10 – Aftermath by Asprin, Robert

The manikin stared balefully at Khamwas, but his own arm reached out to pat the hand protecting him. “A fool who wants to go with a wise man,” he said, “is a goose who wants to go with the slaughter knife.”

Samlor blinked. He was confused, but that probably didn’t matter, not compared to a dozen other things. “You know my name, then?” he said, harshly again, sure that Khamwas had to have some connection with the stranger in the tavern. A sorcerer who knew your name had the first knot in a rope of power to bind you . . .

“Sir, I know no one in your city,” Khamwas repeated, drawing himself up and planting the staff firmly before him with his hands linked on it. “I have a daughter the age of your niece, so I-tried, I should say, to intervene when she seemed to be in difficulties.”

He paused. For an instant his staff flowed again. The grain of the wood made ripples in the phosphorescence, and a haze of light wrapped Khamwas’s hands like a real fog.

Star reached past her uncle and touched the staff.

The glow flicked out as Khamwas started, but a tinge of blue clung to the child’s fingers as she withdrew them. Samlor did not swear, because words had power-especially at times like these. His left hand caressed his niece’s hair, offering human contact when he could not be sure what help, if any, the child required.

If Khamwas’s toying had done any harm, he would be fed his liver on the point of a knife.

Star giggled while both men watched her with fear born of uncertainty. She opened her fingers slowly and the glow between their tips grew and paled like the sheen of an expanding soap bubble. Then it popped as if it had never been.