Magic in Ithkar (2 page)

The middle section of the main three holds dealers in foods, clothing, and footwear. Here are weavers, tailors, embroiderers, bottiers, felters, spinners of thread, dealers in needles and pins, booths that sell feathers and plumes, metal-casters’ booths with brooches, torques and arm- or finger- or ear-rings of red copper or bronze or brass or iron. Cookshops abound here, some of them with tasting-booths from which tidbits can be bought, some of them offering cooks and servers for hire to cater private parties or feasts. Also to be found here are the dealers in beers, ales, wines, meads, and certain more potent decoctions, with the result that there are almost always more fair-wards—proud in their tooled-leathern buffcoats and etched, crested brazen helmets, all bearing their lead-filled, bronze-shod quarterstaves—in evidence about the middlemost section.

The easternmost of the three main sections houses the workers in wood and stone—cabinetmakers, woodcarvers, master carpenters, statuette-carvers to master masons. Dealers in glassware are here to be found, candlemakers, purveyors of medicinal herbs, decoctions, scented oils, incense, and perfumeries, potters of every description and class, and lampmakers as well.

In this section one may purchase an alabaster chess set and, a little distance farther along, an inlaid table to accommodate it. Here to be seen and examined are miniature models of the works of the master masons and carpenters, with whom contracts for future work may be arranged; likewise, custom furniture may be ordered from the cabinetmakers.

Within the outskirts of the temple complex itself is a newer, much smaller subsection, centered around the temple’s main gate. Here, where the ever-greedy priests’ agents can keep close watch on them and on their customers, are the money-changers, dealers in letters of credit, public scribes, artisans in fine metals and jewelry, image-makers, a few who deal in old manuscripts, pictures, small art treasures, and oddities found or dug out of strange ruins or distant places. Here, also, are those who deal in items enhanced by magic.

There are a few scattered priests, priestesses, mendicants, and cultists from oversea or far distant lands who worship other gods and are allowed to beg in the streets of the fair. They are, however, strictly forbidden to proselytize and are kept always under strictest surveillance by the men and women of the temple. One such alien god is called Thotharn, and about him and his rites of worship some rather odd and sinister stories have been bruited over the years; a committee of the priests of the Three is conducting secret studies of this god and his servants, while considering banning them from the fair.

Since all who legally enter the fair or the temple must surrender their weapons at the gates and swear themselves and their servants or employees to be bound by fair-law and fair-court for the duration of their stay, the well-trained, disciplined, and often quick-tempered fair-wards, armed with their weighted staves, seldom experience trouble in maintaining order.

The bulk of their work takes them to the middle section, with its array of pot-shops, or to the outer fringes of the enclave, where gather the inevitable collection of rogues, sturdy beggars, bravos, petty wizards, potion-makers and witches, would-be entertainers, snake-charmers, whores, and, it is rumored, more than a few assassins-for-hire.

And now, to all who have paid their gate-offering, welcome to the Fair at Ithkar.

The Lady Ais arrived with her entourage at the site of the great fair three full days before it would officially open. The reason for her early arrival was that she wished to reserve for her pavilion the very choicest and most advantageous position in that area where merchants, ship captains, and private citizens were accustomed to pitch their tents.

This was, in itself, more than a trifle unusual, since a temple building was set aside for the wealthy and for members of the nobility, and the Lady Ais was a member of both classes. Her motive for choosing the freeground over the more comfortable temple building was, however, easily explained: the desire for privacy.

Many of the earlycomers and fair workmen stared curiously as her gauze-veiled palanquin was borne by upon brawny shoulders. There was no question as to what notable reclined within, for her colors—pink, lime green, and silver— fluttered in bunched ribbons from each of the four posts of the palanquin. Many eyes stared, striving to catch a glimpse of the notorious lady through the veilings, which stirred a little before the breezes of late summer. They saw the silhouette of a slim, proud, full-breasted woman of regal, if languid, poise, the glitter of gems, or perhaps the profile of a luminous face, but nothing more.

