The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

All I'd aimed at was distracting Judy, but by sheer luck I turned out to be right. Some of the pieces from the jeweler - TAMARISK'S GEMS, her skin said - were of the modem sort, clunky with crystals, but even those were in finer settings than you usually find at a fancy store, let alone a swap meet. And the rest - Judy is enamored of things Greco-Roman. A lot of the necklaces, bracelets, rings, and other pieces were copies so skulful that, but for their obvious newness and their profusion, they might have been museum pieces. And Tamarisk, a sharp-faced brunette who wore her hair tied up in a kerchief - knew her business, too.

Her eyes lit up when Judy pointed at what looked to me like a gold safety pin and called it a fibula, and she practically glowed when Judy identified a little pendant head dangling from a necklace as a bulla. They lost me after that; as far as I knew, they might have been incanting when they started throwing around terms like repousse and lost wax. I saw how Judy's eye kept coming back to a Roman-style ring with an eagle in low relief on a wide, flat gold bezel. It was in profile; a tiny emerald highlighted its visible eye. Normally I would have said it was a man's ring… but Judy's last name is Ather, after all, and AtHer means eagle.

In the most speculative voice I could come up with, I remarked, "You know, hon, I haven't found you an engagement ring yet"

Eveiy once in a while, you say the right thing. Judy, as you will have garnered, is a steady, serious person - more so than I am, and I lean in that direction myself. Making her face light up as if the sun had just risen behind her eyes isn't easy.

Watching it happen made me light up, too.

Then I got hugged, and then I got kissed, and all the while Tamarisk was just standing there, patient as the Sphinx, and I figure every smooch I got upped the asking price of that ring about another fifteen crowns, but so it goes - some things are more important than money. That's what I told myself, anyhow.

We haggled for a while; considering that Tamarisk knew she had me where she wanted me, she was more merciful than she might have been - but not much. When we finally agreed on a price, she said, "And how will you pay? Cash?"

"No; I don't like to carry that much on me. Do you take Masterimp?"

"Certainly, sir. I'd lose half my business if I didn't."

I dug into my hip pocket, pulled out my wallet and from it the card. Tamarisk took a receiver plate out from under her display table. When I was a kid, credit was a complicated business, full of solemn oaths and threats of vengeance from the Other Side on renegers and much default anyhow because so many people find gold and God easy words to confuse.

It's not that way any more. A lot of the mystique is gone, but so is a lot of the risk. Modem technology again: as with the burgeoning phone system, ectoplasmic cloning has made all the difference. I put my thumb on the card to show I was its rightful possessor. Tamarisk did the same with the receiver plate. Together we declared how many crowns we'd agreed to transfer from my account to hers.

The conjoined microimps in the card and the plate completed the circuit by etherically contacting the accounting spirits at my bank, which confirmed that I did have the crowns to transfer. As soon as the transaction was complete, the card started sliding around on the plate as if it were on a ouija board. I picked it up and stuck it back in my wallet.

Then, with Tamarisk smiling the smile of a businessperson who's just had a good day, I picked up the ring and set it on Judy's finger. Because I'd found the style a little masculine, I was afraid it would be big. Tamarisk said,

"I'll size that for you if you need me to."

But Judy held up her hand and showed both of us that it fit well. She and I grinned, liking the omen. "It's wonderful," she said. "Thank you, David." I got Idssed again, which couldn't help but improve things.

Tm always glad to see my customers happy," Tamarisk said, beaming, "and I hope you won't take it amiss if I tell you I also do wedding rings."

"I think we may just make a note of that," I said in my most solemn voice as I pocketed one of her cartes de visite.

Judy nodded. With a last backward look at the other lovelies on display, we wandered off to have a look at the rest of the swap meet."

Judy kept murmuring, "It's wonderful," over and over.

She'd hold up her hand so the ring would sparkle in the sun and the little emerald catch fire as if it were the eye of a living bird. I said, "First chance you get - maybe tomorrow evening - you ought to take it to a jeweler you trust. I know it looks good and I know Tamarisk seems fine, but I want to make sure you only have the best."

"I'll do that," she said, and then, a moment later, "or maybe I won't have to. We've got a constabulary - quality spellchecker sitting in the office waiting for us. If it won't tell us whether we've just bought faiiy gold, what good is it?"