… just as lantern light flashed on the cheap brass mesh that restrained the considerable bosom of the woman who walked boldly up to Li. "Olore, elf-man," she said with naked interest, "have you had a long voyage?" She leaned over so the shiny mesh shifted and exposed more of the shadowed chasm of her cleavage. "Maybe you're feeling a little lonely."
Li was saved from having to respond by the sudden appearance of an older woman, rouge and powder thick on her face. The bawd seized the other woman's arm and hauled her roughly back toward one of the curtains at the rear of the Eel. Li didn't quite catch the words she muttered, but their tone implied that an interest in making love to an elf was barely a step above perversion. He didn't bother trying to correct their misperceptions regarding his race. Clearly there were times when it was good to be thought of as an elf. Not many, though, not around the dark cave of the Eel. The woman in brass was the only denizen of the tavern who seemed interested in more than beating the lights out of the "elf-blood" who had wandered into their midst. It made the skin on his neck crawl, but he turned around and put his back to the noisy room, standing shoulder to shoulder with Tycho.
"If he's not here," the short bard was asking a big, bald bartender, "where is he? This is important."
The bartender just shrugged. "Always is when Black Scratch might be waiting for you, isn't it?"
Tycho flushed. "When will Brin be back?"
"Do I look like a bloody appointment book?" the bartender growled. "Brin doesn't tell me his comings and goings. He tells me how much to charge for ale and when to water it down." He plunked two mugs on the counter. "Buy yourself a couple and wait for him."
Tycho sighed. "Why not? Nothing better to do." Li winced and nudged him.
"We can leave and come back again," he said in Shou. "Why don't we go to the Wench's Ease and wait there?"
"You haven't had enough of tramping around in the cold?" Tycho replied.
"I'm afraid that if we stay here, I'll catch some kind of disease." Li's first sight of the Eel had convinced him that he had made the right choice at the docks. Filthy, dark and stinking, foul with thick smokes and loud with the shouts of customers already deep in their cups, Brin's establishment had the feel of a place teetering on the brink of desperation. The moment he and Tycho had walked through the door in search of Brin, Li had wanted to turn around and walk out again. The Wench's Ease was smelly, smoky, and loud as well, but at least there had been a lightness of spirit about it, a sense that its patrons were there to enjoy rather than lose themselves. "Can we go?"
Tycho crinkled his nose. "I want to get this over with. Let Brin go after Jacerryl and the Hooded if he wants his beljurils back. If you still want to talk to Brin about your brother, you should do that now, too. If Brin and the Hooded start a war, there's no telling when or if you'll get another chance."
The muscle along Li's jaw tightened. "I suppose not," he said, "but nothing will happen until we talk to him." He shuddered as angry shouts erupted from behind the other curtain at the tavern's rear, the one Tycho had said hid gambling tables. "You said you've got until tomorrow."
Tycho turned up his hands in defeat. "Water the beer for someone else," he told the bartender in Common. "We're going. If you see Brin, tell him I was looking for him."
"Didn't I say I'm not an appointment book?" The bartender flicked a rag at them. "Get your elf-blood friend out of here."
The air outside was chill and damp, but sweet. Li breathed it in gratefully as Tycho led him through the shadowed streets toward the Wench's Ease. The other man gave him a sideways glance. "You traveled the length of the Golden Way and you didn't see worse places than the Eel?"
"I saw them," said Li. "I didn't enjoy them. There was an oasis deep in the Endless Wastes where the natives refuse to allow any permanent buildings and the only tavern was a kind of vast tent that served ale brewed from millet in enormous goatskin bags. The tent walls were so thick with decades of greasy soot from braziers that they could have stood on their own. The women of the area seemed addicted to millet ale and to playing a game that involved knives and carved rune-bones."
"What did the men do?" Tycho asked curiously.
"Stayed away from the women. They spent most of their time out raiding and extorting tribute from caravans."
"What else did you see along the way?"
"A lot of grass." Li dredged his memory to come up with things that might be more interesting. "Ruins. Burial mounds so ancient no one knows who raised them. A pillar of smoke in the distance that the caravan masters said was likely the cook fires from a Tuigan wedding feast. A great tower that they hustled us past in the dead of night because legend said an ancient mage lived there and would enslave anyone he saw by daylight. Another night we heard something screaming in the distance, a sound like nothing any of us had ever heard."
A smile spread across Tycho's face. "No one went to see what it was?" Li shook his head. "I would have."
Li shook his head again. "You don't go chasing after strange sounds in the night along the Golden Way. You stay by your fire and defend yourself against what comes."
"If you don't chase things down, how do you know when the journey is interesting? All you'd see is the road."
"Many people would say that's enough. That, your destination, and your home again at the end."
Tycho snorted. Li looked at him and raised an eyebrow, but Tycho said nothing else. He was looking down at the ground, scowling as he walked. "You've traveled," Li said. "You know what I mean."
"I've been all around the Sea of Fallen Stars. The road is my home. A bard who doesn't travel is just waiting by the fire to see what comes of the night. I-" He cut himself off. Li gave him a long look, but Tycho just drew a breath and glanced up, the scowl falling away from his face to be replaced by his usual twisted smile. "A bard needs new stories no matter how he gets them, right? New songs come where you learn them; Veseene told me that herself. Lots of people visit Spandeliyon from all over. Who needs to go on the road when the road comes to you?"
Li's eyes narrowed. "In Keelung," he said, "when the silk families wear strangely colored clothes and declare it a new fashion, you know that a vat of dye went bad. You're trying to put a good face on a bad problem, Tycho."
The bard sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He was quiet for a moment then said, "Li, if this were happening to me anywhere else, I'd already be on the road to a new city. Brin has a long reach, but not that long. I can't do that, though. I can't run away. I can't leave Veseene." He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
Li patted him on the back. "I understand. I'd rather not be in Spandeliyon either." Tycho snorted again, but in stifled humor this time, and gave a grim smile. Li hesitated then asked, "Tycho, what about the Hooded?"
They were just coming into the yard outside the Wench's Ease. Tycho stopped beside the tree there. "Forget about him, Li," he said sternly. "It's easier to go through Brin. Isn't one gang boss enough to worry about? Ask Brin about Yu Mao first. Maybe he'll know how the swords got into the Hooded's hands. A juggler in Westgate taught me a saying: When you've got five balls in the air, you don't need to set them on fire."
"What does that mean?"
Tycho reached up and slapped his cheek lightly. "Do one thing at a time. We don't need this situation to get any more complicated." He turned, walked across the yard, and pulled open the door of the Wench's Ease.