Avari's Fortune

by **Anselm** on June 5th, 2012, 1:58 am

Avari's Fortune
The 30th Day of Summer 512 AV
Marketplace in Zeltiva

OOC :

It had been a slow day with only two customers to show for it. The sun was low in the horizon and Anselm was getting ready to close up shop when the diminutive woman dashed into his tent, unceremoniously turned the chair around and sat looking at him over its back. His empty gray eyes examined her from under the cowl that covered his head and obscured most of his face in shadow. Her wide-brimmed hat tried unsuccessfully to cover her white hair over a thin fine-boned pale face highlighted by striking blue eyes. She was the epitome of angelic feminine perfection if one did not mind the distinctly unfeminine way she occupied the chair or the two elbows propped casually on the table, or the crunch of the apple she nibbled at while she spoke.

“Dear dear,” he said in a deep, slow voice that sounded roughly like someone trying to talk and gargle gravel at the same time. “I am honored to have a lady of The White Isle in my humble place of business.”

Under normal circumstances Anselm would have noticed a few critical things about the woman, such as the obvious hurriedness of her entrance and the furtive glance over her shoulder. Under normal circumstances he would have immediately realized that she had not come here to have her fortune told and that there might be an entirely different agenda in play. But this was not a normal circumstance. In truth, Anselm was honored. He had always found the Konti to be an almost magical people. Not in the sense that they wielded magic powers, but in the sense that they seemed to him to be magical beings, ethereal, not quite of this world. He was in fact somewhat in awe of the woman sitting before him. Thus he missed the obvious signs that things were not as they appeared.

“I cannot imagine why you would seek my services when you yourself are undoubtedly far more gifted than I.” He waved his hand as though to dismiss her from his presence.

“Nevertheless,” he continued. “If you wish it, I will attempt to tell you your fortune. Do you by chance have a question you would like to address? It is not strictly necessary but it can be helpful since an answer without a question is often not very useful.”

by **Avari** on June 6th, 2012, 6:03 pm

The apple's flesh was dry and somewhat mealy in Avari's mouth, despite the firm smoothness of its red skin. Perhaps it had been a hothouse fruit, she thought as she munched on her bite of fruit, for now she recalled that no apple should be ripe until the middle of autumn at least. The juice, what little there was of it, was mild and sweet on her tongue, though, and Avari took another greedy bite despite the apple's unpleasant texture. The food shortages of spring had left her starving for sweets, and the taste of apple juice in her mouth made her briefly forget where she was and why she was there.

Then the cloaked man across the table greeted her in a voice that she couldn't possibly ignore, not when he sounded as if he were talking and crunching on a mouthful of pebbles between his teeth at the same time. Avari instinctively tensed, especially when he quickly recognized her Konti nature, but the courtesy of his words put her at ease again. Most sentient races regarded her people with a certain admiration bordering on awe, which, though usually neither convenient nor enjoyable for Avari herself, was at least familiar and accustomed.

At first, she was tempted to simply make a run for it once she saw the coast was clear behind her. Her only reason for dashing into this tent was to hide from the apple's former owner, after all, and now that he presumably walked off without raising a hue and cry, Avari could probably leave safely. The cloaked man himself seemed to dismiss her, waving his hand lightly at her.

The Konti half-rose from her chair, preparing to turn it around again and say goodbye to the gravelly-voiced man. For a moment, though, her glance slid over the man's heavy black cloak, with its hood that concealed his face in deep shadow and the silver brooch that held it closed. Combined with the empty table, completely free of fortune-telling accoutrements, the overall effect was mysterious and unusual. There were no clues here: no face or hands, no Tarot cards or crystal ball, only a raspy man's voice. She didn't know what to make of this supposed fortune-teller, and that made her curious.

Avari sat down again, straddling the chair comfortably. As she opened her mouth to speak, she tried to tilt her head this way and that, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man's face beneath his hood and see what sort of visage he was trying to hide. She spoke the colloquial Common of the streets and docks, almost entirely free of any Kontinese accent.

