PROLOGUE
Month of Marpenoth, Year of the Tankard (1370 DR)
Timbers groaned and Lady Swan, a caravel out of the port of Telflamm in Thesk, lurched again. Fa Pan lurched with it, slamming hard into a rough wall. Wood scraped the flesh of his arm. He thrust himself back to his feet with the butt of his spear and staggered on along the narrow passage. Sounds echoed down from the deck above. Shouts and screams: the brave sailors of their ship, the foul pirates of the black-sailed hulk that had loomed up out of the cool autumn night. It was impossible to tell who was doing the screaming and who the shouting; the echoing sounds carried only chaos and death.
He knew—the captain knew, all of Lady Swan's crew knew—what the pirates were after. Down in the hold were bales of fine silk and eastern spices, the wealth of a trading expedition. How the pirates had known about the cargo and what route Lady Swan would take across the Sea of Fallen Stars was
another question. The grim set of the captain's mouth had said much. There was a traitor among his crew.
Fa Pan ran. He had been permitted to stay above when the pirate ship was first sighted because of his fighting skill, but his companions, nothing more than merchants, would still be huddled in the cabin where the captain had ordered them to take refuge. If they remained there, they would only be trapped when the pirates came. Better they faced the foul outlaws bravely!
A hatch opened somewhere. Air came rushing through the passage. Another night it might have brought a welcome breath of fresh air. Tonight it brought the smell of death, a worse reek than the usual stifling stench of the ship's bowels. It was cold, too. A sorceress led the pirates, her spells calling down sleet to sweep the ship's decks and waves of ice to make wood hard and brittle. The fighting above was treacherous, as bad as anything Fa Pan had ever seen in years as a soldier. The pirates barely seemed to notice, but just threw themselves into the struggle in a slipping, sliding frenzy.
They were madmen. Fa Pan didn't know where he and his companions could go to escape them, but fighting had to be preferable to huddling in the dark. "Jen! Weif Te Chien! Yu Mao!" he yelled ahead down the shadowed passage. "Open the door! We need to help! Nung—"
His voice died on his lips. Fa Pan came to a stop so sharp that he nearly tripped over his own feet. There was a dim light ahead, splashing out from around a cabin door that stood ajar. The captain had ordered his companions to keep their refuge dark and their door closed tight. They would not have disobeyed. Fa Pan's stomach rose. He stepped forward silently. Spear ready to thrust, he pushed against the cabin door with one booted foot.
It swung open to carnage as bad or worse than that on deck.
The glow of a tiny, magical crystal that Wei prized turned the cabin into a wash of nightmare images. Fallen bodies cast horrid shadows. Blood mingled with the darkness to draw those shadows out into unnatural, oozing, weeping shapes. Almond eyes that had gazed on the splendors of the Great Empire of Shou Lung and the wonders of the Golden Way stared blankly at the rude wood of barbaric Faerûn, far from their home. Fa Pan clenched his jaw. The pirates had already come for the merchants of Shou.
But how? He had passed no one in the passage. Breath hissed between his teeth. The traitor among Lady Swan's crew. Someone could have hidden down here before the attack with the intention of eliminating any resistance from below deck. But if that was the case, then the traitor might—
A foot scraped on the floor behind him.
Reflexes trained in the army of the Emperor sent him diving forward, twisting as he fell to bring his spear up across his body. The weapon jammed in the narrow confines of the doorway, but it was enough. A heavy blade bit into the spear shaft instead of him. Fa Pan kicked out blindly. His foot met flesh and produced a grunt of pain in the shadows. A second lashing kick, though, found only air as his attacker whirled away down the corridor. Fa Pan pulled himself to his feet using his own jammed spear as leverage, wrenched the weapon free, and ran after him. "You!" he shouted. "Stop and face me, murderer!"
He couldn't have said what language he spoke. His mind was clouded by rage. Ahead of him, the killer of his companions thundered down the passage, a vague form just out of spear's reach in the shadows. Fa Pan could see that he was a muscular man, though, a wicked blade clenched tight in each hand. He tried to remember who among Lady Swan's crew might fit that description, but his thoughts could only focus on one thing. Revenge. The big man must have realized that as well; even when the rocking of the ship sent him staggering from side to side, he didn't slow down.
Neither did Fa Pan. As his attacker leaped for the short, steep ladder that led to the deck above, the Shou lunged and thrust. His attacker kicked up, getting out of the way of the spear's sharp point just in time. The move sent him sprawling gracelessly through the hatch, however. Fa Pan snatched back his spear and swarmed up the ladder before his enemy could recover enough to launch a counterstrike. His attacker was rolling over onto his back. Fa Pan stabbed his spear down. "Die, treacherous—"
His spear froze in midthrust. There was light above deck, magic conjured by the pirate sorceress to illuminate the struggle. The radiance was broken by the chaotic, shifting shadows of sailors and pirates, but for the first time, Fa Pan saw the face of his attacker—smooth, noble, almond-eyed. Shou. And familiar.
Fa Pan gaped. "Yu Mao?" he breathed. His colleague, a man he had traveled with for the months it took to journey from east to west, looked up at him. He was smeared with blood: clothing, arms, hands, weapons—a pair of wide-bladed butterfly swords. Shou weapons. Fa Pan had seen him practicing with them almost every morning! Knotted around his thick neck was a black scarf. Black like the sails of the pirate ship. The traitor hadn't been among the crew of Lady Swan at all.
Fa Pan hesitated.
Yu Mao didn't. Big hands opened, dropping his swords, and reached up to seize the shaft of Fa Pan's spear just be -hind the head. Shoulders as wide as a westerner's tensed and heaved to the side. Fa Pan's feet slid on a deck still icy from the pirate sorceress's spells even as Yu Mao used the momentum to pull himself up and around. His leg snapped up into Fa Pan's belly from beneath. Air exploded out of Fa Pan's lungs. Gasping, he stumbled back and felt the shaft of his spear slide from his grasp. Yu Mao shouted something in a western tongue. All around them, pirates looked up then jumped back. A tiny childlike figure—one of Faeriin's halflings, though surely the wickedest Fa Pan had ever seen, with one eye covered by a leather patch—called something out in return, but all Fa Pan could understand was Yu Mao's answer.
"He's mine."
His gut twisted. The shaft of his captured spear thrust at him, but Fa Pan managed to dodge back. Yu Mao thrust again. And again, forcing him back across the icy deck. From the corners of his eyes, Fa Pan could see that the battle was almost over. There were more pirates standing than there were sailors. Pockets of combat were dying out; some of the surviving sailors were even starting to throw down their weapons in surrender. They might hope for mercy from the pirates, but Fa Pan couldn't see any hope of mercy from Yu Mao. The other Shou's eyes held the mad glint of bloodlust. Fa Pan gulped air and gasped, "Yu Mao—why?"
His feet hit something soft and heavy. A fallen body. He staggered, tried to recover.
The spear shaft cracked against his side then snapped up against the underside of his arm. Numbing pain washed through him. It was all he could do to stay upright and stumble back a few more slippery paces. His attacker stalked after him, spinning the spear around sharply and reversing it in his grasp. Before Fa Pan could dodge, Yu Mao lunged. Fire lanced through Fa Pan's shoulder. The force of the blow knocked him back; he slammed into the ship's rail then jerked forward a step as Yu Mao ripped the spear back out of his flesh.
Fa Pan gasped against the shock. His good arm groped for the rail to hold him upright. He managed to focus on Yu Mao. His former colleague was surrounded by pirates, just another one of their number. "Why?" Fa Pan choked. Yu Mao spat.
"You wouldn't understand." He lunged again, spear out.
Fa Pan threw himself backward onto the ship's rail— over the ship's rail. For a heartbeat, it felt as if he were balancing on the narrow wood, caught by hands of the spirits between ship and sea. Then the balance shifted and he fell.
He hit the water hard and sank deep. Light vanished, choked off by the night and the dark water. Already cooling with the season, the water had been further chilled by the sorceress's spells. The shock of it stung his wound and he screamed, a lungful of air exploding into a cloud of pale bubbles. The cold brought a kind of calm as well, though, a soothing, weightless suspension. Fa Pan hung there for a moment, eyes half-closed, mind half-dazed, as the last of his air trickled away.
And when his lungs ached with emptiness, he opened his eyes, gazed up at the glow of the sea's surface, and drew in cold water.
Family legend held that his great-great grandmother, a famous beauty, had attracted the notice of a spirit of the bright little river that ran through her hometown. Her dalliance with the spirit had not been long, but it had brought the touch of the spirits to her bloodline—a touch that included the ability to breathe water as easily as air. Fa Pan hadn't made much of the strange ability since he had been a child; most of the time, it was easier to live without revealing himself as one of the spirit folk. Certainly he had never told Yu Mao. That ignorance was probably the only reason the murdering traitor had let him get as close to the rail as he had before striking. Fa Pan was safe in the water—for the moment, anyway.
He kicked his feet, propelling himself back up to the surface, and lifted his head cautiously into the air. The sounds coming from the ship's deck now were shouts of triumph, punctuated only briefly by wails from the survivors. The battle was over. The pirates had won. Yu Mao still stood beside the rail, as if surveying the results of his treachery. He wasn't alone for long. A second figure joined him—the pirate sorceress. The two embraced. Fa Pan recognized her now. He had seen Yu Mao with her and that wicked-looking halfling in Telflamm! Traitor to Lady Swan, traitor to his companions, traitor to Shou Lung—for the love of a woman? He choked back a groan.
Yu Mao had been right. He didn't understand. But if Yu Mao had wanted to destroy everything and everyone that might send news of his treachery back to his homeland, he hadn't quite succeeded.
Trying to board Lady Swan again or to sneak aboard the pirate vessel would be suicide. He was wounded and the pirates had him outnumbered. There was no way he could exact retribution on Yu Mao himself. The goods of the trade expedition were only silk and spices—losing them was nothing. His life and his witness to Yu Mao's treachery were more important. There were those who had to be told of what happened here. The choice between shame and retribution would be theirs.
Fa Pan let himself sink back into the comfort of the water. They had glimpsed the northern coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars earlier in the day. His wounded arm dragging awkwardly, Fa Pan began the long struggle for shore.

CHAPTER 1
Month of Hammer, Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR)
Xhe door of the Wench's Ease slammed open without warning—slammed open so hard that it almost tore off its worn hinges. A crowd came pouring out of the tavern and into the cold winter night. No, not a crowd. A mob. Women and men, fishing folk of Span-deliyon, shouting loud enough that the screams of the thin man being dragged roughly out of the Ease were barely audible. "No!" he pleaded. "No! It was an accident! It was an accident, I swear—"
His screams ended in a thick grunt as someone punched him hard in the gut. A cheer went up from those closest to him. Those farther away muttered their disappointment and tried to push closer. In the crush, the mob's victim twisted free and made a desperate break for freedom, dropping to the slush and mud of the ground and trying to scramble away between his tormentors' legs. He didn't get far. The mob surged around him, kicking and stomping. Tycho Arisaenn, curly black hair on his head and
three days' of dark stubble on his face, slipped through the crowd and up to the door of the tavern. Most of the Ease's customers were outside now—the sole occupant of the doorway was a broad-hipped matron who leaned against the doorpost with a sour look on her face. Those few customers still inside yelled at her to close the door and stop letting the cold in. She ignored them. Tycho slid up to her. "Olore, Muire," he said, rubbing his hands together. Even inside thick mittens, his fingers were chilled. "Quiet night?"
The woman spat into the muck.
Screams turned into shrieks. Tycho turned to look. The mob's victim was up again, bloody but still struggling. Six pairs of arms held him firmly, though, and bore him aloft through the crowd to the massive, old tree that stood in the yard outside the Wench's Ease. Tycho's breath hissed through his teeth as he realized what they meant to do. He took a step forward, but Muire's heavy hand snapped out and grabbed the leather of his coat.
"It's too late," she said.
"Rope!" called someone. "Get rope!"
"Here!" A coil came hurtling out of the mob. Practiced hands caught it and looped it quickly then threw the looped end up and over a thick, scarred branch. Someone else grabbed it as it fell back down. The screaming man was thrust forward and the noose cinched tight around his scrawny neck. He looked up, eyes wide.
"Mercy!" he gasped. "Give me Tyr's justice!"
The woman cinching the noose slapped a rough hand across his face. "It's dockside justice for you, Ardo, and may your traitorous soul sleep tight in Umberlee's cold arms! A man who would turn on a mate deserves no better!"
Ardo's protests vanished into the roar of the crowd as the woman stepped back and snapped one arm into the air. Four burly men hauled sharply on the free end of the rope and Ardo was wrenched up to dance with the snowflakes on the night wind. A cheer went up with him. The front ranks of the mob darted forward to yank on his kicking legs with arms muscled by days of hauling nets and pulling oars, hastening Ardo's ignominious departure from the world. The men and women who couldn't get close enough to participate yelled encouragement and toasted their triumph with tankards of the Ease's dark ale.
Muire sucked on her teeth and glowered. Tycho glanced sideways at her. "What happened?"
Muire snorted. "Word is that Ton didn't just fall overboard from his and Ardo's boat last tenday. His body finally washed up today. His throat had been slit. Nobody could have done that but Ardo." She jerked her head at the mob and the skinny man's swinging body. "Bad night for him to come drinking."
"Bind me." Tycho tucked his hands up into his armpits and frowned. Off at one edge of the mob, a small cluster of men stood by themselves. At the heart of their cluster was a lanky thug in a dark-red tunic, a heavy fur mantle over his shoulders for warmth. Tycho nodded at them. "Lander's here, Muire."
"A man can drink where he wants. Even Lander."
Tycho gave her a thin smile. "Did you know that he and Ton had a ... let's say a 'common friend' who wasn't too happy when Ardo didn't want to pick up Ton's debts? Has Lander been doing much talking tonight?"
"Some," said Muire in a quiet voice.
"Funny coincidence, Lander and rumor both coming 'round to the Ease tonight," observed Tycho. "With
both Ardo and Ton gone, I wonder who'll be taking their boat."
Brawny arms came up and folded across Muire's broad chest. "You might want to keep that sort of thinking to yourself, Tycho, or Ardo won't be the only one on the tree. I wouldn't want to lose a good musician and a good customer in one night."
"That's a lovely sentiment."
"Ardo left an unpaid account."
"How much?"
"Enough that I wouldn't have minded a piece of his boat, too." Muire uncrossed her arms and stepped back into the smoky warmth of the tavern. Tycho followed—or at least started to. "Where do you think you're going?" asked Muire.
"Inside where it's warm. It's cold out here, Muire!"
"It's where your audience is." An arm swept around the dim interior of the Wench's Ease. "I can't pay you if I've got no customers and right now they have other things on their minds. Get the crowd back in and you can come with them."
"You're not going to have a good musician for long if my fingers fall off from frostbite!" protested Tycho. He started forward. Muire thrust him back. Tycho gritted his teeth. "Fine," he said. "You want them calm?"
"No. I want them drinking."
The door slammed in his face. Tycho gave it a swift kick that set the old wood shuddering and turned around. A few people on the edge of the mob were already looking at him. Tycho fought back a growl and gave them a smile instead. "Back inside. You heard the lady. Or at least you heard Muire and she's as close to a lady as you'll find at the Wench's Ease!"
It was an old line, but it got a laugh. A couple of people started to look longingly at the Ease's closed door. The rage that had sustained the crowd was fading fast with Ardo dead. "That's right," Tycho told them, "nice and warm in there." Hammer was a month better spent indoors and by a fire than outside on a cold night. It wouldn't, he guessed, take much to remind everyone of that. He shook off his mittens and stuffed them in his belt then tugged on the wide leather strap that ran over one shoulder and across his chest. The chunky curved box of his strilling slid around from where it hung behind his back. Tycho settled the instrument in his left arm—its butt against his shoulder, its long neck in his curled hand—with practiced ease and undipped the short bow from the strap with his right hand. The strilling would be out of tune in the cold, but this wasn't going to be a fine performance. He set the bow against the instrument's deepest string and drew it slowly across.
The sound that echoed out of the strilling's wooden body howled like a winter storm coming in off the Sea of Fallen Stars. It got everyone's attention immediately.
The people closest to the sound moved back a pace out of sheer surprise. Tycho stepped forward. He wasn't a tall man and most of the mob gathered outside the tavern stood a good head above him. Physical size, however, wasn't the only measure of a person's presence. "A dark night for dark deeds, friends," Tycho called. Pitched to carry, his voice rang out in the night. He walked on and the crowd parted before him, giving way before the simple force of his confidence. Tycho met the glance of each man and woman with a somber look. "A man who turns on his friends is no man at all. A man who would kill his friends is a monster."
He pushed the bow across a different string. The howling storm turned into a haunting moan, a forlorn wail that slid up and down in pitch as Tycho shifted his fingers on the strilling's neck. More than one head in the crowd looked up at the body hanging from the tree. Tycho paused under it and looked up as well. "Ardo, you stupid bugger," he murmured under the music. The dockside of Spandeliyon was not a good place to fall on the wrong side of rumor. The voice of the strilling changed again and soared up into the night before fading away. In its wake, the mob—no, the crowd—was silent. Even Lander and his men, Tycho saw with a satisfied glance, were quiet.
He let the silence hold for just moment longer then sent his bow dancing across the strilling's strings once more. This time, though, he rattled out a wild tune. Something to get feet tapping and put minds in memory of happier things—like Muire's ale. He'd had enough of the cold. "Now who'll join me in drinking to Ton?" he called. "A murdered soul needs the company of a toast or two from the people who loved him best!" He took a turn through the crowd, giving people a nudge in the direction of the Ease. "He was your friend, Det." Tycho elbowed someone else. "And you, Rana. Brenal, I remember you and Ton hoisting more than a few together!"
He worked the edges of the crowd like a herding dog. Slowly, people began to move back into the tavern. The ground was a treacherous churned surface in their wake, but Tycho danced back and forth across it, bow on strilling keeping perfect time. His calls turned into a patter, rolling off his tongue. "Ervis. Pitch. Blike. Come on, inside with all of you. Drink one for Ton and remember an old mate. Sing a song for him. Umbero, you were his friend. You, too—" Tycho turned around one more time and found himself face to chest with a dark-red tunic. He looked up to the raw-boned face above it and finished smoothly "—Lander."
The thug smiled like a shark. "Oh yes," he said. "Like two peas in a pod we were." A couple of the men who stood with him laughed.
Tycho returned the smile. "Like two dice in a cup," he added, "or two fish in a net." His bow paused for a moment on the strilling. "No, forgive me. Two fish in a net would have been Ton and Ardo."
Lander's eyes narrowed. "You want to watch what you say about dead people."
"I never say anything ill of the dead." Tycho's smile narrowed as well. "The living, on the other hand, are another matter." He sent new sound rippling from his instrument and spun around to usher the last of the crowd back into the Wench's Ease. "Come in and drink, Lander," he called back. "You owe Ton that."
He didn't wait to see if Lander took up the gauntlet, but just followed the stragglers through the door and into the tavern. Warm air embraced him like a lover and he gasped with relief. The crowd had already settled back into their familiar places, filling the Ease almost completely. Many already had more ale in their hands and Muire's serving women were scrambling to keep up with the demands of those who didn't. Tycho let the strilling slide down from his shoulder and wove his way through to the bar. "There you go, Muire," he said, tugging open his coat and loosening his scarf. "Your customers are back again and drinking. Now how about a hot one?"
On the other side of the smoke-darkened wood counter, Muire grunted and turned to draw a tankard of ale from a cask. "You've got the gift," she admitted grudgingly.
"What was that, Muire?" asked Tycho in a mock shout over the noise of the tavern's patrons. "I didn't quite catch it."
"Don't try me, Tycho. Just because you've been traveling doesn't make you a wit. I still remember when you were just another Spandeliyon dock rat, squeaking out songs for a copper and getting into trouble." The tavern door opened again, letting in another gust of cold air. Muire glanced up and her gaze hardened. "Some things don't change."
Tycho twisted around to follow her glare. The Ease's door was just closing behind Lander and his men. The thugs began making their way around the outside of the room to a table—hastily vacated by the customers who had been occupying it—close to the big stone fireplace. Lander gave Tycho a harsh stare. The curly haired man just turned back to Muire. "No," he said, "I guess they don't."
"What did you say to him?" asked Muire.
"Nothing that he'd understand," Tycho told her with a crooked grin.
Muire shook her head. She took a stout iron from a rack over a brazier and plunged it into the tankard of ale. The iron hissed and the ale seethed briefly. Muire passed the tankard across the bar. Tycho shifted strilling and bow into one hand and raised the warm drink with the other. "To Ton and Ardo," he said quietly. Muire retrieved a tankard of her own and clacked it against his.
Tycho barely had a mouthful of ale down his throat, though, before there was a shout from the tavern floor. "Hoy, bard! How about a song?" Tycho gave Muire another crooked grin.
"No, things don't change, do they?" He set his tankard
down and shrugged out of his coat then turned around, settling his strilling back against his shoulder. "All right, Rana, you want a song?" He rubbed his bow against the strings of the strilling. "Here's one I learned in Suzail, all the way west in Cormyr—"
"No fussy western songs!" Rana pounded her fist on the table. "Play us a proper Altumbel tune! Something we can sing along with!" More shouts joined hers. Tycho smiled.
"Fine with me, Rana. If you sing, people will throw me coin to drown you out!" Laughter washed around the room and Tycho sang out. "Old Raren had a daughter fair, a pretty maid with golden hair, and her heart was full of good until she met—"
"—the king of piiiirrates!" bawled the crowd. Tycho laughed and began to play.
***
Partially obscured by a veil of cloud and silvery streams of snow blowing down from on high, the moon cast pale light across the shacks, storehouses, and tenements of the Spandeliyon waterfront. The silhouettes of taller houses and a solid fortress stood a short ways inland, away from the stinking docks, but the town was quite obviously an unplanned jumble. Its buildings were like driftwood cast up on shore by the near-constant sea wind, ready to be scoured away by the next storm.
How Spandeliyon managed to survive storms was, in fact, almost puzzling—from farther out on the Sea of Fallen Stars, the whole of the peninsula of Altumbel presented a profile not that dissimilar to a barely submerged reef.
Kuang Li Chien drew the heavy quilted wool of his
waitao coat more tightly around himself and watched the docks of the town draw closer. The small crew of the fat little ship on which he had taken passage scrambled around him, making the ship ready for docking. Up near the bow, the captain was shouting at the shore. After a moment, a door opened in one of the shacks on the dockside. A stout figure emerged in a flood of warm light and stumped up to the edge of the dock to squint into the dark and shout back. Li narrowed his eyes and listened, picking out the foreign words.
