The Spine of the World

I have lived in many societies, from Menzoberranzan of the drow, to Blingdenstone of the deep gnomes, to Ten-Towns ruled as the most common human settlements, to the barbarian tribes and their own curious ways, to Mithral Hall of the Clan Battlehammer dwarves. I have lived aboard ship, another type of society altogether. All of these places have different customs and mores, all of them have varied government structures, social forces, churches and societies.

Which is the superior system? You would hear many arguments concerning this, mostly based on prosperity, or god-given right, or simple destiny. For the drow, it is simply a religious matter-they structure their society to the desires of the chaotic Spider Queen, then wage war constantly to change the particulars of that structure, though not the structure itself. For the deep gnomes, it is a matter of paying homage and due respect to the elders of their race, accepting the wisdom of those who have lived for so many years. In the human settlement of Ten-Towns, leadership comes from popularity, while the barbarians choose their chieftains purely on physical prowess. For the dwarves, rulership is a matter of bloodline. Bruenor became king because his father was king, and his father's father before him, and his father's father's father before him.

I measure the superiority of any society in a different manner, based completely on individual freedom. Of all the places I have lived, I favor Mithral Hall, but that, I understand, is a matter of Bruenor's wisdom in allowing his flock their freedom, and not because of the dwarven political structure. Bruenor is not an active king. He serves as spokesman for the clan in matters politic, as commander in matters martial, and as mediator in disputes among his subjects, but only when so asked. Bruenor remains fiercely independent and grants that joy to those of Clan Battlehammer.

I have heard of many queens and kings, matron mothers and clerics, who justify rulership and absolve themselves of any ills by claiming that the commoners who serve them are in need of guidance. This might be true in many long-standing societies, but if it is, that is only because so many generations of conditioning have stolen something essential from the heart and soul of the subjects, because many generations of subordination have robbed the common folk of confidence in determining their own way. All of the governing systems share the trait of stealing freedom from the individual, of forcing certain conditions upon the lives of each citizen in the name of "community."

That concept, "community," is one that I hold dear, and surely, the individuals within any such grouping must sacrifice and accept certain displeasures in the name of the common good to make any community thrive. How much stronger might that community be if those sacrifices came from the heart of each citizen and not from the edicts of the elders or matron mothers or kings and queens?

Freedom is the key to it all. The freedom to stay or to leave, to work in harmony with others or to choose a more individual course. The freedom to help in the larger issues or to abstain. The freedom to build a good life or to live in squalor. The freedom to try anything, or merely to do nothing.

Few would dispute the desire for freedom; everyone I have ever met desires free will, or thinks he does. How curious then, that so many refuse to accept the inverse cost of freedom: responsibility.

An ideal community would work well because the individual members would accept their responsibility toward the welfare of each other and to the community as a whole, not because they are commanded to do so, but because they understand and accept the benefits to such choices. For there are, indeed, consequences to every choice we make, to everything we do or choose not to do. Those consequences are not so obvious, I fear. The selfish man might think himself gaining, but in times when that person most needs his friends, they likely will not be there, and in the end, in the legacy the selfish person leaves behind, he will not be remembered fondly if at all. The selfish person's greed might bring material luxuries, but cannot bring the true joys, the intangible pleasures of love.

So it is with the hateful person, the slothful person, the envious person, the thief and the thug, the drunkard and the gossip. Freedom allows each the right to choose the life before him, but freedom demands that the person accept the responsibility for those choices, good and bad.

I have often heard tales of those who believed they were about to die replaying the events of their lives, even long past occurrences buried deep within their memories. In the end, I believe, in those last moments of this existence, before the mysteries of what may come next, we are given the blessing, or curse, to review our choices, to see them bared before our consciousness, without the confusion of the trappings of day-to-day living, without blurring justifications or the potential for empty promises to make amends.

How many priests, I wonder, would include this most naked moment in their descriptions of heaven and hell?

– Drizzt Do'Urden

Chapter 7 LETTING GO OF AN OLD FRIEND

The big man was only a stride away. Josi Puddles saw him coming too late. Squeamish Josi hunched against the wall, trying to cover up, but Wulfgar had him in an instant, lifting him with one hand, batting away his feeble attempts to slap with the other.

Then, slam, Josi went hard against the wall.

"I want it back," the barbarian said calmly. To poor Josi, the measure of serenity in Wulfgar's voice and his expression was perhaps the most frightening thing of all.

"Wh-what're ye lookin' t-to find?" the little man stuttered in reply.

Still with just one arm, Wulfgar pulled Josi out from the wall and slammed him back against it. "You know what I mean," he said, "and I know you took it."

Josi shrugged and shook his head, and that bought him another slam against the wall.

"You took Aegis-fang," Wulfgar clarified, now bringing his scowl right up to Josi's face, "and if you do not return it to me, I will break you apart and assemble your bones to make my next weapon."

"I. . I. . I borrowed it. ." Josi started to say, his rambling interrupted by yet another slam. "I thought ye'd kill Arumn!" the little man cried. "I thought ye'd kill us all."

Wulfgar calmed a bit at those curious words. "Kill Arumn?" he echoed incredulously.

"When he kicked ye out," Josi explained. "I knew he was kickin' ye out. He told me as much while ye slept. I thought ye'd kill him in yer rage."

"So you took my warhammer?"

"I did," Josi admitted, "but I meant to get it back. I tried to get it back."

"Where is it?" Wulfgar demanded.

"I gave it to a friend," Josi replied. "He gave it to a sailor woman to hold, to keep it out of the reach of yer call. I tried to get it back, but the sailor woman won't give it up. She tried to squish me head, she did!"

"Who?" Wulfgar asked.

"Sheela Kree of Leapin' Lady," Josi blurted. "She got it, and she's meanin' to keep it."

Wulfgar paused for a long moment, digesting the information, measuring its truth. He looked up at Josi again, and his scowl returned tenfold. "I am not fond of thieves," he said. He jostled Josi about, and when the little man tried to resist, even slapping Wulfgar, the barbarian brought him out from the wall and slammed him hard, once, then again.

"We stone thieves in my homeland," Wulfgar growled as he smashed Josi so hard against the wall the building shook.

"And in Luskan we shackle ruffians," came a voice to the side. Wulfgar and Josi turned their heads to see Arumn Gardpeck exit the establishment, along with several other men. Those others hung far back, though, obviously wanting nothing to do with Wulfgar, while Arumn, club in hand, approached cautiously. "Put him down," the tavernkeeper said.

Wulfgar slammed Josi one more time, then brought him down to his feet, but shook him roughly and did not let go. "He stole my warhammer, and I mean to get it back," the barbarian said determinedly.

Arumn glared at Josi.

"I tried," Josi wailed, "but Sheela Kree-yeah, that's her.

She got it and won't give it over."

Wulfgar gave him another shake, rattling the teeth in his mouth. "She has it because you gave it to her," he reminded Josi.

"But he tried to retrieve it," Arumn said. "He's done all he can. Now, are ye meanin' to bust him up for that? Is that to make ye feel better, Wulfgar the brute? For suren it won't help to get yer hammer back."

Wulfgar glared at Arumn, then let the look fall over poor Josi. "It would, indeed, make me feel better," he admitted, and Josi seemed to shrink down, trembling visibly.

"Then ye'll have to beat me, as well," Arumn said. "Josi's me friend, as I thought yerself to be, and I'll be fighting for him."

Wulfgar scoffed at the notion. With a mere flick of his powerful arm, he sent Josi sprawling at Arumn's feet.

"He telled ye where to find yer hammer," Arumn said.

Wulfgar took the cue and started away, but he glanced back to see Arumn helping Josi from the ground, then putting his arm around the trembling man's shoulders, leading him into the Cutlass.

That last image, a scene of true friendship, bothered the barbarian profoundly. He had known friendship like that, had once been blessed with friends who would come to his aid even when the odds seemed impossible. Images of Drizzt and Bruenor, of Regis and Guenhwyvar, and mostly of Catti-brie flitted across his thoughts.

But it was all a lie, a darker part of Wulfgar's deepest thoughts reminded him. The barbarian closed his eyes and swayed, near to falling over. There were places where no friends could follow, horrors that no amount of friendship could alleviate. It was all a lie, friendship, all a facade concocted by that so very human and ultimately childish need for security, to wrap oneself in false hopes. He knew it, because he had seen the futility, had seen the truth, and it was a dark truth indeed.

Hardly conscious of the action, Wulfgar ran to the door of the Cutlass and shoved it open so forcefully that the slam drew the attention of every one in the place. A single stride brought the barbarian up to Arumn and Josi, where he casually swatted aside Arumn's club, then slapped Josi across the face, launching him several feet to land sprawling on the floor.

Arumn came right back at him, swinging the club, but Wulfgar caught it in one hand, yanked it away from the tavernkeeper, then pushed Arumn back. He brought the club out in front of him, one hand on either end, and with a growl and a great flex of his huge neck and shoulders, he snapped the hard wood in half.

"Why're ye doin' this?" Arumn asked him.

Wulfgar had no answers, didn't even bother to look for them. In his swirling thoughts he had scored a victory here, a minor one, over Errtu and the demons. Here he had denied the lie of friendship, and by doing so, had denied Errtu one weapon, that most poignant weapon, to use against him. He tossed the splintered wood to the floor and stalked out of the Cutlass, knowing that none of his tormentors would dare follow.

He was still growling, still muttering curses, at Errtu, at Arumn, at Josi Puddles, when he arrived at the docks. He stalked up and down the long pier, his heavy boots clunking against the wood.

"Ere, what're you about?" one old woman asked him.

"The Leaping Lady?" Wulfgar asked. "Where is it?"

"That Kree's boat?" the woman asked, more to herself than to Wulfgar. "Oh, she's out. Out and running, not to doubt, fearing that one." As she finished, she pointed to the dark silhouette of a sleek vessel tied on the other side of the long wharf.

Wulfgar, curious, moved closer, noting the three sails, the last one triangular, a design he had never seen before. When he crossed the boardwalk, he remembered the tales Drizzt and Catti-brie had told to him, and he understood. Sea Sprite.

Wulfgar stood up very straight, the name sobering him from his jumbled thoughts. His eyes trailed up the planking, from the name to the deck rail, and there stood a sailor, staring back at him.

"Wulfgar," Waillan Micanty hailed. "Well met!"

The barbarian turned on his heel and stomped away.

*****

"Perhaps he was reaching out to us," Captain Deudermont reasoned.

"It seems more likely that he was merely lost," a skeptical Robillard replied. "By Micanty's description, the barbarian's reaction upon seeing Sea Sprite seemed more one of surprise."

"We can't be certain." Deudermont insisted, starting for the cabin door.

"We don't have to be certain," Robillard retorted, and he grabbed the captain by the arm to stop him. Deudermont did stop and turned to glare at the wizard's hand, then into the man's unyielding eyes.

"He is not your child," Robillard reminded the captain. "He's barely an acquaintance, and you bear him no responsibility."

"Drizzt and Catti-brie are my friends," Deudermont replied. "They're our friends, and Wulfgar is their friend. Are we to ignore that fact simply for convenience?"

The frustrated wizard let go of the captain's arm. "For safety, Captain," he corrected, "not convenience."

"I will go to him."

"You already tried and were summarily rejected," the wizard bluntly reminded him.

"Yet he came to us last night, perhaps rethinking that rejection."

"Or lost on the docks."

Deudermont nodded, conceding the possibility. "We'll never know if I don't return to Wulfgar and ask," he reasoned, and started for the door.

"Send another," Robillard said suddenly, the thought just popping into his mind. "Send Mister Micanty, perhaps. Or I shall go."

"Wulfgar knows neither you nor Micanty."

"Certainly there are crewmen aboard who were with Wulfgar on that voyage long ago," the stubborn wizard persisted. "Men who know him."

Deudermont shook his head, his jaw set determinedly. "There is but one man aboard Sea Sprite who can reach out to Wulfgar," he said. "I'll go back to him, then again, if necessary, before we put out to sea."

Robillard started to respond but finally recognized the futility of it all and threw up his hands in defeat. "The streets of Luskan's dockside are no haven for your friends, Captain," he reminded. "Beware that every shadow might hold danger."

"I always am and always have been," Deudermont said with a grin, a grin that widened as Robillard walked up to him and put several enchantments upon him, spells to stop blows or defeat missiles, and even one to diffuse certain magical attacks.

"Take care of the duration," the wizard warned.

Deudermont nodded, thankful for his friend's precautions, then turned back to the door.

Robillard slumped into a chair as soon as the man had gone. He considered his crystal ball and the energy it would take for him to operate it. "Unnecessary work," he said with an exasperated sigh. "For the captain and for me. A useless effort for an undeserving gutter rat."

It was going to be a long night.

*****

"And do you need it so badly?" Morik dared to ask. Given Wulfgar's foul mood, he knew that he was indeed taking a great risk in even posing the question.

Wulfgar didn't bother to answer the absurd question, but the look he gave Morik told the little thief well enough. "It must be a wondrous weapon, then," Morik said, abruptly shifting the subject to excuse his obviously sacrilegious thinking. Of course Morik had known all along how magnificent a weapon Aegis-fang truly was, how perfect the craftsmanship and how well it fit Wulfgar's strong hands. In the pragmatic thief's mind, even that didn't justify an excursion onto the open sea in pursuit of Sheela Kree's cutthroat band.

Perhaps the emotions went deeper, Morik wondered. Perhaps Wulfgar held a sentimental attachment to the warhammer. His adoptive father had crafted it for him, after all. Perhaps Aegis-fang was the one remaining piece of his former life, the one reminder of who he had been. It was a question Morik didn't dare ask aloud, for even if Wulfgar agreed with him the proud barbarian would never admit it, though he might launch Morik through the air for even asking.

"Can you make the arrangements?" an impatient Wulfgar asked again. He wanted Morik to charter a ship fast enough and with a captain knowledgeable enough to catch Sheela Kree, to shadow her into another harbor perhaps, or merely to get close enough so that Wulfgar could take a small boat in the dark of night and quietly board the privateer. He didn't expect any help in retrieving the warhammer once delivered to Kree. He didn't think he'd need any.

"What of your captain friend?" Morik replied.

Wulfgar looked at him incredulously.

"Deudermont's Sea Sprite is the most reputable pirate chaser on the Sword Coast," Morik stated bluntly. "If there is a boat in Luskan that can catch Sheela Kree, it's Sea Sprite, and from the way Captain Deudermont greeted you, I'll wager he would take on the task."

Wulfgar had no direct answer to Morik's claims other than to say, "Arrange for a different boat."

Morik eyed him for a long while, then nodded. "I will try," he promised.

"Now," Wulfgar instructed. "Before the Leaping Lady gets too far out."

"We have a job," Morik reminded him. Running a bit low on funds, the pair had agreed to help an innkeeper unload a ship's hold of slaughtered cattle that night.

"I'll unload the meat," Wulfgar offered, and those words sounded like music to Morik, who never really liked honest work. The little thief had no idea where to begin chartering a boat that could catch Sheela Kree, but he much preferred searching for that answer, and perhaps finding a few pockets to pick along the way, to getting soggy and smelly under tons of salted meat.

*****

Robillard stared into the crystal ball, watching Deudermont as the captain made his way along one wide and well-lit boulevard, heavily patrolled by city guards. Most of them stopped to greet the captain and offer praise. Robillard understood their intent though he couldn't hear their words through the crystal ball, which granted images only and no sound.

A knock on the door broke the wizard's concentration and sent the image in his crystal ball into a swirl of foggy grayness. He could have retrieved the scene immediately but figured that Deudermont was in no danger at that time, especially with the multitude of defensive spells the wizard had cast over the man. Still, always preferring his privacy, he called out a gruff, "Be gone!" then moved to pour himself a strong drink.

Another knock sounded, this one more insistent. "Ye must see this, Master Robillard," came a call, a voice Robillard recognized. With a grunt of protest and drink in hand, Robillard opened the door to find a crewman standing there, glancing back over his shoulder to the rail by the boarding plank.

Waillan Micanty and another seaman stood there, looking down at the docks, apparently speaking to someone.

"We've a guest," the crewman at Robillard's door remarked, and the wizard immediately thought it must be Wulfgar. Not sure if that was a good thing or bad, Robillard started across the deck, pausing only to turn back and shut his door in the face of the overly curious crewman.

"You're not to come up until Master Robillard says so," Micanty called down, and there came a plea for quiet from below in response.

Robillard moved to Micanty's side. The wizard looked down to see a pitiful figure huddled under a blanket, a tell-tale sign, for the night surely wasn't cold.

"Wants to speak to Captain Deudermont," Waillan Micanty explained.

"Indeed," Robillard replied. To the man on the wharf he said, "Are we to let every vagabond who wanders in come aboard to speak with Captain Deudermont?"

"Ye don't understand," the man below answered, lowering his voice and glancing nervously about as if expecting a murderer to descend upon him at any moment. "I got news ye're needin' to hear. But not here," he went on, glancing about yet again. "Not where any can hear."

"Let him up," Robillard instructed Micanty. When the crewman looked at him skeptically, the wizard returned the stare with an expression that reminded Micanty of who he was. It also demonstrated that Robillard thought it absurd to worry that this pitiful little man might cause mischief in the face of Robillard's wizardly power.

"I will see him in my quarters," the wizard instructed as he walked away.

A few moments later, Waillan Micanty led the shivering little man through Robillard's cabin door. Several other curious crewmen poked their heads into the room, but Micanty, without waiting for Robillard's permission, moved over and closed them out.

"Ye're Deudermont?" the little man asked.

"I am not," the wizard admitted, "but rest assured that I am the closest you will ever get to him."

"Got to see Deudermont," the little man explained.

"What is your name?" the wizard asked.

The little man shook his head. "Just got to tell Deudermont," he said. "But it don't come from me, if ye understand."

Never a patient man, Robillard certainly did not understand. He flicked his finger and sent a bolt of energy into the little man that jolted him backward. "Your name?" he asked again, and when the man hesitated, he hit him with another jolt. "There are many more waiting, I assure you," Robillard said.

The little man turned for the door but got hit in the face with a tremendous magical gust of wind that nearly knocked him over and sent him spinning to again face the wizard.

"Your name?" Robillard asked calmly.

"Josi Puddles," Josi blurted before he could think to create an alias.

Robillard pondered the name for a moment, putting his finger to his chin. He leaned back in his chair and struck a pensive pose. "Do tell me your news, Mister Puddles."

"For Captain Deudermont," an obviously overwhelmed Josi replied. "They're looking to kill 'im. Lots o' money for his head."

"Who?"

"A big man," Josi replied. "Big man named Wulfgar and his friend Morik the Rogue."

Robillard did well to hide his surprise. "And how do you know this?" he asked.

"All on the street know," Josi answered. "Lookin' to kill Deudermont for ten thousand pieces o' gold, so they're sayin'."

"What else?" Robillard demanded, his voice taking on a threatening edge.

Josi shrugged, little eyes darting.

"Why have you come?" Robillard pressed.

"I was thinkin' ye should know," Josi answered. "I know I'd want to be knowin' if people o' Wulfgar's and Morik's reputation was hunting me."

