The Companions

CHAPTER 11

The Year of the Third Circle (1472 DR) Delthuntle

Shasta Furfoot, proprietor of the Lazy Fisherman, the delthuntle inn closest to the water, pausedon of a son of a son of a son of a captain, The Reborn Hero.

That patron, Eiverbreen Parrafin, gawked at her for a few moments, not really knowing what to do. She had warned him that folks had been inquiring about him of late-one powerful character in particular, and her expression now told him in no uncertain terms that the person in question had caught up to him.

Eiverbreen lifted his glass and swallowed its contents in one courage-inducing gulp. At least he had hoped it would have such an effect, though with or without the brandy, the stubble-faced halfling couldn’t quite summon the fortitude to turn around. He heard the hard boots tapping on the floor, coming nearer.

Sweating now, he glanced around, moving only his eyes, for he daren’t move his head.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked down to see an ivory cane. He slightly turned, keeping his eyes defensively down, to see a pair of beautiful, shining black boots, neat trousers tucked firmly inside, and a sash of golden thread holding a slender rapier whose elaborate hand cage left no doubt of this one’s identity.

Eiverbreen swallowed hard and managed through sheer determination to turn around farther to square up to this most famous and dangerous halfling. He noted Grandfather Pericolo’s neatly trimmed goatee, and the fabulous beret he wore, a tight headband with an octagonal flare up above, fashionably tilted higher on the left and with a golden clasp buttoning down the front flap. It was made of some shiny blue material, some exotic fabric which Eiverbreen didn’t know, and stitched in small squares angled to give it a flecked look as it captured and reflected the light.

“Grandfather Pericolo,” he said quietly, and he caught himself and quickly looked back down.

“A bit early for the drink, eh?” Pericolo replied. “But, ah well, it is a fine day! Might I join you, then?”

So nervous was he that Eiverbreen hardly registered the words, and it took him a long while to digest them enough to nod and stutter out, “At your pleasure.”

Pericolo Topolino sat on the stool next to him. “Yes, one for me,” he said to Shasta, motioning to Eiverbreen’s empty glass, “and another for my friend here.”

“We’ve better libations than that,” Shasta replied.

“And I’ve spent nights nursing my head from far worse,” Pericolo replied with a hearty laugh. “If it is good enough for my friend Eiverbreen, then so it is for me!”

Shasta’s eyes went wide, as indeed did Eiverbreen’s, at that proclamation.

“To Jolee,” Pericolo said, hoisting his glass in toast. “A pity that she was lost in childbirth.”

Now Eiverbreen did look at him, curiously and skeptically. “You didn’t know my wife,” he dared to say.

“But I knew indeed her important work,” Pericolo explained. “I am a connoisseur of the finer things, my halfling friend.”

His use of that word, “halfling,” settled Eiverbreen in his seat more than a little, a clear reminder that they were, after all, of the same race-a race often denigrated by those of greater physical stature. Naming another little person as such was, in the end, a salute of brotherhood.

Eiverbreen lifted his glass and tapped it against Pericolo’s and in the general direction moment wooden axeon they shared a drink.

“And I count the deep-sea oysters among those delicacies,” Pericolo went on. “I admit that I have not known for very long the specifics of how those came to the fishmonger, but I did indeed notice their absence, or perhaps their rarity would be a better way to put it, a decade ago. Now I know why. So, to Jolee Parrafin.” He toasted and took another sip.

“You must be devastated by her loss,” Pericolo said.

Eiverbreen hunched over his glass. He had indeed been devastated, but not for any reason of love that he would admit, even if it was there, in the back of his darkened heart. The loss of Jolee had financially devastated him-what little wealth they’d had.

Without oysters to sell, he had become a beggar, and only now, as his boy began to realize his potential as a deep diver, had Eiverbreen’s purse-and his choice of whiskey-begun to recover.

“And now the oysters have returned, and I am pointed once more in your direction as the source,” Pericolo said. “Your boy, I believe.”

Eiverbreen didn’t look up, fearful of where this might be going.