"Steth? Steth, is that you, you old—" The trade language of the west was simple enough, but some of it still gave Li difficulty. He couldn't quite understand the phrase that the dockmaster used, but he guessed that it was not very flattering. "What are you doing? Daylight not good enough for you or have you gone back to your old habits?"
The ship's captain replied with a rapid string of curses, most of which Li also missed. He understood the captain's final words well enough, though. "—passenger who wouldn't let me rest until we docked!"
"A passenger for Spandeliyon?" asked the dockmaster. "At this time of year?" Captain Steth's response was another incomprehensible rattle of blasphemy that sent the dockmaster running into his shack. He emerged with a torch, shouted back at the captain, and began lighting lanterns at the dockside. The ship turned, slowing to a glide in the icy black water. Li swayed with the heavy bump as it nudged against the dock. A rope was thrown down to the dockmaster, who looped it around a mooring post, and the ship swayed out then shifted back, restrained. More ropes were thrown down and made fast, and slowly the ship settled into a gentle rise and fall beside the dock. A port in the ship's rail was swung open and a gangplank run out. Li picked up his pack and made his way over to the plank and down onto the dock. None of the crew got in his way.
Steth was already down and talking to the dockmaster. Both men looked up as Li stepped into the lantern light. The dockmaster's eyes went wide then narrow, and he shot a glance at the captain. "You didn't say he was an elf! Bringing an elf-blood to Spandeliyon? You are mad!"
Li's jaw tightened. His smooth skin, fine features, and tapered eyes had earned him this reaction elsewhere in rfhe west, though not with this hostility. The captain saved him from having to explain himself—he dealt the dockmaster a sharp blow to the back of his head. "He's not an elf!" he hissed. "Haven't you ever seen a Shou before, Cul?"
The dockmaster managed to look startled once more. "From Thesk? Like one of those eastern Tuigan horde riders?"
Li drew a sharp breath, stood straight and returned the dockmaster's gaze. "I am not a barbarian," he said, forming the thick syllables carefully. "I come from the Great Empire of Shou Lung." More eastern, he added silently, than your uncivilized mind could possibly comprehend and far greater than you could believe. "I require directions. I need to find a wine shop."
"What?" Cul glanced at Steth once more, but this time the captain shrugged and shook his head. The dockmaster looked back to Li and licked his lips. "No wine shops here," he said slowly and with great volume as if that would make him easier to understand. "No wine shops. There is a wine merchant in—"
The dockmaster used a word Li didn't recognize, but
pointed in the direction of the tall houses and fortress Li had seen from the ship. The wealthier part of Spandeliyon. A wine merchant for the rich people, Li guessed. He frowned.
"No," he said. He spoke clearly, but kept his voice at a normal pitch. Let this old goat sound like a backward fool if he insists, he told himself, but I will not! "Not a wine shop." He searched his memory for the proper word. "A taven."
"Ataven?"The dock master blinked. "Oh, a taverrf.The man tried to hide an unpleasant smile and failed miserably. Li frowned again. He swept the wide sleeve of his waitao aside and undipped the scabbard that hung at his belt. He held it loosely, casually, but making certain that Cul could see both it and the protruding hilt of the heavy, curved dao within. If the man's empty eyes had gone wide before, they practically bulged out of his head now. His hand twitched for a knife sheathed at his belt, but Steth caught his arm.
"Yes," said Li calmly. "A tavern."
The captain answered for the dockmaster. "You could have asked me," he growled. Li just gave him a blunt glance. Steth grunted. "Fine." He nodded to his left. "Go that way and you'll find the Eel." He nodded right. "That way is the Wench's Ease."
There was an unspoken warning in his voice: both taverns were dangerous places. Li wouldn't have expected any less. "Which one is most close?" he asked. Steth shrugged.
"Both about the same."
A cautious man lets his weapon precede him, Li thought. He gestured with his sword hand—to the right. "This one, this 'wencheese'—how will I find it?"
"Wench's Ease," the captain corrected him. "Walk
until you find a tree. It's the only one in dockside. There's a sign."
"I don't read your language."
Cul found his voice. "Don't need to. There's a picture of pretty wench on the sign," he said in a greasy tone. "You'll see that."
"If I don't," Li told him, "I will come back and you can guide me yourself." He turned right and began to walk.
Behind him, he heard the dockmaster mutter, "Arrogant bastard, isn't he?"
"Cul, you don't know the sweet chum half of it," answered the captain.
Li didn't look back, but just stared into the shadows ahead and let their voices fade behind him. His scabbard he kept out and ready. The cramped streets seemed empty, but that could change all too quickly. Spandeliyon was so far proving itself to be nothing more than he had expected—nothing more than he had been warned to expect. He clenched his teeth. The surface of the street under his boots was barely frozen mud, treacherous in the thin moonlight. He should, he supposed, be grateful for the cold. It killed whatever stench might have oozed out of the mud in warmer weather and kept the people of the town indoors by their smoking fires.
In that, at least, he actually found himself envying them. A fire would be a blessing. As, he thought, would a torch. He should have demanded one of the sniveling dockmaster. But then again, he should also have asked more about the picture on the sign he sought. "Wench," he murmured to himself, trying to puzzle out the meaning of the word.
The snow was beginning to fall more thickly by the time the street opened up into a small courtyard and Li spotted the tree the captain had mentioned. It was actually much larger than he had been expecting, an old giant stripped naked by winter. A small knot of figures clustered around its base, two of them holding up a third. Li almost called out to them for directions before one of them shifted and he saw what they were doing. The third man had been hung from the tree's branches—the other two were busy stealing his boots. And his stockings. And his pants. Li sucked in a sharp breath of disgust.
The thieves must have heard him. One looked up, yelped at the sight of an armed man, and slapped his partner. Both fled, leaving the dead man turning slowly in the cold air, pants dangling loose around his knees. Li averted his eyes as he passed.
Only one of the buildings around the tree bore any sign at all. Not that a sign seemed truly necessary—light and song seeped through gaps around the door. Some of the light splashed across the sign above as well, revealing a lurid painting of a laughing woman so buxom she almost spilled out of her bodice. Li guessed that he had found out what "wench" meant. He averted his eyes again, shifting his gaze to the ground, apparently the only safe place, to look.
It wasn't. The snow and muck between tree and tavern had been churned up, as if by many feet. The hanged man's killers had emerged from under the sign of the wench. His hand squeezed the scabbard of his dao and he glanced up briefly at the corpse dangling from the tree. "May the Immortals grant me better luck in this place than they did you," he said. He reached out and opened the tavern door.
There was nothing better than a good song to loosen hearts—and more important, Tycho thought, throats. He grinned to himself as he sawed his bow across the strilling. The dark ale of the Wench's Ease was flowing as smooth as bait on a hook. Even Lander and his men were drinking and singing along with the tavern regulars. Muire and her serving maids were busier than they had been in a tenday and if Muire was happy enough at the end of the night, there might even be a little extra coin for him. All he needed to do was keep the mood up. "How about another?" he bellowed over the din,
A cheer came back to him. Tycho sent a ripple of music dancing out from the strilling then scraped the bow slowly, drawing the crowd's attention to him. "Ahhh," he rasped sadly as his audience fell quiet, "the wizards of Thay, they have a way with magic and with spells. They shave the hair on their head and they dress all in red, and they're dour like clams in their shells.''
The bow scratched a string for emphasis. A few people laughed and Tycho flashed them a smile. "But there's a reason they're bald-ed, and dress like they're scalded and all have the humor of rocks." He paused and the crowd leaned forward in anticipation. "That isn't a pimple... " He winked at one of the serving maids. " .. you see on their ... dimple... "
"It's pox!" he yelled and the crowd joined in, banging tables and singing lustily. "It's pox, it's pox, they've got the Thayan pox!"
Tycho strutted out into the middle of the floor and spun around to the shouts of the crowd, playing fast and hard. "Well, there's Thayan pox in every port, in sailor's shack and prince's court—"
"The pox, the pox, they've got the Thayan pox!"
"When'ere you see a wizard itch, you know what is that makes 'em twitch!"
"The pox, the pox, they've got the Thayan pox!"
In Tycho's head, the trickle of coins that Muire usually doled out at the end of the night was turning into a small flood. He laughed. "Even temples aren't safe anymore," he sang, "you never know who walked through that door!" He swept out his arm and pointed his bow at the Ease's own rickety portal—
—which opened.
For one moment, the slightest fraction of a heartbeat, the crowd—and Tycho—paused. Framed in the tavern doorway was a tall man dressed in a long quilted coat of blue wool. Snow clung to his shoulders and to the fur-edged cap that he wore. If the snow bothered him, however, there was no trace of it in his travel-tanned, fine-boned face. He stood straight as a mast, stern and dignified.
For a moment.
"The pox!" howled the crowd in perfect time. "The pox! He's got the Thayan pox!"
The stranger's mouth drew a thin line across his face.
It wasn't clear who in the crowd laughed first. It simply started and spread, sweeping through the tavern like a storm until everyone was hooting and guffawing. Tycho tried to fight it off but couldn't. Laughter rose from his belly and forced its way out of him. He barely managed to get his bow back to the strilling and scratch out the last bars of the song before doubling over in helpless mirth.
The only people in the place not laughing were the stranger and Muire. The stranger stepped into the tavern, slamming the door shut behind him, and stalked over to the bar. Muire gave Tycho a fierce look. The bard
swallowed a laugh and reached out to the stranger as he passed. "Olore, friend," he choked. "Welcome to the Wench's Ease." He couldn't hold back a crooked smile. "The merriest tavern in Spandeliyon."
The stranger twitched away from his hand as though Tycho carried the Thayan pox himself. "Leave me, singer," he said in a thick accent and walked on.
At the nearest table, Rana's laughter turned into an ugly snort. "Arrogant elf-blood," she spat at the stranger's retreating back.
"He's not elf-blood, Rana," Tycho told her, straightening' up. "He's a Shou."
"Elf, Shou—you don't see much of neither in Spandeliyon."
"No," agreed Tycho, "you don't." He nodded distracted acknowledgment as others in the crowd shouted for another song, but didn't raise his strilling again. Instead, he turned and went after the stranger.
The Shou was just stepping up to the bar. Tycho gave him a surreptitious examination as he approached. The Shou was tall, lean, and stiff, a sturdy doorpost of a man. The pack he carried slung over one shoulder was large and heavy. The wool of his coat was dusty, dirt muting the fine blue of the quilted fabric. It was fraying slightly along the hem and at the cuffs and elbows. Unless he missed his guess, the man had come a long, long way. Clipping his bow to the strap of his strilling and shifting the instrument around to ride on his back once more, Tycho bellied up to the bar beside him. The Shou glanced at him out of the corner of his almond-shaped eyes.
"I said leave me, singer. I do not want a song." The Shou man turned away as if Tycho were already gone from his mind and set a scabbard containing a heavy Shou saber on
the bar. He looked to Muire. "A clean cup with good wine or pale ale." He set some coins on the bar.
Sembian copper pennies. A scant price for a mug of ale in another port, but just right for dockside Spandeliyon. The man, Tycho judged, was an experienced traveler.
Muire glanced down at the pennies, not even blinking at the saber beside them. "A clean cup I can give you," she said, "but we only have dark ale here." The Shou nodded and Muire turned away to the ale casks. Conversation in the tavern was returning to normal, laughter dying out to be replaced by the usual hum and murmur. Much of it, Tycho was fairly certain, would be about this unusual visitor.
The Ease's patrons were whetting their appetites for a good story and, bind him, he'd be the one to give it to them! He leaned in. The Shou fixed him with an angry glare, but Tycho didn't back away. Instead he smiled at him. "You've come to a poor town on a cold night, honored lord," he said in the musical Shou tongue.
He had the satisfaction of seeing the stranger's eyes widen ever so slightly in surprise. "You speak Shou," he replied in the same language.
"A little bit," Tycho told him modestly. "You aren't the only traveler here. I had the pleasure of spending some time in the Shou town of Telflamm in Thesk and learned your language there."
The stranger nodded. "Ah," he said. He looked directly at Tycho. "That would explain why you speak it like a lisping whore from Ch'ing Tung."
Blood rushed to Tycho's face. He opened his mouth, a stinging insult rising to his lips, but Muire cut him off before he could deliver it. "Your ale, sir," she said, setting a tankard down before the Shou—and one before Tycho
as well, foamy, thick, and hastily drawn. "And yours." The Shou man picked up his tankard and nodded to her. When Tycho reached for his own, though, Muire gave the tankard a shove that sent foam slopping onto his hand and sleeve.
"Let it go," she hissed. "I don't know what you're saying to him, but I can read faces as well as anyone." "Muire—"
"I've had enough trouble tonight. Apologize to him!"
Growling, Tycho took a deep swig of ale and glanced over at the Shou. The man seemed to have forgotten him already. He was scanning the crowd of the tavern, holding his ale but not actually drinking it. There was a look of deep intensity on his face. Though any number of the Ease's patrons were staring at him, he didn't appear to make eye contact with any of them. Lost in his own haughty world, Tycho thought balefully. He gulped some more ale—and swallowed his pride with it. He leaned over toward the Shou. The man's gaze snapped back to him immediately with the experience of a trained fighter. Tycho realized that he held his tankard in his left hand. One swift move would have his right around the grip of his saber. Tycho stayed still, as if absolutely nothing were wrong. "I'm sorry if my feeble attempts at Shou have offended you, sir." In spite of the stranger's insult, he stuck with the language. "My name is Tychoben Arisaenn, but everyone calls me Tycho. May I know your name?"
The Shou's mouth twitched into a narrow frown. "My surname is Kuang and my personal name is Li Chien and if you insist on addressing me again, you will go to the gates of the afterlife with that name upon your lips."
This time, Tycho actually choked. Heckling, even dismissal—those were one thing. He could deal with them.
He had dealt with them, in taverns all around the Sea of Fallen Stars from Spandeliyon to Suzail, Procampur to Arrabar, and back again. Blunt intimidation, on the other hand, was something else. His jaw clenched. "You might want to have a care, Master Kuang. Threats aren't taken lightly around here."
"That's wise," the Shou replied. "A man should take seriously every threat made to him—as well as every threat that he makes himself."
Both of his hands were still, right open to seize his blade, left steady and ready to toss his tankard. Tycho had been through enough tavern brawls to recognize the body language. Behind him, he heard Muire curse quietly. "Tycho ... " she said with low warning.
Her words seemed to echo. The Wench's Ease had suddenly grown quiet, Tycho realized, the hint of violence drawing every eye. Tycho ignored both Muire and the stares of the crowd. "What do you want here, Master Kuang?" he asked, abandoning attempts at Shou. "If you want trouble, you didn't have to travel so far."
The change in language seemed to give the stranger pause. He blinked and his frown grew deeper as he noticed the attention of the crowd as well. He straightened up and looked out at all of the Ease's patrons.
"I am looking for a man," he announced in his thick accent. "A man who was a pirate."
Tycho's lips curved up and he snickered—then laughed. So did the crowd. For the second time that night, laughter washed through the Ease. Unlike the first time, however, there wasn't anything good-natured about it. Tycho gave the Shou a thin smile. "Master Kuang, have you heard of Aglarond? It's the country to the northeast of Altumbel. Its ruler is the Simbul. The WitchQueen. She doesn't like pirates and she doesn't have much mercy for the ones that she catches off her coasts. There have been a lot of pirates recently who decided it would be better if they were to stay away from Aglarond and take up a more peaceful profession. Like fishing. In Spandeliyon."
He nodded out to the crowd. A good number of the Ease's patrons—a very large number—opened their mouths in gap-toothed grins.
The Shou said nothing. Tycho wondered if the man had followed what he had just said. "Master Kuang?"
I understand," the Shou said narrowly. He stood stiff and said in words that sounded carefully practiced, "The man I'm looking for is a one-eyed hin—a halfling—who was mate on a ship called the Sow. His name—then—was Brin."
Laughter died instantly. Grins disappeared. Even Tycho felt his anger drain away. "Master Kuang…."
Kuang Li Chien gave him a sharp glare. To the crowd, he said, "I will reward anyone who takes me to Brin. I have business with him."
For a moment, no one moved. Then a chair scraped back. "I'll take you to Brin," called a voice.
Lander stood up.
Breath caught in Tycho's throat. He glanced at the Shou. The man was giving Lander a measured look that turned into a curt nod. "Very well." He twisted around and set his tankard, still full, on the bar. As he picked up his saber, Tycho caught his eye and tried to give him a slight shake of his head, a silent warning. Kuang Li Chien just pressed his lips together and turned away. "I will give you the reward when we find Brin," he said to Lander.
"Fair enough." Lander adjusted his mantle and walked over to the door. A box beside it held cheap torches for
patrons who needed them. Lander flipped a coin into the box and took one, holding it over a candle to light it. In only a moment, the torch was burning and a wreath of smoke surrounded Lander. He opened the door. Cold air and snow gusted inside. "After you," he said.
"No," insisted Kuang Li Chien, "I will follow you." Lander shrugged and stepped out into the night. The Shou followed him without a backward glance.
The door slammed shut on a silent tavern. No one said anything—at least none of the Ease's regular patrons. At the table Lander had just abandoned, his men began snickering and jostling each other as they rushed to drain their tankards. After a few long moments, they rose and walked out the door as well. Once they were gone, Tycho blew out a long breath. "Bind me," he murmured. He lifted his tankard to his lips, gulped the bitter ale, and turned around to glance at Muire. Her face was hard. Both of them looked at the Shou's untouched tankard. "Dead man's ale, Muire," Tycho said.
The tavern keeper took the tankard and dumped the ale inside into a slop bucket. Tycho nodded and turned back around. Throughout the Ease, conversation was mutedas people dived deep into their ale. Tycho pulled his strilling back up to his shoulder and put bow to string. Music rippled out, bringing sound back into the tavern and pushing away memory of the Shou's brief, ill-fated visit.

CHAPTER 2
Going off with the man in the red tunic was a risk. Li clenched his teeth as the door of the stinking tavern slammed shut behind them. That had been his intent though, hadn't it? Find a dockside tavern and use one of the locals to locate Brin. The information he had obtained through haunting the wharves of Telflamm had been enough to suggest such a strategy would be the quickest and least obtrusive means of finding the hin-man. He could feel that he was close now—anticipation was a knife twisting in his gut. Maybe he should have waited for daybreak. Maybe he should have found a more reputable guide.
The short, hairy singer's pathetic look of warning had been an insult. Li didn't need to be warned. The man in the red tunic would most likely try to rob him. But to be so close to Brin... sometimes it was necessary to walk with the wolf when you were stalking the tiger.
Out in the yard, the corpse was still hanging from the tree. The man in the red tunic gave it a lingering gaze as they passed then glanced briefly at Li. The Shou pressed his lips together and said nothing. The man wouldn't let the silence rest. "I'm Lander," he said.
"Kuang Li Chien."
"So what's your business with Brin? Why are you looking for him?"
Li gave Lander a thin look. "It is a thing between Brin and me."
"Brin doesn't like being bothered. Just to warn you." "Thank you for the warning, but what Brin likes or does not like is of little concern to me," Li said bluntly. His guide shrugged.
They walked on. The falling snow was forming a thick blanket on the ground and made Lander's torch hiss threateningly. Apparently used to such miserable wet and cold weather, Lander tramped ahead, ignoring the layer of snow that built up on his head and shoulders. He began to talk, filling the snow-muffled silence with pointless prattle. Questions about Li's arrival in Spandeliyon. Comments on the quality of ale at the Wench's Ease. Biting remarks about the hairy singer, Tycho—it seemed the thug and the singer didn't get along. That was little surprise. Based on his own brief experience with Tycho, Li didn't much care, for him either. He only half-listened to what Lander was saying, though. The man had a gravelly, clipped voice that turned every word into a rough grunt, and following his babble closely would have taken most of his concentration. As it was, his concentration was already focused on peering through the thick curtain of snow and trying to keep track of their surroundings.
It wasn't easy and the glare of torchlight on the falling snow only made it worse. The street that they followed was narrow and twisting, clearly not the same route that he had taken to the tavern from the docks, though it had seemed when they left the Wench's Ease that they were headed back in that direction. Still, they should surely have passed close to the water once more by now. If they were following a reasonably straight route. Li fixed his gaze on a particularly crooked doorway. "When I said I was looking for Brin," he said, choosing his words carefully, "the people in the tavern were afraid. Is Brin dangerous?"
An extended commentary on winter weather interrupted, Lander blinked. "Yes," he said after a moment.
That was no surprise, Li thought. By all accounts, the hin had been a scourge as a pirate. "Dangerous enough that even the mention of his name is frightening?"
Lander shrugged. Snow fell from his shoulders. "Brin controls this part of the docks. He's a bad man to cross. Someone goes looking for Brin, they're looking for trouble."
"And yet," commented Li, "you would anger him by robbing someone who is looking for him."
Lander's pace faltered, but not by much.
"We've come this way before," Li said.
"It's the snow," grunted his guide. "It's confusing if you're not used to it."
"I have walked in snow before." He paused then added, "The reward I mentioned is easier earned than taken." He gave his dao a meaningful rattle in its scabbard. Lander glanced down at it once and then looked away. He said nothing more.
Neither did Li. The Shou allowed himself a slight smile of triumph. If things went so easily with Brin, he would be well pleased.
The first hint that his warning had perhaps not been as successful as he thought came in the form of a sudden sound in the darkness, the abrupt crunch of a foot on old snow. Quick as a thought, Lander was whirling on him almost before Li had a chance to register the sound or the four figures that came rushing out of the shadows on three sides—the men Lander had been sitting with in the tavern. Li drew a sharp breath. Lander's silence hadn't been shock, he realized. He had been listening for his allies!
The men wasted no words on threats. Lander was closest and he swung his torch like a mace straight at Li, the flame of it guttering blue with the force of the blow. If he had been expecting Li, his blade not drawn, to jump back, however, he had guessed wrong.
Li stepped into the arc of the torch and swept up his sheathed dao to turn Lander's swing. His right hand jabbed forward underneath, stiff fingers hitting Lander just below his ribs. The thug choked, doubled over, and staggered away. In the wild light of the swinging torch, Li stepped back, let his pack fall to the ground, wrapped his hand around the grip of his dao, and drew the weapon in a swift, smooth motion.
