himself. There he pulled off his boots, peeled off his socks, blew out the candle, and then fell back onto the down- filled mattress.
His last waking thought was the realization that he could tell by the faint scent lingering on the pillow that this was Karanissa’s bed.
Chapter Eleven
Gresh awoke in the darkness to the sudden unpleasant and loud discovery that Alris was not yet sleeping through the night. He pushed himself up on one elbow and squinted into the gloom, determined that Alorria was moving, and then, as the baby quieted, he lay back down and tried to get back to sleep.
He dozed off quickly enough that time, but the second time the baby’s crying woke him, the first faint light of dawn was seeping in the windows, and he had to debate briefly with himself whether to rise or not. He decided not, but getting back to sleep was more difficult, and it scarcely seemed as if he had managed it when he heard Tobas calling his name.
“Mrph,” he said. Then he rolled over and realized that the windows were bright with full daylight. He raised his head and called, “I’ll be right there!”
Five minutes later he ambled downstairs to find the parlor empty-the carpet and baggage had all been carried out to the street and reassembled, with two new bags added. Tobas was securing the last few knots as Gresh peered out the door. Both women were standing nearby, looking over the arrangements.
“You missed breakfast,” Tobas told him, looking up from his labors. “But we saved you bread and cheese to eat on the way.”
“Try not to get crumbs everywhere,” Alorria added, as Karanissa smiled apologetically.
“We thought it would be best to let you sleep,” the witch explained. “We didn’t know how late you had stayed up.”
“Not very late,” Gresh said, with a meaningful glance at the baby Alorria was holding to her shoulder. “But I didn’t sleep very well, so I appreciate it.”
Alris let out a belch, and white goo dribbled onto a rag Alorria had draped on her shoulder. The baby goggled at Gresh. Gresh smiled back.
Babies were cute, he thought, but he was very glad he didn’t usually live with one. They were noisy and smelly and needed constant attention, mostly in the form of cleaning up things he preferred not to deal with.
“Forty leagues this morning,” Tobas said, straightening up. “Stop in Ethshar of the Spices for luncheon, and then across the Gulf of the East this afternoon, and another forty leagues or so takes us to Dwomor Keep. We’ll stay there tonight, and then head out to look for the mirror as soon as you’re ready-perhaps even tomorrow?”
“I hope so,” Gresh said.
“You have your bag?”
Gresh did indeed, and displayed it.
“Good! Then climb aboard, Ali, and Kara, and we’ll get airborne.”
Gresh noticed there was no mention of possibly leaving anyone behind, either in Ethshar of the Sands or the castle in the tapestry. He supposed it had been discussed before he awoke and didn’t bother to inquire into the matter. Instead he watched as the women boarded the carpet, then climbed on in his turn, squeezing into his allotted space.
The route out of Ethshar of the Sands took them between Grandgate’s main towers, leading Gresh to suspect that Tobas simply liked flying between pairs of towers. They passed well over the half-dozen smaller towers between the big ones, however, and over all three layers of walls and gates, missing several opportunities to show off the rug’s maneuverability.
Once outside the city the main road headed east by northeast, while their own route was almost due east, so they gradually diverged, the coastal highway angling off to the left while they flew over beaches and sand dunes, with the shining Southern Sea on their right. They had been flying less than half an hour, and Gresh had only just brushed off the last breakfast crumbs, when the beaches, too, curved away to the north, and they found themselves flying over open ocean.
Gresh found that slightly worrisome at first; if the spell failed and the carpet fell, they might all drown. He quickly realized, though, that he was being ridiculous. They were high enough up that the fall would almost certainly kill them in any case. Besides, he had known the route included a leg across the Gulf of the East; the Southern Sea wasn’t any worse.
By the time they were an hour and a half from Grandgate they were out of sight of land; the faint line on the northern horizon had finally vanished in the distance. It didn’t reappear for some time, and when it did, Gresh had noticed something else that distracted him.
“Why is the water a different color ahead?” he asked, pointing. The ocean behind them was a dark gray-blue; ahead it lightened to a slightly greenish shade.
“Shoals,” Tobas said. “There’s shallow water from here to the western edge of the peninsula, and it looks different because you can sort of see the bottom.”
“It’s good fishing grounds,” Karanissa called from behind.
Indeed, Gresh could see boats ahead, a dozen or more spaced out across the water. Earlier he had thought he might have glimpsed sails off to the south, but they were not flying over the shipping lanes, so none had been close enough to identify with any certainty; here, though, the boats were working close in, and there could be no mistaking them. He shifted over closer to the edge of the carpet for a better look.
“Don’t fall off!” Alorria called.
“I won’t,” Gresh assured her, but he stopped creeping sideways and sat where he was, leaning over a leather case as he watched the fishing boats. They were casting and hauling in nets; the nets fell into the water dark and empty, but came up full of gleaming silver fish, twinkling in the sun.
“This whole stretch of coast is lined with fishing villages,” Tobas remarked. “And each one has a magician or two who knows a preserving spell of some sort-usually wizards with Enral’s Preservation, but sometimes witches or even theurgists. Half those fish will wind up in the markets in Ethshar of the Spices, three or four days old, but looking and smelling fresh-caught.”
“Enral…” Gresh knew that name.
“Yes, the same one who discovered the eternal youth spell you’ve been promised,” Tobas said. “Preventing decay was his specialty, it seems.”
That seemed to tarnish the glamour of it, somehow, to learn that his eternal youth spell was related to the magic that kept fish fresh on their way to market-but he was being silly, Gresh told himself. What did it matter how the spell had been developed, so long as it worked?
They flew over the pale waters of the shoals for almost an hour before finally reaching the coast, where they did, indeed, pass directly over a busy fishing village, where long wooden piers stretched out across the mud and sand to reach water deep enough for the boats. Inland was initially a tangle of salt marshes, sand dunes, and scrubland. There was no ground here worth farming, no path firm and stable enough to be called a road.
That changed gradually; the ground rose, smoothed out, and dried out. Scattered farmhouses appeared, and the paths winding between them grew broader. The farms remained small, though-these were not the big grain farms of the plain, but herb farms, growing the plants that herbalists and wizards and witches used in their magic, as well as the spices that gave Ethshar of the Spices its name and distinctive odor.
People were working in the fields and walking on the roads; most glanced up when they saw the carpet whizzing overhead. Tobas waved to them occasionally; the others, further back on the rug, were not really in a position to do so.
The herb farms and spice plantations began to give way to orchards and vegetable farms, and then Gresh glimpsed sunlight on water, red tile roofs, and brightly colored sails in the distance.
“Do you have any friends or favorite places in Ethshar of the Spices?” Tobas asked over his shoulder. “Somewhere we might stop for lunch?”
“I know a few people here, but only as people I do business with,” Gresh shouted back. “I wouldn’t call them friends, exactly. I wouldn’t stop in without letting them know I was coming.”
