Foundling Wizard (Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

stable; only two of them held horses that had been bedded down for the night.
    A young boy sat on a stool near the open doors. A lamp hung from a peg inside the stable to light the way for any late arriving guests. Lorit approached him, hailing him as he neared the stable. “Are you Nenddar?” he called out.
    The young boy jumped up from the stool, startled by Lorit. “How may I help you, kind sir?” “Shandyl told me to ask for you. She said you’d have a place where I could sleep tonight.”
    “She’s my aunt,” Nenddar declared. “I can let you sleep in the haymow if you promise not to tell the proprietor. He don’t like me letting strangers sleep in the stable. He wants everyone to pay for a room.” The boy smiled and gave Lorit an exaggerated conspiratorial wink.
    “Shandyl says ‘Always do a stranger a good deed, as you never know who they may turn out to be.’” He squinted at Lorit. “Are you someone special?”
    “I’m sorry Nenddar, I’m just a simple farm boy. Nothing special just yet.”
    “Well, some day you may be, and then you’ll remember old Shandyl and Nenddar, won’t you?” the boy asked.
    “Certainly I will,” Lorit replied. “That is, if I ever become someone.” He spotted a ladder made of boards nailed to the rear wall of the stable and pointed. “That the mow, over there?” “Sure it is,” Nenddar replied. “Go ahead and make yourself at home. I’ll be here a while yet, we often get customers late in the evening. I have to care for their horses when they do come.”
    “Thanks for your hospitality, Nenddar,” Lorit said as he made his way toward the back of the stable. He easily climbed the ladder and made his way towards the side of the hay mow where several bales of hay would make a passable bed for the night.
    Lorit retrieved the blanket from his pack. He carefully laid out a few things for a small meal. He was aware that the food Shyenn had packed for him was not going to last more than a few days, maybe a week at the most. He didn’t have any idea how he was going to find more. She’d pressed a few silvers into his hand before he left. Lorit knew that it was more than she could afford, but even that would not last him long if he didn’t find food and shelter somewhere.
    Lorit sat on his blanket and concentrated. Maybe he could make his own food. He sat cross-legged on the blanket and tried to relax. He quieted his mind and concentrated on the apple just as he had in the meadow. He visualized the round red apple with all its juiciness and tried to recall the flavor and texture of it, just as he’d done before.
    He felt the light-headedness he’d felt when he’d created the apple in the meadow. This time it was not as pronounced as before, but he did feel like everything was a little fuzzy, slowly fading back to solid reality. Sitting on the blanket in front of him was another perfect apple.
    “Well, this is going to come in handy,” Lorit muttered as he picked it up. He put it in his pack and sat back for a moment. “Maybe some bread,” he thought.
    He relaxed again and focused his attention, recalling the aroma that met him every morning when he rose. Bread was always baking when he woke, and the house smelled fabulous. He recreated that smell in his mind, recalling the round firm loaf of bread that Shyenn pulled from the oven and placed on the cutting board as he sat down for breakfast.
    The mist overtook him again. The scent of the bread became stronger and stronger, until he finally opened his eyes to see the loaf sitting before him, steaming profusely in the chilly air of the haymow.
    Lorit picked up the fresh loaf of bread and immediately put it down again. It was hot and soft as if it had just come out of the oven. “This is definitely going to come in handy,” Lorit remarked to himself.
    “Now, how about some coins?” Lorit asked himself.
    He sat back, relaxed, and visualized a pile of silvers. He cleared his thoughts and concentrated on a