The Steward and the Sorcerer by James Peart (books suggested by elon musk .TXT) 📕

“Carasan, you say?  Let’s put that aside for the moment.  I’m Wade Torn, owner of the Axe and Stump, at least on my better days.  Drett works from here alright.  I put him in a back office, but he has nothing to do with the actual running of the tavern.  Do you mind me asking who gave you his name?”

“My friend here,” the Druid indicated Mereka.  Torn looked her over once more, taking in her obvious beauty, the spill of ash-blond hair fringed over her brilliant jade-grey eyes and fine, delicate featured face.  “With respect, my lady,” he said to her, “if Drett had known the likes of you, he would have told me; told everyone, I’d suspect.  The name is familiar though,” he considered.

“I knew him briefly some time ago,” Mereka said, “when I was...different.”

“Indeed?”  He turned back to the Druid.  “What do you want him for?”

“He is known to procure rare items from time to time,” Daaynan told him.  “He trades them.  The rarer the better, we were informed.  I would gladly tell you more but I think we ought to conduct this conversation in a more private setting.”  He indicated their surroundings with a sweep of one hand.  Torn looked at the Druid, assessing him, then nodded abruptly.  “Come with me.”  He guided the company through the maelstrom of revellers to a nook in the corner of the tavern with its own door and window and a small bench around a narrow table.  He ushered them inside then fastened the latch on the door and gestured them to sit.  The sounds of the tavern around them faded in the intimacy of the nook.

When they were all seated, Daaynan continued.  “We are in search of one such rare item.  A Carrion bird.”

Wade Torn gazed unflinchingly at the Druid.  “Look,” he said, “Drett works for me.  He buys and sells unusual items, true, but I employ him as a negotiator.  I match buyer with seller and send him out to trade.  After agreeing on price, I pay him a commission and keep what is left over.  That’s the way it’s done.  Now, an item like this is hard to find but I happen to know where I can get my hands on one.  You will have to deal with me.  This kind of bird is valuable on the secondary market, so it is expensive.  What have you got to trade?”

“Wait a minute,” Mereka said, cutting off Daaynan before he could answer, “Why are we listening to him?  We came here to talk with Drett Peers.  That’s who we should speak to.”

Torn faced her, his gentle eyes probing.  “My dear, contrary to what you may have been told, this is the way things work.  Drett is away on business and even if he weren’t, this conversation would still be happening.”

She shook her head.  “How has Drett managed to live in style all these years by earning a mere cut from a deal?”

“He’s a born trader and negotiator and I pay him a generous commission.  Now, I’ve outlined the situation and you must take it or leave it.”

Daaynan studied the man before him.  There was no mistaking the seriousness of his words.  He meant what he said, or he wanted them to think so.  Was he being sincere?  There was no such thing as a completely honest trader but there were those that would fool you from the beginning.  He saw greed in the other’s eyes, but was he lying?  Simon looked to be doing his own thinking while Christopher’s expression was neutral, his gaze distant, his mind away with other kinds of birds.  He smiled inwardly at his private joke.  A fleeting thought crossed his mind that a month earlier he would not have made such a humorous association.

He considered the matter and decided he would trust Wade Torn.

“You have a deal,” he stated, “if you accept what we have brought to trade.”

Torn nodded brusquely.  “Let’s see it.”

The Druid produced from an inner sleeve in his cloak an object wrapped and knotted in a velvet cloth.  He placed it on the table and untwisted the cloth, revealing the meta-crystal Mereka had given him before her transformation.  Its diamond-like surface reflected the light that shafted in through the nook’s window in fiercely glittering bands of colours, its central red flaw pulsing like a tiny heartbeat.  Daaynan stared at it, as if trying to draw strength from it.  He was beginning to feel very weak.  It was growing harder and harder to concentrate.  No doubt the effect of the King’s magic in him.

The tavern owner stared at the crystal, then at the Druid and Mereka.  “Where did you get this from?” he demanded.  “It belongs to the woman,” the Druid told him.  “Then you are not what you appear to be,” he whispered, shaking his great head.  “You are a crossling!  An Alterform that changes from man to woman and back, belonging to neither gender.  I thought there were no more left in Carasan.”

“Does it matter who or what she is...?” Daaynan began, but Mereka gestured him to be silent.  He did so, more because a sudden, wincing pain ratcheted through his body, leaving him momentarily breathless.  As his vision swam, he still noticed Mereka watching Torn’s expression carefully, seeing something in it that caught her attention.  “What do you know of crosslings?” she asked him quietly.

“More than you would have guessed,” Torn said.  He leaned back on the narrow bench, his soft eyes rolling up to the ceiling, yielding to an unseen force that descended suddenly on the table.  The air in the small nook shimmered with a vague intensity, the glasses of beer moving of their own accord, tapping an irregular pattern on the surface of the counter as they vibrated and shook.  Simon and Christopher began to shift away from where the big man sat.  Only Mereka and the Druid stayed put, staring at Torn as if transfixed.  Something snapped around the barman’s face, a veil not unlike the