Realms of Magic

TOO FAMILIAR

"It's extraordinarily complicated, you see…?"

The wineglasses clinked as the wisp-bearded enchanter rearranged the drinks on the cluttered table, all the while dragging out the 'see' in his thick Ankhapurian accent. Like a swarm of midge flies, the assembled alchemists, prestidigitators, conjurers, thaumaturges, and wonderworkers-courtiers all-swarmed around him and listened. Their professional antennae quivered for the slightest hint of unfounded theorizing.

Well aware of it, the graybeard-such beard as he had-continued with the unfazed confidence of a high master educating coarse apprentices. Fingers fluttering, he allowed five droplets of carmine wine into the honey-yellow mead before him. "A taste of aqua vitae-no more! — that's been distilled by the flame of a silver burner and added to the flux. Once cooled, I stirred in"- and here he added three pinches from the salt cellar-"a measure of powdered dragonelle scale, and the whole solution precipitated-"

"Preposterous!" croaked a frog-faced Calimshite, alchemist to the recently arrived consular of Calimport. "Scale as a precipitate? Ludicrous! You might as well have used gravel for all of scale's suitability as a precipitate. Your whole theory's unsound!"

The blunt attack set the onlookers to buzzing, so much so that the proprietous and meekly disposed wizards of the swarm recoiled in pinch-faced distaste only to collide with those who surged forward at the first hint of the senior enchanter's hypothesizing weakness.

Only the challenger's basso voice rose above the polite cacophony that filled the royal salon. Fully aware, he pressed his assault with apparent obliviousness. "Undoubtedly it was another reaction-perhaps some containment in the powder…"

The Calimshite's thrust was not lost on the Ankha-purian, but the older man guarded against the sting with the shield of dignity. "My powders were pure. I will gladly give you some if what you brought from Calimshan will not react." Wiping his damp fingers on a cloth, he coolly swatted back at this annoying fly.

"Good wit" and "Fine touch" hummed his supporters in the crowd.

"Scale never precipitates! Even apprentices know that," fumed the alchemist in his bubbling deep voice. He waggled a fat, pale finger across the table at the other, his stung pride, emboldened by drink, making him undiplomatically firm. He sputtered for words and finally blurted, "Why-ask your royal magister, if you doubt me!"

A chill swept the assembled collegium to a silence broken only by the tremolo titter of impudent apprentices from the back benches of the knot. The rest fingered their goblets and took great interest in their wine (forgotten till that point for the heat of the debate) while struggling to make their just-gay faces as bland as coal. In most cases, it only made them the more uncomfortably conspicuous, until they resembled no more than a line of hungry monkeys caught with the food.

Only the graybeard seemed unperturbed, arrogantly confident of his station. With a knowing smirk, he turned the baffled Calimshite's gaze toward the adjacent table- an island from their company. A lone woman, overladen in finery ill-suited to her age or itself, stared numbly at the air-or perhaps at the half-empty bottle before her.

"Our royal magister," the enchanter sneered in an intentionally loud whisper. "An adventuress-nothing but a hedge wizard. Never properly schooled at all." The last he added with overemphasis. "And fond of her drink."

At her table, Brown Maeve-Magister to His Royal Highness King Janol I (aka, Pinch), the Lich-Slayer, the Morninglord Blessed-knew what was said even before it was finished… even now, in her cups. The collegium's contempt was hardly a secret. She had heard the words and seen the smirks all before: hedge wizard, upstart, rogue's whore-adventuress! Not a true wizard in any case-no scholarly talent, no proper training, wouldn't even know an alembic from a crucible. Worse still, there was no denying most of it. A prestidigitous courtier she was not.

It didn't make their words right, though. They were a pack of poxy charlatans to lay their airs upon her. She'd done more than the lot of them, including helping Pinch lay down the lich Manferic, and it weren't their place to look down to her.

The smugness of their lot spoilt her wine, and so she figured they'd earned a little present of her own making. She could research too, as they'd soon remember. It was just a simple spell, nothing like their fine studies after the philosopher's stone or any of that, but Maeve kept it handy for bestowing on arrogant asses.

