Liavek 4 Read online

  Copyright

  "Pot Luck" by Megan Lindholm

  "Show of faith" by Gregory Frost

  "An Act of Trust" by Steven Brust

  "A Cup of Worrynot Tea" by John M. Ford

  "The Well-Made Plan" by Emma Bull

  LIAVEK 4

  edited by Will Shetterly and Emma Bull

  Copyright

  LlAVEK

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace/1986

  CatYelling/2015

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1986 by Will Shetterly and Emma Bull

  "Pot Luck" copyright © 1986 by M. Lindholm Ogden.

  "Show of Faith" copyright © 1986 by Gregory Frost.

  "An Act of Trust" copyright © 1986 by Steven K. Z. Brust.

  "A Cup of Worrynot Tea" copyright © 1986 by John M. Ford.

  "The Well-Made Plan" copyright © 1986 by Emma Bull.

  "Pot Luck" by Megan Lindholm

  KALOO SQUINTED AGAINST the dazzle of sun off the waves as the little double-ended dory dipped and rose merrily in the waters off Gutters Cove. T'Nar, she knew, had brought her here to lift her spirits. When she had been younger, such tactics had always worked. A day in the sun and salt wind, with little to do but bait her hook and pull in white-fleshed flounders would have erased any gloom from her mind.

  "But I am not a child anymore," she reminded herself with a silent sigh. Anyone looking at her might have disputed the opinion. Her face had lost none of its childish shape, nor had her body. But by Liavekan law she was nearly an adult. On some days she wondered if she wanted to be one. Ever since she had begun her search to discover her luck time, and coincidentally became the apprentice of the wizard L'Fertti, her life had been more complicated. For one thing, there was the sneaking about to get to her lessons. Daril, her foster mother, would have been outraged had she known Kaloo was studying to invest her luck and use the magic it made available. Daril had already planned Kaloo's future. She would help with the running of the Mug and Anchor until she was old enough to take it over and let Daril retire. So Kaloo explained her time away from the inn by inventing a boyfriend...not that any boy would ever be interested in her! Then there was L'Fertti, who made her go so frustratingly slow with her lessons. Had not she just spent a whole month upon the benefits of cooking herbs when used in health potions...as if that could be called magic at all?

  Discovering her luck time had not been the satisfaction she had expected. It had only filled her with new and more nagging questions about who her natural parents had been, and why they had abandoned her in a ditch beside the Levar's Highway. But worst of all were the strange feelings, half of dread and half of fascination, that gripped her at the sight of a red cloak in Liavek's streets.

  "What's his name, anyway?" T'nar's rumbling voice broke in on her thoughts, and Kaloo started.

  "Whose name?"

  "Whoever it is that makes you stare into space with a look on your face like a sick gull. You've had three bites on your line just now and ignored them all. And look where we are! You said you'd take a turn at minding the oars. We've drifted out past the good fishing. Nothing out here but ratfish."

  Kaloo shrugged guiltily. She tossed her hand line to T'nar, knowing full well her bait was probably nibbled away by now, and stood to the oars. "Time to head home anyway," she replied. "Look at the sun. If we don't go back now, I won't have time to help Daril prepare for the evening rush."

  For five sweeps of the oars, T'nar let her think she had successfully evaded him. Then, "What color eyes does he have, this boy who has ousted poor Roen?"

  Kaloo didn't flinch. They had sparred this way too many times before, jokingly when she was a small girl, and more barbedly now that she was maturing. "What makes you think I'm not seeing Roen anymore?"

  "I ran into Roen the other day. Down on the docks with another young lady, right after you had left the inn to be with him. Or is that what these moody looks are about? Has he decided that green eyes are more mysterious than flashing black ones?"

  "If you want to know, why not ask him?" Kaloo replied sulkily, adopting the attitude of the lover scorned. "He isn't the only fish in the sea, though he may fancy himself the best catch."

  "So that's it then, is it?" T'nar rumbled. "Well, you're right. And I never thought him a fit catch for you at all. No wonder you've been moping about. Well, the first time always hurts the worst, I suppose. And all this time I was thinking you had another young man on your mind."

  "Maybe I already do," Kaloo replied in her first burst of near-truth for the afternoon.

  "Well, that's the spirit!" T'nar encouraged her. "And I hope he's worthy of your time."

