Chapter 12. Ruined

endaran dusted the dirt and snow off of his finery, fretting at the tiny rips and snags that now marred the once perfect brocade.  He had spent a small fortune on his attire and now it was ruined.  On top of that, his magnificent mink traveling cloak was gone and he did not have so much as a single gold coin to his name.  And then there was the curse.

Now he understood Uriel’s strange verbal outbursts.  He was ruined.  He would make her pay for this.  Better yet, he would make sure she took back the collar.  Now he just had to figure out how he would do that.  Maybe he could capture that lemon woman and threaten to kill her.

He sighed.  Jewels he could justify in his own crooked way.  A jewel could be lost and no one would starve or die.  Besides, rich people could afford the loss of their baubles.  Kidnapping, however, was just not on.  He was a scoundrel, not a villain. A scoundrel had standards.

Freezing without his cloak, he chafed his arms and started toward the center of Yak’s Bend.  Something would come to him, he had always thrived on intuition and inspiration.  He had survived the Searing, had he not?  The memory of the burned out husk of Caradec Hall haunted him and he thrust it back into the deepest recesses of his psyche.  Of all the times to get sentimental, now was not an appropriate one.  A mesmer who could not master his emotions was no good at all.  Like him.

Without thinking, he walked past a provisioner’s table and palmed a small loaf of dark dwarven bread.  He was starving.

“Good day, sir! And what brings you here?” said the dwarf whose merchandise Pendaran had taken without raising so much as an inkling of suspicion.

“Good day, sir. Thanks for letting me steal from you,” Pendaran quipped and then choked in horror.  The dwarf’s silvery brows collided angrily in the middle of his round forehead and his beady eyes went immediately to the hand still clutching the loaf.

“You were meaning to pay for that?” the dwarf snarled, pulling a rather large stick with a nail in it from under his table.

“Of course not,” Pendaran replied to his utter dismay.  He returned the loaf and backed away, winking winsomely.  The dwarf swore at him, mollified.  Pendaran smiled at the gathering crowd of onlookers. 

“Pendaran Caradec!” cried a woman whose voice cut through him like a blast of northern wind.  Oh gods, please not Gretta Spurgefist.  He turned to regard the necromancer, remarking that her black leathers and form-fitting attire were only slightly less tasteless than the last time they had met.  Did she really have to paint her lips black like that?

“Greetings, evil witch,” he croaked miserably.

“Aw Pen, it wasn’t that bad, was it?” she cooed, striding gracefully toward him, her black winter cloak billowing dramatically in her wake.

“I’ve slept with pillows that had more entertainment value,” he murmured helplessly, clenching his eyes shut as she slapped him hard and strutted away.

“You miserable selfish lack-wit!” she screamed to the laughter of the crowd.

He turned on his heel and strode as quickly as his feet and dignity could carry him away from the crowd.  On a normal day he would have done something to amuse them for he loved the adulation and attention of applause.  Right now, however, he wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.

Preferably a warm hole with a comfortable bed and a fireplace.  If he did not find shelter by nightfall it would be the end of him.  But beyond mercenary work, he was good for little else beyond stealing.  And if he could not stay warm, he would be unable to travel with a party, certainly not through the Shiverpeaks.  He could hike back to Ascalon, but right now it was a little too risky so soon after one of his larger acts of thievery.

There was only one thing he could do and it pained him to even consider it.  He strode toward the camp where he had stayed the night with Uriel and her party.  If he kept his mouth shut and followed orders, he might be able to beg them to take him to Lion’s Arch where some old acquaintances might be able to help him undo the curse.

And, though it was highly unlikely, he mused that he might be able to appeal to Uriel to take back her dreadful necklace.  She might take pity upon him.  He snorted at himself.  She had played him for a fool because that was exactly what he had been.

They were breaking camp when he arrived.  Morisedd was upending the water from the cooking pot onto the embers of the small fire and stamping them out.  Uriel was busily rolling up blankets and ensuring everything was gathered and packed.  Lemony, meanwhile, stood nearby with his mink cloak draped over her arm while she nibbled on the edge of a steaming meat pie that was almost as big as her head.

“Oh, there you are,” she said brightly, her voice muffled by a mouthful of food, “Uriel said you’d be back.”

“Where did you get that?” he asked, annoyed.  She swallowed and coughed, her eyes tearing at the heat of the half-chewed pie.

“Oh, some nasty old dwarf,” she said with a conspiratorial grin, “He was suffering from an ulcer and gout, so I attended to him and gave him some herbal extracts to help with the pain.  He asked what I’d like in exchange.  Since Uriel said you were coming back, I decided you’d need it and appealed to his kindness.”

“I never said he would be coming back,” Uriel corrected her.

Sister Lemony laughed and held his cloak out to him.  He stared at her, aghast.

“Oh, my mistake.  I must have thought you had because it only made sense since he’s penniless.”

“You’re a lousy liar, Lem.  She spent her savings on it, I’ll wager.  As for you, Pendaran, the correct response is thank you,” Uriel said pointedly as she rose to glare at him, “and before you ask, the answer is no.  I assume you’ve spent many years being a problem in other people’s lives.  It’s time you learned what it feels like.”

“Thank you,” he said to Sister Lemony and she smiled brightly at him.

“You’ve got your cloak,” Uriel said, “What is your intention?”

“I need to get to Lion’s Arch,” he said, speaking the plain truth and finding that just for once his mouth obeyed him.

“Where is your pack?” Uriel asked pointedly.

“Oh, it was down the tree well,” Lemony giggled, “I went back and got it after he wandered off.”

She pointed to it resting beside hers against the trunk of an aspen. Pendaran sighed with relief.  His necessities and bedding were all still in tact as he opened it and rummaged through it.  Anything of value, however, was gone.

“Thank you, Sister.”

“You’re welcome.”

“We have business in Cantha and will be embarking in Lion’s Arch.  You are welcome to come along, but I want no deception.  And you are sleeping alone,” Uriel said.  Pendaran felt Morisedd’s eyes upon him.  The ranger’s rigid expression made it very clear that he did not approve but the elementalist did not ask his opinion.

“As you wish,” he replied.

Sister Lemony broke her stodgy dwarven meat pie in two and handed half to him.

“It’s a new day full of possibility.”

“Yes, it is,” he replied miserably.