With a wicked good cheer, the royal magister pushed aside her glass, rose majestically, and managed to trundle like an old cart toward the salon doors. As she lumbered past the wizard-thick table, that hypocritical lot fell into a hushed silence, as if they had been discussing the weather, Maeve nodded, smiled, with excessive politeness greeted them all by name, and serenely extended her hand to the worst offenders to her dignity. As each took up her hand, a faint warmth flowed from her fingers, and Maeve's smile grew and grew until she was beaming with genuine satisfaction.

"Good morrow, and may the dawn bring you new dis coveries," at last she said, disengaging herself from their group. Oh, they'd have discoveries, all right. She could scarce keep from hooting it out loud. There was no forgetting when you broke out with sores overnight-big ugly ones that were sure to put off wives and lovers. "Old drunk, am I?" She chuckled as she parted their company. Her gleeful echoes joined her as she wandered down the hall toward her own apartments.

Fiddlenose, sitting in the shade of the big fern that grew just in back of Goodman Uesto's granary, yawned a yawn that for his wee size threatened to transform the whole of his face into a single pit of pink throat ringed by fine white teeth. He could veritably swallow another brownie half his size-as if brownies were inclined to go around swallowing up their own kind. He was bored, and the big yawn was just one way he had to show it. As if part of a flowing wave, the yawn descended into a sour pucker of pinched irritability.

Where was that baleful cat?

Fiddlenose the brownie was tired of wasting his morning like a dull huntsman squatting in his blind. This was supposed to be fun-a prank and revenge on old farmer Uesto's calico torn. The twice-, no, thrice-cursed beast was the spawn of night terrors, the very hellion of farm cats, who managed to ruin all good, honest Fiddlenose's peace. Every night it howled, prowled, hissed, and spat till there wasn't a hope of either rest or joy for a proper house brownie. Too many times, it had smelled him out just as he was creeping indoors for a taste of grog and jam, or scared him out of his haymount nest as it went springing after the barn rats. Poor, suffering Fiddlenose couldn't stand it anymore. With the proper logic of an irate brownie, he had devised a revenge that was all out of proportion to the crime.

Only that cursed cat wasn't cooperating. He'd waited all morning with his twisted vines and stink-plant bladder, and still that feline monster hadn't showed. The shade under the fern was thick and stale, and Fiddlenose's eyes were steadily drooping into nap time.

Elsewhere, in a dingy ordinary in the meanest ward of Ankhapur, Will o' Horse-Shank, brownie by blood, opportunist by breeding, was in a sulk.

Fate's against me, he railed-venting in his own mind so no others could hear him. Two nights before, he was certain this morning he'd be in silk breeches and drinking firewine. It was sure he was a made man, and all by the wit of Mask.

This morning, though, he perched on a rickety old bench in Corlis's wineshop, still wearing the tattered hose he'd stolen from a child's laundry. Clutched like a great outlander drinking horn in his tiny hands was a battered pewter mug, half-filled with the cheapest sack old Corlis could pour-a pretty mean drink. Still, with no more than a ha' copper left in his purse, it was already more than Shank could afford. The brownie was not much heavier than a fat wharf-rat and barely up to a small man's shin, and the drink was already making good progress on his wee wits in these morning hours.

For the twentieth time, or at least as many times as it took to drink half the mug, Shank bemoaned the vile spin of Tymora's wheel that had reduced him to this treacherous state. For a week, he'd cozened an outlander merchant with a tale of dishonest captains, wreckers, smuggled goods, and a galley named Swiftoar, foxing the fool into letting Shank play the broker for the imaginary cargo. All it needed was another day, and the coney would have passed all his coin into Shank's hands and-heigh-ho! — that would have been the last of this little brownie!

But did the game play that way? No-the greedy fool had to talk around about his coming good fortune and that let out the truth. There was no captain, no Swiftoar, no cargo and, most of all, no coin for Shank to spirit off. Instead, Shank got curses and blows when he came to close the game-and all unjustly of course. It would have taught the outlander a proper lesson if Shank had made off with his cash.