"Indeed, you guessed right. I'm a Konti," she responded candidly. As though to emphasize the point, she reached up and pulled out the pins from her hair, shaking it out and letting it fall to her shoulders in a shower of tousled white tresses. He had already seen, so what was the point of hiding it?

"Just because my people are known as seers, though, doesn't mean all of us can gaze into the future and see what's going to happen. I don't know what other Konti you've met, but I've never been particularly gifted," she confided. "Anyway, the future has many faces, as I'm sure you know. All those threads, all those possibilities... If I read my fortune, I'd no doubt see something different from you. So, it wouldn't hurt to consult another fortune-teller. Kind of like a healer asking for a second opinion from another healer, you know?"

She shrugged, taking another nibble of apple. "Besides, I've never seen a male fortune-teller before. I'm curious," she admitted honestly.

"Soooooo, a question." A ghost of a smile flitted briefly across Avari's features as she pondered this.

At first, she thought of a dozen innocuous questions she could ask: "What does my future hold?", "Will I ever find true love?", or "Where should I go in life?" She had been asked similar questions often enough by marks deceived into believing she was a palm-reader. Any one of them would allow her to see how this marketplace fortune-teller practiced his trade. However, seemingly of its own volition, a different question tumbled out from her lips.

"How can I earn my goddess' favor?" she asked. Most would assume she referred to either Lady Avalis or Lady Rak'keli, the patron goddesses of the Konti. In fact, though Avari was thinking of the goddess of thieves, Yshul.

by **Anselm** on June 8th, 2012, 2:53 pm

“I do not need to read your fortune to answer that question,” he spat out more vehemently than he intended. “If you want to earn your goddess' favor, do as your goddess bids.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice to almost a growl. “Assuming you can figure out what that might be. Not that it is likely to do you much good. The gods – if they are indeed such – are capricious. There is no way to know what might or might not win their favor. You would be better advised to find some other goal for your life.” He straightened up again and waved his hand as if to dismiss her from his presence.

“But you did not come here to listen to an old man prattle on about the gods. Although I cannot answer your question, one never knows what the oracle might reveal. Let us see what we shall see, shall we?”

From under his cloak he produced a small, tan-colored cloth bag tied with a leather cord. He carefully untied it and poured the contents into his right hand, which he held out so she could see what he had. What he had were eighteen tiny carved bones with intricate designs engraved on them.

“May I?” He asked as he reached out with his other hand and placed two gloved fingers on the back of her right hand. He always wore thin cloth gloves when working with customers because experience had taught him that most people found the touch of cold, dead fingers disconcerting. As he touched her, he turned his right hand over so that the bones tumbled on to the table. Avari probably did not notice, but as he released the bones he gave a slight twist to his hand that caused the bones to fall into a roughly rectangular pattern on the table. He studied the bones for a moment. His mind drifted back through space and time to a small room in a small compound located somewhere in the Zastoska Mountains.

“Try again,” said Master Ahn.

Anselm turned his hand over and let the bones fall to the floor. They made a clattering noise as they bounced around. Master Ahn examined the pattern.

“That is adequate. Now, tell me what it says.”

Anselm studied the pattern. “Broken, solid, broken, broken, solid, solid.”

“Excellent. Now, to what oracle does it correspond?"

Anselm searched his memory. Sixty-four oracles. To which one did this pattern point? Birds were singing outside Master Ahn's study. He knew that if he looked up he would see green and white mottled dogwood branches outside the room's single window. The sun was shining. Spring was transitioning into the warm days of summer. He remembered the oracle and intoned the ancient words for the young woman sitting across the bare table from him.

Water above, a pitfall. Lake below, joyous.
Being capable of joy in danger, warding off danger by joyfulness.
It is therefore called discipline.

