Stardeep by Bruce R. Cordell

a welcome aid in consetving his own heat.
    The storm fizzled out after they left behind the highest point of the pass. Quent called a halt and passed around a celebratory flask of watered wine. Raidon sipped, despite notmally abstaining from such things—this was a celebta-tion of sorts, and he wouldn’t insult his employer by refusing to partake.
    With half a day’s light left, the caravan chief called camp. His entire crew was exhausted. And one of the three scouts had yet to return from his foray down to the edge of the Umbar.
    Raidon prepared a small fire only ten or so paces from the larger cook fire and, with supplies from his pack, boiled a kettle of water. He produced his precious package of loose Long Jing and brewed a fragrant kettle of tea. Raidon offered to share a cup with everyone who wished to sample it.
    Quent, his black hair peppered with experience, gratefully accepted a cup. The man was worldly enough to properly thank Raidon for an excellent pour.
    Quent’s crew was less practiced. Hark and Sulvan, the two scouts who had returned on schedule, each accepted a cup and smiled. The wagon drivers, Ledroc, Corthandu, and Khuldam the dwarf, waved him off. They were happy sharing a flask among themselves. Raidon got a whiff from the flask; it was something harder than tea.
    Three others who, like Raidon, had signed on to guard the caravan against brigands and move crates, all accepted a cup
    with silent nods. One was a dwarf who spent an inordinate amount of time braiding his beard. Raidon never did learn his name—the dwarf either couldn’t or wouldn’t speak in a tongue anyone could understand. The dwarf never strayed far from his pride and joy, a crossbow runed with faintly glowing lines.
    The two brothers, Erik and Adrik Commorand, argued constantly. Raidon tried to follow their talk, but it concerned topics too esoteric for the monk’s training: somatic, material, and vetbal power components, mostly. The brothers were sorcerer-mercenaries. The two were Quent’s concession to reports of increased Red Wizard activity in the area. The monk wondered at the brothers’ abilities—either the Commorands were rank novices, or the caravan chief had deeper pockets than Raidon would have guessed. Either way, the brothers were gracious to Raidon.
    In fact, everyone was friendly enough, or at least not unfriendly, except the grub cook Japhoca.
    Japhoca was a blond-haired, hardbitten tribal from the plains of Rashemen, and she disliked Raidon the moment she laid eyes on him. From the comments she’d let slip, she held his ancestry against him. Strange. He supposed the woman had tangled with the Nine Golden Swords. Those outside Shou Town didn’t always know that the organization was reviled among honest Shou. But it was not his responsibility to bring the woman clarity. Her prejudice was her burden to bear, not his.
    When he offered her a steaming cup, she grunted and said, “I don’t treat with half-bloods.” She spat and stalked off. Raidon paused a beat, then poured the cup of tea out on the ground. He hated seeing Long Jing wasted, but the cup had been poured and refused. Decorum insisted on its disposal.
    His surmise concerning Japhoca’s dislike had apparently been mistaken. What had she meant by half-blood? His
    mother’s blood, of course. Something he never gave thought to. Her likeness manifested in him only faintly. His ears may have been slightly pointed, the shape of his skull was perhaps narrower than othet Shou, and his bearing was straight, though no straighter than any othet practitioner of Xiang Do. He thought of himself as Shou. The knowledge that others might see him as something different threatened to pull him out of his carefully consttucted focus. He concentrated on rinsing out the cups and tea pot, imagining his mind a depthless pool of water. Insult, injury, and pain were as pebbles and rocks thrown into that pool—the water would absorb them all and show nothing but a placid,