Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Information

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Copyright Information

  Copyright © 2018 by Lawrence Watt-Evans.

  Cover art by Charles Bernard.

  All rights reserved.

  *

  Published by Wildside Press LLC.

  wildsidepress.com

  Dedication

  Dedicated to Jeffry Dwight & Steve Ratzlaff

  for twenty years of making me feel at home on the net.

  Prologue

  3rd of Summerheat, YS 5227

  Zerra the Ageless was relaxing on her balcony one afternoon, enjoying the warm weather and a glass of fine Shularan wine, when a scrap of paper tumbled down out of the sky and landed in her lap.

  She stared at it, startled, then sighed and set her glass down. She picked up the paper, unfolded it, and read: “Bring your carpet to the home of Erdrik the Grim, on Old East Avenue in the south end of the New City, as soon as possible.” The signature, of course, was “Ithinia.”

  Zerra gazed up at a clear blue sky and felt the gentlest of breezes, faintly scented with the spices for which the city was named. A bird called somewhere in the distance. It was, she had to admit, a fine day for flying. She got out of her chair, picked up her glass, and went inside.

  A moment later, she emerged dragging a heavy roll of carpet. She dropped it with a thud, pushed her chair all the way to one end of the balcony to make room, then unrolled the rug.

  It filled the entire depth of the balcony, the hem on one side brushing up against the wall and threshold, while the other touched the uprights in the railing. About fifteen feet long, its gold and green silk shone in the afternoon sun. Zerra seated herself cross-legged in the center, settled in, took a deep breath, then said a single word, “Soorgeh.”

  The carpet rose gently, lifting a yard or so above the planking, and Zerra commanded, “Maweyat ooday mannumeya!”

  The fabric rippled.

  Zerra raised a hand and moved it sideways; the carpet turned in the same direction and floated over the balcony railing, over the garden behind her house. Satisfied that Varrin’s Lesser Propulsion was still working properly—it was due to be renewed soon, so it might be getting quirky—she sent the carpet soaring upward, into the warm, clear air above the rooftops of the Wizards’ Quarter, then westward, across Arena to the centuries-old district still called the New City.

  A moment later she let it settle down to just a few feet above the hard-packed dirt of Old East Avenue. Ithinia of the Isle, senior Guildmaster of Ethshar of the Spices, waited there, standing very straight in her customary white robes. Other people, some of them more junior wizards, paused to watch the flying carpet, but no one dared approach. Zerra was sure they were more intimidated by Ithinia than by the carpet.

  “What’s going on?” Zerra called, still seated in the center of the rug.

  “We finally got into Erdrik’s house,” Ithinia called back, stepping nearer to the carpet’s edge. “Using Kandir’s Impregnable Sphere.” She pointed to the tall black house across the street, where the iron-bound front door stood open.

  Zerra tilted her head. “It was that easy?”

  “No. It wasn’t easy.” Ithinia frowned. “We had to strip away about fifteen different wards and protections first, and then we had to use Lirrim’s Rectification to repair the hole we made, but the Impregnable Sphere was what finally got us inside.”

  “Was Erdrik in there?”

  “No. He’s gone. Not a trace of him. And we can’t find any portals or tapestries or Transporting Fissures or anything else that might tell us where he went. The whole house is awash in wizardry, but none of it obviously involves transportation—at least, none that we’ve found and identified. I don’t think he was transported away; I think he probably had a spell go wrong, and it killed him.”

  “Really? He was a very good wizard.”

  “He was a powerful wizard, certainly,” Ithinia acknowledged, “but I’m not sure I’d call him a good one—he was reckless and arrogant, and he probably got sloppy.”

  “Maybe,” Zerra said.

  “Well, whatever really happened, we are going to tell the overlord that we think a spell went wrong and killed him,” Ithinia said. “And if Erdrik ever does turn up alive, I think we may arrange a little accident of our own. I’m tired of cleaning up his messes and apologizing to the overlord and paying Erdrik’s taxes for him. I’d have happily killed him long ago myself if I was sure I could do it without wrecking the entire neighborhood. Two centuries of his abuse is more than enough.”

  “Fine,” Zerra said, raising a hand in surrender. “He’s gone and you’re glad, and the Guild’s reputation here should be better in the future, if a little less terrifying. But what am I doing here? You said you wanted my carpet; what for?”

  “Because the next step, my dear Zerra, is cleaning out this nightmare house as best we can. It’s full of magic; it makes my own house look like an empty shed. And a lot of it is bloody dangerous magic; we’re probably going to be clearing traps for months. He’s been accumulating clutter for more than two hundred years, and we can’t leave all of it in there. The worst of it needs to go. And I don’t want to parade some of it through the streets—I want to fly it away, safely out of everyone’s reach. And that, of course, is what you do.”

