Eidolon Read Free Page B

over a shoulder and offering both hands
to Ceola. "Down from the heights with you, now!"
    Ceola put her hands in the other woman's and
slipped off of the cold-box. She gasped as her feet hit the floor,
and found a friendly shoulder bracing her.
    "A little ragged, is it, Ceola? We'll soon
have everything put right. But first you must tell me where you
would prefer to be private."
    She thought with longing of her own room,
but the stairs--she did not wish to walk up the stairs
presently.
    "There is the office . . ." she managed,
using her chin to point the way. "Just there."
    "Perfect," Tonith proclaimed, and slid a
firm arm around her waist to help her walk the few steps that were
needful.
    *
    "I am going now," Ceola told Jas Per. "Do
you have everything needful?"
    The big man--taller even than Shadow and
with a breadth of shoulder that surely meant there had been a
Terran at Festival--gave her a dour nod. "Everything in order,
mistress. Didn't you just go over it all yourself?"
    She considered him, suspecting humor or
insubordination, but he was industriously racking the glasses, his
eyes downcast, his broad hands delicate and sure.
    Well, and if he were
accustomed to the company of Scouts, then it could just as easily
be insubordination and humor, Ceola thought--and what matter, really? Jas Per worked
hard, and though he took most of heavy lifting to himself, he was
no mere port tough, dependent only on his fists. No, Ceola had
rapidly come to suspect that Jas Per was as deep as he was broad.
He exchanged effortlessly between currencies, scarcely glancing at
the 'change board over the bar, and he had at least three languages
ready to his tongue-- Liaden, Trade and Terran. Though he was not
so comprehensive a source of news as Shadow, or even Tonith, yet he
seemed to know the goings-ons of Port and city--all without
stirring outside The Friendly Glass.
    Where he went after the bar closed, she did
not know, and he did not say. Shadow had brought him to her, on the
day after the till was taken, saying that the big man would "help
out." She began to protest--there was no extra money to pay
wages!--and had been silenced by a raised eyebrow and the quiet
information that she need not concern herself with Jas Per's wages
at the moment.
    That had been five days ago. So short a
time; yet time for everything to change. The Scouts had speedily
found the men who had taken her till. They had made quite an
enterprise of the neighborhood, those two, having stolen also from
the grab-a-bite at the top of the street, and the trinket shop at
the bottom. Her money, alas, had not been found, though it could
have been worse. They had taken a full day's profits from the
grab-a-bite, and left the owner with a broken head, too.
    Of Min, however, or of the dapper Captain
Elby, there was no news at all.
    "Very well,"Ceola said, giving Jas Per a
crisp nod of the head. "I will be back in the second hour."
    She said the same thing every day when she
left him. He must be very tired of hearing it, but to leave the
bar, their legacy from their mother, their wealth and their
lifeline, in the hands of non-kin--it was not easy for her. And
what if Min returned to find a stranger behind the counter?
    Yet, if she tarried much longer, she would
be late for her assignation with Shadow, and their time
together--already much too short!--would be made even shorter by
her foolishness.
    Ceola gave Jas Per one last nod,
deliberately turned her back and once again left her life in his
care.
    Shadow came forward, smiling, his hands
extended.
    "Am I late?"she asked, slipping her hands
into his, and smiling up into his face.
    "Precisely on time," he assured her. "How
does Jasper go on?"
    "I believe he has mastered the entire trade
and will soon release me to my own affairs. He greets the regulars
by name, and has their usual waiting before they even find a
stool."
    Shadow frowned slightly. "That may land him
in trouble, should someone chose to vary of an evening."
    "Perhaps