The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [23]
I followed Tamra into the waiting room beyond.
“…That’s no choice.” The voice was Dorthae’s, and she was facing Talryn.
Talryn smiled a smile that wasn’t really a smile, since his black eyes were hard as the stone of the paved floor underfoot. “You can choose either. Your actions already made that choice necessary.”
“What…because I wouldn’t stay with a man who turned out to be an unfeeling and unthinking brute?”
“No. Because you crippled him before you left him.”
I winced. While there was a hardness to Dorthae, I hadn’t seen just how hard she was. Yet she looked vulnerable standing before Talryn, even though he was no taller than she was.
Dorthae turned away, her lips tight.
Myrten and Sammel had followed me. Only Wrynn and Krystal were missing.
Dorthae glanced at me, saw my black staff and stumbled back toward Tamra, also carrying her staff. Dorthae cringed away from the redhead.
Tamra and I exchanged glances. She shrugged. After a moment, so did I.
Clearly, as I had recognized from the encounters with Shrezsan and the trader, I had some power, associated with the staff. What it was…that was another question. Unfortunately, everyone else thought I had some power, too, and they were just as clearly very wary of it. Wonderful—heading into a dangergeld cursed with an ability I hadn’t even known I’d had, with the whole world ready to pounce on me for it. Sent for reasons I still didn’t understand and which no one would explain. Just wonderful.
As I pondered, Krystal and Wrynn had appeared.
“You are all here. Good,” said Talryn. “Follow me.”
VIII
PRETTY MUCH IN silence we walked up a set of wide black stone stairs. The side walls were of the same black stone. All the stone was smooth but unpolished, and it seemed to absorb light with almost no reflection. Each stone was set so tightly in place that the mortar between each was less than half a fingertip in width. That thin line of mortar was black. So clean were the steps they bore no trace of dust, although the light from the overhead skylights did not fall on the steps directly.
Talryn and Sammel were at the front of the group. I was at the back, just behind Wrynn and Krystal. From Krystal’s blue leather belt, darker than her faded blue blouse and trousers, hung two sheaths, both containing knives, one barely a span in length. She wore a small matching blue pack.
“All this black…depressing…” muttered Wrynn, shaking her head, her blond hair fluffing out for an instant. She wore a brown pack like mine, except hers was stuffed to the bursting point and had several small bags tied to the outside.
“It smells like power,” answered Krystal, touching her hand to the long black hair she had wound up into a bun after our rather late lunch. Then she emitted the faintest giggle.
If only she didn’t giggle…I shook my head. She was nearly a decade older than I was, at least, with the hint of lines around her eyes—almost scrawny, except for her nicely-formed breasts.
“Creepy, if you ask me,” muttered Wrynn again. Her right hand rested awkwardly on the haft of a long sheathed knife.
At the top of the steps was a foyer of sorts, windowless, and, on the far end, a set of doors that Talryn held open.
The breeze blowing toward me held a hint of spring, or rain—that clean smell that follows a good rain when the dust is washed out of the air. Yet I could see that the sky was as blue and nearly cloudless as when I had walked under the gates and into Nylan at midday.
“Gather round…”
So we gathered. I gave Myrten a wide berth. Smooth voice or not, he looked like he’d steal anything available just to prove he could. Dorthae didn’t have that problem. She practically cuddled up next to him. I stood a pace or so behind Wrynn and Krystal, facing Talryn.
“Right ahead of us are the transients’ quarters where you will be staying. Each of you will have a separate room,” explained Talryn. “You can sleep there, or with anyone