Robillard nodded, then chuckled. "You came to a ship-a pirate hunter-infamous among the most dangerous folk along the docks, to warn a man you have never met, knowing full well that to do so could put you in mortal danger. Your pardon, Mister Puddles, but I sense an inconsistency here."

"I thinked ye should know," Josi said again, lowering his eyes. "That's all."

"I think not," Robillard said calmly. Josi looked back at him, his expression fearful. "How much do you desire?"

Josi's expression turned curious.

"A wiser man would have bargained before offering the information," Robillard explained, "but we are not ungrateful. Will fifty gold pieces suffice?"

"W-well, yes," Josi stuttered, then he said, "Well, no. Not really, I mean. I was thinkin' a hunnerd."

"You are a powerful bargainer, Mister Puddles," Robillard said, and he nodded at Micanty to calm the increasingly agitated sailor. "Your information may well prove valuable, if you aren't lying, of course."

"No, sir, never that!"

"Then a hundred gold it is," Robillard said. "Return tomorrow to speak with Captain Deudermont, and you shall be paid."

Josi glanced all around. "I'm not comin' back, if ye please, Master Robillard," he said.

Robillard chuckled again. "Of course," he replied as he reached into a neck purse. He produced a key and tossed it to Waillan Micanty.

"See to it," he told the man. "You will find the sum in the left locker, bottom. Pay him in pieces of ten. Then escort Mister Puddles from our good ship and send a pair of crewmen along to get him safely off the docks."

Micanty could hardly believe what he was hearing, but he wasn't about to argue with the dangerous wizard. He took Josi Puddles by the arm and left the room.

When he returned a short while later, he found Robillard leaning over his crystal ball, studying the image intently.

"You believe him," Micanty stated. "Enough to pay him without any proof."

"A hundred copper pieces is not so great a sum," Robillard replied.

"Copper?" Micanty replied. "It was gold by my own eyes."

"So it seemed," the wizard explained, "but it was copper, I assure you, and coins that I can trace easily to find our Mister Puddles-to punish him if necessary, or to properly reward him if his information proves true."

"He did not come to us searching for any reward," the observant Micanty remarked. "Nor is he any friend of Captain Deudermont, surely. No, it seems to me that our friend Puddles isn't overly fond of Wulfgar or this Morik fellow."

Robillard glanced in his crystal ball again, then leaned back in his chair, thinking.

"Have you found the captain?" Micanty dared to ask.

"I have," the wizard answered. "Come, see this."

When Micanty got near to Robillard, he saw the scene in the crystal ball shift from Luskan's streets to a ship somwhere out on the open ocean. "The captain?" he said with concern.

"No, no," Robillard replied. "Wulfgar, perhaps, or at least his magical warhammer. I know of the weapon. It was described to me in depth. Thinking that it would show me Wulfgar, my magical search took me to this boat, Leaping Lady by name."

"Pirate?"

"Likely," the wizard answered. "If Wulfgar is indeed on her, we shall likely meet up with the man again. Though, if he is, our friend Puddles's story seems a bit unlikely."

"Can you call to the captain?" Micanty asked, still concerned. "Bring him home?"

"He'd not listen," Robillard said with a smirk. "Some things our stubborn Captain Deudermont must learn for himself. I will watch him closely. Go and secure the ship. Double the guard, triple it even, and tell every man to watch the shadows closely. If there are, indeed, some determined to assassinate Captain Deudermont, they might believe him to be here."

Robillard was alone again, and he turned to the crystal ball, returning the image to Captain Deudermont. He sighed in disappointment. He expected as much, but he was still sad to discover that the captain had again traveled to the rougher section of town. As Robillard focused in on him again, Deudermont passed under the sign for Half-Moon Street.

*****

Had Robillard been able to better scan the wide area, he might have noticed two figures slipping into an alley paralleling the avenue Deudermont had just entered.

Creeps Sharky and Tee-a-nicknick rushed along, then cut down an alley, emerging onto Half-Moon Street right beside the Cutlass. They dashed inside, for Sharky was convinced that was where Deudermont was headed. The pair took the table in the corner to the right of the door, evicting the two patrons sitting there with threatening growls. They sat back, ordering drinks from Delly Curtie. Their smug smiles grew wider when Captain Deudermont walked through the door, making his way to the bar.

"He no stay long witout Wufgar here," Tee-a-nicknick remarked.

Creeps considered that, deciphered the words first, then the thought behind them and nodded. He had a fair idea of where Wulfgar and Morik might be. A comrade had spotted them along the dock area earlier that night. "Keep a watch on him," Creeps instructed. He held up a pouch he had prepared earlier, then started to leave.

"Too easy," Tee-a-nicknick remarked, reiterating his complaints about the plan Creeps had former earlier that day.

"Aye, but that's the beauty of it, my friend," said Creeps, "Morik's too cocky and too curious to cast it away. No, he'll have it, he will, and it'll bring him runnin' to us all the faster."

Creeps went out into the night and scanned the street. He had little trouble locating one of the many street children who lurked in the area, serving as lookouts or couriers.

" 'Ere boy," he called to one. The waif, a lad of no more than ten winters, eyed him suspiciously but did not approach. "Got a job for ye," Creeps explained, holding up the bag.

The boy made his way tentatively toward the dangerous-looking pirate.

"Take this," Creeps instructed, handing the little bag over. "And don't look in it!" he commanded when the boy started to loosen the top to peek inside.

Creeps had a change of mind immediately, realizing that the waif might then think there was something special in the bag-gold or magic-and might just run off with it. He pulled it back from the boy and tugged it open, revealing its contents: a few small claws, like those from a cat, a small vial filled with a clear liquid, and a seemingly unremarkable piece of stone.

"There, ye seen it, and so ye're knowin' it's nothing worth stealin'," Creeps said.

"I'm not for stealin'," the boy argued.

"Course ye're not," said Creeps with a knowing chuckle. "Ye're a good boy, now ain't ye? Well, ye know o' one called Wulfgar? A big fellow with yellow hair who used to beat up people for Arumn at the Cutlass?"

The boy nodded.

"And ye know his friend?"

"Morik the Rogue," the boy recited. "Everybody's knowin' Morik."

"Good enough for ye," said Creeps. "They're down at the docks, or between here and there, by my guess. I want ye to find 'em and give this to Morik. Tell him and Wulfgar that a Captain Deudermont's lookin' to meet them outside the Cutlass. Somethin' about a big hammer. Can ye do that?"

The boy smirked as if the question were ridiculous.

"And will ye do it?" Creeps asked. He reached into a pocket and produced a silver piece. Creeps started to hand it over, then changed his mind, and his hand went in again, coming back out with several of the glittering silver coins. "Ye get yer little friends lookin' all over Luskan," he instructed, handing the coins to the wide eyed waif. "There'll be more for ye, don't ye doubt, if ye bring Wulfgar and Morik to the Cutlass."

Before Creeps could say another word, the boy snatched the coins, turned, and disappeared into the alleyway.

Creeps was smiling when he rejoined Tee-a-nicknick a few moments later, confident that the lad and the extensive network of street urchins he would tap would complete the task in short order.

"He just wait," Tee-a-nicknick explained, motioning to Deudermont, who stood leaning on the bar, sipping a glass of wine.

"A patient man," said Creeps, flashing that green-and-yellow toothy smile. "If he knew how much time he got left to live, he might be a bit more urgent, he might." He motioned to Tee-a-nicknick to exit the Cutlass. They soon found a low rooftop close enough to afford them a fine view of the tavern's front door.

Tee-a-nicknick pulled a long hollow tube out of the back of his shirt, then took a cat's claw, tied with a small clutch of feathers, from his pocket. Kneeling low and moving very carefully, the tattooed half-qullan savage turned his right hand palm up, then, taking the cat's claw in his left hand, squeezed a secret packet on the bracelet about his right wrist. Slowly, slowly, the tattooed man increased the pressure until the packet popped open and a drop of molasseslike syrup oozed out. He caught most of it on the tip of the cat's claw, then stuffed the dart into the end of his blowgun.

"Tee-a-nicknick patient man, too," he said with a wicked grin.

Chapter 8 WARM FEELINGS

"Oh, look at you!" Biaste Ganderlay exclaimed when she moved to help Meralda put on the new gown Lord Feringal had sent for their dinner that night. Only then, only after Meralda had taken off the bunched-collar shift she had been wearing all the day, did her mother see the extent of her bruises, distinct purple blotches all about her neck and shoulders, bigger marks than the two showing on her face. "You can't be going to see lord Feringal looking so," Biaste wailed. "What'll he think of you?"

"Then I'll not go," an unenthusiastic Meralda answered, but that only made Biaste fuss more urgently. Meralda's answer brought a frown to Biaste's gray and weary face, poignantly reminding Meralda of her mother's sickness, and of the only possible way to heal her.

The girl lowered her eyes and kept her gaze down as Biaste went to the cupboards, fumbling with boxes and jars. She found beeswax and lavender, comfrey root and oil, then she scurried outside and collected some light clay to put in the mixture. She was back in Meralda's room shortly, holding a mortar she used to crunch the herbs and oil and clay together vigorously with her pestle.

"I'll tell him it was an accident," Meralda offered as Biaste moved to begin applying the masking and comforting salve. "If he fell down the stone stairs at Castle Auck, surely he'd have such bruises as to make these seem like nothing."

"Is that how this happened to you?" Biaste asked, though Meralda had already insisted that she hurt herself by absentmindedly running into a tree.

A twinge of panic hit the girl, for she did not want to reveal the truth, did not want to tell her mother that her loving, adoring father had beaten her. "What're you saying?" she asked defensively. "Do you think I'm daft enough to run into a tree on purpose, Ma?"

"Now, of course I don't," said Biaste, managing a smile. Meralda did, too, glad that her deflection had worked. Biaste took the scrap of flannel she was using to wipe the bruises and swatted Meralda playfully across the head. "It don't look so bad. Lord Feringal will not even see."

"Lord Feringal's looking at me more carefully than you think," Meralda replied, which brought a great laugh from Biaste and she wrapped her daughter in a hug. It seemed to Meralda that her mother was a bit stronger today.

"Steward Temigast said you'll be walking in the gardens tonight," said Biaste. "Oh, and the moon'll be big in the sky. My girl, could I even have dared hope for such a thing for you?"

Meralda answered with another smile, for she feared that if she opened her mouth all of her anger at this injustice would pour out and knock her mother back into bed.

Biaste took Meralda by the hand, and led her to the main room of the cottage where the table was already set for dinner. Tori was sitting, shifting impatiently. Dohni Ganderlay came in the front door at that moment and looked directly at the two women.

"She ran into a tree," Biaste remarked. "Can you believe the girl's foolishness? Running into a tree when Lord Feringal's a-calling!" She laughed again, and Meralda did, too, though she never blinked as she stared at her father.

Dohni and Tori shared an uncomfortable glance, and the moment passed. The Ganderlay family sat down together for a quiet evening meal. At least it would have been quiet, had it not been for the bubbling exuberance of an obviously thrilled Biaste Ganderlay.

Soon after, long before the sun even touched the rim of the western horizon, the Ganderlays stood outside their house, watching Meralda climb into the gilded coach. Biaste was so excited she ran out into the middle of the dirt lane to wave good-bye. That effort seemed to drain her of all her strength, though, for she nearly swooned and would have stumbled had not Dohni Ganderlay been there to catch and support her.

"Now get yourself to bed," he instructed. Dohni tenderly handed his wife over to Tori, who helped her into the house.

Dohni waited outside, watching the diminishing coach and the dusty road. The man was torn in heart and soul. He didn't regret the lesson he had given to Meralda-the girl needed to put her priorities straight-but hitting Meralda hurt Dohni Ganderlay as much as it had hurt the girl.

"Why'd Ma nearly fall down, Da?" Tori asked a moment later, the sound of the girl's voice catching the distracted Dohni by surprise. "She was so strong and smiling and all."

"She gave too much of herself," Dohni explained, not overly concerned. He knew the truth of Biaste's condition, "the wilting" as it was commonly called, and understood that it would take more than high spirits to heal her. Good spirits would bolster her temporarily, but the sickness would have its way with her in the end. It would take the efforts of Lord Feringal's connections to truly bring healing.

He looked down at Tori then and saw the honest fear there. "She's just needing rest," he explained, draping an arm across the young girl's shoulder "Meralda told Ma she ran into a tree," Tori dared to say, drawing a frown from Dohni.

"So she did," Dohni agreed softly, sadly. "Why's she resisting?" he asked his youngest daughter impulsively. "She's got the lord himself fretting over her. A brighter world than ever she could've hoped to find."

Tori looked away, which told Dohni that the younger girl knew more than she was letting on. He moved in front of Tori, and when she tried to continue to look away, he caught her by the chin and forced her to eye him directly. "What do ye know?"

Tori didn't respond.

"Tell me girl," Dohni demanded, giving Tori a rough shake. "What's in your sister's mind?"

"She loves another," Tori said reluctantly.

"Jaka Sculi," he reasoned aloud. Dohni Ganderlay relaxed his grip, but his eyes narrowed. He had suspected as much, had figured that Meralda's feelings for Jaka Sculi might go deeper, or at least that Meralda thought they went deeper. Dohni knew Jaka well enough to understand that the boy was more facade than depth. Still, Dohni was not blind to the fact that nearly all of the village girls were taken with that moody young lad.

"She'll kill me if she thinks I told you," Tori pleaded, but she was cut short by another rough shake. The look on her father's face was one she had never seen before, but she was sure it was the same one Meralda had witnessed earlier that day.

"Do you think it's all a game?" Dohni scolded.

Tori burst into tears, and Dohni let her go. "Keep your mouth shut to your ma and your sister," he instructed.

"What're you going to do?"

"I'll do what needs doing and without answering to my girls!" Dohni shot back. He turned Tori about and shoved her toward the house. The young girl was more than willing to leave, sprinting through the front door without looking back.

Dohni stared down the empty road toward the castle where his oldest daughter, his beautiful Meralda, was off bartering her heart and body for the sake of her family. He wanted to run to Castle Auck and throttle Lord Feringal at that moment, but he dismissed the notion, reminding himself that there was another eager young man who needed his attention.

*****

Down the rocky beach from Castle Auck, Jaka Sculi watched the fancy carriage ramble along the bridge and into Lord Feringal's castle. He knew who was in the coach even before watching Meralda disappear into the young lord's domain. His blood boiled at the sight and brought a great sickness to his stomach.

"Damn you!" he snarled, shaking his fist at the castle. "Damn, damn, damn! I should, I shall, find a sword and cut your heart, as you have cut mine, evil Feringal! The joy of seeing your flowing blood staining the ground beneath you, of whispering in your dying ear that I, and not you, won out in the end.

"But fie, I cannot!" the young man wailed, and he rolled back on the wet rock and slapped his arm across his forehead.

"But wait," he cried, sitting up straight and turning his arm over so that he felt his forehead with his fingers. "A fever upon me. A fever brought by Meralda. Wicked enchantress! A fever brought by Meralda and by Feringal, who deigns to take that which is rightfully mine. Deny him, Meralda!" he called loudly, and he broke down, kicking his foot against the stone and gnashing his teeth. He regained control quickly, reminding himself that only his wiles would allow him to beat Lord Feringal, that only his cleverness would allow him to overcome his enemy's unjust advantage, one given by birth and not quality of character. So Jaka began his plotting, thinking of how he might turn the mortal sickness he felt festering within his broken heart to some advantage over the stubborn girl's willpower.

*****

Meralda couldn't deny the beautiful aromas and sights of the small garden on the southern side of Castle Auck. Tall roses, white and pink, mingled with lady's mantle and lavender to form the main garden, creating a myriad of shapes and colors that drew Meralda's eye upward and back down again. Pansies filled in the lower level, and bachelor's buttons peeked out from hiding among the taller plants like secret prizes for the cunning examiner. Even in the perpetually dismal fog of Auckney, and perhaps in some large part because of it, the garden shone brightly, speaking of birth and renewal, of springtime and life itself.

Enchanted as she was, Meralda couldn't help but wish that her escort this waning afternoon was not Lord Feringal, but her Jaka. Wouldn't she love to lake him and kiss him here amidst the flowery scents and sights, amidst the hum of happy bees?

"Priscilla tends the place, mostly," Lord Feringal remarked, walking politely a step behind Meralda as she made her way along the garden wall.

The news caught Meralda somewhat by surprise and made her rethink her first impression of the lady of Castle Auck. Anyone who could so carefully and lovingly tend a garden to this level of beauty must have some redeeming qualities. "And do you not come out here at all?" the woman asked, turning back to regard the young lord.

Feringal shrugged and smiled sheepishly, as if embarrassed to admit that he rarely ventured into the place.

"Do you not think it beautiful, then?" Meralda asked.

Lord Feringal rushed up to the woman and took her hand in his. "Surely it is not more beautiful than you," he blurted.

Bolder by far than she had been on their first meeting, Meralda pulled her hand away. "The garden," she insisted. "The flowers-all their shapes and smells. Don't you find it beautiful?"

"Of course," Lord Feringal answered immediately, obediently, Meralda realized.

"Well, look at it!" Meralda cried at him. "Don't just be staring at me. Look at the flowers, at the bounty of your sister's fine work. See how they live together? How one flower makes room for another, all bunching, but not blocking the sun?"

Lord Feringal did turn his gaze from Meralda to regard the myriad flowers, and a strange expression of revelation came over his face.

"You do see," Meralda remarked after a long, long silence. Lord Feringal continued to study the color surrounding them.

He turned back to Meralda, a look of wonder in his eyes. "I have lived here all my life," he said. "And in those years-no, decades-this garden has been here, yet never before have I seen it. It took you to show me the beauty." He came nearer to Meralda and took her hand in his, then leaned in gently and kissed her, though not urgently and demandingly as he had done their previous meeting. He was gentle and appreciative. "Thank you," he said as he pulled back from her.

Meralda managed a weak smile in reply. "Well, you should be thanking your sister," she said. "A load of work to get it this way."

"I shall," Lord Feringal replied unconvincingly.

Meralda smiled knowingly and turned her attention back to the garden, thinking again how grand it would be to walk through the place with Jaka at her side. The amorous young lord was beside her again, so close, his hands upon her, and she could not maintain the fantasy. Instead, she focused on the flowers, thinking that if she could just lose herself in their beauty, just stare at them until the sun went down, and even after, in the soft glow of the moon, she might survive this night.

To his credit, Lord Feringal allowed her a long, long while to simply stand quietly and stare. The sun disappeared and the moon came up, and though it was full in the sky, the garden lost some of its luster and enchantment except for the continuing aroma, mixing sweetly with the salty air.

"Won't you look at me all the night?" Feringal asked, gently turning her about.

"I was just thinking," Meralda replied.

"Tell me your thoughts," he eagerly prompted.

The woman shrugged. "Silly ones, only," she replied.

Lord Feringal's face brightened with a wide smile. "I'll wager you were thinking it would be grand to walk among these flowers every day," he ventured. "To come to this place whenever you desired, by sun or by moon, in winter even, to stare at the cold waters and the bergs as they build in the north?"

