"Mister," I said. "Do either of us look like we're capable of any kind of pillaging right now?"
The man looked like he wanted to laugh. "That one might," he said. "But you look halfway crossed over to Kajjil."
"How do you know that word?" Naji asked.
"What? It's not one of the secret words." The man winked. "Though I know plenty of those, too. You two come on in. I'll fix you something warm to drink, get you a change of clothes."
Naji slumped into the house, and I followed behind, setting the water pot next to the door so I wouldn't forget it on my way out.
It was nice, everything clean and tidy, with simple wooden furniture and bouquets of dried flowers hanging upside from the rafters. A sense of protection passed over me when I walked through the doorway, rum-strong like the feeling I got when I put on Naji's charm for the first time. I headed directly for the hearth, cause there was a fire smoldering in there, licks of white-hot flame. Naji sat down beside me, his hands draped over his knees. The firelight brightened his face and traced the outlines of his scars.
The man hung a kettle over the fire and pulled up a chair. I felt like a little kid again, sitting at Papa's feet while he told me stories. But the man didn't tell no stories, he just leaned forward and looked at me real hard and then at Naji. Then he stirred whatever was in the kettle.
"Are you the Wizard Eirnin?" Naji asked.
"I surely am." The man glanced over at him. "Leila let me know you were on your way. She told me about the curse." His weird pale eyes flashed. "And I've heard your name on the wind's whispers these last few days." He turned his gaze to me. "I see you emerged from your encounter with the Mists unscathed."
I looked down at my hands.
"From what Leila said about you, I wouldn't have expected it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Eirnin stood up. "I promised you clean clothes, didn't I? Getting dotty in my old age. Wait here." He strolled across the room and rummaged around in a dresser. I watched him. Naji watched the fire.
"Here we go." He pulled out a long pearl-colored dress, the fabric thick and warm, the edges trimmed in lace, and a gray man's coat and tossed both at me. "You can go change in the back room if you want."
It'd been awhile since I wore a proper dress, but really, having any clean clothes was a blessing from Kaol. I ducked into the back room and peeled off my old damp clothes and piled 'em up on the floor. It would've been nice to have a bath before changing into the dress, but I didn't know if I trusted a bath in a wizard's house. Still, putting on new clothes made me feel better, despite everything that had happened – warmer, too, cause these were dry.
When I came back into the main room Naji was dressed like a right gentleman, in a white shirt and dark brown trousers, no black anywhere on him. Eirnin handed me a ceramic mug filled with something warm and sweet-smelling. I knew I shoulda been more cautious, but I'd been soaked through and cold and more shaken from my encounter with the Mists than I cared to admit, so I sipped some and it washed warmth all the way down my throat. It was some kind of liquor, sweet like honey but spicy, too. I sat down next to the fire and drank and drank.
"Can you help me?" Naji asked.
Eirnin laughed. "Help you with an impossible curse?" he said. "I don't know. Tell me about it."
Naji looked down at his own mug. "What do you want to know?"
"Anything you can tell me."
The room got real quiet. All I could hear was the fire crackling in the hearth and the rain whispering across the roof.
"You know you're safe here," the Wizard Eirnin said. "I don't traffic with the Otherworld."
Naji tightened his fingers around his mug. The firelight carved his face into blocks of darkness and light.
"I was in the north," he said. "I had an assignment. To track down the leader of a splinter group that had fled there." He sipped his drink. "It was winter. Dark, cold. I had tracked the leader to the settlement of one of the northern tribes. They'd taken him in. I wound up killing some of their tribesmen. I didn't intend to, but the leader had expected me – or someone like me…" Naji's voice trailed off.
"So which one of those, ah, accidental deaths got you the curse?" Eirnin asked.
"I don't know. They caught me – the only time I've ever been caught – and dragged me out into the snow. Everything was white. And then a woman came out of one of the tents. She looked like she was carved out of ice. And she was ancient, older than the mountains.
"She told me that someday someone would save my life. When that happened, she said, I would be indebted to them forever. I would have to protect them."
"I take it that's you?"
Eirnin's question broke the spell of Naji's voice. I jumped about a foot and spilled some of my drink down the front of my dress. Naji didn't look at neither of us, just stared into the fire.
"Yeah, it's me," I said. "I told him he didn't have to, but–"
"Well, it's a curse," Eirnin said blandly. "He can't help it." Then, to Naji: "What happens if you don't keep her safe?"
"It hurts me."
"Care to be more specific?"
"A headache, or a pain in my chest or my joints. It depends on the level of the threat."
I thought about meeting with Echo in the woods, about the cold curling mist.
Eirnin nodded.
"So can you help me?" Naji twisted around and the expression on his face was so desperate that, for a moment, my stomach twisted up in empathy.
"No," said Eirnin.
All the air went out of the room.
"What?" said Naji, and his voice was cold and dangerous, like the blade of his knife.
Eirnin didn't do nothing, though, didn't shrink back, didn't even act like he was scared. "What did you expect, Jadorr'a? It's an impossible curse. You know that. Even that one knows it." He tilted his head at me.
Naji's face twisted up with rage.
"I do know that woman, though, that ice-woman. She's quite traditional. Always casts her spells in the old northern style." Eirnin paused. His eyes flashed again. "The north is different from the hot civilized places of the world. We have different understandings of things. Of words."
No one spoke. The house pulsed twice with the manic energy of magic. I realized I was holding my breath.
"What the magicians of the Empire call an impossible curse is not what we call an impossible curse. A northern curse is not impossible in the sense that is incurable."
Naji leapt to his feet, his body hard and tense beneath his clean clothes. The sword gleamed at his side. "Then why did you say you couldn't help me?"
"It's not my place to cure your curse." Eirnin leaned back in his chair and pressed the tips of fingers together. "If you want to break one of the old north's impossible curses, you have to complete three impossible tasks."
