to take everything from my pack, only the valuables, so I still had the tent and rope and so forth. I took odd jobs to earn money for the things I couldn’t beg, borrow, or steal. When I had everything I needed, I began retracing my steps; I knew I’d never find the place if I tried taking a different route. I got here two nights ago, on the third of Snowfall, and you know the rest.”
“I’m sorry,” Tobas said. “I hadn’t realized that you would have so bad a time alone over there.”
Peren shrugged. “You’ve done nothing to be sorry for; you had your own life to live, back to Ethshar with your tapestry. If I had had any sense, I would have come with you.”
“Well, I’m still sorry about the way things turned out. Do you know the names of any of the people who robbed you?”
Peren looked at him curiously. “Some of them,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
Tobas looked at the ground for a moment, then back at Peren. “If you want,” he said, “I can put curses on them, once I get back into the castle through the tapestry and bring out Derithon’s Book of Spells and some of the paraphernalia and supplies.”
“What sort of curses?”
“Oh, I don’t know; Derithon had several. Lugwiler’s Haunting Phanthasm, that created the spriggans when I messed it up, for example. Or the Dismal Itch. Or once I get better, there are some higher-order ones that get really nasty. You could pick and choose.”
Peren took his time to think before replying. “I don’t know, Tobas; I appreciate the offer, certainly, but I’m not sure I want to start cursing people. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Well,” Tobas said, “you have plenty of time to think about it in any case.” He grimaced. “I don’t know how much use I’ll actually get from that tapestry. Oh, I’ve got access to all Derithon’s spells now, and I can make a living readily enough, but first I’ve got to go back through the castle and collect the book and everything else I’ll need, and then come back through to the other castle, and then make this trip down the mountains all over again. That’s not the most convenient situation, having the only exit up here. I doubt I’ll be going in and out very often. I suppose it will depend on where I eventually settle down.”
“You could always just stay in the tapestry,” Peren suggested. “Oh, no!” Karanissa said before Tobas could reply. “No, no, no! Not permanently! Not again! After four hundred years in there, I’m not going to go live there forever. I’ll be glad to visit there, perhaps live there part of the time, but I don’t want to stay there permanently and give up the outside world. Look around you at all this!” She gestured, taking in the green pines, the blue sky, the bright sun. “How could I give this up again? Besides, the garden is dying and the wine is running out. Out here it’s so beautiful! Look at the sun and the trees and the dirt here, the pine needles, the birds singing — I like it out here.”
Peren turned. “You could stay out; you’re a witch, you can earn your keep anywhere.”
“You think I would let Tobas go back there alone? I don’t intend to let him get away that easily.” She reached out and stroked Tobas’ hair possessively.
“And I wouldn’t leave you,” Tobas assured her, returning the caress. “Don’t worry; eventually I’ll learn enough magic to make more tapestries, and then we can live wherever we please and still get in and out of the castle at will, assuming we want to.”
Karanissa hesitated, but then said, “Well, actually, I think we will want to, Tobas. It is beautiful out here, but it’s cold and a little frightening. The castle has been my home for so long that... well, it’s home. My home. Our home.”
Tobas nodded and put his arm around her. “Yes, it is,” he agreed as they trudged onward.
He had a home again, someplace to go back to. Telven no longer mattered; he had a new place in the World — or, rather, out of it.
He still needed more, though. Like Karanissa, he did not want to be cut off from human society indefinitely. He wanted to find a place for himself socially as well as physically; he needed not just a home but a career, and not just a lover but friends.
And a goodly supply of money to restock the castle’s wine cellar and Derithon’s depleted and decayed supplies wouldn’t hurt, either.
CHAPTER 29
On the afternoon of the sixth of Snowfall, in the year 5221, Tobas of Telven and Karanissa of the Mountains were married on a deserted hilltop somewhere in eastern Dwomor, in an improvised ceremony invoking whatever gods might hear, with Peren the White as their only witness and with the required document inscribed on a piece of tree bark.
“This is silly,” Peren said as they scratched their names on the inside of the bark. “You could have waited until we got to Dwomor.”
“I didn’t want to wait,” Tobas said. “Karanissa might have changed her mind again.”
“Or you might have,” she retorted. “You might have decided to marry that princess of yours, Alorria of Dwomor.”
“Instead of you? Never!” Tobas replied, hugging her.
“Besides, Alorria’s probably married to some big, brave dragon hunter by now, and getting tired of him already,” Peren said as he started down the slope from the hilltop where they had performed the little ritual.
“If she’s not, maybe she’ll marry you, now that I’m taken,” Tobas suggested as he followed, his new wife at his side.
“Oh, maybe; I think I’d rather have her sister Tinira, though,” Peren replied, smiling.
“You never did have any taste,” Tobas retorted.
“Why not marry both of them?” Karanissa suggested.
“Well, I suppose I could,” Peren said. “But I didn’t kill the dragon.”
“Details, details!” Tobas laughed.
Karanissa smiled, but then shivered slightly. “You don’t suppose that we’ll run into that dragon, do you?”
“No,” Tobas reassured her. “I’m sure somebody must have killed it by now and probably married all the princesses as well.”
“Too bad,” Peren remarked. “We could use that gold.”
“True enough,” Tobas agreed.
Peren moved on ahead, allowing the newlyweds a little more privacy; for a moment they all walked on in silence, but then Tobas could restrain himself no longer.
“Why did you change your mind?” he asked Karanissa abruptly. “I asked again because you had said you wouldn’t marry me until we were out, and we were out, but I didn’t really expect you to agree yet.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just, when we saw the whole World spread out around us yesterday morning, and I heard Peren talking about his adventures, I felt so alone. Things are so strange here. I wanted to have something safe to hold onto, something secure and permanent, something I could trust in, and I wanted it to be you. I wanted to know you’d always be there. The first time I ever saw you, standing in the castle gateway, before I knew anything about you, I liked you better than I think I could ever like Peren. I don’t think I could face the world alone after so long; and with you beside me, I’m not alone. I’m a witch, and witches are taught to know things without knowing how they know them. Once I saw you out here, in the World, I knew that I could trust you to stay with me. I do trust you, and I love you, too. I do love you, I know that now, and I don’t think that will change, after all.”
“Oh,” Tobas said, embarrassed. “Well, that’s good, then, because I love you, too. I know I do, even without witchcraft to tell me.”
After a moment of silent affection Karanissa asked, “When will we reach the cottage where you left the tapestry?”
Tobas considered. “Probably this evening,” he said. “If I remember right, it’s just past these next two hills and across a little valley.” He looked ahead at the landscape. “I think that’s right, anyway.”
The distance was actually less than he had remembered; the weight of the tapestry had made it seem far
