Taking Flight loe-5 Read online

  Taking Flight

  ( Legends of Ethshar - 5 )

  Lawrence Watt-Evans

  She was everything he wanted, and everything he had been promised. A fortune-teller’s prophecy had sent Kelder of Shulara to seek adventure along the Great Highway. He had been ready to give it up, and dismiss the seer as a fraud, when he met Irith. Irith was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was bright and charming and cheerful. And she had wings. Kelder tried to earn Irith’s love and respect. He tried to please her, and to fulfill the prophecy that seemed to say he would one day marry her. But as he came to know her, he began to realize that she was not quite what she appeared to be. She was not just a lovely young woman. She was not even entirely human. She had ruined men’s lives. And he needed to learn what she truly was before she destroyed him, as well. What he would learn, and where he would go, would makes its mark on the destiny of Ethshar.

  Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Taking Flight

  Prologue

  The girl squirmed on her seat, and the old woman cast her a quick, angry glance. She quieted, and the woman turned back to her customer.

  “Well, lad,” she said, “what would you have of me?”

  The boy hesitated.

  “I’m... I’m Kelder of Shulara,” he said.

  “I know,” she replied, nodding.

  It was a lie, of course; she hadn’t known anything of the sort. In fact, it struck her suddenly that the name might be false, and instead of looking omniscient she might look foolish if she believed it. “Kelder of Shulara” — well, really, that probably was a lie! And not a very original one, at that. Smoothly, so that the boy saw no pause, she winked at him and continued, in a mysterious tone, “I know all I need to know.”

  The lad looked suitably confused and impressed. Behind him, the little girl rolled her eyes upward and mouthed something — it looked like, “Oh, come on, Grandma!”

  “So, Kelder of Shulara,” the woman went on, a bit hurriedly, “you have come to Zindre the Seer to learn your future — and I see it laid out before me, vast and shining. There is too much to tell you all of it, my child, for your life will be long and rich; you must ask me specific questions, and I shall answer them all...”

  The girl cleared her throat. Her grandmother glared at her and continued, “...at the cost of merely three bits apiece.”

  Kelder, fortunately, didn’t notice any of the byplay between Zindre and her granddaughter; he was staring intently at the crystal bowl on the table before him, as if he expected to see something in it himself.

  That was an uncomfortable thought; Zindre did not like the idea of a customer who had real magic.

  But surely the boy couldn’t have any magic; he was just a peasant.

  He cleared his own throat, and asked, “Will I ever get out of Shulara?”

  That was an easy one. “Oh, yes,” Zindre said. “You shall go, and you shall go far, beyond the hills and into strange lands, and you shall return safely.” He probably wouldn’t, but she knew what he wanted to hear.

  “Return? I’ll come back?”

  Zindre suppressed a frown and silently cursed herself for not listening more carefully to the boy’s tone and phrasing. “Oh, yes,” she said. “You will return, covered in glory, to tell those who remained behind of the wonders you saw.”

  “To stay?” Kelder asked; then something registered, and without waiting for an answer he asked, “Wonders? What wonders?”

  “Many wonders,” Zindre said quickly, hoping to distract the boy from the question of exactly where he was going to wind up. “Great cities and vast plains, strange beasts and beautiful women, and much mighty magic.” She usually threw in something about mountains, rather than plains, but in a place as hilly as Shulara she thought that plains would be more exotic and intriguing.

  “Magic? But what will I do? Where will I go?”

  Zindre gestured broadly and stared into the bowl before replying, “The magic is strange, of a kind I have never seen, and that neither wizards nor witches know. It will both be yours and not be yours. You will roam free, unfettered, and you will be a champion of the lost and forlorn, honored by the dead and those yet unborn.” That should sound vague and mysterious enough to suit anyone.

  From the corner of her eye she saw her granddaughter clearly signing to ease up a little; Zindre reviewed what she had just said and decided the girl was right, she had been getting carried away. “As for where,” she said, “I see a long road stretching before me, but just which road it might be I cannot say.”

  Kelder’s disappointment showed on his face. The granddaughter broke in.

  “Excuse me,” she said, “but that makes fifteen bits, and you only paid a single round; I’ll need another before you ask my grandmother any more questions.”

  Kelder turned, startled, and stared at her, open-mouthed.

  She held out a hand.

  Abashed, Kelder dug in the purse at his belt and pulled out another copper round. “That’s all I have,” he said.

  “That leaves one bit,” the girl said. “Do you want change, or one more question? My grandmother will answer one more at discount.”

  “Another question,” Kelder said immediately.

  “Think well before you speak, then, Kelder of Shulara,” Zindre intoned.

  Kelder thought.

  “Tell me about the girl I’ll marry,” he said at last.

  Zindre nodded. “She will be bright and beautiful, with a laugh like birdsong,” she said, “with a magic all her own. You will bring her to your home in pride and delight, and spend your life with her in joy.” That one was easy; it was a standard question, and she had used that standard reply a hundred times, at least.

  “Children?” Kelder asked.

  “Money?” the granddaughter demanded.

  Woebegone, Kelder admitted, “I don’t have any more.”