“Spider? Is that his name?”

“Heard him called that.”

“Did you ever even bother to give him a name?” Pericolo asked, and Eiverbreen’s wince answered that seemingly ridiculous question quite clearly. “We just call him Eiverbreen, after his Da,” Shasta offered. “Spider,” Pericolo corrected, and the woman nodded. “He’s a promising diver, so say my sources,” Pericolo said to Eiverbreen. The other halfling grunted his agreement.

“And yet, for all that talent at your fingertips, you have never managed to do more than merely, barely, survive,” said Pericolo. “Do you even understand the value of the treasures you possess?”

Eiverbreen’s thoughts swirled around the words, winding over and under. He feared them to be a threat-was Pericolo going to kill him and “adopt” his boy? He looked up at the other halfling-he had to-trying to get some read of that smiling, disarming face.

“Of course you don’t,” said Pericolo. “The oysters are merely a means to an end to you.” He lifted his expensive cane and tapped Eiverbreen’s glass. “This end. The only end for Eiverbreen. The all-encompassing purpose of his existence, eh?”

“Have you come to taunt me, then?” Eiverbreen said before he could find the good sense to hold back the words. He even half-turned on his stool, as if to square into position to strike at Pericolo.

Any thoughts of that disappeared almost immediately, though, as he looked into the smiling, so-confident cherubic face of the wealthy halfling who was known to all on the street as Grandfather Pericolo.

Grandfather of Assassins.

His bravado gone in the flash of that recognition, Eiverbreen’s eyes lowered and focused once more on that slender blade, the fabulous rapier of Pericolo. He wondered how badly it would hurt when the tip plunged through his skinny ribs and poked at his racing heart.

“Oh, heavens no, my friend,” Pericolo said, however, and in such a lighthearted tone that Eiverbreen settled back once more-until he feared the words and tone were just a ruse to put him{font-size: 1.1em;5N3xplosionesto off his guard.

Oh, he didn’t know what to think!

But Pericolo kept talking. “You think small because you live small,” the Grandfather explained. “Whatever goals and hopes you might possess are pushed aside for the sake of one immediate goal, eh?” Again he lifted his cane and tapped the glass, then motioned for Shasta to refill Eiverbreen’s.

“Perhaps that is the difference between us,” Pericolo said. “You are small and I am not.”

Eiverbreen didn’t know how to answer that. He felt the insult keenly-all the more so because it was obviously true-but of course, to say such a thing would leave him dead on the floor, and that wasn’t where he wanted to be.

“Ah, I have wounded your pride, and I assure you that such was not my intent,” said Pericolo. “Indeed, I envy you!”

“What?”

Pericolo glanced at Shasta Furfoot as Eiverbreen blurted out the question, and he laughed, for her expression clearly reflected that it might have come from her as well.

“Ah, but to be done a day’s work when the sun sets,” Pericolo explained. “To think small, to live small, perhaps, is to live contented. I am never that, you see. Always is there another treasure, another conquest, to be found. Complacency is not a vice, my friend, but a blessing.”

Not understanding whether he was being mocked or complimented, Eiverbreen took another deep gulp from his glass, and no sooner had he placed it back on the bar than Pericolo had motioned to Shasta to pour another one.

“The world needs both of us, don’t you think?” Pericolo asked. “And likely, we need each other.”

Eiverbreen stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Well, perhaps not ‘need,’ but we can surely profit from an … arrangement. Consider, you have goods and I have the trade network for such goods. What does the fishmonger pay you, a few pieces of copper, a silver or two perhaps, for an oyster? Why of course she would pay you so, because there is competition here for the things-your boy is not the only diver, although, admittedly, he seems to be quite good at it!

“But there are places, not so far from here, where an oyster from the depths of the Sea of Fallen Stars could bring a gold piece, and I know how to get to those places,” Pericolo explained. “You cannot do it without me, of course, but, so it seems, neither can I without you.”

“What do you mean?”

“He means that your life’s about to get a bunch easier, from what I’m hearing,” Shasta Furfoot dared to say.