Meralda was wiser than to openly deny the guess or to add to it that she would only think of such things if another man, her Jaka, was beside her instead of Lord Feringal.

"Because you can have all of that," Feringal said excitedly. "You can, you know. All of it and more."

"You hardly know me," the girl exclaimed, near to panic and hardly believing what she was hearing.

"Oh, but I do, my Meralda," Feringal declared, and he fell to one knee, holding her hand in one of his and stroking it gently with the other. "I do know you, for I have looked for you all my life."

"You're speaking foolishness," Meralda muttered, but Feringal pressed on.

"I wondered if ever I would find the woman who could so steal my heart," he said, and he seemed to Meralda to be talking as much to himself as to her. "Others have been paraded before me, of course. Many merchants would desire to create a safe haven in Auckney by bartering their daughters as my wife, but none gave me pause." He rose dramatically, moving to the sea wall.

"None," he repeated. Feringal turned back, his eyes boring into hers. "Until I saw the vision of Meralda. With my heart, I know that there is no other woman in all the world I would have as a wife."

Meralda stammered over that one, stunned by the man's forwardness, by the sheer speed at which he was trying to move this courtship. Even as she stood trying to think of something to reply, he enveloped her, kissing her again and again, not gently, pressing his lips hard against hers, his hands running over her back.

"I must have you," he said, nearly pulling her off-balance.

Meralda brought her arm up between them, slamming her palm hard into Lord Feringal's face and driving him back a step. She pulled away, but he pressed in again.

"Please, Meralda!" he cried. "My blood boils within me!"

"You're saying you want me for a wife, but you're treating me like a harlot!" she cried. "No man takes a wife he's already bedded," Meralda pleaded.

Lord Feringal skidded to a stop. "But why?" asked the naive young man. "It is love, after all, and so it is right, I say. My blood boils, and my heart pounds in my chest for want of you."

Meralda looked about desperately for escape and found one from an unexpected source.

"Your pardon, my lord," came a voice from the door, and the pair turned to see Steward Temigast stepping from the castle, "I heard the cry and feared that one of you might have slipped over the rail."

"Well, you see that is not the case, so be gone with you," an exasperated Feringal replied, waving his hand dismissively, and turning back to Meralda.

Steward Temigast stared at her frightened, white face for a long while, a look of sympathy upon his own. "My lord," he ventured calmly. "If you are, indeed, serious about marrying this woman, then you must treat her like a lady. The hour grows long," he announced. "The Ganderlay family will be expecting the return of their child. I will summon the carriage."

"Not yet," Lord Feringal replied immediately, before Temigast could even turn around. "Please," he said more quietly and calmly to Temigast, but mostly to Meralda. "A short while longer?"

Temigast looked to Meralda, who reluctantly nodded her assent. "I will return for you soon," Temigast said, and he went back into the castle.

"I'll have no more of your foolery," Meralda warned her eager suitor, taking confidence in his sheepish plea.

"It is difficult for me, Meralda," he tried sincerely to explain. "More than you can understand. I think about you day and night. I grow impatient for the day when we shall be wed, the day when you shall give yourself to me fully."

Meralda had no reply, but she had to work hard to keep any expression of anger from appearing on her fair face. She thought of her mother then, remembered a conversation she had overheard between her father and a woman friend of the family, when the woman bemoaned that Biaste likely would not live out the winter if they could find no better shelter or no cleric or skilled healer to tend her.

"I'll not wait long, I assure you," Lord Feringal went on. "I will tell Priscilla to make the arrangements this very night."

"I haven't even said I would marry you," Meralda squealed a weak protest.

"But you will marry me, of course," Feringal said confidently. "All the village will be in attendance, a faire that will stay in hearts and memories for all the lives of all who witness it. On that day, Meralda, it will be you whom they rejoice in most of all," he said, coming over and taking her hand again, but gently and respectfully this time. "Years-no, decades-from now, the village women will still remark on the beauty of Lord Feringal's bride."

Meralda couldn't, deny she was touched by the man's sincerity and somewhat thrilled by the prospect of having as great a day as Feringal spoke of, a wedding that would be the talk of Auckney for years and years to come. What woman would not desire such a thing?

Yet, Meralda also could not deny that while the glorious wedding was appealing, her heart longed for another. She was beginning to notice another side of Lord Feringal now, a decent and caring nature, perhaps, buried beneath the trappings of his sheltered upbringing. Despite that, Meralda could not forget, even for one moment, that Lord Feringal, simply was not her Jaka.

Steward Temigast returned and announced that the coach was ready, and Meralda went straight to him, but she was still not quick enough to dodge the young man's last attempt to steal a kiss.

It hardly mattered. Meralda was beginning to see things clearly now, and she understood her responsibility to her family and would put that responsibility above all else. Still, it was a long and miserable ride across the bridge and down the road, the young woman's head swirling with so many conflicting thoughts and emotions.

Once again she bade the gnomish driver to let her out some distance from her home. Pulling off the uncomfortable shoes Temigast had sent along with the dress, Meralda walked barefoot down the lane under the moon. Too confused by the events-to think that she was to be married! — Meralda was barely conscious of her surroundings and wasn't even hoping, as she had after her first meeting, that Jaka would find her on the road. She was taken completely by surprise when the young man appeared before her.

"What did he do to you?" Jaka asked before Meralda could even say his name.

"Do?" she echoed.

"What did you do?" Jaka demanded. "You were there for a long time."

"We walked in the garden," the woman answered.

"Just walked?" Jaka's voice took on a frightful edge at that moment, one that set Meralda back on her heels.

"What're you thinking?" she dared ask.

Jaka gave a great sigh and spun away. "I am not thinking, and that is the problem," he wailed. "What enchantment have you cast upon me, Meralda? Oh, the bewitching! I know miserable Feringal must feel the same," he added, spinning back on her. "What man could not?"

A great smile erupted on the young woman's face, but it didn't hold, not at all. Why was Jaka acting so peculiar, so love-struck all of a sudden? she wondered. Why hadn't he behaved this way before?

"Did he have you?" Jaka asked, coming very close. "Did you let him?"

The questions hit Meralda like a wet towel across the face. "How can you be asking me such a thing?" she protested.

Jaka fell to his knees before her, taking both her hands and pressing them against his cheek. "Because I shall die to think of you with him," he explained.

Meralda felt weak in her knees and sick to her stomach. She was too young and too inexperienced, she realized, and could not fathom any of this, not the marriage, not Lord Feringal's polite and almost animalistic polarities, and not Jaka's sudden conversion to lovesick suitor.

"I. ." she started. "We did nothing. Oh, he stole a kiss, but I didn't kiss him back."

Jaka looked at her, and the smile upon his face was somehow unnerving to Meralda. He came closer then, moving his lips to brush against hers and lighting fires everywhere in her body, it seemed. She felt his hands roaming her body, and she did not fear them-at least not in the same manner in which she had feared her noble suitor. No, this time it was an exciting thing, but still she pushed the man back from her.

"Do you deny the love that we feel for each other?" a wounded Jaka asked.

"But it's not about how we're feeling," Meralda tried to explain.

"Of course it is," the young man said quietly, and he came forward again. "That is all that matters."

He kissed her gently again, and Meralda found that she believed him. The only thing in all the world that mattered at that moment was how she and Jaka felt for each other. She returned the kiss, falling deeper and deeper, tumbling away to an abyss of joy.

Then he was gone from her, too abruptly. Meralda popped open her eyes to see Jaka tumbling to the ground, a raging Dohni Ganderlay standing before her.

"Are you a fool then?" the man asked, and he lifted his arm as if to strike Meralda. A look of pain crossed his rugged face then, and he quickly put his arm down, but up it came again, grabbing Meralda roughly by the shoulder and spinning her toward the house. Dohni shoved her along, then turned on Jaka, who put his hands up defensively in front of his face and darted about, trying to escape.

"Don't hit him, Da!" the young woman cried, and that plea alone stopped Dohni.

"Stay far from my girl," Dohni warned Jaka.

"I love-" Jaka started to reply.

"They'll find yer body washing on the beach," Dohni said.

When Meralda cried out again, the imposing man turned on her viciously. "Home!" he commanded. Meralda ran off at full speed, not even bothering to retrieve the shoe she had dropped when Dohni had shoved her.

Dohni turned on Jaka, his eyes, red from anger and nights of restless sleep, as menacing as any sight the young man had ever witnessed. Jaka turned on his heel and ran away. He started to, anyway, for before he had gone three steps Dohni hit him with a flying tackle across the back of his knees, dropping him face down on the ground.

"Meralda begged you not to hit me!" the terrified young man pleaded.

Dohni climbed atop him, roughly pulling the young man over. "Meralda's not knowing what's best for Meralda," Dohni answered with a growl and a punch that jerked Jaka's head to the side.

The young man began to cry and to flail his arms wildly, trying to fend off Dohni. The blows got through, though, one after another, swelling Jaka's pretty eyes and fattening both his lips, knocking one tooth out of his perfect smile and bringing blue bruises to his normally rosy cheeks. Jaka finally had the sense to bring his arms down across his battered face, but Dohni, his rage not yet played out, only aimed his blows lower, pounding, pounding Jaka about the chest. Every time Jaka dropped one arm down lower to block there, Dohni cunningly slipped a punch in about his face again.

Finally, Dohni leaped off the man, grabbed him by the front of the shirt, and hoisted him to his feet with a sudden, vicious jerk. Jaka held his palms out in front of him in a sign of surrender. That cowardly act only made Dohni slug him one more time, a brutal hook across the jaw that sent the young man flying to the ground again. Dohni pulled him upright, and he cocked his arm once more. Jaka's whimper made Dohni think of Meralda, of the inevitable look upon her face when he walked in, his knuckles all bloody. He grabbed Jaka in both hands and whipped him around, sending him running on his way.

"Get yourself gone!" the man growled at Jaka. "And don't be sniffing about my girl again!"

Jaka gave a great wail and stumbled off into the darkness.

Chapter 9 THE BARREL'S BOTTOM

Robillard scratched his chin when he saw the pair, Wulfgar and Morik, moving down the alley toward the front door of the Cutlass. Deudermont was still inside, a fact that did not sit well with the divining wizard, given all the activity he had seen outside the tavern's door. Robillard had watched a seedy character come out and pay off a street urchin. The wizard understood the uses of such children. That same character, an unusual figure indeed, had exited the Cutlass again and moved off into the shadows.

Wulfgar appeared with a small, swarthy man. Robillard was not surprised when the same street urchin peeked out from an alley some distance away, no doubt waiting for his opportunity to return to his chosen place of business.

Robillard realized the truth after putting the facts together and adding a heavy dose of justifiable suspicion. He turned to the door and chanted a simple spell, grabbing at the air and using it to blast open the portal. "Mister Micanty!" he called, amplifying his voice with yet another spell.

"Go out with a pair of crewmen and alert the town guard," Robillard demanded. "To the Cutlass on Half-Moon Street with all speed."

With a growl the wizard reversed his first spell and slammed the door shut again, then fell back intently into the images within the crystal ball, focusing on the front door of the Cutlass. He moved inside to find Deudermont leaning calmly against the bar.

A few uneventful minutes passed; Robillard shifted his gaze back outside just long enough to note Wulfgar and his small friend lurking in the shadows, as if waiting for something.

Even as the wizard's roving magical eye moved back through the tavern's door, he found Deudermont approaching the exit.

"Hurry, Micanty," Robillard mouthed quietly, but he knew that the town guard, well-drilled as they were, wouldn't likely arrive in time and that he would have to take some action. The wizard plotted his course quickly: a dimensional door to the other end of the docks, and a second to the alley that ran beside the Cutlass. One final look into the crystal ball showed Deudermont walking out and Wulfgar and the other man moving toward him. Robillard let go his mental connection with the ball and brought up the first dimensional door.

*****

Creeps Sharky and Tee-a-nicknick crouched in the shadows on the rooftop. The tattooed man brought the blowgun up to his lips the second Deudermont exited the tavern.

"Not yet," Creeps instructed, grabbing the barrel and pulling the weapon low. "Let him talk to Wulfgar and Morik, and get near to my stone that'll kill any magical protections he might be wearin'. And let others see 'em together, afore and when Deudermont falls dead."

The wretched pirate licked his lips in anticipation. "They gets the blame, we gets the booty," he said.

*****

"Wulfgar," Captain Deudermont greeted him when the barbarian and his sidekick shifted out of the shadows and steadily approached. "My men said you came to Sea Sprite."

"Not from any desire," Wulfgar muttered, drawing an elbow from Morik.

"You said you want your warhammer back," the little man quietly reminded him.

What Morik was really thinking, though, was that this might be the perfect time for him to learn more about Deudermont, about the man's protections and, more importantly, his weaknesses. The street urchin had found the barbarian and the rogue down by the docks, handing over the small bag and its curious contents and explaining that Captain Deudermont desired their presence in front of the Cutlass on Half-Moon Street. Again, Morik had spoken to Wulfgar about the potential gain here, but he backed off immediately as soon as he recognized that dangerous scowl. If Wulfgar would not go along with the assassination, then Morik meant to find a way to do it on his own. He had nothing against Deudermont, of course, and wasn't usually a murderer, but the payoff was just too great to ignore. Good enough for Wulfgar, Morik figured, when he was living in luxury, the finest rooms, the finest food, the finest booze, and the finest whores.

Wulfgar nodded and strode right up to stand before Deudermont, though he did not bother accepting the man's offered hand. "What do you know?" he asked.

"Only that you came to the docks and looked up at Waillan Micanty," Deudermont replied. "I assumed that you wished to speak with me."

"All that I want from you is information concerning Aegis-fang," he said sourly.

"Your hammer?" Deudermont asked, and he looked curiously at Wulfgar, as if only then noticing that the barbarian was not wearing the weapon.

"The boy said you had information," Morik clarified.

"Boy?" the confused captain asked.

"The boy who gave me this," Morik explained, holding up the bag.

Deudermont moved to take it but stopped, seeing Robillard rushing out of the alley to the side.

"Hold!" the wizard cried.

Deudermont felt a sharp sting on the side of his neck. He reached up instinctively with his hand to grab at it, but before his fingers closed around the cat's claw, a great darkness overcame him, buckling his knees. Wulfgar leaped ahead to grab him.

Robillard yelled and reached out magically for Wulfgar, extending a wand and blasting the huge barbarian square in the chest with a glob of sticky goo that knocked him back against the Cutlass and held him there. Morik turned and ran.

"Captain! Captain!" Robillard cried, and he let fly another glob for Morik, but the agile thief was too quick and managed to dodge aside as he skittered down another alley. He had to reverse direction almost immediately, for entering the other end came a pair of city guard, brandishing flaming torches and gleaming swords. He did keep his wits about him enough to toss the satchel the boy had given him into a cubby at the side of the alley before he turned away.

All of Half-Moon Street seemed to erupt in a frenzy then, with guardsmen and crewmen of Sea Sprite exiting from every conceivable angle.

Against the wall of the Cutlass, Wulfgar struggled mightily to draw breath. His mind whirled back to the grayness of the Abyss, back to some of the many similar magics demon Errtu had put on him to hold him so, helpless in the face of diabolical minions. That vision lent him rage, and that rage lent him strength. The frantic barbarian got his balance and pulled hard, tearing planking from the side of the building.

Robillard, howling with frustration and fear as he knelt over the scarcely breathing Deudermont, hit Wulfgar with another glob, pasting him to the wall again.

"They've killed him," the wizard yelled to the guardsmen. "Catch the little rat!"

*****

"We go," Tee-a-nicknick said as soon as Deudermont's legs buckled.

"Hit him again," Creeps begged.

The tattooed man shook his head. "One enough. We go."

Even as he and Creeps started to move, the guards descended upon Half-Moon Street and all the other avenues around the area. Creeps led his friend to the shadows by a dormer on the building, where they deposited the blowgun and poison. They moved to another dormer across the way and sat down with their backs against the wall. Creeps took out a bottle, and the pair started drinking, pretending to be oblivious, happy drunks.

Within a few minutes, a trio of guardsmen came over the lip of the roof and approached them. After a cursory inspection and a cry from below revealing that one of the assassins had been captured and the other was running loose through the streets, the guards turned away in disgust.

*****

Morik spun and darted one way, then another, but the noose was closing around him. He found a shadow in the nook of a building and thought he might wait the pursuit out, when he began glowing with magical light.

"Wizards," the rogue muttered. "I hate wizards!"

Off he ran to a building and started to climb, but he was caught by the legs and hauled down, then beaten and kicked until he stopped squirming.

"I did nothing!" he protested, spitting blood with every word as they hauled him roughly to his feet.

"Shut your mouth!" one guard demanded, jamming the hilt of his sword into Morik's gut, doubling the rogue over in pain. He half-walked and was half-dragged back to where Robillard worked feverishly over Deudermont.

"Run for a healer," the wizard instructed, and a guard and a pair of crewmen took off.

"What poison?" the wizard demanded of Morik.

Morik shrugged as if he did not understand.

"The bag," said Robillard. "You held a bag."

"I have no-" Morik started to say, but he lost the words as the guard beside him slammed him hard in the belly yet again.

"Retrace his steps," Robillard instructed the other guards "He carried a small satchel. I want it found."

"What of him?" one of the guards asked, motioning to the mound of flesh that was Wulfgar. "Surely he can't breath under that."

"Cut his face free, then," Robillard hissed. "He should not die as easily as that."

"Captain!" Waillan Micanty cried upon seeing Deudermont.

He ran to kneel beside his fallen captain. Robillard put a comforting hand on the man's shoulder, turning a violent glare on Morik.

"I am innocent," the little thief declared, but even as he did a cry came from the alley. A moment later a guardsman ran out with the satchel in hand.

Robillard pulled open the bag, first lifting the stone from it and sensing immediately what it might be. He had lived through the Time of Troubles after all, and he knew all about dead magic regions and how stones from such places might dispel any magic near them. If his guess was right, it would explain how Morik and Wulfgar had so easily penetrated the wards he'd placed on the captain.

Next Robillard lifted a cat's claw from the bag. He led Morik's gaze and the stares of all the others from that curious item to Deudermont's neck, then produced another, similar claw, the one he had pulled from the captain's wound.

"Indeed," Robillard said dryly, eyebrows raised.

"I hate wizards," Morik muttered under his breath.

A sputter from Wulfgar turned them all around. The big man was coughing out pieces of the sticky substance. He started roaring in rage almost immediately and began tugging with such ferocity that all the Cutlass shook from the thrashing.

Robillard noted then that Arumn Gardpeck and several others had exited the place and stood staring incredulously at the scene before them. The tavernkeeper walked over to consider Wulfgar, then shook his head.

"What have ye done?" he asked.

"No good, as usual," remarked Josi Puddles.

Robillard walked over to them. "You know this man?" he asked Arumn, jerking his head toward Wulfgar.

"He's worked for me since he came to Luskan last spring," Arumn explained. «Until-» the tavernkeeper hesitated and stared at the big man yet again, shaking his head.

