center of the room midway between these, and while half of it was kept scrupulously clean and clear, the other half was strewn with scraps of paper, spilled powders in every color of the rainbow and several colors of more doubtful origin, bits of bone and bent metal, and other arcane debris.
At either end of the room a curtained doorway led somewhere-one to the front parlor, the other the gods knew where. The walls around both doorways were plastered over with diagrams and sketches and outlines, none of them making any sense at all to Dumery.
Something small and green was staring at Dumery from behind a jar; he stared back, and the thing ducked down out of sight before Dumery could get a good look at it. He wasn’t sure what it was, exactly; he’d never seen anything quite like it. Some of his brothers’ friends had been telling stories about strange little creatures that had been stowing away aboard ships from the Small Kingdoms and then getting loose around the docks; maybe the stories were true and this was one of them.
Wizard Street wasn’t anywhere near the docks, though. Maybe it was some magical creature, like the sylph, the air elemental, that must have brought his father’soushka.
Or maybe it wasn’t a sylph, maybe the tray was enchanted-wizardry was so varied and wonderful!
He sat there, surrounded by the artifacts of wizardry, and stared at it all in amazement.
Then Thetheran was back, holding a small black vial and a pair of narrow silver tongs. He put them down on the workbench and turned to Dumery.
“So, boy,” he said, “you want to be a wizard?”
“Yes, sir,” Dumery said, nodding enthusiastically. “Very much indeed.”
“Aha,” Thetheran said. “It’s not your father’s idea, then?”
“No, sir; I believe he’d much rather I do something else. But I want to learn wizardry!”
Thetheran nodded. “Good,” he said, “very good.”
He drew a dagger from his belt, and Dumery tensed, wondering if some sort of blood ritual of initiation was involved.
Thetheran reached out and touched Dumery’s forehead with the tip of the dagger, very gently. “Don’t move,” he warned.
Dumery didn’t move. Not only did he want to make a good impression, not only was he worried about magic spells, but that knife looked very, very sharp.
Thetheran muttered something, and Dumery, looking up as best he could without moving, thought he saw the blade of the dagger glowing first blue, then purple.
Thetheran blinked, then pulled the blade away. He looked at it closely.
Once again it looked like a perfectly ordinary dagger to Dumery.
Thetheran muttered something again, then said, “Hold still.”
As before, Dumery froze.
Thetheran reached out with the dagger again, but this time he touched it to Dumery’s black velvet tunic, directly over the boy’s heart. He held it there for a moment, and then ran it lightly down Dumery’s breastbone and across his belly to his navel.
Dumery held his breath until Thetheran finally pulled the knife away. As Dumery exhaled, the wizard held the blade up in front of his eyes and studied it closely, his expression at first puzzled, then annoyed.
He put the dagger down on the workbench and picked up the vial and tongs.
“Here,” he said, gesturing, “watch very closely, now.Very closely. I’m going to do a simple little spell, and then ask you to try and do it.”
Dumery nodded, almost trembling with anticipation. He leaned over and stared intently.
Thetheran opened the vial and fished out its contents with the tongs. He held up a roll of white fabric for Dumery to see.
Dumery nodded slightly, keeping his eyes on the little cloth bundle.
Thetheran put it on the bench and unrolled it with the tongs.
Inside lay a sliver of greyish wood roughly the size of a man’s finger, a tiny glass bottle half-full of a brownish-red substance, and a wad of brown felt.
Thetheran spread the wad of brown felt to reveal a lock of hair. He plucked out a single strand with the tongs and held it to one side.
Then, using his other hand, he pried the black rubber cap from the miniature bottle.
He dipped the single hair into the open neck of the bottle and drew up a single misshapen drop of the substance within, and as he did so he said something, speaking very slowly. The words sounded to Dumery like, “Fulg the walkers nose arbitrary grottle.”
Then he moved one hand in a circle while the fingers of the other seemed to dance madly about, and then he lowered the hair with the drop of stuff down to the piece of wood.
The instant before it touched, he said what Dumery took for, “Kag snort ruffle thumb.”
When the stuff did touch, a white spark appeared. Thetheran dropped the tongs and let the hair fall-except that it seemed to Dumery it fell the wrong direction, and when he tried to follow it with his eyes he couldn’t find it.
Then the wizard reached down and picked up the glowing spark between his two index fingers. He brought his thumbs down to it, hiding it from sight.
Then he announced, “Behold, Haldane’s Iridescent Amusement!” He drew his hands apart, and there in the air between them, stretching from one thumb to the other, was a string of gleaming polychrome bubbles the size of