Two of his attackers wavered, startled by this sudden whirlwind of action. Li slashed at a third in a threadbare coat, driving him back a step. "Damn it, Serg, hold your ground!" Lander croaked in warning. "Nico, watch the saber!"
The fourth attacker managed to get his own sword up. Blades clashed, the lighter western sword skittering under the wide, heavy dao, but still stopping it. Li lashed out with his empty scabbard, cracking the stiff wood into Nico's side. The blow would do no more than sting, but it was enough of a distraction to force the man's guard to slip; his stance wavered. Li surged forward and thrust him away into a snowdrift. The man in the threadbare coat— Serg—was advancing again. With a snap of his wrist, Li flung his scabbard at him. Serg brushed it aside with his weapon, a stout club, but looked up to find Li whirling at him. He flinched and raised his club to meet the dao. Li just dropped and knocked his feet out from under him with a leg sweep.
"All at once!" cursed Lander. The thug was upright again. The torch had been planted in the snow and Lander had a sword out, a thin, fast blade. "Ovel, Bor—get in there!" He began to close in cautiously himself.
At least he wasn't a rearguard leader. The two attackers who had been hanging back glanced at each other and stepped forward as well. Nico was staggering out of the snowdrift. Serg was slowly climbing to his feet. They still had him very nearly surrounded. Li drew a deep breath and stepped into the clear space between them, dao at the ready. "I think Brin will be angry if you stop me," he said. "I have come a long way to meet him."
Lander smiled like a wolf. "Now, here's the thing. If Brin really wanted to meet you, you'd know where to find him. You wouldn't need to be asking for directions in places like the Wench's Ease. I don't think he's going to be angry if he never sees you."
"You presume to know what Brin wants?"
"As it happens," said Lander, "I work for Brin. I do know what he wants. And he doesn't want to see every blood-mad lunatic who comes looking for revenge." Li's breath hissed and Lander's smile grew wider. "If you're smart, you'll give us everything you've got, get out of Spandeliyon, and forget Brin. What did he do to you? Kill someone?"
"Brin?" Li replied. "No."
This was no time to fight. He spun sharply. The men who had stayed back were Lander's weakest. Li threw himself at them with a vicious scream, dao slicing through the falling snow. Sure enough, the men's nerve broke and they scrambled aside. Li hurtled between them to freedom—
—and a snowdrift. Suddenly snow that had been barely above his ankles reached almost to his knees as his weight broke through the icy crust that fresh snow had hidden. Legs trapped, body still moving, Li fell flat. Ice crystals scraped against his face. Snow packed into his mouth and nose. Before he could do more than haul himself half-upright, a heavy mass slammed into him, forcing him back down into the snow. A club cracked against his right forearm and again, numbing it so that someone could seize his hand and wrench away his dao. Other hands slapped off his cap; the club came down across the back of his head in an explosion of pain. More pain came after. The weight—someone's body—rolled off his back and blows began to rain down on him, knocking him out of the snowdrift and tumbling him across the ground. Lander and his men were laughing and spitting insults at him. Li tried to shield himself, to roll back to his feet, but all that earned him were more blows. The end of a club jammed hard into his ribs. A fist slammed across his face. The snow that clung to him dulled some of the pain, but Li could taste blood on his lips.
"Hey!" Suddenly there was a cry out of the snow and a new figure moved into the circle of torchlight. Through eyes already swelling shut, Li caught a brief glimpse of a tough-looking woman in some kind of uniform, an emblem or crest bright on her coat. "What's this—oh." Lander spat something at her, but Li caught only "... Brin's business." He flicked her a coin. The woman nodded and faded back into the shadows.
"No ... help... " Li reached out for her. A foot came down hard on his hand. He looked up into Lander's face just as the thug's other foot swung forward and kicked him in the head.
Darkness fell on him. He was dimly aware of a tugging sensation and the cold touch of snow on his limbs. He was being stripped, just like the corpse hanging outside the Wench's Ease. He struggled again. Or at least he thought he did. Nothing seemed to happen. Comments reached him from a distance. "This was his reward?" He heard the clinking of coins. "That's it?"
A curse. "Check his pack." More cursing. "Never mind, his things will fetch some more coin." A kick rolled Li over. The press of cold snow against his bare belly forced a moan out of him and made him curl up. One of Lander's men must have thought it was a sign of recovery. Li received another kick.
"Dump him in the alley. They'll find him in spring. This has been a good night's work." Lander laughed, his voice, punctuated by the hiss and click of a sword being returned to its scabbard. A sword—or his dao. Li's mouth worked in protest, but nothing came out. Hands grabbed him. His legs brushed through snow as he was dragged across the ground and thrown down. His head hit a wall, lighting the darkness with pain.
That light faded fast. No, he thought, not now. Not after so long, not when I'm so close... Lander's laughter faded.
Hot anger stirred. Li forced himself up and began to crawl after the sound. Or at least he thought he did. In the alley, snow settled on his body.
***
"Olore," called Tycho as he stepped out through the door of the Wench's Ease. "On the morrow!" Muire didn't even look up, just gave a vague grunt of farewell. Tycho didn't bother trying to coax anything more out of her. The night had been a failure. In spite of his best efforts, the crowd had never really recovered after the Shou's visit. Customers had finished their drinks and quickly left, their spirits done in. Only a couple of hours after the Shou's departure, the crowd had thinned down to those few patrons who had no need of music to encourage their drinking. Tycho had called himself finished and Muire had handed over his night's pay with a pained expression on her face. Two silver Sembian ravens and eight pennies.
Tycho looked up at the night sky. Snow was still falling, oblivious to the evening's events. In fact, enough had fallen to lay a good handspan on the ground. The churned ground of the yard was almost perfectly smooth now. Ardo's body was gone, he hoped taken by someone who would see it properly laid to rest. He hoped. There were some very desperate people on the dockside of Spandeliyon and there were rumors of necromancers and evil priests who would pay good coin for an unblessed body.
On another night, he might have walked in the dark. Rumored necromancers aside, the dockside streets held no fear for him. He knew them well. Tonight, though, the fresh snow would make footing treacherous. He checked the flap of leather that protected his strilling and reached
into a pouch to extract a coin. He snorted when his fingers pulled up one of the silver ravens. Maybe it was a good sign. Focusing his concentration, he sang a few rippling words.
The coin shimmered and began to glow with the cool, unwavering light of magic. Tugging on his mitten and holding the shining coin carefully, Tycho began to make his way home.
When he had first left Spandeliyon, he had never thought he would be coming back. Had never thought that he'd have to suffer through another winter of snow and sea storms. He had pictured himself traveling with the seasons, spending the winter months in Amn or Tethyr or maybe even Calimshan then moving back north to pass summers in great northern cities such as glittering Waterdeep. Of course even through seven years of travel, he had never made it farther south than the Vilhon Reach or farther west than Cormyr. He had never visited Water-deep either, but he had seen cities enough to appreciate that each glittered in its own way. Except possibly for Spandeliyon.
He had, at least, spent winters in far more comfortable locations, singing songs and spinning tales in taverns much grander than the Wench's Ease. And most of the time he had walked out of them at the end of the night with more than two silver coins and a scant handful of pennies.
Seven years away and two years back. He was lucky he hadn't angered too many people when he left. Tycho turned off the street and cut down a narrow shortcut between two buildings. Too bad he hadn't kept more of the coin he had made then. Unfortunately, the life of a wandering bard wasn't one that tended to encourage saving
coin. He'd found that out the hard way. He and his mentor both—
He was just stepping out into the next street when his foot went down into a snowdrift and hit something underneath. Something soft. Something that let out a quiet moan.
Tycho jumped back so fast that he landed on his backside in the snow, strilling jangling at the impact. His enchanted coin went flying from his grasp and up into the air. For a moment, light splashed around the alley, and then the coin plunged into the snow as well, choking off all but a dim glow. In that faint half-light, Tycho stared at the snowdrift. No, not a snow drift, he realized. A person buried by the falling snow. And if he had been lying there long enough to have snow piled that deep on top of him... Tycho scrambled across the alley to the glow that marked his coin and pulled it free. Clamping the cold metal between his teeth, he began shoveling with his hands at the snow-covered figure.
He found an arm and a hand—a man's hand—first, the naked flesh pale with cold. Almost miraculously, the fingers clenched as he touched them. They hadn't frozen and there was no sign of frostbite. "That's good," he mumbled past the coin in his mouth. "Hold on, friend, I'll have you out in a minute." He moved up the arm to the shoulder and head, scooping away snow.
The face that emerged was Shou. Tycho's hands stopped and he sat back. Kuang Li Chien—not that there were any other Shou in Spandeliyon. He'd taken a beating. Snow and blood clung to his face in icy clumps. It looked like Tycho's suspicions of Lander and his men had been correct.
Except that Li Chien was still alive. Tycho couldn't have
said how. Some kind of magic, maybe. Sheer luck more likely. Lander must have left him here in the alley, expecting him to die. Tycho blew out his breath slowly. He was almost tempted to leave the Shou as well. His behavior at the Wench's Ease had been more than insulting. He hadn't just declined Tycho's attempts to warn him first about Brin then about Lander—he had all but thrown them back in his face.
Li Chien had brought this on himself, Tycho thought. Why should I give him any help now? I should get up, walk away...
"Ah, bind me," the bard muttered. Lander left people in alleys. He wasn't Lander. He leaned forward again and began digging into the snow once more.
As more of the Shou's body came into view, Tycho clenched his jaw. Li Chien was in worse shape than he had thought. He had been stripped of everything but his smallclothes—unless there was some magic talisman hidden down there, it was pure luck that had kept him alive. Most of his torso was covered with the faint beginnings of some very large bruises. Two fingers on one hand were bent and probably broken. The snow was most likely the only thing keeping them from swelling. Lander and his men had beaten him badly. "Bitch Queen's mercy, what did you do to get them that angry?" Tycho wondered aloud. He hauled Li Chien into something of a sitting position and managed to flop him over his shoulder, wincing as the Shou's arms hit the strilling slung on his back. Another moan escaped Li Chien's cold lips. Tycho snorted.
"You say you want a song now? Great time to change your mind. It's going to have to wait." Tycho got his feet under himself and, with a tremendous groan, stood up. Li Chien was a dead weight balanced precariously on his shoulder. Every step was a challenge, the Shou's weight and the deep snow combining to keep him off balance and staggering. In spite of the cold, Tycho was soon dripping with sweat. His legs and back were burning. More than once, he almost swallowed the glowing coin as he fought to keep it from falling out of his teeth; eventually, he simply spat it out and held it clenched in one mittened fist, lighting his way with a thin sliver of light cast between thumb and fingers.
Home was in a building on Bakers Way. It was only one street over, but it seemed like the farthest distance Tycho had ever walked. By the time he kicked open the outer door of the building, he was shaking with exhaustion. The narrow stairs that led up to the second floor and his rooms were almost a blessing; he was able to brace himself against the outer wall as he lifted one foot then the other, forcing himself up the stairs. "Veseene!" he croaked. "Veseene! Help! Open the door!"
He was almost at the top of the stairs before he heard the squeal of a bolt being drawn back. In the little hallway above, a door opened—just a crack at first then wide. A frail old woman stood in the doorway, faded blue eyes as wide as the door itself, a night robe wrapped around her thin body. She stretched out trembling arms as Tycho stumbled up the last few steps. He shook his head at the offer. "Get blankets," he gasped, "and stir the fire up!"
Veseene nodded and stood aside as he weaved through the door and quickly shut it behind him. "What happened? Who is this?" Her voice was a thin, wet rasp, like bubbles of air rising out of mud. Or through the wet phlegm that choked her throat. She bent—awkwardly—and looked at LiChien'sface."AShou!"
"He came into the Wench's Ease looking for Brin,"
Tycho told her. "And left with Lander." He groaned as he sank down to his knees before the little fireplace that heated their rooms. Veseene didn't ask for any further explanation. Time might have taken its toll on her body, but her mind was still quick. She stepped over to the low couch that was her bed and stripped off the blankets, spreading them out on the ground between Tycho and the fireplace.
Even that simple action was almost beyond her. Tycho watched her shaking hands twist and pull at the blankets, clenched fingers betraying her. He said nothing. When the blankets were spread enough to cradle the Shou's body, he laid Li Chien out with a grateful grunt of relief. Veseene was already on her feet and trying to wrestle a stout chunk of oak onto the carefully banked embers of the fireplace. Tycho jumped up. "Let me do that," he said, taking the wood from her. She gave it up almost gratefully. In return, Tycho passed her the glowing coin. "The spell should last a few minutes more. Can you look at him? I think he's hurt bad."
As Veseene lowered herself to kneel beside the unconscious Shou, Tycho shook off his mittens and set to work on the banked fire with a rusty poker and more chunks of wood until flames were leaping. Behind him, Veseene ran fingers over Li Chien, occasionally hissing and cursing under her breath. "It's a miracle he isn't frozen solid!" she said in wonder.
"I know. He was buried when I found him." Tycho turned around and stripped off his coat and strilling before stepping over Li Chien's body and kneeling across from Veseene. "How is he?"
"Very bad. Broken fingers." Veseene pressed against the unconscious man's chest. His flesh sank in with a distinct crunch. "And ribs." Her other hand moved down to his abdomen and tapped. The sound it made was hard and hollow; here the flesh didn't give at all. Veseene shook her head. "Bleeding inside. Touch his neck. Feel for the beat of his heart."
There was no question of Veseene doing that herself. Her hands shook too badly. Tycho flexed his own fingers and pressed the tips against the man's neck just under his jaw. The Shou's skin seemed even colder now. He frowned and shifted his fingers. Nothing. There was no pulse. He bit his lip and bent down and put his ear against Li Chien's naked chest, trying to focus past the snap and pop of the fire. There ... the sound of it might be faint and slow, but Li Chien's heart was still beating. Barely. He glanced up at Veseene. She nodded. Tycho swallowed and sat back then held out his hands, palms down. Drawing a deep breath, he reached deep into himself and pulled up magic.
The spell that lent light to the coin had been a simple one. The spell he sang now was more complex and entirely different, soft and almost wordless. Anyone who had heard his raucous songs at the Ease tonight probably > wouldn't have even recognized him as the same singer. Light was a simple thing to invoke. Healing was much harder. As the magic took shape, Tycho bent it to his will, visualizing it as a warmth pouring out of his hands and into Li Chien's battered body. He spread his fingers out and in his imagination the healing power wove itself around the worst of the Shou's injuries. The bleeding in his abdomen stopped. The cracked ends in his ribs realigned and knit themselves back together. His broken fingers straightened. Some little magic trickled into the bruises that covered him, but more settled into his very
blood, tracing a path of gentle heat back to his slow, cold heart and prodding it back to—
Li Chien's eyes snapped open. His body bucked, and he sucked in air with such a violent gasp that Tycho yelped and jumped away. Song and magic vanished. "Bind and tar me!" he cursed. Li Chien was thrashing around in a delirium. Now that he had air in his lungs, he was screaming, too, a babble of Shou too fast and slurred for Tycho to follow—except for two words repeated in the shrieks.
"Yu maol Yu maol" , Hands and feet lashed out in unconscious rage. Veseene scrambled back as well. The sudden movement set her off on a fit of choking and coughing. Heedless of the man's recently healed injuries, Tycho threw himself across him. The Shou was substantially taller than he and stronger, too, but Tycho managed to straddle him and pin his arms. "Easy!" he shouted. "Easy, you're with friends." Li Chien just kept raving and struggling. Tycho gritted his teeth and repeated himself in Shou. That seemed to have more effect and Li Chien slowly calmed down and relaxed—though not before there was a pounding on the floor from the rooms beneath them. Tycho kicked his snow-soggy boot against the floor in ill-tempered response. "Oh, quiet down yourselves!" He rolled off Li Chien and wiped his face. "Aye-ya. What was that about? Are you all right, Veseene?"
Veseene had crept back to Li Chien's side and was checking him over. She nodded. "I'm fine. He was just delirious. Don't worry." She poked at his abdomen and ribs again. There was no crunching sound when she pressed on his chest and his abdomen was relaxed and soft. Still, Li Chien's body was blotched with big bruises. Many even looked worse than they had before. Tycho grimaced.
"The healing wasn't enough."
"No," Veseene corrected him. "It was just enough." She ran her trembling hands over Li Chien's legs and arms. "You healed the worst. His bruises are fading. He'll be sore in the morning, but he'll be alive." She reached out with one hand and patted Tycho's arm. "You were never much good at healing. Don't worry." Veseene turned back to Li Chien. She pointed a thin finger at an old rag bound high around the Shou's left arm. "A bandage? An old wound?"
Tycho shook his head and shrugged. "I don't know. I was looking at other things before." The rag, still wet with melted snow, was so dirty and worn that it almost blended in with his skin. If it was covering an old wound, whatever was underneath it might have been in bad condition before his healing, maybe even infected. The magic might have taken care of it—or perhaps not. He reached for the rag.
His fingers had barely brushed it before Li Chien gasped and stirred again, snapping his elbow up. Tycho swayed back, but the elbow caught him in the gut anyway. If Li Chien had been more aware, the blow might have really hurt. As it was, it was more of an unexpected shock. Tycho grunted then caught Li Chien's arm. "All right, calm down," he said in Shou. "I won't touch it." Whether the assurance did any good was hard to tell. Li Chien was already sagging back into unconsciousness. Tycho glanced up at Veseene. "What now?"
She pulled up an edge of the blanket and wrapped it over Li Chien. "Let him sleep," she advised. "Magic can accomplish great things, but a body's natural reactions still need to be indulged. Wrap him up and let him sleep by the fire. He'll be warm. We'll see how he is when he wakes."
Tycho followed her example, tucking the blankets around Li Chien and wrapping him snuggly. A folded shirt went under his head as a pillow. When they were finished, he went to the narrow cot where he slept and stripped off his own blankets. "You use these," he told Veseene.
"And what will you use?" the old woman asked stubbornly.
"I can sleep under my coat."
She snorted. "I could sleep under your coat just as well. I slept under coats and cloaks a thousand times while I was traveling!"
"You're not traveling anymore—and aren't blankets warmer than a coat?" Tycho steered Veseene over to her couch. "Besides, I need to stay awake for at least a while to tend the fire. I'll be fine."
Veseene grumbled, but finally gave up her protests. She settled down onto the couch and drew the blankets over herself. Tycho gave the fire a careful stir, heaping the coals up around the oak log, then he pulled his cot over closer to it and picked up his coat. The garment was still wet from his walk home. He grimaced and wrapped it around himself anyway before stretching out on the cot.
In the shadows, Veseene sighed. "Don't think about it, Veseene," Tycho said.
"I wish I could have done more. Once—"
"Once you could have healed him and sent him out dancing afterward." He turned his head and glanced at her. His mentor's eyes reflected the firelight. Her jaw was set and firm, but he knew that under the blankets her hands would be clasped tight, one around the other, as if that could prevent their shaking.
There were some things—some very few things—that magic couldn't heal.
There was a time, Tycho thought, when the voice of Veseene the Lark was known from coast to coast around the Sea of Fallen Stars. A time when her magic—the subtle spells of a bard rather than the pure power of a wizard or holy prayers of a priest—had enthralled taverns and festhalls and brought comfort to the common folk of towns and cities. A time, even in the fading days of her glory, when she had seen promise in the squeaking of a Spandeliyon dock rat and taken him for her apprentice, to travel with her and learn her songs and stories.
But no one, it turned out, had much use for a lark that could no longer fly.
Veseene closed her eyes and Tycho looked back to the fire. And Li Chien. The Shou's chest was rising and falling with the regular rhythm of sleep. Tycho drew a slow breath and let it out quietly. Gods bless us, I hope you appreciate my help this time, he thought, because Lander isn't going to. And if you're lucky, Brin will never even know you came looking for him.
***
"... fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty." Silver flashed in the candlelight as Giras counted. He looked up and blinked eyes still rheumy from having been woken in the middle of the night. "You're sure you don't want to part with that saber? I know someone who would pay very well for it."
"I'm keeping it." Lander swept a healthy pile of coins off Giras's counter and into his pouch. He picked up the Shou curved saber—back inside its sheath once more—and saluted the fence with it. "I've taken a fancy to it."
Giras shrugged. "Suit yourself. If you change your mind, though, bring it back. Just not so late next time."
"You sleep like you were an honest man, Giras."
Lander left the shop. The snow had stopped and the moon was peeking through the clouds, its light turning the fresh snow bright. Nico, Ovel, Bor, and Serg were waiting for him. They clustered around as soon as he appeared. "How much did you get?" Bor demanded.
"Fifty," lied Lander.
"Fifty?" Bor made a face. "That's only... " Lander saw his fingers move as he counted. "Ten each."
"Eight," Lander said. "Two of every ten to Brin." There were grumbles all around. Lander swept his men with 'a hard glare. "You'd rather get nothing? Or maybe you want to hold back on Brin and count your fingers when he's done with you?" He pulled coins out of his pouch and began distributing them.
"Hey!" complained Serg. "You kept the sword!"
"Is there a problem with that?"
Serg's anger faltered. "I could have used the coat," he whined.
"You can come back in the morning and buy it from Giras. I'm sure he'll give you a good price." Lander dropped the remaining coins back in his pouch and watched his men suspiciously count out their shares. "All there? Good. Go home. I'm going to see Brin. Anyone want to come with me?"
His men said their good-byes with unseemly haste and vanished into the night. Lander smiled grimly to himself and set off back down to dockside. Giras's shop was situated on the very edge of Spandeliyon's middle town. Not the quickest walk up from the dives of the dockside, but worth it whenever anything of value found its way into his hands. With access to a better class of customer, Giras was willing to pay a little more. Sometimes a lot more.
Lander considered the Shou's saber as he walked. Maybe he should have sold it. The hilt was nicely put together, with a fine grip of some coarse-grained leather he didn't recognize and bronze fittings carved with Shou characters. The scabbard matched it, fashioned from wood, brass, and the same coarse leather dyed red. The only problem was that it wasn't meant to be worn like a normal sword. He figured out how to clip it to his belt, but to draw it properly, he would have to carry it as the Shou had. He could figure out a way to fix that though. He buffed the hilt and nodded to himself. It was a nasty, heavy weapon. No, he'd keep it. For now, anyway.