“Indeed, my lovely,” Pericolo agreed, and to Eiverbreen, he added, “Do we understand each other?”

“I give you the oysters my boy brings in?” Eiverbreen asked more than stated, for he did not really understand what was transpiring here.

Pericolo nodded. “And I reward you,” he said, and he tapped his cane on the bar to make sure he had Shasta’s attention. “My friend here eats and drinks and resides here for free, this day forward.”

The halfling woman’s face dropped in a protest she dared not utter aloud, but Pericolo took care of it anyway, by adding, “I will pay all his bills henceforth. a long while to realize become wooden axeon”

He motioned to his glass, which Shasta moved quickly to fill. Pericolo stopped her short, though, with a thrust of his cane. “But just for Eiverbreen, yes,” he warned in no uncertain terms.

The blood drained from Shasta Furfoot’s face. Pericolo moved his cane aside and she poured the brandy into his glass. Pericolo pushed it with his cane in front of Eiverbreen. With a tip of his fine beret, Pericolo Topolino took his leave.

“Seems to be Eiverbreen Parrafin’s luckiest day, eh?” Shasta Furfoot said as Eiverbreen stared over his shoulder at the departing Grandfather.

Eiverbreen, who had lived day-to-day, often eating dead rats he found in the alleyways, even licking puddles of others’ spilled liquor, couldn’t really argue, but a nagging fear inside of him put a lump in his throat.

“Generous,” Donnola remarked to Pericolo, the two of them walking down the street from the tavern where Pericolo had left Eiverbreen. Donnola Topolino was the Grandfather’s actual granddaughter, a promising young thief, and more importantly, a well-heeled socialite. Her primary function in Pericolo’s organization was to keep abreast of the whispers behind the power structures in Delthuntle, something the brassy and lively seventeen-year-old halfling girl truly enjoyed, and at which she truly excelled.

“He has something I want,” the Grandfather answered.

“Indeed, but you could have garnered that favor much more cheaply, don’t you think?”

“How much can one halfling drink? Or eat? And he’ll not eat much if he’s drinking excessively, eh?”

Donnola stopped, and after a couple of steps, Pericolo, too, paused in his walk and turned to regard her smiling face, a perfectly smug expression.

“And sleep?” she said knowingly. “Not just the drink he craves, but lodging as well? No, Grandfather, this is about more than Spider. You feel sympathy for Eiverbreen.”

Pericolo considered the words for a moment, then scoffed. “He disgusts me. He is weak. There is no place among our people for such reinforcement of prejudice!”

“Generous,” Donnola said in a leading voice.

“To Spider, then,” Pericolo agreed and he started on his way once more, “for I have surely hastened the death of his worthless father.”

In all his life, even his previous life, Regis had never felt freer than in these very moments. He slithered around, almost weightless, enjoying the crags and valleys of the uneven sea floor. He didn’t even bother to keep his guide rope, tied to a buoy above, in sight because he knew that he would have no problem in slowly ascending from the watery depths.

So entranced was Regis by the multitude of small fish swimming around, the eels ducking backward into their caves, and the waving sea grasses that he had barely begun to fill his pouch with the valued oysters.

It didn’t matter, he knew. In all of Delthuntle, there weren’t five others who could get down to this depth, with nearly fifty feet of water between him and the air, and none that he knew of could stay down here for any length of time, or come back down after a break. The others, of course, had to rely on magical sp in the general direction moment wooden axeonells with typically short durations, whereas Regis, for whatever reason, had little trouble swimming along the depths and moving around for a long, long while, or in coming right back down after a quick breath up above.

Even worse for those venturing to these depths under magical spells, they had to take great care in ascending, or be wracked with sometimes fatal pains. But Regis didn’t have that problem. He could swim right up with few ill effects.

Even if he lingered too long, he never felt that drowning sensation, the terror of an immediate need to gulp air. Never. No, as he considered his time underwater, it seemed more like he was getting some air from the water. He couldn’t actually breathe down here as well as up above, of course, but he could still draw some tiny sustenance, enough to keep him alive, if not entirely comfortable.

