“No, they didn’t,” Irith agreed. “After I made the spell, and it worked, mostly, I ran away and hid, and then when I didn’t see any fighting or anything I snuck into a tavern and listened, and I found out that General Terrek had just won a big battle, his retreat had just been a trick, and the Northerners weren’t coming. But I didn’t dare go back, then — I’d deserted in time of war, and that meant a death sentence. So I hid out in the mountains for three years, working my way north toward the Great Highway and sneaking down to get news sometimes, and in 4996 the Northerners turned a whole army of demons loose and blasted General Terrek and the eastern territories into the Great Eastern Desert, and I thought we were all going to die after all, except it would be demons instead of Northerners, and they could probably find me no matter how well I hid and the love spell probably wouldn’t work on them. But then the gods themselves came and fought the demons off, and wiped out the Northerners, and the war was over, and I stopped worrying, and after awhile I stopped hiding. And I ran into Kalirin one day, and I thought he was going to kill me, but he didn’t care any more, he said that with the war over it didn’t matter, and there wasn’t any point in punishing me anyway, because of the spell. So I stopped hiding, but I didn’t have anywhere to go back to, so I just started traveling around the Small Kingdoms, mostly along the Great Highway.” She took a deep breath and concluded, “And I’ve been here ever since.”
“And you used that love spell on someone anyway, even though there weren’t any more Northerners,” Kelder said, certain that Irith would have been unable to resist testing it out. He still didn’t see why she was so embarrassed and secretive about it, though.
“On Ezdral, I bet,” Asha said.
Kelder started. That idea, obvious as it now seemed, had not yet occurred to him; he threw Asha an astonished glance in response to her unexpected perspicacity, then looked back to Irith.
The shapeshifter nodded. “That’s right,” she said. “I enchanted Ezdral.”
“So that’s why he’s in love with you?” Kelder asked. “That’s why he’s been looking for you all these years?” The embarrassment and reticence suddenly made sense.
Irith nodded unhappily.
“Well, why didn’t you take the spell off when you left him, then?” Kelder asked.
Irith stared at him in surprise.
“Because I can’t, stupid!” she shouted. “I don’t know how! All I can do is put it on, not take it off!”
This revelation left Kelder speechless.
Irith filled the silence by babbling on, trying to explain.
“I didn’t know how it worked, don’t you see? I mean, I’m only fifteen, and I’d been cooped up in Kalirin’s stupid house in the hills near Degmor ever since menarche, and the only people I ever saw were wizards and army officers and a few servants with the brains of a turnip amongst them, so I didn’t know anything about love or sex or infatuation or any of that stuff, and there wasn’t anyone I could try the spell out on, to see how it worked, and there’s a counterspell, yes, but it isn’t part of the spell itself, and I didn’t include it, maybe I tried, I don’t remember, I can’t remember, and I can’t do any other magic! I couldn’t even touch Kalirin’s book of spells any more!”
“But that spell... From what Ezdral said, it ruined his whole life!” Kelder said.
“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.