Lander turned a corner onto a street very close to the waterfront and walked up to a long, low building. Painted along the wall and across the door was the sinuous body of an enormous eel. He went inside. In spite of the hour, there were still people around, though most of them were deep in drunken sleep. Those few who were awake glanced at Lander and then quickly turned back to their beer and whatever whispered conversations they were holding. Lander caught the eye of the bartender, a massive man who was as hairless as an egg, and raised his eyebrow. The bartender tilted his head ever so slightly toward the back of the festhall. Lander went that way. Off to one side, a room of gambling tables lay quiet for the night. Off to the other, a heavy curtain hid the way to a series of small rooms where more intimate pleasures could be had. Lander steered his way between the two, pushing aside another curtain to enter a narrow, dark passage.
The sound reached him first as he groped his way through the darkness. Someone was weeping in agony. Smell followed and Lander wrinkled his nose
at the pungent barnyard stench. No matter how often that stink assaulted him, he could never get used to it. He gulped air, though, and forced the grimace from his face as his fingers touched rough wood. He stepped through a door to the wide alley behind the Eel and the pigsty Brin kept there.
Bitch Queen's mercy, most of the pigs were asleep. They made a great mass of quivering, snorting flesh in among the straw under the covered portion of the sty. The heat of their bodies kept the shelter comfortable even in the coldest weather; the snow on the roof was already melting in big, fat drops. The pigs hadn't had a chance yet to churn up what snow had fallen on the ground and the sty looked almost pretty. Lander knew better. He picked his way carefully, trying not to disturb the filth underneath.
To one side of the sty, there was a table with a lantern and a bench. Sitting astride the bench, his ankles bound together underneath it, was a man named Kiril. Lander knew him. He collected extortion coin for Brin from several shops on the east of dockside.
His right hand was tied around behind his back. His left was caught in a screw press. He was the one doing the weeping. Judging from the wet state of his hair and shoulders, he had been outside for some time.
Sitting cross-legged on the table beside the press was Brin. Barely three feet tall, the halfling might have been mistaken for a very slight child except for the pinched cruelty of his face. His mouth was narrow and harsh, and a patch covered his left eye socket. There were various tales of how Brin had lost that eye. Some said he put it out himself. Lander didn't believe that. He did, however, believe that Brin was fully capable of such a thing. "Brin," he said in greeting.
"Lander!" Brin's voice, rich and expressive, was a strange contrast to his face. No matter what was going on, he always seemed to be enjoying himself. Maybe that wasn't such a contrast after all. "Kiril, say hello to Lander." The man on the bench didn't respond. "I said, say hello!" Brin's tiny hand lashed out, swiping a pig switch across his prisoner's face. Kiril's head jerked around. For the first time, Lander caught a glimpse of his face in the lantern light. Both cheeks were streaked with fine, bloody cuts from the switch.
"Lander," he said in a quavering voice.
"Kiril." Lander took a step forward.
In the shadows beside the table, something stirred and snuffled. Lander froze as an enormous boar with wiry black hair and malignant yellow eyes turned around to face him. It looked at him with all the warmth of a feral cat, as if deciding whether to tolerate his presence or tear him up on the spot; great knife-sharp tusks curved up on either side of the boar's jaw. "Black Scratch," Lander said, barely able to keep distaste from his voice.
"Easy, Scratch." Brin's switch dipped down to tickle one of the boar's ragged ears. "Now, Kiril, I think you could learn from Lander. I ask him to do something for me and he does it. To the letter." Brin looked up at Lander. "I heard about the lynching. Good work."
Lander nodded. "I've got something else for you. Ran into someone tonight and took care of him for you." He walked up to the table and set down twelve silver coins. Brin's eye glanced over them.
"You had sixty off him or his goods. You probably told your men—what? Fifty?" Lander nodded again. Brin nudged the screw press, drawing another whimper from Kiril. "Did you catch that, Kiril? Lander might cheat his
men, but he knows better than to cheat me. I get what's mine. Is that so hard to understand?" "N-no, Brin," Kiril gulped.
"Are you going to try skimming from me again? " asked Brin. Kiril shook his head emphatically. "Good. I think that finishes our talk tonight." Brin stood up and heaved against the handle of the screw. Kiril let out a horrible scream that brought Black Scratch's ears pricking up and a flurry of alarm from the sleeping pigs in their shelter. "Sorry," apologized Brin, "I guess that was the wrong way."
He slapped the handle and sent the screw spinning up. As Kiril whimpered and held up a hand that was alternately red from the press and white from the night's cold, Brin hopped down and drew a sharp little knife, reaching under the bench to slash the cord that bound the man's feet. "Now get out of my sight," he spat. He drew back the pig switch.
Kiril didn't let it touch him. He was moving before the switch fell, leaping to his feet and stumbling away into the darkness, the back way out of the alley. Lander looked after him briefly. "What did he do?"
"Told a tailor and a cobbler that I wanted more coin and kept the extra for himself." Brin scooped clean snow off the bench and scrubbed his hands with it. The snow, Lander saw, came away flecked with red from dried blood. Black Scratch came out into the light and Brin finished wiping his hands on the boar's bristly coat. The huge pig acted as if it was nothing and began snuffling around. "Everything went well at the Wench's Ease?"
"I'll talk to Ardo's brother tomorrow. Boat or cash, Ton's debts will be covered, I think."
"And nobody caught on?"
Lander shrugged, trying to ignore Black Scratch. "Tycho figured it out. He didn't say anything to anyone, though."
"If he's smart, he won't. Sharp tack but sometimes too clever for himself." He climbed up onto the bench and reached for the coins on the tabletop. "Sixty silver. Pretty good. Who was he?"
"Just someone else looking for revenge. He couldn't have been in Spandeliyon too long—he just walked into the Wench's Ease and announced that he was looking for a former pirate." Brin's eyebrows shot up. Lander gave him a smile. "Then he named you. You could have driven your pigs through the Ease and no one would have noticed."
"You're kidding." Brin sat down on the bench, legs dangling over the edge. "Nobody is that—"
Black Scratch interrupted him by giving a loud grunt and butting hard against Lander's leg. The boar's weight sent him staggering. Lander gave the beast a hard glare, but when he looked up, it was to find Brin staring at him.
"Lander," asked the halfling, "what's that?" He pointed. Lander reached down. His hand encountered the Shou curved saber.
For a moment, his heart jumped. "It belonged to the man who came looking for you," he said cautiously. "You told me I could keep weapons that caught my eye."
"I remember. Let me see it!"
Lander struggled with the saber for a heartbeat before he got it undipped from his belt. He handed it to Brin, Black Scratch following his every move like a trained guard dog. Brin examined the weapon and its scabbard closely. "The man who was looking for me was a Shou?"
"Yeah."
"Did he give his name?" His voice was sharp as a knife edge.
Lander's heart jumped again. "Kang—no, Kuang. Kuang Li Chien." The man's words came back to him. And yet you would anger Brin by robbing someone who is looking for him. He swallowed hard. "Brin, you said you wanted me to take care of anyone who came looking for you without an invitation!"
"I know what I said," Brin snapped. "What happened to the Shou?"
"I... my men and I took him for a walk. He put up a fight. We left him in an alley by Gold Lane."
"Go and get him. Bring him here." Brin rubbed his face with his free hand.
"Brin... " Lander hesitated then said, "he's probably
dead by now."
Brin glanced up. There was anger in his eye. "Then bring me his body! I want to see him!" He thrust the saber back at him.
Lander snatched it and ran, following in Kiril's tracks. Filth from Brin's pigs splattered up around his boots. He ignored it. Out of the sty, out of the alley, twisting through the narrow gap that led back onto the street. Images of Kiril's mangled hand—of much worse things that he had seen Brin do to people who displeased him—kept popping into his mind. Lander tried to shove them away, concentrating instead on taking the shortest possible route back to Gold Lane. The snow dragged at his legs, making running hard. He didn't slow down.
At least Brin didn't need the Shou alive!
His legs were like lead and his throat and lungs raw from gulping cold air by the time he reached Gold Lane and slid to a stop at the mouth of the alley. There was a
clear mound of snow in the shadows. Lander dropped the saber and plunged his arms into the snow, digging frantically for the Shou's frozen body. It only took a moment before he rocked back on his heels in dismay.
There was no body under the snow. He swung around and scanned the moonlit street. Whether Kuang Li Chien had managed to crawl away from his doom or some bodys-natcher had staggered off with his corpse, there was no sign of it now. His own footsteps were the only things marring the smooth surface of the snow.
Lander drew a shuddering breath and wondered how long he could stay out before he had to go back and face Brin.

CHAPTER 3
Li woke with a start to unfamiliar sensations. The smell of cold ashes in his nose and mouth. The feel of rough wool against his naked flesh. An aching stiffness through his entire body. A horrible grating, rumbling sound in his ears. His eyes snapped open.
Narrow beams of cold dawn light pierced between shutters, casting pale illumination on a cramped room. The whole place was little bigger than the cabin he had taken on the ship from Telflamm. A clutter of junk, indistinct in the dim light, made it seem even smaller. On a worn couch slept an old woman with a bird's nest of fine gray hair. Li himself lay on the floor before a small fireplace that put out only the vaguest whisper of
warmth. The grating, snorting sound... Li raised
his head just slightly and peered down the length of his body.
Sprawled on a cot at his feet, the singer from the Wench's Ease snored like a demon.
Li lowered his head and stared up at a ceiling of water-stained boards. What had happened? He remembered last night—remembered Lander's attack and being left by the thug to die in an alley. What then? Cold—then a wonderful warmth. And after that... Movement. Renewed flashes of pain in the darkness. And a sharp light that brought awareness flooding back to him. Magic. Li had felt the distinctive touch of magical healing before. He shifted his body cautiously. He still hurt, but surely less than he should have after such a vicious beating as Lander's men had given him.
There had been something else about the healing magic, though, something that nagged at his mind. More than light and warmth, there had been ... song. His head came up again and he glanced sharply at the snoring singer. Was there more to Tychoben Arisaenn than a foolish tavern-singer? He had heard that sometimes the musicians and storytellers of the west had some talent with magic—
Another memory of Tycho surfaced abruptly, though. Fingers tugging on his arm and the cloth knotted around it. Li gasped softly and reached across his body, feeling for the cloth himself. It was still there, undisturbed. Li let out a sigh of relief, and then grimaced in frustration.
Alone in this foul little city, robbed of nearly everything, dependent on the mercy of strangers—on the mercy of a singer of all people, no matter what arcane skill he might possess! Could the long journey from Shou Lung have come to this? And if Lander did indeed work for Brin as he had claimed, then the hin knew that Li had come looking for him. He would be ready for him.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps Lander's attack had been a blessing. If Lander had told Brin about the attack, then
Brin must surely think him dead. Li's eyes narrowed. That couldn't last long. He looked to the cold light that cut through the shutters. Dawn was breaking. The day was already slipping away. The sooner he did what he had come here to do, the sooner he could be away from this vile place.
He pulled back the blankets that wrapped him and rose quietly, hesitated, and reached back down to pick up one of the blankets. He wrapped it around himself, covering his near-nakedness. By all rights, he should be leaving something for Tycho, not taking from him, but his smallclothes aldne wouldn't get him very far. It was, perhaps, fortunate that Tycho was smaller than he; there was no point in even contemplating taking any of his clothes. He would find some somewhere else. He would need them and not just because of the cold.
He had been too eager last night, too caught up in his quest. He shouldn't have tried to find—and confront—Brin on his own. Even a town like Spandeliyon would have a guard force or a town watch. He should have gone to them last night. The proper authorities would help him find Brin. At the very least, they should help him find Lander, and now Li had a personal score to settle with the thug. He clenched his fist slowly, making the knuckles pop.
There were two doors out of the squalid room, but only one of them showed traces of water and mud stains on the floorboards beneath. Stepping softly in time with Tycho's thunderous snores, Li crossed the room and eased it open. Outside was a dark hallway with a narrow stair. Li took one glance back at Tycho and the old woman, stepped out, closed the door behind himself, and hastened down the stairs. They creaked alarmingly under his weight, but at
least the wood was worn smooth beneath his bare feet. Boots, he reminded himself with another grimace, he would need to find boots even before he found clothing.
Fortune smiled on him. He was almost at the bottom of the stairs when a door opened onto the morning and a tall man staggered in stinking of ale. Blinded by the transition from light to dark, he probably registered nothing more than a vague figure in the shadows. Li reared back, one hand braced on the wall and the other on the stairs' rickety railing, and caught him on the chest with a hard double kick that sent him sliding bonelessly back through the door. Li stuck his head out into the cold and glanced up and down the street. There was no one out. He grabbed the tall man's feet and swiftly dragged him back inside.
"Bind him!" ranted Tycho. "Bind him and tar him and set him out for bait!" He stomped—yet again—on the patch of floor where Li Chien had lain. There was yet another round of hammering from the room below, which Tycho responded to with even more stomping. ,
"Tycho, calm down!" ordered Veseene. She looked at him irritably and went back to fanning reluctant flames under a kettle in the fireplace. "Did you expect him to give you a reward?"
Tycho flung himself down on his cot. "He could have at least said 'thank you.' He was like this last night, too— curt and tighter with words than a Daleman with coin, so full of himself that he doesn't have time for anyone else." Veseene sighed and turned all the way around.
"Did you consider that maybe he isn't comfortable with our language?"
"He knows I speak Shou," grumbled Tycho. "He even insulted me over it."
"Then maybe he has something important on his mind."
Tycho dismissed the idea with a snort and stared into the fire. He didn't have to look at Veseene to know that she was rolling her eyes, but he heard her grunt as she climbed awkwardly to her feet and hobbled over to a cupboard. "Fine," she said. "Sulk. You did a good thing and got no thanks for it. I once spent two months as a dog because I tried to throw a surprise party for a wizard friend."
He tried to hold back a smile, but failed. "It's impossible to sulk around you," he complained.
"I try my best." Veseene looked at him over her shoulder. "Try to remember what I told you when I took you on, Tycho. A bard remembers everything, laughs, laments, mourns, and celebrates—"
"—and regrets nothing." Tycho sighed. "I know." He pushed himself up off the cot. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Here. Catch." Veseene opened the cupboard and tossed a big chunk of bread at him, followed in rapid succession by two mugs, a plate, and a piece of hard cheese. Her aim was more than a little off, spoiled by the shaking of her hands, but Tycho darted forward and caught each item, juggling them easily in the air. His feet found the toasting iron. He flicked it upright with one foot, held it there with the toes of the other, and impaled first the cheese then the bread on it. The mugs and plate went down on top of a small table. Tycho kicked the iron up, spun around once, caught it, and had the bread held above the fire before Veseene could even close the cupboard. "Show off," she told him.
"If I can figure out a way to do that at the Ease, I could make an extra fifteen pennies off the crowd."
"Maybe Muire wants to hire a cook." Veseene set two small, plain boxes down beside the mugs. She opened one and the fragrant smell of mint filled the room. A spoonful of dried leaves went into one mug and she pushed it toward Tycho. When she opened the other box, however, the odor that emerged was very different, dusty and acrid. Veseene tilted the box and tapped it against the tabletop. She didn't bother with a spoon, but just tipped the contents of the box into the second mug—a small amount of crumbled, multicolored material came sifting out. "I'll need to go to Sephera today," she said.
"There's coin in the cupboard," Tycho told her. "Unless Li Chien took that as well your blanket." He turned and slid the toasted bread and cheese onto the plate then went back and lifted the kettle off the fire, filling their mugs with boiling water. He averted his face as he filled Veseene's. Her red-tinted tea smelled terrible when water was first added to the dry concoction. He wasn't sure how she managed to drink it, though he was glad she did. The tea was the only thing that staved off the worst effectsof her palsy.
While his own tea steeped, Tycho poured the rest of the boiling water into a large basin to cool and laid out his razor and a cake of soap. Veseene's eyebrows rose gently. "What's the occasion?"
"It's an alternate fifth-day," Tycho told her. He opened the door of the second room of their little home. During the warm seasons, it was his bedroom, but in the winter, they closed it off to keep the main room warmer. Just inside the door was a chest; he opened it and took out a clean shirt, doublet, and breeches, snapping out the wrinkles
with a flourish. "Laera Dantakain takes her lessons this morning and I'll be bait myself before I let an ill-mannered Shou put me off that!"
Veseene gave him a look of caution. "Tycho... "
He smiled at her. "Don't worry, Veseene. Everything is perfectly proper." Her eyebrows managed to rise even higher. "Really," Tycho assured her. "They're only music lessons."
***
"< "That's very good, but you're still holding it wrong." Tycho slid in behind Laera, correcting her posture with his own body. He stretched his arms around hers, moved her elbows, and reached forward to loosen stiff fingers. "And be gentle with the strings. Caress them when you pluck." His breath whispered across the side of her neck. "This is a harp, not a bow. You can pull the strings—" Tycho drew one back sharply and the muscles of his arm pressed against Laera's. "—but if you do, they'll break." He eased the string back into place. Laera gave a tiny sigh.
Out of her eyesight, Tycho allowed himself a grin. "That's good," he said, untwining himself from her. "Now play for me."
Laera tossed back long, glossy brown hair, narrowed her eyes in concentration, and began to play—quite prettily—The King of Pirates.
Tycho's grin turned into a choke. All they needed was the crowd from the Ease there to sing along! He was lucky that Laera's lessons took place in the library of the Dantakain home, where book-lined walls and thick doors muffled all sound. Back in dockside, the music would have carried through an entire flimsy building! He put a hand
TUf Yoll™., . AM
hastily over the strings of the harp, stilling them. Laera blinked and stopped. "Ah, Laera," Tycho said, "I know your father is a stern man—"
"Tycho, you have no idea. He's been trying for eighteen years to keep me from growing up!" Laera pouted up at him with pretty brown eyes. "I swear he still thinks of me as a little girl."
It was hard to see how anyone could think of Laera Dantakain as a little girl. "I was going to say that surely he must make you practice your lessons." Tycho brushed Laera's hands away from the strings. "That isn't one of the songs I told you to practice."
"I heard some of the city guard singing it. Isn't it romantic? A pure-hearted maid swept away by the king of pirates to be his outlaw queen... "
Her fingers tangled for a moment with his. Tycho gave her a soft smile. "That's not... exactly what it's about, Laera. You probably shouldn't play it anymore. It's a very low-class song and not appropriate for a fine lady." Laera made a distinctly unladylike noise. "Your father wouldn't approve," Tycho added.
Laera's face screwed up. "My father is completely tone-deaf. He's the Captain of the Guard. The only tunes he can recognize are trumpet commands in battle. You know he couldn't give fish-guts about—" Tycho cleared his throat. Laera glowered and corrected herself archly. "You know he has no particular interest in whether I learn the skills of a lady."
"I'm sure he wants you to be attractive to any potential suitors."
"In Spandeliyon? In Altumbel? There aren't any." "Aglarond?"
Laera made a noise again. "Live with the elves? I don't
think so." She swung the harp aside roughly—Tycho winced as the strings jangled—and bounced to her feet. "I don't see why I need to learn the harp either. I like your strilling better." She went over to where the instrument lay on a table. Tycho moved to intercept her before she could give it the same rough treatment as her harp, but she just put the tip of a finger on the chunky sound box and ran it along the curved body. "That was all you needed to charm your way around the Sea of Fallen Stars, wasn't it? " She picked up the strilling and gave him a lingering look before turning her back to him. "Can you show me the proper way to hold it?" she asked over her shoulder.
Tycho's smile grew a little wider and he stepped up behind her. Before he could put his arms around her, though, the library doors opened and a lean man with carefully dressed hair walked in. Tycho hastily turned right around Laera and began correcting the position of the strilling briskly. "... and, of course, the strilling is the traditional instrument of Altumbel. You won't find it played anywhere else." He blinked and looked up at the lean man with an innocent gaze. "Olore, Jacerryl. Come for a recitation?"
"Tycho was just telling me about his strilling, uncle," added Laera.
Jacerryl Dantakain raised an eyebrow in polite disbelief. "Was he now?" His eye fell on the abandoned harp then darted back to Laera. She flushed and returned the strilling to the table. Jacerryl nodded. "It was hard enough to talk my brother into letting you take music lessons at all," he said. "You might want to keep your attention focused on the harp. It's a far more suitable instrument for a young lady than something vulgar like a screeching strilling."
"Vulgar?" Tycho felt himself flush as well. "Screeching?
Thr Yfllnw Sift • (\H
A strilling has more expression than any tinkling, bloody harp. There's nothing vulgar—"
"The harp," said Jacerryl coolly, "is the only thing my brother wants you teaching Laera. The only thing. Could I have a word with you in private?" He gestured for Tycho to follow him and went back out through the doors. Tycho glanced at Laera. She grimaced and stuck out her tongue at her uncle's back then winked at Tycho. He grinned but quickly suppressed it and went after Jacerryl.
The library opened off the rather grand entrance hall of the Dantakain house, a tall space of light and great pots sporting arrangements of evergreen boughs in pale imitation of summer greenery. Jacerryl said nothing as he closed the library doors behind them and nodded Tycho into the shadow of one of the potted arrangements. "I mean that, you know," he whispered. "I got you this job by assuring Mard that you were completely trustworthy and nothing untoward would happen with Laera."
"You said you wanted her taught worldly manners," Tycho shot back. "And she's going to come off as a backwater bumpkin if she doesn't know how to flirt. All she knew before I started teaching her she had learned from bad ballads and silly tales of chivalry." He jerked his head toward the library's closed doors. "She's got talent, but she just tried to play The Pirate King as if it were a romance!"
Jacerryl's eyes went wide. He just barely managed to turn a chuckle into an indignant cough. Tycho crossed his arms and gave him a glare. "I didn't teach her that."
"I don't think you did." Jacerryl wiped his eyes. "You better not let Mard catch you giving Laera such personal instruction, though. He's not a forgiving soul."
"Trust me, I won't. Don't worry, I have everything with Laera completely under control. Nothing will get out of
hand. This job has too many benefits." Tycho looked Jacerryl over. "You didn't bring me out here just to talk to me, did you?"
Jacerryl reached inside the doublet that he wore and pulled out a small tin tube about a handspan in length. The top of it was capped with a plug; a green cord wrapped lengthwise around the whole tube held it firmly in place. "For delivery to our mutual friend," he said quietly. "As soon as possible. I believe he has buyers already waiting."
"What's inside?" Tycho took the tube and gave it a very gentle shake. A faint rattle came from within. ' "Beljurils," Jacerryl said. "All the way from Calimshan."