The reason Anselm had touched the young woman's hand was to enable him to feel her aura. He had long ago concluded that the unconscious mind knows things that the conscious mind doesn't. Or at least that the conscious mind is unwilling to acknowledge. By attuning himself to the emotional layer of the other person's aura, Anselm could sometimes detect small emotional surges that he had come to believe resulted from something in the oracle resonating with the unconscious mind. He experienced this as a kind of pulse or gentle “bump” against his own aura. Sometimes he would get several pulses in response to different parts of the oracle. Other times he would get nothing at all. In this case he felt a single pulse in response to one of the phrases. Joy in danger, he thought. This should be interesting.

Observations he had ignored when she first entered his tent now made their way into his conscious awareness and added their intelligence to the picture that was coming together in his mind. He slowly gathered up the bones as he formulated the question that would bring either epiphany or confusion. He had no way of knowing which.

“You derive a certain ... satisfaction from your sometimes dangerous line of work, do you not?”

OOC :

PLOT NOTE :

by **Avari** on June 13th, 2012, 6:25 pm

At first, her temper threatened to flare at the old fortune-teller in black's caustic words of advice, even if they did smack of common sense, but Avari quickly forgot her irritation when he brought out his set of tiny carved bones. They reminded her a little of her own dice, or perhaps the Tarot-like rune stones engraved with unique symbols that a few of her sisters used back in Mura. Fascinated, she barely felt the touch of his gloved fingers on her similarly gloved hand as she watched the bones tumbling across the table and coming to rest in a particular pattern. It wasn't often that she got to see a novel method of fortune-telling these days.

When the old man -- she had decided he must be old, because of his gravelly voice and the slow, creaky way he moved -- stared at the bones and recited a few incomprehensible lines, though, Avari rolled her eyes and stopped paying attention. So, he was one of those, was he? Fancy words and confusing phrases, masquerading as enigmatic wisdom: that was all he had to offer. She should have expected as much from a mere male who called himself a fortune-teller. Avari only hoped that his memory wasn't sharp enough to recall that she'd never paid for her "fortune," as it wasn't worth the silver mizas the old charlatan was charging.

She started back to attention, though, when he asked her a direct question about her work. The Konti's fingers unconsciously closed in a tight fist around her half-eaten apple while her mind worked swiftly, wondering where the old man had drawn that unexpectedly coherent insight from his lines of babble. A minute or two passed before she at last remembered the words "Joy in danger" among the phrases he'd intoned so solemnly. At least the old charlatan had either the wits or the luck to recognize which parts of his "fortune" applied best to his customers.

This is probably the part where he expects his customers to gasp and exclaim, 'Oh my gods, Mister Fortune-Teller, you've seen right through me! You've gotten too close for comfort! However did you know such things?' she thought, suppressing a chuckle.

"Sure I do," Avari replied easily, flashing a disarming smile. "All lines of work are dangerous when you come down to it, don't you think? And where's the fun in life if there's not at least a little danger? Or if you're not happy with your work, for that matter?"

Languidly stretching her arms above her head, the Konti glanced behind her at the opening of the tent and watched the crowd in the marketplace dwindling. She stopped thinking about the fortune and its teller and started contemplating her moneymaking prospects. Abruptly, she rose to her feet and turned the chair the right way forward again.

"Thanks for your time, Mr., um..." She shot a quick glance at the sign in front of the tent. "Mr. Anselm the Seer. I'm sorry I can't stay any longer, but I should really get going. Things to do, people to see, you know how it is."

Unexpectedly, she felt a hint of charitable feeling toward the old man in the heavy black cloak and added, "That was some good advice you gave about the gods, though. I'll keep it in mind."

With that, the Konti hurried out of the tent, adjusting the brim of her hat and the drape of her cloak across her arm again. The fortune-teller's tent had been a good refuge from potential pursuers looking for a pickpocket, as well as a reasonably good way to spend five minutes or so, but she didn't think any more of it. Instead, she thought about the satisfying and slightly dangerous aspects of her line of work, the choosing of marks, the steady and unobtrusive shadowing of the victim, and the joy of success or agonized panic of failure. She followed the crowds as they gradually dispersed from the marketplace as the day waned and evening began to fall. It was wonderful how comfortable and natural it felt.

