Read Online The Halfling’s Gem by R. A. Salvatore - Free Book Online

leave the horses with me. Off with you, now, to the south gate. The guards there will guide you to Dock Street, and from thereyou will have little trouble finding the Mermaid’s Arms.”
    “You are not to come with us?” asked Wulfgar, slipping down from his saddle.
    “I have other business,” Khelben explained. “It is better that you go alone. You will be safe enough; Orlpar would not cross me, and Captain Deudermont is known to me as an honest seaman. Strangers are common in Waterdeep, especially down in the Dock Ward.”
    “But strangers wandering beside Khelben, the painter, might draw attention,” Drizzt reasoned with good-humored sarcasm.
    Khelben smiled but did not answer.
    Drizzt dropped from big saddle. “The horses are to be returned to Longsaddle?”
    “Of course.”
    “Our thanks to you, Khelben,” said Drizzt. “Surely you have aided our cause greatly.” Drizzt thought for a moment, eyeing his horse. “You must know that the enchantment Malchor put on the shoes will not remain. Orlpar will not profit from the deal he made this day.”
    “Justice,” chuckled Khelben. “That one has turned many an unfair deal, let me assure you. Perhaps this experience will teach him humility and the error of his ways.”
    “Perhaps,” said Drizzt, and with a bow, he and Wulfgar started down the hill.
    “Keep your guard, but keep your calm,” Khelben called after them. “Ruffians are not unknown on the docks, but the police are ever-present. Many a stranger spends his first night in the city dungeons!” He watched the two of them descend the knoll and remembered, as Malchor had remembered, those long-ago days when it was he who followed the roads to distant adventures.
    “He had the man cowed,” Wulfgar remarked when he and Drizzi were out of Khelben’s earshot. “A simple painter?”
    “More likely a wizard—a powerful wizard,” Drizzt replied. “And our thanks again are owed to Malchor, whose influence has eased our way. Mark my words, ’twas no simple painter that tamed the likes of Orlpar.”
    Wulfgar looked back to the knoll, but Khelben and the horses were nowhere to be seen. Even with his limited understanding of the black arts, Wulfgar realized that only magic could have moved Khelben and the three horses from the area so quickly. He smiled and shook his head, and marveled again at the eccentric characters the wide world kept showing him.

    Following the directions given to them by the guards at the south gate, Drizzt and Wulfgar were soon strolling down Dock Street, a long lane that ran the length of Waterdeep Harbor on the south side of the city. Fish smells and salty air filled their nostrils, gulls complained overhead, and sailors and mercenaries from every stretch of the Realms wandered about, some busy at work, but most ashore for their last rest before the long journey to points south.
    Dock Street was well outfitted for such merrymaking; every corner held a tavern. But unlike the city of Luskan’s dockside, which had been given over to the rabble by the lords of the city long ago, Dock Street in Waterdeep was not an evil place. Waterdeep was a city of laws, and members of the Watch, Waterdeep’s famed city guard, seemed always in sight.
    Hardy adventurers abounded here, battle-hardened warriors that carried their weapons with cool familiarity. Still, Drizzt and Wulfgar found many eyes focused upon them, with almost every head turning and watching as they passed. Drizzt felt for his mask, at first worrying that it had somehow slipped off andrevealed his heritage to the amazed onlookers. A quick inspection dispelled his fears, for his hands still showed the golden luster of a surface elf.
    And Drizzt nearly laughed aloud when he turned to ask Wulfgar for confirmation that the mask still disguised his facial features, for it was then the dark elf realized that he was not the object of the gawks. He had been so close to the young barbarian for the last few years that he was used to