Tales of Ethshar

That sounded well enough, but she had noticed the panting — this fellow Deru was already getting tired, and they weren’t even out the window yet.

Well, he had been working magic for hours, which must be tiring, and while Kirna certainly would never have said she was fat, or even stout, she knew she wasn’t a frail little twig like some girls — princesses were well- fed. Carrying her might get tiring eventually even for a bigger, stronger man than Deru.

“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, and the panting was more obvious this time.

Kirna was hardly in a position to protest, though, so she shut her mouth and watched as they mounted up over the windowsill.

Deru leveled off just a foot or so — no, Kirna corrected herself, perhaps half an inch — above the sill, and walked straight forward, placing each foot solidly on empty air.

The bars were as big as oaks as they passed, great oaks of black iron — and then they were out in the night air, cool and sharp after the hot, stuffy bedchamber. Kirna felt her hair dancing in the breeze, and she squirmed, trying to keep it where it belonged.

“Stop it!” Deru hissed. “You do not want me to drop you from here!”

Kirna looked down the side of the tower — and down, and down, and down — and decided that Deru was right. She knew it was only about thirty feet to the ground, at most, but in her shrunken state it looked more like a thousand, and besides, thirty feet was enough to kill someone. She stopped squirming.

Deru marched forward, just as if he were walking on solid stone rather than empty air; then he started descending, step by step, as if he had arrived at another invisible stair.

Kirna, tired of looking down, looked up — and shrieked, “Look out!” She pointed and began struggling desperately.

Deru turned, trying to hold onto his burdens and see what she was talking about. “What is it?” he started to say, but before the words had left his lips he knew what had caused Kirna’s panic.

It all happened incredibly fast for Deru; he had been looking down at his feet, watching his descent and staying well clear of tree branches or whatever seeds might be drifting on the wind, since Varen’s Levitation would end instantly if either the wizard stopped paying attention, or his booted feet touched solid matter, when Kirna had shouted and begun thrashing. He had turned his attention to the sky and seen nothing but a night-flying bird.

Then it registered that the bird was approaching rapidly, that it was an owl swooping silently toward them.

And then, finally, it registered that this was a threat, that in their shrunken state an owl could eat them both.

He instinctly flung up his arms to ward the huge predator off, whereupon Kirna tumbled off his shoulder and plummeted into the darkness beneath.

And at that instant Deru forgot all about Varen’s Levitation and dropped the lantern, and he, too, fell into the night. The owl, wings muffled and talons spread, swept harmlessly through the space where the wizard had stood half a second before.

* * *

Kirna sat up, dazed, trying to remember where she was and what had happened to bring her here. She was sitting on a gigantic leaf, surrounded by a thick tangle of wood; it was dark, though the orange light of the greater moon alleviated the worst of the gloom. To one side she glimpsed an impossibly tall stone tower; everywhere else she saw only forest.

Everything seemed distorted.

Then she remembered why; she was only about two inches tall. That clumsy young wizard had shrunk her, carried her out the window... and then what? Had he carried her off somewhere and abandoned her?

No, he had dropped her, when that owl had attacked. She remembered the vast rush of air as she fell, and the utter helpless terror she had felt, and the crunch as she had hit a bush.

The bush must have broken her fall, though, because she was still alive, albeit somewhat bruised and battered.

And she was, she realized, under that same bush, a few feet from Gar’s tower.

But where was Deru? Had the owl gotten him?

She scanned the sky overhead as best she could through the tangle of bush, but saw no trace of Deru. She did spot the owl, however, drifting far overhead.

She tried to remember what she knew about owls. Her father, King Tolthar, had insisted she receive a proper education, and while that had mostly meant politics, geography, history, and etiquette, several lessons about her natural surroundings had been included.

She thought the owl up there was a big one, even allowing for her own diminished stature, perhaps even what Tharn the Stablemaster had called a great horned owl, though of course owls didn’t actually have horns.

At least, she didn’t think they did.

Owls did have exceptional eyesight, even for birds, since they preferred to hunt at night. They also had special fringes on their wings that let them fly silently, with none of the audible flapping and rustling of other avians, and they generally gave no cry in flight — hooting was for when they were safely at home, not for when they were out hunting.

That one up there looked very much as if it were hunting.

If it had eaten Deru, she asked herself, wouldn’t it be done hunting? She tried to take encouragement from that, to convince herself that this meant Deru was still alive; the possibility that he was simply too small to satisfy so large a bird was too uncomfortable to consider.

For one thing, if the owl had swallowed him she doubted it had managed to remove his pack first, and that was where the antidote to the shrinking spell was. The idea of spending her entire life able to meet chipmunks and large spiders face to face did not appeal to her.

Of course when the owl spat out a pellet of Deru’s bones and hair the pack and bottle might still be in it, but that was really too gross to think about. Besides, how would she find it?

So she would assume he was still alive, and that he still had that flask in his pack. All she had to do was find him and take a sip, and she would be herself again, and the owl would be no problem at all.

She got to her feet and brushed bits of dry leaf from her gown. She was safe enough here inside this bush, she was sure.

“Deru!” she called, as loudly as she could.

No one answered; she glanced up to see that the owl had wheeled about and was soaring overhead again.

“Deru!” she shouted again.

The owl wavered slightly in its flight, veering toward her.

“Hush!” Deru’s voice called back from somewhere a good way off. He sounded strained.

That was an immense relief; she let her breath out in a rush. He was still alive.

She wouldn’t have to stay tiny the rest of her life.

“It can’t get me here,” she called back. “Where are you?”

“Over here, in another bush,” Deru called back. “Are you sure it can’t tear its way right through to you?”

Kirna swallowed her reply, suddenly not sure at all. She ducked under one of the larger branches and looked around for better shelter, just in case.

There was a hole in the ground, half-hidden in the darkness; if the owl came for her she could duck in there...

She stopped in mid-thought. Why was there a hole in the ground? Presumably something lived in it.

That might be worse than the owl. She had a sudden vision of meeting a snake while still her present size.

“Do something!” she shrieked. “Grow back to normal size and get me out of here!”

“I can’t!” Deru called back. “I dropped my pack. It’s out there in the open somewhere — if I go after it the owl will get me.”