Sorcerer's Luck (11 page)

“If you'll take one of those,” he said, “I'll get the staves.”

I took the stool facing in the direction of the little room with the safe in it. I watched
Tor through the open door as he opened various small drawers in the array. He'd
bring out a leather pouch, look at it, put it back, and take out another one. I
noticed that he had at least five of the little sacks, all in different colors,
some leather, some velvet. Finally he settled on brown leather. He took a
folded up square of white linen out of a larger drawer, then brought it and the
pouch back to the table.

“Brown for protection,” he told me. “That's what we need.”

He spread the white linen out on the table, opened the pouch, and poured out the staves,
small chips of wood about one inch by two, each with a rune carved into it.

“Will you turn those upside down for me?” he said. “I'll go get the antique set.”

I occupied myself with turning the chips over while he opened the safe. He brought the
wooden display case back and propped it up on the other stool as if it were a
person who'd want to see what was going on. He stood next to it and across from
me.

“Okay,” he said. “Our first question is, does this set belong to me?”

For a long moment he stared at the rune staves. He leaned forward, shoulders hunched, back
tense, eyes narrow with concentration. He held his right hand flat above the
scattered chips, then pounced, picking out three staves so fast I barely saw
him tuck them into his palm. He laid them down face up, one at a time.

“Cattle for wealth, Tir's mark, and ancestral property,” Tor said, “all of them right side
up.” He glanced my way. “Which means a positive answer. Yeah, they're mine.” He
sighed with a little puff of breath. “That's a relief.”

From his sudden smile I realized that he had perfect faith in the answer he'd received.
He turned the staves back over and slid them into the spread.

“Is that all there is to it?” I said.

“For a simple question like that, yeah. I'm going to ask about this new uncle next.
Would you mix those up for me? Keep them face down.”

While I moved them around on the linen, Tor looked away to avoid noticing what ended up
where. This time he drew nine staves, one at a time. Before choosing another,
he turned each over and placed it into a complicated layout, roughly circular
with four staves in a straight line down the middle.

“Othala again.” Tor laid a finger on the rune in the exact center of the display. “Ancestral
holdings, but I don't think it means property exactly.” He pointed to the rune
at the very bottom. “Because here's cattle-wealth again, Fehu. That's the
property, the money and land. So Othala's more like family wyrd.”

Tor fell silent and returned to staring at the layout. Finally he shook his head. “This
isn't adding up,” he said. “I'm going to get a notebook and a pen and write it
down. I'll have to think about this.”

“It must be important. It sure looks complicated.”

“It is, yeah.” Tor laid a forefinger on the bottom rune, which looked like a drunk F. “This
bit's clear. Wealth causes trouble among kinfolk. The wolf grows up in the
forest.”

“What?”

“That's a quote from an old Norwegian poem about the Fehu rune. I'm not a wolf, but the first
part's pretty accurate.”

“Yeah, the whole world over.”

He gave me a wry smile and nodded. “Grandfather Halvar tried to prevent that kind of
trouble. I'd show you my copy of his will, but it's in Icelandic. Pages and
pages of detail. My dad's was almost as complicated. He wanted to make sure
that Liv and I stayed close instead of fighting over who got what.”

“Did he succeed?”

“Oh yeah. Liv really wanted the family land, and I'm glad she's got it. We split up the
money pretty evenly. The land pays her back for taking care of our mother, I
figure.”

“Didn't Liv say your grandfather left Nils out of the will?”

“Yeah, I never saw his name there. I hope that Grandfather made some kind of
gift-settlement on him. I think there are ancient precedents for that, buying
off the illegitimate kids. But the old man could be a real cold son of a bitch.
Nils must be real bitter.”

“The moon'll be dark next weekend,” I said. “I wonder if we'll hear from him then?”

“What'll you bet?” Tor shook his head with a sigh. “Just my luck.”

