Taking Flight

Irith considered that as Kelder turned away from the pyre and set out westward. She ran after him and said, “Listen, Kelder, maybe we could find a wizard in Castle Angarossa who could break Ezdral’s enchantment...”

“Are there any good wizards there?” Kelder asked, cutting her off.

“Well, not that I know of,” she admitted, “but I mean, I don’t really know...”

Kelder didn’t answer; he simply walked on, away from Castle Angarossa.

“Look, you like to do good things for people, right?” Irith persisted. “And all this trouble with Asha’s brother was King Caren’s fault, right? So maybe you could do something about it...”

“Like what?” Kelder demanded. “I’m an unarmed traveler without so much as a bent copper bit in my pocket, and he’s a king, with a castle and guards.” Championing the lost and forlorn had to have limits; a child and a drunk were quite enough. The people of Angarossa and the traders who used the highway did not strike Kelder as being sufficiently lost and forlorn to merit his attention; he couldn’t tackle everybody’s problems.

“Well, but I have my magic...”

“So you can do something about King Caren?”

Irith didn’t like that idea at all.

“Oh, all right,” she grumbled. “I suppose one night outdoors won’t kill me.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The rain trailed off to nothing a little after midnight, and half an hour later Irith finally stopped complaining and telling the others that they should have gone back to Castle Angarossa.

When they arose and Kelder saw Asha shivering in her sopping blanket he felt mildly guilty about his insistence on continuing westward, but he set his mouth grimly and said nothing.

Damp and miserable, they set a slow pace at first, but the clouds burned off quickly, their clothing dried, and they gradually picked up speed, reaching Yondra Keep shortly after midday. As they ate a late lunch in a little cafe in the village, Asha asked, “How far is the next town?”

“Only a league,” Irith said, before Kelder could remember.

Asha nodded. “What about the one after that?”

Irith had to stop and think about that. “From the town of Amramion to Hlimora Castle must be, oh... three leagues? Four?”

“Amramion?” Asha asked. “Are we near Amramion?”

“Of course,” Irith said, startled. “I think it’s less than two miles to the border.”

“Maybe I should go home,” the little girl said uncertainly, peering down the highway.

“What about your father?” Kelder asked quietly.

Asha looked down at the table, and began to pick carefully at a protruding splinter. She gave no answer, and the subject was dropped.

They ate in silence for a moment, and then Asha said, “At least it’s all over for Abden. He’s out of it all.”

No one said anything in response to that.

“I think we’ll stop at Amramion for the night,” Kelder said, breaking the silence.

That was what they did.

They were questioned briefly by the guards at the border post, but they knew Irith, and could see no harm in an old man and a child. Kelder they had reservations about, but eventually they took Irith’s word that he was harmless and let him pass.

The party reached the village of Amramion a little past midafternoon, where they stopped at the Weary Wanderer and took a room; Irith admitted after they left the building that her funds were now running low, and they would need to find some way to obtain more, or else would need to start relying on charity or theft.

With that in mind, the party split up; Kelder went to look for work in the village, while the other three climbed the little hill to the castle and knocked at the postern gate, seeking a consultation with the king’s wizard, Pirra the Mage. Irith was recognized immediately, and the three of them ushered in.

Kelder heard about it that night at supper, as he massaged sore muscles and wondered why the only work he seemed to get was chopping wood. It wasn’t work he enjoyed at all.

Of course, he knew that was why he was able to get it — nobody else liked it either. And it was simple — anyone with strong arms could do it, and you didn’t need to worry about coaxing hostile animals or tying knots wrong or anything like that. It was something you could trust to a stranger who might be clumsy or half- witted.

Of course, since it meant giving him an axe, you didn’t want to ask a stranger who looked dangerous to chop your wood.

Thinking that through, he only half listened to the tale of how everybody at the castle had recognized Irith, and how Pirra had been eager to talk to her, and then had been really disappointed when she discovered that Irith didn’t remember how to prepare all the spells she used.

“...and she’d heard of Fendel’s Whatever-it-is Love Spell,” Asha said, “and she was pretty sure there’s a simple countercharm, but she doesn’t know what it is. She knows a different one of Fendel the Great’s love spells, Fendel’s Aphrodisiac Philtre, and she knows one that’s a lot like Irith’s, but it’s Cauthen’s Remarkable Love Spell, and it’s different, it uses mare’s sweat and stallion hairs, and she says that there are two countercharms for that that she knows, but she doesn’t know any for Irith’s spell.”

That caught Kelder’s attention.

“Did she say what the two countercharms are?” he asked. “Maybe we could try them — if the spells are alike, they might work.”

“I don’t think so,” Irith said.

“Well, would it do any harm to try?” Kelder persisted. “Did she say what the charms are?”

Irith and Asha exchanged glances; Irith let out a sigh.

“Yes, she said,” the shapeshifter admitted, “but Kelder, I don’t think we want to try them. Not until we know they’re the right ones.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because they’re difficult,” Irith said.

“What are they?”

“The easy one,” Irith said, “is for the victim to drink a cup of virgin’s blood each night at midnight, for four nights. A full cup. Without spilling a drop, or choking, or throwing up. And he has to go to sleep immediately afterward; if he speaks a word or sets foot on the ground, it won’t work.” She grimaced. “Have you ever drunk blood? The hardest part has to be not throwing up. And all the blood has to come from a single fertile virgin human female who has never been enchanted — no mixing blood from different people, or anything.”

Kelder looked at Asha, who shook her head and said, “I’m too young.”

“No,” Kelder said hurriedly, “I know that, I didn’t... I just... I mean, is that really what Pirra said? I know Irith has trouble remembering magic...” He trailed off, flustered.

“It’s right,” Asha said. “And that’s the easy one.”

“What’s the other?” Kelder asked, though he didn’t really expect it to be any better.

“It’s just one drop of blood on the back of the tongue,” Irith said. “Dragon’s blood.”

“Well, what’s so difficult about that?” Kelder asked, puzzled. “I thought wizards used dragon’s blood all the time.”

“They do,” Irith agreed, “but there’s another requirement. The blood has to come from a gelded dragon.”

Kelder thought about that.

“Oh,” he said. He sighed. “Maybe we could find someone...” he said.