Sull eyed the dicers. "How do you want to play this, lass?" "Try the game, I suppose," Icelin said. "Might be we'll have to give them some coin before they'll help us."
"Do you even know their game?" Sull asked skeptically. "I've been watching," Icelin said. She yielded to the smoke and closed her eyes. "They roll pairs. Highest roller gets to buy points on the board-one copper per point, up to two." She opened her eyes and pointed to the dice board, where the man running the game was putting up marks with a stubby piece of chalk. "He can use those points to add or subtract from his next roll. Lowest roller that round picks a target number. They both roll again. The closest person to that number wins the pot. But if the winner isn't the man with the points, the low roller gets the pot plus all the copper his opponent spent on points to the runner-the man at the board. Side bets could be-*
Sull thunked his glass on the floor. "You could tell all that from across the room?"
"I memorized the numbers being rolled," Icelin said. "The rest was just putting together the rules of the game."
"They've been rollin' since we came in. How many numbers did you memorize?"
"All of them."
Sull nodded slowly. "Is this somethin' you do often, breakin' down dice games for your own amusement?"
"Not if I can help it," Icelin said. The numbers were already crowding her head, putting a dull ache at her temples. She rubbed them absendy. "The problem is that I memorize everything I see and hear. I can't not."
Sull raised an eyebrow. "How long have you had this gift?"
A gift. That's what everyone called it. Icelin was long past being amused by the notion. "Almost ten years now."
It had also been ten years since the headaches started. The blinding, heavy pain came whenever she was in a crowd, or had too many facts vying for space in her head. Schooling had been a chore. Brant had taken on the task of teaching her himself, but they'd had to move slowly. She was quick and eager to learn, but there was only so much information she could be exposed to in a day, before the load threatened to overwhelm her.
Not until she started studying the Art did she discover how to bind away the information in her mind. Ndzun, her teacher, had shown her how, and had saved her going mad from the constant headaches.
It turned out storing information was no different than storing a spell once you'd memorized it from a book. Icelin had simply set aside a specific place in her mind for the facts to rest until they were needed.
"Picture your mind as a vast library," Nelzun had described it at the time.
"No vault can hold all of what rattles around in my head," she'd complained. But her teacher had only smiled indulgently.
"Once you have walked the halls of Candlekeep, with permanent wide eyes and slackening of the jaw, you may feel quite different," he'd said. "But let us stay in more familiar territory. Picture a building like your great-uncle's shop, but with an infinite number of levels.
"Follow a winding stair, up and up until you reach the place where magic dwells. Can you see it? Be playful, be mysterious, whatever suits your nature."
Icelin remembered squirming. "But I don't see how-"
"A red, plush carpet, so soft you can sink your feet right in." Her teacher had carried on as if she hadn't spoken. "Gold brocade curtains that shine in the sunlight, a fireplace covering an entire wall. And on the others: row upon row of bookshelves-empty now-but soon to be filled with the wonders of the Art. Everything you will ever learn or discover will be housed on these shelves.
"Picture a large wingback chair with leather cushions. Draw it before the fire and find upon the seat a single book-a very old, worn tome. The leather is cracked, the pages heavily browned by fingerprints of students who long ago became masters. Open the book. See what secrets lie inside."
When Icelin had opened her eyes, her teacher had presented her with a book exactly like the one he'd just described. It was to become her first and only spellbook. Icelin had been fascinated, and had loved her teacher from that day on. She would have done anything, mastered any spell, to please him.
Better that she'd never opened that imaginary room in her mind. She hated the thought of it now.
"Come on," she said to Sull. Distraction was better than a locked door for keeping memories at bay. "We're wasting time."
She approached the group of dicers and cleared her throat. No one paid her any heed. She cast a pointed look at Sull.
"New player, lads!" the butcher boomed.
Three heads turned to regard Icelin with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.
Hesitandy, Icelin let her hood fall back and held out Ruen's dice. Suddenly she didn't feel so confident. She felt exposed, naked under the gazes of the rough men.
She cleared her throat again so her voice would be steady. "I've been told these are lucky dice," she said. "Do you gentleman mind if I throw with them?"
"No outsiders," one of the men snarled. "You throw our bones or none, girl, 'less you'd like a private game." He leered at her.
Sull stepped forward, but the man who'd been chalking the board spoke up.
"You're not welcome at this game," he said, watching Icelin closely. His eyes fell on the dice she held. "You should try the shore. There's a woman there, prostitute named Fannie Beblee. Give your dice to her. She'll get you what you need."
"My thanks," Icelin said, and to Sull, "Let's go."
The men resumed their game while she and Sull headed for the tent flap. She glanced back once and saw the man in the red coat watching them from behind the makeshift bar. He looked away quickly.
When they were outside, Sull said, "Awfully accommodatin' fellows. Oh yes, I feel much more secure under their direction."
"You think it's a trap?" Icelin said dryly.
"I think I won't be puttin' my cleavers away any time soon," Sull said.
"Aren't you the least bit curious?" Icelin asked, picking her way along the unstable wooden path to the shore. "About this Fannie Beblee? Or Ruen Morleth?"
"Least it gets us to shore," Sull said, "and off this stinkin' water."
"And we'll be able to fight better on land, assuming it is a trap," Icelin said.
"Now you're thinkin'." Sull clapped her on the back.
The shore, for all its stability, was not in much better shape than the floating parts of Mistshore.
Crude tents and lean-tos had been erected all along the shoreline. There must have been hundreds of the structures. Fires crackled in crudely dug pits, for there was little to burn here. In most cases a pot or spit hung over the flames. The meat on them was meager, consisting of rodents or small fish.
The people moved around in a sort of forced communal camp, talking or sleeping, huddled together for warmth. Icelin heard snores, hushed whispers, and a baby wailing in the distance.
She bent to speak to the nearest woman, who was stirring a pot of fat white beans in a watery broth. The lumpy mixture and its smell turned Icelin's stomach.
"I beg pardon, but I'm looking for someone," she said.
The woman ignored her and kept stirring the pot. The slow, rhythmic task absorbed her entire attention. Icelin might as well have been a fly buzzing in the air.
Sull put in, "Her name's Fannie. She's a friend of mine-"
Tinkling coins interrupted him. Icelin had pulled two silver pieces-nearly all of her remaining coin-from her neck pouch, drawing the woman's gaze from the pot as if by a mind charm.
"She's a prostitute," Icelin said, handing the woman the silver. "Fannie Beblee."
The woman curled her fingers in a claw around the coins. She pointed with her spoon to a spot south along the shore where two fires burned, one next to the other, then went back to stirring. The tents behind them were tied shut.