"Until?" Robillard prompted.

"Until he got too angry with all the world," Josi Puddles was happy to put in.

"You will be summoned to speak against him before the magistrates," Robillard explained. "Both of you."

Arumn nodded dutifully, but Josi's head bobbed eagerly. Perhaps too eagerly, Robillard observed, but he had to privately admit his gratitude to the little wretch.

A host of priests came running soon after, their numbers and haste alone a testament to the great reputation of the pirate-hunting Captain Deudermont. In mere minutes, the stricken man was born away on a litter.

On a nearby rooftop, Creeps Sharky smiled as he handed the empty bottle to Tee-a-nicknick.

*****

Luskan's gaol consisted of a series of caves beside the harbor, winding and muddy, with hard and jagged stone walls. Perpetually stoked fires kept the place brutally hot and steamy. Thick veils of moisture erupted wherever the hot air collided with the cold, encroaching waters of the Sword Coast. There were a few cells, reserved for political prisoners mostly, threats to the ruling families and merchants who might grow stronger if they were made martyrs. Most of the prisoners, though, didn't last long enough to be afforded cells, soon to be victims of the macabre and brutally efficient Prisoner's Carnival.

This revolving group's cell consisted of a pair of shackles set high enough on the wall to keep them on the tips of their toes, dangling agonizingly by their arms. Compounding that torture were the mindless gaolers, huge and ugly thugs, half-ogres mostly, walking slowly and methodically through the complex with glowing pokers in their hands.

"This is all a huge mistake, you understand," Morik complained to the most recent gaoler to move in his and Wulfgar's direction.

The huge brute gave a slow chuckle that sounded like stones grating together and casually jabbed the orange end of a poker at Morik's belly. The nimble thief leaped sidelong, pulling hard with his chained arm but still taking a painful burn on the side. The ogre gaoler just kept on walking, approaching Wulfgar, and chuckling slowly.

"And what've yerself?" the brute said, moving his smelly breath close to the barbarian. "Yerself as well, eh? Ne'er did nothin' deservin' such imprisonin'?"

Wulfgar, his face blank, stared straight ahead. He barely winced when the powerful brute slugged him in the gut or when that awful poker slapped against his armpit, sending wispy smoke from his skin.

"Strong one," the brute said and chuckled again. "More fun's all." He brought the poker up level with Wulfgar's face and began moving it slowly in toward the big man's eye.

"Oh, but ye'll howl," he said.

"But we have not yet been tried!" Morik complained.

"Ye're thinkin' that matters?" the gaoler replied, pausing long enough only to turn a toothy grin on Morik. "Ye're all guilty for the fun of it, if not the truth."

That struck Wulfgar as a profound statement. Such was justice. He looked at the gaoler as if acknowledging the ugly creature for the first time, seeing simple wisdom there, a viewpoint come from observation. From the mouths of idiots, he thought.

The poker moved in, but Wulfgar set the gaoler with such a calm and devastating stare, a look borne of the barbarian's supreme confidence that this man-that all these foolish mortal men-could do nothing to him to rival the agonies he had suffered at the clawed hands of the demon Errtu.

The gaoler apparently got that message, or a similar one, for he hesitated, even backed the poker up so he could more clearly view Wulfgar's set expression.

"Ye think ye can hold it?" the brutal torturer asked Wulfgar. "Ye think ye can keep yer face all stuck like that when I pokes yer eye?" And on he came again.

Wulfgar gave a growl that came from somewhere very, very deep within, a feral, primal sound that stole the words from Morik's mouth as the little thief was about to protest. A growl that came from his torment in the pits of the Abyss.

The barbarian swelled his chest mightily, gathered his strength, and drove one shoulder forward with such ferocity and speed that the shackle anchor exploded from the wall, sending the stunned gaoler skittering back.

"Oh, but I'll kill ye for that!" the half-ogre cried, and he came ahead brandishing the poker like a club.

Wulfgar was ready for him. The barbarian coiled about, almost turning to face the wall, then swung his free arm wide, the chain and block of metal and stone fixed to its other end swishing across to clip the glowing poker and tear it from the gaoler's hand. Again the brute skittered back, and this time Wulfgar turned back on the wall fully, running his legs right up it so that he had his feet planted firmly, one on either side of the remaining shackle.

"Knock all the walls down!" Morik cheered.

The gaoler turned and ran.

Another growl came from Wulfgar, and he pulled with all his strength, every muscle in his powerful body straining. This anchor was more secure than the last, the stone wall more solid about it, but so great was Wulfgar's pull that a link in the heavy chain began to separate.

"Pull on!" Morik cried.

Wulfgar did, and he was sailing out from the wall, spinning into a back somersault. He tumbled down, unhurt, but then it hit him, a wave of anguish more powerful than any torture the sadistic gaoler might bring. In his mind he was no longer in the dungeon of Luskan but back in the Abyss, and though no shackles now held him he knew there could be no escape, no victory over his too-powerful captors. How many times had Errtu played this trick on him, making him think he was free only to snare him and drag him back to the stench and filth, only to beat him, then heal him, and beat him some more?

"Wulfgar?" Morik begged repeatedly, pulling at his own shackles, though with no results at all. "Wulfgar!"

The barbarian couldn't hear him, couldn't even see him, so lost was he in the swirling fog of his own thoughts. Wulfgar curled up on the floor, trembling like a babe when the gaoler returned with a dozen comrades.

A short while later, the beaten Wulfgar was hanging again from the wall, this time in shackles meant for a giant, thick and solid chains that had his feet, dangling several feet from the floor and his arms stretched out straight to the side. As an extra precaution a block of sharpened spikes had been set behind the barbarian so if he pulled hard he would impale himself rather than tug the chains from their anchors. He was in a different chamber now, far removed from Morik. He was all alone with his memories of the Abyss, with no place to hide, no bottle to take him away.

*****

"It should be working," the old woman grumbled. "Right herbs fer de poison."

Three priests walked back and forth in the room, one muttering prayers, another going from one side of Captain Deudermont to the other, listening for breath, for a heartbeat, checking for a pulse, while the third just kept rubbing his hand over his tightly cropped hair.

"But it is not working," Robillard argued, and he looked to the priests for some help.

"I don't understand," said Camerbunne, the ranking cleric among the trio. "It resists our spells and even a powerful herbal antidote."

"And wit some o' de poison in hand, it should be workin'," said the old woman.

"If that is indeed some of the poison," Robillard remarked.

"You yourself took it from the little one called Morik," Camerbunne explained.

"That does not necessarily mean. ." Robillard started to reply. He let the thought hang in the air. The expressions on the faces of his four companions told him well enough that they had caught on. "What do we do, then?" the wizard asked.

"I can'no be promisin' anything," the old woman claimed, throwing up her hands dramatically. "Wit none o' de poison, me herbs'll do what dey will."

She moved to the side of the room, where they had placed a small table to act as her workbench, and began fiddling with different vials and jars and bottles. Robillard looked to Camerbunne. The man returned a defeated expression. The clerics had worked tirelessly over Deudermont in the day he had been in their care, casting spells that should have neutralized the vicious poison flowing through him. Those spells had provided temporary relief only, slowing the poison and allowing the captain to breath more easily and lowering his fever a bit, at least. Deudermont had not opened his eyes since the attack. Soon after, the captain's breathing went back to raspy, and he began bleeding again from his gums and his eyes. Robillard was no healer, but he had seen enough death to understand that if they did not come up with something soon, his beloved Captain Deudermont would fade away.

"Evil poison," Camerbunne remarked.

"It is an herb, no doubt," Robillard said. "Neither evil nor malicious. It just is what it is."

Camerbunne shook his head. "There is a touch of magic about it, do not doubt, good wizard," he declared. "Our spells will defeat any natural poison. No, this one has been specially prepared by a master and with the help of dark magic."

"Then what can we do?" the wizard asked.

"We can keep casting our spells over him to try and offer as much comfort as possible and hope that the poison works its way out of him," Camerbunne explained. "We can hope that old Gretchen finds the right mixture of herbs."

"Easier it'd be if I had a bit o' the poison," old Gretchen complained.

"And we can pray," Camerbunne finished.

The last statement brought a frown to the atheistic Robillard. He was a man of logic and specified rules and did not indulge in prayer.

"I will go to Morik the Rogue and learn more of the poison," Robillard said with a snarl.

"He has been tortured already," Camerbunne assured the wizard. "I doubt that he knows anything at all. It is merely something he purchased on the street, no doubt."

"Tortured?" Robillard replied skeptically. "A thumbscrew, a rack? No, that is not torture. That is a sadistic game and nothing more. The art of torture becomes ever more exquisite when magic is applied." He started for the door, but Camerbunne caught him by the arm.

"Morik will not know," he said again, staring soberly into the outraged wizard's hollowed eyes. "Stay with us. Stay with your captain. He may not survive the night, and if he does come out of the sleep before he dies, it would be better if he found a friend waiting for him."

Robillard had no argument against that heavy-handed comment, so he sighed and moved back to his chair, plopping down.

A short while later, a city guardsman knocked and entered the room, the routine call from the magistrate.

"Tell Jerem Boll and old Jharkheld that the charge against Wulfgar and Morik will likely be heinous murder," Camerbunne quietly explained.

Robillard heard the priest, and the words sank his heart even lower. It didn't matter much to Wulfgar and Morik what charge was placed against them. Either way, whether it was heinous murder or intended murder, they would be executed, though with the former the process would take much longer, to the pleasure of the crowd at the Prisoner's Carnival.

Watching them die would be of little satisfaction to Robillard, though, if his beloved captain did not survive. He put his head in his hands, considering again that he should go to Morik and punish the man with spell after spell until he broke down and revealed the type of poison that had been used.

Camerbunne was right, Robillard knew, for he understood city thieves like Morik the Rogue. Certainly Morik hadn't brewed the poison but had merely gotten some of it from a well-paid source.

The wizard lifted his head from his hands, a look of revelation on his haggard face. He remembered the two men who had been in the Cutlass before Wulfgar and Morik had arrived, the two men who had gone to the boy who had subsequently run off to find Wulfgar and Morik, the grimy sailor and his exotic, tattooed companion. He remembered Leaping Lady, sailing out fast from Luskan's harbor. Had Wulfgar and Morik traded the barbarian's marvelous warhammer for the poison to kill Deudermont?

Robillard sprang up from his chair, not certain of where to begin, but thinking now that he was on to something important. Someone, either the pair who had signaled Deudermont's arrival, the street urchin they had paid to go get Wulfgar and Morik, or someone on Leaping Lady, knew the secrets of the poison.

Robillard took another look at his poor, bedraggled captain, so obviously near to death. He stormed out of the room, determined to get some answers.

Chapter 10 PASSAGE

Meralda walked tentatively into the kitchen the next morning, conscious of the stare her father leveled her way. She looked to her mother as well, seeking some indication that her father had told the woman about her indiscretion with Jaka the previous night. But Biaste was beaming, oblivious.

"Oh, the garden!" Biaste cried, all smiles. "Tell me about the garden. Is it as pretty as Gurdy Harkins says?"

Meralda glanced at her father. Relieved to find him smiling as well, she took her seat and moved it right beside Biaste's chair. "Prettier," she said, her grin wide. "All the colors, even in the late sun! And under the moon, though it's not shining so bright, the smells catch and hold you.

"That's not all that caught my fancy," Meralda said, forcing a cheerful voice as she launched into the news they were all waiting to hear. "Lord Feringal has asked me to marry him."

Biaste squealed with glee. Tori let out a cry of surprise, and a good portion of her mouthful of food, as well. Dohni Ganderlay slammed his hands upon the table happily.

Biaste, who could hardly get out of bed the week before, rushed about, readying herself, insisting that she had to go out at once and tell all of her friends, particularly Curdy Harkins, who was always acting so superior because she sometimes sewed dresses for Lady Priscilla.

"Why'd you come in last night so flustered and crying?" Tori asked Meralda as soon as the two were alone in their room.

"Just mind what concerns you," Meralda answered.

"You'll be living in the castle and traveling to Hundelstone and Fireshear, and even to Luskan and all the wondrous places," pressed Tori, insisting, "but you were crying. I heard you."

Eyes moistening again, Meralda glared at the girl then went back to her chores.

"It's Jaka," Tori reasoned, a grin spreading across her face. "You're still thinking about him."

Meralda paused in fluffing her pillow, moved it close to her for a moment-a gesture that revealed to Tori her guess was true-then spun suddenly and launched the pillow into Tori's face, following it with a tackle that brought her sister down on the small bed.

"Say I'm the queen!" the older girl demanded.

"You just might be," stubborn Tori shot back, which made Meralda tickle her all the more. Soon Tori could take it no more and called out "Queen! Queen!" repeatedly.

"But you are sad about Jaka," Tori said soberly a few moments later, when Meralda had gone back to fixing the bedclothes.

"I saw him last night," Meralda admitted. "On my way home. He's gone sick thinking about me and Lord Feringal."

Tori gasped and swayed, then leaned closer, hanging on every word.

"He kissed me, too."

"Better than Lord Feringal?"

Meralda sighed and nodded, closing her eyes as she lost herself in the memory of that one brief, tender moment with Jaka.

"Oh, Meralda, what're you to do?" Tori asked.

"Jaka wants me to run away with him," she answered.

Tori moaned and hugged her pillow. "And will you?"

Meralda stood straighter then and flashed the young girl a brave smile. "My place is with Lord Feringal," she explained.

"But Jaka-"

"Jaka can't do nothing for Ma, and nothing for the rest of you," Meralda went on. "You can give your heart to whomever you want, but you give your life to the one who's best for you and for the ones you love."

Tori started to protest again, but Dohni Ganderlay entered the room. "You got work," he reminded them, and he put a look over Meralda that told the young woman that he had, indeed, overheard the conversation. He even gave a slight nod of approval before exiting the room.

Meralda walked through that day in a fog, trying to align her heart with acceptance of her responsibility. She wanted to do what was right for her family, she really did, but she could not ignore the pull of her heart, the desire to learn the ways of love in the arms of a man she truly loved.

Out in the fields higher on the carved steps of the mountain, Dohni Ganderlay was no less torn. He saw Jaka Sculi that morning, and the two didn't exchange more than a quick glance-one-eyed for Jaka, whose left orb was swollen shut. As much as Dohni wanted to throttle the young man for jeopardizing his family, he could not deny his own memories of young love, memories that made him feel guilty looking at the beaten Jaka. Something more insistent than responsibility had pulled Jaka and Meralda together the previous night, and Dohni reminded himself pointedly not to hold a grudge, either against his daughter or against Jaka, whose only crime, as far as Dohni knew, was to love Meralda.

*****

The house was quiet and perfectly still in the darkness just after dusk, which only amplified the noise made by every one of Meralda's movements. The family had retired early after a long day of work and the excitement of Meralda receiving yet another invitation to the castle, three days hence, accompanied by the most beautiful green silk gown the Ganderlay women had ever seen. Meralda tried to put the gown on quietly and slowly, but the material ruffled and crackled.

"What're you doing?" came a sleepy whisper from Tori.

"Shh!" Meralda replied, moving right beside the girl's bed and kneeling so that Tori could hear her whispered reply. "Go back to sleep and keep your mouth shut," she instructed.

"You're going to Jaka," Tori exclaimed, and Meralda slapped her hand over the girl's mouth.

"No such thing," Meralda protested. "I'm just trying it out."

"No you're not!" said Tori, coming fully awake and sitting up. "You're going to see Jaka. Tell me true, or I'll yell for Da."

"Promise me that you'll not say," Meralda said, sitting on the bed beside her sister. Tori's head bobbed excitedly. "I'm hoping to find Jaka out there in the dark," Meralda explained. "He goes out every night to watch the moon and the stars."

"And you're running away to be married?"

Meralda gave a sad chuckle. "No, not that," she replied. "I'm giving my life to Lord Feringal for the good of Ma and Da and yourself," she explained. "And not with regrets," she added quickly, seeing her sister about to protest. "No, he'll give me a good life at the castle, of that I'm sure. He's not a bad man, though he has much to learn. But I'm taking tonight for my own heart. One night with Jaka to say good-bye." Meralda patted Tori's arm as she stood to leave. "Now, go back to sleep."

"Only if you promise to tell me everything tomorrow," Tori replied. "Promise, or I'll tell."

"You won't tell," Meralda said with confidence, for she understood that Tori was as enchanted by the romance of it all as she was. More, perhaps, for the young girl didn't understand the lifelong implications of these decisions as much as Meralda did.

"Go to sleep," Meralda said softly again as she kissed Tori on the forehead. Straightening the dress with a nervous glance toward the curtain door of the room, Meralda headed for the small window and out into the night.

*****

Dohni Ganderlay watched his eldest daughter disappear into the darkness, knowing full well her intent. A huge part of him wanted to follow her, to catch her with Jaka and kill the troublesome boy once and for all, but Dohni also held faith that his daughter would return, that she would do what was right for the family as she had said to her sister that morning.

It tore at his heart, to be sure, for he understood the allure and insistence of young love. He decided to give her this one night, without question and without judgment.

*****

Meralda walked through the dark in fear. Not of any monsters that might leap out at her-no, this was her home and the young woman had never been afraid of such things-but of the reaction of her parents, particularly her father, if they discovered her missing.

Soon enough, though, the woman left her house behind and fell into the allure of the sparkling starry sky. She came to a field and began spinning and dancing, enjoying the touch of the wet grass on her bare feet, feeling as if she were stretching up to the heavens above to join with those magical points of light. She sang softly to herself, a quiet tune that sounded spiritual and surely fit her feelings out here, alone, at peace, and as one with the stars.

She hardly thought of Lord Feringal, of her parents, of her responsibility, even of her beloved Jaka. She wasn't thinking at all, was just existing in the glory of the night and the dance.

"Why are you here?" came a question from behind her, Jaka's lisping voice.

The magic vanished, and Meralda slowly turned around to face the young man. He stood, hands in pockets, head down, curly brown hair flopping over his brow so that she couldn't even see his eyes. Suddenly another fear gripped the young woman, the fear of what she anticipated would happen this night with this man.

"Did Lord Feringal let you out?" Jaka asked sarcastically.

"I'm no puppet of his," Meralda replied.

"Are you not to be his wife?" Jaka demanded. He looked up and stared hard at the woman, taking some satisfaction in the moisture that glistened in her eyes. "That's what the villagers are saying," he went on, then he changed his voice. "Meralda Ganderlay," he cackled, sounding like an old gnome woman.

"Oh, but what a lucky one, she is! To think that Lord Feringal himself'd come a-calling for her."

"Stop it," Meralda begged softly.

Jaka only went on more forcefully, his voice shifting timbre. "And what's he thinking, that fool, Feringal?" he said, now in the gruff tones of a village man. "He'll bring disgrace to us all, marrying so low as that. And what, with a hunnerd pretty and rich merchant girls begging for his hand. Ah, the fool!"

Meralda turned away and suddenly felt more silly than beautiful in her green gown. She also felt a hand on her shoulder, and Jaka was there, behind her.

