The lordling's stomach urped as his face drained pale. Tamlin squeaked, "Pardon me a moment," and lurched for the door.
Eventually Tamlin staggered back to the table, wiping his mouth. Symbaline continued to plow through the food like an orc army. "Milord, I hate to beseech, but I need a few coins to buy paints and canvas…"
"Easy enough." Frowning at Escevar placidly sleeping on a bench, Tamlin hooked his boot and dumped his friend crashing to the filthy floor. "Escevar, give her some money!"
Roused, Escevar crawled back to the table. "I tol' you, Deuce, we're skint. All this's on credit."
With a sigh of disgust, Vox reached down his shirt, pulled out a squirrel-hide purse, and dumped coins on the table. Tamlin slid silver coins toward Symbaline, counting out seven for good luck.
Escevar's slim hand slapped down on the lot. Tamlin objected, "Es, this is no time to be greedy!"
"No, look!" Shaking off sleep, Escevar became all business. He held up a big silver coin, worn and shiny and stamped with strange sigils. The coin was round but punched at the center with a triangle. "I've never seen triangle-cut coins before. And there are, um, sixteen here. Where'd you get them, Vox?"
Vox mimed a whistle, then cutting a throat. Tamlin translated, "The purse from the dead whistler, the gnasher-handler!"
"Wait, now." Escevar wrinkled his brow. "If the hillmen brought these coins from their country… and they spend them in pubs or stores… Wherever we found a batch of these coins, we might find the hillmen's hideout nearby!"
"Why find the hillmen?" asked Tamlin. "They tried to kill us. Shouldn't we avoid them?"
"Don't try to think when you're potted, Deuce," sniped Escevar. "We don't really want the hillmen, but they did try to kidnap or kill you and Zarrin. Maybe they know where Zarrin is. Trained dogs, or gnashers, can sniff people out, you know."
Fuddled, puzzled, Tamlin replied, "You're just making this up to look good for the girl."
"What girl?" demanded Escevar. "Oh, her. No! Would you think a moment, for the love of Selune? All you've done tonight is waste money, and get us thrown out of the house-"
Vox mimed bending over and heaving.
"— and puked in the street," added Escevar. "Hardly the hallmarks of a hero."
"Oh, so? I–I-" Indignant but stumped, Tamlin shut up.
Symbaline interjected, "I know how you can find more coins."
"You do?" asked both men. "How?"
"Magic."
"Hoy, Lord Tamlin! A word, if you please!"
"Guts of the gods!" growled Escevar. "Why doesn't someone squash that bloodsucking leech?"
Halting in the wintry windblown street, Tamlin, Escevar, and Vox hunted for the voice. It came from above. The Blue Coot was a three-story tavern of stone and timber. Stepped balconies tilted alarmingly over the street. In summer, whores, male and female, lolled above and called to potential customers. In winter, the balconies were rimed with ice. Padrig the Palmer leaned from a second-floor balcony, pudgy and tall in his fur coat and floppy hat. Before, begging money, he'd worn a syncophant's smile, but now his grin curled like a fox's. Beside Padrig stood an unsavory youth and older man, both fit to cut a cripple's throat for a penny. Third-floor balconies were dark and unoccupied.
"Master Tamlin, your plan proceeds apace!" Padrig bowed theatrically. "Before long you'll sit the tallest chair in Stormweather Towers!"
"What?" Down in the street, Tamlin leaned back and almost toppled, for liquor still gripped him. "Did-Did I miss something, Paddy? What do you gibber about?"
"Your thirty ravens, sir, were invested just in time! All the city knows your allowance is cut off! Ratigan the Green manufactures poison, and now you've engaged a portrait painter to approach your father! You can't enter Stormweather, but she shall! So while you stay the night in Lantern Alley, your minions will do your dirty work!"
Behind Tamlin, Vox tugged his bearskin cape aside to free his war axe. The fightmaster pointed to the Coot's doors and mimed chopping. Tamlin restrained him, asking both companions, "What's this about? Who's Ratigan? How does he know about the girl? I thought she was innocent! And my tallhouse in Lantern Alley? Wait! If the girl's part of some Soargyl plot-"
"Stop, Deuce! It's claptrap!" Escevar spat in the street. "It's another of his blackmail scams, spinning gossamer out of gossip! He's framing you for some cocked-eyed assassination attempt on your father!"
"Someone plans to assassinate my father?" Tamlin gaped in horror, wishing dearly he weren't drunk. "I mean, it's been tried before, but I'm not involved! But what will Father think?"
"He'll think you masterminded the plot!" Safe on high, Padrig laughed. "I have witnesses and a receipt for thirty ravens! That money will hire enough assassins-I say, what-"
Standing in the street, looking up, Vox suddenly yanked Tamlin back while Escevar bulled him from the front, yelling, "Move!"
On the second-story balcony, Padrig gaped upward, bleated, and dived into the tavern, as did the veteran thug. The young tough lingered too long. Tipped from the third-floor balcony, a massive chest of drawers plummeted and smashed to kindling on the second balcony. The young rogue was pulped as the balcony was torn clean off the building. Wood, oak, ice, and a crushed corpse crashed in the street.
Tamlin and friends peeked from the shelter of a doorway opposite. Patrons spilled from the Blue Coot to gawk at the bloody wreckage. Above, Padrig was nowhere to be seen. But on the third balcony…
"Tamlin, you owe us!" Grinning from the high rail were Garth the Gimble, called the "Snake of Selgaunt" for his green scaly tunic, and the Flame, always in red. Notorious denizens of Selgaunt's shady underground, they'd shared a drink or two with Tamlin in the past. Garth called, "Pay no attention to Padrig! He seines the wind! Hey, what would you pay for his head, or some other part?"
"Uh…" Having said too much tonight, Tamlin curbed his tongue. "Uh, that's not necessary. But thank you, Garth, Flame! I do owe you-something."
With mock salutes, the pair passed into the dark third floor, vanishing like spirits at dawn.
Events rolled by too fast for Tamlin to grasp, but at least his head had cleared. Staring at the shattered balcony in the street, he mused, "I wonder who got squashed."
"A cockroach, if he hangs with Padrig." Wrapped in his cloak, Escevar nodded up the street. "Come on. We've got to gain the Wizards' Guild. They go to bed at dawn, like vampires."
"You have some strange coins and want to find a larger hoard?"
"I guess so," replied Tamlin, still muzzy on details. Then Vox prodded his kidney, and he said, "Yes, that's exactly it. If you please."
Helara was a striking tall woman with a cascading mane of blonde hair she fluffed up repeatedly, as if posing. Her crimson robe was girded by a triple chain of gold hung with charms of all shapes and sizes. The Wizards' Guild was a rambling shamble tucked in the southeast corner of Selgaunt. The upper stories would overlook the city wall and the sea. The gloomy parlor was tricked out with odd-shaped furniture and glittery gewgaws, and reeked of chemicals and ashes and incense. A ten-year-old page waited by the wall and bit down yawns.
"I wish someone would bring us a challenge," Helara rattled. She talked fast yet idly, preoccupied with as many schemes as Padrig the Palmer, except hers usually succeeded. "That's too simple a spell. 'Like attracts like,' whether it's money or love. Prospectors, dwarves, practice it all the time in the mountains: A compass arrow of silver points to silver, with a little coaxing."
"So Symbaline said," Tamlin explained, "though how an artist knows magic I don't get. Can you conjure it tonight? We need to locate these hillmen."
"And?" Helara sensed opportunity. "What will you do when you find them?"