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Jul. 23rd, 2014
Panthea studied him. There was nothing about him that told her which world he might have come from and that made her wonder if he might be under a glamour. It wouldn’t surprise her. A lot of the people she worked for hid their true selves from her, just in case the Council found them, so she simply accepted it. Well, she did most of the time. Depending on how well the glamour was constructed she could sometimes see through it and if she felt she needed to know more about her client that was exactly what she’d attempt to do. She looked at the coins in his hand, Atharan, easy to exchange and hard to track, definitely the currency to use for transactions like the one they were doing.
“You came to me for a reason.”
He nodded. “You’re said to be the best. I needed the best and, if you prove yourself to me today I do have more work for you.”
“What sort of work?”
“Show me that you have what I asked for.”
The tavern was a place Panthea knew well, as it was the place all of the travellers did business, so she felt comfortable tipping out the crystals she had gathered from Labyrinth, after spending hours searching for them with the race who were most likely to find them – the Astrum Talpas. Like all the races of Labyrinth they only traded their crystals in return for time and the ones he was after were different, so, of course, that meant spending more time working for them as well as with them. If she hadn’t warned him that the job was going to take longer than he expected, because he had no idea that Labrinthian races only took time as payment, then she could easily have seen him complaining that it had taken her three days to get six crystals.
“Good.” He smiled. “You look tired.”
“That’s what happens when you need crystals from Labyrinth. I wouldn’t spend time there otherwise and the work is going to pay for my continued comfortable living, so that really is all that matters. Three days in return for income that will keep a roof over my head for another moon is more than worth it, even though I really would like to be in bed right now, which is only going to happen if you’re happy with the work I’ve done.”
“I am. Go to bed, Panthea. I’ll come and talk to you in the morning about the other jobs I have for you.” He pressed the coins into her hand. “Do you care what I’m going to be using these crystals for.”
“No, my job is to get them for you. What you use them for is entirely up to you, because once they’re in your hands no one will know I had anything to do with you getting them, except for the Talpas, and they aren’t going to say anything. They like me, fortunately, otherwise you never would have received them, and they asked me to pass on a warning – using the crystals incorrectly will come back to bite you.”
Smiling again, he nodded. “That sounds like the Talpas.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.