"You have to know," he said softly. "Half of them think Lord Feringal a fool, and the other half are too blind by the false hopes of it all, like they're reliving their own courtships through you, wishing that their own miserable lives could be more like yours."

"What're you thinking?" Meralda said firmly, turning about to face the man, and starting as she did to see more clearly the bruises on his face, his fat lip and closed eye. She composed herself at once, though, understanding well enough where Jaka had found that beating.

"I think that Lord Feringal believes himself to be above you," Jaka answered bluntly.

"And so he is."

"No!" The retort came out sharply, making Meralda jump back in surprise. "No, he is not your better," Jaka went on quietly, and he lifted his hand to gently stroke Meralda's wet cheek. "Rather, you are too good for him, but he will not view things that way. Nay, he will use you at his whim, then cast you aside."

Meralda wanted to argue, but she wasn't sure the young man was wrong. It didn't matter, though, for whatever Lord Feringal had in mind for her, the things he could do for her family remained paramount.

"Why did you come out here?" Jaka asked again, and it seemed to Meralda as if he only then noticed her gown, for he ran the material of one puffy sleeve through his thumb and index finger, feeling its quality.

"I came out for a night for Meralda," the young woman explained. "For a night when my desires would outweigh me responsibility. One night. ."

She stopped when Jaka put a finger over her lips, holding it there for a long while. "Desires?" he asked slyly. "And do you include me among them? Did you come out here, all finely dressed, just to see me?"

Meralda nodded slowly and before she had even finished, Jaka was against her, pressing his lips to hers, kissing her hungrily, passionately. She felt as if she were floating, and then she realized that Jaka was guiding her down to the soft grass, holding the kiss all the way. His hands continued to move about her, and she didn't stop them, didn't even stiffen when they brushed her in private places. No, this was her night, the night she would become a woman with the man of her choosing, the man of her desires and not her responsibilities.

Jaka reached down and pulled the gown halfway up her legs and wasted no time in putting his own legs between hers.

"Slower, please," Meralda said softly, taking his face in both her hands and holding him very close to her, so that he had to look in her eyes. "I want it to be perfect," she explained.

"Meralda," the young man breathed, seeming desperate. "I cannot wait another minute."

"You don't have to," the young woman assured him, and she pulled him close and kissed him gently.

Soon after, the pair lay side by side, naked on the wet grass, the chill ocean air tickling their bodies as they stared up at the starry canopy. Meralda felt different, giddy and lightheaded almost, and somehow spiritual, as if she had just gone through something magical, some rite of passage. A thousand thoughts swirled in her mind. How could she go back to Lord Feringal after this wondrous lovemaking with Jaka? How could she turn her back on these feelings of pure joy and warmth? She felt wonderful at that moment, and she wanted the moment to last and last for the rest of her life. The rest of her life with Jaka.

But it would not, the woman knew. It would be gone with the break of dawn, never to return. She'd had her one moment. A lump caught in her throat.

For Jaka Sculi, the moment was a bit different, though certainly no less satisfying. He had taken Meralda's virginity, had beaten the lord of Auckney himself to that special place. He, a lowly peasant in Lord Feringal's eyes, had taken something from Feringal that could never be replaced, something more valuable than all the gold and gems in Castle Auck.

Jaka liked that feeling, but he feared, as did Meralda, that this afterglow would not last. "Will you marry him?" he asked suddenly.

Beautiful in the moonlight, Meralda turned a sleepy eye his way. "Let's not be talking about such things tonight," the woman implored him. "Nothing about Lord Feringal or anyone else."

"I must know, Meralda," Jaka said firmly, sitting up to stare down at her. "Tell me."

Meralda gave the young man the most plaintive look he had ever seen. "He can do for my ma and da," she tried to explain. "You must understand that the choice is not mine to make," an increasingly desperate Meralda finished lamely.

"Understand?" Jaka echoed incredulously, leaping to his feet and walking away. "Understand! How can I after what we just did? Oh, why did you come to me if you planned to marry Lord Feringal?"

Meralda caught up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. "I came out for one night where I might choose," she explained. "I came out because I love you and wish with all my heart that things could be different."

"We had just one brief moment," Jaka whined, turning back to face her.

Meralda came up on her tiptoes and kissed him gently. "We've more time," she explained, an offer Jaka couldn't resist. A short while later, Jaka was lying on the grass again, while Meralda stood beside him, pulling on her clothes.

"Deny him," Jaka said unexpectedly, and the young woman stopped and stared down at him. "Deny Lord Feringal," Jaka said again, as casually as if it were the most simple decision. "Forget him and run away with me. To Luskan, or even all the way to Waterdeep."

Meralda sighed and shook her head. "I'm begging you not to ask it of me," she started to say, but Jaka would not relent.

"Think of the life we might find together," he said. "Running through the streets of Waterdeep, magical Waterdeep! Running and laughing and making love. Raising a family together-how beautiful our children shall be."

"Stop it!" Meralda snapped so forcefully that she stole the words from Jaka's mouth. "You know I want to, and you also know I can't." Meralda sighed again profoundly. It was the toughest thing she had ever done in her entire life, but she bent to kiss Jaka's angry mouth one last time, then started toward home.

Jaka lay on the field for a long while, his mind racing. He had achieved his conquest, and it had been as sweet as he had expected. Still, it would not hold. Lord Feringal would marry Meralda, would beat him in the end. The thought of it made him sick. He stared up at the moon, now shaded behind lines of swift-moving clouds. "Fie this life," he grumbled.

There had to be something he could do to beat Lord Feringal, something to pull Meralda back to him.

A confident smile spread over Jaka's undeniably handsome face. He remembered the sounds Meralda had made, the way her body had moved in harmony with his own.

He wouldn't lose.

Chapter 11 ALL HANDS JOINED

"You will tell me of the poison," said Prelate Vohltin, an associate of Camerbunne. He was sitting in a comfortable chair in the middle of the brutally hot room, his frame outlined by the glow of the huge, blazing hearth behind him.

"Never good," Morik replied, drawing another twist of the thumbscrew from the bulky, sadistic, one-eyed (and he didn't even bother to wear an eyepatch) gaoler. This one had more orcish blood than human. "Poison, I mean," the rogue clarified, his voice going tight as waves of agony shot up his arm.

"It was not the same as the poison in the vial," Vohltin explained, and he nodded to the gaoler, who walked around the back of Morik. The rogue tried to follow the half-orc's movements, but both his arms were pulled outright, shackled tight at the wrists. One hand was in a press, the other in a framework box of strange design, its panels holding the hand open, fingers extended so that the gaoler could «play» with them one at a time.

The prelate shrugged, held his hands up, and when Morik didn't immediately reply a cat-o'-nine-tails switched across the rogue's naked back, leaving deep lines that hurt all the more for the sweat.

"You had the poison," Vohltin logically asserted, "and the insidious weapons, but it was not the same poison in the vial we recovered. A clever ruse, I suspect, to throw us off the correct path in trying to heal Captain Deudermont's wounds."

"A ruse indeed," Morik said dryly. The gaoler hit him again with the whip and raised his arm for a third strike. However, Vohltin raised his arm to hold the brutal thug at bay.

"You admit it?" Vohltin asked.

"All of it," Morik replied. "A ruse perpetrated by someone else, delivering to me and Wulfgar what you consider the evidence against us, then striking out at Deudermont when he came over to speak-"

"Enough!" said an obviously frustrated Vohltin, for he and all of the other interrogators had heard the same nonsense over and over from both Morik and Wulfgar. The prelate rose and turned to leave, shaking his head. Morik knew what that meant.

"I can tell you other things," the rogue pleaded, but Vohltin just lifted his arm and waved his hand dismissively.

Morik started to speak out again, but he lost his words and his breath as the gaoler slugged him hard in the kidney. Morik yelped and jumped, which only made the pain in his hand and thumb all the more exquisite. Still, despite all self-control, he jumped again when the gaoler struck him another blow, for the thug was wearing a metal strip across his knuckles, inlaid with several small pins.

Morik thought of his drow visitors that night long ago in the small apartment he kept near the Cutlass. Did they know what was happening? Would they come and rescue Wulfgar, and if they did, would they rescue Morik as well? He had almost told Wulfgar about them in those first hours when they had been chained in the same room, hesitating only because he feared that Wulfgar, so obviously lost in agonizing memories, wouldn't even hear him and that somebody else might.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the magistrates could pin on him, as well a charge that he was an associate of dark elves? Not that it mattered. Another punch slammed in, then the gaoler wont for the whip again to cut a few new lines on his back.

If those drow didn't come, his fate, Morik knew, was sealed in a most painful way.

*****

Robillard had only been gone for a few minutes, but when he returned to Deudermont's room he found half a dozen priests working furiously on the captain. Camerbunne stood back, directing the group.

"He is on fire inside," the priest explained, and even from this distance Robillard could see the truth of that statement from the color of the feverish Deudermont and the great streaks of sweat that trailed down his face. Robillard noticed, too, that the room was growing colder, and he realized that a pair of the six working on Deudermont were casting spells, not to heal, but to create cold.

"I have spells that will do the same," Robillard offered. "Powerful spells on scrolls back at Sea Sprite. Perhaps my captain would be better served if your priests were able to focus on healing."

"Run," Camerbunne said, and Robillard did him one better, using a series of dimensional doors to get back to Sea Sprite in a matter of moments. The wizard fished through his many components and scroll tubes, magical items and finely crafted pieces he meant to enchant when he found the time, at last coming upon a scroll with a trio of spells for creating ice, along with the necessary components. Cursing himself for not being better prepared and vowing that he would devote all his magical energies the next day to memorizing such spells, Robillard gated back to the chamber in the chapel. The priests were still working frenetically, and the old herb woman was there as well, rubbing a creamy, white salve all over Deudermont's wet chest.

Robillard prepared the components-a vial of ice troll blood, a bit of fur from the great white bear-and unrolled the scroll, flattening it on a small table. He tore his gaze from the dying Deudermont, focusing on the task at hand, and with the discipline only a wizard might know he methodically went to work, chanting softly and waggling his fingers and hands. He poured the cold ice troll blood on his thumb and index finger, then clasped the fur between them and blew onto it, once, twice, thrice, then cast the fur to the floor along a bare wall at the side of the room. A tap-tapping began there, hail bouncing off the floor, louder as the chunks came larger and larger, until, within a matter of seconds, Captain Deudermont was laid upon a new bed, a block of ice.

"This is the critical hour," Camerbunne explained. "His fever is too great, and I fear he may die of it. Blood as thin as water pours from his orifices. I have more priests waiting to step in when this group has exhausted their healing spells, and I have sent several to other chapels, even of rival gods, begging aid." Camerbunne smiled at the wizard's surprised expression. "They will come," he assured Robillard. "All of them."

Robillard was not a religious man, mainly because in his days of trying to find a god that fit his heart, he found himself distressed at the constant bickering and rivalries of the many varied churches. So he understood the compliment Camerbunne had just paid to the captain. What a great reputation Deudermont had built among the honest folk of the northern Sword Coast that all would put aside rivalries and animosity to join in for his sake.

They did come as Camerbunne promised, priests of nearly every persuasion in Luskan, flocking in six at a time to expend their healing energies over the battered captain.

Deudermont's fever broke around midnight. He opened a weary eye to find Robillard asleep next to him. The wizard's head was cradled on his folded arms on the captain's small bed, next to Deudermont's side.

"How many days?" the weak captain asked, for he recognized that something was very wrong here, very strange, as if he had just awakened from a long and terrible nightmare. Also, though he was wrapped in a sheet, he knew that he was on no normal bed, for it was too hard and his backside was wet.

Robillard jumped up at the sound, eyes wide. He put his hand to Deudermont's forehead, and his smile widened considerably when he felt that the man was cool to the touch.

"Camerbunne!" he called, drawing a curious look from the confused captain.

It was the most beautiful sight Robillard had ever seen.

*****

"Three circuits," came the nasally voice of Jharkheld the Magistrate, a thin old wretch who took far too much pleasure in his tasks for Morik's liking.

Every day the man walked through the dungeon caverns, pointing out those whose time had come for Prisoner's Carnival and declaring, based on the severity of their crime, or, perhaps, merely from his own mood, the preparation period for each. A "circuit," according to the gaoler who regularly beat Morik, was the time it took for a slow walk around the plaza where the Prisoner's Carnival was held, roughly about ten minutes. So the man Jharkheld had just labeled for three circuits would be brought up to carnival and tortured by various nonmortal means for about half an hour before Jharkheld even began the public hearing. It was done to rouse the crowd, Morik understood, and the old wretch Jharkheld liked the hearty cheers.

"So you have come to beat me again," Morik said when the brutish gaoler walked into the natural stone chamber where the rogue was chained to the wall. "Have you brought the holy man with you? Or the magistrate, perhaps? Is he to join us to order me up to the carnival?"

"No beatin' today, Morik the Rogue," the gaoler said. "They're not wantin' anything more from ye. Captain Deudermont's not needin' ye anymore."

"He died?" Morik asked, and he couldn't mask a bit of concern in his tone. If Deudermont had died, the charge against Wulfgar and Morik would be heinous murder, and Morik had been around Luskan long enough to witness more than a few executions of people so charged, executions by torture that lasted the better part of a day, at least.

"Nah," the gaoler said with obvious sadness in his tone. "Nah, we're not so lucky. Deudermont's livin' and all the better, so it looks like yerself and Wulfgar'll get killed quick and easy."

"Oh, joy," said Morik.

The brute paused for a moment and looked around, then waded in close to Morik and hit him a series of wicked blows about the stomach and chest.

"I'm thinkin' that Magistrate Jharkheld'll be callin' ye up to carnival soon enough," the gaoler explained. "Wanted to get in a few partin's, is all."

"My thanks," the ever-sarcastic rogue replied, and that got him a left hook across the jaw that knocked out a tooth and filled his mouth with warm blood.

*****

Deudermont's strength was fast returning, so much so that the priests had a very difficult task in keeping the man in his bed. Still they prayed over him, offering spells of healing, and the old herbalist woman came in with pots of tea and another soothing salve.

"It could not have been Wulfgar," Deudermont protested to Robillard, who had told him the entire story since the near tragedy in front of the Cutlass.

"Wulfgar and Morik," Robillard said firmly. "I watched it, Captain, and a good thing for you that I was watching!"

"It makes no sense to me," Deudermont replied. "I know Wulfgar."

"Knew," Robillard corrected.

"But he is a friend of Drizzt and Catti-brie, and we both know that those two would have nothing to do with an assassin-nothing good, at least."

"Was a friend," Robillard stubbornly corrected. "Now Wulfgar makes friends the likes of Morik the Rogue, a notorious street thug, and another pair, I believe, worse by far."

"Another pair?" Deudermont asked, and even as he did, Waillan Micanty and another crewman from Sea Sprite entered the room. They went to the captain first, bowed and saluted, both smiling widely, for Deudermont seemed even better than he had earlier in the day when all the crew had come running to Robillard's joyous call.

"Have you found them?" the wizard asked impatiently.

"I believe we have," a smug-looking Waillan replied. "Hiding in the hold of a boat just two berths down from Sea Sprite."

"They haven't come out much of late," the other crewman offered, "but we talked to some men at the Cutlass who thought they knew the pair and claimed that the one-eyed sailor was dropping gold coins without regard."

Robillard nodded knowingly. So it was a contracted attack, and those two were a part of the plan.

"With your permission, Captain," the wizard said, "I should like to take Sea Sprite out of dock."

Deudermont looked at him curiously, for the captain had no idea what this talk might be about.

"I sent Mister Micanty on a search for two other accomplices in the attack against you," Robillard explained. "It appears that we may have located them."

"But Mister Micanty just said they were in port," Deudermont reasoned.

"They're aboard Bowlegged Lady, as paying passengers. When I put Sea Sprite behind them, all weapons to bear, they will likely turn the pair over without a fight," Robillard reasoned, his eyes aglow.

Now Deudermont managed a chuckle. "I only wish that I could go with you," he said. The three took that as their cue and turned immediately for the door.

"What of Magistrate Jharkheld?" Deudermont asked quickly before they could skitter away.

"I bade him to hold on the justice for the pair," Robillard replied, "as you requested. We shall need them to confirm that these newest two were in on the attack, as well."

Deudermont nodded and waved the trio away, falling into his own thoughts. He still didn't believe that Wulfgar could be involved, though he had no idea how he might prove it. In Luskan, as in most of the cities of Faerun, even the appearance of criminal activity could get a man hanged, or drawn and quartered, or whatever unpleasant manner of death the presiding magistrate could think up.

*****

"An honest trader, I be, and ye got no proof otherways," Captain Pinnickers of Bowlegged Lady declared, leaning over the taffrail and calling out protests against the appearance of the imposing Sea Sprite, catapult and ballista and ranks of archers trained on his decks.

"As I have already told you, Captain Pinnickers, we have come not for your ship, nor for you, but for a pair you harbor," Robillard answered with all due respect.

"Bah! Go away with ye, or I'll be callin' out the city guard!" the tough, old sea dog declared.

"No difficult task," Robillard replied smugly, and he motioned to the wharves beside Bowlegged Lady. Captain Pinnickers turned to see a hundred city soldiers or more lining the dock, grim-faced and armed for battle.

"You have nowhere to run or hide," Robillard explained. "I ask your permission one more time as a courtesy to you. For your own sake, allow me and my crew to board your ship and find the pair we seek."

"My ship!" Pinnicker said, poking a finger into his chest.

"Or I shall order my gunners to have at it," Robillard explained, standing tall and imposing at Sea Sprite 's rail, all pretense of politeness flown. "I shall join in with spells of destruction you cannot even begin to imagine. Then we will search the wreckage for the pair ourselves."

Pinnicker seemed to shrink back just a bit, but he held fast his grim and determined visage.

"I offer you the choice one last time," Robillard said, his mock politeness returning.

"Fine choice," Pinnicker grumbled. He gave a helpless little wave, indicating that Robillard and the others should cross to his deck.

They found Creeps Sharky and Tee-a-nicknick in short order, with Robillard easily identifying them. They also found an interesting item on a beam near the tattooed man-creature: a hollow tube.

"Blowgun," Waillan Micanty explained, presenting it to Robillard.

"Indeed," said the wizard, examining the exotic weapon and quickly confirming its use from the design. "What might someone shoot from it?"

"Something small with an end shaped to fill the tube," Micanty explained. He took the weapon hack, pursed his lips, and blew through the tube. "It wouldn't work well if too much wind escaped around the dart."

"Small, you say. Like a cat's claw?" Robillard asked, eyeing the captured pair. "With a pliable, feathered end?"

Following Robillard's gaze at the miserable prisoners, Waillan Micanty nodded grimly.

*****

Wulfgar was lost somewhere far beyond pain, hanging limply from his shackled wrists, both bloody and torn. The muscles on the back of his neck and shoulders had long ago knotted, and even if he had been released and dropped to the floor, only gravity would have changed his posture.