He moaned it all again, even though there was no use in it, and swigged down another gulp of sour brew. The taste reminded him of the empty jingle in his purse. Corlis would be wanting coin for the drink, and Shank didn't have any. What he needed right now was for a quick and wealthy mark to walk through the door, something not very likely at this squalid ordinary.

"Too much joy or too much drink? Or a little of both?" a chipper, thin voice probed with just a touch of peevishness at having missed the fun.

Maeve stopped in the marbled hall, caught unawares by the stealth of her interrogator. Stealth wasn't that hard, considering the shadowed gloom between the pillars and the fact that the voice came up from somewhere around the height of her waist.

A halfling, fine-dressed in the gaudiest work the court tailor could tolerate, was suddenly beside the wizard, materializing seemingly out of nowhere. His garb was a garish mismatch-harlequin hose gartered with red silk and a rose and teal velvet damask doublet of intricate pattern, trimmed with more lace than a banquet table. It screamed of a soul utterly blind to taste… until one noticed that the blindness was actual. The little fellow's eyes were covered by a thick band of black cloth, and he clutched a short cane

Maeve was like to have leapt up in surprise before she realized it was only Sprite-Heels-or rather the Honorable Lord of the Watch Sir Sprite-Heels the Clever. (King Pinch's reward for loyal service was to put his fellow rogue in command of the city guard.) The knave had crept up on her yet again. For the years that she'd known him, the wizard was still not accustomed to the halfling's cat-footed ways. Blinded only twelve-months before, the half-ling still got himself about with surprising silence and ease.

Td say," Sprite drawled as he tipped his head to hear her echoes, "that's your poxing laugh-the one you make after you've just shook hands with some popinjay. You wouldn't be up to old tricks now, would you, Maeve? What would our King Pinch say if he heard his old gang was laying curses on his subjects?"

"He'd probably say I had my cause-and you would, too," Maeve sniffed back. "They got what they had coming."

"Don't they all!" The tap of Sprite's cane hurried to keep pace with her as the halfling fell in alongside. "Them wizards again?"

"Yes-them wizards." Maeve's face flared up redder than her usual cheery drunk-red. She hustled down the hall, a tornado of indignation. "They had no right saying all those things-not after all I've done for Ankhapur. Not a one of them there was ready to fight Manferic or do any of those things. / did and they weren't mocking me then. A pox is only the least of what that lot deserves."

"Of course, you're right, Maeve," the halfling said with a cynicism that masked his genuine sympathy. "Still, now, you go poxing every one of them, and people are bound to start asking about it. You could get 'em believing there's a plague here." The click of the cane's metal ferrule on the slippery-smooth stone of the floor set Sprite's words to a lively cadence.

"Ill pox every whoreson one of them."

"Maybe me and Pinch ought to go into the cure-all business." Not all that often did she latch on to an idea so fierce, but when Maeve did, Sprite knew there'd be sparks and smoke before it ended. "What'll Pinch say, Maeve?"

"A pox on our King Pinch, too!"

"Might be interesting," Sprite smirked.

They walked a bit farther. Their conversation had run out, lingering on the image of their lord-as much as they'd admit he was-covered with foul sores. It was morbidly amusing, but they both knew neither could bring it to pass.

"Drink?" With uncanny sense, Sprite tapped down a side hall toward his rooms. "~ "Why not?" Maeve agreed, resolved to be damned and determined even if it was almost dawn. There was always time for another drink.

With barely a fumble, Sprite undid the latch to his apartment and ushered her into the darkness beyond.

It was a full bottle (or two, since neither was keeping count) later when the wizard and halfling had come back to the question of respect

"They got no right," Maeve moaned for the several hundredth time, perhaps more so to Sprite's ears. She sloshed about her goblet, splattering drops over the antique table, a table that had been carved of fine bronzewood in some distant village of Chult and trekked the vast distance here no doubt on the back of some exotic beast. The morning sun, for the day was well up, glistened in the golden drops

"Maeve, what you need is one of those-oh-rats, beasties," the halfling suggested weakly. He raised his sagging head from the table, where he'd only been 'just resting" while the wizard poured more drinks. Though he couldn't see it, the sloshing sound of yet another round of poured wine rendered him immensely pale.

