Ulin saw movement through the crowd and realized the guards were coming to break up the fight. Hurrying, he dragged Kethril to his feet and pulled his arm across his shoulders. “Let’s go. You’ve had enough fun for one evening,” he said loudly.
The gambler glared at him blearily. His neat, fastidiously clean clothes were covered with sawdust, dirt, and dark patches of spilled beer. The eye patch had slipped, exposing a bloodshot eye, and the other eye was beginning to swell. “Who are you?” he groaned.
Ulin smiled wickedly and did not answer. He held the man’s arm tighter and twisted it behind Kethril’s back as the gambler started to struggle. He dragged Lucy’s father forward through the crowd toward the door. Patrons laughed and made ribald comments about the drunken state of the filthy Khur.
Two guards suddenly blocked Ulin’s way. “What’s going on here?” one demanded. Short swords appeared in their hands.
“You’re a little late,” Ulin remarked. He kept his voice casual and his expression inoffensive. “My companion here had a disagreement with Feddor over there. It’s over, and I’m taking him to sleep it off.”
“And who are you? We’ve never seen you here before,” said the second guard.
“Of course you have. I’ve been here for hours.”
The guards looked confused. In a moment the bartender came through the press of customers to join them. “This Khur is a good customer of mine,” he declared to Ulin. “I don’t want him in no trouble. What are you doing with him?”
“I’m his future son-in-law,” Ulin replied in all honesty. “His daughter sent me to find him. She’s the new sheriff of Flotsam.” A sudden surge of pride at those words took him by surprise. He savored its flavor.
“The sorceress that killed all those draconians?” the bartender asked, impressed. “And you will take him home like that?”
Ulin shrugged. “He would not come before. Would you, honored father?”
The gambler made no reply-not that he could. He had passed out completely, and his entire weight sagged against Ulin’s side, causing the younger man to stagger.
Ulin was beginning to feel dizzy himself from the small amount of powder he had handled on the coins. It was time to go before Notwen was forced to deal with two large unconscious men.
“Need some help?” one of the guards offered.
Relieved, Ulin transferred some of Kethril to the guard, and together they hauled him out the door. Notwen scooted ahead and made it back to the boat in time to light a lantern and fire up the boiler. He was waiting when Ulin and the guard carried Kethril onto the boat and dumped him on the deck. After commenting on the odd little boat, the guard accepted Ulin’s generous tip and headed jauntily back to the Golden Carp.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Ulin scooped out a pail of river water and plunged his hands in. “Wash your hands quickly,” he told Notwen. “That powder is potent.”
The gnome obliged, and for good measure he dumped the bag of copper, gold, and silver coins in the water and washed those, too. “What is this powder? How did you get it on the coins so fast?”
Ulin dumped the used water and scooped out another, which he poured over his head to help counter-act the dizziness that still swirled in his brain. “I may be a lousy card player, but I was a good mage, and I learned a few tricks from my uncle Raistlin.” He didn’t realize the significance of what he’d said until he shook his head and opened his eyes to see Notwen staring at him with bulging eyes.
“Raistlin was your uncle? The finest, most mysterious archmage in Krynn was your uncle? Then you must be a-”
“A Majere, yes,” Ulin finished for him. “But not here. In this realm I am only Ulin from Solace.”
Notwen drew a long shivery breath. “Oh, yes, of course. No one shall hear of it from me, but … wow. Sheriff Lucy must be something special if she is going to marry you.”
Ulin chewed his lip and rubbed his aching temples. “I’m thinking it is the other way around.”
They poled the Second Thoughts away from the bank and pointed her bow downstream. While Notwen steered, Ulin dragged Kethril over to the side and tied his hands to the rail. He searched the man’s clothes from collar to boots and pulled out an array of small weapons, loaded dice, a few odd coins, and a well-worn medallion of white gold bearing an image of a man with two faces. Ulin felt the telltale tingle of magic from the medallion, and he smiled with certain relish while he removed the medallion from Kethril’s neck.
The transformation happened immediately. The dark hair and beard faded to dark blond grizzled with gray, the skin lightened to a well-worn tan, and the craggy features smoothed into a handsome visage with a long, straight nose and a broad upper lip. The sleeping man did not move a muscle as Ulin tossed the medallion, the weapons, and the dice overboard.
The night was quite dark, for there was no moon and a new ceiling of cloud obscured the sky. Far to the northwest, lightning flickered in sheets through a dense bank of darkness. The wind had died to a breathless stillness that hung heavy on the muggy air and did nothing to discourage the hordes of mosquitoes. As long as the paddleboat chugged down the river, the numbers of biters stayed tolerable, but the moment the boat stopped at the mouth of the marsh, clouds of insects moved in. Ulin and Notwen debated the wisdom of navigating through the maze of sandbars and twisting channels at night, then decided against it. They did not know the channels well enough to risk the passage. They moored the boat in a backwater and closed the shutters and door of the cabin. Ulin took pity on Kethril and moved him into the meager shelter of the cabin and covered him with a blanket. The cabin was hot and stuffy and not entirely insect-proof, but it was better than sleeping in a cloud of blood-sucking, stinging mosquitoes.
Near dawn, a brief thunderstorm moved through in a gust of wind and a few rumbles of thunder. The rain pounded on the roof of the cabin for about half an hour before it moved on to blow itself out over the bay. By the time it left, the mosquitoes had sought refuge elsewhere, and a rising sun slowly bleached away the night.
Ulin and Notwen got underway early, for they wanted to stop at Dead Pirate’s Cove for supplies and more fuel. With luck and some good weather, they hoped to be back in Flotsam late the next day, two days at the latest.
The morning was fresh and still pleasant after the rain, and the river’s current ran toward the bay as the tide swept out to sea. Kethril showed a few reluctant signs of consciousness, so Ulin dragged him back into the sunshine and tied him to the railing.
He tied the last knot and was straightening when Kethril’s eyes peeled open and revealed irises as green and vivid as Lucy’s. The gambler squinted up at Ulin. “You have ruined my reputation at the Golden Carp,” he said in slow, painfully enunciated words.
“Oh, I doubt it,” Ulin said cheerfully. “From what I’ve heard of your reputation, there was nothing there to ruin.”
The man groaned and tried to move, only to discover his hands were tied. He stared blearily around at the marsh and the boat and finally leveled a glare back at Ulin. “Where am I? And what is that infernal racket?”
Ulin squatted beside him. “You are on the Second Thoughts, bound for Flotsam. That racket is the engine. If you really want to know more about it, I’ll send Notwen the gnome around to tell you all about it.”
“A gnome!” Kethril moaned. “Oh, gods, spare me. My head is fit to burst. That chatterbox would finish me off.” He paused and blinked a few times as if assessing what Ulin had told him. “Why am I here? What is the meaning of tying me up like this?”