As the day neared its end and the sun began dipping below the horizon, Avari drifted along with the crowds as they headed away from the docks. Many people were simply heading home at the end of the day, of course, but some of the sailors, laborers, and travelers turned toward Zeltiva's inn, World's End Grotto, or the Kelp Bar. For a moment, the Konti paused as she pondered following the crowd toward either the tidy, well-maintained inn or the noisy and noisome bar that stank of old seaweed. It took only a second for her to decide on the inn, and she trailed along behind a group of dock laborers through the front doors of the inn and into the common room.

Tilting the brim of her hat down to shade her face, Avari settled into a chair, rubbed her legs ruefully, and watched her surroundings, ever on the lookout for an opportunity.

by **Anselm** on June 14th, 2012, 2:39 am

As was his custom, Anselm stopped by the World's End Grotto on his way home. Not to eat or drink, of course, because Nuits have no use for either. No, he came here to watch. To watch people. People were one of the few things left in the world that continued to interest him. Not because he cared about them, of course, because he didn't. No, he watched people because each person was like a puzzle to be solved or a mystery to be unravelled. And Anselm liked mysteries.

He waited for a gap in the flow of traffic in and out of the inn, and then made his way into the establishment using his silver-handled cane to compensate for the limp caused by a weak left leg. He approached the bar and purchased a glass of red wine from the barmaid, who appeared to know him. He took his wine and made his way to a small table located in the back of the common area, the only part of the room that found itself in partial shadow. The wine would remain untouched for the duration of his stay. He purchased it as a kind of payment for the privilege of occupying a table for several hours.

He immediately noticed the Konti woman. She had the same distinctive air of carefree ne’er-do-well confidence in her ability to deal with whatever life might choose to throw her way. She had purchased neither food nor drink, and was observing the people around her with a certain intensity. There was a wariness about her, a kind of hyper-alertness, as though she were waiting for something to happen. Anselm watched her, although she most likely would not be able to tell because he face was hidden deep within the black cowl. He too waited to see what would happen.

by **Avari** on June 21st, 2012, 8:05 pm

With her eyes trained toward the inn patrons' midsections where their pockets bulged and their packs sagged, Avari entirely failed to recognize the old fortune-teller she had met only that morning when he entered the inn's common room and took his seat. All that registered in her mind was a brief impression of a thick dark cloak and the flash of a silver-topped cane, which made her dismiss him as not worth the trouble. She promptly moved on to the next person behind him, without even glancing up at his face.

Instead, she focused on a hardy-looking traveler dressed for exploring the wilderness, with sturdy boots, leather breeches, a fringed jacket, and a hooded cape, all of which bulged with pockets and pouch flaps. Out of one pocket on the side of his pack, she spied the dull gleam of waxen coverings wrapped around a loaf of hardtack and slices of yellow cheese. Once, Avari might have disdained such mundane spoils from her thievery, but in the aftermath of the massive storm and resulting famine that overwhelmed Zeltiva, valuables like art or jewelry had grown less important and precious in the Konti's eyes. Practical items, on the other hand, were more essential than ever.

For a moment, she lingered in her seat to study the man and calculate her angle of approach. The man was choking down a mug of kelp beer, but neither his senses nor his focus seemed affected by the drink. His pack was slung across the table beside his arm, where he surely would notice anyone reaching for it in a suspicious manner. Avari sighed and slipped off her gloves and her wide-brimmed hat to reveal her pale hair and skin, deciding she would have to distract him if she wanted to pilfer his goods.

