Mistshore

by Jaleigh Johnson

  Casting a quick glance around to make sure he wasn’t being watched, Relvenar huddled down and crawled under the loose canvas. Outside in the clear air, the smell of the rank harbor hit him square in the nose.

  Relvenar brushed a hand in front of his face, as if he could banish the stench. He shivered in the cold night air. “Didn’t think you were going to show,” he said to the figure leaning casually against a wood piling. The man stood easily, his arms crossed over his stomach, unbothered by the cold and the stench. He did not look happy. But then, Relvenar had never seen Ruen Morleth wear any expression except for a kind of blank coldness.

  It’s the man’s eyes, Relvenar thought. There’s too much wrong with them.

  “Is she here?” Morleth said.

  “Came in right after opening,” Relvenar said. “Her and a big fellow. Keeps pretty close watch.”

  “How unfortunate for your cut-purses.” Morleth produced a folded bit of parchment from inside his vest. “Send them to this location.”

  Relvenar took the parchment but didn’t look at it. “What if they don’t want to go? I’m not forcing any trouble in my establishment. If folk don’t feel safe, they won’t come back. I’ll have to close down.”

  “I have a difficult time imagining your clientele feeling ‘safe’ anywhere in Mistshore,” Morleth said. “Don’t worry. These two are lambs; they’ll go wherever you tell them. They want to find me.” For a moment, Relvenar thought he read amusement in the man’s features. Morleth turned, his worn boots making no sound on the platform.

  He’s almost too frail to be a proper thief, Relvenar thought. Light on his feet, but it’s like he’s a wisp. All bone, hair that’s as fine as dark spider’s silk…. The lass was the same way. They both looked like brittle spiders, apt to break in a harsh wind.

  “I wish the lass luck handling you,” Relvenar said, and bit his lip when Morleth paused. He looked back at Relvenar, holding his gaze until Relvenar shifted uncomfortably and looked away. When he looked back, Morleth was gone.

  “Just like a spider,” Relvenar muttered, shivering in distaste.

  Cerest paced the dark street behind his home. The night was slipping away. Where were they?

  He had already entertained a visit from a Watch patrol, and endured a polite but firm summons issued by the little bitch in charge. He was to give testimony against Icelin Tearn, before the Watch commander of Waterdeep himself!

  Cerest knew they could have nothing with which to charge him. His men had been careful. The trails he’d left pointed to Icelin as a thief and now a murderer.

  But what if he was wrong? Cerest leaned against the wall of the alley, his hands rubbing reflexively over his scars. The puckered texture of the burns helped to focus him, to remind him of how far he’d come.

  All he had to do was find Icelin. Once he had her, he could leave the city if necessary. Baldur’s Gate was thriving and swelling with more folk by the day. He and Icelin could start over there, disappear into the crowded cityscape, and make their fortune.

  Everything would be exactly as it was before. When Elgreth had been alive, Cerest had had bright hopes for his future prominence in Waterdeep. Elgreth and his family were going to take him all the way to the circles of nobility. Even when he’d been scarred, Cerest hadn’t been afraid of being shunned. He’d held onto the hope that Elgreth would save him… But then the man died, and all Cerest’s dreams had died with him.

  No. He wouldn’t let it end tonight. He would find Icelin and make her understand the kind of man Elgreth was, and all that he owed Cerest. She would pay his debt, or he would kill her for raising his hopes all over again.

  The crunch of booted feet broke the stillness. Cerest tilted his head to the right to hone in on the sound.

  Ristlara strode out of the shadows, her golden hair caught up in a black scarf. Behind her stood four men of various heights, shapes, and degrees of armament.

  “You’re late,” Cerest said.

  “How would you know, standing there so oblivious to all the night?” Ristlara sniffed. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive, Cerest.” She nodded at the men. “We had to move slowly, in smaller groups. We’ll meet at a location I’ve designated, if you’re prepared?”

  “I am.” Cerest pulled up the hood of his cloak. “You told them Mistshore?”

  She glanced sidelong at him. “Yes. Shenan will be there to meet us. Are you certain your information is accurate?”