"Rats?"

Sprite tried to nod, but that only made him feel greener. "Rats-you know, rats, owls, frogs-them little pets wizards get."

"Familursh," she slurred, and gulped down more wine.

"That's right. All them high-ups got 'em. You should have one too, Maeve."

"A familiar?" The wizard rolled the words around like a fine drink, considering the idea. "It'd have to be a right pretty one. No toads."

"No toads," the halfling mumbled.

"I got me a scroll somewhere." Maeve was now musing, working out the deed in her head as if she were planning a foist of her own. Sprite sat back with bleary satisfaction and proceeded to topple right out of his chair.

Passed out drunk, the halfling was in no way able to hear (and certainly in no way able to see) Maeve trundle out of the palace and into the morning light. She blinked like an owly fish caught in the overbright shallows. It had been some considerable time since she'd seen a morning; an early hour, anything before noon, was an exceptional moment. Nonetheless, she was determined to endure this grotesque hardship to realize her goal.

Thus determined, Maeve set out for the comfort of Ankhapur's grimy waterfront. It was the city's lowest of the low quarters, despised by the honest folk who nonetheless crept there every night to savor its taverns, flops, and festhalls. The waterfront stews were gray and small and pretended not to exist, letting their customers imagine they had privacy and discretion, though in truth little transpired that wasn't spread to someone's ears. The naive found themselves compromised, the gullible blackmailed, and it took a native, not just to Ankhapur but to the waterfront itself, to have any hope of keeping one's business to oneself. It was just the kind of place Maeve wanted, her true home.

Though she'd traveled here from far lands, she'd lived most her life in such surroundings. Every town that wanted to be of consequence had its version of the Ankha-purian waterfront. A town could never be a city without one, its character incomplete without this pocked and festering side of its urban body. More than any other monument, statue, palace, or memorial, such districts revealed the hidden souls of the city founders, the dark and secret selves of respected ancestors.

It was far better for her to work in such surroundings. The royal laboratories, territory hers by title, were too public for this work. Nothing she might try there would pass unnoticed, and with the real chance that she might get it wrong, the woman did not want to risk such open humiliation. This task was better done in some forgotten room, among her own kind, where she could do her work in peace. Among the stews, she might raise a few curious eyebrows, but folks there had the sense to give a wizard wide berth for fear they'd wind up as frogs or worse.

As for the stench, the thugs, the blackmailers and loose women, Maeve didn't mind. She was boozily confident she could slide back in, even though her street sense was somewhat out of practice after a year of palace life. Indeed, the doubt that she might not know Ankhapur's cheats and black ways as well as she could never entered her mind.

Clutching an ungainly bag of powders, devices, and bottles, she ignored the looks of the festhall girls going home in the dawn light, the hungry stares of hungover drunks as they staggered themselves out of the mud where they'd fallen, and the curious thronging of urchins who acted far more innocent than they ever had been. She wound her way through the alleys and lanes leading to a wineshop she knew, one where the owner, Corlis, would be discreet and the company few. Corlis had rooms and didn't care what happened in them as long as it was quiet and the shiny nobles were slid across the scarred counter in advance.

Shank, sitting on the edge of the cold hearth, his little legs dangling over the low drop of stone, held his oversized mug close to his face from the first moment the door creaked open. Customers at this morning hour were unusual and therefore naturally of interest. Peering over the rim of his stein, only his eyes visible, Shank watched as a woman, frowzy and old, tottered into the commons. She juggled a bulging bag that threatened to squirt its contents out with every shift of her ample body. As entrances went, the woman's was unpromising, so Shank watched her with more curiosity than cunning.

