"But what if—"
"Stop worrying! If my luck holds, by the next day or two, I'll have enough money that we can even get some new clothes."
As a matter of fact, I was already carrying enough coinage to outfit us both in regal finery, but I knew that if I displayed too much of my sudden "earnings," Saysi's suspicions would grow too strong to ignore. "For now, let's just enjoy supper. I'll risk a couple of silvers at the gaming tables, and maybe that will see us through tomorrow."
"Well, all right."
I took Saysi by the arm and escorted her along the carpeted hallway and down the wide mahogany stairway to the main floor. The headwaiter recognized me, thanks to a tip I'd left earlier, and ushered us to a fine table near the fireplace. We ordered our meat, which was delivered quickly, and washed it down with a bottle of the tart red wine that was quite popular in these parts. Saysi and I ate like the starving wayfarers we were.
Despite the good food and splendid surroundings, I found myself dragged down by a feeling of melancholy. My companion, too, ate with a certain listlessness. We both cleaned our plates with a mechanical quality that prevented enjoyment of the meal.
I realized that the loss of our companions still weighed on me, and I felt a tightening in my throat when I thought of Barzyn's courage, Hestrill's wry sense of humor, the redoubtable strength of Benton and Dallzar. They had been dead for more than a day, and in the past, this would have been more than enough time to grieve for lost companions.
Somehow this time it was different.
My own bleak musings were interrupted by the sight of Saysi's tear-filled eyes, turned in my direction but obviously looking far, far past me. It was clearly time to do something.
"Let's go into the gaming hall," I suggested. "A little gambling might take our minds off... what happened."
She trailed along with obvious reluctance as I passed under the big wooden arch that divided the dining chamber from the gaming hall. Chandeliers illuminated the room in a steady glow, with a few magic baubles shining directly above the tables where the high stakes were waged. I saw matches of thimbles, knucklebones, double-guesser, and other contests I didn't recognize as we walked on the polished hardwood between the gamblers.
In this hall, the walkway was raised to about the level of the gaming tables, with each game played down in a sort of pit. This made it easy for us shorter folk to get a good look at what was going on, and I quickly spotted the game I sought.
"Dragonfire," I pointed out to Saysi. She nodded, still listless, as I took her hand and led her down the steps into one of the pits.
The table before us was circular, with a small indentation for the dealer's stool. This fellow was a young man, clad in a black and silver tunic and perched easily on his raised seat. Several stacks of tiles lay facedown before him, while three players regarded an array of single tiles spread across the middle of the table.
I took in the other gamblers with a casual glance and immediately liked my chances. One of them was a big warrior wearing a loose shirt of chain mail, though, in typical custom, he had left his weapons at the door. The fellow was obviously very drunk, swaying uneasily even in his low chair, with a nearly empty bottle of cheap whiskey standing beside him.
The next player was a matron of some wealth, to judge by the diamond rings on her fingers and the golden chains encircling her throat. She wore a low-cut gown of silk, revealing enough cleavage to swallow a careless halfling, and her overly rouged eyelids narrowed shrewdly as she kept her eyes on the dealer and the tiles.
The last player was a foppish fellow in a feathered hat and silken jacket embroidered with golden threads. I noticed immediately that the plume was tattered, the material of the coat threadbare. The man's beardless face was narrow and pinched, his eyes gleaming with an unnatural glow. A mug of wine rested on the table beside him, and though he took a long swill as he waited for the deal, I got the impression that he wasn't drunk. Instead, he seemed vaguely desperate. There was a sense of hunger in the way he watched the shifting of the colorful tiles.
"Joining the game?" the dealer asked as I took the fourth and final chair at the table. In reply, I placed some silver pieces on the table, careful to avoid Saysi's eyes, though I could clearly imagine her frown as she stiffened beside me. Four coins I set aside, since dragonfire required each player to maintain a standing bet, while the others I would use to wager on each of my turns.
