Runner Read Free Page B

Norr agreed reluctantly. “Two hundred and fifty locations sounds good. But how many words to a line?”
    â€œTen,” the scribe replied succinctly.
    â€œI need more,” Norr insisted, as she counted them in her head. “Seventeen to be precise.”
    â€œThat’s going to cost you five gunars,” the clerk warned primly.
    â€œNot necessarily,” the sensitive countered as she leaned forward. “Remember that apology? What if your superiors were aware of what you’ve been up to?”
    The clerk’s supervisor happened to be a woman, and he could imagine what would happen if she knew that he had undressed her hundreds of times. There were worseassignments than the market, much worse, and he had no desire to receive one. Ink-stained fingers reached for a hand-sharpened quill, which the scribe dipped into a disreputable-looking bottle, and held poised above a blank sheet of paper. “Okay, seventeen. What are they?”
    Norr looked off into space as she recited them. “Come see the famous sensitive Lanni Norr communicate with the dead Friday at eight, in the actor’s guild.”
    â€œThat’s eighteen words.”
    â€œOkay,” Norr said nonchalantly. “Make it eighteen then.”
    The scribe’s pen made a scritching sound as he transferred the words to a piece of tan parchment. The sensitive noticed that each letter was formed with the perfection of an ancient printing machine and marveled at how precise the man was. It was evident that he enjoyed his work because as he wrote the color of his aura changed from red to a harmonious blue. “That will be seventy-five gunars,” the wordsmith said as he blotted the paper. “Payable in advance.”
    â€œI’ll give you forty up front, and the rest when the messages actually appear,” Norr replied.
    The scribe swore under his breath. “All right . . . But a heavy will show up Friday to collect, so you’d better be ready to pay.”
    â€œI will be,” Norr replied confidently and counted gunars out onto the surface of the counter. “By the way, this will be a demonstration of psychic phenomena rather than some sort of show. I think you should come.”
    â€œThank you,” the wordsmith answered politely. “But I’m busy that night.”
    â€œOkay,” Norr said as she prepared to leave. “But your wife is there by your side. She says that her death wasn’t the least bit painful, she’s happy on the spirit plane, and you should stop grieving for her.”
    No one knew about the true extent to which the scribe missed his wife, and he hadn’t mentioned her death to the young woman, so how did she know? Tears welled up in the clerk’s eyes, and he used a tattered sleeve to wipe them away. He opened his mouth to speak, to ask Norr what his wife looked like now, but the sensitive was gone.
    Because the monastery had been built hundreds of years before, back when Seros was little more than a settlement, it occupied a piece of prime real estate atop one of the hills marking the city’s eastern boundary. The complex was surrounded by high walls, which the brotherhood said had been built to keep ignorance at bay, but had practical value as well, for hardly a month passed without an attempt to break in and steal the gold that was rumored to be kept there. There wasn’t any gold, of course, but the monastery did contain some precious artifacts, which was one of the reasons why the Dib Wa (iron men) patrolled the walls. The other reason, the person each of the warriors was sworn to protect with his life, threw a door open and bounded onto the surface of a large flat roof.
    The guards smiled indulgently as the ten-year-old boy ran in circles, waved his arms, and sent a flock of white wings flapping into the air. It was a daily ritual and one of the few unstructured moments of the youngster’s day. He wore a pillbox-shaped