It was the clink of coin on the landlord's table that caught his full attention. His little ears wiggled their sharp points with the slap of each piece the woman handed over. One, two, three-it was all far too much for anything in this slopshop. There was a lot more than room and board being bought here, and whatever it was, Shank wanted to know. As he gulped down one last hit of wine, he carefully sidled into the cool shadows of the cracked mantelpiece.

With a grumpy start, Fiddlenose woke to the screech of a cat yowl. He sprang to his feet, rustling the fronds of the shading fern. The beast was afoot, and he'd fallen asleep in the morning heat! Cursing furiously to himself with all his considerable store of colorful invective, he dived for the rapidly unspooling vines that had been coiled at his feet. The trap was sprung, and judging from the yowls, he'd snared the hellcat beast!

He grabbed the vine and tried to dig in his heels as the mighty tomcat heaved against the noose. Scrambling, he barely kept balance against the pull, losing ground with every jerk. His feet grew nearer the edge of the shade, and within moments he'd be hauled into the open, where farmer Uesto would discover him-and all because of that cursed torn!

Fiddlenose twisted about, slipped the vine over his shoulder, and valiantly heaved forward, dragging-footstep by tiny footstep-the noosed tomcat closer to the sapling at the edge of the grove. Sweating and straining, he finally reached close enough to loop his little slack around the springy trunk. Quick went the knots, and then it was done. Fiddlenose had triumphed! The hellcat was his!

Exhausted and satisfied, he collapsed against the trunk and waited for Uesto's calico torn to give up before he started the next step of his oh-so-cunning plan.

Three nobles, Maeve mused to herself. It was all far too much, but she was feeling generous. Why not? It wasn't her money. Thanks to Pinch, all her needs came from the royal treasury, which in turn came from the people. She didn't feel like haggling with old Corlis, who would have gotten the best of her anyway, and so her three nobles and a promise of two more assured her of the privacy she wanted. Thus, overconfidently oblivious to the effect her entrance had made, Maeve paraded up the rickety stairs to the room she'd bought.

As she reached the top of the stairs, a small figure behind her detached himself from the gloom of the mantel and slid along the edge of the commons. Quick and silent, Shank darted in front of the counter, just beneath the gaze of watchful Corlis. For his coins, the old landlord was doing his best to be watchful, to make sure no one disturbed his generous benefactor, but the old man's eyes were no match for Shank's cunning stealth. Quick as a dart, he was in the dusty gloom of the stairway, nimbly skipping over the squeaky treads. In the hall above, it was no hard matter to guess where his mark had gone. The brownie simply chose the biggest of all possible rooms.

Thus, he found the door that had to be Maeve's (or so he guessed by the clanking and puttering from the other side). There was a transom open at the top, in a vain attempt to let some air flow through the building. Nimble, even with as much drink as he'd had, he had little trouble squirreling himself up the flimsy jamb. His tiny hands and feet found holds no human could ever have hoped to use, and in a mere moment, the brownie was carefully wedged in the gap between the door and the splintery boards of the ceiling.

Oblivious to the dark, bright eyes watching her, Maeve was already about her work. The old scroll she had was faded and grease-stained-she vaguely recollected wrapping a roasted hen in it one night-and she could only hope the instructions and the words were still legible. It wasn't like the scrolls she was used to, where all that was needed was to utter the twisted words on the page. This one required procedures and processes to bring it to fruition. Deciphering the parchment as best she could, the wizard set out the powders, the candles, and all the paraphernalia needed to cast the summoning.

To the process, Maeve added a bottle of wine, setting it prominently on a table in the center of the pattern. She wanted a special familiar, by damn, not just any frog or rat, and figured, in her own way, that a little extra enticement to the spell couldn't possibly hurt. She added another bottle, too, just for herself, a strengthening tonic for what she was certain would be an arduous process. The cork already pulled, she sampled heavily as the work went on and mumbled under her breath a running monologue of grievances and revenge.

