schedule to suit the preferences of a wizard’s apprentice!
“Would midmorning suit you, perhaps?” Nuvielle suggested.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, tomorrow; shall we say, two hours before noon, at the north door of the Fortress?”
Kilisha bowed deeply. “That would be excellent, my lady. I am most grateful for your assistance.”
“Tomorrow, then,” Nuvielle said, acknowledging the bow with a nod. She turned.
Kilisha stood in the door and watched her go, then stepped inside. She closed the door, made certain the latch was behaving itself, and then allowed herself a broad smile.
“Tomorrow!” she said. “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow!”
Behind her the spriggan giggled, and chirped happily, “Tomorrow!”
Chapter Twenty-six
When Yara returned home to prepare supper she encountered Kilisha standing in the kitchen, grinning foolishly. “I found it!” the apprentice said.
Yara started to smile; then her brows lowered and she frowned. She called in the children and sent them upstairs with a few quick pats, then turned back to Kilisha. “You found the couch?”
“Yes!”
“But I told you to stay here!”
“I did stay here!” Kilisha protested.
“You used magic?” Yara said, the frown softening.
“No,” Kilisha admitted. “Someone told me where it is. I’ve arranged to meet her tomorrow morning, and we’ll go get it.”
“What if it runs away again tonight, though?”
“I don’t think it will,” Kilisha said. “It’s in the Fortress.”
Yara blinked. “How did it get in there? There are guards everywhere!”
“I don’t know. Nobody seems to know. That’s where it is, though.”
“Why arc you waiting until morning?”
“Because I promised you I wouldn’t leave the house today! And besides, I want to have some time to prepare, and I want to bring along some help-I was thinking Opir and Kelder and Adagan would be good, if they’re willing. The couch is heavy, and it might be hard to catch.”
“Do you think so? Will the four of you be enough to carry it all the way down from the Fortress, then, and up here?”
“Oh, once we’ve caught it and gotten it outside I intend to levitate it,” Kilisha said. “I’m a wizard, after all.”
“You’re an apprentice.”
“And a wizard, Mistress,” Kilisha insisted. “I’m a member of the Guild, even if I am just an apprentice.”
Yara looked at her silently for a moment, then said, “I suppose that’s true. You’re sure you can levitate it safely?”
“Absolutely sure, Mistress. I have the spell already prepared and tested.” She patted her belt pouch. “It’s in a potion.”
Yara considered her husband’s apprentice a moment longer, then said, “Good. Then help me with supper.”
A few minutes later, as Kilisha lifted a heavy pot of water onto the stove and Yara trimmed a leg of lamb, Yara said, “I’m not sure Opir and Adagan and Kelder will all be stopping by this evening.”
“That’s all right,” Kilisha said as she pushed the pot into place on the hottest spot. “I’ll send them a message tonight.”
Yara put down the knife she had been wielding. “How? I don’t want you or Telleth running around the streets-”
“The Spell of Invaded Dreams,” Kilisha interrupted. She stepped back from the stove, then glanced at Yara. “At least, I know I can reach Opir that way. I’m assuming Kelder told the guard at the Fortress his true name, and I think I remember it. Adagan I’m not sure about, since so many magicians use false names, but he lives so close that I could stop by easily enough.”
“The Spell of Invaded Dreams?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“And you thought of that yourself, instead of rushing out on foot?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Then you really arc starting to think like a wizard, finally!”
Kilisha smiled. “Yes, Mistress,” she said.
Yara picked up the knife and went back to work. It was several minutes later that Kilisha heard her mutter, “Good!”
That night Kilisha gave the spriggan careful instructions, laced with the most terrifying threats she could think of, then went to bed early.
The spriggan obeyed, awakening her around midnight- though she wished that it had found another method, rather than jumping up and down on her head shrieking, “Wake, wake! You said wake!”
“Shut up!” she hissed, grabbing for the creature in the dark but missing it as it danced aside. “You’ll wake the whole house!”
“You said wake,” it insisted.
“I said wake me,” Kilisha said, sitting up. “Just me, nobody else!”
“Sorry, sorry,” the spriggan replied.
Kilisha yawned, blinked, and then reluctantly said, “Thank you. You did well.”
“Happy happy!”
“Now shut up and go downstairs.” She knew she shouldn’t tell even the tiniest part of her master to shut up, but the spriggan could be so stupid and annoying....
The spriggan bounced away, and she groped for her robe.
A few moments later she was in the workshop, preparing the Lesser Spell of Invaded Dreams, which would let her send a message to one of her chosen assistants as he slept, a message that the recipient would, at least in theory, remember clearly when he woke up, without the fuzziness of ordinary dreams.
Unfortunately, she would have no way of knowing whether the spell had worked properly. If Kelder had been given late-night duty, or Adagan had sat up late working on his witchcraft, then her message might not go through-the recipient had to be asleep. If that happened she wouldn’t know it until they failed to show up in the morning, so for those two she intended to use the much more difficult Greater Spell of Invaded Dreams-or at least at tempt it. For her brother Opir, who always liked his sleep, she could use the Lesser.
It took half an hour of ritual with her athame, incense, and a pinch of dust, but she was fairly certain it had gone properly and her message had been sent.
That done, she started on the Greater, directed at Kelder, which called for blood and silver as well as the other ingredients. For this one, by the end of over an hour of preparation she had worked herself into a trance, and although she knew she was still sitting cross-legged on the workshop floor she felt herself standing in a strange stone room where half a dozen men lay sleeping on narrow cots. This, she supposed, was a barracks room somewhere in the city, and the men were presumably soldiers.
One of them was Kelder. She called to him.
He sat up, startled, knocking his blanket aside, and she saw he was naked. She blushed, and almost let the spell break, but caught herself at the last instant.
“It’s me,” she said. “Ithanalin’s apprentice, Kilisha. I’m in your dream.”
“Well, that’s nothing new,” he said, pulling up his blanket.
“No, I...” Then the meaning of his words sank in, and she blushed again. She gathered herself up mentally,
