Taking Flight

“Well, I didn’t know it would do that!” Irith said defensively. “I didn’t know how it worked! I’d used it a couple of times, but those were different, and they’re all dead now, and Ezdral was so cute, when I saw him there-he was big and handsome and he was so good with those horses, they calmed right down when he petted them, I mean, I almost wanted to turn into a horse so he’d pet me that way, and he wouldn’t even look at me hardly, and before I knew it I’d done it. And he came and talked to me, and he was so sweet, and it was just wonderful, and we had a great time, we went all over the place together and did all sorts of stuff, and he was the best-looking man everywhere we went, and he was gentle and playful…”

“Then why did you leave him?” Kelder asked.

She shrugged. “Well, it got boring,” she said. “And he was talking about us staying together forever, and I knew we weren’t going to do that, because I’m only fifteen, I’m not ready to settle down, and he was getting older, and everything, and besides, I knew he didn’t really love me, he was enchanted, and I was young and pretty and everything, and even that was magic, so it wasn’t real, you know? So it didn’t count. So I didn’t want to stay with him forever, and I knew I’d have to leave sooner or later, and when we had that fight about my dancing I decided it might as well be sooner, and I thought it would wear off! I thought that if I wasn’t there, the spell would wear off and he’d forget all about me.”

“Really?” Asha asked.

Irith blushed again, and looked down at the table.

“I thought it might,” she muttered. “I didn’t know. I thought it might wear off. But I guess it didn’t, at least not right away.”

“Not ever,” Asha said. “He’s still in love with you.”

Irith shuddered. “Well, I’m certainly not in love with him,” she said. “Can’t we just forget about him and go on without him?”

Kelder knew at once what the answer to this was-no, they couldn’t. Maybe Irith was capable of that sort of selfishness, maybe even Asha was, but he wasn’t. Not when he was who he was, and not when he was fated as he was.

He did not say so immediately, however; he paused to think it over, to consider not just what to say, but the entire situation.

He expected to marry Irith-Zindre’s prophecy said he would, and he had liked the idea very much. Irith was bright and cheerful, incredibly beautiful, and her magical abilities gave her all the appeal of the mysterious and exotic.

He still liked the idea, but it was obvious that Javan’s Second Augmentation had changed her into something that wasn’t quite the girl she appeared to be, and the thought of loving and marrying a creature that might not be quite human any more was a bit frightening.

And he knew that Irith was far from perfect; she could be selfish and thoughtless. In particular, it was obvious that she would leave him when he started to show any sign of age-or maybe even just signs of maturity.

He did not want a wife who would leave him when he aged; the Shularan custom, and his family’s tradition, was to marry for life. He had assumed that that was what Zindre had prophesied for him, that he would have Irith with him for the rest of his life, but now that he knew Irith, knew who and what she was, that looked very unlikely.

But then, was that really all that bad? He would survive if she left him, just as he would if he were widowed, and while the marriage lasted, she could certainly be an agreeable companion when she chose to be.

Still, he had doubts. This whole adventure was turning out differently than he had expected, and he was not sure yet if it was better or worse. The Great Highway was a dirt road, most of it ugly. He had seen the great city of Shan, but only very briefly and without pleasure; he had seen the vast plain of the Great Eastern Desert, and it had frightened and depressed him more than it had awed or exhilarated him. The wife he had been promised appeared to be a flighty and unpredictable creature, an immortal shapeshifter rather than an ordinary woman. Championing the lost and forlorn he had expected to be a matter of facing down thieves or slaying a dragon or some such traditional act of heroism, not stealing a dead bandit’s severed head on behalf of an abused child, or defending the rights of an ensorceled drunkard.

If this was the destiny he had been promised-and really, how could he doubt that it was?-then he had to consider whether he wanted it.

And if he decided he did not, could he refuse it, or was he foredoomed?

He really couldn’t say; he had hardly been thinking of such things when he spoke to Zindre as a boy of twelve. He might be doomed to carry out his destiny, or he might not, he simply didn’t know.

If he wasn’t trapped, did he want to go on?

Well, discharging his promise to Asha was easy enough now; he would certainly go on and hold Abden’s funeral, as he had said he would.

But did he still want to marry Irith?