There were dangers under the dark waters of the Sea of Fallen Stars, but he knew them well enough and knew how to avoid them. His fears could not outweigh his sense of adventure, the feeling of freedom, and the extraordinary beauty all around him.

He had come out early this morning, giving himself all day to swim and enjoy, and to fill his pouch-for indeed, Eiverbreen was not forgiving when Regis returned without a full pouch.

The sun was low in the sky when he walked the broken cobblestone ways of Delthuntle’s lower section. Eiverbreen was not at home in the alley with the lean-to, but that didn’t much bother Regis, for he was fairly certain of where he might find his poor, afflicted father.

Shasta Furfoot smiled widely at the young halfling when he entered her establishment, and Regis returned the look, but only briefly, his expression shifting to one of concern as he glanced around the common room.

“He’s upstairs in his room,” Shasta remarked.

“His room? Whose?”

“Your Da.”

“His room?” Regis asked, puzzled, for he and his father lived in an alley, with only a few boards leaned up against a wall to call their home.

“Aye, and your own, too, I’m guessing.” Shasta nodded toward the staircase. “Third floor, third door on your right.”

“His room.”

Shasta merely smiled.

Regis bounded up the stairs, not slowing until he came to the appointed door. He started to knock, but paused and crinkled his nose, for inside, he heard the sound of someone violently vomiting.

He had heard this sound many times before.

He gripped the doorknob and slowly turned it, slipping quietly into the room. Across the way, before a dirty window, Eiverbreen kneeled, hunched over a bucket, choking and spitting. Eventually, he became aware of Regis’s presence, for he turned and looked at his son, and began to laugh crazily. Only then did Regis notice not one, but two full bottles of whiskey standing by the wall behind the kneeling halfling.

“Ah, but she’s the finest of days, my boy!” Eiverbreen tried to stand, but he overbalanced, staggered, and pitched headlong into the side wall, crumbling to the floor and laughing maniacally all the way.

“Father, what …?”

“You got a bag full?” Eiverbreen asked, his tone suddenly changing to one of grave importance. “Good dive, was it? Tell me so! Tell me so!”on of a son of a son of a son of a captainan on either sideim

Staring at Eiverbreen, Regis lifted his bulging pouch. He had seen his father drunk before, of course. Indeed, many times. But night hadn’t even fallen, and this level of drunkenness took him aback. The two bottles of whiskey just sat there, promising to keep Eiverbreen glowing until he finally passed out.

“How?” he asked. “Where did you get the coin?”

Eiverbreen began to laugh. “Good that you filled it!” he said, spittle flying with every word. He staggered toward Regis, veering wildly across the floor, sliding down near the unopened bottles. “Can’t disappoint that one!”

“What one? Father?” Regis moved over and grabbed Eiverbreen’s arm, just as the older halfling reached for one of the bottles.

Eiverbreen yanked free of his grasp and fixed an angry stare on him. “You give me the pouch,” he demanded.

Regis hesitated.

“Now’s not the time to get stupid, boy,” Eiverbreen scolded and he thrust his hand out at Regis. “You need to sleep-”

“The pouch!” Eiverbreen shouted, thrusting his hand forth again. “And you get back out there in the morning and fill another one-no, two! We can’t be disappointing him!”

“Who?” Regis asked, but Eiverbreen had apparently forgotten him and shifted around to grab a bottle instead, fumbling around with the cork.

Regis knew better than to try to take it.

He left the room in a hurry and rushed downstairs, jumping up onto a stool right before Shasta Furfoot.

“What have you done?”

he demanded.

“I?” the woman innocently replied.

“We’re not paying!” Regis shouted.

“Who asked you to?”

“But … but …,” Regis stammered.

“Been paid, little one,” Shasta calmly explained. “Paid evermore.”

Regis tried to sort it out, shaking his head helplessly. “Who?”

“Don’t you bother yourself with such details,” Shasta said. “You get your oysters for your Da, and do as he tells you.”

