Pool of Radiance_ Ruins of Myth Drannor - Carrie Bebris [35]
Kestrel couldn’t believe her ears. Corran and the others wanted to drop everything to go rescue that hare-brained peddler. “We’re here! At the House of Gems. We’re right-” she gestured wildly at the door-“here!”
“Nottle’s in trouble,” Corran stated calmly, as one would address a stubborn child. “We must aid him.”
“He’s an idiot!” she sputtered. “We warned him about the danger. He ignored us. He deserves whatever he gets.”
“Then I guess all of us better hope we never need your help.”
Her fingers twitched. She wanted nothing more than to sink one of her daggers between the paladin’s shoulder blades. How had he managed to make her the villain of the group? All she’d ever tried to do was inject a dose of reality into their starry-eyed plans to save the world all by themselves.
Emmeric cleared his throat. “Actually, I agree with Kestrel.” Corran appeared surprised at the dissent, but the fighter continued. “We can’t afford to waste time, not with the Ring of Calling so close.”
“Thank you,” she said. At least someone else in the party was showing some sense.
“But it isn’t close,” Corran said. “We’re just hoping the cult sorcerers will be in the Room of Words when we get there. They might not be there yet. They might have been there and gone already. We don’t know. We do know where Nottle is and that he’s in danger. As men and women of good conscience-” he shot a pointed look at Kestrel-“we must aid the weak.”
“And risk weakening ourselves and the success of our mission in the process?” Emmeric pressed.
“Tyr will look with favor upon us.”
Kestrel rolled her eyes. “Tyr can kiss my-”
“Enough.” Ghleanna released a heavy sigh. “In the time we have spent debating this, we could have traveled halfway to Nottle’s prison. Let us make haste to release him and return here without further delay.”
The group headed off. Kestrel, however, tarried. They had not searched the cult sorcerer’s body for clues to the cult’s activities-or valuables, for that matter-and she, for one, intended to get all she could of both.
Around his neck she found a bronze medallion on a leather strap. Etched into it was a symbol: a ball of flame with sinister eyes hovering above a four-pointed reptilian claw. She removed the medallion and stuffed it in one of her belt pouches, then assessed the rest of his body. The minimal clothing left few places to carry items, but she did find a thin key hanging from a chain on his belt. The end of the key had the image of a circle within an arch engraved on it.
“When I noticed you missing, I knew I’d find you here.” Corran’s voice did not surprise her. Though she could tell he’d tried to move silently, she’d heard him approach. “Are you nearly finished robbing the dead? The others are waiting.”
She did not bother to look up from her task. Her back still to him, she slipped the key into a hidden sheath in her right sleeve. “I happen to be searching for clues to what this cult is all about-something you seem to have forgotten in your haste to save a half-witted halfling from himself.”
“Uh-huh.”
His tone of sarcastic disbelief pushed her over the edge. She whirled to face him. “What in the Abyss is your problem?”
He regarded her stoically. “My problem?”
She glared at him, her face hot with anger she could no longer hold in check. “You have done nothing but judge and insult me from the moment we met.”
“You represent everything I abhor.”
“How can I? You don’t even know me.”
“Are you not a thief? I have yet to encounter one who wasn’t a selfish opportunist. Your behavior thus far has done little to change my mind.”
Her behavior? She had been selfish to try talking the party out of a quest that amounted to a suicide pact? She had been opportunistic in helping them defeat Preybelish? Sir Sanctimonious would do better to examine his own conduct.
“I have yet to meet a paladin who wasn’t judgmental and self-righteous,” she snapped. “Seeing only my actions and hearing only my words, you presume to know my motives. Well, you don’t know as much as you think you do, Corran D’Arcey.”
He raised his brows patronizingly.