The energy that crackled through the house like lightning died away. But Naji kept his eyes on Eirnin, his gaze strong and sure.
"Do you at least know what they are?" Naji said.
"I do. Smelled them on you the minute you walked through the door." Eirnin smiled but didn't say anything more.
Naji glared at him. "Well?" he asked. "What are they?"
"Impossible," Eirnin said.
I figured by this point it was taking all of Naji's willpower not to launch at the guy the way he had Ataño. I figured Eirnin knew it, too. You could see how he'd have gotten along with Leila.
"Perhaps you'd like to write them down," Eirnin said. "I have parchment around here–"
"No," said Naji. "I don't."
Eirnin smiled. I wanted to hit him myself. "Alright. First one: Find the princess' starstones and hold them, skin against stone."
Well. I'd no idea what a starstone was, but I didn't think that sounded too bad. Lots of princesses around. Naji just kept on staring at Eirnin, though.
"Second one. Create life out of an act of violence."
Naji's face darkened. "Are you talking about rape?"
"I'm afraid it's not that specific."
Naji pressed his hands against the side of the mug, his face all twisted up in anger. I waited for the mug to shatter.
"You want to hear the third one?" Eirnin asked.
"You know that I do."
Eirnin smiled. "The third task," he said, "is to experience true love's kiss."
"Seriously?" Naji asked.
"Quite. You'll have to find someone who loves you for who you are." He paused. "And good luck with that, murderer."
Something brightened in my heart, like the first star coming out at night. But then Naji opened his mouth.
"Leila," he said. "She's the only one…"
The light blinked out. I got real hot and looked down at my hands.
"Leila!" Eirnin roared with laughter. "That woman has never loved another human being in her entire life, and never will. I wouldn't put all my eggs in that particular basket, if I were you. Which, fortunately, I'm not."
Naji stood up and hurled his mug against the wall. I jumped at the sound of breaking porcelain and twisted my hands up in my dress. I wanted a way to get out of that house without anyone knowing why. And to get away from Naji, the Otherworld be damned.
Naji stalked out the front door and slammed it so hard the foundation shuddered.
"Looks like it's just you and me," the Wizard Eirnin said.
I stood up and straightened out my skirts. Worthless, this old man was. What a waste getting blown out here, away from civilization and people who could actually help us, to some place that used to belong to a nightmare world.
"The stories are true. This place did spawn itself from the Mists." Eirnin leaned forward. He was so pale he looked like a ghost. "They won't hurt you, you know. Not if they think you can help them. Remember that, my dear, the next time Echo comes calling. That's what she called herself today, isn't it?"
I stumbled backward at the sound of her name. "I should go." I hesitated, knowing that you never want to cross a wizard the wrong way. "Thank you for the clothes and the…" I waved my hand at the mug. "And for helping Naji. I mean, I wish you could have done more–"
"I'm sure you do." He gave me this weird knowing look that I didn't like one bit. "You be careful out there, little pirate. Things come out of those woods that know how to get at you. The Mist's not the only thing you need to worry about."
I stared at him. "I ain't little."
Eirnin grinned. That was it. I slammed out the front door.
I hadn't been walking long when Naji stepped out of the shadow of a pine tree. I shrieked so loud my voice echoed through the woods. I'd been mired in my own thoughts. Cause I was trying not to think about Echo and the mists, I thought about Naji instead, and the thing I learned in the Wizard Eirnin's house. I'd handed my heart over to him, a damned blood-magic assassin, without even realizing it.
"I told you I don't want you wandering off alone."
"Stop talking to me like I'm a little kid. You're the one who left me."
Naji fell into step beside me. "You left the water jar behind."
"Kaol and her sacred starfish!" I stopped in the middle of the woods, whirled around in the direction of his house. "Damn it, I'm not going back there." I pushed my hair out of my eyes. "At least he gave us something to drink."
He snorted and took off into the woods, paying no mind to the snapping of branches. I trailed behind him. "So now what?" I said.
"We go to the shack," Naji said.
"That ain't what I meant." I ran up beside him. "I mean with the curse. You know a way off the island? You said the Order was protecting you – why couldn't they just bring us both back? Don't tell me it ain't possible, I know the stories."
He stopped. "How did you know?"
"Know what? About the Order?" I almost laughed. "You mean they can actually do that?"
"Of course they can." But then his expression changed. It went from hard and anger to… almost sad. "I spoke to them this morning. Magic is strong here. They'd certainly be able to send an acolyte through Kajjil."
Water dripped out of the trees and landed in dark spots on my new coat. "They aren't coming, are they?"
Naji looked at me, and then he shook his head.
I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.
He walked off, his face tilted down to the ground.
"And why not?" I called after him. "They don't want to bother with you when the Mists are on your tail? Or are you damaged goods now that you got that curse?"
He stopped. The wind rippled his hair and his new clothes. When he turned around his face was a mask.
"They wouldn't have rescued you," he said. "They wouldn't risk bringing an outsider through Kajjil."
"Guess I just ruin everything for you, don't I? Give you headaches and keep you from getting rescued–"
"I told them no," he said, "even when I thought – when I hoped – that Eirnin would have cured me."
The entire world suddenly seemed to stand still. Naji and me were statues. The forest was no longer shaking with wind and rain. Even the dripping had stopped. But my heart was still beating, pounding too fast inside my chest, threatening to break me open.
"What?" I whispered.
"Give me your hand," Naji said, and then he walked over to me and grabbed it without waiting for me to move. The shadows crowded in around us. I didn't quite understand what had happened until we were standing in the shadow of the pine trees that grew beside our shack.
"I didn't feel like walking through the woods again," Naji said, and he stalked into the shack, leaving me shaking outside.