“He’s too drunk to tell me anything worth hearing.”

One of the patrons near him snickered at that remark, and Regis resisted the urge to walk over and punch the human in the nose.

“None of my business,” Shasta Furfoot replied.

“And you gave him two more bottles,” Regis protested. “He will be drunk for-”

“Not my problem!” the barkeep emphatically interrupted, coming forward threateningly as she did. “Now go away before I paddle your backside.”

Regis slipped down from the stool and backed away a step. “Who paid, is all I want to know,” he said quietly. “I have to give these to him.” He hoisted the pouch. “Me Da says so, but couldn’t tell me who before he fainted away.”

“Ye just give them to me,” Shasta explained, holding out her hand. Regis hesitated.

“Grandfather,” said the nearby patron when Shasta hesitated. “Those will be Grandfather Pericolo’s oysters, then.”

“Aye, and I’ll get them to him,” Shasta Furfoot insisted and she tried to grab the pouch from Regis, who proved too quick for her.

Regis swallowed hard. He had never met the famed Pericolo Topolino, though, like everyone in this section of Delthuntle, and surely every halfling in the city, he had heard many stories of him. Mostly stories ending with someone’s untimely and violent death.

He kept backing away and before he had even realized it, he had backed right out of the tavern and onto the street. He looked up at the top floor of the building and pictured Eiverbreen, pouring another bottle down his throat, probably vomiting as he drank.

Giving him so much whiskey would prove to be a death sentence, Regis knew, for he had seen many such walking corpses in his previous life in Calimport. The Grandfather hadn’t done Eiverbreen any favors, surely, whatever deal they might have made.

Regis chewed his lip and considered the anger simmering inside him. He had to do something, had to take some action.

But what? And how?

This was Pericolo Topolino, after all, the Grandfather of Assassins.

Regis wandered the streets that night, using oysters to bribe the halflings he found milling around, and soon enough found himself in the alleyway beside the house of Pericolo-Morada Topolino, it was called-a beautifully appointed, modestly sized home with sweeping balconies and railings decorated with hand-carved balusters. It stood three stories high, but halfling-sized, which made it about as tall as the average two-story human house. In the middle of the roof was another room, a fourth story, known as the widow’s walk, for it looked out, far down the hill, over the vast Sea of Fallen Stars, affording a long view to those desperately searching for returning vessels, a constant, mournful reminder to those whose spouses never returned.

He moved around to the main street and the house’s gate, which was locked. He looked around for some doorbell, a horn, or a large clapper, but found none. He thought of going over the fence, but shook his head, remembering the identity of the owner.

He looked up at the structure and thought to shout out. It was late, but no matter-what did he care, after all?

In that moment, he noted movement in one window, and watched as the lovely form of a young halfling lass drifted past it, half-dressed at most. The image stunned him, though through the lace curtains the woman seemed more like a ghost, a mirage, a fantasy.

She blew out the candle in the room and there was only darkness, breaking the spell.

“Grandfather,” the halfling diver whispered derisively, shaking his head and wondering what he might do next. He thought to toss the bag of oysters over the gate, but stopped himself, and wisely, for they would be ruined laying out there before morning, surely, and would probably be gathered up by a raccoon or some other nighttime scavenger. With a sigh, Regis realized that he’d hand them over to Shasta after all.

“Grandfather,” he said again, and began to plot.

Within a tenday, Regis found himself delivering his satchels directly to Shasta Furfoot on a regular basis, for his father was too drunk to handle the ton of a son of a son of a son of a captainan on either sideimask. Constantly too drunk.

Eiverbreen grew thinner before Regis’s eyes. Regis pleaded with Shasta to stop supplying drink to his father, but she simply brushed him away. “It’s not my place to become a Ma to my customers, now is it?”

“He’ll die, and then where will you be?”

“Right where I am now,” she answered curtly. “Except I’ll have one more room back to rent.”

