Adam wrote:Bennedict drums his fingers once again, fighting to keep the impatience from his face. "Yes. In the meantime, I would appreciate an opportunity to at least observe the orb, that I might be certain you possess it and that it matches what I have heard."
Cadorna sends the servant off to fetch his crystal ball.
The master-merchant proceeds with questions about Harrowdale: what exactly happened there with monsters, and what sort of goods and services would help the dale's capital city get back on its feet. He draws out as much information as the party seems willing to divulge, not so much about them as about the situation in the south. He seems quite happy to listen to stories of the group's adventures.
The better part of an hour later, four swordsmen in mail shirts enter the room, each man with one hand on a chain linked to a sturdy coffer that hangs amid the quartet.
The men lift the coffer onto the table, unhook the chains, and move back a few inches.
Their hands remain near their sword-hilts.
One casts a nervous glance at the reinforced coffer as Master Cadorna takes a steel key from inside his coat and works the lock.
The merchant opens the coffer, the lid swinging up and away from his face as he looks down into the interior.
Rainbow lights dance across his face, cast from something inside.
''You may approach, scholar.''
He looks up at Benn, his eyes shining in the eerie light from the opened strongbox.
When Benn gets up and comes around the table, he sees the smooth curved surface of a crystal ball, the rosy-pink, translucent spheroid sunk deep in crushed red velvet liner. The Orb is the size of a child's skull; not so big as the container would suggest, but the amply-padded box walls and lid look to be over an inch in thickness.
Cadorna lifts the Orb out as gently as if he were handling a baby and cradles it to his chest with his servants spread a red velvet cloth on the table and set up a carved wooden stand, which consists of a horizontal ring with six short legs.
He sets the object into the ring, which it fits perfectly.
''All you need do is look deeply and think of what you wish to see. The Orb...''
Everyone but Benn
Benn
.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)