She put a hand on her hip, looked around the common room.
"See how she considers?" Egil said. "A wise woman. If we'd done that, we'd never have bought the place."
"Unhelpful, priest," Nix said out of the side of his mouth. "What do you say, Tesha?"
She nodded to herself and stuck out a hand. "Done and done."
Nix shook it, feeling a charge at her touch. Egil shook her hand perfunctorily.
"We're going to drink now," Egil said. "It's your show, Tesha."
"And send Kiir down, if you would," Nix said.
"Kiir?" Tesha asked, and her lips pursed. "Oh… Fine."
As she walked away, Nix elbowed Egil. "You see how she hesitated there? She likes me."
"So you say," Egil said. "And now to the Altar of Gadd."
"For libations. Aye."
Soon thereafter the four watchmen settled their bill and left without a backward glance.
"Not sorry to see those slubbers vacate," Nix said.
"Aye. Doubtful they return."
The crowd thinned as the night got on and the water clock of Ool soon announced the small hours. Nix nursed an ale at the bar, trying to stifle yawns. Despite turning management of the place over to Tesha, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he'd bound himself to a piece of property, and that it had shrunk his world rather than expanded it.
He stuck his nose under his shirt and winced at the reek. He smelled of sweat, sour beer, and Gadd's pipesmoke. Basically, he smelled like the Slick Tunnel.
To Gadd, he said, "I had no idea owning a business would be so damned boring."
"One day of respectability and that about serves," Egil said.
Gadd made a non-committal grunt. His tattooed hands and arms worried at the tankards and cups. He took out a pouch of something — hops, Nix thought, or maybe some kind of snuff — crushed them in his hands, inhaled deeply.
"You don't understand anything we say, do you?" Nix said.
Gadd looked up, a dust of the snuff across his broad nose. "Drink?"
Nix smiled. "No. Still working on this one. Keep doing what you do, man."
To occupy the time, Nix examined the ivory wand he'd found in the tomb of Abn Thahl. He studied the tiny carvings on its shaft, his mind drifting back to his time in the Conclave as he tried to make sense of the characters.
The scent of perfume presaged Kiir's arrival beside him.
"You have scant idea how pleased I am to see you," he said with a smile.
She smiled shyly, sat, and nodded at the wand. "What's that?"
"'Ware my stink," Nix said. "And this? This is nothing, just one of my gewgaws, as Egil would say. I took it from the tomb of an Afirion wizard-king after defeating the devil that guarded it."
He spoke casually, but his words summoned the response he'd hoped for. Her eyes widened with wonder and she made a circle of her ring finger and thumb, a protective gesture, the symbol of Orella. She leaned in close to him, and he felt the warmth of her through his clothes. Her hair smelled of vanilla and the scent made him more lightheaded than Gadd's smoke.
"A real devil of Hell?" she asked.
"Indeed," Nix said, warming to the tale. He gestured with his hands as he spoke. "He stood twice as tall as Egil, coated in scales as large as my hand and as hard as steel. He had fanged rictuses at the ends of his arms. A terrible foe. Terrible."
"Gods preserve! How did you escape it?"
Beside Nix, Egil harrumphed. "Escape it? We slew it."
Her hand went to her heart-shaped lips. "Slew it? How?"
Nix sipped from his tankard. "Sharp steel and sharp wits, same as always."
She touched his forearm, just a brush of her fingers. "Your life sounds so interesting. It must be exciting to travel around Ellerth as you do."
"It is. We-"
Suspicion dawned. He turned on his stool, studied her face, her smile, the look of wonder. He pulled back.
"Wait. Are you Jonning me?"
Her smile widened, her brown eyes bright.
"You are!" he said. "Playing me like a Jon. Got me talking about myself while you act the innocent. I see what you're doing."
She batted her eyelashes, and damned if she didn't almost have him again.
"None of that now," he said, and she gave a genuine laugh and laid her hand on his arm. The feel of her skin on his felt warm, comforting.
"Don't take it ill," she said. "You seemed to be having fun. Besides, it's habit and hard to break. Men love to jabber on to a pretty girl."
Nix thought of the coinpurses he'd lifted earlier, both done out of habit. "Habit, I understand. And you are pretty. But now I feel a bit of an arse."
"Don't. And if you're not filling my ears with shite, I am interested in hearing about the wand. Is that a real pearl?"
Nix nodded. "A shaft of ivory capped with a pearl."
She leaned in close. "What does it do?"
"I don't know yet. But as I always say, the fun's in finding out."
"You don't know yet?" The surprise in her expression made her look even prettier. "Aren't you afraid to carry it around? What if it… I don't know, it went off and filled your trousers with lightning?"
Nix grinned. "Avoiding the obvious response to a pretty girl's mention of lightning in my trousers, I'll say instead that while I don't know exactly what it does, I have a rough idea."
"And?"
Egil looked over from his somber ruminations. "Yes, and?"
Nix leaned forward, elbows on the bar, holding the wand across his palms. "The wizard-kings of Afirion were known to practice the art of transmutation, changing things into other things, or modifying existing things to make them better. The ivory and pearl construction is consistent with a transmutational device. The substance used to craft the wand suggests a minor transmutation."
"Continue," Kiir said.
Nix's eyebrows rose. "You understood all that?"
"I'm a prostitute, Nix, not a dolt. I know some things."
"Er… right. Well enough, then. So, now we examine the carvings that adorn the wand for some indication of function."
He turned it in the meager light, to show the many grooves and whorls that lined it. Some looked like serpents, some like abstract shapes, others like script.
"And?" Kiir said.
"And this," Nix said, pointing to a tiny image carved into the wand. "It appears right under the pearl, and also on the opposite end. It's the operating glyph."
Kiir squinted at the image. "What is it?"
"It's a bull."
She leaned forward and eyed the wand. "That's a bull?"
"Of course it's a bull." Nix eyed it more closely. "Well, I'm pretty certain it's a bull. An artist's interpretation of a bull. Maybe. What else could it be?"
"A dog." Kiir said. "A rat. A cat."
Egil guffawed.
"Pfft. No, it's a bull. I'm certain."
She leaned back. "So if it's a bull, what does that mean?"
"Not certain of that either."
"That's much uncertainty for one wand," she said.
"Well, what do think of when you think of a bull?" Nix asked her.
"Horns."
"No," Nix said. "Size, right? Strength, too. Given that, I think the wand will make its target bigger and stronger, at least for a time."
"Hmm," Kiir said. "If true, that'd be useful."
"Indeed," Nix said.
" If you're right," she added.
"You are possessed of little faith."
"I'm not the priest," she said.
Another guffaw from Egil. He toasted her with his ale.
"How do you make it work?" she asked.
"A word in the Language of Creation awakens the magic. That's true of all enspelled items, including and especially wands. Then… you just aim."
"You know the Mages' Tongue?" she asked, unfeigned surprise in her tone.
"I'm a tomb robber," he said with a wink. "Not a dolt. And, as it happens, my tongue knows many, many things."