Luck in the Shadows

concentration, and a few precious droplets spilled uselessly onto the sand packing the wax form. She set the crucible back on its iron stand with a hiss of exasperation.
    "I've closed!" she called, but the rapping only intensified. Heaving her great bulk up from the stool, the jeweler lumbered to the small window and cautiously cracked a shutter. "Who is it?"
    "It's Dakus, mistress."
    A hunched old man shuffled into the slice of light from the window, leaning heavily on a stout stick. His crippled back kept him from raising his face to the light, but Ghemella recognized the gnarled hand clamped over the head of the stick. Like most craftsmen, she always noticed hands. A wave of revulsion rippled over, her slack flesh as she unbarred the door and stepped back to admit the dry little grasshopper of a man.
    Against the rich backdrop of the shop he was more hideous than she recalled. Pointed spurs of bone sprouted from his knuckles, wrists, and the prominent bones of his ravaged face, looking as if they would burst through the taut yellow skin at a touch.
    Hobbling toward the warmth of the forge, he settled himself on the stool and turned his one good eye to her. It had always offended her sensibilities, the way that bright, clear eye glittered in such a face, like a precious Borian sapphire glittering up from a clod of dung.
    "So many pretty things!" the old relic wheezed, fingering a half-finished statuette on the workbench.
    "You're looking prosperous as ever, dearie mine."
    Ghemella kept her distance. "What are you selling tonight, old man?"
    "What would I have to sell to such a rich woman?" replied Dakus, giving her the ruins of a leer.
    "What except the occasional bit of information that these old ears glean as I beg at the back doors and waste heaps of the more fortunate? Are you still in the market for secrets, Ghemella? Fresh, shiny secrets? I've offered them to no one else as yet."
    Slapping a few sesters down on the bench in front of him, she stepped back and folded her arms across her broad leather apron.
    The old man pulled a copper vial from his pouch.
    "Baron Dynaril has murdered his lover with poison bought from Black Rogus. His manservant made the purchase at the Two Stallions a week ago."
    Ghemella produced a gold coin for this and Dakus placed the vial on the workbench.
    "Lady Sinril is with child by her groom."
    The jeweler snorted and shook her head.
    Nodding agreeably, Dakus reached into his tattered tunic and produced a sheaf of documents.
    "And then there's these gleanings of a poor beggar's wanderings. More to your taste, I think."
    "Ah, Dakus!" the jeweler purred, taking the sheets eagerly and sorting through them. The pages differed in size and quality and several were wrinkled or stained. "Lord Bytrin, yes, and Lady Korin. No, this is worthless, worthless, perhaps this-and this!"
    Choosing out seven documents, she set them apart.
    "I'll give five gold sestets for these."
    "Done, and the blessings of the Four be showered on you for your generosity!" cackled the beggar. Sweeping up the small pile of coins and rejected papers, he shuffled out into the night without a backward glance.
    Ghemella barred the door after him and allowed herself a sly smile. Nudging aside the stool Dakus had sullied with his deformed backside, she drew up another and settled down to peruse the stolen papers more closely.
    Meanwhile, the crippled beggar hobbled down Dog Street and into the deeper shadow of a deserted alleyway. When he'd made certain that no one else lurked there, he pulled a flat clay amulet from around his neck and knocked it against the wall until it shattered. A wrenching spasm gripped the frail old body for an instant as the magic drained away, leaving Seregil young and whole again.
    Retching dryly, he rested his hands on his knees and waited for the accompanying wave of nausea to pass.
    A number of major magicks had this residual effect to one degree or another, just one more delightful side effect of his baffling magical dysfunction.
    Straightening at last, he felt for the reassuring smoothness of his face and limbs, then took out a shielded lightstone and shuffled through the papers Ghemella had rejected.
    He'd provided a tempting selection: documents, personal correspondence, declarations of illicit love, all from various influential persons. Most were old, things he'd picked up on various nocturnal excursions. Salted through these, however, were three half-finished letters from the pen of Lord