  She made no reply to that, but kept her eyes on the beach and leaned into the oars with a will. If you only knew, she thought. How would he feel to know that the man who fascinated her was Count Dashif, the bloody right hand of His Scarlet Eminence? Oh, not with the silly romantic notions T'nar imagined filled her head. No. But it was true he was handsome. He had eyes near black as his character, and hair to match that hung in ringlets to his shoulders. His red cloak and white silk shirt drew eyes to him, eyes that were quickly cast down. But it was not his appearance that drew Kaloo, but something else. A power. But even that didn't describe it. More like an echo of something she once knew and couldn't recall. A feeling for him. She wished she knew if it were love or hate.

  That question was still on her mind as she and T'nar slogged up to the front door of the Mug and Anchor, their catch heavy in a tub lugged between them. But all thoughts of Dashif vanished suddenly. "By Rikiki's nuts!" T'nar blasphemed softly, too overcome for volume.

  The wide doors of the Mug and Anchor that stood open to weary seamen in all but the most vile weather were firmly closed. More shocking than this was the crudely lettered board tacked across them. CLOSED. NO BUSINESS TODAY. NO FOOD SERVED.

  "Daril!" hissed T'nar.

  Daril had never closed the inn before, not when she had fallen down the steps and broken her ribs, not even on the day that T'nar had put Kaloo, a squalling, dirty, abandoned baby, into her ample lap. Wordlessly they hastened down the side alley. At the back door they dropped the tub, and T'nar shouldered Kaloo aside to be the first one to face whatever disaster was changing their lives.

  The shutters were closed, the room darker than Kaloo had ever seen it. But it was another change that took her breath away. The kitchen fire had died away to mere coals. The potboil in its blackened kettle was not bubbling and murmuring as it released today's variety of fragrance. The pot-boil that had simmered there for one hundred and fifty years was being allowed to cool and congeal. A dark figure huddled on the bench before it.

  For an instant Kaloo did not recognize Daril. The keeper of the Mug and Anchor seemed to have shrunk. Only yesterday she had come home from visiting with her hair braided and coiled upon her head in a ridiculously youthful style. A friend had helped her stain her gray hair into a carroty parody of the auburn tresses of her youth. T'nar had professed to like it, but Kaloo had been appalled. In Daril's present posture, it looked even gaudier, and, if possible, more foolish, like new yarn hair on a worn-out rag doll. Her arms were wrapped about herself as if to ward off a chill. She did not turn at their entrance, but continued to stare at the darkening embers of the fire.

  "Daril?" T'nar moved swiftly to put his hands on her shoulders.

  "It's gone bad," she whispered hoarsely as she turned a tear-streaked face up to him. "More than one hundred and fifty years gone rancid. Oh, T'nar, what's to become of us?"

  He had no words of comfort for her. Kaloo stood frozen by the door. Never in her life had she heard such hopelessness in Daril's voice, nor seen T'nar stand mute and helpless in the face of any problem. He did not even curse. Kalo
o tried to grasp the magnitude of the disaster. Pot-boils were a tradition in Liavek—the savory, simmering pot of meat and vegetables kept bubbling over a fire. No two were the same. As fresh ingredients and new spices were added daily, each pot-boil moved through a spectrum of delectability, yet kept its own special identity. Daril's was one of the best. No one in the city would have argued the point. And now it had gone bad.

  "Are you sure?" Kaloo asked.

  "How dare you ask her a thing like that?" T'nar snapped. But Daril accepted her question even if T'nar did not.

  "Rancid," she whispered. "And I can't for the luck of me understand why. Just before you left, I finished chopping the day's vegetables and fish. I slipped them in, and crumbled in my herb mix, and left it to simmer. Just as I've done every day of my life since I was tall enough to stir a kettle. But when I came to taste it, it was..." Suddenly she bowed her head into her hands. She sobbed silently, her broad shoulders shaking. T'nar's callused hands patted her trembling body.

