"Why? They were just fine when I gave them to you, weren't they?"
The response was a little too fast, a little practiced. "Did I say there was something wrong with them?" Tycho set his bow against the strings of the strilling and began to play a soft, droning melody. "What would make you think that there was?"
"N-nothing," Jacerryl stammered. He swallowed and seemed to summon up a bit of courage. "Neither of you are particularly welcome around here," he said. "All I have to do is yell, and Mard will be in here with a squad of guards instantly."
Tycho kept playing. "Mard isn't home right now. And there is exactly one guard in the house."
"The servants will come! You might have conned one of them into letting you in-"
"-and getting you up here," Tycho reminded him.
"-and tricking me," Jacerryl agreed between gritted teeth, "but one treacherous servant won't be able to help you when you're found assaulting me in my own chambers. You've already been arrested in this house once today!"
"Stop posturing, Jacerryl." Tycho gathered his concentration, focusing on the music. "Tell me what you did with the beljurils!"
It was the same spell he had worked on Desmada, backed up this time with the music of the strilling as well as the song of his voice. He focused his will as the magic washed through him, bending the enchantment toward Jacerryl.
The other man just tensed, his face screwed up. "I won't tell you anything!"
The carefully woven magic faltered, frayed, and fell apart. Tycho struck a discordant note on his strilling in surprise. Jacerryl cracked open one eye then the other. "Ha! Was that the best you could do? I passed the beljurils on to you and that's all! Now get-"
With a muted growl, Li reached out, spun him around, and hit him hard with a backhanded blow. Jacerryl swayed once and slipped to the ground.
Tycho stared at him then glowered at Li. "I know we had a plan worked out this time!" he said in Shou. Li shrugged.
"He resisted your magic. Were you just going to keep playing until he gave up?" He grunted. "Besides, he was annoying me."
Tycho sighed. "I guess I should be glad you didn't kill him, then. You've got a temper on you, you know." Li snorted.
"I have a temper? "
"J am the essence of calm!" Tycho slid his strilling around to his back, hopped down off the bed, and nodded to a high, well-stuffed chair. "Help me get him up in that."
Jacerryl moaned and stirred as they heaved him up off the floor and deposited him in the chair. His eyes opened and focused on them. Abruptly he stiffened, sucking in a lungful of air. His mouth opened wide, but Li's hand shot out fast and wrapped around his neck, pinning him to the back of the chair. Jacerryl's shout emerged as a strained gurgle. Li glanced at Tycho. "Maybe we need to try a more physical form of persuasion?" he suggested in Shou.
Tycho threw up his hands. "Fine. I give up." He leaned forward and met Jacerryl's gaze. "Jacerryl," he said bluntly in Common, "my friend here thinks we should just twist off your head right now."
Li gave him a look of disgust, but their captive's eyes went wide. He flailed out suddenly, arms and legs lashing at Li. The Shou batted them away and poked him sharply in the abdomen. Jacerryl let out a pained squeak. He stopped struggling. Tycho squatted down to face him. "Don't worry," he said soothingly. "I think I can persuade him to just dislocate your shoulders instead. I might even be able to get him to let you go if you come clean with me on the beljurils. You took them out of the tube and replaced them with gravel after I was arrested. Then you took the tube down to the guard station with my other belongings. Am I right?"
Jacerryl's eyes rolled. Tycho tapped Li's arm and Li eased the pressure on Jacerryl's throat, letting him draw a shallow breath. "Well?" asked Tycho.
"Yes," Jacerryl gasped.
"Wonderful." Tycho stood up. "Why don't you just tell me where they are and we'll be on our way."
Jacerryl closed his eyes. "I don't have them anymore," he gulped. "I sold them already." Tycho hissed.
"Who did you sell them to?"
"The Hooded."
Tycho yelped sharply and grabbed his head. "No," he groaned. "You didn't." Jacerryl nodded. Tycho slid his hands down his face and looked at Jacerryl over his fingertips. "You idiot." He stepped forward and stomped down hard on Jacerryl's foot. Jacerryl yelped, too, and cringed. "You idiot!"
Li's other arm came up quickly and pushed him back, holding him at arm's length from Jacerryl. "Tycho! Stop that!" Li snapped. "Who's the Hooded?"
"One of Brin's rivals, another gang boss of dockside. He's bad. Not as outright nasty as Brin, but still not someone you want to sit down to dinner with." Tycho ran his fingers through his hair and paced around the room. "He's smart, though. He hasn't been in Spandeliyon much longer than Brin, a season at most, but he's coming up strong. Where Brin seized control through sheer ruthlessness, the Hooded is building himself up slowly. Slow and strong, very patient. And mysterious-no one knows who he is."
Li frowned. "Why not?"
"He always wears a hood," rasped Jacerryl. Tycho and Li looked back to him, Li almost as if he'd forgotten who was on the other end of his arm. "It's why they call him the Hooded. He wears bulky robes, so the most you can tell about him is that he's a big man. And he only speaks in a murmur and never directly to you, only through an interpreter." He smiled slightly. "Could I breathe a little bit more now, please? "
"No." Tycho sat down on Jacerryl's bed. Brin and the Hooded. He hadn't thought this could get any worse! "Bind me, Li! I don't want to go up against fa/0 gang bosses!" He glanced up. Li had a distant expression on his face, his mouth narrow in thought. Tycho's heart jumped. "You have an idea. Tell me you have an idea."
Li blinked and shook his head. "Why should the Hooded hide his identity?" Tycho groaned again.
"That's not an idea, Li. He probably has a perfectly respectable identity established somewhere else in the community-they say the Lords of Waterdeep wear masks when they're ruling and move among the people unsuspected when they aren't. If you're thinking that we could find out who he really is and force him to cough up the beljurils, don't bother. No one has figured out his identity in two years. We're not likely to do it overnight." He pushed himself up off the bed. "I think the best we can do is to go back to Brin, tell him that the Hooded has his gems now and that this weasel-" He jerked his head at Jacerryl. "-was the one who betrayed him, not me. That might satisfy him."
"Brin?" Jacerryl shrank back. "Brin knows?"
"No, I snuck back into Mard Dantakain's house for the fun of it. Yes, Brin knows!" He crossed his arms and stared down at Jacerryl. "I just hope he'll take you instead of me since this was all your-"
Sudden footsteps in the corridor and an insistent knocking on the bedchamber door interrupted him. "Master Jacerryl! Master Jacerryl!"
A servant-and not the perfidious chambermaid who had let them in! Tycho flinched. "What is it?" he demanded hastily, trying to imitate Jacerryl's voice. He leaped back to the bed and began bouncing on it vigorously. "Didn't Folco tell you I was busy?" He almost had to shout over the creaking wood.