In her youth, the Lady Ais had been a famous dancer, a celebrated beauty, the mistress of lords and princes. But that was long ago; as her youth and loveliness faded into legend, she had taken a husband, the aged but immensely wealthy Baron Inkus, whose fragile health had not by long survived their nuptials. It was believed by many, even by most, that it had been a subtle poison and not the inexorable accumulation of his years to which the infatuated and enfeebled Inkus had succumbed. A poison, some whispered, administered by the lady herself.

No one knew for certain. Save, perchance, for the Lady Ais, who inherited the whole of her husband’s great fortune.

As her servants erected upon a hilly height her exquisite pavilion of floating and lucent silk, the lady conferred with her fair-agent, Borkis.

“You are entirely certain that the Mage Ioster has reserved tent-space at the fair?” she purred in silken tones that had, ere this, entranced earls and marquises.

“Entirely certain, Great Lady,” he replied. “The space he has reserved is thus-and-such,” he added, indicating a position in that area of the grounds traditionally set aside for those who dealt in sorcerous amulets, charms, and periapts.

“Very good. As soon as my pavilion is ready, I will retire with my serving-woman. I wish not to be disturbed. However, inform me when the Mage Ioster has reached the fairground, and make ready to escort me to his tent.”

It was not until the morning of the first day of the Fair at Ithkar that the Mage Ioster finally arrived, and the lateness of his coming hence was doubtless to be ascribed to the considerable distance that he must travel from his residence in the fastnesses of the remotest south. Nevertheless, the Lady Ais had endured without any noteworthy patience the interval between her arrival and his own. At her age, the relatively primitive accommodations of her pavilion were to be endured, not enjoyed. Moreover, a woman of her wealth and position likes very little to be kept waiting by anyone.

One of her palanquin-bearers she had soundly whipped for a fancied impertinence, and she had scratched with cruelly sharp nails the soft breasts of her serving-woman for being a few minutes late with her bathwater.

As might be imagined, Borkis was greatly relieved when the mage finally made his appearance on the scene. His employer was an imperious woman with a vindictive nature and a vicious temper, and he had not the slightest wish to incur her ire.

So, when at length her agent informed her that Ioster had erected his tent, the lady wasted little time in securing a private interview. She was, in point of fact, his first customer at the fair.

A lean man in narrow robes of black and purple, with thoughtful, hooded eyes, he greeted her at the door of his tent and assisted her from her palanquin. No less curious to observe her legendary beauty than had been the workmen, he found her veiled in silks so skillfully arranged as to conceal every inch of her form.

Ushering her into his tent, he begged her to be seated and asked in what way he might serve her wishes.

“It has come to my knowledge that you possess the Black Talisman of Zoromé,” she stated. Curious as to how the Lady Ais had procured this information, which was not common knowledge, yet not daring to ask, the mage gravely indicated that this was true.

“In his epoch, Zoromé was a most distinguished practitioner of the sorcerous arts, in particular of goblinry. The talisman to which you refer entered my collection but recently, by a private transaction.”

“Explain, if you will, the nature of goblinry, and the precise powers of the Black Talisman,” she ordered. “My agents have told me much concerning both subjects, but I wish to hear of these matters from your own lips.”

“Zoromé was a famous master of elemental spirits,” said Ioster. “Goblins are earth-elementals and within the sphere of their powers fall such matters as the curing of impotence, the quickening of a barren womb, the restoration of health, the renewal of youth, physical beauty, the fertility of farm and field and orchard, the discovery of mineral treasures, and—”

She silenced him with a lifted hand.

“Enough! I have heard all that I need. I wish to purchase the talisman and full information as to its use.”

“Alas, Great Lady, it pains me to inform you that by the nature of the transaction by which I acquired the Black Talisman, I am not permitted to sell it—”

The Lady Ais interrupted by naming a price so unheard-of that it made Ioster blink. When he still politely, regretfully declined to let her purchase the talisman, she doubled the amount of her first offer.

“Great Lady, it is not a problem of price but of the arrangements under which I came into the possession of the talisman. But there is no need for you to buy the talisman, for I will rent it to you for a night. Whatever the use to which you desire to put the talisman, the rites of goblinry are exceedingly simple and the operation will require no more than an hour, at most.”