Somewhat thankfully, some of the Konti healers who came to Zeltiva in the spring had stayed at the Grotto, which meant that most of the patrons were accustomed to seeing Konti women pass by. A few people glanced her way or raised their eyebrows when Avari walked toward the traveler and offered to read his palm and tell him his fortune. Though visibly startled, the man set down his mug and extended his hand readily enough.

Instead of taking his hand in hers, as she did for a true "palm-reading," though, Avari merely let her left hand hover just below it, avoiding actual contact with his skin. Her right hand drifted innocuously down toward the table. She knew she had to keep the man's attention on her, though, so he never wondered where her other hand was or connected her in any way to his missing trail rations.

So, she addressed the man in as pompous and solemn manner as she could manage without bursting into laughter, almost as if she were declaiming some epic poetry or dramatic verses.

"You may be wondering why I asked to read your fortune, sir," she began, lifting her chin proudly. As she expected, the man nodded; after all, it didn't take divination to know he was curious about why she had approached him. "While I will offer my services to any who ask me, I must confess that I was...drawn to you, sir. Your aura drew me from across the room, like the tide to the moon. I could sense that you are an exceptional individual, a man destined for heroic deeds and for greatness. My curiosity inflamed me, I must confess, and I had to come and perceive for myself what your legend would become."

While she spoke, Avari unobtrusively slid her right hand along the table until it brushed the edge of his pack. With an effort, she never moved her eyes, but held the man's gaze firmly in her own, while her hand delicately conducted its blind exploration. There! The tip of her forefinger touched the distinctive wax wrappings around the rations. Carefully, she inched her hand toward it, until she held a corner of the wrappings between thumb and forefinger.

"Now, let me confirm my observation and see if you will indeed achieve the greatness that I sensed for you," she continued, perhaps too abruptly. The man started a little at her tone, but nodded eagerly. She tilted her head at his upraised palm and made to peer thoughtfully at it. "I see... I see..."

There! Gently, so gently, she eased the wrappings out of the pocket, careful not to nudge the man's pack or move it in any way. Once it was out of the pocket, Avari gripped it tightly in her right hand and sighed inwardly in satisfaction to feel the bulges of nuts and dried fruit within the covering as well. She began letting her hand drift back to rest naturally at her side, where she swiftly tucked the trail rations into a cloak pocket.

Only then did she finally let her hand make the slightest contact with the tips of the man's outstretched fingers. Her Konti gift to see what a person loved or desired most was activated by touch and the visions it gave often engulfed her, which would have been an incredible distraction during the act of theft. Now, Avari reluctantly but resolutely allowed herself to glimpse into the man's greatest desire, in order to lend some verisimilitude to her pretend "palm-reading."

What she saw almost made her gasp in horror, if she had not quickly bolted down on her reaction. The man loved most of all to hunt, it turned out, and what he loved most about the hunt was the kill, the sight of blood flowing out of his prey as it lay shuddering and dying. Avari nearly choked in revulsion as she beheld a vision of the man shooting arrows into a beautiful, brown-eyed young fawn and burying knives deep into its velvety hide until its soft, spotted coat was stained as red as rust. It was a nasty desire, a terrible passion rooted in love of violence and a driving need for control and dominance. She wished that she had never touched his hand and seen his heart's desire.

What made the vision worse was the knowledge that sometimes, the desires that she unearthed were so strong that they subtly influenced her own feelings. She could only pray that this desire would not change her somehow. Avari was not a killer, whatever other heinous things she might be.

"Y...you will be a great hunter, I see," she managed to stammer out. "A mighty hunter, able to use bows and arrows, knives, and snares to capture the most elusive prey. I see you wrestling a...a glassbeak and bringing it down with powerful blows. Only the blue Akalaks will be your equal someday. Your people will honor you for the pelts, bones, and meat you bring home and praise your name."

