She reached under the table and brought out a perfectly round glass bowl, clear and nearly flawless, and set it on a three-legged stand in front of her. As soon as the girl returned with a pitcher of water, she took the pitcher and poured its contents into the bowl. The girl quickly withdrew, and the three were left in silence.
Ulin sat still, his fingers steepled, his face devoid of any feeling or reaction. Notwen fidgeted in his chair, hoping for a closer look at the oracle glass. So far, all either of them could see was clear water.
The woman hummed to herself, her eyes on the glass, her hands flat on the table. She appeared to be deep in concentration on the interior of the bowl. “Young man,” she intoned at last. “You are more than you seem. You have lost much, yet your heart is strong. You are seeking … how intriguing. I see a dragon, a gold dragon. It carries you, but it weeps.”
Ulin’s fingers closed around each other in a grip so tight his knuckles turned white. “Is there more?” he asked in a strangled voice. “Can you tell me where he is?”
“No,” she said. “The oracle glass cannot be perfectly controlled. I only interpret those images that form. Let me try another.” She stirred up the water with a glass rod and waited for a new image. “Who else are you looking for? Perhaps a name?”
“Kethril Torkay.”
The fortune-teller clapped a hand over the glass and stared at her two customers. “Why are you looking for him?” she demanded.
“For the reason I told you. His family received a letter informing them of his death. They just want to know the truth.”
She relaxed slightly, and her hand moved from the bowl. “I see truth in your eyes. Besides, that lying knave did mention a wife and children somewhere. I thought he was just lying to get out of marrying me.” She smiled then, revealing large white teeth and a dimple on her powdered cheek. “This reading is free.” She stared back into the water. “I do not see a grave. There is a hole of some sort, an excavation perhaps, but no grave. He is in it, very much alive, moving boxes I think.”
Ulin pursed his lips, thinking about what she said. “Are these images of the past or the future?”
“Could be either. The oracle glass does not interpret time as we do.”
“So Kethril may be alive?”
“Probably.”
“Where do we find him?”
The woman shook her head. “That I cannot say. He has not been here for months. If he had visited me, he probably would be dead.”
Ulin snorted a laugh. “He certainly knows how to make friends.”
“That’s the problem. He does. He is the most charming, delectable man who ever crossed my threshold.” She sighed eloquently. “Also the most self-centered, untruthful, conniving rogue who ever set foot in Dead Pirate’s Cove, and that’s saying a great deal.” She tapped a fingernail on the glass and gazed thoughtfully at the tiny rings that spread across the water. “There is one possibility. He is an inveterate gambler. If he is still in the area, he could be sneaking over to the Golden Carp. It’s a riverboat used as a gaming tavern upriver. They move it whenever they feel the itch, so it could be anywhere along the river between here and Four Horse, where the river gets too shallow for boats. Maybe ten miles upstream.”
Ulin dropped a steel coin on the table. “Take it anyway, and thank you.”
Notwen bounced on his seat. “But what about me?”
She smiled at him. “Ah, I almost forgot. The gnome with the inventive mind.” She peered into her glass again. “You have a good friend here. I think he will save your life.” She shot a look at Notwen over the glass. “But beware a red dragon.”
Notwen barely heard her. He climbed up in his chair and peered over the glass. “What do you see? How do you summon these images? Is the power in you, the water, or the glass?”
The fortune-teller waggled a finger at him. “Oh, no. That’s giving away my secrets.” She lifted her glass away from his inquisitive hands. “Suffice to know that my images are reliable. It is up to you to find their worth.”
Ulin pulled Notwen away from the table and plopped him on the floor. They offered their thanks to the red-haired woman and made their way to the next establishment. For the rest of the day they talked to the citizens of Dead Pirate’s Cove, but no one could give them any more information on Kethril. The man had vanished from the settlement four months ago and not even the few people who called him friend knew where he was.
With only the sketchy information from the red-haired woman, Ulin and Notwen returned to the Loathly Dragon hungry, tired, and dispirited. They rested that night and early the next morning, they made their back to the Second Thoughts. Under the amused scrutiny of a dozen witnesses, they poled the boat backward until they could turn her toward the river, then they lit the boiler and got underway. Slowly, they steamed toward the mouth of the river.
The particular advantages of a shallow-drafted, broad-bottomed boat and a paddle wheel soon became apparent in the silt-filled waters of the river. The boat wove a tortuous route through the saltmarsh, past sandbars, mud flats, and banks of waving marsh grass. In many places the water was shallow even in high tide and barely passable with the paddle boat. A deep-keeled sailboat would never have made the passage.
Ulin steered the small boat while Notwen kept the boiler hot and the engine working. They made several wrong turns and had to work their way back to the main current, and twice Ulin had to jump out and pull armfuls of weed, dead grass, and muck from the blades of the paddle so it could turn without too much stress on the cogs and the engine. In spite of the extra miles, the Second Thoughts left the marsh behind shortly before nightfall and chugged slowly up the meandering river.
In this rugged, barren land, trees only grew along the river in a thin ribbon of green that barely screened the reds and browns of the eroded hills. The riverbanks lifted high above the water in some places and slid down into silt bars and beds of reeds in others. The water, what there was of it, was silty brown and sluggish. “Too thin to plow, too thick to drink,” was a common description in that region. About the only creatures who seemed to appreciate the river were the long-legged wading birds and the mosquitoes.
It was near full dark when Ulin and Notwen looked for a place to tie up for the night. The Second Thoughts chuffed around a bend, and Notwen was about to steer it toward a likely looking cove when Ulin’s head lifted and he gestured fiercely for Notwen to shut down the engine. Steam hissed from the relief valves, and gradually the little boat drifted into silence.
Ulin pointed ahead to a thick grove of willow and cottonwood shielding the next bend in the river. Barely seen through the new canopy of spring leaves, the yellow light of torches flickered.
Silently as possible, Ulin and Notwen poled the boat into the side cove, made her fast, and banked the fire. Together they slipped through the underbrush toward the lights until they could see through the trees to the riverbank beyond the curve. There sat a large, flat-bottomed boat anchored fore and aft in a broad, deep river hole. Lamps were already lit on the deck, and light shone through the portholes. Several men stood guard at the gangplank. It was the Golden Carp.
They swiftly worked their way back to the Second Thoughts and finalized their plans.
“He may not come. He may not even be around here,” Notwen pointed out while Ulin washed the mud off and changed his clothes.