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.Xeras made a shooing gesture and Petry ambled off into thedarkness, with stuttering steps and hunched shoulders.Once he was finally out of sight, Xeras moved over to the door himself.There was no noise comingfrom behind it, but that was hardly reassuring.Xeras was trying to invent some innocuous reason for goingto the guildhouse in the dark of night, in case an all-too-awake guard was waiting just on the other side.So you have thought how this will look to the people of this town, then? Drin interrupted.They ll haveevery reason to trust Kassius more than you.And even Carly&Xeras felt his jaw tense; he could not even complete a thought without the interference of this frettingghost.46 www.samhainpublishing.com Lover of GhostsHe had to force the key in the hole but finally turned the grating, rusted workings of the lock all theway over.The inward-opening door was heavy, but part of that was an illusion produced by the lax,sleeping body of a middle-aged man on the other side.There was no way to get in without pushing the doorinto the sleeping man s expansive stomach.Xeras slid through the smallest gap he could.He s lucky you re skinny.But then he d be a lot luckier if you were smart enough not to come up withhalf-baked schemes like this.So now you are done bruising up this poor man s belly, are you going to moveon to getting slaughtered by the young savage?As Xeras tried to shut the door in his head to that rhetorical question, he found he was having a littletrouble shutting the rather more corporeal door of the guildhouse.It looked like some bunched-up scrap ofthe man s clothing was&He cursed and yanked the door open again as he realized the scrap was Drinia s leathery wing.He hadnot realized the little dragon had been following him.Xeras winced as the door slammed back into thesleeping man, somehow still not waking him, and as Drinia pulled free with a loud squawk.He leaned hishead out the door and saw Drinia scampering away with a wounded backward glance, but apparently nogreat damage to her diminutive person.At first she seemed to drag one wing but then she flicked it outstraight and leapt into the air.She floundered into the sky with her usual ungainly but vigorous wing beats.She must be all right, Xeras told himself.The way you are carrying on, the farther she gets away from you, the safer she will be.I, however,may not be so fortunate.Xeras closed the door again and clambered back over the prone form of the guard.He made his waydown the stairs and along the hall.There was a storeroom at the back that had been set up as a drunk roomfor any man found in the town too inebriated to be let loose on his own recognizance.The door had beenreinforced somewhat, as sometimes the man in question would get to feeling belligerent.And there was ahole drilled in the door at eye height, just a bit too small for an angry man to stick a finger through.Therewas no light inside the room, and so all the eyehole revealed was a small, round and uninformative buttonof darkness.You could go in there and tell me what the plainsman is doing, Xeras thought.Unless you have someobjection to being in any way useful?I may not be able to stop you from acting the fool, but I am not going to assist you in the process.Don t& The one thing I am not doing, is acting , Xeras muttered.He tapped on the door. Hey, kid, hesaid, as loudly as he dared, if you want to get out of here I suggest you come and talk to me. There was not the slightest sound.For all Xeras knew he was talking to an empty room.He bitabsently on the end of his thumbnail as he considered how to make a deal with someone who had even lessreason to trust him than most.www.samhainpublishing.com 47 Emily VeingloryYou never did get around to buying that dagger, Drin added unhelpfully.Which was true, fortunately for Drinia, as he had been less than sanguine about his role as father of adragon back then.The closest thing he had to a weapon was a belt or a bunch of keys.Not to mention your boots are all but worn out, you have no food and you left your cloak in Carly sroom.Perhaps you could use your wits as a blunt instrument and bludgeon him with it& How can you say not to mention and then go on and mention every scrap of whatever is on yourmind? What do you want? said a voice within the cell. I can t hear you. Xeras took a deep breath and spoke louder for the kid s benefit. We re going to make a deal.I willlet you out if you will show me the way to your people. There was a long silence. Did you hear me? I heard, the boy replied.After a pause he added, You ask too much.If you let me out, I will showyou the hidden path from the village to the plains.But you will have to make your own way from there. A less-than-honest man would not have quibbled, surely? At least that suggested the plainsman wasintending to follow through on his bargain. Very well, Xeras said. I hold you to your word. Drin, it seemed, was finally speechless.Up close, the resemblance was even more striking
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