Curse of the Shadowmage - Mark Anthony [3]
As quickly as it came, the odd feeling of prescience vanished, and the last vestiges of dreaminess with it. Wide awake now. Kellen slipped from his bed, shuddering with the cold, and realized at once the source of the fierce chill. The chamber's round window hung open, and a steady wind blew in. Even this early in the month of Uktar, when the days could still be fine and golden, the nights were sharp with the promise of winter. The window must have blown open during the night.
Kellen padded barefoot across the cold wooden floor and reached out to shut the window. Abruptly he paused, his eyes glowing with curiosity in the half-light. The surface of the glass bore a patch of pearly frost. Being autumn, this was not unusual. That the patch of frost was shaped exactly like a human hand was far more peculiar. It appeared as if some terribly cold being had pressed its fingers against the glass for a moment, leaving behind pale crystals of ice. Slowly, Kellen reached out his own hand and placed it over the frosty print. His hand was much smaller, but the heat of it melted the frost, and in moments the mysterious handprint was gone. He wondered if this was the something he had felt was going to happen today. After a moment he decided that this mysterious occurrence wasn't the awaited event, but that it might be related.
"I will simply have to wait and see," he whispered. Unlike most children, Kellen knew how to be patient.
Turning from the window, he shrugged off his nightshirt and in its place pulled on woolen breeches, a wine-colored tunic, and soft deerskin boots. He combed his almost-black hair with a wooden comb. Fine boned and slight of build, Kellen was often mistaken for a child of seven or eight years rather than the eleven he was. Strangers often found this discrepancy unsettling, for he spoke with uncanny precision, and a wisdom in his gray-green eyes that no eleven-year-old boy should have possessed.
When he had finished dressing, Kellen knelt to open a battered trunk beside his bed. Gently he took out his greatest treasure, a bone flute that his father had carved for him. Kellen slipped the instrument into a leather pouch at his belt. He left his room-shutting the door quietly, as it was still early-and made his way down two winding flights of stairs to the inn's common room.
A halfling woman with nut-brown eyes looked up from the fieldstone hearth. She was stirring the coals that had been banked beneath the ashes for the night. "You're up early, Kellen," she said merrily.
"Yes, Estah," he replied seriously. "I am." Estah was the proprietor of the Sign of the Dreaming Dragon, the inn where Kellen lived with his father, Caledan Caldorien. The halfling innkeeper stood, dusting her hands against her homespun apron. Grown woman though she was, she stood only as high as Kellen's shoulder. A curious look crossed her broad face.
"And may I ask what roused you from your bed before the sun has even climbed from his own?"
Kellen considered whether he should tell Estah about the frosty handprint he had seen on his bedchamber window. He knew that Estah, unlike many adults, would listen to a young boy's words. However, she tended to worry unduly, and he didn't want to distract her from her tasks about the inn, which were considerable. After a moment he decided against telling her. He could wait until his father was awake, if he must tell somebody.
"I thought I would help you knead the bread dough today," he said instead.
Estah studied him for a moment. Then she laughed, eyes crinkling.