"I…do not know how I would go on with my life without this spell," she
said at last.
Bastro Felgosh made a little humming noise as he seemed to ponder
that. Or perhaps he was still staring at her. Ehlissa did not look
up to find out.
"What I taught Hertha was a simple magic missile spell," Bastro
explained, as if lecturing before a class. He walked back and forth
across his small, spartanly-furnished office past its writing desk and
stool, table, and couch. He had his hands behind his back. "It is
relatively easy to learn, at least for a guild member already learning
magic. I believe it took her two months to learn it. Of course, what
I asked from her in exchange was…substantial."
"My family has some money," Ehlissa offered.
"My dear, who said anything about money?"
Then, all at once, Ehlissa understood. She understood Hertha's
terrible sacrifice that had left her empowered, yet alone and outcast.
She understood what Bastro asked of her and why she had felt
increasingly uncomfortable in his presence. She understood the
terrible choice before her. And she looked to the door.
"The door is not locked," Bastro said, evidently still watching her
every movement. "You are free to leave if you are unprepared to
discuss the particular method of payment for private tutoring I wished
to discuss with you."
Ehlissa knew she should leave immediately before he changed his mind
about letting her, but she still felt she had come too far to turn
back. At least, one more question. "May I…have some time to think
about this?"
"Of course," Bastro said. "My door will open to you once more,
tomorrow night. After that, it will be closed to you forever."
Whether or not Bastro had intended to sound so dramatic, the statement
had a scary finality to it that stayed in Ehlissa's head long after
she left the guildhall. The walk home was a long one and also
intensely scary, for Ehlissa had never been out so late alone and the
world was now a much darker, more dangerous place than it had ever
seemed before. She spent the second half of the walk home with her
dagger drawn and held tight in her unsteady hand. People passing her
on the street tended to give her a wide berth and a few even chuckled
at her, seeing her react so defensively to every imagined threat
around her. Only one person stopped her, just a few blocks from her
home. His tabard identified him as a night watchman and the markings
on his ****eld identified him as a captain.
"You might want to put that away, young lady," the man said, hands on
his belt instead of his weapons. "You could make a lot of trouble for
yourself holding that thing like that."
Ehlissa tried to un-tense and lower her weapon, but found her arm had
been tensed so long it was hard to make it relax. Then she realized
that she wanted to cry.
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