“The reflecting pool is reached by a small stair behind the fireplace, Mistress Otter,” said the Good Wizard. “Just keep going down and you’ll find it.”
“Eels!” exclaimed Smoothie, and she was off.
“I don’t like hot water,” said Shrub grumpily. “Newts don’t, you know.”
“My apprentices will arrange the temperature according to your liking,” said the Wizard. She reached under her beard and pulled out a large watch, flicking open the somewhat battered silver case. Watches were quite rare, and Anya had only seen one before. That belonged to Duke Rikard. But the Wizard’s watch was not at all similar. It had too many hands and small inset windows within the main face, showing a crescent moon and a color wheel that was moving quickly from blue to red.
“Dinner in thirty minutes,” said the Good Wizard, flicking the watch shut. She tugged the beard again. “I’m going to go and get this thing off.”
“Are you sure we may use the baths?” asked Anya. She gestured at the doors. “They do seem to belong to particular people … or trades. Like the doors.”
The Good Wizard’s eyebrows went up.
“You really don’t know anything about wizards, do you?” she asked. “The doors are to my teachers’ rooms, and those are their baths. But they won’t begrudge visitors using them; they only bathe once a week as a rule.”
“Your teachers?” asked Anya. “There are other wizards here?”
“None save my predecessor, who does wizarding no more,” said the Good Wizard. “My teachers are master artisans. They teach me their crafts.”
“I don’t understand,” said Anya. “Like you said, I don’t know anything about wizards.”
“Wizards gather the stray magic left over from sorcerers’ spells, witches’ blessings and curses, the breath of dragons, the stab of a unicorn’s horn, the swish of a mermaid’s tail … all things that emanate magic. We then combine this magic we collect with ordinary things, which we must make. We craft items of the rarest magic entirely ourselves, like my red boots. I am a good cobbler—that is my first trade. I have practiced it for some eleven years. Now I am learning to work metal, and in time shall make magic rings and suchlike of the first order. But for things of lesser magic, I work with my teachers, putting the magic in their crafting, while also learning their craft. That is what wizards do. Oh, and be wise as well. Or attempt to be so.”
“Oh,” said Anya. “I had no idea. I only know about sorcery, and its cost. Does wizarding take its toll, the same as sorcery? I mean, with sniffles and colds for little spells and coldness of the spirit for the big ones?”
“It does not,” said the Good Wizard gravely. “But it is slow. It takes years to learn each craft, of course, and often decades to gather the magic to put into the crafting. This is too slow for many. And there is another thing that many consider a drawback.”
“What is that?” asked Anya.
“All things a wizard makes are flawed in some way. A Good Wizard, like myself, will do this intentionally. A Bad Wizard’s works will have some accidental flaw, derived from their nature. All our work has some weakness.”
“But why?”
“To limit the object’s power,” said the Good Wizard softly. “Power is always best limited. Now go and have your bath.”
Ardent stood shivering in his bath, though it was perfectly warm. Anya, who had already had hers, stood next to it, encouraging him to get out. She was as warm as fresh-made toast, beautifully clean, wearing flannel pajamas that had been just ironed, and over them a silk dressing gown with a dragon’s head embroidered on the back. Her feet were graced with sheepskin slippers lined with fleece.
The hot bath, liberally infused with rosemary, had also banished her cold, though perhaps only temporarily. At least her nose had stopped running and her chest felt clear.
“I c-c-an’t get out,” said Ardent. “This bath has paralyzed me. Or the soap that invisible fiend used had some paralyzing properties.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Anya. She stepped away to avoid the expected splashing, looked to the hall door, and said, “Mmmm. I can smell dinner. I hope there’s some left for us.”
Ardent sprang from the bathtub and took several tottering steps towards the hall before Anya hauled him back by his collar and wrapped him in the huge towels an invisible apprentice swiftly handed to her.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure the Good Wizard never runs out of food,” said Anya as she vigorously toweled the dog dry. “I wonder if her teachers will come to dinner? There were thirteen places set. The Wizard, seven teachers, you, me, Smoothie, and Shrub. That’s twelve … ”
Ardent said something indistinct under the towel. Anya removed it. The dog crossed his paws in his best about-to-declaim-poetry posture and said:
Seven dwarves, out of the west
Seven makers, finest of the c-c-raft
Snow White and the seven best
I forget the rest.
“What is that?” asked Anya.
“The first three lines are from a poem story Tanitha tells the pups,” said Ardent. “I really do forget the rest, though. It’s all about Snow White the wizard, and the seven dwarves he worked with, and all the fabulous things they made together. Like the Magic Mirror and all that.”
“Oh, I remember that too!” exclaimed Anya. As a very little toddler, she had often joined the great dog pile of puppies that writhed and wriggled about as the dog matriarch told them stories. But it had been many years since she had rolled and tumbled about with puppies on the floor, and she had forgotten most of Tanitha’s stories.
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarves! No wonder they look so short and broad in the paintings on the doors. But surely it can’t be the same ones? Even if Snow White the former Good Wizard is still alive? I mean, I know wizards are long-lived, but—”