Tycho blinked and pressed his lips together, impressed. Beljurils were deep water-green gems, possessed of their own natural winking light. He had once seen a necklace of them, a fantastic flashing collar, at a ball in the Ches-sentan city of Cimbar. They were stunningly precious. Just one could buy half a block of the sagging buildings in dockside—or a grand home in a better part of Spandeliyon. There had to be several in the tube. A fortune! And for his role in delivering them, Tycho would receive only five coins of gold.
His life wouldn't be worth a shaved penny if he tried to hold even one jewel back.
He undid the knot on the cord and eased the plug out. A twist of silk was wadded into the tube. Tycho shook it out and unfolded it carefully. Eight gems gleamed at him. He swallowed. "Is that the right number?" he asked Jacerryl. The other man nodded. Tycho swallowed again and wrapped the gems back up, returning the silk to the tube, replacing the cap, and binding the green cord around the whole thing once more. "All right then. I'll take them over as soon as I'm finished with Laera's—"
Down at the end of the entry hall, there was a loud hammering on the house's great doors. Tycho closed his mouth and palmed the tube, deftly slipping it up his sleeve as a servant came rushing past to answer the door. He gave Jacerryl a curt nod and the two men separated, Jacerryl turning to go deeper into the house, Tycho back to the library and Laera. He was reaching for the door handle when he heard the servant at the door sniff in distaste and say coldly, "Beggars are considered at the kitchen door." It was the heavily accented response, however, that made Tycho freeze and turn in disbelief.
***
"I'm not a beggar. I want to see Mard Dantakain." Li stared at the servant, a delicate, long-nosed man. "Is this his house?"
The man hesitated. "Yes."
"Is he at home?"
The servant's gaze slid down the length of his nose. "Is he expecting you?" "No, but—"
"Then he is not at home." The servant began to swing the door shut.
Li ground his teeth and stepped forward, hitting the door with his full weight, knocking it wide once more, and sending the servant reeling. "I have important business," he roared. "Is Mard Dantakain not the captain of your city guard? / want to see hint!"
It had not been a good morning. His stolen clothes smelled extremely bad and were very possibly infested with vermin. The boots were too small and one had a substantial hole in the sole. His stomach was empty and
growling with hunger. He had spent considerable time skulking about the snowy streets hunting for a guard station or a member of the city guard while avoiding the notice of people as best he could. After his encounter with Lander last night, how could he know who was or was not associated with Brin?
The peak of his humiliation had been turning a corner and literally running into Steth, the captain who had brought him from Telflamm. To the captain's credit, he had managed to keep a straight face when he recognized Li in his stinking, stolen clothes. "Run of bad luck?" he had asked.
Li had not risen to the bait. "I'm looking for a guard station," he had said simply.
Steth had directed him around the corner and down two blocks. "I'm in port for a few days until I go back to Telflamm," the captain had called after him. "I still have room on the return voyage if you need passage." Li had not responded to that at all.
The guards at the station had been no help. A dishev-eled-looking guard had glanced at him as he entered, then had simply looked away. Li had stepped up and informed him that he was in need of assistance—only to have the man ignore him entirely. He had been in the middle of repeating his request, slowly and with great care, when the guard had finally looked up. "I heard you the first time, elf-blood," he had grunted.
Li had very nearly lost his temper. It had taken great restraint to explain politely that he had no elf blood, that he was Shou, and that he had been attacked in the night. The guard had listened with disinterest. He had only perked up when Li said he knew the name of the man who had attacked him. "Who?" he had asked.
"His name is Lander. He works for a halfling named Brin."
He hadn't even gotten a chance to explain that he was looking for Brin before the guard had burst out laughing. The guard had then shouted something to his colleagues, who had also burst out laughing.
Then they all threw Li out of the station and left him to flounder in the snow. When he tried to storm back inside, the guard had very seriously threatened him with arrest.
He had left the vicinity of the docks. If Brin had such a hold on the area that even the guards seemed to be on his side, maybe he needed to look elsewhere to find help. Li had headed inland, away from the water and toward the taller buildings he had seen from Steth's ship. He felt more confident here approaching people—though many of them now avoided him—and inquiries had directed him to a much larger guard station. This time the guard hadn't greeted him with disdain as an elf-blood. Instead, he had been firmly dismissed as a vagrant who had wandered up from the docks. Knowing better than to name Brin and Lander again, Li had drawn himself up stiffly and, with the relentless formality that never failed to produce results with the bureaucracy of Shou Lung, had demanded the guards do their duty in finding the men who had robbed him.
The only thing the demand produced was more laughter. Red-faced with rage, Li had held himself in check until the guards' laughter had settled down then he asked who their commander was and where he could find him. "Oh," one guard had said quickly, "you'll be wanting to speak to Mard Dantakain. He's the Captain of the Guard. He'll most likely be at home right now. You just march right up to hightown and ask for him. Can't miss his house." He walked over to the door and pointed farther into the heart
of Spandeliyon to a small but solid fortress. "He lives right beside the citadel."
Li had stalked out with laughter ringing in his ears once more.
That wasn't going to happen again. As Mard Dan-takain's startled doorman recovered himself and more servants began to appear, Li stepped into the entrance hall and stood tall, trying to imagine that the filthy clothes he wore were actually a formal maitung robe embroidered with the symbols of his ministry and rank. "I am Kuang Li Chien of the city of Keelung in the Hai Yuan province of the Great Empire of Shou Lung," he thundered, "and I serve the Son of Heaven in the Department of Lost Treasures !" He glared down at the servants and anger lent him exaggeration. "I represent Shou Lung in this place and I demand to speak with Mard Dantakain!"
"I'm Mard Dantakain."
The voice that filled the hall was confident, commanding, and very clearly irritated. The gathered servants fell quiet. Li looked up. At the head of a flight of stairs ascending to the second floor of the house stood a tall man with a strong build. His face was hard and sour. He wore an open vest and held papers in both hands, as if he had just risen from work at a desk. Li immediately bent in a formal bow. "Honored sir, I—"
He hadn't gotten more than a few words out before the servants swarmed him, seizing him by the arms and shoulders. Li roared again and tried to shake them off, but they had a solid grip. The best he could manage was to heave himself upright again—only to find Mard Dantakain right in front of him. "Well," he said in a low tone, "you're speaking to me. Now tell me why I shouldn't have you thrown in jail for invading my home."
Li struggled for dignity. "Honored sir," he said with all the grace he could muster, "I was told you are captain of the city guard. I need your help—I was robbed not long after arriving in your city last night and—"
"Robbed? Robbed where?"
"By the docks."
Mard frowned and his face creased into deep lines as if well-used to the expression. "What in Helm's name were you doing down there?"
"I... " Words failed him. He held his head high and bluffed. "I am a representative of Shou Lung. What I was doing there is the business of me and my emperor."
The lines on Mard's face only grew deeper. "So you're some kind of ambassador?"
Li hesitated for a heartbeat and then nodded. Impersonating an imperial ambassador. He would have been executed if he tried this in Shou Lung! So far away, though, there was no one to know any different. At his nod, though, Mard's eyes flicked up and down and settled on Li's face once more. "Where's your staff?" he asked. "I never met an ambassador without a retinue that could fill a room." His nose wrinkled in disgust. "And what hap* pened to your clothes?"
"I was robbed," Li said again. He clenched his teeth and hissed his words between them. "My clothes were stolen. I need your help. I have been to two guard stations this morning and was thrown out of both."
"You're close to being thrown out of here as well!" Mard snarled. "If I take you up to the citadel, will Kargil Ninton recognize you?"
Li blinked and hesitated again. This time, though, he must have hesitated too long because Mard crushed the papers in his hand and spat, "Lord Kargil Ninton, First
Consul of Spandeliyon! The man any ambassador to Spandeliyon would go to see!" He spun around sharply and nodded to the servant who had opened the door. "Get him out of here!" He marched back down the hall toward the stairs. Li stared after him, open-mouthed—and for the first time registered the black-haired man who stood to one side of the hall, watching and listening. Tychoben Arisaenn!
"Wait!" Li called. "Wait!" He pulled against the servants who were trying to haul him back toward the door and managed to get one arm free. He pointed desperately toward Tycho. "He knows me! He knows I was robbed last night. He dug me out of the snow!"
Mard stopped. The servants stopped. All eyes turned to Tycho.
The singer gave Li a single cold glance, his mouth set hard and tight. He turned to Mard Dantakain and raised his eyebrows innocently. "He's mad," Tycho said. "I've never seen him before in my life."
Rage fell on Li like a toppling wall of red-hot iron bricks. He was vaguely conscious of screaming something incoherent at Tycho, of snapping the elbow of his free arm into the face of one servant trying to grab him and stomping down sharply on the shin of the man who was still holding him. Then suddenly he was free as servants shouted and scrambled away. "Mad? Mad? " Li howled and hurled himself at Tycho.
The singer flinched back, raising his hands and opening his mouth. Li had fought spellcasters before, though. He dropped fast and swept out with a leg to knock Tycho's feet out from under him, but Tycho yelped and managed to hop and dance over the sweep. Li bounced up instantly and grabbed a fistful of Tycho's shirt before
he could recover his balance. He hauled him in close and smacked him hard across the face. "You lying dog!" he spat in Shou. "You hairy, lying—"
Hands and arms grabbed him from behind. Li lashed out with his arm to the back and right and a lean man with a resemblance to Mard Dantakain went staggering back, one hand clutching his nose. A swift kick straight back should have caught another attacker, but didn't. This time Li caught a glimpse of the Captain of the Guard himself. Mard's face was dark red and angry as he dodged back expertly and closed again with his arms held wide. The Shou shot down, pulling a dazed Tycho over his head to receive Mard's grapple in his place. The impact slammed them all into a pair of doors that gave way under their combined weight and tumbled them into the room beyond.
They found themselves face to face with a beautiful young woman posed seductively on a broad table, a harp in her arms, her dress pulled down to show her shoulders and tucked up to expose her knees.
Li simply stopped, still crouched low, startled more than stunned. Tycho, down beside him, froze and made a strangled noise. Behind them both, Mard froze as well. For a heartbeat, they all just stared at the young woman. She stared back in shock.
Mard Dantakain let out a window-rattling roar, grabbed Li's head with his left hand, Tycho's with his right, and cracked them hard together.

CHAPTER 4
o had been thrown in jail—briefly—many times during his life. He had seen the inside of Spandeli-yon's dockside guard station fairly frequently during his later childhood. After Veseene had taken him as her apprentice, he had seen the inside of many similar jails, from east to west around the Sea of Fallen Stars. It was something of a hazard of the itinerant lifestyle. He had seen jails that were kept fastidiously clean. He had seen jails that made stables look pleasant. He had seen jails that were run with efficient cruelty and those run with casual disorder. In Tantras, he had passed a night in a jail that put each prisoner into their own bare little cell, almost like monks in a monastery. In Raven's Bluff, just down the coast, he had been flung into a prison that was little more than a vast building with one lock on the outer door and prisoners swarming loose within; he had been forgotten there for almost a tenday before Veseene managed to find him.
He had never before, however, been thrown into a jail cell normally reserved for traitors, assassins, and other dangerous, desperate types. Spandeliyon's middle town guard station had precisely one very highly secured cell. Among the folk of dockside—and even the middle town—it was a thing of rumor and speculation, mockingly referred to as "the King's Chamber." If Tycho had been in a better mood, he might have taken greater note of the place, maybe with an eye to embellishing on its rather ordinary appearance and using the experience to earn himself a few extra pennies at the Wench's Ease.
But he wasn't and he didn't.
"—acting like a horse that's been turned into an ore and made even more stupid] Tycho ranted for the seventh or eighth time. The words came out slurred. His lower lip was split and swollen where Li Chien had hit him. He rattled the manacles that chained him to the wall of the cell and held his arms suspended like a marionette. "Locked up for what? Because you apparently don't have the sense to be civil. Idiot!"
He glared across the cell, a matter of only about ten feet, at Li Chien. The King's Chamber was solid stone, with no features to it other than a heavy, steel-bound door and an assortment of chains hammered into the stark walls with stout pins. It was dark, the only light coming from a lantern on the other side of a small, barred window in the door. There was nothing between Tycho's behind and the wintercold floor except the fabric of his breeches. Li Chien was in no better situation. Somehow, though, he managed to look as if imprisonment bothered him not a bit. His smooth face was calm, his posture relaxed. He said nothing. His eyes were even closed. Tycho might almost have thought that he was asleep except that every
so often his ears twitched slightly at a particularly vile insult.
It was the most reaction Tycho had managed to get out of him since they had been bundled out of the Dantakain house, bags over their heads and their arms bound, and marched through the snow. Tycho had caught the sound of Laera pleading and screaming with her father and of Jacerryl trying to argue with Mard. The only words to escape the captain of the guard's lips, however, had been a few terse commands for the captives to be searched and for Tycho's strilling and other effects to be collected and sent to the guard station. Unseen hands had taken everything from him—even the tube of beljurils. He had struggled at that, but Jacerryl's voice had been in his ear. "Don't worry. Mard might be furious, but he sticks to the law like honey. They'll be safe."
The trip through the snowbound streets had been remarkably short. They had been in the King's Chamber before the daze of having his head cracked against Li Chien's had even worn off.
His anger at Li Chien, however, had yet to fade. "I mean, going up to hightown in clothes that smell like beer and fish guts, walking right up to Mard Dantakain's house, and demanding to see him—just what did you think, that he was going to welcome you with open arms?" Through the shadows, Tycho caught a tightening of the muscles along Li Chien's jaw. He growled. "I know you can hear me, Li Chien." He switched to Shou. "Maybe you've just been having trouble understanding me—I said that you've got the brains of a horse, the grace of an ore, and the gratitude of a rabid weasel!"
Li Chien's eyes popped open and he sucked in air. His entire body seemed to clench at once "And you," he
seethed in an explosion of rage, "are a liar with all the morals of a rutting goat! You were sleeping with the man's daughter!"
The venom in his voice was wasted. "I never even kissed Laera!" Tycho shot back.
"It looked like she was ready for more than a kiss."
"That wasn't my doing! If I'd gone into that library on my own, I wouldn't have let anything happen." A tiny whisper of doubt tickled Tycho's mind but he thrust it away. He would have rebuffed Laera's advances. "This is your fault," he said. "You attacked me, remember?"
"You lied to Mard Dantakain!" spat Li Chien. "You knew I was telling the truth and you lied. All you had to do was tell him what happened last night and—"
Tycho leaned forward sharply. If the chains hadn't held him back, he might have lunged at Li Chien. "What happened last night? You mean how you insulted me, ignored every attempt I made at warning you, and then, when I saved your life, how you snuck away like a thief without even saying 'thank you'?" He wrenched fruitlessly on his chains. "You're right, I should have supported you—0 Emissary of Imperial Shou Lung! You want to talk about lies, how about that one? If you're an ambassador, I'm the Witch-Queen of Aglarond!"
Li Chien started to snap a reply but stopped. His face fell and he looked away. "That lie is between Mard Dantakain and me," he said stubbornly. "But for walking away from you this morning—" He glanced up again and Tycho was startled to see that anger was actually fading from his face and a look of shame taking its place. "—I apologize. What I did was no way to repay your kindness. I'm very sorry. You are right to be angry."
For the first time in a very long while, Tycho found his
mouth opening and closing in speechless astonishment. "Well," he managed finally. "All right then."
He sat back against the cold wall and just looked at Li Chien. The Shou looked back. Neither of them said anything. Uncomfortable silence hung in the air—until Li Chien's stomach broke it with a loud, hollow growl that echoed off the stone walls. He flushed. "Excuse me. I haven't eaten."
"It might be a while before you do. I don't know if they'll bring us anything before dinner." He turned his gaze up to the ceiling of the cell, almost lost in the darkness. It was hard to tell what time it was. His own stomach was empty, though. He'd guess that it was at least well into the afternoon now. "Are you an ambassador, Li Chien?" he asked.
"Just Li, Tycho. Li Chien is what my mother calls me." The Shou sighed. "I'm no ambassador. I'm just a clerk in the imperial bureaucracy."
Tycho raised his eyebrows. "You fight well for just a clerk."
"You healed me, didn't you? Are you just a singer?"
"True enough." Tycho shifted and his chains rattled again. "So what brings an imperial clerk all the way from Shou Lung to Altumbel? " Li said nothing. Tycho looked at him. The Shou had his head down and was staring at the floor between his knees. "Not the sort of thing you can talk about?" Tycho shrugged. Li shook his head. "That's fair."
"Tycho," said Li without looking up, "tell me about Brin. Is there anyone in Spandeliyon who isn't afraid of him?"
"Mard Dantakain. Crazy old Riverhand the Sage out on the edge of town. A few people in the middle and high-towns who haven't actually heard of him, maybe. Anyone with any sense is afraid of Brin. He came to Spandeliyon
xi— v~ti— am.. in
just about a year ago and set himself up by finding the biggest gang boss in dockside and burning his house down. With him inside. Then he just moved in and took over. He's slick. When he doesn't want to be linked to something, he'll trick someone into doing his dirty business, but when he wants to make a point, he makes it in a very big way. A lot of people in dockside and middle town who cross him have problems with knives. Or pigs." "Pigs?"
"Brin passes himself off as a swineherd. He even likes to do his business in a sty. I don't know who he's trying to fool, but it sure gives him a crazy edge. People aren't just scared of him because he's mean. They're scared of him because there's a very good chance he might be insane, too."
"What about you? Are you scared of him?"
"Witless. It's the only smart way." Tycho considered Li for a moment. "You know, for someone who's looking for Brin, you don't seem to know a lot about him."
"I don't. I only heard about him in Telflamm—rumors that said he was here in Spandeliyon." He hesitated then added. "Brin isn't actually the reason I came west from Shou Lung. He's just a link."
Tycho had to stop himself from leaning forward too eagerly. "Oh?" he asked. "A link to what?" He tried to dredge up everything he had heard about Brin's career as a pirate before the one-eyed halfling had come to Spandeliyon. There were always tales linking pirates to fantastic treasure hordes... and what had Li said back in Mard Dan-takain's entrance hall? That he served the bureaucracy of Shou Lung in the Department of Lost Treasures? Li was biting his lip in uncertainty. Tycho waited, giving him his time, not wanting to pressure him and lose this tale.
It wasn't to be. Just as Li swallowed, drew breath, and
opened his mouth, there was noise out in the corridor. Footsteps. The rattle of keys in locks. Li's mouth closed firmly. Tycho ground his teeth in frustration. Patience, he told himself, patience.
The door opened and three figures stepped into the cell. With the lantern in the corridor behind them they were nothing but silhouettes for a moment. "Magistrate will see you now," said one as the other two moved forward with more keys. Light splashed across guard uniforms marked with the crest of the city. "On your feet."
Li, however, was already leaping up with a clatter of chains and a sharp storm of Shou curses. The guards, two men and a woman, jumped back, hands reaching for weapons. Tycho came to his feet as well. "Li!" he said in Shou. "Calm down! They're just here to—"
"I know her, Tycho! I saw her last night." Li pointed an arm at the woman guard. "She's in Lander's pay!"
<5>
A woman's face emerging from shadows and falling snow, torchlight showing a uniform—a guard uniform, Li realized now. "She came past last night while Lander and his men were robbing me," he spat at Tycho, "and just left when Lander told her it was Brin's business and paid her off!"
Blood was pounding in his head. He tried to reach forward with both hands, but the chains binding him made it impossible. "She's corrupt! She's—"
Tycho looked startled but also shook his head sharply. "Li, it's all right! They're taking us before a magistrate, that's all. Be quiet or you'll just make things worse. If we're lucky we could be out of here soon." He twisted around to face the guard who had stayed by the door, clearly the
leader of the trio. "The Shou is confused," the singer said quickly in the common tongue of the west. "I'm trying to calm him down."
"You speak his language? You tell him we don't want any trouble, but we're ready for it." The guard pulled out a club and held it up where Li could see it. "No trouble," he said loudly. "You understand?"
"Got that?" Tycho asked in Shou.
Li clenched his teeth and nodded. Chained and helpless, there was little he could do anyway. He did not, however, take his eyes off the woman guard. "I don't trust her," he growled.
"You don't have to. Just stay calm. Let me do the talking and I'll get us both out of this."
There didn't seem to be any other choice. Li swallowed his anger and stood still as one of the guards, a thick-necked man approached him warily. His arms were freed from the chains, and bound together in front of him. The corrupt woman guard treated Tycho the same way, though perhaps with a little less fear. When both of them were ready, the third guard led the way out of the cell, down an ugly, damp hallway, and up a flight of narrow stairs.
Li was marched along in the middle of the group. As they ascended the stairs, he heard the woman's voice murmuring behind him. "Hey Tycho, they say you were carrying on with Dantakain's daughter. 'S true?"
"I wouldn't call it carrying on, Desmada. The young lady was just an enthusiastic student."
Li twisted around for a second to look over his shoulder at Tycho and the guard. "You know her?" he asked in Shou.
"Hush!" Tycho said sharply. "I know a lot of people. Now be quiet!"
The exchange earned them both a hard glance from the leading guard and Li a rough jerk on the arm by the guard at his side. Li did, however, manage to lock eyes with the woman guard—Desmada—just briefly.
There was nothing in her gaze except vague curiosity.
Li turned back around and kept shuffling along under his guard's guidance. His mind, though, was on Desmada. She didn't recognize him. How was that possible? It had been dim last night, he supposed, and she had only caught a brief glimpse of him before Lander had run her off. He had probably looked rather different, too, beaten and bruised. Still, there was something disconcerting in her lack of recognition. Could she really care so little as to pay no attention to a man being beaten on her watch?
And Tycho treated her as if nothing were out of the ordinary. The more he saw of the ways of Spandeliyon, the less he liked the town.
The stairs led into another short corridor, from which a door let them all into a large room filled with the dazzle of sunlight. After so long in the dim shadows of the cell, the light was almost blinding. They were marched a short distance and stopped. "Prisoners Tychoben Arisaenn and Kangli Shen, magistrate," said the lead guard, completely mangling Li's name.
"Blessed Tyr," came a wheezing voice out of the glare, "nobody said he was elf-blood."
Li squinted against the light and looked around. They were in a vaulted chamber dominated by tall windows in one wall and an imposing raised dais on another. On the dais was a very large and heavy chair. Seated in it was a very tall and thin old man in severe robes. Li fixed him with a frustrated glare. "I am not an elf!"
