Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [10]
"Bar that. What would you know?" the drunk muttered.
Jas stepped back and grabbed the crystal paperweight from Emilo's hands. Then she stepped back to the drunk. "Oh, yeah," she said. "Let's see, if you've got the guts to scan this." She shoved the crystal in the drunk's face.
The drunk moved his head back, trying to focus his eyes on the glittering flecks.
"What do you see?" Jas asked.
"Nothing… just little specks of light," the drunk answered belligerently.
"Ah-ha!" Jas said. "Those little specks are called stars."
"So?"
"So. Like I said, it's only a matter of time before you'll be seeing them." Jas snatched the crystal away from the drunk's eyes. She shook her head and tched sympathetically. "Oh. Here's our sandwiches at last," she said as the waiter returned with a plate piled high with cold meat and cheese sandwiches and a mug of ale for Emilo.
Jas returned to her chair, slid the crystal back into her cloak pocket, and grabbed a sandwich.
The drunk staggered up to the table. "Are you telling me that crystal can see into the future? Let me see."
Jas shook her head. "Sorry. Only one look per person. Any more and you're likely to go mad. Besides, it doesn't matter what you see. It's your fate. You can't change fate."
"Let me see that crystal!" the drunk demanded, yanking at Jas's cloak.
Joel looked up at the waiter. "This gentleman's becoming something of a nuisance," he said.
The waiter nodded understandingly. He raised his hand over his head and snapped his fingers twice.
"You sodding Prime. You're going to give me another look at that crystal ball," the drunk insisted, "or I'm going to nick you good."
"Nick me well," Jas corrected.
Two bariaurs, creatures with the torso of a man and the body and horns of a mountain ram, took up a position on either side of the drunk. Each bariaur took an arm and lifted him from the floor. Together they carried him off, despite his loud protests that he "wasn't doing nothing" and that it was all that clueless birdwoman's fault.
Jas took a bite out of her sandwich. "Mmm. This is good." Joel shook his head with a grin. "You may not stick out like a sore thumb here, but you'll never fit in with these Cagers," he said. "Their arrogance will always get on your nerves."
Jas shrugged and took another bite of her sandwich.
"So you do come from someplace where you can see the stars, don't you?" Emilo asked.
"I don't just come from a place where you can see the stars," Jas said. "I've traveled to the stars."
Emilo's eyes widened with amazement. "Really? That must be interesting."
"Sometimes," Jas agreed.
"Is the magic crystal ball from the stars?" the kender asked.
"No. My friend bought it at Lizzy's Paperweights over at the Great Bazaar," Jas said.
"Then it's not magical?" Emilo asked with a disappointed tone in his voice.
"Magical enough. It banished that lousy Cager, didn't it?" Jas asked.
Emilo chuckled. "Emilo Haversack," he reintroduced himself to Jas, holding out his hand.
"Jasmine. Just call me Jas," the winged woman said, accepting the handshake.
As they ate their sandwiches, Emilo kept up the conversation, relating a long, complex tale featuring a mad magician, a dragon, a human boy and girl, a historian, and himself.
When they'd finished their meal, Joel studied Jas, trying to gauge her mood. He'd known the winged woman for a little less than a month, so she was still something of an enigma to him. She looked calm and happy enough. Of course, that could work against Joel. When she was calm, Jas was less likely to accept the fact that she had a problem controlling the dark stalker within her.
Her behavior toward Emilo had taken a complete about-face. While it seemed highly improbable to Joel that Emilo had only been looking at Jas's crystal and had not intended to steal it, Jas now seemed to find the Render's company quite acceptable. Joel wondered