The dealer placed a pattern of twenty-five tiles on the table, arranging them in five rows of five. The drunken warrior pitched a pair of silver coins into the center of the table and gestured at one of the tiles. The dealer flipped it over to reveal an image of a steel-bladed short sword. With a grunt, the fighter pointed to another tile; this one came up to reveal the image of a ruby ring. The brawny warrior muttered something profane under his breath as the dealer gathered in both of the coins.
Next the matron bet, wagering four gold pieces. She gestured, and the dealer flipped over a tile to reveal a rampant stallion's head. The second tile showed the match for the ruby ring revealed by the fighter, and I winced inwardly. This meant that the dealer had to reshuffle ten of the tiles, which he did after claiming the woman's golden coins. I tried to follow his supple fingers without success.
When all twenty-five tiles were again positioned, the dandy beside me had his turn. First he reached into his belt pouch, which I saw from the corner of my eye looked rather flat, nearly empty. He fished out four silver coins and placed them on the table with a certain aggressiveness. His standing bet, a mere two pieces of silver, stood forlornly off to the side. The dealer waited impassively as the man indicated one tile, which was flipped to reveal a proud charger rearing angrily, snorting steam from flaring nostrils.
With a trembling finger, the fop pointed to a second tile. The dealer smoothly turned it over, and I winced sympathetically as the image of dragonfire was revealed: a boiling ball of flame, painted so brightly that it seemed to flicker and rise from the shiny surface of the tile. With a tiny shrug, the dealer reached out and took both of the man's bets, while each of us other players threw in half of our standing bets.
Even with my own loss, I almost felt sorry for the overdressed fop as I sensed him wilting into his chair. The dealer, meanwhile, picked up the dragonfire tile and, with gestures too fast even for my keen eyes, flipped it about with several other anonymous tiles. When the five-by-five pattern had been restored, the disastrous image could have been represented by any of a dozen or so different tiles.
For now, it was enough to know that those twelve tiles should be avoided. My turn came up, and I started cautiously, betting just two of my coins. The first tile was a lucky guess: It was a match for the rearing charger. Immediately I gestured to the other tile displaying the proud stallion, remembering where the fop had found it. When the black horse was revealed, the dealer slid two silvers toward me and looked at me in silent question.
Slowly, deliberately, I nodded. There was a third and a fourth image of a war-horse somewhere on the table, and if I could find either one, my four silvers would rise to twenty in one lucky guess. Showing more confidence than I felt, I pointed to another tile, taking care to avoid the twelve that included the dragonfire. The dealer flipped it over to reveal one of the ruby rings, and I nodded in resignation as he swept back the two coins he'd awarded me only moments before.
The game went back to the brawny warrior, who bet a hefty four gold pieces and selected a tile displaying a bejeweled shield, but then couldn't find the match. He seemed mainly interested in draining his bottle as the dealer pulled the golden coins into his pile. With a sniff of disdain, the woman repeated her bet of four golds. She drew a match for the shield and pointed to the tile that the warrior had discovered, collecting four more coins for her match. Unlike me, she declined to seek the third match for her set, and play passed to the desperate dandy.
He placed a gold piece on the table, which I sensed was his last coin. The dealer gave him ten silvers, and with a reckless
shake of his head, he pushed four of the coins into his standing bet and placed the rest into the wagering circle. Avoiding the rows that included the reshuffled dragonfire, he managed to select a horse and a sword, losing six of his silvers for the mismatch. I made my own bet, this time losing two silvers; even worse, the second tile was a match for the sword revealed by the young man beside me, resulting in all twenty-five tiles being reshuffled.
The game proceeded through several more rounds, until the stern-looking matron was the next to encounter the dragonfire tile. She spouted some very unladylike language as the dealer raked in her ten gold pieces. Of us all, however, she seemed most unaffected by the loss; in fact, as play passed to the young fop, she was already pulling another stack of gold from the purse concealed underneath her dress.
The fop was down to two silvers, and he watched glumly as one of these was taken following his mismatched selection. He looked almost hungrily at the pile of coins across the table as the dealer turned to me.