The pain had pushed too far and too hard and had released Wulfgar from his present prison. Unfortunately for the big man, that escape had only taken him to another prison, a darker place by far, with torments beyond anything these mortal men could inflict upon him. Tempting, naked, and wickedly beautiful succubi flew about him. The great pincer-armed glabrezu came at him repeatedly, snapping, snapping, nipping pieces of his body away. All the while he heard the demonic laughter of Errtu the conqueror. Errtu the great balor who hated Drizzt Do'Urden above all other mortals and played out that anger continually upon Wulfgar.

"Wulfgar?" The call came from far away, not a throaty, demonic voice like Errtu's, but gentle and soft.

Wulfgar knew the trap, the false hopes, the feigned friendship. Errtu had played this one on him countless times, finding him in his moments of despair, lifting him from the emotional valleys, then dropping him even deeper into the pit of black hopelessness.

"I have spoken with Morik," the voice went on, but Wulfgar was no longer listening.

"He claims innocence," Captain Deudermont stubbornly continued, despite Robillard's huffing doubts at his side. "Yet the dog Sharky has implicated you both."

Trying to ignore the words, Wulfgar let out a low growl, certain that it was Errtu come again to torment him.

"Wulfgar?" Deudermont asked.

"It is useless," Robillard said flatly.

"Give me something, my friend," Deudermont went on, leaning heavily on a cane for support, for his strength had far from returned. "Some word that you are innocent so that I might tell Magistrate Jharkheld to release you."

No response came back other than the continued growl.

"Just tell me the truth," Deudermont prodded. "I don't believe that you were involved, but I must hear it from you if I am to demand a proper trial."

"He can't answer you, Captain," Robillard said, "because I here is no truth to tell that will exonerate him."

"You heard Morik," Deudermont replied, for the two had just come from Morik's cell, where the little thief had vehemently proclaimed his and Wulfgar's innocence. He explained that Creeps Sharky had offered quite a treasure for Deudermont's head, but that he and Wulfgar had flatly refused.

"I heard a desperate man weave a desperate tale," Robillard replied.

"We could find a priest to interrogate him," Deudermont said. "Many of them have spells to detect such lies."

"Not allowed by Luskan law," Robillard replied. "Too many priests bring their own agendas to the interrogation. The magistrate handles his questioning in his own rather successful manner."

"He tortures them until they admit guilt, whether or not the admission is true," Deudermont supplied.

Robillard shrugged. "He gets results."

"He fills his carnival."

"How many of those in the carnival do you believe to be innocent, Captain?" Robillard asked bluntly. "Even those innocent, of the particular crime for which they are being punished have no doubt committed many other atrocities."

"That is a rather cynical view of justice, my friend," Deudermont said.

That is reality," Robillard answered.

Deudermont sighed and looked back to Wulfgar, hanging and growling, not proclaiming his innocence, not proclaiming anything at all. Deudermont called to the man again, even moved over and tapped him on the side. "You must give me a reason to believe Morik," he said.

Wulfgar felt the gentle touch of a succubus luring him into emotional hell. With a roar, he swung his hips and kicked out, just grazing the surprised captain, but clipping him hard enough to send him staggering backward to the floor.

Robillard sent a ball of sticky goo from his wand, aiming low to pin Wulfgar's legs against the wall. The big man thrashed wildly, but with his wrists firmly chained and his legs stuck fast to the wall, the movement did little but reinvigorate the agony in his shoulders.

Robillard was before him, hissing and sneering, whispering some chant. The wizard reached up, grabbed Wulfgar's groin, and sent a shock of electricity surging into the big man that brought a howl of pain.

"No!" said Deudermont, struggling to his feet. "No more."

Robillard gave a sharp twist and spun away, his face contorted with outrage. "Do you need more proof, Captain?" he demanded.

Deudermont wanted to offer a retort but found none. "Let us leave this place," he said.

"Better that we had never come," Robillard muttered.

Wulfgar was alone again, hanging easier until Robillard's wand material dissipated, for the goo supported his weight. Soon enough, though, he was hanging by just the shackles again, his muscles bunching in renewed pain. He fell away, deeper and darker than ever before.

He wanted a bottle to crawl into, needed the burning liquid to release his mind from the torments.

Chapter 12 TO HER FAMILY TRUE

"Merchant Band to speak with you," Steward Temigast announced as he stepped into the garden. Lord Feringal and Meralda had been standing quiet, enjoying the smells and the pretty sights, the flowers and the glowing orange sunset over the dark waters.

"Bring him out," the young man replied, happy to show off his newest trophy.

"Better that you come to him," Temigast said. "Banci is a nervous one, and he's in a rush. He'll not be much company to dear Meralda. I suspect he will ruin the mood of the garden."

"Well, we cannot allow that," Lord Feringal conceded. With a smile to Meralda and a pat of her hand, he started toward Temigast.

Feringal walked past the steward, and Temigast offered Meralda a wink to let her know he had just saved her from a long tenure of tedium. The young woman was far from insulted at being excluded. Also, the ease with which Feringal had agreed to go along surprised her.

Now she was free to enjoy the fabulous gardens alone, free to touch the; flowers and take in their silky texture, to bask in their aromas without the constant pressure of having an adoring man following her every movement with his eyes and hands. She savored the moment and vowed that after she was lady of the castle she would spend many such moments out in this garden alone.

But she was not alone. She spun around to find Priscilla watching her.

"It is my garden, after all," the woman said coldly, moving to water a row of bright blue bachelor buttons.

"So Steward Temigast telled me," Meralda replied.

Priscilla didn't respond, didn't even look up from her watering.

"It surprised me to learn of it," Meralda went on, her eyes narrowing. "It's so beautiful, after all."

That brought Priscilla's eyes up in a flash. The woman was very aware of insults. Scowling mightily, she strode toward Meralda. For a moment the younger woman thought Priscilla might try to strike her, or douse her, perhaps, with the bucket of water.

"My, aren't you the pretty one?" Priscilla remarked. "And only a pretty one like you could make so beautiful a garden, of course."

"Pretty inside," Meralda replied, not backing down an inch. She recognized that her posture had, indeed, caught the imposing Priscilla off guard. "And yes, I'm knowing enough about flowers to understand that the way you talk to them and the way you're touching them is what makes them grow. Begging your pardon, Lady Priscilla, but you're not for showing me any side of yourself that's favoring to flowers."

"Begging my pardon?" Priscilla echoed. She stood straight, her eyes wide, stunned by the peasant woman's bluntness. She stammered over a couple of replies before Meralda cut her off.

"By my own eyes, it's the most beautiful garden in all of Auckney," she said, breaking eye contact with Priscilla to take in the view of the flowers, emphasizing her words with a wondrous look of approval. "I thought you hateful and all."

She turned back to face the woman directly, but Meralda was not scowling. Priscilla's frown, too, had somewhat abated. "Now I'm knowing better, for anyone who could make a garden so delightful is hiding delights of her own." She ended with a disarming grin that even Priscilla could not easily dismiss.

"I have been working on this garden for years," the older woman explained. "Planting and tending, finding flowers to come to color every week of every summer."

"And the work's showing," Meralda sincerely congratulated her. "I'll wager there's not a garden to match it in Luskan or even Waterdeep."

Meralda couldn't suppress a bit of a smile to see Priscilla blushing. She'd found the woman's weak spot.

"It is a pretty garden," the woman said, "but Waterdeep has gardens the size of Castle Auck."

"Bigger then, but sure to be no more beautiful," the unrelenting Meralda remarked.

Priscilla stammered again, so obviously off guard from the unexpected flattery from this peasant girl. "Thank you," she managed to blurt out, and her chubby face lit up with as wide a smile as Meralda could ever have imagined. "Would you like to see something special?"

Meralda was at first wary, for she certainly had a hard time trusting Priscilla, but she decided to take a chance. Priscilla grabbed her by the hand and tugged her back into the castle, through a couple of small rooms, down a hidden stairway, and to a small open-air courtyard that seemed more like a hole in the castle design, an empty space barely wide enough for the two of them to stand side by side. Meralda laughed aloud at the sight, for while the walls were naught but cracked and weathered gray stone, there, in the middle of the courtyard, stood a row of poppies, most the usual deep red, but several a delicate pink variety that Meralda didn't recognize.

"I work with the plants in here," Priscilla explained, guiding Meralda to the pots. She knelt before the red poppies first, stroking the stem with one hand while pushing down the petals to reveal the dark core of the flower with the other. "See how rough the stem is?" she asked. Meralda nodded as she reached out to touch the solid plant.

Priscilla abruptly stood and guided Meralda to the other pots containing lighter colored poppies. Again she revealed the core of the flower, this time showing it to be white, not dark. When Meralda touched the stem of this plant she found it to be much more delicate.

"For years I have been using lighter and lighter plants," Priscilla explained. "Until I achieved this, a poppy so very different from its original stock."

"Priscilla poppies!" Meralda exclaimed. She was delighted to see surly Priscilla Auck actually break into a laugh.

"But you've earned the name," Meralda went on. "You should be taking them to the merchants when they come in on their trek between Hundelstone and Luskan. Wouldn't the ladies of Luskan pay a high price for so delicate a poppy?"

"The merchants who come to Auckney are interested only in trading for practical things," Priscilla replied. "Tools and weapons, food and drink, always drink, and perhaps a bit of Ten-Towns scrimshaw. Lord Feri has quite a collection of that."

"I'd love to see it."

Priscilla gave her a rather strange look then. "You will, I suppose," she said somewhat dryly, as if only remembering then that this was no ordinary peasant servant but the woman who would soon be the lady of Auckney.

"But you should be selling your flowers," Meralda continued encouragingly. "Take them to Luskan, perhaps, to the open air markets I've heard are so very wonderful."

The smile returned to Priscilla's face, at least a bit. "Yes, well, we shall see," she replied, a haughty undercurrent returning to her tone. "Of course, only village peasants hawk their wares."

Meralda wasn't too put off. She had made more progress with Priscilla in this one day than she ever expected to make in a lifetime.

"Ah, there you are." Steward Temigast stood in the doorway to the castle. As usual, his timing couldn't have been better. "Pray forgive us, dear Meralda, but Lord Feringal will be caught in a meeting all the night, I fear, for Banci can be a demon in bartering, and he has actually brought a few pieces that have caught Lord Feringal's eye. He bade me to inquire if you would like to visit tomorrow during the day."

Meralda looked to Priscilla, hoping for some clue, but the woman was tending her flowers again as if Meralda and Temigast weren't even there.

"Tell him that surely I will," Meralda replied.

"I pray that you are not too angry with us," said Temigast. Meralda laughed at the absurd notion. "Very well, then. Perhaps you should be right away, for the coach is waiting and I fear a storm will come up tonight," Temigast said as he moved aside.

"Your Priscilla poppies are as beautiful a flower as I've ever seen," Meralda said to the woman who would soon be kin. Priscilla caught her by the pleat of her dress, and when she turned back, startled, she grew even more surprised, for Priscilla held a small pink poppy out to her.

The two shared a smile, and Meralda swept past Temigast into the castle proper. The steward hesitated in following, though, turning his attention to Lady Priscilla. "A friend?" he asked.

"Hardly," came the cold reply. "Perhaps if she has her own flower, she will leave mine in peace."

Temigast chuckled, drawing an icy stare from Priscilla. "A friend, a lady friend, might not be so bad a thing as you seem to believe," the steward remarked. He turned and hastened to catch up to Meralda, leaving Priscilla kneeling in her private garden with some very curious and unexpected thoughts.

*****

Many budding ideas rode with Meralda on the way back to her house from Castle Auck. She had handled Priscilla well, she thought, and even dared to hope that she and the woman might become real friends one day.

Even as that notion crossed her mind, it brought a burst of laughter from the young woman's lips. In truth, she couldn't imagine ever having a close friendship with Priscilla, who would always, always, consider herself Meralda's superior.

But Meralda knew better now, and not because of that day's interaction with the woman but rather, because of the previous night's interaction with Jaka Sculi. How much better Meralda understood the world now, or at least her corner of it. She had used the previous night as a turning point. It had taken that one moment of control, by Meralda and for Meralda, to accept the wider and less appealing responsibility that had been thrown her way. Yes, she would play Lord Feringal now, bringing him on her heel to the wedding chapel of Castle Auck. She, and more importantly, her family, would get from him what they required, While such gains would come at a cost to Meralda, it was a cost that this new woman, no more a girl, would pay willingly and with some measure of control.

She was glad she hadn't seen much of Lord Feringal tonight, though. No doubt he would have tried to force himself on her, and Meralda doubted she could have maintained the self-control necessary to not laugh at him.

Smiling, satisfied, the young woman stared out the coach's window as the twisting road rolled by. She saw him, and suddenly her smile disappeared. Jaka Sculi stood atop a rocky bluff, a lone figure staring down at the place where the driver normally let Meralda out.

Meralda leaned out the coach window opposite Jaka so she would not be seen by him. "Good driver, please take me all the way to my door this night."

"Oh, but I hoped you'd ask me that this particular ride, Miss Meralda," Liam Woodgate replied. "Seems one of my horses is having a bit of a problem with a shoe. Might your father have a straight bar and a hammer?"

"Of course he does," Meralda replied. "Take me to my house, and I'm sure that me da'll help you fix that shoe."

"Good enough, then!" the driver replied. He gave the reins a bit of a snap that sent the horses trotting along more swiftly.

Meralda fell back in her seat and stared out the window at the silhouette of a slender man she knew to be Jaka from his forlorn posture. In her mind she could see his expression clearly. She almost reconsidered her course and told the driver to let her out. Maybe she should go to Jaka again and make love under the stars one more time, be free for yet another night. Perhaps she should run away with him and live her life for her sake and no one else's.

No, she couldn't do that to her mother, or her father, or Tori. Meralda was a daughter her parents could depend upon to do the right thing. The right thing, Meralda knew, was to put her affections for Jaka Sculi far behind her.

The coach pulled up before the Ganderlay house. Liam Woodgate, a nimble fellow, hopped down and pulled open Meralda's door before she could reach for the latch.

"You're not needing to do that," the young woman stated as the gnome helped her out of the carriage.

"But you're to be the lady of Auckney," the cheery old fellow replied with a smile and a wink. "Can't be having you treated like a peasant, now can we?"

"It's not so bad," Meralda replied, adding, "being a peasant, I mean." Liam laughed heartily. "Gets you out of the castle at night."

"And gets you back in, whenever you're wanting," Liam replied. "Steward Temigast says I'm at your disposal, Miss Meralda. I'm to take you and your family, if you so please, wherever you're wanting to go."

Meralda smiled widely and nodded her thanks. She noticed then that her grim-faced father had opened the door and was standing just within the house.

"Da!" Meralda called. "Might you help my friend. ." The woman paused and looked to the driver. "Why, I'm not even knowing your proper name," she remarked.

"Most noble ladies don't take the time to ask," he replied, and both he and Meralda laughed again. "Besides, we all look alike to you big folks." He winked mischievously, then bowed low. "Liam Woodgate, at your service."

Dohni Ganderlay walked over. "A short stay at the castle this night," he remarked suspiciously.

"Lord Feringal got busy with a merchant," Meralda replied. "I'm to return on the morrow. Liam here's having a bit of trouble with a horseshoe. Might you help him?"

Dohni looked past the driver to the team and nodded. " 'Course," he answered. "Get yourself inside, girl," he instructed Meralda. "Your ma's taken ill again."

Meralda bolted for the house. She found her mother in bed, hot with fever again, her eyes sunken deep into her face. Tori was kneeling beside the bed, a mug of water in one hand, a wet towel in the other.

"She got the weeps soon after you left," Tori explained, a nasty affliction that had been plaguing Biaste off and on for several months.

Looking at her mother, Meralda wanted to fall down and cry.

How frail the woman appeared, how unpredictable her health. It was as if Biaste Ganderlay had been walking a fine line on the edge of her own grave day after day. Good spirits alone had sustained the woman these last days, since Lord Feringal had come calling, Meralda knew. Desperately, the young woman grasped at the only medication she had available.

"Oh, Ma," she said, feigning exasperation. "Aren't you picking a fine time to fall ill again?"

"Meralda," Biaste Ganderlay breathed, and even that seemed a labor to her.

"We'll just have to get you better and be quick about it," Meralda said sternly.

"Meralda!" Tori complained.

"I told you about Lady Priscilla's garden," Meralda went on, ignoring her sister's protest. "Get better, and be quick, because tomorrow you're to join me at the castle. We'll walk the garden together."

"And me?" Tori pleaded. Meralda turned to regard her and noticed that she had another audience member. Dohni Ganderlay stood at the door, leaning on the jamb, a surprised expression on his strong but weary face.

"Yeah, Tori, you can join us," Meralda said, trying hard to ignore her father, "but you must promise that you'll behave."

"Oh, Ma, please get better quickly!" Tori implored Biaste, clutching the woman's hand firmly. It did seem as if the sickly woman showed a little bit more life at that moment.

"Go, Tori," Meralda instructed. "Run to the coach driver-Liam's his name-and tell him that we three'll be needing a ride to the castle at midday tomorrow. We can't have Ma walking all the way."

Tori ran off as instructed, and Meralda bent low over her mother. "Get well," she whispered, kissing the woman on the forehead. Biaste smiled and nodded her intent to try.

Meralda walked out of the room under the scrutinizing gaze of Dohni Ganderlay. She heard the man pull the curtain closed to her parents' room, then follow her to the middle of the common room.

"Will he let you bring them both?" Dohni asked, softly so that Biaste would not hear.

She shrugged. "I'm to be his wife, and that's his idea. He'd be a fool to not grant me this one favor."

Dohni Ganderlay's face melted into a grateful smile as he fell into his daughter, hugging her closely. Though she couldn't see his face, Meralda knew that he was crying.

She returned that hug tenfold, burying her face in her father's strong shoulder, a not so subtle reminder to her that, though she was being the brave soldier for the good of her family, she was still, in many ways, a scared little girl.

How warm it felt to her, a reassurance that she was doing the right thing, when her father kissed her on top of her head.

*****

Up on the hill a short distance away, Jaka Sculi watched Dohni Ganderlay help the coachman fix the horseshoe, the two of them talking and chuckling as if they were old friends. Considering the treatment Dohni Ganderlay had given him the previous night, the sight nearly leveled poor, jealous Jaka. Didn't Dohni understand that Lord Feringal wanted the same things for which Dohni had chastised him? Couldn't the man see that Jaka's intentions were better than Lord Feringal's, that he was more akin to Meralda's class and background and would therefore be a better choice for her?

Dohni went back into the house then, and Meralda's sister soon emerged, jumping for joy as she rushed over to speak with the coachman.

"Have I no allies?" Jaka asked quietly, chewing on his bottom lip petulantly. "Are they all against me, blinded by the unearned wealth and prestige of Feringal Auck? Damn you, Meralda! How could you betray me so?" he cried, heedless if his wail carried down to Tori and the driver.

He couldn't look at them anymore. Jaka clenched his fists and smacked them hard against his eyes, falling on his back to the hard ground. "What justice is this life?" he cried. "O fie, to have been born a pauper, I, when the mantle of a king would better suit! What justice allows that fool Feringal to claim the prize? What universal order so decrees that the purse is stronger than the loins? O fie this life! And damn Meralda!"