From his post, Shank quickly got over his first dose of surprise. When he'd scampered up the jamb, he'd imagined what lay on the other side. This was not it. The old woman was certainly not making preparations for any lover's rendezvous, any easy material for blackmail. He'd had it all figured-she was some wealthy crone meeting her gentleman. (By his logic, she had to be wealthy, since she wasn't going to gain suitors by her looks.) He'd hoped to spy, learn some names, and turn the whole day into a nice profit.

Unfortunately, she clearly wasn't making arrangements for a tryst. She was preparing to do magic. Although disappointed that his ambitions were scotched, Shank watched with fascination. Whatever she was doing, she didn't want people knowing, so that still meant the possibility of profit for little Will o' Horse-Shank. She might be casting a curse on someone-that could bring him money. If she were a vile priestess plotting evil or a treasonous wizard, there might be reward for turning her in. Folks said King Pinch could be a generous man when it suited him. Of course, she might be one of them wild mages about to try something risky. Shank didn't feel so comfortable about that prospect. As a brownie, though, one of the things Shank had to be thankful for was an innate understanding of the mystical world. As he watched, he slowly gathered the clues he needed to see what she was about: the summoning of a familiar.

Ah, yes. The brownie's cunning little mind hatched a perfectly suitable plot. Suddenly he saw for himself a life of ease-wine, breads, new clothes and cheese, things he so dearly loved. He watched her go through the twists and turns, light the candles, and utter the words. He waited and poised himself for the right moment. If she wanted a familiar, by the gods, he'd make sure she got one.

Maeve swallowed another gulp of wine and pressed on with the reading of the scroll. The damned spell was tortuously hard, more complicated and twisted than it looked at the start. She forced her way through a few more syllables and arcane passes before reaching again for the wine to strengthen herself. She was almost done and was pretty sure she'd gotten it right. It was so hard to tell with these things, especially with it being so early in the morning and all.

Finally, she spoke the last syllables, and just in time, too, for her candles were almost burnt to nubs and her wine was nearly gone. She was sweaty from the effort even though the room was not particularly hot. As the last echoes rang out, Maeve stood back and waited.

Nothing happened.

There was no puff of smoke, no creature appearing out of thin air. Instead, she stood alone in the center of a dingy room, at the heart of a badly drawn chalk outline- circles had never been her strength-listening to a burst of boisterous singing from downstairs and waiting for something, anything, to happen.

All at once, there was a scrabbling thump and clump behind her, and Maeve whirled to face the door. There, at the edge of the circle, stood a little man with pointed ears and a pointy chin, improbably dressed in tattered children's clothes. With a flamboyant wave and a grand bow, the brownie-for it was a brownie much to Maeve's great joy-grandly announced, "The Mighty Will o' Horse-Shank, familiar to your arcane majesty, stands at your service!"

Maeve beamed with joy. The spell had worked!

The old torn was quiet, resigned to its fate. Now was the time, Fiddlenose knew, to start the next step of his plan. Rousing from his seat, he pushed aside the brush that hid the stink-plant sac he'd carefully gathered. Now he'd teach that torn to ruin his nights.

As he gathered the gelatinous pod, the air around him began to strangely hum. It was quiet and soft, but the old torn heard it too and began to yowl once more, though this time its voice was filled with fear. Something was happening, something that made Fiddlenose's skin itch. Worse still, he was suddenly keen on a strange urge-an urge to be with someone, someone far away and calling to him.

The hot air closed around him, thickening like bad porridge. The hum grew louder until it drowned out even the tomcat's shrill howls. As the entire world started to fade on Fiddlenose, the brownie, furious and confused, could only helplessly wonder, why do I want to serve someone I don't even know?

And then everything faded to nothing.

"Cheese. I'd really like some cheese," her familiar loudly announced from his chair. His little feet dangled well above the floor, and he could barely reach the side table, but that didn't stop him from pouring himself another glass of palace wine. "Good cheese, not that mold old Car-I mean, not plain, ordinary human cheese. We familiars have delicate dispositions. I'm sure you wouldn't want to indispose your familiar, now would you, dear Maeve? I honestly believe that with a peck of cheese, I shall feel right again and be ready to do your bidding."