  “It matters not,” Zindre said quickly. “The vision dims; the spell is fading away. I could tell you little more in any case.” She picked up a green cloth and dropped it neatly over the crystal bowl.

  “Oh,” Kelder said. Reluctantly, he stood.

  The granddaughter gestured toward the door of the hut, and Kelder, with a polite little bow, departed. The girl escorted him out, and closed the door behind him.

  When the door was shut the girl said, “I guess he believed it.”

  “Of course he did!” said Zindre, bustling about, adjusting the hangings on the walls and straightening candles that had slumped as the wax melted unevenly. “Are there any more?”

  “No,” the girl said. “You know, Grandma, I still don’t understand how we can get away with this — can’t anybody tell real magic from lies?”

  “Those that can,” Zindre said complacently, “don’t come to us in the first place.”

  Outside, in the gathering dusk, Kelder found two of his sisters chattering with the smith’s daughter, near the forge. “Where have you been?” Salla demanded, as her little brother ran up.

  “Talking to the seer,” he said.

  All three girls turned to stare at him. “Oh, Kelder, you didn’t,” Edara said.

  “Didn’t what?” Kelder asked defensively.

  “You didn’t spend all your money on that charlatan!”

  “No, I didn’t!” Kelder replied angrily.

  “How much did you spend?” Salla asked.

  “Not that much,” he said.

  “How much?”

  “Two rounds,” he admitted.

  “Oh, Kelder!” Edara sighed.

  “Magic is expensive!” he protested.

  “Kelder,” Salla told him, “she doesn’t have any more magic than I do! She’s an old fake! A liar!”

  “No, sh
e isn’t!”

  “Yes, she is! She’s here every year, and none of her predictions have ever come true.”

  “Not yet, maybe,” Kelder said.

  “Never, Kelder. She’s a fake. None of what she told you is going to come true.”

  “Yes, it will,” Kelder said. “You just wait and see!” He turned away, hurt and angry, and muttered to himself, “It will come true.”

  A moment later he added, “I’ll make it come true.”

  Chapter One

  Kelder sat down on the grassy hilltop and set his pack down beside him. The gods were pouring darkness across the sky, now that the sun was below the horizon, and it was, in his considered opinion, time to stop for the night.

  This would be the third night since he had left home — and by the feel of it, the coldest yet. Which was quite unfair; this was spring, after all, and the days were supposed to be getting warmer, not colder.

  He looked down the slope at the road below, still faintly visible in the gathering gloom as a pale strip of bare dirt between the dark expanses of grass on either side. On the near side that grass was at the foot of the hill he sat upon, while on the opposite side, the north, the land flattened out remarkably.

  He was beyond the hills, at any rate.

  This was cattle country, so there were no tilled fields to be seen, and at this hour all the livestock had gone home, wherever home might be. The road below was the only work of human origin anywhere in sight.

  Kelder was pretty sure that that road was the Great Highway. He stared at it in disappointment.

  It was not at all what he had expected.

  He had imagined that he would find it bustling with travelers, with caravans and wandering minstrels, escaping slaves and marching armies, as busy as a village square on market day. He had thought it would be lined with inns and shops, that he would be able to trot on down and find jolly company in some tavern, where he could spend his scrupulously-hoarded coins on ale and oranges, and then win more coins from careless strangers who dared to dice with him — and the fact that he had never played dice before did not trouble his fantasies at all. He had envisioned himself watching a wizard perform wonders, and then escorting a comely wench up the stairs, flinging a few bits to a minstrel by the hearth as he passed, making clever remarks in half a dozen languages. Everyone would admire his wit and bravery, and he would be well on his way to fulfilling the seer’s prophecy.

  Instead he saw nothing but a long, barren strip of hard-packed dirt, winding its way between the hills on either side, and utterly empty of life.

  He sighed, and pulled open the flap of his pack.

  He should have known better, he told himself as he pulled out his blanket. Life was not what the seers and storytellers made it out to be. Much as he hated to admit it, it looked just about as drab and dreary as his sisters had always said it was. It wasn’t just the family farm that was tedious, as he had always thought; it was, it now appeared, the entire World.

  And he should have guessed that, he told himself, from his previous expeditions.

  The first time he had run away had been the week after his visit to Zindre the Seer at the village market. He had only been twelve.

  That had been rash, and he had been young; Zindre had never implied that he would begin his journey so young.

  Kelder had had reasons, though. His father, determined to keep the family farm in the family and having let all three of Kelder’s older sisters arrange to marry away, had adamantly refused to arrange an apprenticeship or a marriage for Kelder; Kelder was going to inherit the farm, whether he wanted it or not, and settling the legacy on him meant no apprenticeship, no arranged marriage.

  It had meant that Kelder was expected to spend the rest of his life on that same piece of ground, seeing nothing of the World, learning nothing of interest, doing no good for anyone, but only carrying on the family traditions. That was hardly roaming “free and unfettered,” as the seer had promised, or being “a champion of the lost and forlorn.”

  Kelder had not wanted to spend the rest of his life on that same piece of ground carrying on the family traditions.

