The girl wore dusty road clothes, breeches stained to the knees by dried mud, a cloak with an unseemly tear in the hem, and boots that were too big for her. Stark white streaks ran through her tangled black hair, and her face had more wrinkles at the eyes and mouth than Arowent thought a young girl should have.
“Four candles, lantern oil, two shovels, and a thick blanket, please.” The girl read her order off a scrap of parchment with writing scribbled over every available surface. “Patient gods, Sull,” she muttered, “all you have to do is slow down when you write. Then mayhap normal people could read it.” She glanced up. “Sorry, do you have any spices or … table linens?”
Arowent blinked. “Linens?”
“And spices. I need mint, cinnamon, and ginger, please.” She squinted at the list. “At least I think it says ginger-might be grimoire, but that wouldn’t make any sense, would it?”
“Eh?” Arowent was having a hard time keeping up with the girl’s chatter. He heard the front door open and nodded absently to a man leaving the shop. “You’ll have no trouble following that map,” he called after the customer. “Take care, now.”
“Oh, Sull, are you serious?” The girl scowled at her list and read on. “The linens need to be white, but a subtle color on the border is all right too.”
Arowent crossed his arms impatiently. “Are you playing a game with me, little one?” he demanded. “I’m a serious man, and you’ve got no business wasting my-”
“I’m sorry,” the girl said, holding up a hand. “I’ll just take the supplies. Forget the linens. Thank you for all your help.”
“Hmph.” Arowent started calculating the girl’s bill when Gelphie, his wife, burst in the back door. Face red, she clutched at her cheeks and uttered a choked little shriek.
“Thief! He took your horse!” she cried.
“Who did?” Arowent ran to the window where he could see out into the stable yard. His heart sank when he saw that the little brown mare he’d bought only a month ago was gone. “Where did he come from?”
“He was in here, you blind ass!” Gelphie shouted, her face getting even redder. “Didn’t you see him?”
His last customer. Arowent slammed his fist against the countertop in frustration. He’d been too busy trying to figure out the dark-haired girl to pay much attention to the thief other than to sell him a map of the area. At this new calamity, he forgot about the girl, so he was surprised when she spoke up in the wake of his wife’s tirade.
“I saw him,” the girl said. She closed her eyes briefly, deepening the wrinkles at their corners. When she opened them, she looked straight at Arowent. “He had a smooth oval face and a jutting chin with two dark freckles near his lip. Hollow cheeks added a gray tinge to his skin-he looked sick to me, or else drunk and trying not to look it. His eyebrows were thin and brown, as was his hair. The clothes on his back were no better than the ones I wear, so he’s been traveling for quite a while. My guess is someone’s hunting him-he had that look in his eye-maybe the law in another village, or someone he owes coin. If he’s sick, though, he won’t get far. Your constable can catch him, if she hurries.”
Arowent and his wife stared wonderingly at the girl, who blushed deeply when she saw their expressions. After a moment, Arowent shook himself out of his stupor and said, “You heard her, Gelphie; go for the constable! Go!”
The woman nodded; cast a quick, furtive glance at the girl; then hurried out the front door. When she was gone, the girl twisted a lock of her hair around her fingers and fidgeted nervously. “Um … my bill?” she reminded him, glancing at the door.
“Aye. We’re out of mint, though.” Arowent collected her goods, named his price, and waited while she fished the coins out of her neck pouch.
“My thanks,” she said as she took the sack of supplies.
“My thanks as well,” he replied, “but how did you know all that about the thief? I never really noticed the man when he came in, and you talked to me most of the time he was here, so you can’t have gotten a good look at him either. You’re not with him, are you?” he asked, suspicion creeping into his voice.
“No, I’d never seen him before today,” the girl said quickly. She looked longingly at the door, as if she were a breath away from bolting.
Somehow, in spite of her obvious discomfort, Arowent knew she was telling the truth. He knew people well enough to tell when they tried to deceive him. This girl might have secrets and mysteries hiding in her heart, but she wasn’t a liar.
“Well, my thanks for your aid,” he said again.
She was halfway out the door before Arowent realized she hadn’t bought one of his maps. “Are you sure you can find your way?” he called out to her. “It’s easy to get lost around here if you don’t have a decent map.” He thought that would be a sufficient hint.
“Thank you, but I don’t get lost,” the girl said. “I never forget where I’ve been and where I’m going.” She smiled at him, and that smile jolted Arowent. Gods, she looked so young at that moment. Surely she wasn’t traveling alone. Her flippant answer troubled him, but again, he sensed no deception in her.
After she’d gone, Arowent found himself wondering if he should begin stocking table linens in his store. What the girl could possibly want them for he had no idea, but a man has to keep on top of demand if he wants to stay in business. Arowent wasn’t a complex soul, but he was, if nothing else, a good businessman.
Icelin walked along the dusty road with her sack of supplies and berated herself for being an idiot. Occasionally she glanced back toward the inn and store, which were only a small stone speck on the deepening blue horizon, and was relieved each time to realize that no one had followed her.
She knew as soon as she’d opened her mouth to describe the thief that it was a mistake.
You’re not in South Ward anymore, safe in Waterdeep, surrounded by people who know you, she told herself.
Granted those people who’d known Icelin in her old neighborhood had often regarded her with that same suspicion and sometimes fear, but at least they’d known her, and her craziness was of a familiar sort.
Turning off the road, Icelin took a short track into a wood, retracing her steps back to her campsite. She hadn’t lied to the innkeeper. If she concentrated, she could recall the look of every town, farm field, river valley, and clump of helmthorn she and her companions had passed on their journey. One of her greatest gifts-equally a curse-was that her memory was perfect. She never forgot a face, a name, a lover, or an enemy. She never forgot anything. She didn’t need Sull’s shopping list written out for her-one look and she’d have memorized everything on it-but she didn’t like to draw attention to herself or her gift. Of course, she’d managed to go and do it anyway.
Icelin sighed, but she couldn’t stop the small grin that spread across her face when she recalled the innkeeper’s bewildered expression. Her perfect memory, used in the right profession, might have made Icelin a very wealthy woman. From a young age, she’d shown an aptitude for the study of magic. Her teacher, Nelzun, had said her memorization of the Art was extraordinary.
He never anticipated what would happen to the magic when Icelin tried to wield it.
When the first of her spells went wild, he attributed it to the inexperience of a novice. Soon, however, it became clear that though Icelin’s memory was perfect, that very gift tampered with her magic and prevented her from controlling her Art.
In Waterdeep, folk had called her gift an aberration. A more accurate word for it, a word used outside the City of Splendors, was spellscar.
Voices up ahead in a clearing made Icelin quicken her step. The scent of wood smoke and savory hints of chopped garlic filled the air. Beyond the trees, her companions, Ruen and Sull, crouched before a campfire, arguing.