He concentrated again, humming something now that sounded like a funeral dirge as his fingers twitched in the air along his jaw line. The motes sparkled with a darker light this time, concentrating around his brow, which was broadening, and his jaw, which appeared to melt in upon itself and widen. The scraggly clumps of reddish hair that dangled from his chin multiplied and thickened, growing longer and forming a dense, auburn beard. Heavy brows developed over eyes that were becoming larger and as blue as the sapphires he had stuffed in his canvas sack an hour ago. Fetch's nose was swelling, taking on the bulbous shape of a large onion, and his scaly skin was turning a ruddy flesh color that made his blunt white teeth stand out. When the metamorphosis was complete, a stunted dwarf was reflected in the crystal.
"Too bad Rikali can't see me," he mused. "Says she's had enough of dwarves. This'd give her a good chuckle." The image's eyes widened in surprise, and Fetch gulped. Above his mirrored face was the image of a real dwarf, one with narrowed steely gray eyes, and one with thick fingers wrapped around the haft of a battle-axe that was plunging down toward him.
"Mai!" the kobold sputtered as he whirled away.
The dwarf had swung his axe hard and missed Fetch only by inches, striking instead the crystal and shattering it.
Shards pelted Fetch as his image was melting off him like butter. The kobold rolled again, squealing when the axe sliced through his butterfly sleeve.
"Mai! Company, Mai!" The kobold sprang to his feet and started scrabbling down the mountainside, feet slipping on gravel as he went. A quarrel whizzed over his head as he ducked behind a hornblend spire. He risked a peek out the other side. "Th-th-there's four of ‘em," he sputtered. "Four very angry dwarves. And me without my hoopak."
"This one must weigh close to three pounds, huh?" Rikali tossed over a pear-shaped crystal that was uniformly pale yellow in color.
"What is it?" Dhamon caught it and hefted it in his palm, then carefully placed it in his canvas sack. He was using the scraps of a shredded cloak to pad the crystals so they wouldn't jostle against each other and chip. Three already-full canvas sacks sat at his feet. There were nearly three dozen more large sacks already loaded on the wagon.
"Citrine," she said. "A type of quartz. Not as valuable as some of the other stuff we've been takin', but that one'U cut really fine. More valuable because of its size, though."
"How'd you learn so much about gems?"
She puffed herself up, smiling. "Dhamon Grimwulf, I decided at a very young age that I wasn't gonna be poor like my parents. So I fell in with a small guild of thieves. My dad… my parents're both half-elves… anyway, my dad disowned me, he did, not that I minded. Said he didn't approve of how I made my livin'. My folks were horribly poor, barely makin' their way as fishermen in a village on the shore of Blood Bay." She shook her head as if casting off the inconvenient memory. There was no trace of regret in her eyes. "The guild schooled me-in all the things important to becomin' wealthy. Such as how to recognize good stones, how to tell which houses are likely filled with the most valuables, where to fence things, how to pick pockets and cut coin purses from a man's belt. I'd still be with them if I hadn't tried to pick Mai's pocket when he was strollin' big-as-you-please along the Sanction docks. Caught me, he did-and took me in and taught me other things, like how to rob merchant wagons and scam folks and to always be movin'. No roots sproutin' from the bottoms of my feet anymore. No percentage to give the guild." She studied his face a moment. "Why hadn't you asked me before now?"
Dhamon shrugged. "I guess I wasn't curious." She discarded a cracked chunk of opal, picked up another large piece of citrine and passed it to him. "Wonder how Mai is doin'?" she mused, looking around a gypsum outcropping and searching for the big man. "There he is. Way down there." She watched Maldred a moment, enjoying the view his sweat-slick, muscular body presented, then she waved. But Maldred wasn't looking in her direction. He was staring up and to his right, and his hand was reaching for the great sword strapped to his back. "Trouble," she hissed, turning her head to see what had caught his attention. "Fetch got himself into more trouble. He's worthless."
Dhamon sped by her, navigating around the gypsum spires, dropping his sack of gems as he tugged the broadsword from his belt.
