Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 8 - Ithanalin's Restoration

Ithanalin's

RESTORATION

Lawrence Watt-Evans

CONTENTS

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter

9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17,

Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25,

Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Author's Notes

TOR - A Tom Doherty Associates Book

NEW YORK

In memory of Jenna Felice

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or

are used fictitiously.

ITHANALIN'S RESTORATION

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 0-765-30012-5

First Edition: December 2002

Printed in the United States of America

0987654321

Tor Books by Lawrence Watt-Evans

the obsidian chronicles

Dragon Weather

The Dragon Society

Dragon Venom*

legends of ethshar

Night of Madness

Ithanalin's Restoration

The Spriggan Mirror*

Touched by the Gods

Split Heirs (with Esther Friesner) forthcoming

[ Please read the Author’s Notes at the end of this book before you begin ]

Ithanalin's

RESTORATION

Chapter One

The room was quietly comfortable, and not at all like the popular image of a wizard's workshop.

There were no cluttered shelves, no steaming cauldrons, no mysterious books, just a few pieces of fairly

ordinary furniture, most of it in need of a little dusting. It did not smell of strange herbs or exotic incense,

but only of wood and cloth and sunlight.

But then, Lady Nuvielle told herself, this probably wasn't a workshop. This was the parlor where the

wizard dealt with his customers; undoubtedly he had a workshop elsewhere in the house, and it might

well be jammed with dusty books and mummified animals. The parlor furnishings were more mundane.

Still, some of the pieces appeared as if they might be rather valuable, she thought as she looked

around with interest. The mirror above the mantel, for example, had no visible flaws at all, in either the

glass or the silvering. Glass that fine must have come from Ethshar of the Sands, more than fifty leagues

away, or perhaps from somewhere even more distant—possibly even Shan on the Desert, halfway

across the World.

Or perhaps it had been created by magic; after all, Ithanalin was a wizard.

Wherever it came from, Nuvielle was sure it must have cost a goodly sum.

And beneath the mirror there was the smallish velvet-upholstered couch, with its ornately carved

wooden arms curling elegantly at either end. This was not ordinary furniture, but a unique item—Nuvielle

had never seen anything quite like it. The velvet was an unusual and striking color, a vivid crimson, and

was perfectly smooth, perfectly fitted. Whoever had decorated the arms and legs had been exceptionally

talented with a woodworker's knife, and perhaps slightly insane. The very dark wood made it hard to see

details, but she could make out some rather disturbing designs. If anything here had been made by magic,

the couch was a likely candidate.

The little table beside the couch was of the same wood, and had apparently been meant to match, but

the craftsman who made it had not had the same eccentric flair as the artist—or magic—that had carved

the couch frame.

The mirror was very nice, in any case.

Lady Nuvielle knew that many people wouldn't dare leave the front door unlocked if they had such

things on display, but wizards did not need to worry about ordinary thieves; only the worst sort of fool

would steal from a wizard.

Other items, like the oval braided-rag rug just inside the front door, were nothing special at all—at

least, not to her relatively untrained eye. She smoothed out a large hump in the rug with the toe of her

velvet slipper and wondered idly if any of the furnishings might have unseen magical attributes.

It didn't seem very likely—though she wouldn't rule out the possibility in the case of the couch or

mirror. The wizard's front room was a pleasant little parlor that could have belonged to anyone.

When she had spoken with Ithanalin before, she had summoned him to the Fortress rather than

trouble herself to venture a mile across the city, but today she had been bored, and had come out to the

shop on Wizard Street in person in hopes of seeing some entertaining magic while she was here. So far

she had been disappointed. She hadn't seen much of anything, in fact. She hadn't yet seen the wizard, or

the apprentice her messenger had reported lived here. All she had seen was this uninhabited room. She

had knocked, found the door open, and walked in—and now she had resorted to studying the furniture,

for lack of anything better to do. The room was small, with a single door and a single broad window

opening on the street, and a single door at the rear; there were no books, no paintings, no statues to keep

her attention.

She waited for a few moments, expecting some response to her entry—surely, the wizard must have

known she was here! Didn't magicians all have mysterious sources of knowledge to keep them informed

of such things?

Eventually she got sufficiently bored to call out, "Hai! Is anyone here?"

