The captain crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Dragon’s Bluff is not only a good measurement of an opponent’s concentration and determination, but it is also long. The game gives Saorsha here time to put her abilities to the best use.”
Both Ulin and Lucy looked at the old woman warily. “What sort of abilities?” Ulin asked.
Quiet pride filled Saorsha’s face. “I was born with a natural talent to read a person’s character. The only drawback is I cannot see through a person’s façade in the first few minutes. I need to be close to sense the good or evil, the compassion or hatreds, the fears and strengths that lie in a person’s mind. Oh, don’t worry,” she assured them. “I cannot read thoughts. I only see images of someone’s spiritual aura.”
Ulin frowned. “You’re a Sensitive? Did you ever train as a mage or a mystic?”
“I was a legionnaire, a calling I excelled at. The Legion appreciated my skill, but its leaders knew I did not have a strong enough talent or the self-discipline to wield magic. I preferred helping people in my own way.”
Lucy felt for the chair behind her and sat down again. “So what is your point to this?”
“We would like to offer you a job, young woman,” Aylesworthy said.
“What?” Lucy and Ulin spoke together. Neither one had expected this.
Lucy pushed her hair back. She was so taken aback by their intentions that she did not know what to say first.
“You are exactly what we need,” Saorsha told her. “Compassionate, strong, determined.”
Lucy’s lips tightened to a thin line. “So is Ulin. Why didn’t you ask him?”
The councilwoman smiled gently at Ulin without a hint of disappointment or condescension. “He is as you say and more, but his strengths are in a flux at the moment, while you have the advantage of a powerful reputation already in place that will work for you even when the magic fails.”
A start of surprise jolted through Lucy. “You know about the potatoes?”
“I watched you today in the market. I saw a look of annoyance flash across your face when you realized the spell had not worked, yet you did not quit. You bluffed your way through and won.”
Lucy looked at the cards still spread across the table. “Like this game.” She blew out a breath of air. “What do you have in mind?”
Lysandros moved forward to rest his elbows on the table. “We would like you to be our sheriff.”
Mutual shock stilled the words in both Lucy and Ulin. They stared as if the woman and the two men had taken a sudden and complete leave of their senses. No one said a word through a long and pregnant silence.
Ulin was the first to speak. “That’s impossible. We did not come here to stay.”
Lucy stood up again. “I came to identify my father’s body. We intend to leave the moment I have seen him.”
“Lucy, please, just listen,” Saorsha implored. “You have seen how much we need help! This need only be temporary. Just a few weeks at best. Until after the Visiting Day festival next month. The tax collector is coming to collect our tribute to the red dragon, and it is always chaotic, for the kender have their picnic and the “Hiyahowareyou” gathering, and the riffraff always get drunk. The citizens resent the taxes, and”-she threw up her hands-“we need someone to keep the peace, to calm things down, to get the collector and his unit of Dark Knights out of here with a minimum of fuss.”
“We will pay you handsomely,” Aylesworthy added.
“And do everything in our power to help,” said Lysandros.
Lucy clutched her tunic with its hoard of coins and stepped away from the table closer to Ulin. “Thank you for your confidence in me, but the answer is no.”
“You don’t have to decide now,” the old woman pleaded. “Think about it.”
The captain echoed her sentiments. “Please consider our offer. We need you.”
The lantern light shone gold in Ulin’s eyes as he turned his head to face the half-elf. “Why don’t you do it?”
Lysandros flashed a roguish grin. “I am too well known. When the Dark Knights come, I hide.”
“What he’s saying,” Aylesworthy rumbled, “is there is a price on his head.”
Ulin thought of his father in the brutal hands of the Dark Knights and stifled a shudder. “I understand your danger,” he said to the captain, “and it is not one I wish on Lucy. She said no, and I agree.”
Saorsha, Aylesworthy, and Lysandros traded looks of resignation.
Pease Stubbletoes stepped out of a corner where he had been sitting and watching. He had been so quiet that Ulin and Lucy forgot he was there. “Shall I take them back?” he asked the Committee.
At their affirmative reply, he took Lucy’s hand and led her back to the round hole in the wall. Ulin followed more slowly. Just before he ducked into the exit, he turned and regarded the three Committee members. “We plan to leave whether you produce a body or not,” he said, his voice filled with steel. “I don’t want Lucy mixed up in this.” Then he vanished into the darkness.
The small chamber was quiet for a few minutes before Saorsha sighed and climbed stiffly to her feet. “Well, it was worth a try. She has such potential.”
Aylesworthy glowered at his empty purse. “It was an expensive try.”
Lysandros’s chuckle drew their attention. “We’ve come too far to give up on her yet.” He held up his left arm and shook it until a flat piece of paper slipped out of his jacket and fell to the table. It was a dragon card from the deck they used. “We still have that other card up our sleeves we can play.”
“But will she take it?”
“The gods willing and the creeks don’t rise,” Lysandros replied, using an old expression.
Aylesworthy shrugged. “We have nothing to lose.”
“Then do it,” Saorsha ordered, and she blew out the lantern.
“Where is it?”
The question, shouted at the top of dwarven lungs, jolted Lucy wide awake. Loud thumps, strange bangs, and a steady muttering of a very annoyed voice echoed through the wall from the next room. Lucy pried one eye open and rolled over on the bed.
“Challie!” she demanded loudly. “What in the name of the absent gods are you doing?”
More thumps, a few scrapes, and the sound of furniture being shoved around the room sounded through the wall.
“Oh, did I wake you?” Challie shouted. “Sorry.” She did not sound contrite in the least. The noises suddenly stilled, and from the hall came the crash of a door being flung open hard enough to hit the wall. “Pease! You sticky-fingered little son of an orc! Where are you?” Her footsteps thudded away.
Lucy rubbed her stiff neck and climbed very slowly out of bed. She dressed in a clean tunic and her favorite pair of baggy Khurish pants. During the fight the day before, she must have pulled muscles in her neck and shoulder, for any movement there sent fiery pain shooting through her back and head.
She was trying vainly to pull on her boots when Ulin knocked at her door and came in. He looked as tired as she felt, and she wondered if he had slept at all that night. Recognizing Lucy’s difficulty, he hurried to her and helped pull on the boots.
Voices echoed down the hallway, and footsteps pounded toward the room. Challie barged in, a kender in her right hand.
“Where is it?” she shouted, giving Pease a shake. A red flush stained her cheeks, and her brown eyes were thunderous. “Tell me you took it!”
Pease turned a wide, innocent face to her. “Took what?” he squeaked.
“My axe, you dunderhead. The silver one. It was my father’s. It’s missing, and you probably took it.”
Pease’s bewildered sense of innocence was plain, but that meant little in a kender. The small kender were blessed with a lighthearted nature and a childlike spirit and cursed, some said, with an inability to take things seriously and a tendency to acquire things that did not belong to them. They did not steal-never steal-yet small items had a tendency to disappear, only to reappear later in a kender’s pouch or pocket or box of personal treasures. Kender liked to borrow things or save them for later or simply have them to admire, and if asked they would always return what they borrowed or offer it as a gift. The dour, serious-minded dwarves found kender irritating to say the least, but few people had the strength to stay mad at a kender for long.