He lay there, muttering curses and mewling like a trapped cat, long after Liam Woodgate had repaired the shoe, shared a drink with Dohni Ganderlay, and departed. Long after Meralda's mother had fallen into a comfortable sleep at last, long after Meralda had confided to Tori all that had happened with Jaka, with Feringal, and with Priscilla and Temigast. Long after the storm Temigast had predicted arrived with all its fury, pelting the prone Jaka with drenching rain and buffeting him with cold ocean winds.

He still lay upon the hill when the clouds were swept away, making room for a brilliant sunrise, when the workers made their way to the fields. One worker, the only dwarf among the group, moved over to the young man and nudged him with the toe of one boot.

"You dead or dead drunk?" the gnarly creature asked.

Jaka rolled away from him, stifling the groan that came from the stiffness in his every muscle and joint. Too wounded in pride to respond, too angry to face anyone, the young man scrambled up to his feet and ran off.

"Strange bird, that one," the dwarf remarked, and those around him nodded.

Much later that morning, when his clothes had dried and with the chill of the night's wind and rain still deep under his skin, Jaka returned to the fields for his workday, suffering the berating of the field boss and the teasing of the other workers. He fought hard to tend to his work properly but it was a struggle, for his thoughts remained jumbled, his spirit sagged, and his skin felt clammy under the relentless sun.

It only got worse for him when he saw Lord Feringal's coach roll by on the road below, first heading toward Meralda's house, then back again, loaded with more than one passenger.

They were all against him.

*****

Meralda enjoyed that day at Castle Auck more than any of her previous visits, though Lord Feringal did little to hide his disappointment that he would not have Meralda to himself. Priscilla boiled at the thought of three peasants in her wondrous garden.

Still, Feringal got over it soon enough, and Priscilla, with some coughing reminders from Steward Temigast, remained outwardly polite. All that mattered to Meralda was to see her mother smiling and holding her frail face up to the sunlight, basking in the warmth and the sweet scents. The scene only strengthened Meralda's resolve and gave her hope for the future.

They didn't remain at the castle for long, just an hour in the garden, a light lunch, then another short stroll around the flowers. At Meralda's bidding, an apology of sorts to Lord Feringal for the unexpected additions, the young lord rode in the coach back to the Ganderlay house, leaving a sour Priscilla and Temigast at the castle door.

"Peasants," Priscilla muttered. "I should batter that brother of mine about the head for bringing such folk to Castle Auck."

Temigast chuckled at the woman's predictability. "They are uncultured, indeed," the steward admitted. "Not unpleasant, though."

"Mud-eaters," said Priscilla.

"Perhaps you view this situation from an errant perspective," Temigast said, turning a wry smile on the woman.

"There is but one way to view peasants," Priscilla retorted. "One must look down upon them."

"But the Ganderlays are to be peasants no more," Temigast couldn't resist reminding her.

Priscilla scoffed doubtfully.

"Perhaps you should view this as a challenge," suggested Temigast. He paused until Priscilla turned a curious eye upon him. "Like coaxing a delicate flower from a bulb."

"Ganderlays? Delicate?" Priscilla remarked incredulously.

"Perhaps they could be with the help of Lady Priscilla Auck," said Temigast. "What a grand accomplishment it would be for Priscilla to enlighten them so, a feat that would make her brother brag to every merchant who passed through, an amazing accomplishment that would no doubt reach the ears of Luskan society. A plume in Priscilla's bonnet."

Priscilla snorted again, her expression unconvinced, but she said no more, not even her usual muttered insults. As she walked away, her expression changed to one of thoughtful curiosity, in the midst of some planning, perhaps.

Temigast recognized that she had taken his bait, or nibbled it, at least. The old steward shook his head. It never ceased to amaze him how most nobles considered themselves so much better than the people they ruled, even though that rule was always no more than an accident of birth.

Chapter 13 PRISONER'S CARNIVAL

It was an hour of beatings and taunting, of eager peasants throwing rotten food and spitting in their faces.

It was an hour that Wulfgar didn't even register. The man was so far removed from the spectacle of Prisoner's Carnival, so well hidden within a private emotional place, a place created through the mental discipline that had allowed him to survive the torments of Errtu, that he didn't even see the twisted, perverted faces of the peasants or hear the magistrate's assistant stirring up the mob for the real show when Jharkheld joined them on the huge stage. The barbarian was bound, as were the other three, with his hands behind his back and secured to a strong wooden post. Weights were chained about his ankles and another one around his neck, heavy enough to bow the head of powerful Wulfgar.

He had recognized the crowd with crystalline clarity. The drooling peasants, screaming for blood and torture, the excited, almost elated, ogre guards working the crowd, and the unfortunate prisoners. He'd seen them for what they were, and his mind had transformed them into something else, something demonic, the twisted, leering faces of Errtu's minions, slobbering over him with their acidic drool, nipping at him with their sharpened fangs and horrid breath. He smelled the fog of Errtu's home again, the sulphuric Abyss burning his nostrils and his throat, adding an extra sting to all of his many, many wounds. He felt the itching of the centipedes and spiders crawling over and inside his skin. Always on the edge of death. Always wishing for it.

As those torments had continued, day after week after month, Wulfgar had found his escape in a tiny corner of his consciousness. Locked inside, he was oblivious to his surroundings. Here at the carnival he went to that place.

One by one the prisoners were taken from the posts and paraded about, sometimes close enough to be abused by the peasants, other times led to instruments of torture. Those included cross ties for whipping; a block and tackle designed to hoist victims into the air by a pole lashed under their arms locked behind their back; ankle stocks to hang prisoners upside down in buckets of filthy water, or, in the case of unfortunate Creeps Sharky, a bucket of urine. Creeps cried through most of it, while Tee-a-nicknick and Wulfgar stoically accepted whatever punishment the magistrate's assistant could dish out without a sound other than the occasional, unavoidable gasp of air being blasted from their lungs. Morik took it all in stride, protesting his innocence and throwing witty comments about, which only got him beaten all the worse.

Magistrate Jharkheld appeared, entering to howls and cheers, wearing a thick black robe and cap, and carrying a silver scroll tube. He moved to the center of the stage, standing between the prisoners to eye them deliberately one by one.

Jharkheld stepped out front. With a dramatic flourish he presented the scroll tube, the damning documents, bringing eager shouts and cheers. Each movement distinct, with an appropriate response mounting to a crescendo, Jharkheld popped the cap from the tube's end and removed the documents. Unrolling them, the magistrate showed the documents to the crowd one at a time, reading each prisoner's name.

The magistrate surely seemed akin to Errtu, the carnival barker, ordering the torments. Even his voice sounded to the barbarian like that of the balor: grating, guttural, inhuman.

"I shall tell to you a tale," Jharkheld began, "of treachery and deceit, of friendship abused and murder attempted for profit. That man!" he said powerfully, pointing to Creeps Sharky, "that man told it to me in full, and the sheer horror of it has stolen my sleep every night since." The magistrate went on to detail the crime as Sharky had presented it. All of it had been Morik's idea, according to the wretch. Morik and Wulfgar had lured Deudermont into the open so that Tee-a-nicknick could sting him with a poisoned dart. Morik was supposed to sting the honorable captain, too, using a different variety of poison to ensure that the priests could not save the man, but the city guard had arrived too quickly for that second assault. Throughout the planning, Creeps Sharky had tried to talk them out of it, but he'd said nothing to anyone else out of fear of Wulfgar. The big man had threatened to tear his head from his shoulders and kick it down every street in Luskan.

Enough of those gathered in the crowd had fallen victim to Wulfgar's enforcer tactics at the Cutlass to find that last part credible.

"You four are charged with conspiracy and intent to heinously murder goodman Captain Deudermont, a visitor in excellent standing to our fair city," Jharkheld said when he completed the story and let the howls and jeers from the crowd die away. "You four are charged with the infliction of serious harm to the same. In the interest of justice and fairness, we will hear your answers to these charges."

He walked over to Creeps Sharky. "Did I relate the tale as you told it to me?" he asked.

"You did sir, you did," Creeps Sharky eagerly replied. "They done it, all of it!"

Many in the crowd yelled out their doubts about that, while others merely laughed at the man, so pitiful did he sound.

"Mister Sharky," Jharkheld went on, "do you admit your guilt to the first charge?"

"Innocent!" Sharky protested, sounding confident that his cooperation had allowed him to escape the worst of the carnival, but the jeers of the crowd all but drowned out his voice.

"Do you admit your guilt to the second charge against you?"

"Innocent!" the man said defiantly, and he gave a gap-toothed smile to the magistrate.

"Guilty!" cried an old woman. "Guilty he is, and deserving to die horrible for trying to blame the others!"

A hundred cries arose agreeing with the woman, but Creeps Sharky held fast his smile and apparent confidence. Jharkheld walked out to the front of the platform and patted his hands in the air, trying to calm the crowd. When at last they quieted he said, "The tale of Creeps Sharky has allowed us to convict the others. Thus, we have promised leniency to the man for his cooperation." That brought a rumble of boos and derisive whistles. "For his honesty and for the fact that he, by his own words-undisputed by the others-was not directly involved."

"I'll dispute it!" Morik cried, and the crowd howled. Jharkheld merely motioned to one of the guards, and Morik got the butt of a club slammed into his belly.

More boos erupted throughout the crowd, but Jharkheld denied the calls and a smile widened on the face of clever Creeps Sharky.

"We promised him leniency," Jharkheld said, throwing up his hands as if there was nothing he could do about it. "Thus, we shall kill him quickly."

That stole the smile from the face of Creeps Sharky and turned the chorus of boos into roars of agreement.

Sputtering protests, his legs failing him, Creeps Sharky was dragged to a block and forced to kneel before it.

"Innocent I am!" he cried, but his protest ended abruptly as one of the guards forced him over the block, slamming his face against the wood. A huge executioner holding a monstrous axe stepped up to the block.

"The blow won't fall clean if you struggle," a guard advised him.

Creeps Sharky lifted his head. "But ye promised me!"

The guards slammed him back down on the block. "Quit yer wiggling!" one of them ordered. The terrified Creeps jerked free and fell to the platform, rolling desperately. There was pandemonium as the guards grabbed at him. He kicked wildly, the crowd howled and laughed, and cries of "Hang him!" "Keel haul!" and other horrible suggestions for execution echoed from every corner of the square.

*****

"Lovely gathering," Captain Deudermont said sarcastically to Robillard. They stood with several other members of Sea Sprite among the leaping and shouting folk.

"Justice," the wizard stated firmly.

"I wonder," the captain said pensively. "Is it justice, or entertainment? There is a fine line, my friend, and considering this almost daily spectacle, it's one I believe the authorities in Luskan long ago crossed."

"You were the one who wanted to come here," Robillard reminded him.

"It is my duty to be here in witness," Deudermont answered.

"I meant here in Luskan," Robillard clarified. "You wanted to come to this city, Captain. I preferred Waterdeep."

Deudermont fixed his wizard friend with a stern stare, but he had no rebuttal to offer.

*****

"Stop yer wiggling!" the guard yelled at Creeps, but the dirty man fought all the harder, kicking and squealing desperately. He managed to evade their grasps for some time to the delight of the onlookers who were thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. Creeps's frantic movements brought his gaze in line with Jharkheld. The magistrate fixed him with a glare so intense and punishing that Creeps stopped moving.

"Draw and quarter him," Jharkheld said slowly and deliberately.

The gathering reached a new level of joyous howling.

Creeps had witnessed that ultimate form of execution only twice in his years, and that was enough to steal the blood from his face, to send him into a fit of trembling, to make him, right there in front of a thousand onlookers, wet himself.

"Ye promised," he mouthed, barely able to draw breath, but loud enough for the magistrate to hear and come over to him.

"I did promise leniency," Jharkheld said quietly, "and so I will honor my word to you, but only if you cooperate. The choice is yours to make."

Those in the crowd close enough to hear groaned their protests, but Jharkheld ignored them.

"I have four horses in waiting," Jharkheld warned.

Creeps started crying.

"Take him to the block," the magistrate instructed the guards. This time Creeps made no move against them, offered no resistance at all as they dragged him back, forced him into a kneeling position, and pushed his head down.

"Ye promised," Creeps softly cried his last words, but the cold magistrate only smiled and nodded. Not to Creeps, but to the large man standing beside him.

The huge axe swept down, the crowd gasped as one, then broke into howls. The head of Creeps Sharky tumbled to the platform and rolled a short distance. One of the guards rushed to it and held it up, turning it to face the headless body. Legend had it that with a perfect, swift cut and a quick guard the beheaded man might still be conscious for a split second, long enough to see his own body, his face contorted into an expression of the purest, most exquisite horror.

Not this time, though, for Creeps Sharky wore the same sad expression.

*****

"Beautiful," Morik muttered sarcastically at the other end of the platform. "Yet, it's a better fate by far than the rest of us will find this day."

Flanking him on either side, neither Wulfgar nor Tee-a-nicknick offered a reply.

"Just beautiful," the doomed rogue said again. Morik was not unaccustomed to finding himself in rather desperate situations, but this was the first time he ever felt himself totally without options. He shot Tee-a-nicknick a look of utter contempt then turned his attention to Wulfgar. The big man seemed so impassive and distanced from the mayhem around them that Morik envied him his oblivion.

The rogue heard Jharkheld's continuing banter as he worked up the crowd. He apologized for the rather unentertaining execution of Creeps Sharky, explaining the occasional need for such mercy. Else, why would anyone ever confess?

Morik drowned out the magistrate's blather and willed his mind to a place where he was safe and happy. He thought of Wulfgar, of how, against all odds, they had become friends. Once they had been rivals, the new barbarian rising in reputation on Half-Moon Street, particularly after he had killed the brute, Tree Block Breaker. The only remaining operator with a reputation to protect, Morik had considered eliminating Wulfgar, though murder had never really been the rogue's preferred method.

Then there had come the strangest of encounters. A dark elf-a damned drow! — had come to Morik in his rented room, had just walked in without warning, and had bade Morik to keep a close watch over Wulfgar but not to hurt the man. The dark elf had paid Morik well. Realizing that gold coins were better payment than the sharpened edge of drow weapons, the rogue had gone along with the plan, watching Wulfgar more and more closely as the days slipped past. They'd even becoming drinking partners, spending late nights, often until dawn, together at the docks.

Morik had never heard from that dark elf again. If the order had come from for him to eliminate Wulfgar, he doubted he would have accepted the contract. He realized now that if he heard the dark elves were coming to kill the barbarian, Morik would have stood by Wulfgar.

Well, the rogue admitted more realistically, he might not have stood beside Wulfgar, but he would have warned the barbarian, then run far, far away.

Now there was nowhere to run. Morik wondered briefly again if those dark elves would show up to save this human in whom they had taken such an interest. Perhaps a legion of drow warriors would storm Prisoner's Carnival, their fine blades slicing apart the macabre onlookers as they worked their way to the platform.

The fantasy could not hold, for Morik knew they would not be coming for Wulfgar. Not this time.

"I am truly sorry, my friend," he apologized to Wulfgar, for Morik could not dismiss the notion that this situation was largely his fault.

Wulfgar didn't reply. Morik understood that the big man had not even heard his words, that his friend was already gone from this place, fallen deep within himself.

Perhaps that was the best course to take. Looking at the sneering mob, hearing Jharkheld's continuing speech, watching the headless body of Creeps Sharky being dragged across the platform, Morik wished that he, too, could so distance himself.

*****

The magistrate again told the tale of Creeps Sharky, of how these other three had conspired to murder that most excellent man, Captain Deudermont. Jharkheld made his way over to Wulfgar. He looked at the doomed man, shook his head, then turned back to the mob, prompting a response.

There came a torrent of jeers and curses.

"You are the worst of them all!" Jharkheld yelled in the barbarian's face. "He was your friend, and you betrayed him!"

"Keel haul 'im on Deudermont's own ship!" came one anonymous demand.

"Draw and quarter and feed 'im to the fishes!" yelled another.

Jharkheld turned to the crowd and lifted his hand, demanding silence, and after a bristling moment they obeyed. "This one," the magistrate said, "I believe we shall save for last."

That brought another chorus of howls.

"And what a day we shall have," said Jharkheld, the showman barker. "Three remaining, and all of them refusing to confess!"

"Justice," Morik whispered under his breath.

Wulfgar stared straight ahead, unblinkingly, and only thoughts of poor Morik held him from laughing in Jharkheld's ugly old face. Did the magistrate really believe that he could do anything to Wulfgar worse than the torments of Errtu? Could Jharkheld produce Catti-brie on the stage and ravish her, then dismember her in front of Wulfgar, as Errtu had done so many times? Could he bring in an illusionary Bruenor and bite through the dwarf's skull, then use the remaining portion of the dwarf's head as a bowl for brain stew? Could he inflict more physical pain upon Wulfgar than the demon who had practiced such torturing arts for millennia? At the end of it all, could Jharkheld bring Wulfgar back from the edge of death time and again so that it would begin anew?

Wulfgar realized something profound and actually brightened. This was where Jharkheld and his stage paled against the Abyss. He would die here. At last he would be free.

*****

Jharkheld ran from the barbarian, skidding to a stop before Morik and grabbing the man's slender face in his strong hand, turning Morik roughly to face him. "Do you admit your guilt?" he screamed.

Morik almost did it, almost screamed out that he had indeed conspired to kill Deudermont. Yes, he thought, a quick plan formulating in his mind. He would admit to the conspiracy, but with the tattooed pirate only, trying to somehow save his innocent friend.

His hesitation cost him the chance at that time, for Jharkheld gave a disgusted snort and snapped a backhanded blow across Morik's face, clipping the underside of the rogue's nose, a stinging technique that brought waves of pain shifting behind Morik's eyes. By the time the man blinked away his surprise and pain, Jharkheld had moved on, looming before Tee-a-nicknick.

"Tee-a-nicknick," the magistrate said slowly, emphasizing every syllable, his method reminding the gathering of how strange, how foreign, this half-man was. "Tell me, Tee-a-nicknick, what role did you play?"

The tattooed half-qullan pirate stared straight ahead, did not blink, and did not speak.

Jharkheld snapped his fingers in the air, and his assistant ran out from the side of the platform, handing Jharkheld a wooden tube.

Jharkheld publicly inspected the item, showing it to the crowd. "With this seemingly innocent pole, our painted friend here can blow forth a dart as surely as an archer can launch an arrow," he explained. "And on that dart, the claw of a small cat, for instance, our painted friend can coat some of the most exquisite poisons. Concoctions that can make blood leak from your eyes, bring a fever so hot as to turn your skin the color of fire, or fill your nose and throat with enough phlegm to make every breath a forced and wretched-tasting labor are but a sampling of his vile repertoire."

The crowd played on every word, growing more disgusted and angry. Master of the show, Jharkheld measured their response and played to them, waiting for the right moment.

"Do you admit your guilt?" Jharkheld yelled suddenly in Tee-a-nicknick's face.

