Equal Rites

broker’s part would see him flat in the dust. And that damn child was squinting at him as though she could see through to the back of his mind. His nerve broke.
    “I regret this unfortunate dispute,” he said. “I had accepted the stones as ultramarines in good faith but rather than cause disharmony between us I will ask you to accept them as—as a gift, and for the fleeces may I offer this roseatte of the first sorting?”
    He took a small red stone from a tiny velvet pouch. Amschat hardly looked at it but, without taking his eyes off the man, passed it down to Esk. She nodded.
    When the merchant had hurried off Amschat took Esk’s hand and half-dragged her to the assayer’s stall, which was little more than a niche in the wall. The old man took the smallest of the blue stones, listened to Amschat’s hurried explanation, poured out a saucerful of hypactic fluid and dropped the stone in. It frothed into nothingness.
    “Very interesting,” he said. He took another stone in a tweezer and examined it under a glass.
    “They are indeed spircles, but remarkably fine specimens in their own right,” he concluded. “They are by no means worthless, and I for example would be prepared to offer you—is there something wrong with the little girl’s eyes?”
    Amschat nudged Esk, who stopped trying out another Look.
    “—I would offer you, shall we say, two zats of silver?”
    “Shall we say five?” said Amschat pleasantly.
    “And I would like to keep one of the stones,” said Esk. The old man threw up his hands.
    “But they are mere curios!” he said. “Of value only to a collector!”
    “A collector may yet sell them to an unsuspecting purchaser as finest roseattes or ultramarines,” said Amschat, “especially if he was the only assayer in town.”
    The assayer grumbled a bit at this, but at last they settled on three zats and one of the spircles on a thin silver chain for Esk.
    When they were out of earshot Amschat handed her the tiny silver coins and said: “These are yours. You have earned them. But—” he hunkered down so that his eyes were on a level with hers, “—you must tell me how you knew the stones were false.”
    He looked worried, but Esk sensed that he wouldn’t really like the truth. Magic made people uncomfortable. He wouldn’t like it if she said simply: spircles are spircles and ultramarines are ultramarines, and though you may think they look the same that is because most people don’t use their eyes in the right way. Nothing can entirely disguise its true nature.
    Instead she said: “The dwarves mine spircles near the village where I was born, and you soon learn to see how they blend light in a funny way.”
    Amschat looked into her eyes for some time. Then he shrugged.
    “Okay,” he said. “Fine. Well, I have some further business here. Why don’t you buy yourself some new clothes, or something? I’d warn you against unscrupulous traders but, somehow, I don’t know, I don’t think you will have any trouble.”
    Esk nodded. Amschat strode off through the market place. At the first corner he turned, looked at her thoughtfully, and then disappeared among the crowds.
    Well, that’s the end of sailing, Esk told herself. He’s not quite sure but he’s going to be watching me now and before I know what’s happening the staff will be taken away and there’ll be all sorts of trouble. Why does everyone get so upset about magic?
    She gave a philosophical sigh and set about exploring the possibilities of the town.
    There was the question of the staff, though. Esk had rammed it deep among the fleeces, which were not going to be unloaded yet. If she went back for it people would start asking questions, and she didn’t know the answers.
    She found a convenient alleyway and scuttled down it until a deep doorway gave her the privacy she required.
    If going back was out of the question then only one thing remained. She held out a hand and closed her eyes.
    She knew exactly what she wanted to do—it lay in front of her eyes. The staff mustn’t come flying through the air, wrecking the barge and drawing attention to itself. All she wanted, she told herself, was for there to be a slight change in the way the world was organized. It shouldn’t be a world where the staff was in the fleeces, it should be a world where it was in her hand. A tiny change, an infinitesimal alteration to the Way Things Were.
    If Esk had been properly trained in wizardry she would have known that this