Realms of Magic - Brian Thomsen King [71]
Llewellyn backed into the brush, away from Indio and the rest. Carefully, he removed the three jade stones from the key and put it in his leather sack.
"There are a few things Zalathorn told me that I have kept to myself. Vagabond, am I? Scavenger, you call me? No! Try victor!"
Pairs and trios of battling halflings (and a gnome) spread out into the woods, up the mountain, and far into the cave. Here and there, a body lay stunned, unconscious, or worse. But more importantly to Llewellyn, the treasure was left unguarded.
Llewellyn ran to the chest, depleted it of as much of its contents as his improvised sack would hold-which was almost all-and, seeing that the way east toward the Halar Hills was safe and free of otherwise occupied halflings (and a gnome), he ran as quickly as his feet would cany him.
Then, suddenly, he heard Talltankard's voice. "The vagabond! He has cheated us all!"
Llewellyn's heart beat faster, for he knew it would not be long before the halflings (and a gnome) would catch up to him. The sack was growing heavier, and it was slowing him down.
He took the jade stones and placed them in the three forged holes in the silver amulet he had acquired from Indio. And the moment the third stone was secured in the amulet, he felt himself leaving the ground, elevating, ascending, flying. Flying!
No, Llewellyn realized, not flying, but moving, or, more precisely, being moved.
Then, just as suddenly as the sensation had begun, it ended.
Zalathorn's amulet had proven to be as invaluable as Llewellyn knew it would. As the wizard had informed him, when the same person had possession of both the key and the amulet-with the jade stones in place in the latter- their bearer would be returned, together with his or her possessions, to his or her place of birth.
And, indeed, the Talkative One was home in the town of Klint, safe from both bands of adventurers and much richer than he had ever been. He looked around and sighed, relishing the safety and comfort he felt.
Llewellyn sensed that the wizard, too, must be amused. After all, it was Zalathorn himself who had helped him. It was Zalathorn who had "informed" him of the amulet that was originally part of the treasure. And it was he who revealed to him that one of the stones and the amulet were now in the possession of a band of halflings led by one who had the arrogance and presumption to call himself Indio the Black.
He doubted that Indio the Black or the Buckleswashers were amused, though, and vowed to steer clear of them for the rest of his days.
Indeed, he thought, a most excellent vow.
TOO FAMILIAR
David Cook
"It's extraordinarily complicated, you see…?"
The wineglasses clinked as the wisp-bearded enchanter rearranged the drinks on the cluttered table, all the while dragging out the 'see' in his thick Ankhapurian accent. Like a swarm of midge flies, the assembled alchemists, prestidigitators, conjurers, thaumaturges, and wonderworkers-courtiers all-swarmed around him and listened. Their professional antennae quivered for the slightest hint of unfounded theorizing.
Well aware of it, the graybeard-such beard as he had-continued with the unfazed confidence of a high master educating coarse apprentices. Fingers fluttering, he allowed five droplets of carmine wine into the honey-yellow mead before him. "A taste of aqua vitae-no more!-that's been distilled by the flame of a silver burner and added to the flux. Once cooled, I stirred in"- and here he added three pinches from the salt cellar-"a measure of powdered dragonelle scale, and the whole solution precipitated-"
"Preposterous!" croaked a frog-faced Calimshite, alchemist to the recently arrived consular of Calimport. "Scale as a precipitate? Ludicrous! You might as well have used gravel for all of scale's suitability as a precipitate. Your whole theory's unsound!"
The blunt attack set the onlookers to buzzing, so much so that the proprietous and meekly disposed wizards of