  Kaloo took a deep breath. "Daril, we can't just close the inn. I can put the meats to roast over the mainroom fires. I can make up a chowder from today's catch, and the breads were fresh-baked this morning before I left. While the inn is closed, we have no income. And a lot of sailors have no place to eat. Let me take down the sign and—"

  "And let all the town know our shame?" Daril asked incredulously. "Some little snit from the Cat Street Crier has already been here rattling at the latches and wanting to know what was wrong. I told .him we were remodeling our mainroom, and couldn't serve customers until it was finished to our satisfaction. If I open the doors now, they'll know it's not true. And the first time someone asks for the pot-boil and we have to refuse, the truth will be out. No, Kaloo, it's the end for us. We'll have to close the Mug and Anchor and do—I don't know what..." Her voice had gotten hoarser and hoarser as she spoke, and she again dissolved into tears. T'nar shot Kaloo a despairing glance, then bent to talk to Daril softly.

  "Let me take you up to your room. You lie down for a bit and I'll rub your back and we'll think together. It can't be as bad as it seems right now. Kaloo will stay here and look through the vegetables and meat supplies. And if she finds someone has sold us tainted meat or bad produce..." His words trailed off and the muscles in his shoulders and arms suddenly knotted. Gently he urged Daril to her feet.

  Kaloo stood for a moment in the darkened kitchen, listening to their slow heavy footfalls as they ascended the stairs to their living quarters above the inn. Suddenly the strangeness of that familiar room scared her more than any spook story T'nar had ever told her. She leaped to fling open the shutters and let in the warm afternoon sunlight. Next she moved to the fireplace and put more wood on the dying coals. Pot-boil or not, she would need a fire to fix something for them to eat tonight. Cautiously she hooked the fire-blackened kettle toward her and took a sniff, ready for the foul odor of meat gone rotten.

  There wasn't any. Kaloo frowned and, taking up a wooden spoon, stirred the congealed pot-boil carefully. Still no stink; it didn't make sense. Turning from the pot-boil, Kaloo dug hastily through the garbage tub of vegetable ends and meat scraps that they saved for a local pig farmer. It looked fine to her. Oh, the spiny heart stubs had begun to brown a little, and the bits of fat had softened in the heat of the day, but there was nothing there to make the pot-boil go bad. Kaloo hesitated, unwilling to place her judgment over Daril's. Then she swung the kettle back over the heat. She stirred it as the rich gravy began to loosen and simmer again. The scent of the Mug and Anchor's famed pot-boil began to fill the kitchen. Kaloo put a dollop into a bowl and ventured a taste. As familiar as she was with it, it was still delicious. The hunger that had built up from her morning's fishing suddenly demanded satisfaction. She filled the bowl and cut the crispy heel from one of the new-baked loaves. She ate it standing at the hearth, at first tasting each chunk of meat and vegetable carefully in search of some taint, but soon devouring the whole bowl.

  "T'nar!" she called up the stairs. "Come eat!"

  "A moment!" he replied, and she soon heard his heavy boots. He came into the kitchen sniffing like a dog on a scent, and wordlessly took the heavy bowl Kaloo pushed into his hands. He took the first mouthful and turned incredulous eyes on her. "How did you do it?" he demanded. "It tastes just like the old pot-boil!"

  "It is the old pot-boil. I just heated it up, that's all. T'nar, there's nothing wrong with it. It tastes wonderful, just as it always has."

  He took another mouthful, more cautiously, and then a second with relish. He motioned for bread and she cut a slab and passed it to him. He finished the bowl rapidly, and as he set it on the table, he demanded, "Why didn't you call and tell us right away?"

  "Same reason you aren't shouting for Daril. I don't want to be the one to contradict her about her own pot-boil."

  "What is that stench?" demanded a voice behind them, and they both turned guiltily as Daril entered.

  "What stench?" Kaloo asked. becoming aware of it as soon as she spoke. It was a dreadful odor, one part charnal house to one part fresh sewage. Daril strode forward to hook the kettle away from the fire. As she moved the simmering mixture, it became obvious that it was the source of the stink. She turned to Kaloo and T'nar, her hands on her hips.

  "Which of you had the marvelous idea of heating up that hopeless mess?"

  "I did," Kaloo admitted before T'nar could speak.

  "But it smelled fine at first. Tasted good, too," T'nar added.

  Daril glared at them. "I suppose it will be my luck that you've both poisoned yourselves and I can nurse you while trying to figure out how to save my business? Hasn't either one of you a nose or a tongue? Just the smell of it is making me sick. I'm going back up to my room. You two can clean up your own mess. And don't go stinking up my kitchen any worse than it already is."

