Shouts and squeals caught Ladonna’s attention. A pack of children were running through the crowd, half in play as they darted underfoot and half in work as they begged for steel or skillfully nicked something from one of the bins. Ladonna gasped at the children, at the reminder of her own past that seemed to return to her with the strength of a sharp slap. How much like her they were, wild and hungry, carefree yet crippled by the understanding of their own mortality. That was perhaps the lesson that most urchins learned the quickest. Death and misery came to everyone, to them earlier than most.
Ladonna searched for someone specific to her needs. And there she found him, a young boy of perhaps six. Black hair, wild and unruly like a kender’s, and eyes like green fire. He was the age she had been when she lost her world. He ran and whooped with his friends, eager in spirit and hiding in the forest of adults and horses.
“Boy!” Ladonna said as he ran close by.
He stopped and eyed her suspiciously. “What?” he demanded, full of six-year-old defiance and unafraid of anyone.
Yes, Ladonna thought with a smile. He’ll do. She held out her hand; in it was the toy soldier that she’d purchased from the old woman at the High Clerist’s Tower as well as two copper bits. His eyes widened at the prize, but he did not approach … not yet.
“What’s that for?” he asked suspiciously.
Ladonna smiled. He was a tough little thing, already disciplined from life’s lessons.
“The soldier? Why, it’s your luck charm,” she said. She tossed him the figurine. He fumbled for it and dropped it. Quick as a mouse, he scooped it up with both hands. He eyed the coins.
“And that?” he said.
“Edoha,” she whispered. “Know where I might find it?”
The boy’s eyes widened; she knew Thieves’ Cant, the secret tongue that allowed members of the guild to converse openly without fear of being overheard. Edoha was the first word anyone learned.
“Coins first,” the boy said nervously.
“No, no. Half now,” Ladonna replied, tossing him one coin. She showed him the second coin. “Where?”
The boy darted and vanished into the crowd.
Ladonna smiled. She didn’t expect to get an answer, but the boy would mention the strange woman who knew Thieves’ Cant and had asked for sanctuary. She hoped that would be enough to start the ball rolling. As for the toy soldier …
Let’s hope it brings you the luck I never had, Ladonna thought. She continued moving through the crowd, relishing each memory and savoring the painful ones with an eager eye toward vengeance.
“But how can you be sure?” Tythonnia asked. She turned in her chair to look at Kandri, but the woman laughed and pushed her head forward again before continuing to braid her damp locks.
“I just know,” Kandri said. She was a dark-skinned woman in her forties, her face and hairline marked with a distinct scroll of tribal scars and dots. Her black eyes looked like they could drink in the world or offer it all the hope for which it could ever thirst.
The bow top wagon was small. Yassa slept in the bed at the front of the wagon, her alcove covered with lace cloth. She preferred the darkness, and whatever condition made such a young woman look so old also took its toll on her strength.
Still, Kandri was a patient and attentive partner. She took care of Yassa whenever her condition flared, and nothing seemed to diminish her white, polished smile. And for the past few days, she had been Tythonnia’s confidante.
“But how?” Tythonnia insisted.
Kandri pulled Tythonnia around in her stool and brought her face-to-face. “You,” she said. “You think your thoughts are evil?”
“I don’t know,” Tythonnia admitted.
“But you had them as a little girl?”
Tythonnia nodded.
“So you were an evil little girl?”
“No, of course not,” Tythonnia said.
Kandri smiled and urged her forward again. “A lot of people are eager to tell you who they think you are,” she said, “especially if you are a woman, but it’s none of their business. They see evil where there is none. They fear what is different from them. And then they’ll use the gods to attack you.”
Tythonnia shrugged. “I suppose.”
“When you pray to the gods, who else is there with your prayers?”
“What do you mean?” Tythonnia asked.
“When you pray. Who speaks for your prayers? Who delivers them to the gods?”
“No one, I guess,” Tythonnia said. “Just my own voice.”
“So why are you letting others decide your relationship to the gods? It’s not their concern.”
“But the priest of my village-”
“Fah!” Kandri said. “My marriage to Yassa was ordained by a priest of Mishakal. The priest of your village was blind … not his god, but him. Men are eager to ascribe their weaknesses to their gods. That way they don’t have to better themselves. They can wallow in their ignorance, turn it into arrogance, and then call it faith.”
Tythonnia was quiet a moment as Kandri pulled and weaved her hair into a tight braid. Yassa’s soft snoring filled the wagon, but it was soothing. It was the sleep of untroubled dreams.
The tavern was quiet; the Vagros had left in the late night and staggered back into the courtyard and their own wagons. A few slept upstairs, but for the coming few days, the Wanderer’s Welcome was closed to other business. It was a Vagros reunion, and even those growing number of Vagros who sold their wagons to live in cities such as Palanthas were welcome as cousins, as were kender. While the three kender accompanying the caravan had vanished into the streets with promises of “I’ll be right back,” it was understood they wouldn’t be. There was no malice in their departure. Only an understanding and appreciation of the wanderlust in them all.
In their place came a half dozen other kender who turned up to visit with the Vagros. They, too, were welcome cousins, and a great game was made of “borrowing back” what the kender’s light fingers happened to take “unintentionally.” Tythonnia, Ladonna, and Par-Salian gripped their pouches like a drowning man might hold on to flotsam, and still, reagents and some copper managed to slip through their white-knuckled fingers.
It was for that reason, among several, that the three wizards sat alone in the empty tavern. They spoke lightly, their voices dimmed against any listeners, though they had to constantly remind Par-Salian of that precaution. He was growing upset.
“There has to be another way!” he said.
“Maybe there is,” Ladonna said, “but this is the quickest way I know of.”
“You’re talking about-”
“Shh,” Tythonnia said. “Lower your voice.” She looked around, but the serving girl was in the kitchen with the cook.
“You’re talking about stealing. Breaking laws.” His voice had dropped back down to a whisper.
“We are renegades,” Ladonna said. “I believe that makes us outlaws.”
“Yes, outlaws with sanction of the Wizards of High Sorcery,” he replied.
“Then why were those renegade hunters after us?” Tythonnia whispered, to which Ladonna nodded. “Why was Dumas chasing us?”