Fire Within: Book Two of Fire and Stone (Stories of Fire and Stone 2) by Stephanie Beavers Page B

innkeeper, and had planned to talk to her later.
    “I’ll let Matron Laney know,” the barkeep said.
    “Ah, thank you.” Esset grinned as a large bowl of stew was placed in front of him, along with a frothing mug of ale. Two bites into the stew, he found himself thinking that Toman would have liked the stew, and the thought cast a grey pall over his mood. For a single moment, things had felt normal; a new town, a new objective, a new adventure. But there was no adventure without Toman. It was time to get to work.
    “You from around here?” Esset asked the man next to him.
    “Shepherd Derek,” the man said, extending his hand.
    “Esset,” Esset replied, taking it.
    “Where you from, Esset?” Derek asked, clearly enthused to talk to someone new.
    “Sedina,” Esset replied.
    “Oh, aye,” Derek said. “We get enough of you coming up the trade road. Where you headed?”
    “Here,” Esset replied, and Derek’s bushy eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
    “I’m looking for someone…or something,” Esset replied.
    Derek laughed. “Well if it ain’t making wool or made of wool, you won’t find it here.”
    “I hope you’re wrong,” Esset said, but he was smiling back. “Do the names John Garson or Jionar Atah mean anything to you?”
    “Huh.” Derek rubbed his beard. “They might not have, but just a month back there were some treasure hunters asking about that Atah guy. They found some stuff too, not sure what. They were quite happy when they left town to find someone to buy the stuff.”
    “Treasure hunters,” Esset repeated. He remembered one of the scavengers who’d found him muttering something about magical instruments.
    “Oh aye, three of them,” Derek said. “They asked around about Atah, then headed up to the old ruined house. No one goes up there except foolhardy kids, since the structure’s not sound, but they went up there anyways.”
    “And you don’t know where they took the stuff they found,” Esset said. Derek shook his head. Esset figured that would have been too easy.
    “These treasure hunters…was their surname Herega?” Esset asked. It was a long shot, he knew, but he needed a break.
    Derek shook his head. “Not sure, but I bet the barkeep’ll remember. Two men and a woman though.”
    “Thanks, Derek. Have a drink on me,” Esset said, figuring he’d reached the limits of the man’s knowledge.
    Derek’s eyes lit up. “Thanks.”
    Esset waved the barkeep over and confirmed the scavengers’ names: Raf, Beow, and Teheba Herega. Esset was pensive as he arranged his room and headed upstairs. Was this luck or misfortune? On one hand, if the scavengers had never come, there might have been something to find here. On the other hand, at least it was those particular scavengers, whom he’d have a chance at tracking if there were nothing left at the house.
    Regardless, he murmured a brief prayer to Bright Hyrishal—a prayer of thanks if it ended up being a blessing, and a plea for help if it turned out to be another obstacle. The scavengers’ recent presence was an odd coincidence in any case.
    In the morning, he’d search the ruined house for anything they might have missed, but the scavengers didn’t seem like the types to miss anything. No, more likely than not, he’d have to hunt them down to find out what they’d found, and who they’d sold it to.
     
    Esset skipped breakfast and flew out to the ruins of Atah’s workshop with the break of dawn. It wasn’t hard to find; the large, two-story stone building was set apart from the rest of the town. Esset circled to study the building from above, noting that though the structure was thoroughly blackened by fire, the stone supports and main structure of the building were still intact.
    Esset landed next to the building and banished the fiery bird. Plant life was well regrown around the building and was, in fact, starting to take it over. Vines crept up the walls, although Esset noticed there were a few patches where