Taking Flight

“When I was a little girl,” Irith added, “people didn’t have all these silly languages. There weren’t half so many, and everybody knew Ethsharitic even if they didn’t speak it at home.”

“That must have been convenient,” Kelder acknowledged.

Krithim was the largest community he had seen since leaving Shan on the Desert, and a closer match to his original expectations for the Great Highway than anywhere else he had yet visited. The king’s castle stood almost half a mile to the south of the highway, and the entire distance from castle to highway appeared to be a network of streets and gardens and houses and shops. A few of the major avenues were even paved.

The Great Highway itself was not paved, but it was lined with plank sidewalks, inns, taverns, brothels, and shops, and three broad flagstone boulevards connected it to a generous market square that lay one block to the south.

An elaborate fountain occupied the center of the square, with a basin of red marble surrounding a white marble column topped by a statue of a woman pouring water from a jug, water that flowed endlessly. Smaller carvings of various sorts adorned the rim. Kelder was not accustomed to this sort of civic display.

For a moment he wondered if Krithim constituted a “great city,” but despite the urban niceties he decided it was just a large town-or perhaps a small city, but not a great one.

Children were running about the market in a vigorous game of tag, ducking out of each other’s reach, dodging back and forth. One of them took a short-cut through the marble basin, splashing wildly, and Kelder shouted a protest, but no one else seemed to mind, and the boy ignored him, so he let it drop.

Asha was watching the carefree game enviously; Ezdral was eyeing the wineshops. Kelder’s own feet were sore; they were out of the hills now, but the road from Ophera had been rocky in places.

“Oh, Hell,” he said, “I guess we’ll stay here today and go on tomorrow.”

Irith smiled radiantly at him.

“Where’s a good inn?” he asked.

“There are a couple of good ones,” Irith said thoughtfully.

“A cheap one,” Kelder suggested. “We still don’t have much money.”

“The Leaping Fish,” Irith declared.

“The Leaping Fish?” Kelder asked dubiously. “Why would they name it that?”

Irith shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, “but they did.”

“Are we near the sea?”

Irith giggled. “No, of course not!” she said. “It must be fifty miles to the sea from here!”

“A lake, then, or a stream?”

Irith shook her head. “They just call it that,” she said. “It’s over that way, on the Street of Coopers.” She pointed to the west.

Kelder nodded, and looked at the others.

It seemed to him that they had all seen quite enough of each other for awhile. “Asha,” he said, “you go on and play, if you like, but be at the inn for supper. The Leaping Fish, it’s called, over that way-if you can’t find it ask someone for directions.”

“All right, Kelder!” She ran off, and a moment later she was shouting and playing with the other children.

Kelder looked at Irith and Ezdral.

Ezdral was eyeing the wineshops-but he was also watching Irith. The love spell had as strong a hold as ever, and he wasn’t going to leave her side, not even to get liquor. Kelder sighed, trying to think what he should do.

Irith, however, had also seen the situation, and had her own solution. She vanished.

“Irith!” Ezdral screamed, “Irith, come back!”

People turned to stare at the green-clad old man, standing in the middle of the square, whirling about as if trying to look in every direction at once, groping madly with his arms outstretched, as if he were blind and searching for something.

“Ezdral,” Kelder shouted, grabbing one flailing arm, “Ezdral, it’s all right! She’ll be back! She’ll meet us tonight at supper, at the Leaping Fish!”

It took him several minutes to calm the old man; during that time, from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a small, graceful black cat hurrying away, dashing between legs and scampering around boots. He saw the cat turn and deliberately wink at him before disappearing into an alley.

Ezdral did not notice the cat; he was too distraught to remember Irith’s other shapes. Kelder supposed that if he had seen the cat, he would have been in love with it-with her-but that had not happened.

Which was all for the best.

Eventually, Ezdral did calm down, and stood, drooping and silent, by Kelder’s side. “She’ll meet us tonight,” Kelder assured him.

Ezdral nodded dismally, and without a word headed for the nearest wineshop.

Kelder watched him go, and then looked around, realizing that he was alone in this pleasant and interesting place. He would have preferred Irith’s company, but he saw no sign that she was returning, and could not see any way to be with her out in the open without having Ezdral along-and he did not want Ezdral along, fawning over Irith, following her everywhere as closely as he dared, constantly lusting after her. The old man was terrible company.