  That was true. Although Zerra had trained in a variety of magics, like every other wizard, she found she made a comfortable living renting out her services as the pilot of a flying carpet. It was safer than operating the usual wizard’s shop. She did keep her hand in with various other spells when the opportunity arose, but did not bother with a proper storefront or workshop or even a signboard—word of mouth kept her comfortably employed.

  There were other wizards with flying carpets, of course, but she wa
s the only one in Ethshar of the Spices who specialized in operating one.

  That still left a major question, though.

  “Fly it where?” she asked.

  “Well, some of it is going to my place, and some of it to that Guild warehouse in Eastwark, and some of it, I think, we may want to just drop into the ocean a hundred miles offshore. Or maybe entirely over the edge of the World.”

  “I’ve never flown over the edge,” Zerra said. “I’m not sure I can.”

  “Well, maybe you won’t need to. We’ve only just begun sorting through it all.”

  “And what are you going to do with the house when it’s been cleaned out? It still has all those protective spells. I can feel them. Can you shut them all down?”

  Ithinia sighed. “Probably not,” she said. “I think the Guild is going to have to buy this place from the overlord, after he claims it for unpaid taxes, and keep it closed up. It won’t be empty, by any means. You’ll be hauling out the worst of the mess, but we won’t move everything; I don’t think we could, even if we wanted to. It may never be safe.”

  “I see.” Zerra looked up at the house, a towering stone monstrosity that looked thoroughly out of place among the graceful mansions and walled gardens of the New City. “How much do you think you’ll need me and my carpet?”

  “Far more than I’d like. And before you ask, yes, the Guild will pay you, at our usual almost-generous rates.”

  “In gold, or silver?”

  “Gold.”

  Zerra dipped her head in the seated equivalent of a bow.

  “In that case, Guildmaster, I am at your disposal. Where shall we start?”

  Chapter One

  Morvash of the Shadows

  22nd of Greengrowth, YS 5238

  Morvash of the Shadows leaned over the rail, ignoring the glares of the crewmen who obviously wished passengers would stay below, out of sight and out of their way, while the ship maneuvered up the Grand Canal into the heart of Ethshar of the Spices. One advantage of being a wizard, though, was that no one was going to actually order him to move, so he was able to stay where he was and watch.

  The warehouses of Spicetown slid by to starboard. Stretching a little and peering forward, he could see the yellow walls and red tile roof of the overlord’s palace. Judging by the shouted orders and the men hauling ropes, though, the ship would not be going that far.

  Indeed, a moment later the first mooring line was flung to a waiting dockworker, and the ship’s forward motion slowed to a stop. Morvash watched with interest as that first rope was used to haul a much larger, heavier rope, which was then secured to a bollard at the end of a wooden dock. A second line quickly followed, then a third and a fourth; when those had been pulled tight, securing the ship to the dock, two more were added. That seemed unnecessarily thorough to Morvash, but he assumed the sailors knew what they were doing.

  Once all six lines were secured, men ran the gangplank out, and the bustle on the deck shifted focus. Most of the sails had been taken in before venturing into the crowded waters of the canal, but now the remaining canvas was furled and various parts of the ship’s superstructure were secured or rearranged. To Morvash, it all seemed to be happening very quickly; he supposed the sailors had done it all hundreds of times and knew exactly what was going on, but Morvash had no idea what all the complicated actions were for.

  Morvash turned his attention to the dock just as a carriage came rattling to a stop on the heavy planks. He squinted to see better. The coach was painted in his family’s colors, maroon and silver, so it was probably his uncle’s.

  He straightened, turned toward the stern, and called, “May I go ashore now?”

  The captain stood on the afterdeck, keeping an eye on his ship and crew, but now he glanced down at the wizard. “Please yourself,” he said.

  Morvash nodded and made his way to the gangplank.

  His feet had just landed on the dock when the carriage door opened and a man stepped out, a man considerably fatter than Morvash remembered his uncle to be, and with gray hair rather than black—but it had been a long, long time, and the face looked familiar.

  “Morvash?” the fat man called.

  “Uncle Gror?” Morvash picked up his pace, and the two men met and embraced midway between the ship and the coach.

  “Welcome to Ethshar of the Spices!” Gror exclaimed. “You’ve grown!”

  “I would hope so,” Morvash said. “I was eight the last time you saw me.”

  Gror laughed. “And here you are, a grown man and a wizard! It’s been too long.”

