X.
Coin stirred against the grass. The left side of his face felt swollen and tender. He rolled over onto his back, found himself watching the halfling, and wished he hadn't. She was sitting cross-legged with the opal on her lap, watching him intently. She said nothing, seemingly content to let him start the talking.
A profound lack of interest in her unspoken demand for explanations washed through him. Another place, another angry guard wanting to grill him. The world was full of them. He stared up at the lightening sky, and then shut his eyes. Dawn was coming. He'd been out for hours.
"Stone, this wasn't what we agreed."
Despite his best effort, his voice came out tinged with hurt. A little boy's outraged sense of betrayal at someone tattling on him. He snorted contemptuously at himself. In his mind he could almost hear Daeron lecturing him.
"When you're out, when you're on a job, you have to think right. Forget anger, forget friendship, and forget fear. Emotions just get in the way. Think in the Now, remember the angles. Concentrate on the present."
He missed his teacher suddenly, with an almost physical ache in his chest. Then he blocked it out. Think in the Now.
The halfling stirred; coming back from whatever plane of thought she'd gone to while watching over him.
"He won't answer you unless he feels like it, you know," she said "Do you even know who this was?"
Coin debated with himself. Truth or lies? They could have been talking while he was out. The stone could have told her anything. Clearly it had revealed itself when the monk searched his pack. He couldn't trust it. So. Truth then. But as little as possible.
"His name is Jothanial Kauld. He is the chief of the Kauld clan," he said simply, then lapsed back into silence. Let the halfling come up with the questions. Coin would wait her out, lead her off into irrelevancies, keep at it until she got too tired to ask him more. He'd keep as many of his precious scraps of information to himself as he could.
It earned him another of the monk's inscrutable stares.
"I don't think so Coin," she said at last "Jothanial was killed by his daughter last winter, so she could seize leadership of the clan. She was always ambitious, and Jothanial has- had- a nasty habit of disposing of his children when they started to chafe under him."
Coin gave her a puzzled look, and she gestured vaguely with her hand.
"He's a wizard. Those spells of theirs will let them live almost forever. He's had many children over the years. It leaves the line of succession clear and that keeps the clan elders happy. He locks them with up their mothers, keeps them isolated from everyone and everything until their teens. The Kauld world is all they ever know."
The stone interrupted them for the first time. Clearly Kauld had been listening in. But then, what else did he have to do?
"I'm afraid I had to change our arrangement boy. Halflings always were a bit too nosey for their own good. I'm very angry with you my dear, and my reckless daughter of course. Such a simple girl, and very rash, very rash of course. Now I fear she is somewhat confused by… what is needed from a leader."
The voice in their minds spoke indulgently. It had an unpleasantly distorted quality to it, like an echo ringing down a well. Remembered sounds. With no body, Jothanial Kauld could only project his thoughts in mimicry of the voice he'd once had.
Something close to hate flared behind the closed door of the monk's face.
"No, she's vicious. And feral. The way you make all your children," she said softly.
Coin shifted uncomfortably. Clearly the monk and the stone had an unhappy history, and he was caught in the middle. He remembered the hatred he'd seen in the eyes of the headwoman when she'd discovered his service with the clan. A prickly dread crept through him as he wondered what his flight with Jothanial Kauld made him in the halfling's eyes. Did she hate him secretly, like the villagers had? He remembered the dead clansmen on the road, and wished he had his knife.
"She poisoned him," he heard himself saying "But he'd done something to himself. When he was dying, he put himself away. Into the stone somehow. She couldn't reach him there. It was on a pillar and covered in spell traps and wards. She thought he was like a ghost somehow, that a priest could cast him out into the Funeral Plane. But he wasn't. It was a spell."
He remembered how the stone had looked to him, in the greenish glow the world took on when you looked through spellsight. He'd been trying to detect magical wards or traps on the gem itself. Instead his eyes had seen an eerie swirling fog, drifting like a trapped cloud inside the gem. Then, distortion, stretching, a leering fog-face sliding along the inside of the gem-
He flinched back to the present. Hunnah was looking at him, waiting for him to go on, but he'd suddenly run out of things to say. He flapped his arm vaguely, mirroring her earlier gesture. She looked far too understanding.
"So you found each other," she continued for him "And he persuaded you to double-cross his daughter and smuggle him out. He let you through the wards. And he guided you here. To us."
"He said you didn't allow any banditry and were the safest way out," Coin said curtly.
The monk gave him a small smile at the stiff compliment. "So what did he buy you with?" she asked.
Seeing Coin's startled look of dismay, she nodded in confirmation, the pretence at warmth gone.
"You, the best person to work out how to drive his spirit out of the gem, are allowed to touch the jewel and live. You trusted him and he trusted you, enough that you each took the risk of betrayal. You turn on Zia and the Kauld, abandon your reward for a risky flight to a land full of complete strangers. For what? A gem you can't sell? Come on priest! What did he buy you with?"
Coin sat up and crossed his legs, and let his face settle into the easy confidence Daeron had always used when he was cutting a deal.
Always make eye contact, it makes people nervous, it distracts them. If you can manage sincerity while you're doing it, they think you can't be lying. They remember your face and forget what you said.
For a wonder, the stone stayed silent.
Truth or lie? It could have told her anything. Truth then. But as little as possible.
Think in the Now!
"He promised to lead me to Kang's Treasure," he began carefully, and was surprised, and not a little hurt, when after staring at him in astonishment, she turned around and bent double, cackling with laughter.