Sourcery

heart of which strange lights flashed and sparkled.
    The roads leading away from it were packed with refugees, and every inn and wayside tavern was crowded out. Or nearly every one.
    No one seemed to want to stop at the rather pleasant little pub nestling among trees just off the road to Quirm. It wasn’t that they were frightened to go inside, it was just that, for the moment, they weren’t being allowed to notice it.
    There was a disturbance in the air about half a mile away and three figures dropped out of nowhere into a thicket of lavender.
    They lay supine in the sunshine among the broken, fragrant branches, until their sanity came back. Then Creosote said, “Where are we, do you suppose?”
    “It smells like someone’s underwear drawer,” said Conina.
    “Not mine,” said Nijel, firmly.
    He eased himself up gently and added, “Has anyone seen the lamp?”
    “Forget it. It’s probably been sold to build a wine-bar,” said Conina.
    Nijel scrabbled around among the lavender stems until his hands found something small and metallic.
    “Got it!” he declared.
    “Don’t rub it!” said the other two, in harmony. They were too late anyway, but that didn’t much matter, because all that happened when Nijel gave it a cautious buff was the appearance of some small smoking red letters in mid-air.
    “‘Hi,’” Nijel read aloud. “‘Do not put down the lamp, because your custom is important to us. Please leave a wish after the tone and, very shortly, it will be our command. In the meantime, have a nice eternity.’” He added, “You know, I think he’s a bit over-committed.”
    Conina said nothing. She was staring out across the plains to the broiling storm of magic. Occasionally some of it would detach and soar away to some distant tower. She shivered, despite the growing heat of the day.
    “We ought to get down there as soon as possible,” she said. “It’s very important.”
    “Why?” said Creosote. One glass of wine hadn’t really restored him to his former easygoing nature.
    Conina opened her mouth, and—quite unusually for her—shut it again. There was no way to explain that every gene in her body was dragging her onward, telling her that she should get involved; visions of swords and spiky balls on chains kept invading the hairdressing salons of her consciousness.
    Nijel, on the other hand, felt no such pounding. All he had to drive him onward was imagination, but he did have enough of that to float a medium-sized war galley. He looked toward the city with what would have been, but for his lack of chin, an expression of set-jawed determination.
    Creosote realized that he was outnumbered.
    “Do they have any drink down there?” he said.
    “Lots,” said Nijel.
    “That might do for a start,” the Seriph conceded. “All right, lead on, O peach-breasted daughter of—”
    “And no poetry.”
    They untangled themselves from the thicket and walked down the hillside until they reached the road which, before very long, went past the aforementioned tavern or, as Creosote persisted in calling it, caravanserai.
    They hesitated about going in. It didn’t seem to welcome visitors. But Conina, who by breeding and upbringing tended to skulk around the back of buildings, found four horses tethered in the yard.
    They considered them carefully.
    “It would be stealing,” said Nijel, slowly.
    Conina opened her mouth to agree and the words “Why not?” slid past her lips. She shrugged.
    “Perhaps we should leave some money—” Nijel suggested.
    “Don’t look at me,” said Creosote.
    “—or maybe write a note and leave it under the bridle. Or something. Don’t you think?”
    By way of an answer Conina vaulted up onto the largest horse, which by the look of it belonged to a soldier. Weaponry was slung all over it.
    Creosote hoisted himself uneasily onto the second horse, a rather skittish bay, and sighed.
    “She’s got that letter-box look,” he said. “I should do what she says.”
    Nijel regarded the other two horses suspiciously. One of them was very large and extremely white, not the offwhite which was all that most horses could manage, but a translucent, ivory white tone which Nijel felt an unconscious urge to describe as “shroud.” It also gave him a distinct impression that it was more intelligent than he was.
    He selected the other one. It was a bit thin, but docile, and he managed to get on after only two tries.
    They set off.
    The sound of their hoofbeats barely