Magic in Ithkar by Andre Norton, Robert Adams (ed.)

mountains, I come,” I muttered.
    The mercer shrugged. “That’s an end to it, then.”
    “No, wait,” said the second crone. “There is something about this fellow. I cannot imagine him standing over a forge, or wielding a pickaxe.”
    “Fletching is my trade,” I said, willing to give them that much. “My stock is bird arrows for dove or pheasant.” And was glad my assortment of real weaponry had been stolen, for with it I would never have gained entry to this place.
    “Can you demonstrate your arrows for me?” asked the mercer. “If I like your wares, I might buy some myself; we do a bit of birding where I come from.”
    Reluctantly took out my bow, glancing over my shoulder all the time for the authorities. The two old women hung up a salt sack in the weedy lot behind the tent to serve as a target, and by the time I set arrow to bowstring a small crowd had gathered. People at a fair will crowd up for anything.
    Felt the weight of judgment in their eyes. They saw how slender my arm was, how small the bow. But when I held the arrow and saw the gray feathers sleeking back from the shaft, I deliberately moved back from the target so many paces that someone snickered. “That lad has delusions of grandeur. He’ll take no pheasant on the wind, he’d be lucky to shoot a hen on the ground at his feet.”
    Spread my legs and braced my body; drew my elbow straight back in line with my ear. And arrow left bow with an exultant hum that became winged song as it flew.
    The onlookers gasped. Shaded my eyes against the sun and tried to see the target, but too many people were crowding around it. As I trotted up they were saying, “Dead center!” “An incredible shot for such a bow and a arrow!”
    “Incredible indeed,” said a different voice belonging to a hulking, flat-faced man wearing the uniform of a fair-ward. He carried a weighted quarterstaff and his eyes were constantly shifting, alert for trouble. He jerked the arrow from the salt sack and handed it back to me. “You broke our law by bringing that bow in here,” he said angrily. “And there are only three explanations for the shot you just made— accident, skill, or magic. From the looks of you I doubt that it’s skill. And I discount accident. That leaves only the possibility that you are using magic to enhance your wares, which is an even graver offense than carrying weapons. Since you broke one law you may well have broken another and we’d best know it now, so shoot again, boy! Just as you did before. And if your archery is a magician’s trick, it will cost you your goods and you will be declared outlaw, driven from the gate, and thrown to the mercy of the people.”
    Driven from the gate. Denied access to the Shrine of the Three Lordly Ones before I even had a chance to see it. That was a far worse threat to me than mere outlawry, for mountain folk were treated little better than outlaws anyway and were used to it.
    “His arrow sings a strange song in flight,” someone in the crowd murmured. “I heard it, and I say it must have been magic.”
    “Shoot!” roared the fair-ward, doubling his fist at me.
    “Do no magic, I!” I protested. But how could I keep the arrow from singing or flying true an impossible distance? The magic was in it and not myself, though by now I was certain of its existence. Certain of it and doomed by it.
    They made me stand where I had stood before, too far away for any normal shot to succeed. My heart hammered at the base of my throat as I notched arrow to string. Could have pulled the shot, of course, and let it fall short, for my skill was enough for that at least. But when I held the gray-feathered arrow a sort of integrity moved from it into my hand, and I fired the best I could.
    The arrow arced up, up into the air, climbing as if it spurned the earth forever. Then suddenly it bent in its flight and coursed off to one side, toward the gathered crowd. In helpless horror I watched as it sank straight into the