With a bet of four silvers, I got lucky again, finding a match for the war-horse tile. Once again I took a chance, wagering all eight of my coins, and I heard Saysi gasp with surprise and delight when the third match came up. The dealer passed four gold coins over to me, and I promptly slid three of them into my pouch, knowing that I had won enough to take good care of Saysi and me for the next week or so, without having to explain the rest of the cash reserves buried in my purse.
When the cycle reached the dejected fellow whom I guessed was down to his last coin, the dealer raised an inquisitive eyebrow. The minimum bet for the game was two silvers, and the fellow had but one on the table before him. Hesitantly the man reached into a belt pouch, a different sack than his coin purse. I watched with interest as he pulled something small out of the bag, and my jaw dropped in astonishment as he placed it on the table.
He had a small chip of ebony stick, a piece of wood that I recognized very clearly indeed.
"Sir... the gaming is limited to coin bets," said the dealer, his brow crinkling with distaste.
I barely heard him, however. I felt Saysi's fingers tighten on my shoulder as she, too, spied the small stub. There was no way I could be mistaken. This was the same chip of wood that we had seen in the naga's chamber, that had floated up the chimney with us, and that had spilled down the hillside on the current of overflowing water. The regular carving at one end, like the precise cut of some sort of locking mechanism, was unforgettable. Looking at the piece as it lay on the table, I distinctly remembered tossing the vexsome stub into the stream, annoyed that something so obviously useless had displayed such uncanny persistence.
Now I felt a chill as I realized exactly how persistent the little stick was proving. Vaguely I heard the fop speaking, sensing the desperation in his tone.
"...not worthless!" he declared insistently. "It's magic. It has a power!"
"What does it do?" asked the warrior, glowering suspiciously at the chip of wood.
"It—it can cure things! I was injured when I found it. I had a broken hand. I picked it up, and before I knew it, my bones mended and my hand was healed!" The fop turned his eyes from the warrior to me, pleading with the desperation I had earlier sensed. "Won't you buy it? I tell you, it's worth a lot!"
Saysi's grip on my shoulder had not lightened, and I was glad for the intensity of her fingers. It gave me a sense of solidity, of reality in what was becoming a very unreal situation.
"Sir, please!" the dealer declared, raising his head to look around for a guard.
"Where did you find it?" I demanded, surprised at the dry, rasping hoarseness of my voice.
"It's a family treasure. My grandmother gave it to me!"
The fellow refused to meet my eyes as he spoke, though I would have known he was lying even without that obvious clue. "How long have you had it?" I asked casually.
"Years! It's been in my family for generations!"
"And you'd sell it just like that?" declared the matron who had been gambling at our table. She looked at the fellow as if he were something discovered on the muddy ground of some darkened alley.
"He would, because he's lying, at least about how long he's owned it." My own voice was light and cheerful, but I fixed my eyes on the human's face with a steady, gently encouraging gaze. "You've only had that stick for one day, if that long. Isn't that the truth?"
Something in my look convinced him that further deceit would be pointless. His shoulders sagged in defeat. "I tell you, it's magic! I'm not lying about that. But how did you know that I only found it this morning?"
I shrugged. "Where was it?"
"At the riverbank," the man explained, almost pathetically grateful that he had my attention. "It caught my eye—it's so shiny. You see these odd carvings at the end? I knew it wasn't just a piece of wood that had broken off a stick."
His explanation coincided with my experience. The ravine behind the ogre's lair had spilled into the stream following the winding valley all the way to Oakvale. At least, it was possible, though the overall collection of circumstances seemed to go far beyond the realm of coincidence.
"Can you prove that it heals?" growled the warrior, his suspicious eyes shifting from the fop to me. Abruptly he stood, unceremoniously pulling aside his tunic to reveal a deep gash in his thigh. It looked as though he'd been stuck pretty good with some kind of blade. Though the wound was scabbed over, it remained swollen and angry-looking; I didn't need a lot of imagination to picture him losing the leg unless he did something about it.
