goods for gold, but that was a rare event.
No, Asher was unique: a magician and a drunk. And from what was rumoured, one who also liked to gamble and enjoy the company of women less than half his age. So he kept permanent residence in the part of the city where no one had calves to stillbirth, milk to curdle, or crops to fail. With so few prosperous undertakings in the Poor Quarter, there was scarcely any reason to seek someone else to blame for failure. Failure was a daily fact of life here.
The tavern had seen better days; the booth-like ‘snugs’ tucked into the corner were too fancy for its present clientele, most of whom sat on their knife scabbards as they threw dice, to keep themselves conscious of where the hilts were.
Jimmy looked into the farthest corner in the place and his grin grew wider. But then finding Alban Asher in this tavern was as reliable as finding bad ale in a dirty mug. Jimmy had never seen him anywhere but in his cobwebbed corner. For all the young thief knew he’d grown roots there. But then, Asher didn’t need to go anywhere. The world came to him. Despite being an old sot, compulsive gambler and womanizer, if he was sober enough, the spells he sold worked very well indeed. Jimmy had heard of a few failures, but they were more a disappointment than a disaster. Certainly not enough to put off any potential business. Besides, where else would one go in the principality to find a magician willing to sell magic for enough gold to get drunk on, sit down at a card game, or convince a young girl to bed someone her grandfather’s age?
Jimmy got himself a mug of ale and acquired a cup of the tavern’s best wine. Which smelled raw enough to strip tar, and though he wasn’t the most fastidious fellow in the city, he had no intention of actually drinking the ale he’d bought. Going over to the magician’s table Jimmy placed the wine before him and sat in the other seat, watching the formless heap of black robes across from him.
It took a moment for the man to come to life, but the scent of the wine eventually evoked a response. A clawlike hand reached out of a sleeve and lifted the cup; the magician took a sip and made a guttural, approving sound. Jimmy’s throat closed when he thought of what the man must usually imbibe. The magician hiccupped and then gave a powerful belch, chuckling evilly at Jimmy’s expression when the vapours hit him.
Jimmy sat, waiting.
It was impossible to guess Asher’s age. For one thing, the tavern was dark, and this corner of it darker still; for another, the magician’s head was surrounded by a bush of sandy hair. His beard, moustache, eyebrows and head-hair were all as thick and impenetrable as a bramble bush. As for his face, all that could be seen were a bulbous nose almost the same shade as the wine and the gleam of his eyes beneath his shaggy brows. It was suspected he might be as young as sixty summers, but then again, some suggested he was ninety and being kept alive by dark spells. All Jimmy knew from rumours was that the magician existed in a state of seeming indifference to the world around him unless he was drinking, gambling or whoring. And by all reports when the drinking wasn’t excessive, he was fairly successful with the gambling and whoring.
‘Ye want somethin’,’ Alban Asher the magician said in a matter-of-fact tone. His voice was deep and raspy. Even sitting down he was weaving, indicating that he was already well into the bottle.
‘Yessir,’ Jimmy confirmed cheerfully. ‘I’ll pay extra for secrecy.’
After a moment Asher chuckled in a way that spoke of pure greed. With a gesture he encouraged Jimmy to continue.
‘I need one or two spells that I can carry away with me and set off where and when I want,’ the young thief said.
‘Love spells,’ Asher said, nodding sagely. ‘Boys yer age’re all after love spells.’ He chuckled salaciously and touched one grubby finger to his nose.
Jimmy supposed that he winked, but couldn’t tell. ‘No,’ he said quickly, ‘not a love spell.’
‘Boys yer age …’ the magician began, sounding annoyed.
‘Definitely not a love spell,’ Jimmy repeated.
I prefer my girls to have a choice in the matter, he thought. It’s a matter of pride. Not that there was any point in trying to explain that to someone oblivious to the concept.
‘I’ve got a mortared wall I need to take down but I don’t want to break my back. Have you got anything for that?’
Asher stabbed a finger at him. ‘Yer a thief!’ he snarled in a rather loud whisper.
Jimmy rolled his eyes. ‘Thieves don’t knock down walls,’ he pointed out.
The mass of hair bunched around the magician’s nose in what Jimmy assumed was a frown. ‘Mmm, true,’ Asher agreed, blinking like an owl suddenly confronting a lantern light. ‘Got somethin’ might work.’ He rubbed his chin ruminatively. ‘Somethin’ about it though …’
‘I’ll take it,’ Jimmy said quickly, sure now that the magician was drunk. ‘I also need something to knock people out.’
‘Ah!’ Asher said and chuckled. ‘Girls! I knew it!’ Then he chuckled some more.
Jimmy had noticed that Asher had the most nuanced chuckle he’d ever heard. In this case it indicated that the magician’s relations with women when he hadn’t enough gold for whores wouldn’t bear close scrutiny.
‘No, no girls,’ Jimmy said. ‘Men, big, heavy men, so if size is an issue you should plan for that.’
‘Men?’ the magician said as though he’d never heard of them before. After a moment he shrugged. ‘Ah, well, takes all kinds. I’ve got somethin’ – I c’n make it stronger. It’s that wall spell …’
His voice faded off and he looked over Jimmy’s head so steadily the boy thief turned around to look. There was no one there but the tavern keeper, dozing behind the bar, and a man weeping into his beer. That would normally have attracted derisive attention had anyone else been present, except that the man looked to weigh about half what a heavy cavalryman’s horse did, and had a scar like a young gully from the point of his jaw up over one empty eye-socket, not to mention layers of slick tissue half an inch thick over the knuckles of both hands.
Jimmy looked at the magician out of the corner of his eye, then back at the bar. If Asher wanted more wine he’d have to wait until they’d finished their negotiations and the goods had changed hands.
‘What’s wrong with the wall spell?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Doesn’t it work?’
‘Oh, aye, it works,’ Asher said slowly. He shook his head as though that might dislodge something in his mind. ‘There’s jist, somethin’ …’ He reached out with thumb and forefinger, as if to grasp something.
‘Is it dangerous?’ Jimmy asked, his voice sounding as though he could be.
The magician blew out his cheeks. ‘Only if ye’re not supposed to use it!’ he said. ‘It works! It works very well, I tell ye.’
‘What about the knock-out spell?’ Jimmy asked.
With a dismissive wave of his hand Asher plopped a small bag onto the table. ‘Hardly magic at all,’ he said. ‘But you want it for big strapping fellows, instead of skinny little girls …’ He paused, looked at Jimmy for a moment as if trying to understand something totally alien to his imagination, then said, ‘Never mind. Give me a moment.’ He closed his eyes, waved his hand over the bag and muttered for a few minutes.
The hair on the back of Jimmy’s neck rose. What he called his ‘bump of trouble’ let him know that Asher was indeed using magic. Since he could remember, Jimmy possessed a near supernatural ability to sense approaching danger or the presence of magic being used.
Asher finished, and said, ‘Now it’s stronger.’ He pushed the pouch toward Jimmy. ‘Take a pinch and blow it into the face o’ the one ye’re tryin’ to knock down and down he’ll go!’
‘And the wall?’
The magician grunted. Turning, he grabbed a sack behind his chair