The Darkness Before the Dawn - By Ryan Hughes Page 0,5

rigid presence at his back, but now he felt motion behind him. He couldn’t hear footsteps in the din, but his psionic sense told him the elf warrior was leaving. Jedra let out a deep breath he hadn’t even been aware he was holding.

The bard waited for the laughter to die down, then sang:

The big city drew him with promise of fame

And of fortune beyond an elf’s dreams,

So he set out with high hopes and soon enough came To the city of Urik, it seems.

But what he found there wasn’t quite what he’d planned

When he left all the comforts of home.

No, instead of the riches he’d heard he would find,

He wound up on the streets, all alone.

Now that in itself wouldn’t be such a fright

For an elf as resourceful as him,

Save for one crucial error he made that first night,

When he misplaced his brain at an inn.

The bard had to wait nearly a minute for the laughter to die down before he could continue, but each verse drew more merriment as he detailed Galar’s descent—through swindles and gambling losses—from cocky freeman to a lone elfin heavy debt, fighting as a gladiator for money. At last, hounded by creditors and fearing for his life, Galar had used the last of his money in a desperate scheme to sneak out of the city undetected: he had bought his way onto a slave caravan leaving for Tyr. No one would think to look for him in the slave hold, and once they were free of the city, the wagon master would release him.

Of course the wagon master had taken his money and left him in the slave hold, where he met Kayan, who had been taken there when a powerful lover had become jealous of her attention to Urik’s king Hamanu.

That’s not true! Kayan mindsent to Jedra. I was enslaved because I refused to use my psionic healing power to kill a man.

I know that, Jedra replied, but the bard doesn’t so he had to make something up. This makes a better tale anyway.

So you say, Kayan sent. She scowled as the song continued to portray her as a reckless wanton who had slept her way to the bottom of society.

A few stanzas later Jedra found himself agreeing with Kayan when the bard began detailing how he wound up enslaved. The bard portrayed him as a thief and a brawler who had finally met his match, rather than as a curious young man who had accidently stumbled upon a magical talisman that a real mage had sold him into slavery to obtain. Jedra wasn’t sure he wanted the truth to be known, but he didn’t want everyone to think he was a thief, either.

All the same, he smiled bravely through the verses about him, wanting least of all to offend his hosts.

He tried to listen psionically to find what the elves really thought of him, but he just didn’t have that power. He could send, but not eavesdrop. He could sense when someone was watching him, though, and although everyone was doing so now, he detected one source of interest much stronger than the rest. He looked across the fire toward the source of the sensation, expecting to see Rayna, the woman who had propositioned him earlier, but instead he found Sahalik staring back at him, his face as cold as the night.

Oh, wonderful. Of all the people to be on the bad side of, Sahalik was the absolute worst. Jedra looked away, careful not to make eye contact again throughout the rest of the song.

Fortunately, the bard had exaggerated the number of stanzas as well. He was only up to forty or so when he finished with a rousing description of Galar’s rescue and the heroics of the Jura-Dai warriors. Sahalik figured prominently in the end of the tale, and Jedra was relieved to see a crowd of well-wishers gather around him afterward.

Galar took Jedra and Kayan aside after the song and led them toward the tents. “My apologies for not thinking of it earlier,” he said, “but now I will find you some spare clothing and a place to sleep.”

“Thank you,” Kayan said, her words nearly lost in a wide yawn.

Jedra was afraid that he and Kayan would be imposing on Galar all night, but the elf led them to an enormous tent wherein dozens of elves had already rolled out sleeping mats and were snoring softly. Candles glowed in protected alcoves at either end of the tent, providing just enough