"Sure! Sure I can!" The dandy took the piece of wood and touched it to the crusted skin.
I watched in amazement as the swelling immediately melted away. The redness of the skin was instantly soothed, fading to a normal pallor that matched the rest of man's sinewy thigh. The fighter's eyes widened slightly, and he plucked the piece of stick out of the dandy's hand before the fellow could object.
"I'll give you three gold for it," said the warrior.
"I'll make it four," I countered, surprising myself—and, no doubt, Saysi—by my sudden determination. Yet it suddenly seemed important to gain that piece of stick.
"Six." The warrior puffed out his chest and fixed me with a stern glare, as if daring me to challenge him again.
I thought of the four gold coins I had won in this game and the silvers I had shown to Saysi before entering the hall, knowing that the bidding had already passed the point where I could maintain my deceit about my funds and reasonably expect to participate. But this chip of stick had taken a firm grip on my curiosity, and I couldn't pass.
"Ten?" I said, more timidly than I liked.
"Twelve!" growled the fighter, reaching into his pouch and setting a stack of coins on the table. For the first time, I noticed exactly how muscular he was. Sinew rippled along his bare arms, and each of his fingers seemed as big as a good-sized sausage.
I gulped, feeling Saysi's hand relax on my shoulder. I sensed that she was as curious about the stick as I was, but clearly she believed that the bidding had progressed beyond my means.
"Fifteen," I declared firmly. I pulled a platinum piece and five golds out of my pouch, wincing inwardly as her touch was instantly withdrawn. I heard Saysi's intake of breath and started working on an explanation.
With a mutter of disgust, the fighter tossed the chip of wood past the other gamblers; I snatched it out of the air with a reflexive grasp. The fop grabbed at the coins, inspecting them to make sure that they were genuine, and then bobbed his head happily.
"You won't regret it!" he promised. "That's a special little stick, I tell you! Now..." He turned his eyes back to the dealer and slid the platinum piece across the table.
A heavy hand clapped him on the shoulder, however, and two brawny guards hoisted him bodily out of the chair.
"Sir," the dealer sniffed, "in the future, you will please conduct your bartering in the marketplace."
"But—but..."
Protesting, but helpless in the grip of the guards, the man was escorted
toward the door—the back door—of the gaming hall. I watched, feeling a twinge of pity, as the guards pitched him into the alley.
I touched the smooth surface of ebony, feeling strangely pleased that I had acquired this mysterious chip of wood. Perhaps I regretted not picking it up when I could have had it for free, but this was a minor consideration. Now it seemed well worth the price I had paid. Then, casting a sidelong glance at Saysi, I couldn't help but wince at her angry glower. She looked down at my coin purse in an expression clearly indicating that we were going to have a serious discussion in the very near future.
Turning my head, I tried to meet her eyes, mutely pleading for a chance to explain, but with a toss of her head, she turned away. The dealer shuffled, preparing for a new game, and my gaze strayed across the room. Abruptly I saw a large figure, familiar enough to cause me a moment's dismay. It was the silver merchant I had robbed! The obese fellow lumbered through the hall, looking down his nose at the various gaming tables.
I recalled the circumstances of my earlier adventure and remembered that the merchant had never seen me. I reassured myself with that knowledge, but just as I was about to turn my attention back to the tiles, I saw a fellow in the merchant's tow and realized that my situation was more serious than I had first suspected.
The silver merchant was accompanied by the scrawny money changer to whom I had sold the pilfered necklace. I gulped as the pair seized a startled halfling by the shoulder, spinning the little fellow away from his game of knucklebones. While the diminutive gambler squawked in protest, the money changer squinted at his face, then shook his head. The merchant released the halfling and craned his neck, looking around the room once again.
Before I could turn away, his eyes fell upon me. Trying to remain casual, I gathered my winnings and placed the stick of ebony into my pocket. I rose to my feet and started up the stairs to leave the gaming pit, but the gaunt money changer was much more agile than he looked.
The Rod of Seven Parts Page 5