With that, she dropped his hand and managed to sketch a hurried bow to the man. Still remembering the sight of the half-eviscerated little fawn, Avari backed away, clutching the pocket where she'd hidden her pilfered trail rations tightly with her right hand. She didn't know if they had been worth the visions she had seen. With her left hand, she fumbled to tug her gloves back on. More than anything else at the moment, she wanted something to protect her skin and her mind from more nasty desires like those of the man with the trail rations.

by **Anselm** on June 22nd, 2012, 2:19 am

Anselm was impressed. She had executed the theft flawlessly. And in the midst of a crowd of people, some of whom were looking right at her as she did it. It was an extraordinary display of the art of distraction. Her long white hair, her fragile features, her hand so close to his as to almost be touching. Her lips moving seductively as she formed her words. She was mesmerizing! And all eyes were on her face and her left hand, none on the other hand that slipped something – he couldn't tell what – out of the man's pack. The performance was marred only her reaction when she finally touched the man's hand. It was subtle, but unmistakeable. Her eyes widened, her nostrils flared, her lower lip trembled, her upper body pulled back just a little. When she backed away, frantically trying to get her glove back on her hand, she backed into Anselm, who had moved so that he was standing between her and the door toward which she was retreating.

He spoke in a rasping whisper barely audible even with his dry cracked lips only inches from her ear. “I wonder, my dear, if I might impose upon you to have a drink with me?” His hand was resting on her shoulder and now steered her toward his table in the corner. He thought it unlikely that she would be especially amendable to this. On the other hand, it seemed equally unlikely that she would want to draw attention to herself by making a scene.

by **Avari** on June 25th, 2012, 6:09 pm

As she slowly backed away from the frighteningly bloodthirsty hunter whose only redeeming feature for her were the trail rations she'd just filched from him, Avari fetched up abruptly against another stranger. She was just about to rise onto her tiptoes and prepare to flee, when a quieter version of a memorable gravelly voice froze the Konti in her tracks. Having heard that voice earlier today, she had little trouble recognizing it as the voice of the old fortune-teller in the marketplace. Avari didn't know if she should marvel at the amazing coincidence that she should meet the old man a second time right after another act of thievery, or curse it.

The words he spoke startled her nearly as much as the sound of his voice. After taking the other man's rations, Avari had no desire to linger in the inn's common room; she wanted to be as far away from the hunter as possible, before he discovered his goods were missing and likely started pursuing the culprit as ruthlessly as he hunted his prey. When the old man's hand pressed down on her shoulder, though, and began steering her toward a darkened corner table with surprising firmness, though, she dared not resist. Making a scene and causing trouble would be even more worse than lingering, especially in a quiet corner obscured by shadows.

Reluctantly, she followed the old man to the table and cautiously seated herself in one of the chairs. Tugging her hat self-consciously on her head again, the Konti wondered if the old man had recognized her from this morning as well. Her hand brushed protectively against the pocket containing the trail rations as she also wondered in the back of her mind if he had seen her in the act of thievery just now.

Despite so many misgivings, Avari did her best to act careless and casual. She leaned forward in her chair and rested her elbows on the small table, which only held a single glass of red wine. The sight of the rich red liquid brought a genuine smile to her face.

"Thank goodness for Syliras coming to our aid, right?" she remarked offhandedly, nodding toward the wine. "They say kelp beer's an acquired taste, but I've lived here for a while and still can't bear the smell, even. You must be glad to have the chance to drink something a bit...smoother."

Her eyes narrowed as she studied the cloaked man across the table. In the obscurity of this dark corner of the inn's common room, it was even harder to make out what sort of face lay beneath his hood. The mystery was both intriguing and maddening.

"If you're buying," she continued, "I wouldn't mind a glass of whatever you're having. And if you don't mind my asking, what prompted this generosity? Even the prettiest girls are having a hard time getting free drinks in Zeltiva these days."

