Lucy’s face paled then grew hot. She knew her father was underhanded and self-centered, but she never thought he would stoop to robbing an entire town.
“How do you know he was involved?” she asked.
“One of his cohorts identified him as the ringleader. Unfortunately, that thief died from his injuries sustained in the fire.” Challie crossed her arms and added, “The explosion was not intentional.”
Ulin cleared his throat. “I understand,” he said, “Your anger and concern with the robbery and your desire to identify this body. But surely there are people in that town you mentioned-Dead Pirate’s Cove-who could have known Torkay missed part of his finger. Why did you have to bring us all the way from Solace?”
Saorsha sighed deeply and, with an effort, pushed herself to her feet. She straightened her back and faced Lucy and Ulin. “There probably are people there who know Kethril that well, but we need more than someone to identify him. We need help.”
Ulin did not like the sound of that. There were too many nuances, too many possible things that could go wrong in those three simple words. His gold eyes darkened under his lowered brows.
Challie read his expression correctly and took up the tale in her cool, unemotional tone. “The money stolen was the collected taxes and tribute due to our overlord, Malys, money that will soon be collected by her tax collector, the red dragon known as Fyremantle.”
Ulin’s brows dropped into a deep frown. “Another red dragon.”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Challie confirmed. “He is one of Malys’s underlings. If he doesn’t destroy the town, Malys will-unless we pay the tribute.”
“When are the taxes due?” Lucy wanted to know.
“In three weeks. On-”
The date clicked into place in the puzzle of the conversation Lucy had had with the Committee two nights before. “On Visiting Day,” she said, cutting off the dwarf.
“Yes,” Saorsha sighed. “That is our annual tax day.”
Ulin felt the spectre of disaster looming over his shoulder. He thought he had a very good idea where this conversation was leading and it made his stomach crawl. “Do you have the amount due?” he asked quietly.
Saorsha said, “Of course not. Oh, we have the taxes from the last four months but it is not nearly enough to make up for the missing funds. This is not a prosperous town. We scrimped and saved for eight months just to put together the amount demanded by the Overlord.”
Lucy looked horrified. “That’s why you wanted me to be sheriff? To face Malys and tell her you don’t have the taxes?”
“Oh, the gods forbid, no, Miss Lucy!” Mayor Efrim climbed to his feet. “As Saorsha said, we really do need help. We just thought … we hoped … if this wasn’t your father, maybe you would be decent enough to help us find him. We still have three weeks. If we could find him or the stolen funds, we could still make our deadline.”
“How do you know if the daughter of Kethril Torkay is decent enough? How do you know I might be willing, or even capable enough, to help you? How did you know he even has a family?” Lucy demanded, her voice rising. Her good eye turned that stormy shade of green Ulin had learned to respect.
The council members looked at one another in resignation. “When we heard from a good friend of Kethril’s that he had a grown daughter in the Academy of Sorcery, we had Challie check into it,” Mayor Efrim replied. “We are desperate, Miss Lucy. We are willing to go to any lengths to save this town.”
A silence settled over the group. Lucy stood too stunned to say more. No one moved. Only Notwen shifted from foot to foot and watched the scene with fascinated eyes.
Lucy finally wavered and dropped into another empty chair. “Ulin,” she said wearily, “what do we do now?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
" I’m happy you asked me,” Notwen said, beaming up at the tall, lanky man.
Ulin didn’t feel he should say there wasn’t anything else better to do, so he returned a cooler version of the gnome’s smile and replied, “Saorsha told me you could show me the treasury.”
The gnome, mindful of Mayor Efrim’s constant reprimands, tried to speak his words slowly and deliberately so the human could understand. “There really isn’t much left of it, but I’d be happy to show you the ruins.”
They had met at the foot of the Rock near the wharves at noon. It was another cloudless, sunny, hot day in Flotsam, and Ulin was out of sorts. He and Lucy had argued quietly and at length since they left the city hall the day before. Lucy refused to leave without some due thought to her father’s alleged villainy and Flotsam’s predicament. Ulin just wanted to pack and go before things got worse. If he could have firmly believed the city council was telling them the truth and if he had been alone, he would have given serious thought to offering help. But Lucy was with him, and he had a bad feeling about all of this. Two dragons, missing taxes, robbery, death, and citizens who couldn’t seem to keep their story straight. He had a hard time believing they’d send someone all the way to Solace just to look for a relative of the thief on the vague chance that person might help out of a sense of second-hand guilt.
Akkar-bin offered them a place in the caravan returning to Khuri-Khan, but, to Ulin’s disgust, Lucy turned him down. The Khurish caravan left that morning, and Ulin had watched it go, his thoughts worried and unhappy. Their one sure mode of transportation and armed escort had moved on without them, and no one in this forsaken dump of a town seemed to know when the next caravan would arrive.
Feeling surly, Ulin walked around the streets of Flotsam for hours until a short, white-haired figure wandered into his path. Saorsha’s comment came to mind. Hot, tired, and bored, Ulin decided to ask the gnome about the burned treasury.
Notwen turned toward the docks and took Ulin around the harbor road toward the barracks. Ulin was startled then dubious when Notwen led him though the large double doors of the city hall and into the main corridor. No one had mentioned the treasury was in this building. But the gnome kept walking past the office of the mayor, down the corridor, through the great hall, and out a back hallway to a walled courtyard.
“This is the old prison and work yard,” Notwen explained as he trotted into the hot sun. “It was built by the dragonarmy years ago. It’s only accessible through the barracks.”
Ulin looked around. The prison was a one-story stone building with barred windows and a single entrance. There were no prisoners inhabiting the damp, cramped cells-only spiders and cockroaches the size of rats. The only impressive aspect of the building was the fact it was still standing.
“The treasury is, uh, was over here.” The gnome showed Ulin to the corner of the courtyard opposite the prison. The damage quickly became apparent. What looked like a shadowed doorway into the building under the wall walk proved to be a doorless entrance into a gutted room, scorched and scored by a powerful blast. The floor had collapsed into a deep pit eight to ten feet deep, and the inner dividing walls had been burned away, destroying part of the old kennels and a bake house.
The smell of burned wood and stone permeated the narrow room, as well as an odd smell that reminded Ulin of something he couldn’t place. A thin chill crept up his back. This blackened room reminded him too much of the ruins of the Academy of Sorcery after the attack of Beryl’s minions. He shoved that thought aside and stepped into the room. He was both impressed by the thieves’ audacity and puzzled by their methods. He studied the room carefully from blackened ceiling to collapsed floor, while Notwen moved cautiously around the edge of the pit and examined the walls from behind his large spectacles.