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private garden, which she had shared with her twin brother Dynarien before his
marriage. Kalirion had decided to wait and observe Isranon before making a
decision, so she still had the black bottle in her pocket, as he had told her
she should give it to Isranon. Dynanna had promised to do so when she saw
Isranon next, which meant that she didn't want to go anywhere near him until
she either found a way around her promise to Kalirion, or Kalirion accepted
Isranon and made the matter of the bottle his own problem.
The garden bloomed in glorious eternal spring, filled with fruiting trees
and berry bushes. A mossy rock-lined artificial pool glistened in the center,
and on the far end stood a quaint cottage that was larger on the inside than
the outside.
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Golden flowers overran the edges, filling up all the spaces between the
trees and other plants. Once they had been a carpet, but Dynanna had convinced
them to move off the central grass. They were a present from Kalirion. The
sun-lord could not find her garden to come here without her permission, but he
could still send her presents.
Dynanna did not like doing nothing. She became bored easily. Then she
remembered Edvarde telling her that Isranon had an illegitimate son in a
valley belonging to a lycan clan. She wandered over to her seeing pool and
settled cross-legged beside it.
Waving her hand across the pool caused it to cloud over.
"Baby boy, son of Isranon, descendant of Dawnhand, where are you?"
She waved her hand back across the pool. The water cleared, reflecting a
garden. Dynanna saw a ginger-haired lycan mon with a black-haired child
playing at her feet. A tall mon was talking to her. Something about the
standing mon made the Trickster uneasy.
"You can't trick a trickster," Dynanna muttered. "I've a feeling you're up
to no good."
She waved her hand back again. "What's happening in Waejontor?"
The vision in the pool changed to show armies fighting led by a queen on a
black steed that did not look entirely like a horse. There was a mon beside
the queen, and Dynanna squinted for a closer look. "Hoon," she hissed. "Well,
I'll just have to do something about that."
Dynanna straightened, snapped her fingers, and vanished from the garden.
* * * *
The mage shop sat on Silversmith Street in Rowan City, the capitol of
Rowanhart, near the docks of Sophren Bay. She could not simply Jump into the
shop, for another of her kind had warded it tightly. A manticore skull sat
near the door, the tanned skin draped over it, the stinger, claws, and teeth
strung on a leather thong and run through the empty eye sockets. Chimes
jingled from the top of the door as Dynanna entered. She spied three different
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kinds of hands of glory in one glass cabinet: one clearly orc and the other
two of species Dynanna had never seen before. There were dark things in that
cabinet. Many would have shivered at that, but Dynanna wrinkled her nose and
went for a closer look.
This shop was a mix, a neutral place: Full of things of both light and of
darkness and of everything in between and of things that would not bear the
king's notice. The owner was a Badonthian, one who believed in turning the
tools of the hellgod against him and so acquired them from time to time  such
as those hands  though she did not make them. Glass cabinets lined three
sides with floor to ceiling shelves behind them that had a variety of drawers
in them from tiny to huge.
Dynanna wore her disguise as Dyna, seller of used magic items, in case
anyone came in while she was doing business with the owner. Any outsiders who
saw her would perceive her as a hunch-backed crone. However, Amberlin would
not be deceived for an instant. Dynanna peered through at the hands of glory
and then moved to another glass cabinet that had little dishes of stones,
candles, jars of herbs, and bottles of oils in it.
The proprietor, on hearing the chimes, emerged from the back of the store.
Amberlin flicked a strand of black hair back as she walked, moving in a
slightly listing fashion due to her hugely swollen belly. She tensed the
moment she saw Dynanna.
"What are you doing here?"
"The usual," Dynanna responded. "I brought some stuff to trade. Also, I need
advice on hiring help and I need Lokynen."
"Why?" Amberlin's eyes narrowed at her husband's name. "What kind of trouble
are you bringing us this time?"
"There's war in Waejontor. Hoon's leading it and the last descendant of
Dawnhand is in danger."
Amberlin frowned deeply. "I'm in no condition to fight, as you can see." She
rubbed her belly.
"When's the squirt due?"
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"Two months. My husband's sleeping. He just got in."
"I need him, Amberlin. I need him bad."
Amberlin considered that. "Let's see the trade goods. You can give me your
want list. Then we'll sit and gossip until Lokynen wakes up."
"Done."
* * * *
Dynanna sat before an assemblage of twenty attractive male yuwenghau, the
young rogue gods and demi-gods that served as divine knights errant in a world
constantly threatened by dark forces. She had her hands on her hips, trying to
look stern and hoping they did not all try to jump her at once. Since she [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]