While I ate a late breakfast on Saturday, Tor went downstairs and brought back the nisse's
empty glass and the plate, also empty except for the apple core and a few bread
crumbs. I gave Tor a quick kiss, just to see if I could smell brandy or apple
on his breath, but he was innocent. Unless he'd sneaked down there in the
middle of the night, someone—or something—else had eaten the food and drunk the
alcohol. I suspected a big hung-over rat until I started to toss the core into
the garbage. I noticed tiny toothmarks, flat ones, in a half-circle like a
human would make, not like a rodent's two front choppers at all. Tor watched me
and grinned.

“You didn't believe me, did you?” he said.

“About the nisse? I didn't know whether to believe you or not.”

“Know something?” His smile reminded me of a shy schoolboy. “I don't know whether to
believe it, either.”

I reached up and kissed the dimple at the corner of his mouth.

“I've wanted to do that for days,” I said.

He laughed, grabbed me, and kissed me in return. He was in such a good mood that I decided
I could finish clearing my conscience.

“The people we're going to have dinner with?” I said. “They're the ones I told about your
being a shape-changer. I thought you should know, so you can play along with
the joke if someone brings it up.”

“Okay, I'm glad you warned me. I'd have to answer honestly, anyway. I can't lie about
myself.”

“It's never a good idea, yeah.”

“It goes beyond that. I just can't.” He turned serious and let me go. “It's an oath I took
a long time ago. I cannot lie about myself if someone asks me a direct
question.”

“That's why you were willing to tell me so much that first night. The one where I took the
part-time job, I mean.”

“I don't know about being willing. I had to answer your questions. The runes desert a
liar.”

“I keep forgetting how much the runes mean to you. It's like a religion, isn't it?”

“No. Religion is something you accept. The runes—you have to gain them. You fight
for them. You don't just take what some priest hands you.” His mouth twitched
in a smile. “I'm really a barbarian, you know. Deep in my heart.”

Oh yeah sure! I thought, not that I said anything aloud. I couldn't picture him in a
helmet with horns.

When the time came to change for dinner, I went into my room to put on my one good skirt
and my best black top, which was too low-cut for me to wear a bra. I still
thought of the second bedroom as ‘my room' because I'd have to sleep in it
during the bjarki's domination. As I was changing, I noticed the writing desk.
The green lion had disappeared. In his place a man and a woman were having sex
in a big tub of water. Each of them wore a crown. Rather than being erotic, the
image made me feel deeply uneasy. I finished dressing in a hurry.

We'd made plans to meet Cynthia and her husband Jim, plus Brittany and my brother, at a
family-style Chinese restaurant on Clement Street in San Francisco, near where Brittany was living.
I figured we'd better take my car to avoid awkward questions about
travelling by sorcery. As I drove over the Bay Bridge, Tor said nothing, just
watched the traffic with a slight frown.

“Am I driving okay?” I said.

“What? Of course. Sorry. I'm just thinking about the rune cast. I can't seem to make
sense of it. It's like there's a piece missing from it.”

I would have asked more, but a black SUV swerved right in front of us. I pumped the
brakes, turned the nose of the car, and just barely managed to avoid an
accident. Horns honked, drivers swerved, my heart pounded. The SUV sped off
without even flashing a signal.

“Shit!” Tor muttered. “Idiot drivers out tonight!”

“There sure are.” I took a deep breath and concentrated on driving. The irony struck me
hard. I worried constantly about my disease, but here we could have both been
killed by another driver's careless moment.

 When we reached the city and the first off-ramp from the bridge, traffic slowed way
down. The cars around us began lane-hopping just as if it would do them some
good. The luck of the shuffle brought us next to the black SUV in the lane on
our passenger side. Tor glanced over and shook his head.

“She should know better,” he said. “A middle-aged woman, no less!”

The traffic closed up and began to crawl, which gave me time for a safe look at the
offending driver.

“That's not a woman,” I said. “It's a guy, but I can't really see him clearly.”