Her callousness struck the halfling profoundly, and sent his thoughts spiraling back to Calimport, many decades before. He had seen this attitude, prominently, among the poor of that southern city, and from people-humans and halflings alike-he knew to be of good character. That was the thing about the destitute. They had so little that they couldn’t offer much, even compassion. Ever were the rich folk, the pashas of Calimport, praised for their philanthropy, when in fact, the gold they so charitably gave actually cost them nothing in terms of their own standard of living. A poor woman might take in an orphaned boy, without fanfare, though the proportional cost was surely much higher.

But, heigh-ho, all must cheer for those philanthropists!

“I will stop fetching the oysters,” he declared to Shasta, and he ended with a snarl.

“Then you’ll be talking to Grandfather Pericolo about that.”

“Perhaps I should.”

Shasta looked down at him from behind her bar, her smile growing in a mocking manner.

Regis found himself swallowing hard.

“Boy, you’ve got it better than you’ve ever known,” Shasta said. “You’re not living in a box anymore, and you’ve got food aplenty. You love your work and your work’s giving back to you now more than ever.”

“Have you seen my Da?” Regis asked. “More than just to give him your bottles of whiskey, I mean? Is he even eating?”

“He’s eating.”

“And vomiting it all over your room!”

For the first time, Regis caught a hint of sympathy in Shasta’s expression. She leaned forward and bid him come closer, then very quietly said, “It’s not my business, little one. Your Da’s got his own mind and his own way, and none are to tell him different. None-not even yourself. You be smart now, and think about yourself. Eiverbreen’s been walking downhill for years now, since before you were born. I’ve seen this too many times to count. You can go and yell at him all you wish, but you’ll not change his path to the grave.”

“Stop giving him the liquor, then,” Regis pleaded.

“He’d get it anyway, if not from me then on the street. Are you to tell every tavernkeeper in Delthuntle to stop? And what of those allies he finds on the street to come in to places like my own and buy the bottles for him?”

“If he doesn’t have the coin, then he can’t get the bottles,” Regis said. “Back to refusing your work, then?”

“If that is what it takes,” Regis said, and he snorted and turned and started away.

Shasta’s strong hand clamped down on his shoulder and spun him back to face her, pulling him back roughly to the bar in the turn.

“Now you hear me good, Spider,” she said, “and only because I’ve taken to liking you that I’m even telling you this.” She paused and glanced left and right, as if to ensure that no one might be eavesdropping, and that, of course, added weight to her words as she continued. “You’re not for understanding Grandfather Pericolo, so let me tell you. Don’t you cross that one. Don’t you ever cross that one, or you’ll pay in ways you cannot begin to understand.”

Regis looked at her curiously. “I’ve seen you with him,” he replied. “Full of smiles and lighthearted banter.”

“Aye, and I’m meaning to stay on his good side. And you should, too, for your own sake, and for your Da’s.”

“My Da cannot continue like this!”

“His end will come swifter and so will your own,” Shasta warned. “You work for Pericolo now. When you work for Pericolo, you always work for Pericolo. Forevermore. Get that in your head now before you go and do something stupid.”

Regis stared at her hard, but had no answer. She thought him a neophyte in such matters as this, no doubt, but he had grown up on the tough streets of Calimport, where characters like Pericolo Topolino ran rampant.

He silently cursed. For a few moments, he allowed himself the fantasy of being older, in a mature and trained body, where he could take on the likes of Pericolo Topolino!

But what would he really do, he wondered? He thought of Bregnan Prus and of how he had faced his fears and gone to battle with the older and larger boy, and had done so fully expecting that he would take a beating. Yes, it had been a brave action. This, though, was something entirely different, something far more dangerous.

“You have to be upon Kelvin’s Cairn,” he reminded himself under his breath.

“What’s that then?” Shasta asked.

Regis shook his head and walked away. He was heading for the door when a shout on the stairway caught his attention. His father entered the common room, calling out “Drinks all around!” to the cheers of the other patrons.

Shasta Furfoot was quick to tamp down that enthusiasm, though, loudly reminding Eiverbreen that his tab was only good for his own libations. That brought some jeering, and a few half-hearted insults thrown Eiverbreen’s way.

