In their place lay three of the blue gems. My mouth twitched
in the first amusement I had felt since we entered this uncanny place.
Evidently bargaining with the Silent Ones was not a great deal different
than bargaining with anyone anywhere. Nevertheless, under the eyes of
those shrouded but horrible forms--if they had eyes, which I doubted--I
had no impulse to protest their offered prices.
I gathered up the rejected lenses, repacked them neatly, and helped
Kyral recrate the tools and instruments the Silent Ones had not wanted.
I noticed that in addition to the microscope lenses and surgical
instruments, they had taken all the fine wire. I couldn't imagine, and
didn't particularly want to imagine, what they intended to do with it.
On our way back through the streets, unshepherded this time, Kyral's
tongue was loosened as if with a great release from tension. "They're
psychokinetics," he told me. "Quite a few of the nonhuman races are. I
guess they have to be, having no eyes and no hands. But sometimes I
wonder if we of the Dry-towns ought to deal with them at all.
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