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travel. "I didn't." The emptiness of the trail hadn't seemed strange to her at
the time. It did now.
"I don't suppose you can conjure one?" asked a middle-aged woman dryly,
tamping down her pipe.
The room rippled with laughter.
"I could," Magdelene admitted.
The room fell silent.
Magdelene cleared her throat. She might as well get it over with. "I'm the
most powerful wizard in the world," she began. The middle-aged woman
snorted. "Says who?"
"Well, uh ..."
"Doesn't matter. Would this conjured trader do us any good?"
"Probably not." A trader conjured suddenly into the village would be more
likely to trade in strong hysterics than anything useful. "I thought as much."
The woman expertly lit her pipe with a spill from the lamp. "What in Neto's
breath are we wasting our time here for, that's what I want to know?"
"1 thought you might like to know that a stranger, a wizard, has come to the
village," Carlos told her tartly. She snorted again. "All right. Now we know."
She pointed the stem of her pipe at Magdelene and demanded, "You planning
on causing any trouble?"
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"Of course not," Magdelene declared emphatically. She never planned on
causing any trouble. "Will you keep your nose out of what doesn't concern
you?" She had to think about that for a moment, wondering how broad a
definition could be put on what didn't concern her. "I'll try."
"See that you do."
"So I can stay for a while?"
"For a while." Her head wreathed in smoke, the woman rose. "That's that,
then," she said shortly, and left. The headman sighed and raised both hands
in a gesture of defeat. You heard her. You can go." As people began to leave,
Magdelene leaned over and whispered to Carlos, "Why does he let her get
away with that?" Carlos snickered, his palm lying warm and dry on
Magdelene's arm. "Force of habit," he said in his normal speaking voice.
"She's his older sister, raised him after their mother drowned. Refused to be
headwoman, said she didn't have the time, but she runs every meeting he
calls." The headman smiled, for Carlos's speech had risen clearly over the
noise of the departing villagers. "Look at it this way, grandfather, the village
gets two fish on one piece of bait. I do all the work and Yolanda does all the
talking." He stood, stretched, and turned to Magdelene. "Have you got a bed,
Wizard?"
Studying the muscles of his torso, still corded and firm for all his forty-odd
years, Magdelene considered several replies. All of which she discarded after
catching a speaking glance from the headman's wife.
"While the weather holds," she sighed, "I'm perfectly comfortable under
my cart."
"And I am perfectly comfortable," she sighed again a half hour later,
plumping up the pillows on her huge feather bed, "but I wouldn't mind some
company." As if in answer to her request, the canvas flaps hanging from the
sides of the cart parted and Juan poked in his head. "I was thinking," she
muttered to whatever gods were listening, "of company a little older."
Juan blinked, shook his head, and gazed around curiously. "How'd you get
all this stuff under here?" he demanded.
"I told you," Magdelene poured herself a glass of chilled grape juice, "I'm
the most powerful wizard in the world." She dabbed at the spreading purple
stain on the front of her tunic. "Can I fix your arm now?"
He didn't answer, just crawled forward and found himself in a large room
that held-besides the bed-a wardrobe, an overstuffed armchair, and a huge
book bound in red leather lying closed on a wooden stand. "Where's the
wagon?"
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Magdelene pointed at the ceiling, impressed by his attitude. She'd had one
or two supposed adults fall gibbering to the carpet.
Juan looked up. Dark red runes had been scrawled across the rough boards
of the ceiling. "What's that writing on there?"
"The spell that allows this room to exist."
"Oh." He had little or no interest in spells. "Got any more juice?"
She handed him a full glass and watched him putter about, poking his nose
into everything. Setting his glass down on the book, he pulled open the
wardrobe door.
"What's that?"
"It's a demon trapped in a mirror, what's it look like?" She'd hung the
mirror on the door that afternoon, figuring H'sak was safer there than in the
wagon. "How long's he been in there?"
"Twelve years."
"How long you gonna keep him in there?"
"Until I let him out." An answer that would have infuriated an adult, suited
Juan fine. He took one last admiring look at H'sak, finished his juice, and
handed Magdelene the empty glass. "I better get home."
"Juan." About to step through the canvas walls, he glanced back over his
shoulder. "You still haven't told me if I can fix your arm." His gaze slid over to
the demon and then back to the wizard. He shrugged. "Maybe later," he said,
and left. Magdelene spent most of the next three days with Carlos. The
children treated her like an exotic curiosity and she tried to live up to their
expectations. The adults treated her with a wary suspicion and she tried not
to live up to theirs. Carlos treated her like a friend. The oldest in the village by [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]