The tattooed pirate stared straight ahead, did not blink, and did not speak. Had he been full-blooded qullan, he might have cast a confusion spell at that moment, sending the magistrate stumbling away, baffled and forgetful, but Tee-a-nicknick was not pure blooded and had none of the innate magical abilities of his race. He did have qullan concentration, though, a manner, much like Wulfgar's, of removing himself from the present scene before him.

"You shall admit all," Jharkheld promised, wagging his finger angrily in the man's face, unaware of the pirate's heritage and discipline, "but it will be too late."

The crowd went into a frenzy as the guards pulled the pirate free of his binding post and dragged him from one instrument of torture to another. After about half an hour of beating and whipping, pouring salt water over the wounds, even taking one of Tee-a-nicknick's eyes with a hot poker, the pirate still showed no signs of speaking. No confession, no pleading or begging, hardly even a scream.

Frustrated beyond endurance, Jharkheld went to Morik just to keep things moving. He didn't even ask the man to confess. In fact he slapped Morik viciously and repeatedly every time the man tried to say a word. Soon they had Morik on the rack, the torturer giving the wheel a slight, almost imperceptible (except to the agonized Morik) turn every few minutes.

Meanwhile, Tee-a-nicknick continued to bear the brunt of the torment. When Jharkheld went to him again, the pirate couldn't stand, so the guards pulled him to his feet and held him.

"Ready to tell me the truth?" Jharkheld asked.

Tee-a-nicknick spat in his face.

"Bring the horses!" the magistrate shrieked, trembling with rage. The crowd went wild. It wasn't often that the magistrate went to the trouble of a drawing and quartering. Those who had witnessed it boasted it was the greatest show of all.

Four white horses, each trailing a sturdy rope, were ridden into the square. The crowd was pushed back by the city guard as the horses approached the platform. Magistrate Jharkheld guided his men through the precise movements of the show. Soon Tee-a-nicknick was securely strapped in place, wrists and ankles bound one to each horse.

On the magistrate's signal, the riders nudged their powerful beasts, one toward each point on the compass. The tattooed pirate instinctively bunched up his muscles, fighting back, but resistance was useless. Tee-a-nicknick was stretched to the limits of his physical coil. He grunted and gasped, and the riders and their well-trained mounts kept him at the very limits. A moment later, there came the loud popping of a shoulder snapping out of joint; soon after one of Tee-a-nicknick's knees exploded.

Jharkheld motioned for the riders to hold steady, and he walked over to the man, a knife in one hand and a whip in the other. He showed the gleaming blade to the groaning Tee-a-nicknick, rolling it over and over before the man's eyes. "I can end the agony," the magistrate promised. "Confess your guilt, and I will kill you swiftly."

The tattooed half-qullan grunted and looked away. On Jharkheld's wave, the riders stepped their horses out a bit more.

The man's pelvis shattered, and how he howled at last! How the crowd yelled in appreciation as the skin started to rip!

"Confess!" Jharkheld yelled.

"I stick him!" Tee-a-nicknick cried. Before the crowd could even groan its disappointment Jharkheld yelled, "Too late!" and cracked his whip.

The horses jumped away, tearing Tee-a-nicknick's legs from his torso. Then the two horses bound to the man's wrists had him out straight, his face twisted in the horror of searing agony and impending death for just an instant before quartering that portion as well.

Some gasped, some vomited, and most cheered wildly.

*****

"Justice," Robillard said to the growling, disgusted Deudermont. "Such displays make murder an unpopular profession."

Deudermont snorted. "It merely feeds the basest of human emotions," he argued.

"I don't disagree," Robillard replied. "I don't make the laws, but unlike your barbarian friend, I abide by them. Are we any more sympathetic to pirates we catch out on the high seas?"

"We do as we must," Deudermont argued. "We do not torture them to sate our twisted hunger."

"But we take satisfaction in sinking them," Robillard countered. "We don't cry for their deaths, and often, when we are in pursuit of a companion privateer, we do not stop to pull them from the sharks. Even when we do take them as prisoners, we subsequently drop them at the nearest port, often Luskan, for justice such as this."

Deudermont had run out of arguments, so he just stared ahead. Still, to the civilized and cultured captain's thinking, this display in no way resembled justice.

*****

Jharkheld went back to work on Morik and Wulfgar before the many attendants had even cleared the blood and grime from the square in front of the platform.

"You see how long it took him to admit the truth?" the magistrate said to Morik. "Too late, and so he suffered to the end. Will you be as much a fool?"

Morik, whose limbs were beginning to pull past the breaking point, started to reply, started to confess, but Jharkheld put a finger over the man's lips. "Now is not the time," he explained.

Morik started to speak again, so Jharkheld had him tightly gagged, a dirty rag stuffed into his mouth, another tied about his head to secure it.

The magistrate moved around the back of the rack and produced a small wooden box, the rat box it was called. The crowd howled its pleasure. Recognizing the horrible instrument, Morik's eyes popped wide and he struggled futilely against the unyielding bonds. He hated rats, had been terrified of them all of his life.

His worst nightmare was coming true.

Jharkheld came to the front of the platform again and held the box high, turning it slowly so that the crowd could see its ingenious design. The front was a metal mesh cage, the other three walls and the ceiling solid wood. The bottom was wooden as well, but it had a sliding panel that left an exit hole. A rat would be pushed into the box, then the box would be put on Morik's bared belly and the bottom door removed. Then the box would be lit on fire.

The rat would escape through the only means possible-through Morik.

A gloved man came out holding the rat and quickly got the boxed creature in place atop Morik's bared belly. He didn't light it then, but rather, let the animal walk about, its feet tapping on flesh, every now and then nipping. Morik struggled futilely.

Jharkheld went to Wulfgar. Given the level of excitement and enjoyment running through the mob, the magistrate wondered how he would top it all, wondered what he might do to this stoic behemoth that would bring more spectacle than the previous two executions.

"Like what we're doing to your friend Morik?" the magistrate asked.

Wulfgar, who had seen the bowels of Errtu's domain, who had been chewed by creatures that would terrify an army of rats, did not reply.

*****

"They hold you in the highest regard," Robillard remarked to Deudermont. "Rarely has Luskan seen so extravagant a multiple execution."

The words echoed in Captain Deudermont's mind, particularly the first sentence. To think that his standing in Luskan had brought this about. No, it had provided sadistic Jharkheld with an excuse for such treatment of fellow human beings, even guilty ones. Deudermont remained unconvinced that either Wulfgar or Morik had been involved. The realization that this was all done in his honor disgusted Deudermont profoundly.

"Mister Micanty!" he ordered, quickly scribbling a note he handed to the man.

"No!" Robillard insisted, understanding what Deudermont had in mind and knowing how greatly such an action would cost Sea Sprite, both with the authorities and the mob. "He deserves death!"

"Who are you to judge?" Deudermont asked.

"Not I!" the wizard protested. "Them," he explained, sweeping his arm out to the crowd.

Deudermont scoffed at the absurd notion.

"Captain, we'll be forced to leave Luskan, and we'll not be welcomed back soon," Robillard pointed out.

"They will forget as soon as the next prisoners are paraded out for their enjoyment, likely on the morrow's dawn." He gave a wry, humorless smile. "Besides, you don't like Luskan anyway."

Robillard groaned, sighed, and threw up his hands in defeat as Deudermont, too civilized a man, gave the note to Micanty and bade him to rush it to the magistrate.

*****

"Light the box!" Jharkheld called from the stage after the guards had brought Wulfgar around so that the barbarian could witness Morik's horror.

Wulfgar could not distance himself from the sight of setting the rat cage on fire. The frightened creature scurried about, and then began to burrow.

The scene of such pain inflicted on a friend entered into Wulfgar's private domain, clawed through his wall of denial, even as the rat bit through Morik's skin. The barbarian loosed a growl so threatening, so preternaturally feral, that it turned the eyes of those near him from the spectacle of Morik's horror. Huge muscles bunched and flexed, and Wulfgar snapped his torso out to the side, launching the man holding him there away. The barbarian lashed out with one leg, swinging the iron ball and chain so that it wrapped the legs of the other man holding him. A sharp tug sent the guard to the ground.

Wulfgar pulled and pulled as others slammed against him, as clubs battered him, as Jharkheld, angered by the distraction, yelled for Morik's gag to be removed. Somehow, incredibly, powerful Wulfgar pulled his arms free and lurched for the rack.

Guard after guard slammed into him. He threw them aside as if they were children, but so many rushed the barbarian that he couldn't beat a path to Morik, who was screaming in agony now.

"Get it off me!" cried Morik.

Suddenly Wulfgar was facedown. Jharkheld got close enough to snap his whip across the man's back with a loud crack!

"Admit your guilt!" the frenzied magistrate demanded as he beat Wulfgar viciously.

Wulfgar growled and struggled. Another guard tumbled away, and another got his nose splattered all over his face by a heavy slug.

"Get it off me!" Morik cried again.

The crowd loved it. Jharkheld felt certain he'd reached a new level of showmanship.

"Stop!" came a cry from the audience that managed to penetrate the general howls and hoots. "Enough!"

The excitement died away fast as the crowd turned and recognized the speaker as Captain Deudermont of Sea Sprite. Deudermont looked haggard and leaned heavily on a cane.

Magistrate Jharkheld's trepidation only heightened as Waillan Micanty pushed past the guards to climb onto the stage. He rushed to Jharkheld's side and presented him with Deudermont's note.

The magistrate pulled it open and read it. Surprised, stunned even, he grew angrier by the word. Jharkheld looked up at Deudermont, causally motioned for one of the guards to gag the screaming Morik again, and for the others to pull the battered Wulfgar up to his feet.

Unconcerned for himself and with no comprehension of what was happening beyond the torture of Morik, Wulfgar bolted from their grasp. He staggered and tripped over the swinging balls and chains but managed to dive close enough to reach out and slap the burning box and rat from Morik's belly.

He was beaten again and hauled before Jharkheld.

"It will only get worse for Morik now," the sadistic magistrate promised quietly, and he turned to Deudermont, a look of outrage clear on his face. "Captain Deudermont!" he called. "As the victim and a recognized nobleman, you have the authority to pen such a note, but are you sure? At this late hour?"

Deudermont came forward, ignoring the grumbles and protests, even threats, and stood tall in the midst of the bloodthirsty crowd. "The evidence against Creeps Sharky and the tattooed pirate was solid," he explained, "but plausible, too, is Morik's tale of being set up with Wulfgar to take the blame, while the other two took only the reward."

"But," Jharkheld argued, pointing his finger into the air, "plausible, too, is the tale that Creeps Sharky told, one of conspiracy that makes them all guilty."

The crowd, confused but suspecting that their fun might soon be at an end, seemed to like Magistrate Jharkheld's explanation better.

"And plausible, too, is the tale of Josi Puddles, one that further implicates both Morik the Rogue and Wulfgar," Jharkheld went on. "Might I remind you, Captain, that the barbarian hasn't even denied the claims of Creeps Sharky!"

Deudermont looked then to Wulfgar, who continued his infuriating, expressionless stance.

"Captain Deudermont, do you declare the innocence of this man?" Jharkheld asked, pointing to Wulfgar and speaking slowly and loudly enough for all to hear.

"That is not within my rights," Deudermont replied over the shouts of protest from the bloodthirsty peasants. "I cannot determine guilt or innocence but can only offer that which you have before you."

Magistrate Jharkheld stared at the hastily penned note again, then held it up for the crowd to see. "A letter of pardon for Wulfgar," he explained.

The crowd hushed as one for just an instant, then began jostling and shouting curses. Both Deudermont and Jharkheld feared that a riot would ensue.

"This is folly," Jharkheld snarled.

"I am a visitor in excellent standing, by your own words, Magistrate Jharkheld," Deudermont replied calmly. "By that standing I ask the city to pardon Wulfgar, and by that standing I expect you to honor that request or face the questioning of your superiors."

There it was, stated flatly, plainly, and without any wriggle room at all. Jharkheld was bound, Deudermont and the magistrate knew, for the captain was, indeed, well within his rights to offer such a pardon. Such letters were not uncommon, usually given at great expense to the family of the pardoned man, but never before in such a dramatic fashion as this. Not at the Prisoner's Carnival, at the very moment of Jharkheld's greatest show!

"Death to Wulfgar!" someone in the crowd yelled, and others joined in, while Jharkheld and Deudermont looked to Wulfgar in that critical time.

Their expressions meant nothing to the man, who still thought that death would be a relief, perhaps the greatest escape possible from his haunting memories. When Wulfgar looked to Morik, the man stretched near to breaking, his stomach all bloody and the guards bringing forth another rat, he realized it wasn't an option, not if the rogue's loyalty to him meant anything at all.

"I had nothing to do with the attack," Wulfgar flatly declared. "Believe me if you will, kill me if you don't. It matters not to me."

"There you have it, Magistrate Jharkheld," Deudermont said. "Release him, if you please. Honor my pardon as a visitor in excellent standing to Luskan."

Jharkheld held Deudermont's stare for a long time. The old man was obviously disapproving, but he nodded to the guards, and Wulfgar was immediately released from their grasp. Tentatively, and only after further prompting from Jharkheld, one of the men brought a key down to Wulfgar's ankles, releasing the ball and chain shackles.

"Get him out of here," an angry Jharkheld instructed, but the big man resisted the guards' attempts to pull him from the stage.

"Morik is innocent," Wulfgar declared.

"What?" Jharkheld exclaimed. "Drag him away!"

Wulfgar, stronger than the guards could ever imagine, held his ground. "I proclaim the innocence of Morik the Rogue!" he cried. "He did nothing, and if you continue here, you do so only for your own evil pleasures and not in the name of justice!"

"How much you two sound alike," an obviously disgusted Robillard whispered to Deudermont, coming up behind the captain.

"Magistrate Jharkheld!" the captain called above the cries of the crowd.

Jharkheld eyed him directly, knowing what was to come. The captain merely nodded. Scowling, the magistrate snapped up his parchments, waved angrily to his guards, and stormed off the stage. The frenzied crowd started pressing forward, but the city guard held them back.

Smiling widely, sticking his tongue out at those peasants who tried to spit at him, Morik was half dragged, half carried from the stage behind Wulfgar.

*****

Morik spent most of the walk through the magistrate offices talking soothingly to Wulfgar. The rogue could tell from the big man's expression that Wulfgar was locked into those awful memories again. Morik feared that he would tear down the walls and kill half the magistrate's assistants. The rogue's stomach was still bloody, and his arms and legs ached more profoundly than anything he had ever felt. He had no desire to go back to Prisoner's Carnival.

Morik thought they would be brought before Jharkheld. That prospect, given Wulfgar's volatile mood, scared him more than a little. To his relief, the escorting guards avoided Jharkheld's office and turned into a small, nondescript room. A nervous little man sat behind a tremendous desk littered with mounds of papers.

One of the guards presented Deudermont's note to the man. He took a quick look at it and snorted, for he had already heard of the disappointing show at Prisoner's Carnival. The little man quickly scribbled his initials across the note, confirming that it had been reviewed and accepted.

"You are not innocent," he said, handing the note to Wulfgar, "and thus are not declared innocent."

"We were told that we would be free to go," Morik argued.

"Indeed," said the bureaucrat. "Not really free to go, but rather compelled to go. You were spared because Captain Deudermont apparently had not the heart for your execution, but understand that in the eyes of Luskan you are guilty of the crime charged. Thus, you are banished for life. Straightaway to the gate with you, and if you are ever caught in our city again, you'll face Prisoner's Carnival one last time. Even Captain Deudermont will not be able to intervene on your behalf. Do you understand?"

"Not a difficult task," Morik replied.

The wormy bureaucrat glared at him, to which Morik only shrugged.

"Get them out of here," the man commanded. One guard grabbed Morik by the arm, the other reached for Wulfgar, but a shrug and a look from the barbarian had him thinking better of it. Still, Wulfgar went along without argument, and soon the pair were out in the sunshine, unshackled and feeling free for the first time in many days.

To their surprise, though, the guards did not leave them there, escorting them all the way to the city's eastern gate.

"Get out, and don't come back," one of them said as the gates slammed closed behind them.

"Why would I want to return to your wretched city?" Morik cried, making several lewd and insulting gestures at those soldiers staring down from the wall.

One lifted a crossbow and leveled it Morik's way. "Looky," he said. "The little rat's already trying to sneak back in."

Morik knew that it was time to leave, and in a hurry. He turned and started to do just that, then looked back to see the soldier, a wary look upon the man's grizzled face, quickly lower the bow. When Morik looked back, he understood, for Captain Deudermont and his wizard sidekick were fast approaching.

For a moment, it occurred to Morik that Deudermont might have saved them from Jharkheld only because he desired to exact a punishment of his own. That fear was short-lived, for the man strode right up to Wulfgar, staring hard but making no threatening moves. Wulfgar met his stare, neither blinking nor flinching.

"Did you speak truly?" Deudermont asked.

Wulfgar snorted, and it was obvious it was all the response the captain would get.

"What has happened to Wulfgar, son of Beornegar?" Deudermont said quietly. Wulfgar turned to go, but the captain rushed around to stand before him. "You owe me this, at least," he said.

"I owe you nothing," Wulfgar replied.

Deudermont considered the response for just a moment, and Morik recognized that the seaman was trying to see things from Wulfgar's point of view.

"Agreed," the captain said, and Robillard huffed in displeasure. "You claimed your innocence. In that case, you owe nothing to me, for I did nothing but what was right. Hear me out of past friendship."

Wulfgar eyed him coldly but made no immediate move to walk away.

"I don't know what has caused your fall, my friend, what has led you away from companions like Drizzt Do'Urden and Catti-brie, and your adoptive father, Bruenor, who took you in and taught you the ways of the world," the captain said. "I only pray that those three and the halfling are safe and well."

Deudermont paused, but Wulfgar said nothing.

"There is no lasting relief in a bottle, my friend," the captain said, "and no heroism in defending a tavern from its customary patrons. Why would you surrender the world you knew for this?"

Having heard enough, Wulfgar started to walk away. When the captain stepped in front of him again, the big man just pushed on by without slowing, with Morik scrambling to keep up.

"I offer you passage," Deudermont unexpectedly (even to Deudermont) called after him.

"Captain!" Robillard protested, but Deudermont brushed him away and scrambled after Wulfgar and Morik.

"Come with me to Sea Sprite," Deudermont said. "Together we shall hunt pirates and secure the Sword Coast for honest sailors. You will find your true self out there, I promise!"

"I would hear only your definition of me," Wulfgar clarified, spinning back and hushing Morik, who seemed quite enthralled by the offer, "and that's one I don't care to hear." Wulfgar turned and started away.

Jaw hanging open, Morik watched him go. By the time he turned back, Deudermont had likewise retreated into the city. Robillard, though, held his ground and his sour expression.

"Might I?" Morik started to ask, walking toward the wizard.

"Be gone and be fast about it, rogue," Robillard warned. "Else you will become a stain on the ground, awaiting the next rain to wash you away."

Clever Morik, the ultimate survivor, who hated wizards, didn't have to be told twice.