In the shadow of the great chair, another man rapped a
heavy rod against the floor. "Respect for the magistrate!" Li immediately received two hard pokes in the side, one from the guard who stood on his left and one from Tycho on his right. The singer also gave him a scowl and a short hiss for silence.
Up on the dais, the old man winced at the banging. "Thank you, Dorth. Why have they been arrested?"
The man with the rod glanced at a parchment. "For brawling, sir. Assault on the Captain of the Guard. Kuang Li Chien—" He pronounced the name carefully and with a haughty glance at the lead guard. "—is also arrested for forcibly entering a private residence and for impersonating an official of a foreign government. Tychoben Arisaenn also for moral corruption of Laera Dantakain."
"Moral corruption?" The magistrate sat up a little. "I haven't heard that one in a while."
There was a slight snicker from the guards present. Bang! went the rod. "Respect for the magistrate! Captain of the Guard Mard Dantakain will present his case!"
Mard Dantakain stepped up from behind them. He was dressed in a full and ornate guard uniform, immaculately clean. He related the events of the morning in a blunt, matter-of-fact tone, leaving nothing out and neither exaggerating nor diminishing anything. Li felt his heart sink.
Considered in hindsight and with a cooler head, what he had done was nothing short of stupid. Barging into Mard Dantakain's house wearing clothes stolen from a drunk, trying to pass himself off as an ambassador of Shou Lung when half the population of Spandeliyon apparently couldn't distinguish a Shou from an elf it was, he realized, lucky they were getting any kind of trial at all. If Li had been in the magistrate's place, he probably would have left them down in the darkness of their cell!
By the time Mard had finished speaking, he felt sick.
"Prisoners Tychoben Arisaenn and Kuang Li Chien will respond!"
Li swallowed and stepped forward, ready to confess to everything. Tycho, however, was faster. He took two steps forward, poking Li again on the way past, and made a graceful bow that hardly seemed hampered at all by his bonds. "Magistrate Vanyan," he said in a very grand voice.
The magistrate gave a thin, slightly confused smile. "Have we met before?"
< "Your name precedes you, sir. Your wisdom is well known in dockside. If it please you, I will speak for both myself and this esteemed gentleman of Shou." He gestured toward Li. "During our imprisonment, we discovered that we share a common tongue and I was able to discuss the situation with him. This is all really a terrible mistake stemming from his imperfect understanding of our language."
"Wait," protested Mard Dantakain, "he understood Common perfectly well when I spoke to him. He spoke it back to me!" Tycho glanced at him and raised his eyebrows.
"Did he, Captain Dantakain? Your testimony to the esteemed magistrate was remarkable in its precision. Did you rehearse it?"
"Yes."
"Master Kuang did the same with the appeal he presented to you this morning. If I asked you to tell me right now in the same detail what happened to you yesterday morning, could you?" Li saw Mard look to Vanyan in confusion, but Tycho gave neither of them time to reply. "I didn't think so." He looked to the magistrate as well. "The
same thing happened with Master Kuang, sir. He perfected a limited speech, but was flustered when Captain Dantakain began to challenge his appeal for help. Please, sir, I'm afraid Captain Dantakain has overestimated Master Kuang's comprehension."
The magistrate's eyes narrowed. "Indeed." He turned to Li. "Master Kuang, have you understood what is happening here?"
Both Tycho and Mard turned to look at him as well. Li swallowed again and cursed silently. Tycho's mouth was twitching just slightly. Was that supposed to mean yes or no? It seemed as if Tycho wanted him to play dumb. "No," he said, guessing.
Tycho winced. Vanyan sat back. "The elf-blood understands enough to know that he does not understand. It seems to me his exchange with the captain this morning was less complex than what takes place in this chamber. Lack of comprehension does not strike me as sufficient excuse for his behavior."
"Sir, he was also confused," Tycho replied quickly. "He had by his own admission just been savagely robbed and was also, I have learned, desperately hungry. In that state, he was focused on only one thing and would say anything to obtain it. I believe if you test him further, you'll find that even the basic comprehension you assume is lacking." The magistrate frowned and look at Li again.
"What is my name?" he said slowly and with emphasis. Tycho turned as well. This time his eyes flicked over his shoulder and toward the dais. His right hand made a tight shaking motion. No, a rapping motion.
Li put on a pleasant smile and bowed. "Your name is Respect," he said in an accent so thick it made him cringe. "Respect the Magistrate!"
The guards chuckled immediately. On the dais, Dorth slammed his rod down. "Respect for the magistrate!" he said automatically and flushed. In response, Li folded his arms and bent in an even deeper bow.
"Respect the Magistrate!" he repeated.
"No, respect for him!" Dorth pointed desperately at Vanyan. "Respect him".
"Yes," Li agreed. "He is Respect. Respect the Magistrate!"
Dorth was practically shaking with frustration. Mard was red. The guards were desperately trying to hold in laughter. Even the magistrate seemed amused. Tycho was suppressing a smile. "That's enough," he told Li in Shou. "They got the point."
"If we get out of this," replied Li in a pleasant tone, "I'm going to beat you senseless."
"I'll worry about that later. Pretend I'm telling you Vanyan's real name now."
Li changed his smile to an expression of surprise and horror, bent into the deepest bow yet, and switched back to Common. "I am very sorry, honored sir. Your name is Vanyan. Vanyan the Magistrate. I am very sorry."
"You see, sir?" Tycho told the magistrate. "And this morning he didn't properly understand what Captain Dantakain was saying to him either. When the captain asked him if he was an ambassador from Shou, he completely misunderstood. He is in fact a member of the Shou imperial bureaucracy and so it could be said that he does represent Shou Lung. He called on Captain Dantakain because it seemed proper at the time to go to the most senior member of the Guard. And in his confused state, he mistook me for someone else. When I replied that I didn't know him, he took my words for an insult and was
justifiably very angry. It was all just a misunderstanding. Indeed, we have already made our peace." Tycho clapped an arm amiably around Li's shoulder's.
Mard Dantakain practically exploded. "Now hold on," he sputtered. "That's not right!" He thrust a finger at Li. "Magistrate, I swear to you that when I talked to this man this morning, he absolutely understood everything I said. Everything! And now you expect me to believe that it was all just a clever imitation like... like a talking parrot!" He spun to glare at Vanyan. "I demand you put an end to this!"
The magistrate just tilted his head. Dorth, on the other hand, drew a shocked breath and raised his rod, ready to rap it again. Vanyan reached out and caught his arm. "I think we've had enough of that, Dorth." He looked down at Mard. "Very well, captain. I will end it." He pushed himself to his feet in front of the heavy chair of his office. "I have heard the testimony of both parties," he said formally, "and I am satisfied by what I have heard. It seems to me that no harm was intended and no damage inflicted that has not been resolved. Under the laws of Altumbel and Spandeliyon, I find no reason to hold Tychoben Arisaenn on the charges of brawling and assault nor Kuang Li Chien on the same as well as forcible entry and impersonation."
Mard howled in protest even as Dorth finally brought his staff down again and proclaimed "The magistrate has ruled!" At Li's side, Tycho let out a whoop of triumph. Li, however, grabbed his arm out of the air.
"You're forgetting something!" he hissed in Shou, nodding toward the magistrate's dais. Vanyan was still standing and he was looking back at them again.
"There is," the magistrate said somberly, "the matter of the additional charge against Tychoben Arisaenn: moral
corruption of Laera Dantakain." He seated himself once more. "I have not heard your testimony on that charge, Master Arisaenn. It does seem to me that Captain Dantakain has a legitimate complaint against you."
Mard swung around to glare at Tycho, vicious victory on his face. Tycho blinked, but swept into another graceful bow without hesitation. Li found himself holding his breath as the singer smiled and began, "Honored sir, Captain Dantakain has simply never before seen the famous 'vigorous harp' technique of Waterdeep... "
'
"Tycho, is that really how ladies of quality play the harp in Waterdeep?" asked Li as they walked out of the guard station and into afternoon sunlight.
"If they don't, they should learn. It sounds like an interesting technique. If I ever get to Waterdeep, maybe I'll teach them." Tycho drew a deep breath of cold, fresh air. It smelled very good. He hitched his coat around himself and adjusted his strilling under its leather flap. True to Jacerryl's word, everything that had been taken from them—or rather from Tycho since Li had nothing to take—had been waiting for them when they walked out of Magistrate Vanyan's chamber. The little tin tube of beljurils included.
Tycho had sighed with relief, given it a quick shake, and sighed again at the sound of muffled rattling within. It had been hard enough worrying about getting himself and Li out of jail without worrying about the gems and their now belated delivery as well!
Li was looking back at the jail with a certain amount of frustration. Tycho stopped. "What?" he asked.
"That guard—Desmada. It doesn't seem right to walk away without revealing her corruption. She took Lander's coin to look the other way. In Shou Lung, she wouldn't get away with that!"
"You're telling me that there isn't one guard in Shou Lung who accepts bribes?" Tycho shook his head. "Desmada works for Brin, Li. If you had tried to bring up her corruption, we'd still be sitting in that cell."
"Does everyone in Spandeliyon work for Brin?"
Tycho grimaced. "A lot of people do," he said. "But only a few people do it willingly." He slapped Li's shoulder. "Don't worry. Some people work for his rivals!"
"That's very comforting."
"Tycho!" Mard Dantakain's voice echoed on the street and Tycho flinched. He turned slowly. Mard was stalking down the steps of the guard station, each pace tightly controlled as though he might fly to pieces if he let his guard down. That probably wasn't far from the truth. Tycho took a deep breath and stood his ground.
"What is it, Mard?"
"I owe you pay for this morning's lesson." He reached out and took Tycho's hand, turning it over and slapping coins into his palm with such force that the bard winced. Tycho looked down. Two gold coins stamped with circled dragons. He glanced up at Mard.
"Coins from Waterdeep."
"Indeed," replied Mard coldly. "It seemed appropriate. They'll also be your final payment. Laera's lessons are now finished. I don't want to see you at my house again." His eyes glittered and he leaned close. "In fact," he said, "I'd recommend you take care that I don't see you again at all." He glared at Li as well. "Either of you."
He turned sharply and marched away. Tycho glowered
after him, but slipped the coins into his pouch anyway and sighed. Li looked at him. "I cost you your job."
Tycho shrugged. "Waves roll in; waves roll out." If he had still been traveling, he might simply have boarded the next ship to leave port and moved on to richer pickings in another town. He might have lost the pay from tutoring Laera Dantakain, but there was still the Wench's Ease and—if he could find another discrete way of meeting Jacerryl—he'd still have his delivery runs. The little tube of beljurils wouldn't be the last thing Mard's brother would bring into Spandeliyon. It would all work out. "Waves will roll in again."
Li looked glum. His stomach growled audibly again. This time Tycho's grumbled in response as well. He rubbed his stomach and smiled at Li. The beljurils were already late—they could wait just a little while longer. "Come on, let me buy you something to eat. There's a place close to here." He began leading the way through the snow.
The place was a pie shop, not especially good, but cheap and friendly. Usually friendly. The shopkeeper's face clouded as Li follow Tycho inside. "No elves," he grunted, pointing at the Shou. "Get out."
Li flushed. "He's not an elf," said Tycho. He reached up and grabbed Li's head, twisting it around and pulling his hair back to the man could see his ears. "Do those look pointed to you?" He let Li go and scowled at the shopkeeper. "Two fish pies—no, three. With two mugs of hot soup. And this man deserves more than just an apology, so that soup had better be on the house!"
The shopkeeper muttered something indistinct and busied himself behind the counter. Tycho led Li to a table, the Shou rubbing at his scalp. "What is it with you people and elves?" he demanded.
"Altumbel was founded by humans who left Aglarond when the coastal settlements stopped fighting the elves of the inland forests and made peace with them. A lot of people in Altumbel still don't like elves."
"How long ago was this?"
Tycho stretched out. "About three hundred years. People around here are stubborn. Most have never even seen anyone with elf blood unless they happen to be former pirates and have traveled. They just have this vague idea of what elves are supposed to look like." He looked Li over. "Unfortunately... "
"Shou look that way, too." Li sighed and pressed his lips together as the shopkeeper came over with a platter bearing three fat pies, each a handspan wide, and two big mugs. The man plunked them down and got away again with unseemly haste. Li reached for one of the mugs and raised it to Tycho. "I'm sorry we began badly, Tycho. You're the only person in Spandeliyon who has given me any help at all." He hesitated and added. "Would you be willing to help me some more?"
Tycho paused with his mug lifted halfway to his lips. "After all this, you still want to find Brin? " ,
"No, not Brin."
"Right." Tycho nodded and blew across the steaming surface of his soup. He remembered what Li had hinted at back in the King's Chamber. "Brin's just a link. You're after his treasure."
"Treasure?" Li blinked. "I'm looking for my brother."

CHAPTER 5
hroughout Shou Lung," Li explained as they ate the pies, "my home city, Keelung, is known for two things: tea and silk." He spoke in Shou and the words rippled off his tongue with honest pride. "The Kuang family has worked in the silk trade since the earliest days of the city. We have been spinners, weavers, and dyers. We devised the unique yellow dye that made Keelung silks famous. Since that time, eldest sons have followed their fathers in the family tradition. My father, Yu Chien, is the direct descendant of the founder of the Kuang and head of the family. Records of Keelung show that Kuang have done business there for eighteen generations and family legends say that we were working with silk many generations before that."
"That's longer than Altumbellans have been hating elves," mumbled Tycho around a mouthful of pie. In his mind, though, he was kicking himself. Pirate treasure! What had he been thinking?
Li just nodded. "A few hundred years longer. Most recently, though, the Kuang have also been traders, selling the silks of Keelung to all of Shou Lung. Recently, the heads of all the silk families in Keelung made a decision that the time was right to expand our market beyond Shou Lung. They formed a trading society for that purpose and assembled an expedition that would take Keelung's goods west to Faerûn." His voice changed, becoming bitter. "In charge of the expedition was my elder brother, eldest son of the eldest son of the most respected family in Keelung. His name was Yu Mao."
Tycho swallowed before replying. "Yu Mao? You said that last night while you were raving."
Blood flushed Li's face. "I did?"
"Well, maybe not so much 'said' as 'screamed.' What happened to him?"
"What do you mean what happened?" Li asked hotly. Tycho gave him a suffering look.
"Something must have happened to Yu Mao or you wouldn't be looking for him. It doesn't take much to see that."
Li hesitated and nodded again. "You're right." He took a breath, calming himself. "The expedition left Keelung under good omens on a fine day in early spring three years ago, traveling west through Shou Lung to the province of Ch'ing Tung, where the Silver Road becomes the Golden Way leading to Faerûn. The elders of Keelung received a letter from the expedition just before it passed beyond the borders of Shou Lung. It was the last word from the expedition until early last summer, when a message arrived for my father. It bore the signature of Tieh Fa Pan, an old friend, and related grave news, of how the expedition had reached Thesk
and the city of Telflamm, of how there was great interest in the silks of Keelung." Li's jaw tightened. "And of how Yu Mao decided that the expedition should extend its reach and travel just a bit farther west before the winter—a late autumn voyage across the Sea of Fallen Stars to the markets of Sembia.
"En route to Sembia, the ship on which the expedition sailed was attacked by pirates. Of the members of the expedition, only Fa Pan escaped—he was one of what we call spirit folk and blessed with the ability to breathe water. He found refuge in the sea."
*<• Tycho found himself leaning forward. "The pirates— Brin's old ship?" Li nodded once more. "What happened to the other members of the expedition?"
Li drew a deep breath. "They died," he said. "Put to the sword. All except Yu Mao." Li looked down for a moment then up again. "Fa Pan saw Yu Mao taken aboard the pirates' ship as a hostage."
"Ah." Tycho sat back. "And Fa Pan?"
"He was wounded," Li said harshly. "What could he do? He swam for shore. Through the fall and winter he stayed with fishing folk who found him. In the spring, he made his way back to Thesk. Weakened by his ordeal and unable to travel farther, he sent the letter to my father." He closed his eyes for a moment then opened them again. "It took a year to reach Keelung. By the time my father presented it to the elders of Keelung, the members of the expedition had been dead for almost two years."
"What did the elders do?" Tycho asked.
"They put on their mourning clothes and decided that the time was after all not yet right for trade with the West." Li's fist, resting on top of the table, clenched. "My father, however, wanted to know the fate of his eldest son.
I was summoned back to Keelung from my position in the bureaucracy and dispatched to the West, tracing the expedition's route to Thesk."
Tycho's eyes went wide. "I've heard that's a fantastic journey!"
Li shrugged. "It has its wonders. I was in such haste that I barely noticed the months go by. I arrived in Telflamm only a few tendays ago and sought out Fa Pan." He sighed and forced his fist to relax. "He had died not long after he sent his letter. I was fortunate, though, that he had included distinct descriptions of the pirate captain, a sorceress—and her mate, a one-eyed halfling." He nodded in response to Tycho's raised eyebrow. "Brin, of course. The people of Telflamm are more used to Shou than the people of Spandeliyon. I was able to speak with people who recognized Fa Pan's descriptions. They identified Brin, his captain, and the ship they sailed on, a vessel called the Sow."
"I've heard of Sow," said Tycho sharply. "Black sails, wallowed like a pig, but stealthy and with ice magic behind her. She was a terror a couple of years back."
"Then maybe you also heard what I did in Telflamm: that the Sow vanished last winter. The people I spoke to told me that it was assumed the ship went down in a winter storm or maybe had been sunk by the Aglarondans. No one had heard anything of her—except for one man who had heard a rumor that a one-eyed halfling had taken up residence in Spandeliyon." Li spread his hands. "That's why I need to talk to Brin, Tycho. He's the last one who might know what happened to Yu Mao."
The Shou fell silent. Tycho let out a slow breath. "That's it?" he asked. "That's all? You really just want to talk to him?"
Li blinked. "It seems to me that should be enough," he said stiffly.
"Li, the way you acted when you walked into the Wench's Ease last night, I thought you were looking for Brin to try to kill him!"
"Oh, no," said Li. "I don't want to kill Brin." His mouth twitched into a thin smile. "At least not so far as I know."
Tycho gave Li a long look over the rim of his mug as he slurped back the last of his soup. "But you don't know. If
you found out that Brin had killed Yu Mao... " He let the
suggestion trail off. Li just gave him a level gaze. Tycho wrinkled his nose. "Ah. I suppose so. Look—" He sat forward. "—even if you don't actually mean Brin any harm, just talking to him could be dangerous."
Li put his hands flat on the table and looked Tycho straight in the eye. "It's a chance I'll take, Tycho. You know how far I've traveled. Am I supposed to stop now?" He sat forward as well. "I would value your help, but with you or without you, I will find Brin. I get the feeling that he won't be that hard to locate."
"Aw, bind me." Tycho set his mug down with a thump. By rights, he should let Li blunder off and get himself in trouble—certainly the Shou had brought him nothing but trouble. At the same time, he felt a certain grudging respect for him and his commitment. He sighed. I'm going to regret this, he thought to himself—and nodded. "I'll help you."
The Shou broke out in the first wide and genuine smile Tycho had seen from him. Tycho held a warning hand before he could get too happy, though. "But,"he said firmly, "this is how we're going to do it." He jerked a thumb at himself. "I'm going to make inquiries. Something discrete. Throw out a line and see if I can arrange a meeting
with Brin for you. It might make him feel more like talking civilly than having a big foreigner stalking him around Spandeliyon will."
Li's smile tightened slightly. "Don't mention Yu Mao." Tycho looked at him quizzically. "I want to ask Brin about Yu Mao myself," said Li stubbornly. "I don't want to give him time to prepare any stories or explanations." Tycho shrugged then nodded. Li's smile bloomed again, even wider this time. He bent himself in a little half-bow over the table. "Thank you, Tycho. I wish there were something more I could offer you—if Lander hadn't robbed me, the reward I mentioned last night would be yours."
Tycho snorted and picked up the last morsel of pie. "Well, that reward was as good as stolen as soon as you said the words last night at the Ease. That was stupid."
"What good is a reward if no one knows it's available?" Li folded his hands. "Besides, it was well hidden. If anyone has my coat, they're probably walking around with a small fortune and aren't even aware of it."
Tycho blinked. "What was this reward?" he asked around the pie.
"I had three fine rubies sewn into the lining of my coat," said Li. "I thought they would be safe. I underestimated the desperation of thieves in Spandeliyon."
Suddenly the pie was dry in Tycho's mouth. "Three rubies?"
"I would have given one as a reward last night. To you, Tycho, I would give all three."
Fingers shaking, Tycho reached for his pouch and pulled out one of the gold coins Mard had given him, hesitated for a moment, and pulled out the second as well. Hiding them with his palm, he slid them across the table to Li. "Lander," he said as casually as he could manage, "usually sells stolen
goods to a fence named Giras." He pointed. "You'll find his shop three streets that way and two back toward dockside. Go see if he still has your coat."
Li's eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"You didn't ask," said Tycho quickly, "and we were talking about other things. I would have suggested it anyway, though." Li's expression conveyed disbelief. "Really!" Tycho protested. "Remember, I said I'd help you before you said anything about a reward."
Li grunted. "That's true." He nodded. "All right." /'Besides, the clothes you're wearing now stink." Tycho stood up and slapped payment for their food onto the table-top. "Look," he told Li. "You go get your coat back—and anything else you can, too." He dredged his pouch for any remaining coins and came up with a scant handful of copper and silver. He gave them all to Li. "Try to be discrete about it. Then go back to the Wench's Ease and wait for me. I'll meet you there later with news."
Li stood up as well. "Thank you, Tycho."
"Thank me when you've had your talk with Brin, Li."
They left the pie shop and Tycho made sure Li got started in the right direction before turning and going the other way. Once the Shou was out of sight, though, he swiftly changed direction and headed down toward dock-side, whistling as he walked.
Three rubies for a conversation. That was a very good deal. He tapped the tin tube tucked into his coat. It was high time to deliver the beljurils to their waiting—and not especially patient—new owner.
He was even still whistling when he walked through the door of the Eel.
TW0 vsirn,.> Citt . on
Lander choked as his spade broke through the icy crust and exposed another soft patch of slowly decaying pig dung. He gasped against the stench and levered the spadeful of manure up and into his wheelbarrow. The relief as the load slid off was like a small blessing; the spade seemed to rise up an extra foot on its own. Lander swung it back to the ground, letting the blade bang down into the filth, and leaned for a moment against the handle.
