location, on the road from the Tazmor mines to Sardiron of the Waters. I figure that every so often I’ll move up there, and then my son can come back and run this place a few years later.”
“Your son?” Kelder asked.
“He doesn’t have a son, silly,” Irith explained. “That’s how he keeps people from realizing he’s two hundred years old.”
This confirmation that Valder really was ancient, and that he and Irith apparently did share a good many secrets with one another, was reassuring. It meant the innkeeper was neither lying nor mad. “I see,” Kelder said.
“I guess we’ll just have to put up with him until she gets back,” Irith said.
Kelder nodded agreement.
“Well, you’re welcome to stay until then,” Valder said. “You may have to double up if it gets busy, though — I don’t
“That would be fine,” Kelder said, “but we don’t have much money...”
“Don’t worry about that,” Valder said. “I never charge Irith or her friends.”
“Oh,” Kelder said. “If you’re sure...”
“I’m sure.”
“Well, thank you.”
“And I’ll do what I can to keep liquor away from the old man,” Valder continued, “but it probably won’t do any good.”
“I know,” Kelder said. “Thank you anyway.”
Valder waved his gratitude aside. “That takes care of
Kelder and Irith looked at each other, then back at Valder. “Her father beat her,” Irith said, “so she ran away from home. She was going to stay with her brother, who had joined a party of bandits in Angarossa, but they tried to rob a caravan that had hired a demonologist as a guard.” She shuddered delicately. “The merchants are getting
“The brother’s dead?” Valder asked.
“Oh, yes,” Kelder said. “We built his pyre ourselves.”
“Any other sibs? Or her mother?”
“Her mother’s dead,” Kelder replied, “and there weren’t any other sibs.”
“She’s very stubborn,” Irith remarked.
“Tough, too,” Kelder said. “I think that if she just had a roof over her head and steady meals, she could take care of herself just fine.”
“Do you want to keep her with you?” Valder asked him.
Kelder hesitated, then said, “The problem is,
“Do you have a home somewhere?”
“Well, my parents are back in Shulara,” Kelder explained, “but I don’t think they’d take Asha in. Or maybe they would — I don’t really know.” He hadn’t really considered it. He had planned on taking Irith back to Shulara as his wife, but the idea of taking
“Can she work?” Valder asked.
Kelder and Irith looked at each other again.
“I don’t know,” Kelder answered.
“If she can,” Valder said, “and if she wants to, she can stay here. I’m not short-handed right now, but Thetta keeps talking about leaving, and Semder wants to leave and find an apprenticeship now that he’s old enough, so I probably
“You’ll have to ask her,” Kelder said, “but it sounds good to me.”
“Me, too,” Irith agreed.
“Well, then,” Valder said, rising, “I guess that’s everything.”
“I suppose so,” Irith said, also rising, “and I’m going to bed — I’m
“I’ll be up in a few minutes,” Kelder said. He sat where he was, and watched Irith walk gracefully up the stairs. She was wearing a plain woolen tunic of Thetta’s, simple and unadorned dark blue, with a black wool skirt, and neither garment was particularly attractive; even so, she was astonishingly beautiful.
Valder watched, too, and then looked at Kelder. He sat down again.
“You’re in love with her, too, aren’t you?” he asked.
Reluctantly, Kelder admitted, “I think so.” He started to say more, to tell Valder about Zindre’s prophecies, then stopped. The innkeeper seemed like a trustworthy sort, the kind of person one wants to confide in, but really, Kelder thought, it wasn’t any of his business.
“Do you think she might have used the spell on you, too?”
Kelder considered that, but shook his head. “I don’t
“
“Sometimes.”
“Then you’re right, you’re probably not enchanted.”
It was a relief to hear that from a knowledgeable third party. “Thank you,” Kelder said. “
“Is what?”
“Enchanted,” Kelder explained. “I’d like to break that, too.”
Valder’s eyes widened. “There isn’t any love spell on
Kelder shook his head. “I didn’t mean a love spell,” he said. “I meant Javan’s whatever-it-is.”
“Oh,
“Are you sure?”
“Well,” Valder said slowly, “Iridith offered to try to break the spell, years ago, and Irith wasn’t interested.”
“She might be now, though,” Kelder said.
Valder shrugged.
“She might,” he said.
That night, lying in bed alone, Kelder thought long and hard about his future.
He had had his fill of traveling. The towns along the Great Highway were all very well, but he had no place in them, and he had no great urge to spend his life wandering from one to the next, working odd jobs and living in inns. He was ready to settle down again, at least for awhile.
But did he really want to go home to Shulara?
Zindre had said he would go back, so he had taken it for granted, but did he
Going back to Shulara — he didn’t think it would work.
But if he didn’t want to go on wandering, and didn’t want to go back, what was left?
He could settle somewhere else, of course — find a home, a steady income. Friends, maybe.
He remembered Azraya, who intended to become a sailor, and thought that might be the best of both paths, in a way — your ship was your home, your crewmates your friends, yet you traveled the World, seeing its