Almost immediately, a young woman's head popped through the doorway at the back. Her face was

unfamiliar, but Nuvielle assumed this was the wizard's apprentice—though she was not wearing the

formal gray apprentice robes.

"You must be Lady Nuvielle!" the supposed apprentice said. "Please forgive us; we hadn't expected

you quite so soon. I'll be right out."

"That's quite all right," she said in reply, but the girl had vanished before the visitor had completed her

sentence.

She smiled wryly, then settled cautiously onto one end of the well-made couch, only to discover that

its upholstery of fine, oddly hued crimson clashed horribly with her own forest green velvet gloves, skirt,

and slippers. Always aware of her appearance, Lady Nuvielle spread her black cloak over the cushions

to provide a neutral buffer between the two colors.

This was a major reason she wore the cloak despite the late-summer weather—a vast expanse of

black cloth could be very handy for adjusting appearances, even in the lingering heat of Harvest.

She was still straightening her skirt when the young woman reappeared. This time she entered

gracefully, stopped a few feet away at the far end of the couch, and curtsied politely.

"Hello, my lady," she said. "I am Kilisha of Eastgate, apprentice to the master wizard, Ithanalin the

Wise."

Lady Nuvielle smiled with a polite pretense of warmth. "And I am Nuvielle, Lady Treasurer of

Ethshar of the Rocks." She nodded an acknowledgment of the formalities. "Where's your master?"

"In his workshop, my lady, finishing up the spell you ordered. He should be out in a moment."

Then there was indeed a workshop, as she had suspected. "And the spell succeeded?" she asked.

Kilisha hesitated. "Well, to be honest," she said, "I'm not really sure. My master has not informed me

of the details. You wanted an animation of some sort?"

"A pet," Nuvielle agreed. "Just a pet, to ride on my shoulder and keep me company. Something out of

the ordinary, to amuse me."

Kilisha smiled with relief. "Then I think it's succeeded," she said, "and I think you'll be pleased."

"Good!" For a moment the two women stared silently at each other; before the silence could grow

awkward, Nuvielle asked, "How is it I didn't meet you before, when I summoned Ithanalin to the

Fortress to take my order? Shouldn't you have accompanied your master?"

"That was a sixnight ago? Oh, I was running some errands for Ithanalin—for my master," Kilisha

explained, with assumed and unconvincing nonchalance. She glanced about nervously, and tried to

unobtrusively use her skirt to wipe the worst of the dust from the square table that stood beside the little

sofa.

The truth was that Kilisha had been left to baby-sit her master's three children that night, as their

mother Yara had been visiting a friend in the countryside somewhere. Kilisha suspected the timing of that

visit had been deliberate, to keep her at home where she would not risk embarrassing her master in front

of the city's elite.

Sometimes she thought her master didn't need her to embarrass him. Kilisha hoped that Lady

Nuvielle hadn't noticed the dust on the furniture—and in particular, that she hadn't noticed the footprints

visible in it. Kilisha recognized them as spriggan tracks, and some people thought spriggans were

disgusting, unclean creatures. Kilisha thought those people were probably right—but spriggans were

attracted by wizardry, and keeping them out of the shop was almost impossible. They seemed to be able

to get inside no matter how carefully doors and windows were closed and locked—Ithanalin's children

thought they came down the chimney, and Kilisha was not ready to rule that possibility out.

Warning spells could announce their arrival, but none of the wards and barriers Ithanalin

knew—which was admittedly not many, as that sort of magic was not his area of expertise—could keep

them out, any more than locked doors could. Spriggans ran hither and yon almost unhindered, and one of

them had clearly run across the end table.

If there were only some way to make the little pests useful, Kilisha thought—but then she pushed the

thought aside and tried to concentrate on Lady Nuvielle. Ithanalin always told her to focus on the

customer—magicians were paid for pleasing their patrons, not just for working magic.

And pleasing the Lady Treasurer, who happened to be not merely a top city official but the

next-to-youngest of the overlord's several aunts, was especially important. Kilisha could not help being

aware that she was in the presence of high-ranking nobility.

Lady Nuvielle noticed the girl's nervousness and smiled again, debating whether to try to put the girl at

ease, or whether to tease her and enjoy her discomfort. Still undecided, she asked a neutral question.

"Ithanalin is an unusual name. Is it Tintallionese?"