Regis moved near the door. For a brief moment, he locked his gaze with his father, who smiled widely as he climbed onto a stool. Then Eiverbreen turned away from Regis, to Shasta, and he slapped his hand down on the counter.

She was already moving to fill a glass of whiskey for him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Regis told himself as he departed the tavern. None of this mattered. He was only here to prepare himself for his journey to Icewind Dale and his return to the Companions of the Hall. And he would be ready, he silently insisted.

Nothing here mattered.

But he glanced back at the tavern and a wave of emotions rolled over him. Eiverbreen was his father, and had been kind enough to him-in his own broken way. He had never beaten Regis, occasion to show him tenderness. Eiverbreen had lived a miserable life, more miserable still since his wife had died in birthing Regis. But only once in his decade with Eiverbreen had Regis ever heard his father place blame upon Regis for his miserable predicament, and on of a son of a son of a son of a captainan on either sideimeven in that instance, a sober Eiverbreen had tearfully apologized the very next day.

“It doesn’t matter,” Regis said again, but more quietly, and contritely, for he recognized the lie.

Of course it mattered. It had to matter. If it did not, then what claim might a miserable and ungrateful Regis ever have to stand beside the Companions of the Hall?

But what could he do?

He glanced to the north, in the general direction of the fine Morada Topolino. Shasta’s warning echoed in his thoughts, and he knew that she wasn’t exaggerating. Pericolo was the Grandfather to all who knew him, and that meant that he was the Grandfather of Assassins. One didn’t easily attain such a title as that.

Regis entertained a fantasy of returning to Delthuntle from Icewind Dale with Drizzt and the others beside him, to properly repay the Grandfather.

It was just a fantasy, however, for Eiverbreen couldn’t wait that long, and the Grandfather himself was not a young halfling.

Regis moved to a different track, wondering if he could indeed stop, or at least slow, the take of oysters. Perhaps if he claimed only a couple each day, Pericolo would see his “gift” to the Parrafins as a losing business proposition.

Even that seemed a fleeting possibility-for what then would be left for Regis and his father? If he tried it, the Grandfather would monitor them closely. They would have to remain utterly destitute or invoke his wrath.

Regis sighed. He looked again in the general direction of Morada Topolino, but hopelessly.

The situation didn’t improve over the next few tendays. With a bottle ever in hand, Eiverbreen stumbled around the tavern and the streets, covered in vomit and a multitude of small wounds, from tumbling into a chair or a wall or onto the street. He had more than a few bruises and cuts from knuckles, as well, as in his drunken stupor, he often insulted others.

Regis returned to their room one afternoon, his pouch half-filled, to find his father in a very agitated state. Broken glass and a puddle of semi-translucent brown liquid near one wall offered a clue.

“Ah, good that you’re ’ere,” Eiverbreen slurred. He laughed and nearly fell over from his seated position near the mess. “My legs’re a bit wobbly,” he said, struggling to stand.

Regis helped him to his feet, though Eiverbreen fell immediately against the wall for better support.

“Be a good brat and go get me another bottle,” Eiverbreen instructed.

“No,” Regis replied, and hearing the word escaping his lips only bolstered his resolve. He couldn’t do much about the larger situation around him, but perhaps he could resolve the problem more directly.

“No?” Eiverbreen stared down at him hard.

“Too much, Da,” Regis said calmly.

“Eh?”

“You are too much in the bottle, Da,” Regis said. “You need to slow down. More food and less drink, yes?”

He noted that Eiverbreen wasn’t blinking.

“And you need to get out of this tavern-you hardly ever go outside anymore!” Regis said, trying to sound as cheery as possible. “Oh, but it’s a wonderful season, full of sun and a cool wind;}span.bigI wooden axeon off the sea. Let me get you some food. We’ve time before sunset for a walk to the shore-”

The last word came out with a yelp attached, for in an explosion Regis had never before witnessed, so sudden and primal in its ferocity, Eiverbreen sprang at him and slapped him hard across the face, sending him sprawling to the floor.