"Did I tell you to take a break, Lander?" Brin's rich voice was punctuated by the hiss of his switch through the air. Lander stifled a groan and scraped up another load of manure. As Brin's punishments went, mucking out his sty was one of the more pleasant. That didn't mean Lander liked it. His arms, shoulders, and back burned. He was sweating like ... well, like a pig. In spite of the cold, his mantle and outer shirt were flung across Brin's table, draped over the damn Shou saber. He knew he should have sold it to Giras! What had keeping it gotten him? A frantic search through dockside in the middle of the night. Another search this morning, combing the streets all the way up into middle town. He'd even made contact with the usual bodysnatchers, unpleasant specimens who would be better off dead themselves. Even they hadn't seen anything of Li Chien's body though. And Brin had ordered him to not bring his men in on the search. Lander knew what that meant: the halfling wanted to keep his interest in the Shou quiet.
Since early afternoon, however, he'd been shoveling manure. Brin might appreciate hard work, but he still didn't like failure. Lander snuck a look over his shoulder. Brin was sitting on the table again, a tankard of the Eel's
ale beside him and his switch in his hand. He was tickling Black Scratch under the chin. The boar ignored him and just sat like some weird beast-king, surveying the other pigs that trotted around the sty. Every so often, he would stretch out his neck and snuffle at Lander's mantle and shirt. "Put your filthy snout in those," grumbled Lander under his breath, "and you'll be Black Sausage by dinnertime." He bent and scooped up more manure. At least he was almost finished, though gods only knew if Brin was finished with him.
The back door of the Eel opened and Tycho Arisaenn stepped out, a repulsively smug look on his face. He saw Lander and smiled. "New job, Lander? It suits you."
The sound of Tycho's voice brought a chorus of happy squeals from Brin's pigs. The ones already in the sty ran across to greet him. Lander turned around just in time to see more come tumbling out of the covered shelter, woken from their afternoon nap. Suddenly they were pouring across the sty in a fat wave of swine-flesh. Lander yelped and scrambled out of their way.
His wheelbarrow wasn't so lucky. The hindquarters of one scrambling pig banged into it, setting it swaying. A second impact knocked it over and dung went spilling across the ground. Lander ground his teeth together, too angry even to curse. Tycho broke off his fond greeting of the pigs that swarmed around him to look up and smile again. "Sorry," he apologized. There wasn't a trace of sincerity in his voice. "You know how they are around me."
Tycho had sung to the pigs once. Once. It had been eerie to watch them all standing around and listening to the bard like some audience at a fancy concert. Now they acted as if he were their best friend whenever he came around. Fortunately, Lander wasn't the only one who
found Tycho as annoying as an infestation of fleas. Black Scratch snorted and trumpeted loudly, trotting across the sty with his bristles up and his tail stiff. The other pigs scattered before their true king. Lander scowled at Tycho as he righted the wheelbarrow and grabbed the spade again. "I'd like to see you give that one a serenade some time," he snarled with a nod at the boar.
"Lander," said Brin, "just clean that mess up." The halfling leaped down from the table and came across to Tycho. "You're late."
"I was held up. I ran into trouble with Mard Dantakain—not over the delivery!" he added hastily. He pulled a tin tube tied with green cord out of his coat. "I'm going to have to work out a new way to meet with Jacerryl, though." Brin just shrugged as he took the tube.
"That's your problem, Tycho. You move between dockside and hightown easily enough, but there are other people who can do the same. Just don't let me down; tell me I need to replace you before I find out from someone else." He turned and started back to the table. "You can collect at the bar as usual on the way out. Four gold. I don't like late deliveries."
Lander flashed a grin at Tycho as the bard's face twisted. Tycho caught the grin and scowled at him. "Keep shoveling, Lander," he hissed. Lander flicked a bit of manure at him. Tycho dodged it neatly and took a few steps farther into the sty. "Brin," he said, "I was wondering if you could do me a favor."
"I don't do favors," Brin replied, tugging on the cord around the tube. "They cost too much." He turned around and looked up. "Ton asked me for a favor once. I think you knew him. Shame about him and Ardo, isn't it?"
Lander was pleased to see Tycho stiffen. The curly-haired
man managed to keep his voice level, though. "It's not about coin. It will only take a bit of your time—a little storytelling, really."
"You're the storyteller here." Brin dropped the cord to the mucky floor of the sty and pulled out the cork that sealed the tube. "Why do you want me to tell you a story? " His fingers dipped into the tube and drew out a piece of silk.
"Not me," said Tycho as Brin flicked back the folds of silk. "There's—"
, The silence that fell between the halfling and the bard was solid like a wall. Both seemed frozen, staring down at the silk in Brin's hand. Lander dropped his spade and crossed the sty with two long steps to look as well.
Lying on the silk were half a dozen pieces of ordinary white gravel.
"Oh, bind me," Tycho whispered in horror. "Bind me, bind me, bind me... "
"Where are my beljurils?"howled Brin. All around him, pigs squealed and ran. Even Brin flinched away. Tycho turned pale and stumbled back. Brin lunged after him, flinging away the tin tube and jumping up to grab a fistful of Tycho's coat front. It should have been a ludicrous sight—the tiny halfling raging at a human who was almost twice his size. Somehow, though, it wasn't. Brin's weight dragged on Tycho, forcing him to bend almost double. Suddenly Black Scratch was there as well, snorting and scraping his hooves through the muck. Other pigs were closing in, too, following the boar's example and turning on their one-time friend. Lander stayed well back.
"They were there, Brin!" Tycho insisted. "They were there, I swear it!"
Brin's hand twisted the silk closed around the gravel
and drove the bundle straight into Tycho's face. "Do those feel like beljurils to you?" he screamed. He hit Tycho again. "Do they?"
Tycho tried to reach forward and tear Brin away. The halfling just swung himself up off the ground and planted a foot hard in Tycho's gut, dropping down again as he staggered back, gagging and gasping for air. "Where are they?" Brin screamed.
"I don't know!" choked Tycho. He tried to scramble back to his feet, but Black Scratch was right there. Tycho sank into a crouch, eyes on a level with Brin's. "Bind me, Brin, I don't know. They were there. In the tube. I checked them with Jacerryl when he passed them to me. He can tell you that." His tongue licked out, smearing blood on his lips. "In the jail. Someone must have taken them while I was in jail."
"You were in jail?"
"I told you, there was trouble with Mard Dantakain!" Tycho shouted back. He was trembling. "I've been in the middle town jail for most of the day! Brin, you know I wouldn't try to cheat you!"
"I have buyers waiting for those beljurils." Brin stalked forward. His hand snapped out and closed on Tycho's chin, pulling the bard forward so they were nose to nose amid the snorting pigs. "You lost them. You find them."
Tycho swallowed. "Brin—"
"Can you pay for them? " Brin searched Tycho's eyes. "I don't think so. I can't even sell you to slavers for the price of those gems. Find them. You've got until noon tomorrow." He leaned back and forced Tycho's head around until he was staring into Black Scratch's yellow gaze. The boar huffed and long strands of foamy saliva sprayed across Tycho's face. "If you don't have the gems back, I'll take up
Lander's suggestion and let you try a serenade on Black Scratch." Brin leaned in close again. "I should warn you that he doesn't have much of an ear for music."
He thrust Tycho away and the bard went sprawling back across the sty. For a moment, he just stared at Brin in panic then he twisted to his feet and scrambled for the door back into the Eel. "Through the alley!" Brin spat at him. "Through the alley!" It was too late—Tycho was already through the door and running through the Eel. Over the noise of the pigs, Lander caught the shouts and exclamations from inside as he fled.
"Bugger," grumbled Brin. He turned around and flung the bundle of gravel hard against the nearest wall. Pigs squealed and darted away from the splinters of rock that came spraying out of it. "Lander! Are you done yet?"
Lander jumped for his abandoned spade. "Almost, Brin!"
"Leave it. Get back out there and find me Kuang Li Chien. Alive or dead, he has to be somewhere. And while you're out, find Desmada and see what she knows about Tycho being in jail." Lander blinked at the command and dropped his spade again, reaching instead for his shirt, mantle, and the curved saber. Brin rubbed Black Scratch behind the ears. "I don't like having this many loose ends floating around. They tend to get tangled up."
***
"Sir," said Giras the fence in an offended voice. "Are you trying to ruin me?" He flicked a finger at one of the gold coins Li had laid on the shop counter. "Such fine quality work as the items you request is not easily come by. And so exotic!"
"I told you," Li hissed between his teeth. "All of those things are mine!" He jabbed a finger around the shop. His boots. The sleeve of a shirt poking out from a pile. His hat resting on the head of some kind of stuffed bird. "They were stolen from me last night!"
Giras's eyes narrowed and his voice took on a harsher edge. "And I told you, sir, those items have been in my shop for months, sold to me by a trader from the Shou-towns of Thesk. If you're accusing me of dealing in stolen goods, I'll thank you to take your custom elsewhere." His fingers played across the gold. "Now, if you like, I could perhaps make you a special offer. The boots you so admired, a pair of pants and a shirt for—"
Li reached out, grabbed Giras by the back of his neck, and bashed his head down against the counter. As the fence staggered back, one of the gold coins stuck to his forehead, Li whirled on the muscle-bound guard standing by the shop door. The man was already lumbering forward, hand reaching for a stout club. Li ducked in close and struck him hard twice, once under the chin and once on the side of the neck. He dropped with a thud that shook the floor. Li turned back to Giras, seizing his collar and dragging him to his feet. "I think two gold is more than fair for stolen goods," he said gruffly. "Do you agree?"
Giras nodded eagerly. Li thrust him at the nearest stack of goods. "Dig out the things you bought from Lander last night. All of them."
He stripped off the clothes he had stolen that morning and put on his own as fast as Giras could produce them. Spare clothing and other goods piled up on the counter. Li sighed with relief as he pulled on his own boots, properly fitted and without holes, and looked up at Giras. The fence had stopped and was standing beside the counter,
rubbing at the deep, red impression the coin had stamped on his forehead. Li looked at the pile of goods and frowned. "There should be a coat and a dao." Giras blinked at the word. "A sword," snarled Li. "A great, heavy, curved sword that could cut through your thieving neck in one stroke."
"I don't have it," Giras whimpered. "Lander wouldn't sell it to me. He kept it. The coat I sold this morning—to one of Lander's men." Li scowled and Giras cringed. "I didn't know you'd be coming in!"
Li growled and reached for the foul coat he had just discarded. Tycho would have to wait for the rubies. "I need a weapon then." Giras cringed again.
"A weapon? I can't help you. I don't carry them. Forbidden for me to even—" Li rose and stomped toward him. Giras swallowed hard. Darting over to a large trunk, he twisted on a handle. There was a click and both the lid and front of the trunk swung open with graceful majesty. An array of weapons glittered within. Li looked them over and chose a sword that was curved like his dao, though with a lighter, Western blade. Giras nodded. "Calishite scimitar. Excellent choice—"
"Be quiet." Li took the sheath that went with the scimitar, slid the blade into it, and gave Giras a final glare. "You should find another trade." He turned and stalked out of the shop.
He was so wrapped up in his anger that he barely even noticed the tottering old woman in the street until he had practically walked right over top of her. She gasped and he caught her arm, helping her steady herself. "Your pardon, honored mother," he apologized and started to turn away.
The woman grabbed his wrist and said sharply in a thin, liquid voice, "Kuang Li Chien!"
Li froze, startled, and looked down. The woman was looking at him intently, eyes of a faded blue focused on him. Her grip was frail and quivering. Her entire body shook slightly. He could have pulled away easily. There was something familiar about the woman, though. "You live with Tycho," he said. She had been asleep on a couch when he had slipped out that morning. Another memory came back to him—her face as she prodded his aching body. "You helped Tycho heal me."
"My name is Veseene. I'm Tycho's friend. He did the work of healing you, though." Her eyes hardened. "If I let you go, will you run again?" Li flushed.
"No. And I apologize for leaving this morning. I have seen Tycho and spoken with him. We have made our peace." He gave her a little bow. "I hope you can forgive me as well. It was rude, but I felt there was something I needed to do. I've explained it to Tycho. He's even agreed to help me."
Veseene's eyebrows rose like pale wings. "Did he?" She released his wrist. "Would you care to explain to me, too?"
Li hesitated. "It is a long story, Veseene. Do you speak Shou?" Veseene shook her head. "Perhaps Tycho could explain it to you later then?"
"Perhaps he could." She cocked her head, though the shaking of her body almost made it look like she was nodding. "I heard what went on Giras's shop."
"Tycho sent me here to buy back what Lander took from me."
"It sounded like a very violent purchase." "Giras forced me to haggle."
A smile creased Veseene's face. "Lander won't be happy about that." Li smiled back.
"Lander," he said, his grip tightening on the scimitar, "is welcome to discuss the matter with me at any time." He nodded toward the water and the dockside district. "I'm supposed to meet Tycho at the Wench's Ease now. Would you like to come with me?"
She shook her head. "I'm on an errand," she said. "Why don't you come with me?" Her arm slipped through his.
The gesture was very easy, very natural, but Li could sense a steel-like will and purpose behind it. "Do I have a choice?"
, "No, not really." Veseene began to stroll along the street, pulling Li along more by force of personality than physical strength. Her steps were short and careful over the slippery slush that remained from the night's snowfall. Li frowned and shifted his arm so that he gave her more support. She nodded gratefully. "Thank you. I'm not quite as graceful as I used to be, I'm afraid."
"The young peach tree is beautiful and tender," said Li, "but it bears little fruit."
Veseene smiled again. "You have a certain charm to you, Kuang Li Chien."
"Just call me 'Li,'" he told her. "I regret that it is a borrowed charm—that verse was written by the poet Kar Wuan many centuries ago. I studied it as part of my training for the imperial bureaucracy."
"Knowledge is its own grace," said Veseene. "How do you like that? I made it up just now."
"Truly immortal wisdom."
They walked almost half a block in silence. Every few paces, Li stole a look at Veseene. She was still tall for her advanced age and only a little bit stooped. The tremors that shook her body and rendered her voice strange and wet were really the only sign of the infirmity of years.
Veseene didn't return his glances or even look at him at all, but just kept her eyes on the ground, alert for treacherous footing. When she spoke again, she said, "Tell me the short version of your story, Li."
He hesitated for a moment and told her the essence of his tale. "Pirates on the Sea of Fallen Stars attacked and killed a trading party from my home city a year and a half ago. My brother was spared but taken prisoner. We have heard nothing of him since then. I came west to find him."
"And Brin?"
"Brin was mate of that pirate ship. He is the last survivor of it and may be the only one who knows what happened to my brother. Tycho has agreed to make inquiries and try to arrange a chance for me to talk with Brin."
"Ah," said Veseene. "And you've heard nothing at all from the pirates? No ransom demands?" Li shook his head. "Ah," she said again and they walked a little farther before she added, "Tycho is clever, but he's also a hothead. He doesn't always think things all the way through."
Li stiffened. He glanced at Veseene, but she was still watching the ground as she walked. "Pirates," she continued, "generally don't take prisoners for sport. They take them for ransom. And why take only one prisoner when they could have ransomed the entire trading party?" She looked up finally and met his eyes. "And why," she said bluntly, "do you need a sword if you just want to talk to someone?" Li pressed his lips together. Veseene's eyes narrowed. "You're not telling me—or Tycho—the whole story."
"No," Li admitted tightly. "I'm not. And I can't. But what I'm not saying doesn't concern you. I owe Tycho my life. I won't put him in danger."
"I hope not. Because if Tycho comes to harm, I'll come after you." She stopped. "Every peach has a stone, Li. I may be old, but I'm tough. I drink wasp venom for fun."
"I understand, honored mother," Li said politely. Veseene raised an eyebrow.
"You don't believe me." She pointed above her head. Li glanced up. There was a sign there, words he couldn't understand written out in western script. He recognized the picture that went with them though. A bundle of herbs beside a mortar and pestle. An herbalist's shop. "Come inside with me," said Veseene.
She drew him through a door and up a flight of narrow stairs. The shop was at the top of them, a dim, fragrant space with crock-lined walls and dry, leafy bundles hanging from the rafters. A slender, dusk-skinned woman with long black hair and eyes rimmed with dark paint looked up from a worktable, first at Veseene and, with a lingering glance, at Li. Veseene greeted her. "Olore, Sephera. I'm here for my tea."
The woman nodded and rose. She went around the room, selecting crocks and jars from the wall. When she had a collection of half a dozen, she returned to her table and began mixing the contents of each together in a mortar. "Sephera," said Veseene, "my friend here was wondering what went into my tea."
"Things to energize muscles made weak and quicken nerves made dull," said Sephera. Her voice was soft, with a resonant, chanting quality. "Laspar needles and pepper, blackroot and winterberry seeds." She took two spoonfuls of rust-colored flakes from a small jar. "Redflower leaves." The last jar was tightly sealed with waxed cloth and Sephera held it at arm's length as she opened it. She reached inside with thin wooden tongs and removed a pale amber
lump, holding it up for Li to see. It was only about the size of the tip of his smallest finger. "The crystallized venom of a giant wasp," said Sephera. She added it to the mortar, re-sealed the jar, took up a pestle, and gently began to crush the assembled ingredients.
Li looked at Veseene. The old woman shrugged. "All right," she said, "maybe I don't drink it for fun." She gave Li a harsh look. "You understand though?"
He bent at the waist, bowing to her. "You've made your point."
"Tycho is family to me, Li. I'll do anything to protect him."
"Believe me, Veseene," said Li, "I understand the importance of protecting family." Veseene looked at him curiously, her head tilted again. Li didn't return her gaze. "Do you want to come with me to meet Tycho?"
She shook her head. "I'll have a cup of tea with Sephera then go home. Tell Tycho we talked, though." She nodded toward the stairs. "Go back to the last intersection and follow that street toward dockside. It will take you right to the Wench's Ease."
Li bowed again. "Thank you," he said.
"Don't get Tycho in more trouble than he gets himself," Veseene replied. "That will be thanks enough."
:er 6
he sun was low in the west. The last of the day was kissing the rooftops of Spandeliyon and the underbellies of thick clouds moving in low from the east. There would be more snow overnight. Thick, wet snow. Tycho knew it with the instincts of someone raised beside the sea. The temperature of the air was hardly dropping at all. It might even have been getting a little bit warmer, but he couldn't really be certain of that. He simply felt cold all over.
His boots sent slush and muck splattering up with every long, running stride. As he rounded a corner, the slick surface of the street betrayed him and sent him skidding in a wide arc, arms flailing as he fought to keep his balance. A few people stared at him. Tycho barely noticed. One thought kept flowing through his mind.
Bind me, bind me, bind me, bind me...
He kept running. He couldn't get the vision of Black Scratch's mad yellow eyes out of his head.
The sight of the Wench's Ease was a blessing. Tycho slid to a stop, clutching at the great, bare tree in the yard outside the tavern for support. He shrugged out of the strap that held his strilling, stripped off his coat, and began scrubbing with handfuls of coarse, icy snow at the patches of dung that smeared it. He had lost one of his mittens somewhere. He shook the other one off his hand and flung it away. "Bind me, bind me, bind me!"
"Tycho?" A shadow fell over him. Tycho flinched and looked up.
It was Li. The Shou was dressed—mostly—in his own clothes again. "Just getting here?" Tycho asked. His voice sounded brittle even to him. "I thought you'd already be inside."
"I ran into your friend Veseene. We talked." Li's face was drawn in concern. "Tycho, what's wrong?" His nose crinkled. "Pearl of night, that stinks!"
"I slipped."
"Did you find out anything about Brin or Yu Mao?" asked Li cautiously.
"I asked around," Tycho lied. "Put it out that you were just—"
The words caught in his throat. Noon tomorrow. He couldn't lie to Li. He'd promised to help and now... He flung the last handful of snow away and rubbed his face. "No," he confessed, "I didn't find out anything. I didn't even get the chance to. Bind and tar me, Li, I'm deep in the bilge."
Li's eyes widened slightly and he drew a breath. "Because of me?"
Tycho shook his head and pulled his coat back on. It was wet and cold from the snow, but most of the pig stench was gone. "No, it's all my fault. When we were arrested,
I had a package with me that I was supposed to deliver to—" He hesitated. Considering the way the Shou had reacted to Desmada's corruption, Tycho didn't think he'd want to hear that his new friend did jobs for the one-eyed halfling as well. Or that he'd known all along where to find him. "That I was supposed to deliver," he said and left it at that. "While we were in jail, someone stole what was in the package. I've been given until noon tomorrow to get it ... them back."
"What was in the package?" Li asked. Tycho told him. Li's eyes went wider. "Who in Spandeliyon could want something that valuable?"
"The man I was supposed to deliver them to!" Tycho wrapped his arms around himself. "Bitch Queen's mercy! What am I supposed to do? Li, this man is insane. I'm amazed he didn't break my legs before sending me out to look. If I can't find the beljurils, I'm dead. I'm worse than dead." He shuddered.
"This man sounds as bad as Brin," said Li.
Tycho couldn't hold back the strangled choke that rose up out of his throat. Li looked at him sharply. For a moment he was silent. "Tycho," he said finally, "that was pig dung on your coat."
"There are a lot of pigs in Spandeliyon," Tycho said defensively. "Every third house keeps a few."
"I haven't seen a pig since I've been here."
"It's cold! They like to stay in shelters where it's warm."
"Then you must have been standing around in a pigsty when you slipped."
He met Tycho's eyes. The bard ground his teeth together and stared back. Li's gaze was steady. Unflinchingly steady—and ever so slightly disappointed. A shiver
-rl__v..II----t":11. . .,c
crawled down Tycho's back and settled in his gut. Li's eyes tensed, not quite narrowing with suspicion, but just flickering as if a bit of trust had slipped away. Tycho's gut clenched and rose in anger, most of it directed squarely at himself. "All right," he groaned, "it was Brin! I deliver packages to him. Mard Dantakain's brother Jacerryl uses his influence to bring things into Spandeliyon—I pick them up when I give Laera her music lessons and take them dockside to Brin." He leaned against the tree and banged his head on its rough bark. "I told you a lot of people in Spandeliyon work for Brin. I'm one of them." "Veseene—"
Tycho looked up. "Veseene doesn't know. This is how I make the extra coin to pay for the tea that keeps her palsy in check. Without it, she'd be bedridden."