"I don't know, my lady," Kilisha replied. "I'm not sure it's any known language. Wizards often take

new names, for one reason or another." She shifted nervously. She was shading the truth; she knew her

master had taken his name from an old book he had read as a boy, and the book was not Tintallionese in

origin.

"I take it you have not dealt with many of your master's clients?" Nuvielle asked.

"Well," Kilisha said, shifting her feet, "I have assisted Ithanalin with his customers for a few years now,

but none of the other customers were as… as distinguished as yourself, my lady."

Nuvielle knew exactly what Kilisha referred to, and that it wasn't just her office of treasurer for the

city of Ethshar of the Rocks. She grew suddenly bored and annoyed with the apprentice's uncase—she

was tired of being feared because of who her brother had been, and who her nephew was. "Oh, calm

down, girl," she said. "Sit down and relax. I'm not going to eat you."

"Yes, my lady," the apprentice said, settling cautiously onto a straight-backed wooden chair set at an

angle to the couch. She tucked her brown wool skirt neatly under her as she sat.

Nuvielle looked Kilisha over. She was a little on the short side, and plumper than was entirely

fashionable just at the moment. Her hair was a nondescript brown, pleasant enough, but utterly dull, worn

long and straight and tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes were hazel—not brown flecked with green, or

green flecked with brown, either of which might sometimes be called hazel—but the real thing, a solid

color somewhere between brown and green, neither one nor the other. Instead of apprentice robes she

wore a plain wool skirt a shade darker than her hair, a pale yellow tunic that came to mid-thigh, and a

stiff leather pouch and a drawstring purse on her belt. A leather-and-feather hair ornament was the only

touch of bright color or interest anywhere about her, and even that was something worn by any number

of girls in Ethshar of the Rocks. Her appearance was absolutely, completely, totally ordinary. The city

held thousands just like her, Nuvielle thought.

Though most, of course, weren't apprenticed to wizards. What sort of a future could anyone so

boring have, in so flamboyant a profession as wizardry? This girl looked utterly dull.

The noblewoman watched Kilisha for a moment, then turned away, determined to ignore the poor

little thing until the wizard arrived.

For her part, Kilisha was admiring this gorgeous customer—or rather, client, as the lady would have

it. The long black cloak, the rich green velvet, the white satin tunic embroidered in gold and scarlet, the

long gloves, the black hair bound up in an elaborate network of braids and ribbons, all seemed to Kilisha

to be the absolute epitome of elegance. When Nuvielle turned her head, Kilisha marveled at the graceful

profile and the smooth white skin. Kilisha had always thought that Yara, Ithanalin's wife, was just about

perfect, but she had to admit that that common soul's appearance couldn't begin to compare with Lady

Nuvielle's.

And Kilisha's own looks, she thought, weren't even up to Yara's.

Then, at last, before she could pursue this depressing line of thought any further, Ithanalin finally

emerged from the workshop, his hands behind his back.

"My apologies for the delay, Lady Nuvielle," he said, with a sketchy sort of bow. "I wanted to be

sure everything about your purchase was perfect."

Kilisha grimaced slightly, unnoticed by the others. The real cause for delay had been the need to

change clothes, from the grubby, stained old tunic that Ithanalin wore when actually working to the

red-and-gold robes he wore for meeting the public. It wouldn't do for customers to see the wizard as

dirty and unkempt as a ditchdigger.

"It's ready, then?" Nuvielle asked.

"Oh, yes," Ithanalin said, bringing one hand out from behind his back.

There, standing on his palm, was a perfect miniature dragon, gleaming black from its pointed snout to

the tip of its curling tail, with eyes, mouth, and claws of blazing red. It unfurled wings that seemed bigger

than all the rest of it put together; they were black on top, red beneath. It folded back sleek black ears,

hiding their red interiors, and hissed, making a sound Kilisha thought was very much like little Pirra's

unsuccessful attempts to whistle.

Nuvielle leaned forward on the couch and studied it critically.

"Does it breathe fire?" she asked.

"No," Ithanalin replied. "You hadn't said it should, and I judged that fiery breath might be unsafe—a

spark might go astray and set a drapery aflame."

Nuvielle nodded.

"Does it fly?"

For answer, Ithanalin tossed the little beast upward; it flapped its wings, then soared away, circling

the room once before coming to land on the arched arm of the couch by Nuvielle's elbow. It wrapped its

tail under the arm, securing itself to its perch, and then stared intently up at its purchaser.

