held the center in both hands, leading the reluctant furniture back down the hillside toward Wizard Street.
Sometimes the two pieces cooperated, and sometimes they didn’t; holding them was often a struggle, and more than once Kilisha had to call for Kelder’s help in holding onto the rope. She almost wished she had used the Spell of Optimum Strength. By the time they got safely back to Ithanalin’s shop they were exhausted-but more of the furniture was back where it belonged, and Kilisha was pleased.
Chapter Seventeen
Kilisha did not trust the bench and chair; they had put up too much of a fight. The chair seemed glad to be home, running around the parlor like a puppy rediscovering familiar surroundings, but all the same, Kilisha made sure the door was closed and locked before she let go of the rope for even an instant.
And she didn’t untie cither piece at first; instead she looped the rope around the door latch and left Kelder to guard it while she went to make more permanent arrangements. The line holding the coat-rack was tied to a lamp bracket, but somehow Kilisha doubted that would be strong enough to hold the bench; she wanted to find something that would be.
Yara had heard the noise of her return, and the thumping and rattling as the bench and chair moved around the parlor; she met Kilisha in the workshop, worried by the racket but eager to know what was happening.
“I got them, Mistress,” Kilisha explained, pointing. “Kelder had them locked up, and I stupidly let them out, but we followed them and caught them again. Now we need to tie them up so they won’t get away again, but I’m not sure how to do it.”
“Them?” Yara peered past her into the parlor.
Kelder waved cheerily at her, and Yara retreated slightly.
“The chair and the bench,” Kilisha explained. “We still need to find the couch. And right now I’m trying to think what we can tie these two to. I don’t want them in the workshop; they might break things or spill something.”
“I don’t want them in the kitchen, either, or anywhere upstairs,” Yara agreed. “They belong in the parlor.”
“But there’s nothing solid to tie them to in the parlor!”
“Oh.” Yara considered for a moment, then turned up a palm. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. I’d best go tell the children what’s happening.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Kilisha said, suppressing a sigh. She looked around the workshop, but inspiration failed to strike.
From the doorway, Kelder said, “I overheard. Really, they should be secured to the house itself, if there’s any way to do that.”
“I don’t see any way,” Kilisha said. “Not in the parlor.”
Kelder turned and gazed critically about, then suggested, “You could run a rope out the door and back in a window, then tie the furniture to both ends, making a loop. That would hold them.”
“But then we couldn’t close the door or the window,” Kilisha said, stepping up to him and pointing.
Kelder, startled, looked at the front door and realized she was right.
“The barracks doors generally don’t fit their frames that well,” he said apologetically. “There’s room enough for a rope underneath most of them.”
“The barracks isn’t the home of a respectable wizard,” Kilisha retorted.
“This time of year, you could leave the door open-”
“No,” Kilisha said instantly. Keeping the captured pieces in the house was quite enough to worry about with the door securely closed.
“Well, then, I don’t know.”
“I’ll think of something,” Kilisha said. “Can you stay for a little while longer, and help out? We still need to secure these, and find the couch.”
“A little while,” Kelder agreed. “Not all afternoon.”
“The afternoon’s already half gone,” Kilisha said.
“Well, I can’t stay for the entire other half! I do have my duties, you know-including collecting the tax on this house.”
“I told you earlier, I don’t have anything to do with that,” Kilisha said. “You’ll have to talk to Yara.”
“Then I’ll need to talk to Yara. Maybe I can do that while you find the missing couch.”
“I don’t...” Kilisha began, intending to say she didn’t know how to find the couch, but then she remembered her earlier plan- levitating up above the city and looking for it from the air.
This was clearly a good time for that, while the daylight was still bright and the shadows not yet too long or deep. She could float up and look down at the streets and chimney tops...
And a sudden inspiration struck her.
“You talk to Yara,” she said. “Hold onto that rope, don’t let the furniture escape. There’s something I need to do. It should only take a few minutes.”
“What?”
“I’ve figured out how to tie them to the house, and maybe I can find the couch at the same time. You hold them and talk to Yara. It shouldn’t take more than half an hour, at most.”
“Well...”
“Thank you!”
With that, without giving Kelder any more time to protest, she dashed through the workshop to the kitchen, and on through to the scullery at the back of the house.
There was another coil of rope, as she had remembered, hanging by the door there; she snatched it up, then looked around.
Yes, the big axe was still there. Kilisha had never seen Ithanalin use it; just once she had seen Yara whack off a pig’s head with it, when the household was expecting an important dinner guest and wanted the freshest possible meat, and Yara had been sufficiently distressed with the resulting mess that she had announced she would never do it again. Usually the axe simply sat unused in the corner, gathering cobwebs.
It should do perfectly. Kilisha picked it up, then almost dropped it again upon discovering how heavy it was. She hefted it up onto a stone bench, then tied one end of her new rope securely around the axe handle.
Now it was time to levitate.
She hesitated. Which spell should she use?
Tracel’s Levitation required a rooster’s toe, a vial containing a raindrop caught in midair, her athame, and a few minutes of ritual. It would allow her to rise straight up to whatever height she chose-but it would provide no horizontal movement unless she allowed herself to drift on the breeze. A single word would then lower her gently back to earth.
Varen’s Levitation called for a silver coin, a seagull’s feather, a lantern, and again, her athame and a few minutes of chanting and gestures. It would let her walk up an invisible staircase in the air, then walk on air, and then descend again-but only once each. She could not ascend, then go level, then ascend again.
Neither set of ingredients was at all onerous; the raindrop was the only remotely difficult item, and ever since Ithanalin had first taken her on as an apprentice one of her duties had been to collect a few drops from every storm. There was a rack of tightly stopped vials in a drawer in the workshop, and while some of the captured water had undoubtedly managed to evaporate by now, she was sure there were at least half a dozen still available for her use. She wouldn’t be using up anything especially precious with either spell.
Nor was either one particularly difficult. Varen’s was definitely a higher-order spell than Tracel’s, requiring a more agile set of fingers and some more esoteric vocabulary, but both were well within her own abilities. Tracel’s ascent was faster and less tiring, since the user simply rose like a bubble instead of walking up the air, but the horizontal element of Varen’s was very useful...
And it was that horizontal component that decided her. She needed to place the axe and rope. It would have to be Varen’s.
Coin, feather, lantern, athame... She ambled back to the workshop, the coil of rope on one arm and the axe
