The Hands of Lyr (Five Senses Series Book 1) by Andre Norton

Author:Andre Norton [Norton, Andre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldbuilders Press
Published: 2017-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Nosh found it difficult to match step with her companion. He strode along as if on some errand which he wanted quickly done. They did not head along the way Danus had taken when he had made her familiar with the marketplace but rather into a narrow side street.

There were passersby here but none with personal guards or the colorful outer robes which marked a substantial merchant. She noticed almost at once that Kryn’s eyes were never still, that he kept watch while they moved forward as he might had he been on a scout from the refuge. Nor did he talk.

They wound a way which bewildered Nosh and which she believed that she could not retrace by herself. The houses grew smaller, far less imposing than those near the heart of the city, and the few shops which fronted on the street had second-rate merchandise as far as a fleeting glance could tell her.

But…

Her hand moved under her cloak to cup over the hidden crystals. No, she was not mistaken. Just as before she had been drawn to the skeleton and its treasure, so now she met another such reaching out.

“There is one following—” Kryn spoke sharply enough to gain her full attention for the moment. He had paused and was looking back in the direction from which they had come. “We may seem easy taking for some ambitious one of these creepers they talk of—”

Nosh glanced around but could see no one except an old woman bent nearly double under a bundle of firewood and beyond her a man, plainly deep in drink, lurching along.

“Who—?” she asked, unable to see any harm in either and pushed by the need of her quest.

Kryn frowned. “He is gone now… small—perhaps only a boy—such can run spy errands.”

“Spy errands—” she was echoing when he grasped her arm.

“Let us get on with this before we draw more attention,” he snapped.

Kryn turned abruptly into the side alley, where their boots slipped on nauseating slime and there were piles of debris to be skirted. So they came to face the deserted, ruinous fore of the shrine.

Within the bag the crystals flared but that was hidden by the folds of the cloak. At Nosh’s right ear sounded the sharp chitter of the zark that had ridden motionless and without voice until now. Its scaled body pressed against her cheek as its head shot forward.

Within… did what she seek lie within? She was upon the one-step platform, working the bag of crystals out of hiding. Their heat was building; what she sought must be very near. But—not inside… Up—up—not forward.

She jerked at the cloak’s cowl and looked up. There—from the mouth of that grotesque mask there was a glimmer which could not be mistaken. But how to reach it…

“What is it?”

Kryn had stepped a little to one side and now was eyeing her with something close to suspicion.

“What I seek… it lies within the mouth of that!” She gestured to the mask.

As if to make sure that he understood that gleam above strengthened.

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