She stared back.

"What's it made of?" she asked.

"Glass, wood, and lacquer, mostly," Ithanalin said, stepping back. "I'm not certain of everything, as I

subcontracted part of its construction. My talents lie in magic, not in sculpture." Noticing something, he

turned and surreptitiously kicked his heel back, straightening the rag rug, which had humped up again.

"It will never grow?" Lady Nuvielle asked.

"No. That's as big as it will ever be."

"Is it male or female?"

"Neither; it's an animated statue, not a true living creature."

Nuvielle nodded slowly. For a moment she was silent. The dragon lost interest in her and began

studying the crimson fabric of the sofa, the black of her cloak, and the carved wood beneath its talons.

"Can it speak?" Nuvielle asked at last.

"Only a few words, as yet," Ithanalin said, apologetically. "I thought you might prefer to teach it

yourself. I also didn't name it, but it responds to 'Dragon.'"

At the word, the little creature looked up, then craned its long neck around to peer at its creator.

"Dragon," Nuvielle whispered.

The head swung back. She held out a hand.

"Say 'here,' " Ithanalin advised.

"Here," she said quietly.

The dragon unwound its tail and leapt from the arm of the couch to the back of her hand. It stared up

at its new owner, and she stared back. Then she looked up. "Excellent, wizard," she said. "Excellent. I'm

very pleased." She rose, and Kilisha hurried to help her on with her cloak—with the imitation dragon

perched on one hand, Lady Nuvielle was limited in what she could manage by herself.

Her free hand brushed against a small purse on her belt; the thong came loose and let it drop to the

upholstery. Kilisha started to say something, and then realized that this had been deliberate, a way of

paying for the purchase without the indignity of haggling.

Nuvielle headed for the door, then stopped and turned back to the wizard. "Does it bite?" she asked.

"No," Ithanalin assured her. "It has no teeth. And its claws are as dull as I could make them without

spoiling its appearance. It needs only a few drops of water each day to keep the wood from cracking,

and no food at all. You needn't worry about feeding it."

"Excellent," Nuvielle said again. She swirled her cloak about her and swept out onto Wizard Street,

her pet held high before her.

Chapter Two

Kilisha watched Lady Nuvielle go, but Ithanalin didn't bother; he picked up the purse and opened it.

He smiled at the sight of its contents, then turned to the workshop door.

"You can come out now," he called.

"I know," Yara answered from the doorway, "but Pirra and Lirrin were fighting again." She emerged,

with her two daughters on either side. Lirrin was eight; Pirra only three. Yara released them, and they

immediately dashed to the front window.

"She's pretty, Daddy," Lirrin remarked.

"I do enjoy working for the nobility," Ithanalin said, as he poured a stream of golden bits into Yara's

outstretched hands.

"You did that with the Familiar Animation?" Kilisha asked, still staring after the departed customer.

"That's right," Ithanalin agreed, his head bent over his wife's hands, counting the coins. "A variant,

actually."

"When are you going to teach me that spell?" Kilisha asked.

"Soon," Ithanalin replied, still counting.

"And when are you going to dust in here?" Yara asked. "Or let me dust it?"

"Soon," he repeated. Then he paused and looked up. "We'll have to close the drapes, of course. We

can't let anyone sec you doing it." He kicked at the rag rug, which was humped again. "You know, I think

I've accidentally animated this stupid thing, at least slightly. This wrinkling can't be natural."

Yara sighed. She suspected Ithanalin was right about the rug, which was certainly a nuisance; she was

convinced he was wrong about the drapes, though. She would have been glad to dust the place in broad

daylight, with an audience, but Ithanalin wouldn't allow it. He insisted it would look bad if anyone saw an

ordinary human being dusting his furniture, rather than a sylph or homun-culus.

Yara had argued often enough that not having anyone dust it looked even worse, but Ithanalin was

adamant. He would only allow housework to be done in the front parlor, the only public part of the shop,

when no customers were expected, and only behind tightly drawn drapes—and since he kept the shop

open long hours, and Yara did like to cat and sleep on occasion, that meant the dusting wasn't done very

often.

Yara thought it was a foolish minor annoyance.

