04 The Night Parade by Forgotten Realms

Author:Forgotten Realms [Realms, Forgotten]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-04-10T14:43:45.738000+00:00

Myrmeen had hoped that Shandower would lead them to a cleric who could heal the torn flesh of her daughter's arm with a few simple spells. Instead, he had taken them to a run-down little house where they had suffered through a battery of questions from an obese, white-haired woman who wore a dowdy dress fifteen years cut of style. Only when they had answered all her queries were they allowed access, despite Shandower's and Krystin's obviously severe wounds. Krystin had withdrawn into the shadowy world of her emerald locket. Downstairs, the physician, a battlefield healer that Shandower once had given the money to retrieve his failing practice, cleaned and dressed Shandower's stump. The healer was in his late fifties. He had a hawklike nose, fine gray eyebrows, a heavily lined face, bushy white hair, and hands that were unusually long and thin. He had been ordered by the local officials to stop practicing medicine after he had refused to pay a tariff on his services, in all appearances he had retired, but he maintained a small practice in his cellar, behind a false wall. It was in that musty chamber that he was busy treating Shandower while the others waited upstairs. Myrmeen sat beside Krystin, trying to think of something to say to her. That's your whole problem, she thought. Stop trying and just do it. Say whatever comes into your mind. You're certainly not going to offend her. Myrmeen cleared her throat and said, "Even if you're left with a scar, that's not always such a terrible thing." Krystin did not look up from the emerald locket. "They can be marks of courage. I have several myself, each with its own story to tell." Myrmeen wondered if she was talking to herself. Krystin had honored her earlier promises regarding her theft at the Blood-Stained Sword She had excavated and returned the remaining portion of gold to Myrmeen and confessed to the depository's owner, thus ensuring that criminal charges would not be filed against the former employee who had retrieved the gold for her. The one thing she had not done, however, was return the locket. Strangely, it was her tenacity that had made Myrmeen begin to look beyond her own anger at the child's actions and start to wonder what it had been about the object that had driven the girl to such lengths. Earlier that day, before they had left for Heaven's Lathe, Lucius had casually examined the locket and pronounced that it contained no magic. The object was nothing more than a chunk of metal whose seals were fused, its secrets hidden within its dented and cracked surface. Myrmeen had not excused Krystin's actions, but nearly losing the girl in battle, and her efforts to save herself, had awakened a sense of compassion that she had been forcing away for a long time. "You did well, Krystin. I am proud of you and I will no longer doubt your abilities in a fight. Can you hear me?" The girl nodded.

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