  Kaloo and T'nar had both backed up against the kitchen table in remarkably similar postures during her lecture. As the door swung shut behind her, they exchanged glances. "Get a tub to dump it in," T'nar instructed Kaloo. "She's probably right. We'll both of us be sick tomorrow."

  But as Kaloo started to tip the kettle into the tub T'nar held, she froze. At his questioning glance, she sniffed loudly several times. He copied her, then pulled the tub away as she righted the kettle. "It smells fine now," he said. "Damnedest thing I've ever seen."

  "Or smelt," Kaloo added wryly. "T'nar, something about this makes no sense."

  "Nothing about this makes any sense," he corrected her gravely. "Unless..."

  "Unless what?" she demanded, alarmed by his solemnity.

  "Unless someone's fooling about with our luck. What could be worse for our inn than for our pot-boil to go bad?" At Kaloo's blank look, he went on. "For it to be good one moment and bad the next. For us never to know if a customer is going to get a bowlful of Daril's pot-boil or a bowlful of slop. That's the kind of reputation that puts a place out of business."

  "So where does that leave us'J" Kaloo asked impatiently.

  His dark eyes met hers without hope. "In a mess."

  •

  Kaloo pushed L'Fertti's splintering door open, leaning on it as it scraped across the floor. "I wish you'd fix that," she said petulantly to the old wizard.

  L'Fertti didn't look up from the herbs he was sorting on the table. "And I wish you'd learn to be on time. Come and tell me the proper names for these, and what each is good for. Then I've a shopping list for you to fill. Put on the kettle before you sit down."

  Kaloo didn't move from where she stood. Her eyes, dark and bright as a raptor's, stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. He was not an inspiring sight. No majesty or mystery clung to him. L'Fertti was just a stooped old man in a tattered robe. His white hair and beard were unkempt and the single jade earring in one ear gave his head an unbalanced look. Yet she had been witness to the magic his luck could provide when he put his time and wits to work.

  Recently, as part of her instruction, he had begun working small daily magics
for her edification: the lighting of a candle, levitation of small objects, making a copper disappear from the table (My copper! she recalled), and souring a bowl of milk. At the remembrance of the last example, she frowned. It struck a bit close to home. Still....

  "Just how good are you, really?" she demanded.

  "Good enough to make ladies weep in the morning when I leave. "

  Kaloo flushed. Lately he had taken to making jokes of that ilk, and she suspected he took a secret pleasure in flustering her. But she hadn't time to be peeved with him today.

  "I mean at magic, at manipulating your luck. If someone came to you with a real problem, could you do anything about it? Something worse than a bellyache or an infected hangnail?"

  He turned to stare at her imperiously. Moments of silence ticked by, and then Kaloo was suddenly assailed with a furious itch in a place not scratchable in public. "You crude old pig!" she shouted, and it ceased as suddenly as it had begun. "I come to you, for once, with a real problem, with something that could ruin my life, and all you do is make nasty jokes. I don't know why I bother with you!"

  "And I don't know why I bother with an apprentice so thin-skinned that she makes an insult of a jest between friends. You insinuate that I am a fraud, and then shout at me when I prove your allegations false. If one wishes to consult a wizard, it is customary to start by stating the problem, not insulting his credentials. Sit down!"

  The last was such a roar of command that Kaloo sat, not in the chair he indicated, but in a heap on the floor. Then, much to her own dismay, she burst into tears. This seemed to distress L'Fertti as much as it did her, for he made no comment on it. She buried her face in her hands and wept helplessly, while he magicked his kettle to a boil and brewed kaf. He nudged her with a sandaled foot, and as soon as she looked up, put the steaming mug into her hands. There was enough apology in his face that Kaloo surrendered her grudge.

  "Someone's cursed our pot-boil. Or something. Maybe the whole inn. I don't know. T'nar and I came back from fishing, and Daril said the pot-boil had gone bad, but it smelled fine to us, so we ate some, and then she came in and took it off the fire and it was all rotten. T'nar says it will ruin our trade if the food isn't dependable, and Daril says we will have to close the place and find another way to make a living, and it's breaking her heart. And stupid T'nar doesn't know what to do, and he's supposed to know what to do when things like this happen. What will we do if Daril closes the inn? She doesn't know anything but cooking and putting out beer, and all I know is how to help her. So I don't know what will happen to any of us, and then when I come to you for help—"