Commandment Read Free Page B

Myre in a skirmish with two monks. What a pity, for it had been an expensive form of protection. She wasn’t precisely sure where this particular crutch came from. She seemed to recall buying the item from a vendor near the Third Circle Station, although the details were sketchy. Since then it had been indispensable, an inseparable fifth limb.
    She hoisted her leg level and sank back against the wall. It was almost as if she wanted others to take note of the vestige wound. It was her cachet, her mark of distinction at having braved the dangers of Ebon Myre. She wore the lingering wound like a badge of honor.
    The Acaanan took a full drink from a bottle of whiskey. She had been milking it throughout the morning, ostensibly as an anesthetic. The nepenthe was a poor substitute for cryptide, however. As she twirled the bottle, she admitted to herself that she had been drinking a lot lately. But she happily concluded that it was justified. Her quest for a Rare Earth Stone had forced her into many an inn, and heavy drinking was a natural sequel. She pledged that now that she possessed the treasure, she would cut down on the spirits—but only when the remnant throbbing in her foot fully abated.
    She smiled, cupping the Stone in her lap as if it were her own child. Their venture into the monastery had been fraught with flaws. But in the most important aspect, it was a coup. The Rare Earth Stone was hers for the keeping. Its touch was tangible vindication of endless months of toil. She burnished its surface with her sleeve, lest trace oil from her fingertips attenuate its inner glow. It was dazzlingly beautiful! She secretly begged it to speak to her.
    As she sat transfixed, two patrons shuffled by. Neither paid the Acaanan, or her fulgent Stone, the slightest regard. Lakif had already concluded that others were blind to the light radiating from the Stone. She wondered if even the abbot had been privy to its fluorescence. She doubted it. Its luminescence seemed to reach out and touch her alone. In spite of this, however, she still generally kept the Stone in a belt pouch, lest it disappear somewhere to vex her as only a Rare Earth Stone could. Only this one time did she relent to behold its mystical glare in open public.
    Her eyes alighted on the webbed facade of Pomona. Although the Stone liberated its own eldritch glow, no light had been shed on the mysterious mural that had been the source of the entire venture.
    Lakif turned her attention from her treasure to Torkoth. The Half-man was sitting on the floor near the central hearth, chatting with a fellow patron. Lakif noted that the guard preferred to amble around the inn barefooted, a quirk that aroused not a little attention. The green scales thinned out around his right ankle, only occasionally dotting his foot. She could see that the Half-man still wore the rope anklet. Why hadn’t he cut it off?
    Lakif hadn’t seen her hire the previous day, partly because she had been bedridden and partly because Torkoth was apt to disappear for stretches of time. The guard looked completely at ease, not at all like someone who had recently courted death just four nights past.
    Lakif reflected at length on the fighter. Any doubts the Acaanan had fostered about his competence had been wiped clear. Torkoth had acquitted himself admirably in all aspects of the mission. In fact, he had been exactly what the Acaanan had bargained for: quick-witted and seasoned in combat, both armed and unarmed. What he lacked in panache, he compensated for by sheer pluck. Most importantly, he was cool under pressure, an attribute forever foreign to Lakif. Apart from his actions in the monastery, Torkoth had handled all aspects of their flight with equal finesse, ranging from the escape itself to his vigilance the following day when the Acaanan had been drugged. It was not common for the Acaanan to claim luck, but she had to admit that finding Torkoth had been a definite boon.
    After leaving the Cauldrons, Lakif