Taking Flight

“Kelder,” Irith said, “that’s a quart of virgin’s blood — if she’s as small as I am or smaller, I think that taking that much could kill her, and we don’t even know if it would work. It probably wouldn’t; it really is a different spell, and I already told you that magic doesn’t make sense. You can’t use phosphorus for brimstone and still work Thrindle’s Combustion, and I don’t think you can break Fendel’s Infatuous Love Spell with virgin’s blood.”

“Well, maybe if you got a young enough dragon...”

The others just stared at him.

“You’re right,” Kelder admitted. “It’s not the same spell. So it’s on to Ethshar, then.”

“On to Ethshar,” Irith agreed.

And that, Kelder thought as he took a bite of pear, wasn’t really anything all that terrible. It would be exciting to see Ethshar — the largest city in the World! Another city, and another prophetic phrase satisfied.

But it would have been nice, he thought as he watched Ezdral down a large mug of wine, if they’d been able to break the love spell that much sooner.

The meal continued in silence, for the most part. Asha seemed to be thinking about something; Ezdral was drinking heavily and alternately staring at Irith and forcing himself not to look at her. Irith grew increasingly uneasy under his gaze, quickly becoming too nervous to talk — not that she had anyone to speak to anyway, as Kelder was too tired.

When they had all eaten their fill, and a drudge had cleared away the plates — but left the wine bottle, which Ezdral guarded — Asha leaned over and asked Irith quietly, “Could you do something for me?”

Relieved to be able to talk to someone who wasn’t Ezdral, Irith asked, “What is it?”

“Could you fly home... I mean, to my father’s house, and tell him about Abden? And that I’m all right?”

Irith’s relief vanished; she bit her lower lip and looked at Kelder worriedly.

“Go ahead,” Kelder told her. “He won’t hurt you; he doesn’t even have to see you.”

“I’m really sort of tired...” the Flyer began.

“Oh, do it!” Kelder snapped. “I’ve been out chopping wood to earn a lousy copper, which your old boyfriend there just drank up — I think you should earn your keep!”

“Don’t you speak to me like that!”

Kelder started to say something else, but then a shadow fell over him. He turned to see Ezdral standing over him, fists clenched, the neck of the wine bottle in one of them.

“You don’t talk to Irith like that,” he said hoarsely.

For a moment the four of them were frozen into position, Kelder and Irith sitting on one bench, Asha on the other, the three of them gaping at Ezdral standing at the end of the table brandishing the bottle.

“No, it’s all right,” Irith said, breaking the impasse. “He’s right, I’m not really tired. I think it’s really sweet that Asha’s worried about her father, and I’d be glad to go tell him.”

Ezdral wavered.

“Thank you, Irith,” Asha murmured.

“Sit down, Ezdral,” Irith said.

Kelder, tired and fed up with the whole situation, said, “Yes, sit down.” Angry that the man he was trying to help was turning against him, he added the cruelest thing he could think of. Then, remembering the nature of the spell Ezdral was under, he immediately regretted it.

“Have a drink,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-Five

For much of the next morning the Forest of Amramion was visible off to their left, and Ezdral, once he had sobered up sufficiently to focus, marveled at it. He hadn’t seen a forest in over a decade.

The guards at the border post between Amramion and Hlimora waved a greeting to Irith, but made no attempt to hinder the party.

Irith had been quiet ever since returning from Abden the Elder’s house, and didn’t return the guard’s greeting. She had given no details of her encounter with Asha’s father, but had merely said that the message was delivered.

Shortly after crossing the border into Hlimora, though, she burst out, “Asha, how could you live there?”

Asha looked up, startled but silent.

“She couldn’t,” Kelder said quietly. “That’s why she’s here.”

“It stank,” Irith said. “The whole place, and it was filthy, and the house was practically falling down, and one shed had fallen down. And your... that man was drunk and singing to himself, and when he saw me he... When I gave him the message and told him his son was dead he started crying, and that wasn’t so bad, I expected that, but then he started complaining about how there was no one to help him, and you’d run off, and when I told him you were all right he got angry and started swearing and saying all kinds of horrible things, and he tried to grab me, but I turned into a bird and flew away, and I heard him crying again as I left.” She shuddered. “My father was never like that.”

Asha didn’t say anything.

Irith looked at Ezdral, and said angrily, “He was even worse than you were, when we found you!”

Kelder expected for Ezdral to make some cutting reply, or to stand silently on his dignity, but instead the old man muttered, “I’m sorry, Irith; please don’t be mad at me.”

Kelder shuddered.

Ezdral’s subservience was appalling — but on the other hand, Irith seemed to be showing more compassion than was her wont. Kelder wondered if she might be learning something from Asha and Ezdral.

He certainly hoped so.

And his own presence might not hurt, either.

They were two and a half hours from the border when Kelder stopped and looked closely at the hillside to their left.

“What is it?” Asha asked.

“This is where I first saw the Great Highway,” Kelder explained. “I slept on the slope there. And it’s where I met Irith.”

The Flyer nodded. “That’s right,” she said. “I remember. At first I thought you were going to just turn around and go back to your farm in Shulara.”

“I thought so, too,” Kelder admitted.

It occurred to him that he could do that now — he could simply head south, up that hill and down the other side, and go back home to his family, and not worry about where his next meal was coming from, or Ezdral’s love spell, or Asha’s homelessness.

He started to think about it. He turned to look at the others.

He saw Irith’s face and forgot the whole notion. She was obviously not yet ready to come with him and settle down to the life of a Shularan peasant, and he wasn’t yet ready to give up on Zindre’s predictions and go home without her.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”

They had scarcely covered another hundred yards when the turrets of Hlimora Castle came in sight. Kelder remembered how hungry he had been that morning — when was that, a sixnight ago? If he had known how close the castle was, he would never have turned east.

And in that case, he might never have met Asha or Ezdral — but he might have met other people instead. There was simply no knowing what might have happened — not without magic, anyway.

Zindre would have known, he supposed. She must have known that he would go east, as he had — or perhaps she hadn’t known any details at all, just the generalities. Perhaps he had been fated to meet someone lost and forlorn, but exactly who had not been predetermined.