The Wyvern's Spur - Kate Novak [17]
Olive froze, suddenly realizing her own peril. The halfling sprang back into the alley, just as a second lance of green light shot from the man's finger. The ray sizzled into the cobble-stones, leaving a pothole where Olive had stood a moment before.
The halfling did not turn to inspect the damage. She dashed down the alley without looking back. She could hear the level, thudding strides of the man behind her, like an inhuman heartbeat.
He doesn't need to dash to keep up with me, Olive realized. Time to disappear into thin air, she told herself, or face the prospect of literally disappearing forever.
She always prepared a bolt hole when slip worked the streets. Along the right side of the alley ran the stable where she boarded her pony, Snake Eyes. There was a loose plank in the rear wall that pivoted on a single nail. At the end of the allev Olive dodged right, slid the plank up. and slipped into the stable. She let the plank slide back into place and stood trying to gasp for air as quietly as possible,
The thudding footfalls of her attacker approached her holt hole, then ceased. Olive held her breath, hoping to determine in which direction he would head. The killer did not move away, however, but stood near the stable wall, muttering to himself. Pick a direction and move away, you murdering fiend, Olive willed silently.
Snake Eyes, her pony, sensed his mistress's anxiety and moved toward her, nuzzling her ear. Irritated, Olive pushed the animal's muzzle away. The pony whickered softly in annoyance. Keep quiet, Snake Eyes, Olive willed, there's a very crazy man outside trying to kill me.
Olive scratched the pony's back, and it grew calm. Olive calmed as well; her breathing became more regular. She tried to deny she'd seen the murderer's face so clearly. He could not he who he looked like. She had to be mistaken.
The halfling's heart skipped a beat as something knocked on the stable wall behind her. Her pursuer had not given up! He was searching for an opening. Olive stumbled backward in panic and knocked over Snake Eyes's water pail. The man outside began mumbling again, and Olive realized with horror that he must be chanting a spell.
Olive pushed on the stall's door, but it was bolted on the other side, and she hadn't the time to use her skills to slip it open. Fortunately the walls to the stall did not go to the ceiling, and, with an effort born of desperation and a great deal of scrabbling, the halfling was able to climb to the top. She dropped down into the stable's center aisle and dashed for the building's main entrance. Snake Eyes whinnied in terror as his mistress pushed on the front door-only to discover that it, too, was bolted from without.
Olive whirled around, looking for another place to hide. A pale glow of yellow light and more muttering emanated from Snake Eyes's stall. He's inside! Olive thought, terror grabbing her insides and giving them a quarter-turn. He disintegrates, detects secret doors, and walks through walls. How can I hide from him?
The muttering stopped, and Snake Eyes's stall door rattled. A series of sharp thumps followed, and the stall door's hinges began to give way.
Stifling a sob, Olive dodged behind a large pile of grain sacks and crouched, cowering miserably in the dark.
There has got to be some way out of this, Olive thought feverishly. I'm too talented to die. Her eyes lit on an empty sack on the ground and she pulled it over her head, hoping to masquerade as a bag of feed. It was only a thirty-pound sack, though, and she was a fifty-pound halfling.
I'll never stuff myself into this, she realized as she heard the sound of screws ripping out of wood. Uttering the word "stuff" and staring at the useless bag, a fresh idea sprang to the half-ling's mind.
Jade's magic pouch! she thought. Akabar the mage had once told her a story of a southern prince who kept an elephant in his magic pouch. Jade said the pouch was a miniature one, Olive recalled. I'm hardly an elephant, she reasoned, so the thing ought