The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction NovemberDecember 2013 (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Book 125) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spilogale, Inc.
Published: 2014-01-03T23:00:00+00:00

After a restless night, Raffalon rose and went to splash cold water on his face. He looked into the reflector above the ablutory and saw fatigue waiting upon defeat. A good deal of planning had gone into this week and the planning had been followed by sacrifice: the weft stones in the satchel had cost him dearly—not in coin, but in indentured servitude to a master who had exacted every minim of the bargained price.

For a year, Raffalon had risked life, limb, and, occasionally, lucidity of mind to perform the services Vaudelare the Sublime had required of him. He had entered places from which no one else could have emerged, evaded warders and watch-beings no one else could have eluded. And always he had returned to lay at the thaumaturge's feet the sometimes seemingly valueless goods he had been sent to steal.

His price: the collection of peerless weft stones that filled his satchel, worth a fortune—or at least they had been when he'd begun his association with the spell-slinger. As the thin light of Old Earth's aging orange sun filtered through the window, Raffalon spilled the satchel's contents onto the table. He picked up one purple stone and put it up to the light, then another.

They were holding together well, he saw. When Raffalon's labors were done, Vaudelare had kept his part of the bargain, magicking a sack of pebbles from the stream that ran across his estate into a selection of choicest weft stones. The thief considered the low heap of gems on the table. He could probably sell them, one or two at a time, in other towns.

But getting from here to all those other theres would take weeks, even months. And before he had sold more than a few of them, the news would be coming fast on his heels: what had seemed on purchase to be a prime weft stone had turned into a common lump of quartz or granite not long after its vendor had left the vicinity.

As Vaudelare had explained it, the spell that transformed the base materials was temporary in its effect. Unless it was regularly renewed, the effect was vitiated. Raffalon peered at another of the stones, saw the prism winking in its depths; it was still good, though tomorrow he would have to renew the magic.

An involuntary shudder shook his shoulders. Transformative magic was not without its strains, especially for an unversed practitioner. The thief had hoped to have sold all his stock at today's fair and to be on the late omnibus out of Tattermatch by sunset. That would have given him at least five days' head start before the goods turned from treasure to trash.

He swore, softly but imaginatively, and poured the stones back into the satchel. An omnibus left in the morning. He would have breakfast, then take passage to Gobeii. He knew of gemsters there who might buy some of his wares—all of them if he lowered his price far enough. He would recoup some of his investment.

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