The driver glanced our way and hit the gas. The SUV swerved again and cut across two lanes
in a blare of outraged horns. For a brief second it disappeared so completely
that I thought it had gone over the edge of the elevated roadway. It reappeared
from behind an RV and turned onto the off-ramp. It sped out of sight as the
traffic flow swept us onward and past.

“That's a difficult minor illusion,” Tor said in his usual calm way. “Looking like
someone else entirely. It must be our friend, whoever he is. Uncle Nils,
probably.”

“Must have been. God, I hope he's not going to dog us everywhere. That's creepy!”

“Sure is.” Tor laughed under his breath. “When he jumped lanes to get off the freeway, I
was hoping someone would hit him, but no such luck.”

“I wonder if he meant to make us hit him. This old Chevy would have taken a lot of
damage, but that hulk he was driving would have barely felt it.”

“That occurred to me, too.”

I was expecting him to say more, but he merely stared out of the window, his mouth a
little slack, his eyes distant, as if he were thinking about some deep subject.
It occurred to me that he might be working some kind of magic, scrying for
danger, maybe. I kept quiet rather than interrupt. Besides, I kept thinking
about an ugly fact: I'd seen through the illusion without needing to draw it,
without even half-trying. The talent Tor had pointed out was growing of its own
accord in my mind, like one of those volunteer plants he'd spoken of during our
night of illusions. Roses or deadly nightshade? Which would the talent turn out
to be? I had no idea, and I was frightened.

We reached the restaurant without any further trouble. I even found a parking spot only
two blocks away on a side street. As I locked up the car, I noticed Tor waving
his hands at it. I waited till he'd finished.

“Was that a ward?” I said.

“Yes. I don't want anyone tampering with the car. If the ward's gone when we come back,
I'll know that another sorcerer messed with it.”

I gulped in audible terror. Tor caught my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. I glanced
around at the houses that lined the street in the usual San Francisco style,
that is, set really close together and flush with the sidewalk. Most of them
had lights in their front windows. Some even had their porchlights on.

“This neighborhood should be safe enough,” he said. “But keep your eyes open.”

We hurried back to the bright lights and traffic of Clement. Restaurants, produce markets
with bins right out on the sidewalk, the occasional odd little store selling a
combination of things like movie posters and computer parts, or shoes and
kitchen utensils—the street always reminded me of pictures of Shanghai or Hong Kong. Cars choked
the roadway. On the crowded sidewalk people strolled along or paused
to look over a vendor's supply of bitter melon and bok choy or to duck into a
bakery for pork buns. Several people bumped into me, just by accident, and I
took the chance to swallow a slurp of their élan. The near-accident had cost me
energy.

Our restaurant was a silver building with a huge curved window jutting out from the
second floor. When we went upstairs, the street noise vanished into the
laughter and talk of several big parties. The hostess directed us toward the
back. Cynthia and her husband Jim had already arrived and been seated at a big
round family table.

“Brittany's going to be late,” Cynthia said, grinning. “What do you bet?”

“I never bet on a sure thing,” I said.

When I introduced Tor, Jim stood up to shake hands with him. They were both about the
same height, but Jim was portly where Tor was lean. Jim's blond hairline had
already decided to make a run for the back of his head, too, even though he was
only in his twenties.

The two men had just sat down again when Brittany surprised us all by arriving on time. She
and Roman walked in holding hands, the tip-off that she'd given him a better
way to forget the war than mere drugs. She winked at me and Cynthia, then sat
down while I introduced my brother to my boyfriend. They looked each other over
carefully, but neither growled—a good start.

I hadn't seen Ro looking so good in years. Although he was still too thin, his skin had
a healthy undertone. His dark eyes looked clear, and he smiled at everyone. I
almost let myself believe that he'd solved his problem, but I'd read too much
about addiction to fool myself. Brittany had a long hard job ahead of her.

