“Lost, lost, lost,” the townsfolk whimpered. “Misery, misery we.” Molly Grue stared wordlessly at them, but Schmendrick said respectfully, “That’s a good curse, that’s a professional job. I always say, whatever you’re having done, go to an expert. It pays in the long run.”

Drinn frowned, and Molly nudged Schmendrick. The magician blinked. “Oh. Well, what is it you wish of me? I must warn you that I am not a very skillful sorcerer, but I will be glad to lift this curse from you, if I can.”

“I had not taken you for any more than you are,” Drinn answered, “but such as you are, you should do as well as any. I think we will leave the curse the way it is. If it were lifted we might not become poor again, but we would no longer grow steadily richer, and that would be just as bad. No, our real task is to keep Haggard’s tower from falling, and since the hero who will destroy it can only come from Hagsgate, this should not be impossible. For one thing, we allow no strangers to settle here. We keep them away, by force if we must, but more often by guile. Those dark tales of Hagsgate that you spoke of‌—‌we invented them ourselves, and spread them as widely as we could to make certain that we would have few visitors.” He smiled proudly with his hollow jaws.

Schmendrick propped his chin on his knuckles and regarded Drinn with a sagging smile. “What about your own children?” he asked. “How can you keep one of them from growing up to fulfill the curse?” He looked around the inn, sleepily studying every wrinkled face that looked back at him. “Come to think of it,” he said slowly, “are there no young people in this town? How early do you send children to bed in Hagsgate?”

No one answered him. Molly could hear blood creaking in ears and eyes, and skin twitching like water plucked by the wind. Then Drinn said, “We have no children. We have had none since the day that the curse was laid upon us.” He coughed into his fist and added, “It seemed the most obvious way of foiling the witch.”

Schmendrick threw back his head and laughed without making a sound, laughed to make the torches dance. Molly realized that the magician was quite drunk. Drinn’s mouth disappeared, and his eyes hardened into cracked porcelain. “I see no humor in our plight,” he said softly. “None at all.”

“None,” Schmendrick gurgled, bowing over the table and spilling his wine. “None, pardon me, none, none at all.” Under the angry gaze of two hundred eyes, he managed to recover himself and reply seriously to Drinn. “Then it would seem to me that you have no worries. None that would worry you, anyway.” A small whee of laughter sneaked out between his lips, like steam from a teakettle.

“So it would seem.” Drinn leaned forward and touched Schmendrick’s wrist with two fingers. “But I have not told you all the truth. Twenty-one years ago, a child was born in Hagsgate. Whose child it was, we never knew. I found it myself, as I was crossing the marketplace one winter’s night. It was lying on a butcher’s block, not crying, although there was snow, but warm and chuckling under a comforter of stray cats. They were all purring together, and the sound was heavy with knowledge. I stood by the strange cradle for a long time, pondering while the snow fell and the cats purred prophecy.”