  So, frustrated and furious, he had left, convinced excitement and adventure must surely wait just across the ridge. He had wandered off that first time without so much as a stale biscuit in the way of supplies, and had crossed the ridge, only to find more dismal little farms much like his own family’s.

  He had stayed away a single night, but his hunger the following morning had driven him back to his mother’s arms.

  The next time he left, when he was thirteen, he had packed a lunch and stuffed a dozen bits in iron into his belt-purse, and had marched over not just one ridge, but a dozen or more — four or five miles, at least, and maybe farther. He had known that soldiers were said to march twenty or thirty miles a day, but he had been satisfied; he hadn’t hurried, had rested often, and the hills had slowed him down.

  And when darkness had come spilling over the sky, he had spent the night huddled under a haystack. He had continued the following day — but around noon, when his lunch was long gone and he had still seen nothing but more ridges and more little farms, he had decided that the time of the prophecy’s fulfillment had not yet come, and he had turned back.

  The spring after that, at fourteen, he had plotted and planned for a month before he set out to seek his fortune. He had carried sensible foods, a good blanket, three copper bits and a dozen iron, and a sharp knife.

  He had made it to his intended destination, Shulara Keep, by noon of the second day, and he had done so without much difficulty. But then, after the initial thrill of seeing a genuine castle had faded somewhat, and the excitement of the crowds in the market square had dimmed, he had found himself unsure what to do next. He had not dared to speak to anyone — they were all strangers.

  Finally, when the castle guard had shooed him out at sunset, he had given up and again headed home.

  At fifteen he had decided to try again. He had again gone to Shulara Keep, and then continued to the west, until on the morning of the third day he had come to Elankora Castle. Elankora was “beyond the hills,” and while it wasn’t any place particularly interesting, it was a “strange land” in that it wasn’t Shulara, so it was a step in the right direction.

  There he had encountered a problem that had never occurred to him. Most of the people of Elankora spoke no Shularan, and he, for his own part, knew only a dozen words in Elankoran. Realizing his mistake, and frustrated by the language barrier, he had turned homeward once more.

  That was last year. This time he had prepared for that. He had found tutors — which had not been easy — and had learned a smattering of several dialects, judging that he could pick up more with practice when the need arose.

  Old Chanden had taught him some Aryomoric and a few words of Uramoric. Tikri Tikri’s son, across the valley, had turned out to speak Trader’s Tongue, and Kelder had learned as much of that as he could — it was said that throughout the World, merchants who spoke Trader’s Tongue could be found in every land.

  Several neighbors spoke Elankoran and Ressamoric, but he could not find anyone willing to waste time teaching him; he had to settle for picking up a few bits and pieces.

  Most amazing of all, though, Luralla the Inquisitive, that bane of his childhood, spoke Ethsharitic! Her grandmother had taught her — though why her recently-deceased grandmother had spoken it no one seemed to know.

  It had even been worth putting up with Luralla’s teasing to learn that! After all, it was said that the Hegemony of Ethshar was bigger than all the Small Kingdoms put together — so it was said, and he had never heard it contradicted, so he judged it to be the truth.

  And if he was to see great cities and vast plains, that could well mean Ethshar.

  Kelder had discovered, to his pleased surprise, that each language he attempted was easier than the one before. He had feared that his brain would fill up with words until he could fit no more, but instead he had found patterns,
similarities between the different tongues, so that learning a third language was easier than a second, and the fourth was easier still.

  Even so, a year’s spare time, given the distractions caused by all his chores on the farm, was not enough to really become fluent in any of them. He felt he could get by well enough in Trader’s Tongue, and knew enough Ethsharitic to avoid disaster in the event no other tongue would serve. In Aryomoric he was, he judged, about on a par with a three-year-old, while in Uramoric and Ressamoric and Elankoran he knew only scattered phrases.

  But then, he didn’t intend to need Uramoric or Ressamoric or Elankoran, or even Aryomoric. He had decided to strike out to the north, all the way to the Great Highway, where his Trader’s Tongue and Ethsharitic could be put to use — to the Great Highway that ran between the legendary bazaars of Shan on the Desert to the east, and the huge, crowded complexity of the Hegemony of Ethshar, with its ancient capital, Ethshar of the Spices, to the west. The seer had said she saw a road stretching before her that he would travel — what other road could it be, but the Great Highway?

  So he had set out, his pack on his shoulder, and for three days he had marched north, through pastures and meadows, past farms and villages, through most of Shulara into Sevmor, and then from one end of Sevmor to the other.

  At least, he thought he had passed beyond Sevmor, because he had never heard of any highways that ran through Sevmor. The Great Highway ran through Hlimora, and he therefore now believed himself to be in Hlimora.

  What else could that road be, but the Great Highway?

  And what was it, but a long strip of dirt?

  Three days of thirst, sore feet, and backache had taken much of the glamor out of his plans, and the sight of that empty road was the pebble that sank the barge. This trip, like the others, was a failure.

  Maybe his sisters had been right all along, and Zindre the Seer was nothing but a lying old woman. He would never see the great cities she had promised him, the strange beasts and beautiful women, the mighty magic.