She thought about saying more, possibly about their encounter in the marketplace earlier in the day, but decided to keep her mouth shut for now. Time and experience had taught Avari to be more circumspect in her speech and behavior, not just to blurt out everything that came to mind. If he did know that she was the same Konti who had treated his oracles so cavalierly and still wanted to buy her a drink, Avari would just have to smile, accept his offer, and hope he didn't make a fuss about the fortune-telling. If he hadn't recognized her, then all the better. Either way, Avari didn't want to tip her hand until she knew why he'd asked her to join him.

by **Anselm** on June 27th, 2012, 3:01 am

He got the attention of the bar maid and pointed to his glass of wine and then to the Konti woman. A few moments later a second glass of red wine appeared at their table. Anselm watched the man she had robbed. He had discovered his loss and was searching through his pack. He looked around and spotted her. He started toward her and then hesitated, and then returned to his table looking unsure of himself.

The thief, on the other hand, was putting on a wonderful show of carefree confidence and self-assurance, as though she had not a care in the world. Anselm was impressed. He had put her in a potentially dangerous situation. At any moment, the man she had robbed might approach and accuse her of theft. Or another patron might have seen her and might even now be talking with the proprietor. Or Anselm himself might announce her crime to the whole room. He was quite sure she wanted nothing more than to put some distance between herself and the scene of her crime. He leaned toward her.

“There is a small matter that you may be able to help me with,” he said in a quiet voice, still watching the man across the room. “It involves relieving a woman of an amulet that does not belong to her. It would be worth 20 gold mizas to me to have that amulet in my possession. Would such a proposition be of interest to you?”

by **Avari** on July 5th, 2012, 7:28 pm

Despite her nervous desire to slip out of the common room quickly, before the hunter found her, Avari couldn't help perking up with interest and a fresh wave of unease when the gravelly-voiced old man brought up the matter of an amulet and made his offer. While the twenty gold mizas he proposed to pay her was undeniably intriguing, the fact that he had known to ask her gave her a chill. Somehow, he knew what she did for a living and was so certain of his knowledge that he was willing to approach her openly to offer her an assignment. But how could he know?

Alarm evident in her voice, she stammered, "But how did you... I mean, why do you think I would be able to...that is, why are you asking...?"

The Konti's voice trailed off uncertainly. She gazed at the old man in the black cloak across the table with increased respect and wariness.

The only thing that Avari could think of, as she stared across the table at him and frantically pummeled her brain for an answer, was his fortune-telling. Clearly, the old charlatan was not such a charlatan, after all. The words he'd spoken might have been nonsense, but somehow he had been able to see far more of her than she'd wanted him to. It didn't occur to her that he might have watched her in the act just now; having lived much of her life among fortune-tellers and seers, the Konti was far more inclined to believe in the mystical explanation than a mundane one.

She swallowed and did her best to regain her composure. "I mean...I suppose I didn't give you enough credit, old man. I've never known anyone who wasn't a Konti who could see so much about a person without asking. But you're right enough. I think I can probably help you with your small matter."

Avari hesitated, but then glanced over at the hunter still puzzling over his lost goods. If the old man meant her ill, he could have done so quite easily, just by walking over and whispering in the bloody-minded man's ear about the little Konti who had filched his rations. Besides, he'd offered twenty whole mizas. The thought of such riches for a single job made her lean forward eagerly and lower her voice.

"Tell me more about the amulet," she whispered intently. "What does it look like? Small, large, jeweled, plain, made of gold or silver or something plainer? Who's the lady who has it, and where can I find her? Does she wear it around her neck all the time, or does she keep it someplace safe?"

Folding her arms, she added, "The more you can tell me, the easier and quicker I can get what you want. It'll probably take me a few days to get it. Why don't we meet again in, oh, four days at this location? A little after midnight, preferably?"

Holding her hand to the side of her face to further obscure her words from being overheard, she hissed a few quick directions to a very secluded spot in the alleyways near the docks. At that time of day, in that place, Avari was completely certain that any clandestine business they conducted would not be interrupted by any inquisitive passerby. It was the perfect meeting spot, especially to exchange gold mizas for a stolen amulet.

She tilted her head curiously toward the old man. "Does that sound good to you?"