Prior to their arrival, they had "requisitioned" a loaded clothesline behind a noble estate. Now the whole crew was dressed in the fine, flowing clothes favored by the natives of Eldrinpar. After changing, they sought a safe tavern where they could rest and eat. The first two places, hung with huge signs and overflowing with patrons, were vetoed by Ingrar. He said they smelled metallic, like death.
They all had had enough death for one day.
The tavern where they ended up looked, on the outside, like nothing at all. Its walls were flaking adobe, its windows draped with tattered curtains. It seemed more a collection of slumping hovels than a safe house. Still, Ingrar swore by the aroma of the place-comfortable coolness beneath ragged eaves. He was right. Venturing through a vacant outer room, the company came to a fine establishment, patronized exclusively by elite Mar.
While any pub in the Heartlands would center around a hearth, this cafe centered on an open-air courtyard that held a tranquil pool. The eaves over the pool were high and broad, providing shade and secrecy from the eyes of flying things. The walls were more window than wall, letting restless sea winds shift among the beams.
The pool was a kind of urban oasis, edged in azure tile and surrounded by swaying palms and trailing vines. Tables were hidden among the dense growth so that patrons had a sense of seclusion. The secret cafe was, in a word, inviting.
The owner, at first, was not. The light-skinned pirates and white-skinned Noph made him very nervous. Ffolk rarely came to this secret spot, and never in the company of Mar. For some moments after their arrival, the owner flitted around like a catbird hosting cats. When his initial panic wore off, he decided to treat these guests like royalty. Dangerous royalty. They were seated at the best table, promised the finest ales and the fattest cuts of meat, and told it all was on the house. The pirates greedily accepted.
Seated in the cool shade of a gently breathing palm, the battle-torn company was finally at ease. As they drank the first round of thin, sharp-edged ale, they began to feel downright talkative. Noph, seated between voluptuous Shar and algid Entreri, was the most talkative of all.
"What was that fellow's name? The one with all the scars? The one we hid in the crate, dockside?"
The faces of the pirates grew grave.
Shar leaned heavily back in her seat and folded arms over her chest. A warm fragrance came from her and wafted around Noph. "His name was Anvil-well, really Jolloth Burbuck. He was a veteran of many battles. A stalwart seaman. A good friend."
The faces around the table were long. Even Entreri wore a tired look.
Noph ventured, "Then doesn't he deserve a decent burial?"
"Tonight," Shar said. Her eyes turned on Noph as though she were hurt by his insinuation. "Well go back to the dock and bury him at sea." Her look hardened. "More important, we'll kill that Jacob fellow for him. Only then will he really rest."
"You know, when my best friend Harloon died-" Noph paused, biting his lip "-the paladins wanted to just leave him lying on the bank of the river, beside a dead ettin."
"Typical," snorted the dwarf, Rings. "They've no love for anybody. They're too busy being good."
"I'm glad to be rid of them," Noph said, lifting the sloshing dregs of his first-ever ale. The ruddy faces of the pirates around him warmed, and he took it as encouragement. "A bunch of primps, so worried they might sully a sleeve they never get around to being really noble."
"You're preaching to the converted, boy," Rings responded, not unkindly.
"Prancing paladins," Belgin said bitterly. He was a rakishly classy man, his clothes a cut above the rest of the party's. "Paladins're stiff where a body's supposed to be loose, and loose where a body's supposed to be stiff. Unnatural creatures." He punctuated his soliloquy with a deft movement of one hand, weaving his napkin through the tines of his fork.
"Exactly!" Noph enthused. "Hypocrites!"
"Not us," Belgin said, a sardonic smile on his face. With a snap of his fingers, the Sharker made the napkin slide from the fork and disappear into a silken sleeve. "We tell you ahead of time we're cheats and liars and scoundrels."
"So, how did you reach Eldrinpar?" Noph asked. "Surely you've got some swashbuckling tales."
Ingrar said, "Tales seem less thrilling when you've lived through them." He gestured at his blind eyes.
"Well, I had some adventures on the way," Noph said. "We fought our way through Undermountain-the realm of Halaster the Mad Mage-and then had to defeat an army of fiends to get to a portal, and then came face to face with the mage-king of Doegan, a creature that-"
"You want a story?" interrupted Shar. The sorrow was gone from her, and she leaned enticingly against Noph. He was surprised how warm and, well, flexible her leather tunic felt. "You want to know how we got here? You want a story to end all stories?"
"Well, at least a story to end my story," Noph said, blushing.
The others laughed, except for Entreri, who scowled at the young man. Shar noticed. She moved a thin arm snakelike along Noph's chest.
"All right, but be warned: We're cheats and scoundrels and liars," she purred. "Believe the particulars to your peril."
The word "peril" had never sounded so good. "I'm- I'm game."
"Yes, you are." Shar laughed lightly and cast a glance across Noph at the assassin. She idly stroked the blond fuzz that lined the young man's chin. "It all began with a fellow named Orim Redbeard, captain of the Black Dragon. He had taken a disliking to us Sharkers-"
"Sharkers?" Noph squeaked as he felt a certain presence beneath the table. He cleared his throat. "Wh-Who are the Sharkers?"
"Us. Crew members of the Kissing Shark, fabled ship of Blackfingers Ralingor. Redbeard had lots of reasons to hate us. First among them, though, was that we knew his beard was really white and only dyed with a mix of rust and milk."
"Your leaving him at the altar might have been another reason," added Rings dryly.
"Shut up. I'm telling this story," Shar advised. "Now, whatever his reasons, Redbeard was after Blackfingers and the Kissing Shark. He couldn't catch us, though. We can be… quite slippery when wet."
Noph gulped at that. "G-Go on."
Shar twined a finger through Noph's hair, but she was gazing directly at Entreri. "Some men are threatened by things they can't hold onto. Some try anything to keep their distance. Redbeard hired a sorcerer-a tiny twig of a man. What was his name? Winebreath Anglebutt?"
"Windborn Axlegrease?"
"Wimprod Antibody?"
"Something like that. Anyway, this Warthog Antfarm ran us aground near Tenteeth Point. The hull-six-inches of oak and hard as steel-was staved on the first spit of land and hooked by the second. Then the storm set to chewing us to pieces. And if that weren't enough, in comes Redbeard and his Black Dragon, and his mage holds them offshore-Redbeard wasn't seaman enough to do it in that storm-and they launched flaming ballistae at us."
"Fire arrows," broke in Entreri. "They were only fire arrows, of the very sort they used against the Morning Bird."
"A man such as you shouldn't quibble about size, Artemis," Shar replied elegantly, sneering past Noph. "These were ballistae if they weren't comets sent from Tempus himself. You don't know. You weren't there."
"I was," Entreri replied, as softly as before. "I watched as the seven of you survivors climbed to shore."
"You what?"
"Didn't you fight back?" interrupted Noph.
Shar managed to look both offended and stumped. "Fight back?" She glanced quickly to her comrades. "Sure, we fought back, didn't we? Belgin, tell the boy how we fought back."
"Well," he said, considering, "Shar, here, has a secret weapon… an exceptional secret weapon-"
"She's inflatable," Rings supplied in a rush.