“I see,” said the lady in measured tones. “Is any danger involved in the use of the talisman?”

“That is hard to say,” replied the mage thoughtfully. “The talisman is a fragment of dense obsidian, a form of volcanic glass like blackest crystal. Therein the wise Zoromé long ago imprisoned a goblin.”

“Does the thing have a name?”

He shook his head. “Such creatures have no names. To reply to your first question, there is not the slightest danger that the goblin can escape its glassy prison, for Zoromé sealed the creature and bound it with seven-and-seventy potent and powerful spells. But, like the earth itself from which they were formed, goblins are dull and obdurate, and this particular member of its race furiously resents its imprisonment and its impotence to gain its freedom. When you command the goblin to perform whatever act you desire of it, you must choose your words with care and phrase your orders beyond equivocation. They are by their nature malicious and tricksome, so be warned and wary.”

The mage opened a small chest and withdrew several objects. These were a sheet of fresh parchment, an inkhorn and a new-cut quill, and one thing more. It was the last object that caught and held the fascinated gaze of the Lady Ais. For this was an irregular chunk of black glass wherein could be but dimly glimpsed a squat and grotesque minuscule form.

“I will set down the instructions and the ritual itself, Great Lady, and rehearse you in them to make certain that you perform the rite without error,” he said.

Returning at once to her pavilion, the Lady Ais commanded her serving-woman to leave and ordered that she was not to be disturbed for any cause and that two armed bearers were to stand guard over the entrance.

Then she placed the piece of black glass on a low tabouret and fondled its slick, cold surface with greedy but hesitant fingers. The chill of the crystal gnawed at her bones, and within, the stooped, shadowy figure stirred a little as if sensing her nearness.

She then lit three black candles and burned some pungent herbs in a small brass chafing-dish, stripping entirely naked. In her state of nudity it could easily have been seen, were any other present, that few remnants of her famous beauty remained. She was thin to the point of gauntness and her breasts, once released from the undergarment that lifted and supported them, dangled flat and wrinkled.

Only in its classic bone structure and her enormous amethyst eyes did the face of Ais retain aught of its legended loveliness. Where it was not thickly painted with cosmetics, her skin could be seen as sallow and dry, and the ugly brown spots of age stained her bony, shriveled hands.

Performing the ritual with care, she addressed the talisman.

“Can you hear me?”

A voice dull, harsh, and grating replied in slow and sluggish words.

“I, can, hear, you.”

“Can you see me?”

“I, can, see. What, do, you, want, of, me.”

“When I was young I was very beautiful, very graceful, very much admired and desired by men. So supple was I in the dance, possessing a fluid and boneless grace, that princes were entranced. So white was my skin that lords and barons swore the petals of white roses seemed sallow next to my flesh. At thirteen I became the mistress of a great baron. In the springtide of my youthfulness I was deemed the most desirable woman in the realm.”

“Tell, me, what, you, want, of, me,” said the dull, deep voice.

“I wish to be in the springtide of youth, my white body fairer than before, the supple grace of my movements even more graceful than they were when I was young.”

“It, is, done,” said the goblin.

A milky radiance filled the dark glass, and swirled from it to envelop the naked old woman. It tingled with a delicious warmth as it seeped into her flesh. She felt a momentary thrill as it sank into her very bones, and then . . .

She uttered an involuntary cry, between a gasp and a moan as her body reshaped itself uncannily. And then she gave voice to a shrill shriek of pure panic, which the guards at the door could not help but hear. They looked at one another apprehensively.

They had been commanded not to disturb their mistress on any account. But thieves and assassins were not unknown, even at the great fair. So the younger of the two men raised his voice.

“My lady? Do you require assistance?”

There came no reply from within. Summoning up his courage, the guard parted the flap of the tent and peered within. He saw the usual appointments, but no intruder. The silken raiment his mistress had worn was draped across the back of a carven chair. But the Lady Ais herself did not seem to be in sight. There was nothing else strange to be seen but a dully glistening chunk of black crystal upon a tabouret.