“How are you doing that?”

He glanced up with a grin. “Magic.” The grin grew speculative. “Would you like to learn?”

“May I?”

“You seem to have a certain aptitude. And I need an apprentice. Been putting it off far too long. Since we both go where the wind blows us, there’s no need for us not to go together, is there?"

“No,” said Moonhawk, “there isn’t.”

“Good,” he said and vanished the top. Standing, he went to the bag. “We should, though, head more or less toward Huntress City.”

“Why?”

He turned and the firelight glinted off the dull blue barrel.

“I took this from the Noble Lady’s hall. It seems to me such a thing belongs with others of its kind, under the careful eyes of those who know their dangers, rather than loose in the poor, half-wild world.”

“Will I have learned magic by the time we reach Huntress City?” Moonhawk wondered and Lute laughed as the weapon disappeared into the depths of his bag.

“It depends on how apt a pupil you are.”

THUS DID MOONHAWK and Lute meet and decide to travel together across the world, this with the blessing of the Goddess, our Mother.

The first tale ends here.

A Spell for the Lost

THE WIND WAS out of the southwest, carrying the acrid odor of baking rock. The sun was out of the same quarter, and backlit the magician in the weed-choked square, casting spears of light into the eyes of his audience.

Moonhawk, the magician’s traveling companion for this month or so, sat on the cistern wall, face turned aside the sun-spears, and watched each gesture with care.

It was to be a rope trick now. Lute showed the crowd the length of common brown cord, called a lad from the audience to test its strength and, finally, tie it snugly into a loop and hold it high above his head.