  “It is.” What coin Cerest hadn’t spent on his garden, he’d used to garner information from one of the low ranks in the Watch. His pride wouldn’t let him confess the amount to Ristlara. The Watch was notoriously hard to bribe. They acted swiftly and decisively to cull betrayers from their midst.

  He hadn’t been able to get Icelin’s exact destination, but the thick-head he’d spoken to had been savvy enough to know that many eyes were turning closely to Mistshore this night. All that remained was for Ristlara and Shenan’s muckrakers to find her out, wherever she was hiding.

  “How many did you bring?” he asked Ristlara as they walked, slipping from shadow to shadow on the broad street.

  “As many as you could afford,” Ristlara said. At Cerest’s scowl, she added, “With you, Greyas, Shenan, and I, we are twelve strong. I’ve divided everyone into groups of four. Our searches will be more effective that way, given the layout of Mistshore. All the ‘muckrakers’ are human, so Icelin will not see them coming this time.”

  “Good,” Cerest said. He remembered poor Melias and felt a flare of regret. If they were to work together, Cerest would have to teach Icelin control and restraint. He’d done it before, when those that served him had first witnessed the extent of his scars. Icelin had already demonstrated she could look at him without seeing the marks. There would be plenty of time for her to learn what else pleased and displeased him.

  CHAPTER 6

  Icelin sat on the floor across from Sull, who nursed ale in a glass the length of his forearm.

  Working Ruen’s dice between her fingers, Icelin said, “I think we should join them.” She nodded to a pair of men throwing dice near the rear of the tent. A third man stood beside a painted board with chalk markings. The dice clattered off the board, with one man hurling curses at the numbers, while the other threw back more ale and collected the pile of coins on the floor.

  The other tent patrons were more subdued, playing cards or huddling in circles with their own drinks. Lamplight glowed all over the room. Icelin’s eyes were already watering from the smoke and the stench of so many unwashed bodies packed into the close quarters.

  Sull eyed the dicers. “How do you want to play this, lass?”

  “Try the game, I suppose,” Icelin said. “Might be we’ll have to give them some coin before they’ll help us.”

  “Do you even know their game?” Sull asked skeptically.

  “I’ve been watching,” Icelin said. She yielded to the smoke and closed her eyes. “They roll pairs. Highest roller gets to buy points on the board—one copper per point, up to two.” She opened her eyes and pointed to the dice board, where the man running the game was putting up marks with a stubby piece of chalk. “He can use those points to add or subtract from his next roll. Lowest roller that round picks a target number. They both roll again. The closest person to that number wins the pot. But if the winner isn’t the man with the points, the low roller gets the pot plus all the copper his opponent spent on points to the runner—the man at the board. Side bets could be—”

  Sull thunked his glass on the floor. “You could tell all that from across the room?”

  “I memorized the numbers being rolled,” Icelin said. “The rest was just putting together the rules of the game.”

  “They’ve been rollin’ since we came in. How many numbers did you memorize?”

  “All of them.”

  Sull nodded slowly. “Is this somethin’ you do often, breakin’ down dice games for your own amusement?”

  “Not if I can help it,” Icelin s
aid. The numbers were already crowding her head, putting a dull ache at her temples. She rubbed them absently. “The problem is that I memorize everything I see and hear. I can’t not.”

  Sull raised an eyebrow. “How long have you had this gift?”

  A gift. That’s what everyone called it. Icelin was long past being amused by the notion. “Almost ten years now.”

  It had also been ten years since the headaches started. The blinding, heavy pain came whenever she was in a crowd, or had too many facts vying for space in her head. Schooling had been a chore. Brant had taken on the task of teaching her himself, but they’d had to move slowly. She was quick and eager to learn, but there was only so much information she could be exposed to in a day, before the load threatened to overwhelm her.

  Not until she started studying the Art did she discover how to bind away the information in her mind. Nelzun, her teacher, had shown her how, and had saved her going mad from the constant headaches.