Kilisha thought it was bad advertising, to let the place get so dusty, but she knew better than to argue

with her master. She was just an apprentice; it wasn't her place to say anything, let alone to side against

her master, even if it was only with her master's wife. She had acquired a bit of a reputation for rushing

into things without thinking, but even she wasn't going to argue with the man who controlled almost every

detail of her life.

It had long since occurred to her that as the apprentice in the household she probably ought to do the

dusting herself, but as yet Ithanalin hadn't told her to, and she had enough other obligations that she didn't

care to volunteer.

Ithanalin himself clearly thought that it was in keeping with a wizard's image to let the place get a little

dusty. Wizards were supposed to be somewhat unworldly, after all.

Even so, for the sake of peace, he kept promising to animate something that would do the job, but as

yet he hadn't gotten around to it.

Yara maintained that he never would get around to it, and every so often she would sneak into the

room when Ithanalin was out and run a surreptitious rag over the most offensive surfaces, without

worrying about whether the drapes were drawn.

Kilisha did wonder why the wizard hadn't just animated something long ago and gotten it over with.

She knew Ithanalin was capable of it; the little creature that Lady Nuvielle had just bought was not the

only such she'd seen pass through the shop, so she knew that Ithanalin could make a very nice little

homunculus indeed, if he chose to. Animations were his specialty. He claimed to know more animating

spells than any other wizard in the city, and Kilisha believed him—though as yet he had not taught her any

of them; she had been working her way up through more mundane magic.

He knew all the spells, yet there wasn't a sylph or homunculus or even as much as an animated

serving dish in the entire house. He had just created a familiar for a noblewoman, but had none himself.

Everything he had ever animated had been given away or sold. lie claimed that he didn't want the place

cluttered up with creatures that might interfere with his work, but Kilisha thought he just couldn't be

bothered.

Maybe someday, Kilisha thought as she turned away from the door, she could make a homunculus

for Yara on her own, if Ithanalin never did get around to it; it would be an expression of gratitude for the

treatment she'd had.

Ithanalin was a fine master—polite, informative, an excellent teacher, never beating her or working

her too hard, rarely even yelling at her when she messed something up. A girl could hardly ask for better,

really.

But Ithanalin could be absentminded and careless, and often left Kilisha to fend for herself in the

workshop for extended periods of time, or let her improvise complicated jury-rigged solutions to magical

problems that Ithanalin himself could have solved with a single simple little incantation. He kept telling her

to plan, to think things out for herself—but when she tried, it never seemed to work out, and often

because there was some little detail that Ithanalin had failed to provide.

Yara, though—Yara was always considerate. It was Yara who made sure that Kilisha had clean

bedding, good food, safe water, and all the other basic necessities of life.

Of course, she did the same for her husband, and the three children, and herself. It was she who kept

the entire household running smoothly at all times. She was more than just a housekeeper, though—she

loved her husband and her children and showed it, she provided the household with firm common sense

when it was called for, and she was even sometimes a friend when Kilisha needed one. Ithanalin was fine,

but he was her master, and sometimes she needed someone to talk to who wasn't her master. The three

children—Telleth, Lirrin, and Pirra—were sweet enough, but too young to understand the concerns of a

girl of seventeen. Telleth, the oldest, was only ten. Kilisha couldn't often talk to her parents or her brother

Opir—they still lived in Eastgate, a mile away, and she was rarely free to visit there.

Much of the time there was only Yara—but she was usually enough.

Kilisha knew she would have to animate a few things herself in order to learn the relevant spells;

perhaps, as part of her training, if Ithanalin didn't insist her creations be sold, she could provide Yara with

the magical servants Ithanalin had never bothered to create.

But she had less than a year of her apprenticeship remaining, and had not yet been taught a single one

of the spells that were Ithanalin's specialty and primary source of income—a fact that distressed her.

"Master," Kilisha said, "please—could I please learn an animation spell next?"

Ithanalin looked up at her, startled by the intensity in her voice.

"All right," he said. "We'll start on the seventeenth, the day after tomorrow—I have another important

customer coming tomorrow, and it will take me most of the day to get his spell ready, so we can't do it

then. But Kilisha, it may still be more than you can handle, even yet—animation spells are tricky." He

thought for a moment, then added, "We'll start with the simplest I know. It's called the Spell of the

Obedient Object—you've seen me use it. It's not the simplest there is, by any means, just the simplest I

know. We'll need the blood of a gray cat, and one of these gold coins—I'll have to look the rest up. Day

after tomorrow, right after breakfast, then. You'll have to find a gray cat tomorrow—I don't have any

more cat's blood in stock. Besides, it'll keep you out of the way while I'm working."