Maeve sighed. Somehow, this was just not working out as she'd thought it would. The way she understood it, a familiar was supposed to be at,your beck and call, but since Will had arrived he'd demanded wine, roast meat, the promise of new clothes, even gifts to the innkeeper in his name-and all before he could (and she could quote) 'Feel truly restored and ready to do her will.'

"I think you should be rested enough," she argued testily. "You're my familiar. I'd like you to demonstrate your powers."

Shank knew from her tone that he could not put off the question any longer. The only problem was he hadn't a clue what sort of powers he was supposed to have or grant to her-even if he could.

"Powers? Such as?" he stalled.

Maeve screwed up her face, not expecting the question. She didn't know; she'd never had a familiar before. She racked her drink-fuddled memory for what little she knew on the whole subject.

"You should be able to hear my thoughts-obey my commands. That's one."

"Oh, that," Shank drawled as he tried to think of an explanation. "Well, that takes time. Uh-huh, that's it. We just met, and I'm very, very tense, so my mind is resisting your thoughts. I'm sure it will get better, especially if you've got any more of this wine." He poked at the now-empty bottle on the table and looked around the room significantly. "I'm sure it would help immensely."

Maeve sighed again, but there was no arguing, so she thrust her head out the door and hailed for Corlis to bring more wine. Nobody'd warned her that familiars were so demanding. "Senses, too," she said, coming back in. "I should have keener senses, like hearing and all."

Shank stalled by looking to the ceiling. This scam was starting to get more complicated. It was about time to scupper off. "Don't you feel sharper?" he finally asked, playing on her vanity. "You look positively prime and alert. It's very impressive. I don't think anybody could get anything by you-"

Before he could say more, the temperature in the room abruptly rose to a sweltering degree. The air was filled with the prickly scent of something magical. There was a loud pop, and with it Maeve stumbled back in slack-jawed surprise while Shank fumbled the wineglass from his grip, spilling Ankhapur's finest red all over the floor.

In the center of the room, looking almost as surprised and certainly as unhappy, was another brownie, dressed in a little jerkin of leaves and grass. Sticks and fern fronds jutted from the wild mass of his hair. Clutched in his hands was a green, floppy pod that he fumbled and almost dropped. Recovering it, he tucked it under his arm and, with an irritated grimace, turned to Maeve and made an awkward, forced bow. "I am Fiddlenose and am-at your service, mighty mage." The last was said through firmly clenched teeth, as though the words were wrenched from the very core of his being.

Maeve goggled. Two brownies! By the gods. She'd summoned two brownies!

Shank suddenly eyed the door and the window, trying to decide which he could get out first. It was time for young Shank to get scarce.

Fiddlenose found himself compelled to serve, his mind suddenly filled with strange thoughts that went against his very nature. What was he doing here, and why did he say that?

As she looked from Shank to Fiddlenose and Fiddlenose to Shank, it slowly dawned on Maeve through the drink and the length of the day. She hadn't summoned two familiars, two brownies to serve her. One was a fake, and one was real.

She pointed at the newcomer. "You, Fiddlenose. You say you're here to serve me?"

"Yes, mistress," the brownie grunted.

Shank eased out of his chair.

"No cheese, no wine, no fine clothes?"

Shank tiptoed across the uncarpeted floor, hoping to reach the open window.

"Only if it pleases you," was the dutifully miserable reply.

"And you-" Maeve turned to Shank's now empty chair.

That was the imposter's cue. He broke into a run, hoping to scramble over the towering sill before she could catch him. It had been fun, but now it was time to go.

The words were uttered, and the ray crackled from Maeve's fingertips before Shank had loped two paces.

The magical beam struck him full in the back and spread like ticklish fire down every nerve of his limbs. For a moment, he plunged forward, his body flailing like that of a decapitated hen, and then he fell to the floor in a loose puddle-the impossible way a dead man falls when all his muscles surrender life and control.

