Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [72]
"Great lady, your mum," Shaymius said, eyeing Sharlarra as if daring her to contradict him. "Good eye for business."
"Posting you here was certainly a good day's work," the elf said, getting straight to the heart of the matter. "The horses left with you couldn't want better care, and not a single merchant who's slept under these roofs has offered a word of complaint."
The caretaker nodded, satisfied. Old though he was, his employers were content, and his post was secure. He set to work brushing down the black stallion, happily unaware of the real circumstances of his current position.
Sharlarra had heard the gossip, of course. That was one of the benefits of an apprenticeship in Blackstaff Tower. Ballads had been written about the exploits of young Shaymius Sky, and Lady Cassandra had gladly paid a high price to have the sheen of his ancient glories bestowed upon her firstborn son. For a time, she even overlooked her steward's regular morning-after trips to the Brawlers' Den, a chamber in the prisons of Waterdeep Palace devoted to those who grew bellicose in their cups. But the price of Shaymius's freedom, meted out after every tenday, soon came to overmatch his wages. That, and the crescendo of whispered rumor, ended the matter. No sordid little scandal dared touch the heir to the Thann title and estates.
It had been Danilo who'd persuaded the steward to buy Shaymius free one last time and to offer him this new employment. The old warrior, increasingly restless with city life and longing for adventures that would never come again, regarded this post not as banishment for brawling but as a reward for the skills he so routinely displayed. As far as Dan was concerned, Shaymius Sky deserved to believe this pleasant lie until the day he died.
Sharlarra couldn't have agreed more.
Once the horses had been tended and fed, the old man and the elf settled down by the caretaker's hearthside to chase tales and songs of faded glory with mugs of well-spiced mead. As much as Sharlarra enjoyed her occasional stolen moments with the old warrior, she was relieved when at last Shaymius's stories faded into silence. She sang one more ballad just to make sure and kept singing until the music was lost in the old man's grating snores.
She eased away from the hearth and crept out of the hut, making her way into the clearing behind the stables. She took from her bag a large, unset sapphire and the small vial of powdered magic she'd stolen from Khelben. She had one more task to complete before she slept, on behalf of one more misfit in search of a place in an oft-confusing world.
Back in Waterdeep was a sea elf awaiting help in his quest to become a mage. Though Sharlarra had not yet found a suitable teacher, she wanted to assure the elf that he was not forgotten- and while she was at it, reclaim the bag of gems she'd left with Xzorsh as surety. Since leaving Liriel and Fyodor, it had occurred to Sharlarra that if she and Khelben could trace the drow girl through possessions she had once held, it was likely that others could do the same. Xzorsh held a fortune in his webbed hands, but a dangerous one.
The young wizard's fingers sped through the arcane gestures, a difficult spell but nearly identical to one the Blackstaff had recently taught her. Sharlarra finished the spell and braced herself for the result. An invisible hand seized her and pulled her along a magical trail. For a moment, all the colors she had ever seen or imagined careened past like a rainbow gone mad.
She came to rest suddenly. Momentarily blinded by the brightness of the magical transport, she drew in a deep breath, fully expecting the tang of salt water and the complex stench of the Dock Ward. Instead, her senses filled with the coppery scent of fresh blood and the dank, dusty