  It turned out storing information was no different than storing a spell once you’d memorized it from a book. Icelin had simply set aside a specific place in her mind for the facts to rest until they were needed.

  “Picture your mind as a vast library,” Nelzun had described it at the time.

  “No vault can hold all of what rattles around in my head,” she’d complained. But her teacher had only smiled indulgently.

  “Once you have walked the halls of Candlekeep, with permanent wide eyes and slackening of the jaw, you may feel quite different,” he’d said. “But let us stay in more familiar territory. Picture a building like your great-uncle’s shop, but with an infinite number of levels.

  “Follow a winding stair, up and up until you reach the place where magic dwells. Can you see it? Be playful, be mysterious, whatever suits your nature.”

  Icelin remembered squirming. “But I don’t see how—”

  “A red, plush carpet, so soft you can sink your feet right in.” Her teacher had carried on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Gold brocade curtains that shine in the sunlight, a fireplace covering an entire wall. And on the others: row upon row of bookshelves—empty now—but soon to be filled with the wonders of the Art. Everything you will ever learn or discover will be housed on these shelves.

  “Picture a large wingback chair with leather cushions. Draw it before the fire and find upon the seat a single book—a very old, worn tome. The leather is cracked, the pages heavily browned by fingerprints of students who long ago became masters. Open the book. See what secrets lie inside.”

  When Icelin had opened her eyes, her teacher had presented her with a book exactly like the one he’d just described. It was to become her first and only spellbook. Icelin had been fascinated, and had loved her teacher from that day on. She would have done anything, mastered any spell, to please him.

  Better that she’d never opened that imaginary room in her mind. She hated the thought of it now.

  “Come on,” she said to Sull. Distraction was better than a locked door for keeping memories at bay. “We’re wasting time.”

  She approached the group of dicers and cleared her throat. No one paid her any heed. She cast a pointed look at Sull.

  “New player, lads!” the butcher boomed.

  Three heads turned to regard Icelin with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.

  Hesitantly, Icelin let her hood fall back and held out Ruen’s dice. Suddenly she didn’t feel so confident. She felt exposed, naked under the gazes of the rough men.

  She cleared her throat again so her voice would be steady. “I’ve been told these are lucky dice,” she said. “Do you gentleman mind if I throw with them?”

  “No outsiders,” one of the men snarled. “You throw our bones or none, girl, ‘less you’d like a private game.” He leered at her.

  Sull stepped forward, but the man who’d been chalking the board spoke up.

  “You’re not welcome at this game,” he said, watching Icelin closely. His eyes fell on the dice she held. “You should try the shore. There’s a woman there, prostitute named Fannie Beblee. Give your dice to her. She’ll get you what you need.”

  “My thanks,” Icelin said, and to Sull, “Let’s go.”

  The men resumed their game while she and Sull headed for the tent flap. She glanced back once and saw the man in the red coat watching them from behind the makeshift bar. He looked away quickly.

  When they were outside, Sull said, “Awfully accommodatin’ fellows. Oh yes, I feel much more secure under their direction.”

  “You think it’s a trap?” Icelin said dryly.

  “I think I won’t be puttin’ my cleavers away any time soon,” Sull said.

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious?” Icelin asked, picking her way along the unstable wooden path to the shore. “About this Fannie Beblee? Or Ruen Morleth?”

  “Least it gets us to shore,” Sull said, “and off this stinkin’ water.”

  “And we’ll be able to fight better on land, assuming it is a trap,” Icelin said.

  “Now you’re thinkin’.” Sull clapped her on the back.

  The shore, for all its stability, was not in much better shape than the floating parts of Mistshore.

  Crude tents and lean-tos had been erected all along the shoreline. There must have been hundreds of the structures. Fires crackled in crudely dug pits, for there was little to burn here. In most cases a pot or spit hung over the flames. The meat on them was meager, consisting of rodents or small fish.

  The people moved around in a sort of forced communal camp, talking or sleeping, huddled together for warmth. Icelin heard snores, hushed whispers, and a baby wailing in the distance.

  She bent to speak to the nearest woman, who was stirring a pot of fat white beans in a watery broth. The lumpy mixture and its smell turned Icelin’s stomach.