He hadn't, at least, surrendered life, but control…? Paralyzed. Through a sideways-canted view, he saw Maeve smiling with hard satisfaction. Perhaps still having life was not a good thing after all. If he could've closed his eyes, he'd have closed them and prayed to every god and goddess he knew for mercy.

Sure that Shank wasn't faking, Maeve turned back to her true familiar. She did feel keener and sharper, there was no doubt. A little of the wooziness was gone from her mind. She liked it; it was good. What other mage in Ankhapur could boast a brownie as her familiar?

A sniffled, "Mistress?" brought her attention back to the woodland sprite in front of her. She looked at Fid-dlenose-her brownie-and saw how sad and angry he was. "Mistress, what do you want of me?"

"You're my familiar?"

"Yes… mistress." Again the words were forced.

"Where do you come from?"

"Goodman Uesto's farm, near Woodrock." The question brightened the little face, but the joy quickly passed as the brownie thought of the sights he would never see again. "Will you let me go now?"

Maeve wasn't sure what to say. "Did you… want to be a familiar. I mean, how did I get you?"

Fiddlenose looked uncomfortably at the strange surroundings. He had never been in a human place like this before. Old Uesto's farm was just a cabin on the edge of the woods, nothing like this. "I wasn't asked. There was just a big buzz and-pop! — I was here."

The implication of it made Maeve weak, so unsettled that she took a chair, looked at the empty wine bottle, and wished she had some right now. She really wanted a familiar, a special, wonderful familiar, but this was like kidnapping-and worse. She'd snatched this poor brownie from its home and friends and was forcing it to serve against its will. It wasn't like getting a rat or frog at all.

She really wanted a familiar, and now look what had happened. What could she do?

On the floor, Shank was making gurgly noises not too different from those of a beached fish. The paralysis made it hard for him to do more than slobber and sputter for rescue. The sound reminded Maeve of her victim, and a wicked look passed across her face. Suddenly Shank wished he could have been very, very still.

All at once clear-headed and firmly resolute, Maeve rose from her seat. "Fiddlenose," she announced with heartfelt relief, "I release you. Go home, brownie. I can't send you home the way you came, so it'll be an adventure or two getting back to your farm. Woodrock's a good week west of here, but if you follow the shore, you should make it all right. That's the best I can do."

The little wood sprite gaped in astonishment. "But what about you? I'm your familiar. Didn't you want one?"

Maeve shook her head, tossing her brown-gray hair. "You go. I'll find a solution to my problem. Go now, before I change my mind!"

The brownie was already making for the door. "Thank you, mistress," he said with heartfelt glee just before he ducked through the door.

With one gone, Maeve turned to the other. "Now, what should be done with you?" The question was pointless, and not just because Shank couldn't answer. The wizard already had plans.

"Perhaps, you don't know, but I'm the royal court wizard," Maeve continued, clearly relishing the look of panic in Shank's eyes. "That means my lord, King Pinch, could have you put away for a very, very long time. Or maybe just execute you as an example, dearie. Does that sound fair?"

The pupils grew wider.

"Or"-and for this she knelt down beside him-"you could be my familiar. Serve me, play the part, and you could have almost as much wine, cheese, and fine clothes as you'd like. Stick your tongue out if you think you'd like that instead."

Sweat matted Shank's hair, but he managed to poke his tongue through his parted teeth.

"Good." Maeve smiled, and then her face went hard. All the fine court manners she'd learned in a year dropped away as she spoke to him in her element. "Understand this, Will o' Horse-Shank. Change your mind, scupper out on me, or play me for the coney again, and I'll see to it that Pinch scrags your scrawny neck from the leafless tree and leaves your bones for the dogs. Hide from me, and every sorcerer in the kingdom'll be scrying for you, every foin and cutpurse will be out to collect the bounty on your hide. You know I can do it, and you know I will. Understand?"

The tongue poked out again.

Maeve smiled and waved a hand over the paralyzed brownie. Sensation and order began to flow back into his limbs. "Then we have an understanding."

She picked up the empty wineglass and raised it in a mock toast while Shank stumbled to his feet. "Here's to getting me a very special familiar!"