Once we'd all settled ourselves at the table, the waiter came over with pots of tea and
menus. With that many people to choose dishes, and the waiter offering advice
as well, it took us a while to come up with a reasonable dinner. Everyone was
in a good mood, laughing, making jokes. Roman said very little, but he smiled a
lot. I loved seeing him smile. Now and then he glanced at Brittany to reassure
himself that she was still sitting next to him.

In the midst of the general chatter, I leaned over for a semi-private word with him.

“Ro? Is this going to work?”

He knew what I meant. “I sure hope so. I've been going to the group every day. There
are other vets in it. We've got a lot to talk about.”

“Good for you! I mean, god, you made it through Marine boot camp, didn't you? You can do
this.”

“Yeah, after that—piece of cake!”

I had to remind myself that it was too soon to hope.

Once we'd settled on the menu, Tor ordered a couple of large bottles of a Chinese dark
beer for the party. He told the waiter to tally the beer separately and to make
sure that he got the bill. Squarish liter bottles of beer and glasses arrived
with a second waiter, who poured it round. The first waiter brought appetizers,
then scurried off again.

For a few minutes everyone scarfed egg rolls and bits of pork rib and drank beer with
only the occasional comment. The inevitable moment, however, arrived when Brittany turned her
big blue eyes on Tor and said, “Maya told us you were a were-bear. Is
that true?”

“Of course,” Tor said. “But only at the full moon.” He tipped back his head and roared with
a growl and a chuff. Though he kept the volume way down, he sounded like a
bear, not a guy pretending to be one.

Everyone laughed and toasted us with their beer glasses.

“Where did you meet Maya, anyway?” Jim asked. “At the zoo?”

“No, in Copenhagen on the docks,” Tor said. “She'd come down with her maid to greet her husband
when he sailed into port. He was the captain of a whaling ship.”

“Tor!” I snapped. “You liar! When did I ever—”

“You don't remember because it was in a past life, that's all. Not our most recent ones,
though. It must have been about a hundred and sixty years ago.”

More laughter and more beer toasts. Tor poured the last of the bottle into Cynthia's
glass, then signaled the waiter to bring two more.

“He was gone again in the spring,” Tor went on. “So we had an affair. It went on for a
couple of years. I ended up having to face the husband in a duel, and he won. I
wasn't much of a shot with a pistol. I died on the field.”

“In her arms, I hope.” Jim was grinning at us both.

“No such luck,” Tor said. “She'd already run away with someone else.”

“I had not!” I burst out, then covered my surge of indignation with a laugh. “It was cold
and rainy, that's all, and I didn't want to stand around in the mud and watch.”

“Worse yet!” Cynthia said. “You heartless creature!”

“Standing around in a corset and those awful heavy winter skirts was hard on a girl.” I
laid a dramatic hand on my forehead. “I would have fainted at the sight of
blood.”

Even the waiter was laughing by then. He uncapped one of the new bottles and began to
pour around the table. I noticed Brittany, smiling, certainly, but at the same
time she was considering Tor with an oddly curious intensity. Oh come on! I
thought. It can't be true. But somewhere in my mind I heard a woman
weeping in huge sobs—no, I was the one weeping, wrapping my arms tight around
my chest, and rocking back and forth like an abandoned child. The rain-soaked
man who watched me smiled, a tight-lipped narrow-eyed smile of triumph.

“Maya?” Tor said. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” I shook my head to clear it and came back to the present. “Maybe it's
the beer.”

No one else had noticed my fugue state—I guess you'd call it that. The two waiters were
bringing the food, a perfect distraction. Everyone was helping themselves and
passing the dishes around. Cynthia and Brittany began discussing school, and I
joined in. We needed to finalize our schedules for fall, because we liked to
have one class in common every term. Jim and Tor talked mostly about cars,
while Roman just watched, smiling at the noise and laughter.

The evening became a normal night out with friends, perfectly normal except I kept trying
to remember our Danish names, kept seeing a view of a city where gas lamps
burned on the street corners and horse-drawn cabs clopped by. I ended up
drinking more beer to drown the memories, enough so that Tor had to drive us
home.