Realms of Magic - Brian Thomsen King [97]
Teza leaned against the water horse, too tired to reply.
The wizard woman crossed her arms and looked at her thoughtfully. "I hoped to reach you before Ashroth did anything rash, but the aughisky was faster, thank the gods."
Teza's hand ran lovingly down the horse's elegant neck. "He saved my life," she whispered. "He didn't have to. If I died, the bond of the hippomane would be broken." She grinned suddenly and said to the horse, "I wonder where Rafbit is. Stuffed under some sunken rock more than likely. You came so fast you, didn't have time to eat him, did you?"
He tossed his mane and snorted a reply.
Abruptly Teza reached up and unbuckled the throat latch of the bridle on his head. The aughisky stilled, his wild eyes fastened on Teza. Gently she pulled the straps over his head and drew the bit out of his mouth. "I release you freely," she announced. "The spell of the hippomane is nullified."
The water horse stared at her. Then he reared, his hooves flashing over her head. Quick as an eel, he turned and plunged into Lake Ashane. He neighed once before the dark waters closed over his head and he was gone.
Teza watched him go. With a sigh, she flopped to the grass and drew the cloak tightly about her. She shivered. "Now what?" she murmured.
Kanlara smiled and sat down beside her. "Well, I need a place to stay."
Teza glanced at the woman. Even after thirty years as a book, Kanlara seemed very close to her own age. Still the woman was wizard-trained and, by her speech and looks, nobly born. "I'm a horse-thief," she said.
"I know," Kanlara said simply, "and you saved my life. I could use a friend right now."
Teza looked out over the lake, now gray and pearl with dawn's coming light. She thought of Rafbit's treachery and the aughisky"s last act of loyalty. Her lips formed a smile. "I could use a friend, too." She rose unsteadily to her feet. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in helping me form a thieves' guild would you?"
Her companion stood, too, her red hair as long and thick as Teza's dark mane. They stood eye to eye for so long Teza grew certain Kanlara would refuse.
Then the wizard woman replied, "I have been a book stashed away in a moldy old library for so long, I think dust has settled in my brain. I want to do things, I want to travel, I want to experience life again. I suppose Immil-mar is as good a place as any to start. Then who knows, maybe you'd go on a dajemma with me?"
Teza's eyes widened with delight. A dajemma was an expedition taken by Rashemen's young men, a journey through the world to manhood. Females did not usually go, and certainly not ones in their midtwenties. But why not? A dajemma, an adventure, a journey. Call it what you will, Teza thought, it would do.
"I know where to find some good horses." She grinned.
SIX OF SWORDS
William W. Connors
Moonlight on a silver blade was the last thing Jaybel ever saw.
Fifteen years ago, when he and his closest friends had been adventuring throughout the Western Heartlands, he might have expected such a demise. In those days, he had made his living as an expert picking locks, disarming traps, and unobtrusively eliminating enemies-tasks known for short-lived practitioners. Indeed, on more than one occasion, he'd been snatched from death's dark abyss only by the mystical healing power of the acolyte Gwynn.
In the years since, however, Jaybel had given up the rogue's life. Following the tragedy of his company's last quest, when they had been forced to leave the dwarf Shandt to the so-called mercy of a hobgoblin tribe, the glamour had gone out of that life. Indeed, so terrible had that ordeal been that every member of the Six of Swords had second thoughts about his career.
"I've made my fortune," Jaybel told