Lamma's Night (anthology)

A charlatan, he thought. And yet... Reluctantly, he dropped into a light trance and probed gently; with a shock of surprise he felt himself skillfully blocked.

The woman turned her head slowly, unerringly, towards him. Her customers fled as soon as her gaze released them.

Younger than I! he thought in surprise. But very homely. Her nose resembled a generous wedge of cheese, below was a mouth like a slit cut into raw dough, deep-set brown eyes burned beneath wiry brows under a high, narrow forehead. Her hair, under a brown hood, was a frizz of black curls, but clean. The dark eyes watched him coldly, above a smile sly with malice.

Surprise turned to an icy prickle of alarm. She's dangerous.

Suddenly she grinned; a row of big, yellow teeth split her sallow face. Some cold emptiness poured itself into a hidden well behind her eyes, leaving only curiosity and humor.

Yes, she could be dangerous, Narvik thought with relief. She has skill enough to sense my probe. But she'd also apparently decided not to be offended. No duel arcane in a marketplace!

'Hello,' she called out as he approached, her voice low and mellow as a wood flute.

'I've no wish to pry, mistress, but I sensed... something amiss.'

Some of the cold returned to her eyes. 'Never fear,' she said, 'my wards are strong, I took no harm from your attack.'

'I meant no offense,' he insisted, offended himself, resisting the urge to defend his actions. 'I came to offer aid if needed.'

The shadow stroked down his spine, held him leaning on his staff when reason told him to leave.

'You meant to be kind,' she murmured. 'Perhaps kindness comes easier, when you've a roof of your own.' She jerked a chin towards her rags. 'I truly dread the winter; like a cat, I hate the cold.'

'You've power,' he said cautiously. 'And skill as well... in more than telling fortunes.'

'I'm a sorcerer,' she admitted. 'Yet, no town has invited me to stay.' She lowered her eyes, her lips quivered with some emotion.

Disappointment? Anger? Narvik frowned behind a motionless face. It wouldn't take a sorcerer of his skill to see the strangeness in her; not an attribute endearing to town councilors.

'Where are my manners?' the sorceress said. 'I'm Wythen, I apprenticed under Navila the Yellow.'

'I'm Narvik, son of Phocon, apprenticed under Fahon of Kint.'

'Ah,' she said, looking down to scoop up the coins her young customers had thrown her. A pupil of the famed Fahon would never tell fortunes in rags. 'Where's your town?'

'Parney's twenty miles south of here,' he replied. 'Just below the foothills of the Leton Mountains.'

She shook her head, smiling up at him.

'I don't know it.'

'A beautiful place. If ever your wanderings take you there you must be my guest,' he offered politely.

He froze. The words left his mouth like syllables of burning ash; the deadly shadow of things that were not, things that might be, a fate settling into the groove his act had chosen. He probed the pathways of the future and met only swirling mist. No mage can read his own fate.

'Wythen,' he asked gently, 'is anything wrong? Are you in trouble of some sort? Or ill? I'd help if I could.'

Her eyes shuttered and she hunched forward, face stiff with pride. 'Wrong?' she said. 'Others of no greater skill have homes, and I none.' She turned her head away. 'A safe journey to you, Master Sorcerer.'

Narvik frowned down at her and bowed, lifting his staff formally. Too changeable by half, he thought. An illness of the mind... or spirit-ridden? Instinct warned against probing her wards to find out. I offered help, and hospitality. There is no more I may do.

'A good journey to you, Master Sorceress,' he said, and turned on his heel.

Wythen watched him go, then spat in the dust beyond her blanket.

Pah! How fine we are, how noble and good. Come visit to see what you've none of. And when you've filled your heart with longing for things you'll never get—such as my handsome self—then it's 'off with you, you great ugly lump.'

She turned and dug through the canvas sack that held her belongings, burrowing beneath leather-strapped books and bags of herbs.

Her hand found the hammer of polished stone and the long iron nail, moving without her will.

No! Wythen thought. Not that!

She placed the nail on the circle Narvik's heel had left in the dirt.

Don't do this.

Her mouth made words, shaping the stuff of the world. With a single hard blow she drove the nail into the footprint. Her hand started forward to pluck it out and undo the curse, then sank back quivering.

Death curse, she told herself. A low moan sounded as she pressed her hands to her aching forehead. Death.