“It’s good fishing grounds,” Karanissa called from behind.

Indeed, Gresh could see boats ahead, a dozen or more spaced out across the water. Earlier he had thought he might have glimpsed sails off to the south, but they were not flying over the shipping lanes, so none had been close enough to identify with any certainty; here, though, the boats were working close in, and there could be no mistaking them. He shifted over closer to the edge of the carpet for a better look.

“Don’t fall off!” Alorria called.

“I won’t,” Gresh assured her, but he stopped creeping sideways and sat where he was, leaning over a leather case as he watched the fishing boats. They were casting and hauling in nets; the nets fell into the water dark and empty, but came up full of gleaming silver fish, twinkling in the sun.

“This whole stretch of coast is lined with fishing villages,” Tobas remarked. “And each one has a magician or two who knows a preserving spell of some sort-usually wizards with Enral’s Preservation, but sometimes witches or even theurgists. Half those fish will wind up in the markets in Ethshar of the Spices, three or four days old, but looking and smelling fresh-caught.”

“Enral…” Gresh knew that name.

“Yes, the same one who discovered the eternal youth spell you’ve been promised,” Tobas said. “Preventing decay was his specialty, it seems.”

That seemed to tarnish the glamour of it, somehow, to learn that his eternal youth spell was related to the magic that kept fish fresh on their way to market-but he was being silly, Gresh told himself. What did it matter how the spell had been developed, so long as it worked?

They flew over the pale waters of the shoals for almost an hour before finally reaching the coast, where they did, indeed, pass directly over a busy fishing village, where long wooden piers stretched out across the mud and sand to reach water deep enough for the boats. Inland was initially a tangle of salt marshes, sand dunes, and scrubland. There was no ground here worth farming, no path firm and stable enough to be called a road.

That changed gradually; the ground rose, smoothed out, and dried out. Scattered farmhouses appeared, and the paths winding between them grew broader. The farms remained small, though-these were not the big grain farms of the plain, but herb farms, growing the plants that herbalists and wizards and witches used in their magic, as well as the spices that gave Ethshar of the Spices its name and distinctive odor.

People were working in the fields and walking on the roads; most glanced up when they saw the carpet whizzing overhead. Tobas waved to them occasionally; the others, further back on the rug, were not really in a position to do so.

The herb farms and spice plantations began to give way to orchards and vegetable farms, and then Gresh glimpsed sunlight on water, red tile roofs, and brightly colored sails in the distance.

“Do you have any friends or favorite places in Ethshar of the Spices?” Tobas asked over his shoulder. “Somewhere we might stop for lunch?”

“I know a few people here, but only as people I do business with,” Gresh shouted back. “I wouldn’t call them friends, exactly. I wouldn’t stop in without letting them know I was coming.”

“That’s more than we know,” Alorria said, looking up from the baby at her breast. “We always just stop at an inn.”

“The Dragon’s Tail, near Westgate, is pleasant enough,” Gresh remarked. “That’s where I generally go.”

“We usually stay at the Clumsy Juggler,” Alorria said.

“I like the name,” Tobas added.

“I hear it’s a good sound inn, but perhaps a little overpriced,” Gresh replied. Then he remembered that he always got discount rates at the Dragon’s Tail because of his occupation-the proprietor had made a specialty of hosting wizards’ suppliers because that drew in wizards, who could be ruthlessly overcharged. Dragging Tobas and his wives there might not be a kindness; the Guild might be paying his expenses, but he had no idea what the family finances were like otherwise. “But on the other hand, we might try somewhere new.” There were half a dozen inns lining the eastern side of Westgate Market, so they would hardly need to explore any unfamiliar part of the city. Besides the Dragon’s Tail and the Clumsy Juggler there were the Blue Lantern, the Gatehouse Inn, the Market House, and the Pink Rose, or a score of others in the few blocks around the corner on High Street.

They could avoid the city entirely. “What about the Inn at the Bridge?” Gresh asked, pointing north.

“That’s an hour out of our way!” Tobas said.

“Oh.” Gresh had no experience judging speeds and distances from the carpet and had to take the wizard’s word for it.

It seemed reasonable, actually. Valder’s inn was a day’s travel from Ethshar of the Spices on foot. And they were descending now, swooping down toward the city wall.

The towers of Westgate seemed puny, insignificant things after the overblown fortifications of Grandgate back at Ethshar of the Sands. Tobas did not even bother guiding the rug between them, but swooped around the north side of the gate before descending into the market square.

Westgate Market was crowded, unsurprisingly-it was the middle of a lovely day in the month of Greengrowth, and after the tedium of winter and the spring rains most people were eager to be out in the sun. There was no room to land the carpet initially, and Tobas brought it to a halt about ten feet up, the dangling luggage hanging a foot or so above the tallest heads.

Naturally, several people stared, pointed, and laughed. The people directly below it moved aside, to get a better view, and Tobas let it sink slowly downward.

“Well, there they are,” he said, waving a hand at the inns. “Pick one.”

Gresh looked back at the women, but Alorria was busy with the baby, and Karanissa turned up a palm.

They probably all cheated wizards, Gresh told himself. “The Dragon’s Tail, then,” he said, pointing to the one second from the corner of High Street, with its crude sign of a green zigzag on a background so stylized that Gresh would never have known it was meant to represent sand and sea if the inn’s owner hadn’t told him.

The carpet glided toward the inn’s door, descending as it went; the watching townsfolk scattered before it. Tobas curved the route around a stall stacked with jars of honey and maneuvered in close beneath the sign.

There he dismounted and beckoned for Gresh to do the same, as Alorria gathered up the assorted bags and cloths she needed to tend the baby. Karanissa waited patiently at the rear.

“What about your luggage?” Gresh asked, bringing his own one bag. “Will you be casting spells to protect it?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tobas said, as Gresh dropped to the earth.

“Listen, I know only a madman would try to rob a wizard, but this city has its share of madmen-I’ve met a few.”

“We’ll take care of it.” He accepted Alris, then stepped aside while Alorria slid off the carpet. She turned back for her collection of baby gear.

Gresh noticed that Karanissa hadn’t moved. “Are you leaving her on guard?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” Tobas said.

“I’m ready,” Alorria said, as she stepped back with her arms full.

“Good.” With that, Tobas gestured, and the carpet began to rise. It stopped at a height of perhaps a dozen feet, well out of reach.

Gresh watched, puzzled. Yes, leaving it in mid-air would keep it safe from ordinary thieves, but what was Karanissa doing on it?

Then as he watched, she stood up and casually walked off the carpet-but instead of falling she spread her arms and drifted gracefully to earth.

Witchcraft, of course; Gresh had forgotten that some witches could levitate, since most could not, and even those who could were so limited in what they could do that they rarely bothered. Getting off the ground was apparently very, very difficult-but slowing a fall was relatively easy.