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

shoulder of the fair-ward, in the joint his breastplate did not cover.
    He yelled and clutched at the shaft. “Now you’ve done it,” the mercer said to me in a low voice. “I thought your arrow sang too strong to be meant for sparrow hunting. It’s capable of piercing a man; you will be sorely punished for this. If you run quick, though, you might make the river before they seize you. ... I know of caves where you could hide. . . .”
    Running I was, but not to the river. Running toward the crowd and the fair-ward, as if my feet had a will of their own. For beyond that shouting throng of people was the shrine, and if I was to be exiled or killed, I would at least see it first, somehow.
    But when I drew near the fair-ward I found an astonishing thing. He had pulled the arrow from his shoulder, and in spite of the good bronze head I had affixed to it my weapon had made hardly any wound. A little blood oozed, then stopped as if the skin closed up. And the man was smiling!
    Stopped still and gaped at him, I.
    “That was a clumsy shot, young man,” the fair-ward said, handing me back my arrow. The head was still warm where it had been heated in his flesh. For some reason I thrust it through my belt instead of putting it back in my quiver. “You’re too thin to be a bowman,” the man went on. “You need fattening up if you’re going to be able to demonstrate your wares impressively. Here . . .” He dug into a pocket and took out a fistful of coins, which he pressed into my astonished hand. “Go to the food stalls and buy yourself a decent meal, will you? And then get some clothes that look like something; we can’t have beggars in rags at the fair, it isn’t good for business.”
    He grinned at me as if I were his dearest friend, then turned his back on me and began breaking up the crowd, calling names, punching noses, threatening to break heads if they did not move along. A fair-ward, surly and short-tempered. My arrows could be used as weapons against men and he had felt the proof of it, yet seemed to have forgiven and forgotten at once, almost as soon as the shaft had entered him.
    What to do? Took the money and ran, as fast as my legs could carry me. When I had gone far enough to be out of his sight I opened my fist and found more coins than I had ever seen at one time before.
    It appeared I could do some sort of magic—or magic could do me, since I had no control over it. That was yet another proof of kinship with the Three Lordly Ones, was it not? And now I was very near the place where they had entered this world. Soon I could be standing just where they had stood. . . . Stuffing the coins into the little leather purse that had hung from my belt like an empty bladder until now, I headed toward the sacred precincts.
    Felt the hackles rise on the back of my neck. No one needed to tell me where the sky-descended dwelling had rested; even without the fenced-off enclosure and the reek of incense and the muttering of priests I would have known the place. Needed no stone cenotaph to guide me. Would have found it by the lines of force surging up from the ground, catching my feet and drawing me forward.
    Surely this was the heart of the universe, the place of perfect centeredness. As I drew close to it I felt myself on the verge of a breakthrough into unimaginable abundance. At this point, the Three Lordly Ones had achieved immortality by becoming gods to us. And wherever they had gone, in their infinite and godlike wisdom they must be aware of me. Would surely reach out and gather me in, now that I was here. Would lift me up—
    “Stop that, you beggar, what are you doing here?!” Harsh hands grabbed me, pinioning my arms behind my back. Angry faces surrounded me. Eyes were flashing, mouths were stretched wide with yelling, but I hardly heard. Kept concentrating on the Three, calling desperately to them to come back to me, feeling almost confident, almost safe, for the first time in my life. Had got so far against