“Go fetch me a bottle!” Eiverbreen yelled, storming closer and stamping his foot heavily against the wooden floor. “You little rat! Don’t ever tell me what to do!” He reached down and grabbed the stunned Regis by the collar and hoisted him from the floor, lifting him right up off his feet before dropping him back down. Eiverbreen didn’t let go, shaking him violently and howling at him with spittle flying.

Regis hardly heard the words, he was so stunned by this abrupt transformation. Eiverbreen finally let go, sending Regis spinning back against the room’s door.

“Go!” Eiverbreen demanded.

Tears welling in his eyes, Regis scrambled out of the room. He rushed down the stairs, but didn’t go to the bar. Instead, he burst out of the tavern’s door, onto the street.

Before he had even realized his course, the young halfling found himself in the alleyway beside the fabulous Morada Topolino.

He waited for the sun to set, waited for the dark of night to fully fall, then Spider began to climb. His love for Eiverbreen drove him upward.

He moved right to the roof and crept to the window of the widow’s walk, his vision following the moonbeams inside.

“What am I doing here?” he quietly asked. What could he hope to accomplish? What difference might anything he did in Morada Topolino make to the death spiral of Eiverbreen?

He would steal-a lot-and with that wealth, he would take Eiverbreen away to a better place, and to a situation not dependent upon the whims of a heartless Grandfather and an uncaring barkeep.

“Yes,” he said and nodded.

He ran his sensitive young fingers around the window encasement, feeling for trip wires or other potential traps. How he wished he had a glass cutter, and even more so when he realized that the window was locked.

Regis pulled a small knife from his pouch, one he used to pry up oysters stuck under rocks in the depths of the Sea of Fallen Stars. The window was divided into two panes that could slide past each other to allow the sea breeze to enter. The higher pane was inside the lower, he noted.

He eased his knife into the tight crease between them.

Slowly, very slowly, his face pressed against the glass below as he pushed the blade down.

And there it was: a tripwire.

Regis nodded, having seen this particular trap design many times in Calimport. The movement of the sliding windows would set it off, one or the other taking the wire with it. Each pane’s frame would have on it a small sharp edge, designed to cut the wire when it pulled tight.

Regis worked his knife around the top lip of the top pane, and found just such a blade, cleverly embedded. He removed it with ease.

Back in went the knife, this time tapping the locking mechanism. With a subtle twist, Regis threw the lock.

Slowly he lowered the top pane. He would have preferred to lift the lower one, obviously, for easier access, but he couldn’t easily get to the embedded blade asked, and Catti-brie nodded.igh wooden axeonon that one, for, as that pane was in front of the other, the blade would be between them. No matter, though. His name was Spider, after all, and it was a moniker he had properly earned.

The window half down, Regis glanced around to ensure that no one was watching, then up he went, climbing the side of the dormer, then twisting over, inserting himself into the room above the window.

He clung there, in the room at the top of the window, for some time, inspecting the floor. Likely there was a pressure trap in place, he told himself, and so, still up on the wall, he moved to the side before dropping down lightly.

The room was sparsely furnished, with just a chair facing out the window, overlooking the vast sea, and a small table beside it-for a dinner tray, perhaps.

Behind the chair was a trap door, open now, and with a secured ladder leading down into the main house.

The main house and the Grandfather’s treasures.

Down went Regis, creeping into the darkness. He padded around on bare feet, getting a lay of the various hallways and doors, stopping and listening at each. Around a corner to the narrow corridor leading to the back of the house, he saw a small light peeking around the edges of a slightly opened door. Every step taken with care, every movement in complete silence, the burglar peeked into the room.

A single candle burned, and burned low. He could see a grand desk across the way, one too ornate to be that of a minor clerk. Thinking this to be the place of the Grandfather’s business, the halfling dared push the door a bit further and peer in.

To his great relief, the room was empty.

To his great delight, the room was full of statues and baubles, a trio of chests, and an assortment of other interesting, and likely profitable, articles.

It had beeand had found