  “You could have come to visit us,” Morvash said. “My mother and Uncle Kargan would have been glad to see you.” He did not mention his father; Gror and Morrin had never gotten along very well.

  “Oh, I’ve seen all I need of Kargan,” Gror said, slapping Morvash on the back. “He’s here every year, and all he does is complain about the prices.”

  “I can believe it,” Morvash replied. “But when was the last time you saw my mother, or my brothers?”

  “Far too long ago, I admit,” Gror said. He looked at the ship. “How was your voyage? Do you have luggage?”

  “The journey went well enough,” Morvash said. “We had calm seas, and I frightened off some pirates near Shan with a simple pyrotechnic spell.”

  “I don’t suppose the captain saw fit to pay you for defending his ship?”

  “Of course not. But I did eat better after that.”

  “And your luggage?”

  “I’m afraid there’s a lot of it—possibly more than will fit in your carriage. Shall I hire a wagon to have it brought to the house?”

  “Oh, I’ll have my staff fetch it. Just tell the captain.”

  “I think that would be the purser’s concern, but I’ll tell someone.”

  “I hope there won’t be any serious pilferage.”

  Morvash laughed. “Uncle, I’m a wizard! Nobody steals from a wizard. I’ve drawn runes on every case, just to be sure.”

  Gror looked intrigued. “What sort of runes? What do they do?”

  Morvash leaned close. “Nothing,” he whispered. “But they look like magic, and that should be enough.”

  Gror smiled. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t meddle with a wizard’s belongings if I saw mystic runes on them. Come on, then, let’s get home.”

  Morvash started to say something about it not being his home, but he caught himself. It was his home now, at least for the moment.

  Instead, he turned back to the ship and called out his farewells to the captain and crew.

  * * * *

  Half an hour later the carriage rolled through the elegant gates of Gror’s mansion on Canal Avenue, in the heart of the district called the New City. The mansion’s wrought iron gates depicted a pair of dragons; the house itself was of fine yellow brick, with broad windows, white-painted trim, and a red tile roof. It was not very different from the overlord’s palace in style, though of course it was much smaller. It blended nicely with its neighbors. Morvash looked up at the facade and frowned; except for the bright colors, it seemed rather plain, with no turrets or gargoyles. In fact, most of the buildings here seemed pale and insubstantial compared to the architecture of his native city, Ethshar of the Rocks—carved wood and pastel brick and painted plaster, instead of the dark, solid stone structures of home. It probably came of using materials readily to hand; after all, his home city was called Ethshar of the Rocks for a reason, while this Ethshar of the Spices was built on clay and sand.

  “It’s big,” Morvash remarked. “Is it all just for you?”

  “Well, me, and four footmen, and a housekeeper, and a cook, and my driver who is also my gardener. And sometimes I bring a friend home for the night.”

  “Why so many servants?”

  “To take
care of the place, of course.”

  “But why do you need such a big place?”

  “To impress customers. Honestly, that’s all.”

  One of the four footmen opened the carriage door while another held open the door to the house. Morvash climbed out first, then waited for his uncle to lead the way.

  “I hope you’ll like living here,” Gror said, as they crossed the forecourt. “As I understand it, you’re planning an extended stay?”

  “Yes,” Morvash said. “Uncle Kargan…well, he and Mother think it would be unwise to show my face in the Rocks or Tintallion for the foreseeable future.”

  “Your father is still unhappy with you?”

  Morvash nodded.

  “Is it as serious as all that?”

  “I don’t really know,” Morvash admitted as they climbed the steps. “It seems to be. But honestly, Uncle Gror, I didn’t have any choice. Doing what they wanted would have been a violation of Wizards’ Guild rules, and I swore to obey the Guild law—I can be killed if I break it.”

  “Did you tell Morrin and Kargan that?”

  “Of course!”

  “I suppose they thought you were just making excuses. I know Kargan had really been looking forward to having a wizard in the family.”

  Morvash stepped past the footman into the hall, planning to reply, but once he was inside the house he stopped dead. “By the gods!” he said.

  Gror smiled at him. “Impressive, isn’t it?”

  “All these statues!” Morvash said, staring.

  “Lord Landessin collected them,” his uncle said. “The whole house is jammed with statuary of one sort or another.”

  The entry hall certainly was. All four corners held niches displaying full-sized sculptures of beautiful women, and the walls between were covered in shelves, niches, and alcoves holding an assortment of other pieces—stone dogs, metal birds, wooden deer, and men, women, and children of every description in a huge range of sizes and materials.

  “Who’s Lord Landessin?” Morvash asked. “A customer?”