There was a look of struggle on Li's face. Tycho sighed. "Li, I'm sorry. I should have told you. I've always known where you could find Brin. He really is dangerous, though. I wouldn't wish his bad side on anybody." He made a sour expression. "Of course, now I'm on it. You probably don't want to talk to him right now, but if you want to look for him later, you'll find him at a festhall called the Eel."
Li did a double take and made a sour expression as well. "Last night when I asked directions to a tavern, I was told I could look for the Wench's Ease or the Eel. If I had chosen the Eel, none of this would have happened?"
"Well, no." Tycho screwed up his face. "But there's a pretty good chance you'd be dead."
"Then I'm glad I chose the Wench's Ease." He held out his hand. Tycho just stared at it. "You were willing to help me, Tycho. I'll help you."
Tycho gaped at him. "You're kidding. I thought you'd be mad when I told you I worked for Brin."
Li shrugged. "Veseene gave me instructions that I wasn't supposed to get you in trouble. You were arrested because of me, so I am in a way responsible for the loss of the beljurils. You had your reasons for not telling me everything, Tycho." Tycho gave him a narrow glance. Li coughed. "And Veseene is very intimidating."
Tycho's lips twitched into a smile. "You're more afraid of Veseene than you are of Brin?"
"I haven't met Brin yet." Li's mouth narrowed. "Though I keep trying." He reached out and grabbed Tycho's hand, pulling him away from the tree and upright. "First we find your beljurils; then we talk to Brin."
"We don't have any clue of who took the beljurils at the jail, though!"
Li looked at him. "But we do. Who did we see there?" Tycho shrugged. Li snorted. "There is a saying in Shou Lung: A snake is never less than a snake."
Tycho frowned, puzzling through the proverb. "Once a thief, always a thief?" He sucked in a breath. "Desmada! We know she's corrupt already—what's to stop her from stealing from a prisoner's belongings?"
"That was my thought," agreed Li. "But would even she be brave enough to steal gems meant for Brin?"
"She wouldn't have known they were going to him." He smiled grimly. "This time of day, she'll be out on patrol. Let's go look for her and see if she's in the mood for a talk."
"There!" Tycho pulled Li around a corner and into a narrow street. "Desmada!" he called.
Up ahead, the guard twisted around and peered
through the twilight then relaxed—slightly—with recognition. "What is it, Tycho?" Her hand dropped to the hilt of her sword. Recognition didn't mean trust—it could just as well mean she had guessed why they had come looking for her. Tycho quickly spread his hands.
"Easy," he said with a casual smile. "We just wanted a word with you."
Her eyes narrowed. She glanced at Li and back to Tycho. "You pulled off a slick argument this morning. You know Mard isn't going to forget that."
Tycho shrugged. "I make enemies every now and then."
"Mard isn't a good man to have as an enemy. If he brings you in again, he'll make sure you aren't able to talk your way free past a magistrate—he knows the law and he'll take advantage of it."
"Better that than knowing the law and abusing it," muttered Li. He was glaring hard at Desmada. Tycho poked an elbow into his gut, but Desmada's attention was already back on him.
"You know," she said, "I've been trying to figure out why you look familiar. It was nagging me all through the hearing, too."
"Imagine me being held down in the snow—"
Tycho jammed his elbow back again, this time hard. Li's words ended in a thick gasp. They had talked about this as they searched for Desmada. Li favored a rather direct, physical form of questioning; Tycho something more subtle. He thought that they'd had it worked out which they were going to try first. Desmada stared at them suspiciously, but Tycho just turned a broad smile on her.
"Speaking of the hearing," he said, "I was wondering if you could help us out with something." Desmada snorted.
Tycho gritted his teeth behind his smile. "Something was missing from my things when I retrieved them after the hearing."
Desmada grunted and shrugged her shoulders. "Ask at the guard station," she said and started to turn away.
Tycho moved with her, crunching through the snow. "We're not really likely to be welcomed with open arms at the guard station right now."
"Not my fault."
Just over her shoulder, Li made an angry face and flexed his fingers. Desmada must have sensed something because sne spun around sharply, her hand shifting to a better grip on her sword. "What are you trying to—?" She drew a quick breath. "You think I stole something from you?"
She took two fast steps to the side so she faced them both. Tycho glanced quickly up and down the street. They were—for the moment—alone, most other citizens of Spandeliyon having already sensibly retired to their homes or favorite taverns for the evening. There were still people abroad though and he had no desire to be caught threatening a member of the guard, even one as corrupt as Desmada.
"Look," he said to her quickly, "we're just trying to find out what happened to some gems. If you could help us out—"
"I don't know anything about any gems."
"They belong to Brin," Li growled. Tycho winced and shot the Shou a foul glance. Desmada just snorted again, this time with laughter.
"You lost gems that belong to Brin? No wonder you're desperate." She eyed them both carefully. "You walk away now and I won't pass that little bit of news on around dock-side. Fair?"
"Desmada—"
The guard drew out a few inches of her sword. "Walk away, Tycho," she said harshly. "I don't know anything about your gems."
Tycho sighed and shrugged. "You know, I'd like to believe you, Desmada, but you should just cooperate and answer all my questions truthfully".
He let the command roll out of him in a baritone wave of almost-song, the music carrying the magic of a subtle spell. Desmada's face went slack for a moment as the enchantment sank into her mind. Li glanced at Tycho with an impressed expression. "Will it work?"
Desmada glanced between them. "Will what work?" she demanded.
"Never mind." Tycho flicked his fingers at Li, waving him to silence. The magic was potent but also delicate. Desmada would obey his suggestion, but the magic wouldn't stop her from attacking them or simply walking away. He kept on smiling at her. "Please, let me ask you again, Desmada: What do you know about the beljurils that were stolen from me at the guard station?"
The same slack expression of a moment before rippled across Desmada's face. "Nothing," she said.
Tycho blinked and glanced at Li. The Shou seemed startled, too. "Nothing?" Tycho asked. "You really know nothing about the stolen gems?"
"That's what I told you, isn't it?"
"Do you know of any other guard who would have tampered with my things while I was locked up?"
"No," Desmada snapped irritably. Tycho sucked on his teeth. It had to be the truth—his spell compelled her. At least, it compelled her to answer with what she thought was the truth.
"Did you see ray things at all?" he asked. "Did you see a tin tube tied with green cord?"
"Yeah, I saw them. And I saw the tube." She shrugged. "I saw it before I saw you, actually. I didn't even know you'd been arrested until Jacerryl told me."
Tycho stiffened. "Jacerryl? Jacerryl Dantakain?" Desmada nodded. "When did you see him?"
"When he brought your things to the guard station. He said Mard had rushed on ahead with you two under arrest and left him to bring your belongings along afterward."
Jacerryl.
' Tycho took a deep breath as everything came together in his mind. Unlike Desmada, Jacerryl had known there were beljurils inside the tube. And he'd already passed the tube off, so if the beljurils went missing, it wouldn't be his fault. All the gems had been accounted for when the tube left his possession. He even had the perfect cover in the form of his brother's law-abiding honesty! Tycho could almost hear Jacerryl's voice whispering in his hood-covered ear again: Mard sticks to the law like honey. They'll be safe. Why had he been so close? A second breath turned into a hiss. It had probably been Jacerryl's hands that had taken the tube in the first place!
The perfect opportunity—all Jacerryl had needed to do was act quickly.
Tycho squeezed his eyes shut. The white gravel that Brin had shaken out of the tin tube. He'd seen that, too. It filled the pots of evergreen branches in Mard Dantakain's entrance hall, the pots he'd stood beside while Jacerryl gave him the beljurils. He cracked his eyes open again. Desmada was staring at him. "Get out of here," he spat at her. "We're finished."
"Lunatic. Good luck with Brin—you're going to need
it." Desmada slammed her sword back into its sheath and grinned viciously. "Think maybe I'll start up a pool. How long will Tycho last after Brin gets hold of him?"
She turned and swaggered away. Li turned red and reached out to grab her shoulder, but Tycho stopped him. "She'll tell people that you're in trouble!" the Shou protested.
"Gossip is probably already flying," Tycho spat. "The magic will fog her mind, though. In a few minutes, Desmada will only barely remember talking to us." He curled his hands into fists and smacked them into his forehead. "Bind me! It was Jacerryl!"
Li looked at him, puzzled. Tycho shook his head. "I'll explain on the way. Come on—we're going back to hightown." He stomped off along the street, forcing Li to scramble to catch up to him.
It was like the goddess of fortune had stepped down from on high and kissed him.
Lander stepped out of his hiding place at the top of the street and watched the pair vanish into the gloom. Unbelievable! After a long while tracking Desmada down, he had been just about to hail her when a call from the other end of the street had drawn her attention. Tycho's voice, but it was the sight of the tall man with him that had made Lander's jaw drop. He had ducked into a doorway and watched as Tycho and Li Chien—alive after all—spoke with Desmada. The bard and the Shou were working together!
He couldn't be sure what they had said—he was too far away to catch anything other than the occasional word
when voices rose—but Tycho was after Brin's beljurils, that much was clear. What Kuang Li Chien was doing with him. ... He cursed under his breath. The alley off Gold Lane where he had left the Shou lay between the Wench's Ease and the building on Bakers Way where Tycho lived with his doddering old teacher! Tycho must have found Li Chien last night and rescued him.
What now? Lander bit his lip. They were going somewhere—should he follow them? His hand dropped to the handle of the stolen saber, but he hesitated. Two of them, one of him, and Li Chien fought like a demon. The Shou had managed to get some of his clothes back—Tycho must have guided him to Giras. He had a weapon, too. Lander let go of the saber. It would be safer to catch up with Desmada and ask her what had happened. Safer, but probably unnecessary. He could talk to her any time.
Li Chien was the one he wanted. Searching Spandeliyon for him without any clues to his whereabouts had been like gambling at a crooked table. But knowing he was with Tycho... that changed the game. Lander knew Tycho. He knew the places the bard frequented and where he slept at night. Lander cracked his knuckles and turned back toward the Eel. Brin was finally going to get some good news today.
***
There was a knocking on the other side of the door. "Natala?" called Jacerryl sweetly. "Folco tells me you've come to see me." The latch jiggled and rose and the door opened a narrow crack. Light speared the darkness. Jacerryl's head followed, turning from side to side as he looked around. "No lights? What are you up to, my saucy
little minx? " He stepped inside and closed the door behind himself. "A little game of wolf and rabbit? Or is it blind man's bluff?" Footsteps and the rustle of clothing being shed. "Give me a hint, darling—hot or cold?"
"Oh, very cold." Tycho unclenched his fist and let the light of a glowing coin shine out. Jacerryl, doublet off and caught in the act of pulling open his shirt, froze. His mouth dropped open. He stumbled back. Li stepped out from where he had hidden behind the door and gave him a firm push forward. Tycho, perched on the foot of the man's bedstead, smiled down at him. "Olore, Jacerryl. Expecting someone else?"
"You!" Jacerryl stood straight, trying to act firm and dignified as he hastily began to rebutton his shirt. "What are you doing here? How did you get in?"
He shot a glance toward the door. Tycho gestured and Li moved to stand between him and it. "You're not the only one I know in this house, Jacerryl. One of your servants—and I'm not saying which one, so don't ask—owed me a favor." He tossed the glowing coin to Li and shifted his strilling around on its strap, positioning the instrument against his arm. "We need to have a little chat about Brin's beljurils."
"Why? They were just fine when I gave them to you, weren't they?"
The response was a little too fast, a little practiced. "Did I say there was something wrong with them?" Tycho set his bow against the strings of the strilling and began to play a soft, droning melody. "What would make you think that there was?"
"N-nothing," Jacerryl stammered. He swallowed and seemed to summon up a bit of courage. "Neither of you are particularly welcome around here," he said. "All I have to
do is yell, and Mard will be in here with a squad of guards instantly."
Tycho kept playing. "Mard isn't home right now. And there is exactly one guard in the house."
"The servants will come! You might have conned one of them into letting you in—"
"—and getting you up here," Tycho reminded him.
"—and tricking me," Jacerryl agreed between gritted teeth, "but one treacherous servant won't be able to help you when you're found assaulting me in my own chambers. You've already been arrested in this house once today!"
''Stop posturing, Jacerryl." Tycho gathered his concentration, focusing on the music. "Tell me what you did with the beljurils!"
It was the same spell he had worked on Desmada, backed up this time with the music of the strilling as well as the song of his voice. He focused his will as the magic washed through him, bending the enchantment toward Jacerryl.
The other man just tensed, his face screwed up. "I won't tell you anything!"
The carefully woven magic faltered, frayed, and fell apart. Tycho struck a discordant note on his strilling in surprise. Jacerryl cracked open one eye then the other. "Ha! Was that the best you could do? I passed the beljurils on to you and that's all! Now get—"
With a muted growl, Li reached out, spun him around, and hit him hard with a backhanded blow. Jacerryl swayed once and slipped to the ground.
Tycho stared at him then glowered at Li. "I know we had a plan worked out this time!" he said in Shou. Li shrugged.
"He resisted your magic. Were you just going to keep
playing until he gave up?" He grunted. "Besides, he was annoying me."
Tycho sighed. "I guess I should be glad you didn't kill him, then. You've got a temper on you, you know." Li snorted.
"/have a temper?"
"I am the essence of calm!" Tycho slid his strilling around to his back, hopped down off the bed, and nodded to a high, well-stuffed chair. "Help me get him up in that."
Jacerryl moaned and stirred as they heaved him up off the floor and deposited him in the chair. His eyes opened and focused on them. Abruptly he stiffened, sucking in a lungful of air. His mouth opened wide, but Li's hand shot out fast and wrapped around his neck, pinning him to the back of the chair. Jacerryl's shout emerged as a strained gurgle. Li glanced at Tycho. "Maybe we need to try a more physical form of persuasion?" he suggested in Shou.
Tycho threw up his hands. "Fine. I give up." He leaned forward and met Jacerryl's gaze. "Jacerryl," he said bluntly in Common, "my friend here thinks we should just twist off your head right now."
Li gave him a look of disgust, but their captive's eyes went wide. He flailed out suddenly, arms and legs lashing at Li. The Shou batted them away and poked him sharply in the abdomen. Jacerryl let out a pained squeak. He stopped struggling. Tycho squatted down to face him. "Don't worry," he said soothingly. "I think I can persuade him to just dislocate your shoulders instead. I might even be able to get him to let you go if you come clean with me on the beljurils. You took them out of the tube and replaced them with gravel after I was arrested. Then you took the tube down to the guard station with my other belongings. Am I right?"
Jacerryl's eyes rolled. Tycho tapped Li's arm and Li eased the pressure on Jacerryl's throat, letting him draw a shallow breath. "Well?" asked Tycho.
"Yes," Jacerryl gasped.
"Wonderful." Tycho stood up. "Why don't you just tell me where they are and we'll be on our way."
Jacerryl closed his eyes. "I don't have them anymore," he gulped. "I sold them already." Tycho hissed.
"Who did you sell them to?"
"The Hooded."
Tycho yelped sharply and grabbed his head. "No," he groaned. "You didn't." Jacerryl nodded. Tycho slid his hands down his face and looked at Jacerryl over his fingertips. "You idiot." He stepped forward and stomped down hard on Jacerryl's foot. Jacerryl yelped, too, and cringed. "You idiot!"
Li's other arm came up quickly and pushed him back, holding him at arm's length from Jacerryl. "Tycho! Stop that!" Li snapped. "Who's the Hooded?"
"One of Brin's rivals, another gang boss of dockside. He's bad. Not as outright nasty as Brin, but still not someone you want to sit down to dinner with." Tycho ran his fingers through his hair and paced around the room. "He's smart, though. He hasn't been in Spandeliyon much longer than Brin, a season at most, but he's coming up strong. Where Brin seized control through sheer ruthlessness, the Hooded is building himself up slowly. Slow and strong, very patient. And mysterious—no one knows who he is."
Li frowned. "Why not?"
"He always wears a hood," rasped Jacerryl. Tycho and Li looked back to him, Li almost as if he'd forgotten who was on the other end of his arm. "It's why they call him the Hooded. He wears bulky robes, so the most you can
tell about him is that he's a big man. And he only speaks in a murmur and never directly to you, only through an interpreter." He smiled slightly. "Could I breathe a little bit more now, please?"
"No." Tycho sat down on Jacerryl's bed. Brin and the Hooded. He hadn't thought this could get any worse! "Bind me, Li! I don't want to go up against two gang bosses!" He glanced up. Li had a distant expression on his face, his mouth narrow in thought. Tycho's heart jumped. "You have an idea. Tell me you have an idea."
Li blinked and shook his head. "Why should the Hooded hide his identity?" Tycho groaned again.
"That's not an idea, Li. He probably has a perfectly respectable identity established somewhere else in the community—they say the Lords of Waterdeep wear masks when they're ruling and move among the people unsuspected when they aren't. If you're thinking that we could find out who he really is and force him to cough up the beljurils, don't bother. No one has figured out his identity in two years. We're not likely to do it overnight." He pushed himself up off the bed. "I think the best we can do is to go back to Brin, tell him that the Hooded has his gems now and that this weasel—" He jerked his head at Jacerryl. "—was the one who betrayed him, not me. That might satisfy him."
"Brin?" Jacerryl shrank back. "Brin knows?"
"No, I snuck back into Mard Dantakain's house for the fun of it. Yes, Brin knows!" He crossed his arms and stared down at Jacerryl. "I just hope he'll take you instead of me since this was all your—"
Sudden footsteps in the corridor and an insistent knocking on the bedchamber door interrupted him. "Master Jacerryl! Master Jacerryl!"
A servant—and not the perfidious chambermaid who had let them in! Tycho flinched. "What is it?" he demanded hastily, trying to imitate Jacerryl's voice. He leaped back to the bed and began bouncing on it vigorously. "Didn't Folco tell you I was busy?" He almost had to shout over the creaking wood.
The servant didn't go away. "I'm very sorry to bother you, sir, but it's Mistress Laera. She's not in her rooms."
"Maybe she's stepped out for the evening!"
"Sir?"
As he opened his mouth, searching desperately for something to say that would get rid of the servant, Jacerryl moved. Both legs hammered out at Li. The Shou twisted, but one of Jacerryl's boots connected anyway, a solid kick to the groin. Li choked and staggered back, doubled over. Jacerryl was screaming the instant Li's hand left his throat. "Get help, you moron! I'm being attacked! Get help!"
He thrust himself up out of the chair. Tycho bounced up, jumping between him and the door. Jacerryl just turned the other way and darted for a second door. Li grabbed for him, but he dodged Li's outstretched hand. Growling, Li leaped closer—a heartbeat too late. Jacerryl, still howling for help, slammed the door in his face. Behind Tycho, the door to the corridor burst open and the servant rushed into the room. Tycho spun around, flung up a hand and sang a rough burst of song at him.
The magic caught the servant, sending him falling back in a daze. The damage had been done, though. Tycho could hear other voices out in the hall, raising the alarm. "Li!" he shouted.
The Shou wasn't listening. Shoulder leading, he hurled himself at the door through which Jacerryl had fled. Wood
splintered and Li stormed through. Tycho shot a glance at the open door to the hallway, cursed, and went after him.
The chamber next door was some kind of sitting room with hunting trophies, art, and polished weapons displayed on the walls. Coals smoldered in the fireplace, shedding a thick, red light into the room. There was another door, presumably leading back out to the hallway. Li had Jacerryl down on the floor halfway to it. Jacerryl's screams had turned into broken whimpering as Li bashed his face against the rich carpet that covered the floor. "Enough, Li!" ordered Tycho. They weren't going to get any more out of Jacerryl. "We have to get out!" Li snarled and slapped Jacerryl across the back of his head one last time and jumped to his feet.
There was a window. Tycho grabbed a chair and swung it. Little panes of glass shattered. Lead bent. He swung the chair again and the window burst out entirely, letting night air swirl into the room. Tycho let the chair drop and leaned out through the wreckage. The lower roof of the library where he had given Laera her lessons sloped about six feet below; the ground was an easy drop from its lower edge. He swung his legs over the sill, ready to jump. "Follow me, Li!"
No response. He glanced over his shoulder.
The Shou was frozen, staring at something on the wall.
"Li!"
***
"Li!" Tycho's shout came from a distance.
Mounted on the wall of Jacerryl's sitting room, a pair of swords shone dully in the dim light. Their blades were short, only about as long as his hand and forearm, but
wide. They had been sharpened only on one side, the edge curving up at the end to meet the back of the blade. Heavy guards also curved around leather-wrapped grips and extended up beside the back of the blade, a trap to catch and hold an opponent's weapon.
Delicately etched at the base of each blade was a single Shou character.
Li reached up and wrenched the swords off the wall. He whirled to stare at a cringing Jacerryl. "Where did you get these?"
"I bought them!" , "Where?"
"From the Hooded! He trades exotic weapons!"
"Li!" yelled Tycho. He was halfway out of a shattered window. "Come on!"
Servants were pouring into the recently vacated bed chamber. The door from the sitting room to the hall opened as well. More servants stood framed in the doorway. Tycho pushed off from the sill, dropping out of sight. Li slapped both swords into one hand and leaped for the window, shoving himself through and jumping down to the roof below. Slate tiles cracked and slid under his feet; he staggered and barely managed to stop himself from sliding as well. Tycho was crouched at the edge of the roof. He gestured for him to follow then turned and slithered backward over the edge, letting himself down slowly before dropping. Li scuttled carefully after him and peered over. Tycho stood in the snow below. "Hurry!"
"Catch these!" Li reached out and dropped the swords. Tycho gasped and flinched back then dodged forward again. Li didn't wait to see if he had the swords, but just slid down backward as Tycho had done. He caught a brief glimpse of servants peering out through
The Yellow Silk • m
the broken window above before he let go and dropped, rolling as he hit snow. Tycho grabbed his arm as he came to his feet and dragged him off into the shadows at a run.
They didn't stop until they were back in Spandeliyon's middle town and Tycho collapsed against a wall. "Here," he wheezed, "take your stupid knives. I hope they're worth almost getting caught!" He thrust the blades at him and bent over with his hands on his knees, sucking in deep breaths of air.
"They're not knives. They're swords. Butterfly swords. Shou weapons." Li wrapped his hands around the grips. He raised first the right then the left. "This one is Silkworm. This one is Mulberry Leaf."
Tycho looked up at him. "They have names?"
"These do." Li lowered the weapons and stared at them. "They were Yu Mao's!"