Kilisha grinned. "Thank you, Master!" she said. She almost bounced with joy.

"That's tomorrow," Yara said, bringing her back to earth. "Right now, I'd like you to watch Pirra

while I get our dinner."

Kilisha sighed, and smoothed out a hump in the rag rug by the door. "Yes, Mistress," she said.

Chapter Three

Kilisha eyed the gray cat warily; the cat stared inscrutably back.

Maybe, Kilisha thought, she was going about this wrong.

It had seemed perfectly reasonable to chase this stray; after all, she needed a gray cat, and this one

had walked right in front of her as she strolled down Wizard Street. If she had thought about it at all she

would have taken it as a sign from the gods—but she should have remembered how fond the gods were

of jokes.

Now she stood precariously balanced on a broken crate, trying to reach the cat while it sat calmly

watching her from a second-floor windowsill that was just a few inches beyond Kilisha's outstretched

fingers.

"Here, puss," Kilisha crooned. "Come on. I'm not going to kill you, I just need a little blood."

The cat didn't move.

Kilisha stretched a little farther, on the very edge of overbalancing.

The cat flicked its tail against the windowpane with an audible thump, then stood up and stretched.

Kilisha waited, hoping it would jump down, back within reach.

Something rattled, and the window casement swung inward.

"Come on in, Smoky," a child's voice said.

The cat gave Kilisha one last look, one the apprentice would have sworn was a supercilious sneer,

and then climbed in through the open window, out of sight.

"No, wait!" Kilisha called. "Wait!" She reached too far; the window closed with a thump, wood

cracked under her foot, and she tumbled down into the alley.

A moment later she had untangled herself from the wreckage and gotten upright once more; as she

brushed dirt and splinters from her tunic she concluded that yes, she was going about this wrong. Trying

to find a stray gray cat in the streets of Ethshar was simply too haphazard an enterprise; for one thing, as

this latest incident demonstrated, there was no way to tell a true stray from someone's pet. Not everyone

put bows, bells, and collars on their cats.

She had set out with no definite plan of action, and Smoky's appearance had convinced her she didn't

need one.

She should have known better. Ithanalin was always telling her to plan ahead, and she kept forgetting

and charging ahead without thinking.

She looked around thoughtfully. She couldn't ask Ithanalin for advice; by now he would be deep in

his spell-casting, and an interruption might be disastrous. Yara and the children were out for the

day—Yara at the market, the children playing with neighbors across the back courtyard—so as not to

disturb Ithanalin. It was up to her.

Finding a cat shouldn't be a problem, though. It wasn't as if she'd been sent after dragon's blood or

the hair of an unborn babe. Ethshar of the Rocks might be short of dragons, and its unborn children might

be inaccessible, but there were plenty of cats.

Many of the aristocrats of Highside and Center City, westward toward the sea, kept cats—as well as

any number of more exotic pets, such as Lady Nuvielle's miniature imitation dragon. Kilisha doubted that

she'd find any aristocrats who cared to let a scruffy apprentice draw blood from their pampered darlings,

though. At least, not without demanding more money than she could afford.

To the east was the Lakeshore district, and to the north was Norcross—both solidly middle class,

home to assorted tradesmen and bureaucrats. Kilisha had the impression that their taste in pets ran more

to watchdogs than cats.

The Arena district was a few blocks to the south, though, and that seemed promising.

Or if she just strolled along Wizard Street…

She knew several cats, belonging to magicians of every sort. Unfortunately, none of them were really

gray—most magicians seemed to prefer black, and while there were a few tigers and tabbies mixed in,

she didn't remember a single gray.

Maybe someone else would, though.

And if all else failed, she could go to a professional wizards' supply house—there was Kara's Arcana,

on Arena Street just around the corner from Wizard Street. That would be expensive, even for something

as simple as cat's blood, she was sure.

She sighed again and began walking.

Five hours later, around the middle of the afternoon, she finally headed homeward, a tightly stoppered

vial of dark blood tucked in the purse on her belt. She owed the priestess Illure a favor for this, and she

Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 8 - Ithanalin's Restoration

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