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one particular nightmare that still haunted him.
He used the poker to spread out the banked coals in the bottom of the stove, then returned it to its hook and
fetched wood and tinder from the bin. He threw a handful of tinder onto the coals, but when it flared up
suddenly he started back involuntarily; the fire was too much like one of his dreams. He backed unthinkingly
away from the stove, blinking mazily, rather than adding the sticks he held to the fire.
His foot hit an obstruction-Deathbringer, the wizard's cat. Deathbringer yowled in protest. Trying desperately
not to hurt the cat, trying not to drop the firewood, Ulpen lost his balance and began to fall backward. The
sticks tumbled from his arms as he belatedly flung out his hands to catch himself.
"Augh!" he said as he and the wood stopped falling.
Then he realized that he hadn't hit the plank floor, and that the sticks hadn't, either. The little stack of wood
had somehow reformed, balanced impossibly on his chest as he rested on one leg, one palm, and empty air.
Magic had broken his fall.
"Thank you, Master," he said, carefully lowering himself and the wood to the floor and turning to the doorway.
Since he had hardly been in a position to cast a spell even had he thought quickly enough, he assumed his
master had stopped his fall.
Sure enough, the wizard Abdaran stood in the kitchen doorway, staring down at his apprentice and frowning.
The frown deepened as he said, "It was none of my doing."
Ulpen blinked. He gathered up the wood and set it on the floor, then sat up, turning to face his master.
"Until you spoke I had intended to ask you what spell you used," Abdaran said. "I didn't recognize it and
thought perhaps you had been meddling in things best left alone."
"I haven't, Master," Ulpen protested. "I didn't do anything!"
"Yet you stopped falling in midair, and the wood did not scatter."
"It's definitely magic, Master, but it's not mine.""Nor is it mine."
"But..." Ulpen looked around uneasily. "We're the only wizards in North Herris, aren't we?"
"To the best of my knowledge, we are," Abdaran agreed. "Nor are there any in South or East Herris. But are
we sure that it was wizardry that stopped your fall?"
"No," Ulpen admitted. "But what, then?"
"You tell me, apprentice," Abdaran said, switching to his lecturing tone.
Ulpen chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully as he got to his feet and brushed off his breeches. Then he looked
at his master. "It might be gods, demons, witchcraft, sorcery, some unknown natural phenomenon, or... well,
or something we don't know about."
Abdaran smothered a smile. "I would say that covers the possibilities," he acknowledged. "That last category
is perhaps a bit over-inclusive, though."
Ulpen did not bother responding to that; instead he said, "There aren't any sorcerers left around here, are
there?"
"Not so far as I'm aware. There are four witches in East Herris, but no known sorcerers."
"Why would the witches have kept me from falling?"
"I can't imagine how they would know, or why they would bother," Abdaran replied. "We could ask them."
That idea did not appeal to Ulpen. Witches could read people's emotions, sometimes even their thoughts,
and that made the apprentice nervous. "I'm sure they meant no harm," he said.
"And why do you assume it was the witches?" Abdaran asked. "You haven't eliminated all the other
possibilities on your list."
"Well, we eliminated sorcery ..."
"No, we did not," Abdaran interrupted. "We eliminated known sorcerers. There could be someone new in the
area, using this as a rather unorthodox introduction, or perhaps a sorcerer has been hiding here all along, or
perhaps this was some leftover bit of sorcery from some long-ago spell."
Ulpen considered that as he gathered up the wood. He tossed the first stick into the fire-just barely in time,
as the tinder had all but burned away-and said, "But in that case, couldn't it just as well be some side effect
of wizardry? A spell cast a hundred years ago, or a hundred leagues away?"
"Or to be cast at some time in the future," Abdaran agreed approvingly.
Ulpen threw another stick of wood on the fire as he absorbed that. The idea that a spell that hadn't been [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]