  “I beg pardon, but I’m looking for someone,” she said.

  The woman ignored her and kept stirring the pot. The slow, rhythmic task absorbed her entire attention. Icelin might as well have been a fly buzzing in the air.

  Sull put in, “Her name’s Fannie. She’s a friend of mine—”

  Tinkling coins interrupted him. Icelin had pulled two silver pieces—nearly all of her remaining coin—from her neck pouch, drawing the woman’s gaze from the pot as if by a mind charm.

  “She’s a prostitute,” Icelin said, handing the woman the silver. “Fannie Beblee.”

  The woman curled her fingers in a claw around the coins. She pointed with her spoon to a spot south along the shore where two fires burned, one next to the other, then went back to stirring. The tents behind them were tied shut.

  “Thank you,” Icelin said. She straightened, but Sull remained kneeling next to the woman. Her expression had not altered throughout the whole exchange. Her eyes were lifeless, rimy pools sucked down in wrinkled, parchmentlike skin.

  “We have to go, Sull.”

  The butcher reached into his apron and pulled out a small wrapped packet. He tore one end off and emptied the contents into the woman’s soup pot.

  The woman’s stirring hand froze. She gazed up at Sull with a mixture of fear and hope swimming in her eyes.

  “Not poison,” Sull said, “but salt. Keep stirrin’, and add this to the mix when it’s ready.” He drew out another packet and handed it to her. “Pepper grounds, and a few other spices I added to make a seasonin’. Works for potato chowder, so why not beans?”

  But the woman didn’t seem to be listening to him. She opened the second packet and touched her tongue to the edge to taste the spices. Her eyes filled with tears. She seized Sull’s hand and kissed it.

  Sull’s face turned bright red. “Oh, er, you’re welcome.” He stood up quickly, tripping over his own feet.

  Icelin took the big man’s arm to steady him, and they drew away from the fire. For a time, neither spoke.

  “I would never have thought to do that,” Icelin said. “I would never have guessed that she’d want spices. I just assumed coin would move her.�
��

  “Coin’s more valuable, but easily stolen,” Sull said. “Salt and pepper don’t amount to much, but if I’d been eatin’ that bean slop for as long as she has—and I’ll wager my stock of good steaks that’s all she gets—I’d be cryin’ for somethin’ to flavor it with.”

  “You really enjoy cooking, don’t you?” Icelin said. They’d reached the closed tents, but she hesitated to approach. She felt like an intruder.

  “Always have,” Sull said. “My father taught me to hunt game. This was, oh, long before we came to Waterdeep, and my mother let me watch the right way of preparin’ it. She was forever making up her own recipes. Lot of them amounted to a burnt tongue and watery eyes, but she could make some of those dishes sing. I learnt all the best fixins from her.”

  “Does she still cook?” Icelin asked.

  Sull shook his head. “Ah, she died. Year or so after we came here. Birthed a second son for my father, but she was too old for it, and she didn’t live to see ’im. The little one followed her.”

  Icelin nodded. “I’m sorry. What about your father?”

  “He found another wife and lives, still,” Sull said, “but doesn’t know much of where he is or who he is, most days. He’ll be gone by the winter, I think.” He nodded to the tent flap. “You can’t put this off forever, lass. Best get it over with.”

  “You’re right.” Reluctantly, Icelin approached the closest tent. She called out, “Fannie Beblee. Are you in there?”

  For a breath or two, there was no movement or response from within the tent. Then the cloth flap shuddered and was torn aside by a small brown hand.

  The woman who peeked out was so tanned Icelin could barely distinguish her from the darkness of the tent. She peered at Icelin through muddy brown eyes. Her hair hung in graying, lank halves from a part in the center of her scalp. Sand grains sparkled in the tangled locks.

  An angry dust devil, Icelin thought.

  “Did you call Fannie Beblee?” The woman spoke in a rush, shoving the two names into one.

  “I did,” Icelin said, stepping forward. “We were sent here from the Dusk and Dawn. I have something to give you.”