That was quite manageable. He could easily sling the bag over one shoulder and carry it for as far as necessary.

When Tobas’s carpet once again swooped down from the rooftops to hover in front of the shop, Gresh was ready, the bottomless bag at his heel, and five of his sisters-Twilfa, Dina, Chira, Tira, and Akka-standing beside him to say their farewells.

The carpet looked rather different now; instead of a simple flat cloth surface it had taken on the appearance of a miniature caravan, laden with baggage. On either side hung an assortment of bags, valises, traveling cases, and other luggage, suspended from a network of ropes and cords that crisscrossed the carpet itself. These bags didn’t seem to interfere with the carpet’s ability to fly, and the ropes barely indented the carpet’s surface at all-in fact, some appeared to be stretched above the fabric, between edges that curled slightly upward. The passengers were once again seated cross-legged in a row down the center, with the two women crowded together to create a cramped fourth space, carefully kept open, between Tobas and Alorria. Gresh noticed that Alorria now wore a slender gold coronet, and Karanissa had her hair tightly bound into a long, thick braid.

The carpet fluttered in from the east and wheeled just above head-height, setting the dangling luggage swinging, then settled down toward Tobas’s door, stopping the instant the lowest-hanging bundle brushed the dirt of the street. This meant the carpet stayed a good three feet up, perhaps four, rather than the single foot it had managed on the previous visit.

“Hai! Gresh!” Tobas called from his position at the front of the rug, waving. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Gresh said, picking up his bag with one hand and giving Twilfa a quick final hug with the other. He stepped forward.

“Just the one bag?” Tobas asked.

“It’s bottomless,” Gresh explained, carefully not expressing his surprise that Tobas had apparently not used anything of the sort himself.

“Hallin’s spell?” Tobas turned up a palm. “I have the instructions for that one, but I could never make it work. Half a day or more!”

“But you have a flying carpet,” Dina said, startled. “Varrin’s Lesser Propulsion takes a day and a half and is at least an order or two higher than Hallin’s Bottomless Bag!”

“Oh, I didn’t make this,” Tobas said. “I bought it. We used to need to do a lot of traveling around Dwomor, so I had some friends find me one I could just barely afford. It must be about a century old-it’s about thirty years into its eighty-year cycle.”

“What?” Gresh said, suddenly worried about the carpet’s reliability. He much preferred dealing with wizards who used their own magic, rather than borrowed or bought devices. They knew how to fix it if something went wrong.

“Varrin’s Lesser Propulsion needs to be renewed every so often,” Dina explained. “When it’s first cast it only lasts for one cycle of the greater moon, from one full moon to the next. But every time the spell is renewed it lasts twice as long, so after a few cycles it’s good for years at a time. What he calls the eighty-year cycle is… let me see… the tenth renewal. It’s really a little less than seventy-nine years.”

“Is that good?” Gresh asked.

“Well, if he’s right, you won’t need to worry about renewing the spell-old flying carpets are worth more than new, because of that; by the tenth renewal they last longer than most owners will live. The thing is, each renewal is more difficult-you need to use certain elements of the original spell, and they tend to get lost after a few cycles.”

“One reason I could afford this carpet,” Tobas said, “is that the original maker’s heirs have mislaid one of the seven white stones, so the spell can’t be renewed forty or fifty years from now.”

“But you’re sure it’s good for years yet?” Gresh asked.

“Mereth of the Golden Door says it is. Do you know a better diviner?”

Gresh looked at Dina.

“She’s not local, but I’ve heard of Mereth,” Dina admitted.

“She lives in Ethshar of the Sands,” Tobas said. “Near the palace.”

“She’s supposed to be good,” Dina acknowledged. She turned back to Tobas. “You can’t do Hallin’s Bottomless Bag?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘can’t,’” Tobas replied. “Let’s just say I haven’t done Hallin’s spell.”

“The Bottomless Bag,” Dina corrected him. “Hallin invented more than one spell, you know.”

Tobas blinked at her. “He did?”

“Yes, he did! The other important one is Hallin’s Transporting Fissure. Seventh- or eighth-order. You never heard of it?”

“Um… no,” Tobas admitted. “I haven’t. But I probably couldn’t use it in any case-I can’t work seventh-order spells with any sort of reliability at all. And I’ve always just heard the Bottomless Bag referred to as Hallin’s spell-after all, it works on things besides bags.”

“I’m sure this is all very interesting for you wizards,” Alorria interrupted. “But some of us would like to get home before dark. If Gresh has all his things in that one little bag, so much the better. He can climb on the carpet, and we can go.”

“Yes, of course.” Gresh handed his bag to Tobas. “Hold this for a moment, would you?”

Tobas accepted it warily. “It won’t explode, away from its true owner, or anything?”

“No, of course not!” Dina said. “I made that bag properly!”

Tobas turned, startled. “You made it?”

Gresh was trying to judge the best way to mount the carpet, whether to climb up the dangling luggage or simply vault onto the carpet. He decided on the vault; he grabbed two of the ropes and jumped.

“Yes, I made it! Did you think Gresh did it? He’s no wizard…”

The carpet felt rather like an oversized feather bed, Gresh discovered as he landed. He rolled forward awkwardly as his eldest sister shouted angrily at Tobas. “Dina,” he said, as he tried to untangle himself from the cords and hoist himself into a sitting position. “Could you please not argue with my other customers?” He put out a hand to right himself and found he was leaning on Alorria’s knee. He quickly snatched his hand away and murmured, “My apologies, lady.”

“Be careful, Gresh!” Twilfa called.

Gresh finally managed to right himself, and smiled. He called back, “Why? If I get myself killed you inherit the business!”

“I’d rather not just yet, thank you,” Twilfa retorted.

“Be careful, Gresh,” Dina said, with a significant glance at Tobas.

“I will, Dina.”

“Good luck, brother,” Akka said. “We’ll dance for you every sixnight.”

“Thank you.”

“Take care,” Tira said.

“Good fortune and a swift return!” Chira called. She waved, and as she did Tobas did something with the fingers of his right hand, and the carpet began to rise, rotating very slowly.

Then all five women on the ground were waving, and Gresh was clinging to a rope with one hand and waving back with the other, ignoring Tobas’s attempt to hand him his bag. He turned his head to keep watching his sisters and saw that Alorria was holding up one of Alris’s chubby little hands and waving that, as well.

Then the rotation was complete, the carpet pointing east. It began to rise again, and to move forward, gaining speed as it went. In a moment Gresh could no longer see any of his sisters. He turned around to face forward and finally accepted the bag Tobas had been trying to hand him. “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” Tobas replied. He glanced back past Gresh’s shoulder. “And people say I’m mad, to have two wives! I heard the one on the end call you brother, and the young one’s your assistant, but that still leaves three.”

“They aren’t my wives,” Gresh protested, as he watched the buildings flash by on either side. The carpet was still rising, so they were now even with third-floor windows or the rooftops and gutters of the lower structures.