Limits by Larry Niven (tohfa e dulha read online TXT) 📗

with odd ointments. There was even a two-inch-long unicorn horn prominently displayed on a small silk pillow.

Shubar Khan peered at the silver runes. He mumbled under his breath, at length. Was he reading them? “Old Sorcerer’s Guild language,” he said, “with some mistakes. What is it supposed to point at?”

“I don’t know,” Sparthera lied. “Something buried, I think.”

Shubar Khan unrolled one of the scrolls, weighted it open with a couple of bones, and began to read in a musical foreign tongue. Presently he stopped. “Nothing. Whatever spell was on it, it seems as dead as the gods.”

“Curse my luck and your skill! Can’t you do anything?”

“I can put a contagion spell on it for two pieces of silver.” He looked her up and down and grinned. “Or anything else of equal or greater value.”

“I’ll give you the coins,” Sparthera said shortly. “What will the spell do?”

Shubar Khan laughed until his paunch shook. “Not even for old time’s sake? What a pity. As to the spell, it will make this thing seek whatever it was once bound to. We’re probably lucky the original spell wore off. A contagion spell is almost easy.”

Sparthera handed over the money. Gar’s treasure had already cost her far too much. Shubar Khan ushered her and his apprentice—loaded down with phials, a pair of scrolls, firewood, and a small cauldron—to a steep crag nearby.

“Why do we have to come out here?” Sparthera asked.

“We’re just being cautious,” Shubar Khan said soothingly. He set up the cauldron, emptied a few things into it, lit the fire the apprentice had set, and handed the apprentice the bronze teardrop and one of the scrolls. “When the cauldron smokes, just read this passage out loud. And remember to enunciate,” he said as he grabbed Sparthera’s arm and sprinted down the hill.

Sparthera looked uphill at the boy, “This is dangerous, isn’t it? How dangerous?”

“I don’t know. The original spell isn’t working, but there may be some power left in it, and there’s no telling what it might do. That’s why magicians have apprentices.”

They could hear the boy chanting in his childish treble, speaking gibberish, but rolling his Rs and practically spitting the Ps. The clouds that had been gathering overhead took on a harsh ominous quality. The wind came up and the trees whipped and showered leaves on the ground.

A crack of lightning cast the entire landscape into ghastly brightness. Shubar Khan dove to the ground. Sparthera winced and then strained her eyes into the suddenly smoky air. There was no sign of the boy. Thunder rolled deafeningly across the sky.

Sparthera ran up the hill, heart thumping. The top of the crag was scorched and blackened. The iron cauldron was no more than a twisted blob of metal.

“Ooohhh!”

Shubar Khan’s apprentice pulled himself to his feet and looked at her with huge eyes. His face was smudged, his hair scorched, and his clothing still smouldered. He held out a blackened fist with the bronze piece still in it.

“Did, did…did it work?” he asked in a frightened croak.

Shubar Khan retrieved the pointer and laid it on his palm. It slowly rotated to the right and stopped. He grinned broadly and patted the boy heartily on the shoulder.

“Excellent! We’ll make a magician of you yet!” He turned to Sparthera and presented the pointer to her with a bow.

She tucked it inside her tunic. “Thank you,” she said, feeling a little awkward.

Shubar Khan waved a muscular red hand. “Always pleased to be of service. Spells, enchantments, and glamours at reasonable rates. Maybe someday I can interest you in a love philtre.”

Sparthera rode back down the mountain trail with the bronze teardrop tucked in her tunic, feeling its weight between her breasts like the touch of a lover’s hand. Just above Tarseny’s Rest she reined up to watch a small herd of gazelle bound across a nearby hill. Someday she would build a house on that hill. Someday, when she had Gar’s treasure, she would build a big house with many rooms and many fireplaces. She would have thick rugs and fine furniture, and there would be servants in white tunics embroidered with red leaves.

She spurred her horse to the crest of the hill. Down below were the river and the town, and across the valley were more hills, leading away to distant mountains.

“I’m going to be rich!” she yelled. “Rich!”

The echoes boomed back. “Rich, rich, rich!” until they finally whimpered into silence. Twilight nickered and pulled at his reins. Sparthera laughed. She would have many horses when she was rich. Horses and cattle and swine.

She could almost see the hoard trickling through her fingers in a cascade of gold and rainbow colors. Money for the house and the animals and a dowry.

The dowry would buy her a husband: a fine, respectable merchant who would give her fat beautiful children to inherit the house and the animals. Sparthera took a last lingering look at the countryside before she swung herself back into the saddle. First, find the treasure!

She cantered back into town, put Twilight into the stable behind the lodging house, and went to her room. It was a tiny cubicle, with a pallet of cotton-covered straw and some blankets against one wall. Rough colorful embroideries hung on the wattle and daub walls: relics of the days at home on her father’s farm. Another embroidery was thrown across a large wooden chest painted with flying birds, and a three-legged chair with flowers stencilled on the back stood in one corner.

Sparthera uncovered the chest and threw open the lid. It was packed with odds and ends—relics of her childhood—and down at the bottom was a small pouch with her savings in it.

She opened the pouch and counted the coins slowly, frowning. The search might take weeks or months. She would need provisions, extra clothes, and a pack animal to carry them. There wasn’t enough here.

She would have to borrow or beg an animal from her family. She grimaced at the thought, but she had little choice.

It was a four-hour