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With A Single Spell

Copyright йCopyright COPYRIGHTNOTICE
copy; 1987 by Lawrence Watt Evans.

Other books by Lawrence Watt-Evans:
The Legends of Ethshar
The Misenchanted Sword
The Unwilling Warlord
The Blood of A Dragon
Taking Flight
The Spell of the Black Dagger
Night of Madness
Other Works
Dragon Weather
Touched by the Gods
The Rebirth of Wonder
Split Heirs(with Esther M. Friesner)
Crosstime Traffic
Nightside City
The Nightmare People
With A Single Spell
A Legend of Ethshar Lawrence Watt-Evans

Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
Originally published by Del Rey Books, an imprint of Ballantine Books, March 1987.
That edition copyright й 1987 by Lawrence Watt Evans.

All rights reserved.
Weaving Spells is copyright й 1999 by Lawrence Watt Evans
Cover art copyright й 2000 Dalmazio Frau.

With A Single Spell

Dedicated to my mother,
Doletha Watt Evans

Chapter One

The little cottage at the edge of the swamp wherein old Roggit had lived out his life was not, strictly speaking, a part of the village of Telven. However, located as it was just over a hill from the edge of town, it was near enough that Roggit had been accepted as a Telvener; no one had protested when his apprentice Tobas had called on the villagers to attend his masters funeral.
Of course, quite aside from any fine distinctions about the village boundaries, it was never wise to anger a wizard, or even a wizards apprentice not even one as untrained as Tobas surely was, after merely a year or two of study under a man who had been in his dotage and on the verge of senility for as long as anyone remembered.
As a result of these considerations, in addition to the usual morbid curiosity natural upon the cremation of one of the areas older and more eccentric inhabitants, the ceremonies drew a good crowd, with more than half the townspeople in attendance. As Tobas saw them all silently departing after the fire died, he realized glumly that he could not say a single one, old, young, or in between, had come out of honest friendship or sympathy for either the dead wizard, or for himself, the surviving apprentice.
He had had friends in his younger years, he told himself, but they all seemed to have drifted away when his luck went bad. Since his fathers death he had been considered a creature of ill omen, not a fitting friend for anyone.
He watched the villagers wander away in pairs, trios, or family groups, and then set out alone, back over the hill toward the cottage. The sun was still high in the sky. The pyre had burned quickly, as the weather had been dry of late.
As he topped the rise he tried to decide whether he, himself, actually grieved over Roggits death, and found himself unsure whether his distress was on Roggits behalf, or simply a reflection of his worries about his own position.
His own position was still, to some extent, in doubt. As Roggits apprentice at the time of his death, Tobas was heir to everything the old man had owned that had not previously been settled on others, and as far as anyone knew, Roggit had had no children or relatives or even former apprentices to leave anything to. What little there was all went to Tobas.
That, however, was not necessarily a great comfort. Roggit had not been wealthy. He had owned a small piece of land, too swampy to be of much use, and the cottage, together with its contents, and that was all.
At least, Tobas thought, he hadnt been left homeless this time, as he had been when his father died. And the house still held old Roggits magical supplies and paraphernalia, including, most importantly of all, his Book of Spells.
Tobas would need that. It was all he had left to depend on.