then decided that she needed to assert her power a little more obviously. She waved her hands, and the barracks room disappeared. Kelder’s uniform appeared, and the two of them were standing side by side on the city wall, looking out over the farms to the southeast.
Kilisha had never been on the city wall, though she had levitated high enough to see over it; she supposed she had somehow pulled this scene from Kelder’s memory.
“This dream is magic,” she said. “I’m using the Spell of Invaded Dreams to tell you that I want your help. I’ve learned that the couch is in the Fortress, and I would be grateful if you could meet me at the north door tomorrow morning, two hours before noon, and help me retrieve it.”
“Two hours before noon? I think I have collection duty-”
“Tell your officer that Lady Nuvielle sent for you,” Kilisha interrupted. “She’s the one who found the couch and will be letting us into the Fortress.”
“The treasurer herself found it? The overlord’s aunt?”
“That’s right,” Kilisha said. “Please be there!” She twisted the spell’s magic, and the two of them were standing at the north door of the Fortress, with the sun two-thirds of the way up the eastern sky. “Here, at this hour.”
“I’ll try,” Kelder said. “If I remember.”
“You’ll remember,” Kilisha told him. “That’s how the spell works. That’s how you’ll know it was magic, and not just an ordinary dream.”
“I think I’ve heard about that,” Kelder said. “I’ll be there, if I can.”
Kilisha smiled at him. “Good!”
He smiled back. “Now what?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean here we are, in a perfectly good dream, and you’ve delivered your message-what do you want to do next? I see you can change the scenery, and make clothes appear and disappear; how long will the dream last? What else can we do?” He stepped toward her.
“I-I need to get some sleep,” Kilisha said, pushing him away. “I’ll see you in the morning.” She broke the spell.
Then she sat there on the floor as the smoke dissipated and said, “Stupid. That was stupid. I should have...”
But she didn’t know what she should have done. The thought of spending more time with Kelder was certainly not unpleasant, but really, she had far more urgent things to deal with. And he had been dreadfully forward....
But it was a dream, not real, and she couldn’t decide whether that made his attentions more or less acceptable.
She sat there a moment longer, trying to forget about Kelder and concentrate on preparing a final iteration to contact Adagan. Finally she said, “Oh, to the Void with it. It’s late and I’m tired and I’m not even sure it’s his real name. I’ll go down there in the morning.”
“We go together?” the spriggan asked.
“Ask me in the morning,” Kilisha said as she got to her feet and headed for the stairs.
She slept later than she had intended, and rushed through her breakfast. As she ate she tried to plan out the rest of the morning. Should she talk to Adagan first, then come back and get herself ready, or should she make her own preparations and then stop at Adagan’s shop on the way?
Adagan, she decided, might have his own preparations to make. She would talk to him first.
She had just decided this when Yara asked her, “Did you reach everyone last night?”
“I talked to Kelder,” she said, “and I sent Opir a message. I didn’t get to Adagan.”
“I’ll send Telleth, then,” Yara replied-and that, Kilisha saw, was the best solution all around.
When she had finished eating she went to the workshop, and as she began gathering supplies she heard the rear door slam as Telleth left on his errand.
Her athame was in the sheath on her belt, but everything else she needed would have to go in her belt pouch. She took a quick inventory of the little leather container.
There were the three potions she had prepared, with their smudged labels. She frowned, pulled them out, and found a pen, planning to make new labels.
Then she paused. Each vial held seven doses, all she had of each spell. What if one of them were to be spilled? She wanted to plan for every eventuality, for once. Maybe there was such a thing as being too cautious-but then she glanced over her shoulder at Ithanalin, crouching in the corner.
Things could go wrong. Things often did go wrong. Best to be ready when they did.
Accordingly, she found three more vials, smaller ones, and wrote new labels for them: strength, v’S LEV., t’s LEV. Then she poured part of the contents of each of the original vials into the appropriate new container, so that she had, as best she could tell, four doses of each spell in the old vials and three of each in the new. She capped them all securely, wrapped them in a soft cloth, and tucked them back in the pouch.
Her vial of brimstone, useful for Thrindle’s Combustion, was almost empty; she refilled it.
The tiny bottle of dragon’s blood was still in its place; she debated adding more, but decided against it, as Ithanalin’s supply was limited-and really, there was no point in taking the ingredients for any spell that required more than a few heartbeats to prepare, and the only really quick spell she knew that needed dragon’s blood was Fendel’s Spectacular Illusion. She could imagine how that might possibly be useful once, but not how repeating it could help.
There were a few fast spells that called for nothing more than a pinch of dust, and the bottom of the pouch looked a little too clean, so she quickly wiped a handful of powder and fluff from the tops of a row of jars, then poured it into the pouch.
The bit of chrysolite she kept ready for conjuring the Yellow Cloud was still in its rag wrapping, where it belonged.
That was everything in the pouch; she looked over the shelves above the workbench, trying to decide what to add-and trying to ignore the brown goo in the brass bowl atop the oil lamp. She had been refilling that lamp faithfully ever since Ithanalin’s accident, and the stuff m the bowl had cooked down from a liquid to an ugly paste that was now starting to dry out and crack; she hoped that wouldn’t do anything terrible to whatever magic it might hold-if it held any, and wasn’t just a forbidden sauce or gravy.
She spotted the big earthenware jar where the entire family stored any spiders they were able to catch and crush. There were at least two handy spells that called for powdered spider and took no more than half a minute, so she added an envelope of that, and then took a mummified bat’s wing from the drawer and tucked that in, in case she wanted to use the Spell of Stupefaction.
If the couch wasn’t feeling cooperative the Spell of Stupefaction might be very helpful. In fact, putting the Spell of Stupefaction in a potion, instead of Tracel’s Levitation, might have been clever, but she hadn’t thought of it at the time and it was too late now.
And of course, she couldn’t really be sure it would work on something that was animated, but not truly alive.
The Displaced Whistle might be useful as a distraction, and she started to reach for the required curly seashell, but then she remembered that it also called for a fresh-plucked blade of grass. She could hardly hope to find grass growing inside the Fortress. She left the seashell where it was, and looked around thoughtfully.
Ash might be useful; the Polychrome Smoke used ash. Usually she assumed that she would be able to find that readily wherever she went, but perhaps the overlord’s hearth was cleaned regularly- especially since it was still summer, and not yet chilly enough to really need a fire even at night. She made a quick trip to the kitchen and returned with a vial of fine gray powder from the stove.
She hoped that this would be enough; she couldn’t think of any other quick spells she knew. If she had time for anything more elaborate, anything requiring extensive preparation or other ingredients, she would just have to come back here, or ask another magician for help.
Of course, she might want things other than magic. She added the linen purse containing all her money- which came to six bits in copper and one in silver, hardly enough to be useful in bribing the Fortress guards, but it might be useful somewhere. Ordinarily she let the little bag hang from her belt, but this was not the time to worry about cutpurses, so into the pouch it went.
