all sides, like forest fires. The people were celebrating. For a short time at least the citizens of Avendoom had been liberated from the terrors of the night and thoughts of the army of the Nameless One. They were all singing the praises of the Order and Archmagician Artsivus.
At long last the magicians had apparently succeeded in driving the fearsome beasts of the night out of Avendoom.
I merely chuckled. There was no way I was going to take offense at Artsivus for his enterprise in usurping the glorious role of vanquisher of demons. I had no use for that glory myself anyway. I was simply very amused by the move, which was worthier of sly merchants than the master of the high and mighty Order. I wondered how many similar glorious “occasions of victory” the magicians had been able to claim as their own in order to reinforce their own position. Never mind, it was none of my business.
The wide Street of the Sparks was overflowing with magical pictures. Every shop there felt obliged to outdo the one next door by creating more magical illusions to attract as many customers as possible. Above one little shop bright orange letters appeared, and then were transformed into a flock of illusory pigeons. Flapping their wings, the birds soared up into the evening sky, fused together into a small white cloud that sank down to the roof of the shop, and then turned back into letters again.
The people in the street took absolutely no notice of these wonders. There were more impressive things than that to be seen here. For instance, the sight of bolts of illusory lightning slaying an illusory ogre could have kept you enthralled for a year at least.
I walked straight through an illusion of a dragon and found myself in front of a perfectly ordinary-looking house. There weren’t any showers of fiery rain or horrific monsters or magicians in brightly glowing silver cloaks on show here. Never mind that—there wasn’t even a shop sign. This little trading establishment didn’t need to attract simpleminded clients with more money than sense. And the prices here were so high that not many people were willing to buy.
But people in the know came here, to this modest little establishment—they didn’t go to the shops bursting at the seams with magical baubles and bright-colored phantoms on the Street of the Sparks.
I pushed the door, and the little bell jangled merrily. Many visitors would have been astonished at the total absence of goods on display. But when someone came here, the owner himself carefully selected the things the customer needed from the storeroom at the back of the shop.
“Who’s that the Darkness has dragged in now?” exclaimed a low, none-too-polite voice, sounding like a bumblebee buzzing over a field of clover. “We’re closing, clear out!”
A short, stocky figure emerged from the dark inner room. If I stood beside him, the top of the shopkeeper’s head would barely have reached up to my chest.
Like all dwarves, he had a massive forehead, small, deep-set black eyes, and a heavy, protruding lower jaw. A powerful, barrel-shaped torso. Strong, muscular arms. And an obnoxious personality.
For some reason, many ignorant philistines from the deep provinces always get dwarves and gnomes confused. In fact, dwarves are fundamentally different from their relatives the gnomes. Gnomes are smaller and look less robust, and they also do something that no dwarf would ever do even under pain of death—they wear beards.
“Good evening, Master Honchel,” I said.
“Ah-ah-ah,” the dwarf drawled, wiping his huge hands on his leather apron. “Master Harold. Good evening to you. And I was just about to fling you out of the shop. Haven’t seen you in a long time. How’s your eyesight?”
“No complaints.” Honchel was referring to my night vision, which I had improved with the help of an elixir bought in his shop six months earlier.
“And what brings you to me, especially at closing time?”
“Purchases.”
“Large ones?” The dwarf screwed up his eyes cunningly, already figuring out how much money he could squeeze out of me.
“That depends how things go: what the goods are like.”
“Come now, Master Harold, have you ever had reason to be dissatisfied with the range of goods in my shop?”
“Not so far, but you must admit, dear Master Honchel, that there’s always a first time for everything.”
“Not in my shop!” The dwarf laughed and led me into the back room. “I get my goods from the very finest magicians in the Order. And there are numerous items