Read The Jargoon Pard (Witch World Series (High Hallack Cycle)) for Free Online Page B

to hang within the Keep, was for a time dispelled. We listened to his flow of talk, and he had much to say of the lands he had recently passed through, giving several personal messages from our kin and accounts of how it fared within their holds.
    At first I watched him only. Then, as if by chance, I caught sight of Ursilla and the expression that lay on her features. That she had come to meet our guest was a concession on her part, for she seldom visited the Great Hall, keeping to her own chambers. And now—
    Yes, there was an uneasiness about her as she watched and listened, as if in this stranger she saw some faint menace. I was sure I saw her fingers move once or twice in a complicated gesture half-hidden by her plate. She might be bringing to bear the seeking of her sorcery to uncover some danger. Yet if that was what she sought, I knew suddenly that she failed. And her failure in turn was a rising source of dismay within her.
    It was when the table was cleared that the trader summoned one of his men to bring in a stout chest. After it had been set down before him, he slapped its lid with his open palm, saying, “Wares have I in plenty, my lords and ladies. But the pick of what I carry lies here. With your goodwill, I shall make a show of them.”
    Eagerly the ladies urged him to do so, their voices rising shriller above the deeper voices of the men who were not backward in such encouragement either. And the chest was opened.
    From it Ibycus brought out first a length of cloth, black and much folded. This he spread out and smoothed upon the board before he lifted out divers small bags and boxes, some of silk, some of wood, others of carved bone or crystal. From each he shook its contents, to be flattened out upon the cloth in a display of such wealth I had not believed existed outside some ancient tale of a Firedrake's treasure horde.
    There was gold there and moon silver, even the ruddy copper, wrought into very ancient settings for gems. And of the gems—I do not think any of us looking upon that show could have named near the half of them.
    We were silent, as if we all at one time together held our breath. Then came cries of astonishment. Also, those farther away left their seats and crowded closer, to feast their eyes on all the brilliant glitter. None stretched forth a hand, a finger, to touch. The display was too overpowering. We must all have had the feeling that it was too rich for our owning, that we must look, but we could not hope to possess.
    I was one of those who had moved closer, bedazzled by all that lay there. Then somehow my eyes made a choice, and I centered my gaze on the article that lay closest to me.
    It was a belt made of golden fur, so sleek and gleaming that, even among the riches heaped about it, the. fur retained a brilliance, or so it seemed to me. The clasp was a single large gem—yellow-brown in shade—the like of which I had never seen. The gem had been wrought into the likeness of a cat's head. Still, studying the buckle much closer, I saw that the cat was not intended to resemble a small, tamed one, but perhaps one that was akin to the dreaded hunter of the heights, the snow cat—more deadly a fighter than any other beast we knew.
    “This interests you, Lord Kethan?”
    At that moment it did not seem strange that Ibycus addressed me by name, or that he stood beside me. The others were intent still upon what lay there, and now they were venturing to touch this piece or that, all talking at once about their preferences.
    But it was the trader himself who took up the belt and held it out to me.
    “A goodly piece of workmanship, my Lord. The clasp—it is a jargoon, a stone that is of the more common sort. But it has been most cunningly cut by one who knows the art well.”
    “And the skin?” something prompted me to ask.
    “The skin—ah, that is of the pard. One sees them seldom nowadays. They are as fearsome hunters as their cousins of the snow—though somewhat smaller.”
    My