Notwen sighed. “I’m sorry, Ulin. Really. We would have brought you down here if it was necessary. Unfortunately, we have to be really careful. The people around here know these tunnels are our only chance, but outsiders don’t. If Malys found out about this, she would blow this town apart.”
Ulin grudgingly accepted that. He knew the red dragon well enough to realize Notwen was right. “So what happened to the previous sheriff?”
The gnome tugged at his beard and did not answer at first. Finally, he told Ulin. “Fyremantle took exception to something he said and ate him. It was too bad, really. Sheriff Gorlain was a nice man.”
“What did the man say exactly?”
“I think it was ‘Fat chance.’ ”
“I’ll remind Lucy not to say that.”
The tunnel came to a junction. Notwen turned right and went down a short passage that ended at another stout door. When he opened it, Ulin discovered they had come to the secret room beneath the Jetties. The room was empty, so they climbed through the barrel into the storeroom and went upstairs to the kitchen. That room was empty, too, although a fire burned in the stove and pots hung over the gleaming coals.
Ulin and Notwen suddenly stiffened, for they heard what sounded like wails. Soft rending cries and hard voices filtered through the door and goaded them onward. Notwen yanked opened the kitchen door. Together they ran toward the common room where the sounds were emanating.
In disbelief they saw Bridget prostrate on the floor, her body racked with uncontrollable grief that tore out of her throat in unending cries of heartbreak. Aylesworthy and Cosmo knelt beside her trying vainly to comfort her. Challie sat in a chair close by, her shoulders slumped and her clothes filthy with mud, smokestains, and what looked like blood. She glanced up when Ulin and Notwen came in, and her usually dour expression crumpled into unaccustomed tears.
“He’s dead,” she said dully. “Pease is dead.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Master Aylesworthy closed the tavern in the Jetties early that night to hold a private wake for Pease. The city council came, as well as the Vigilance Committee, many members of the Vigilance Force, the Silver Fox, Ulin, Challie, Lucy, Notwen, and many of Flotsam’s kender. Pease had been popular in town, even for a kender, and his death was a blow to them all. Only Bridget did not come out of her small room, for Lucy and Notwen had been forced to give her a syrup to ease her hysterics and put her to sleep. Cosmo sat by his friend’s mother and watched her until sleep softened the ravages of her grief, then he came downstairs and sat silently by the bar.
Food was served and toasts were made. Challie told the assembled mourners how she and Pease had taken cover in the warehouse when Fyremantle landed on the dock.
“He was trying to take me to the tunnel under the Brown Pelican,” she said, “but the dragon came faster than we thought. He attacked the fishing boat before we could get there, so Pease ducked into the warehouse. He was going to go out the back door the moment the dragon left the dock. Then the boat crashed into the building and timbers and wreckage fell all around us.” Challie’s voice tightened in her throat. “I was closest to the door. Pease pushed me toward it just as a huge timber crashed on him. I tried to get him, but he was pinned and bleeding so badly. He told me to run. Suddenly the place burst into flames. Someone saw me in the door and dragged me out … but we couldn’t get Pease.” The disbelief was still plain in her voice, and her grief was still very raw. She raised a mug of cider and drank a toast. “He annoyed me endlessly, but I’d give anything to have him back.”
The others raised their glasses as well. One of Pease’s friends brought out a small lap harp and began to play a lament. Someone else produced a recorder and added accompaniment. Soon the kender had a group in the corner of the room playing drums, the harp, the recorder, and a lute. Before long, the laments ended and the music changed from grief to the celebration of a life. Pease would have loved it.
By unspoken agreement, no one discussed the tax crisis or the internment of Kethril Torkay in the city jail. That, they decided, could wait for later.
Shortly after the music started, another person came into the Jetties. She stood for a moment in the doorway then made her way to the table where Ulin and Lucy sat. Heads turned as she passed, and by the time she reached the table, all eyes were on the lovely sirine.
Giggling at some private joke, the sirine took the extra chair and sat down close to Ulin. “I cannot stay long, I have to go back to the water soon, but I wanted to tell you how wonderful it has been to meet you.” It was difficult to tell from her body position and her voice whether she was talking to Lucy or Ulin.
The sirine had met Lucy earlier in the day, and while Lucy had been less than thrilled to know her father had sired other children, she had not been surprised. In fact, she found herself liking the friendly, free-spirited aquatic woman-as long as she did not try to compete for Ulin. A mischievous sprite of a thought popped into Lucy’s head, and she found herself scanning the room for Lysandros. Sure enough, he was standing near the bar keeping an eye on their table. She gestured to him to join them.
The debonair resistance leader came willingly and took a chair next to the sirine. While Lucy made the proper introductions, Ulin leaned over and whispered something in the sirine’s ear. Her fair face brightened, and like a daisy turns to the sun, she tilted her scantily clad chest toward the half-elf and began to hum something soft and captivating, a tune Ulin remembered all too well. The captain curiously turned at the sound. “Cripes,” he said and fell into the spell of her glorious green eyes.
Lucy looked at Ulin and winked.
The wake was beginning to mellow in the late hours of the night, when Lucy and Ulin, the members of the city council, Lysandros, and the Vigilance Committee gathered by ones and twos in the back of the common room. Aylesworthy closed the bar and shooed everyone else out. He had to check three times before he found all the kender, and it took a while to check their pouches and pockets for loose spoons, mugs, other people’s pouches, and knickknacks that had been “found” or “accidentally picked up by mistake.” Finally he was able to pour a fresh pitcher of ale and join the meeting at the back of the room.
While the innkeeper closed the tavern, Challie took two of Lysandros’s guards to the city jail to fetch Kethril. By the time everyone was settled in chairs and ready to begin the meeting, the magistrate had returned with the prisoner bound at the wrists and chained at the ankles. The tall, fastidious gambler looked less than pleased to be hauled ignominiously before such a large group, but he did his best to hide it.
“A mug of your best spring ale,” Kethril called heartily.
The innkeeper made no move to get it. “That’ll be one hundred steel pieces,” he demanded, his heavy features stiff with displeasure.
The gambler sighed heavily and turned back to his daughter. “Lucy … I … we got off to a bad start this afternoon. I want to try again.”
She gazed at some place over his shoulder. “Why?”
Her abrupt answer took him aback. He didn’t know what to expect from this daughter any more. She had become a woman in his absence, and a strong one at that. “You traveled a long way to get here. I thought we could get to know each other again.”
Lucy’s fingers tightened around her mug, but her distant expression did not change. “I came here for my mother’s sake, not yours. She was under the mistaken impression that you were dead. Believe it or not, she was devastated.”
Kethril’s handsome face assumed an expression of sadness mixed with regret. “Ah, your mother. She was a beautiful woman.” He tried to pull out a chair with his foot to sit down at the table.
“Don’t.” Lucy’s refusal was adamant.