“Ship’s mages, good ones, are as hard to find as hen’s teeth,” Chiang said.
“Much harder than that.” Shang-Li gave the plank he’d fitted into place a few more taps. Everything seemed water tight. “Are Iados and Thava around?”
“Thava has busied herself helping around the ship. I don’t think Iados has made it up from bed yet.”
“Manual labor isn’t one of Iados’s interests.”
“No. I surmised as much last night when he wasn’t impressed with his lodging aboardship.”
Shang-Li hauled himself up the harness and flipped over the railing to land on his feet. He glanced at Westgate.
The city had come to life, filling the streets with pedestrians and carts. Hawkers called out their wares. Hoarse orders, frustrated yells, and curses floated over the placid waters around the docks. Reefed sails snapped and popped in the wind.”If there’s a ship’s mage to be found in Westgate, Captain Chiang,” Shang-Li promised, “we’ll bring one back to you.”
“A good one,” the captain said. “Gods know where we’ll be going, we’ll need a mage that knows his business.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Y)u know, you could have left me back at the ship,” Iados pointed out as he matched Shang-Li’s pace. Thava and Kwan Yung trailed behind, lost in one of their increasingly frequent philosophical discussions of the differences between a paladin’s calling and a monk’s.
“Then we would have missed out on all the complaining.” Shang-Li walked the streets of Westgate easily but remained watchful. During his travels, he’d made enemies in the city as surely as he’d made friends, and enemies tended to run in packs in the city these days.
“I could have complained back at the ship.”
“You were.”
“Not as much as I’m going to complain now.” Shang-Li knew that was probably true. “You don’t have to feel compelled to excel on my account.”
“I told you where the ship’s mage could be found,” Iados protested. “You could have come here yourself.”
“She’s an unemployed ship’s mage in Westgate. I have to wonder why that is.” Shang-Li shot the tiefling a glance, then checked to make certain Thava and his father were keeping pace.
Iados chose to ignore the look. “She’s a good ship’s mage on all accounts.”
“Where’s the cynicism I’d hoped for? Something to balance out the desperation I’m feeling?”
“It’s concentrating on this long, boring walk through the heat of the day.” Iados sidestepped a couple of sailors sprawled in the alley sleeping off rough nights.
“You shouldn’t have slept so late. We have a job to do.”
“I’m in for a percentage. That, at the very least, makes me a partner. As such, I’m entitled to privileges.”
“Like sleeping late?”
“Definitely.”
Shang-Li turned the corner by a bakery that filled the immediate vicinity with the pungent aroma of yeast. “Why doesn’t this ship’s mage have a ship?”
Iados hesitated a moment. “Do you really wish to know?”
“I’m really desperate. I keep seeing images of you, me, Thava, and my father in a rowboat in the middle of the Sea of Fallen Stars if we don’t find a ship’s mage.”
Iados shuddered. “There’s not enough ale in all of Faerun to supply that voyage.”
“My point exactly. The ship?”
“It sank.”
Cautiously, Shang-Li glanced over his shoulder at his father. Kwan Yung remained contented with Thava’s company. Thinking back on it, Shang-Li believed the paladin was the first dragonborn his father had ever spoken to.
“Where did the ship sink?” Shang-Li asked.
“In the harbor.”
“That doesn’t sound very comforting.”
“It could have gone down in the middle of the Sea of Fallen Stars.”
Shang-Li shrugged. “When you put it that way, sinking in the harbor does sound better.” But he didn’t look forward to his father discovering that tidbit of information.
“No one died and the cargo had been offloaded. The vessel had come through serious storms and a sahuagin attack.”
“So it wasn’t her fault, but they blamed her anyway?”
“Captains and crewmen do like to blame others for their misfortunes. And she was the ship’s mage. It was her job to hold the ship together.”
“Evidently she held it together long enough to reach safety and get the cargo unloaded.”
“Which is why I recommended her,” Iados agreed.
“That and the fact that she’s the only unemployed ship’s mage you know of at present,” Shang-Li said.
“Yes.” Iados lowered his voice. “There is some talk of her being cursed as well.”
Shang-Li swiveled his head around to look at his companion so fast that he tripped over a pothole in the crushed oyster shell street.
“The captain had to blame his misfortune of getting hit by a storm and the sahuagin on someone,” Iados said.
“I’m supposed to go back to Swallow and tell Captain Chiang I’ve brought him a cursed ship’s mage?”
“I definitely wouldn’t do that unless you intend to never lift anchor from that harbor.”
Shang-Li walked in silence for a moment. “Maybe there’s nothing to the curse rumor.”
“Probably not.” Iados shrugged. “You know how sailors like to talk.”
According to the gossip Iados had overheard, the “cursed ship’s mage” was currently rooming at the Splintered Yards, an inn so-named because it had gotten hit several times by storms in the past. A patchwork of timbers covered the exterior and the building held no illusions of pride or grandeur.
A dour old woman with her hair pulled back and a shapeless gray dress stood at the counter. Anxiously, she peered down the hallway and shuffled a deck of cards.
“Need a room, a meal, a drink, or your fortune told, gentle sir?” The old woman awkwardly spread the cards across the scarred countertop. Some of them fluttered to the floor.
“We’re looking for someone.” Shang-Li picked up her cards and put them back on the counter, then slid a small silver coin onto the counter.
The woman captured the coin with a withered claw and made it disappear as easily as she worked the cards. She swallowed hard and glanced at the hallway. “Who?”
“The ship’s mage,” Iados said. “I was told she was here.”
A scowl darkened the old woman’s face. “Have you come to collect from her as well?”
“As well?” Shang-Li asked.
“The captain took her wages and her savings,” the old woman said tremulously. “The old flintheart left her here with no prospects and no way of paying her way.” She nodded at the rooms above. “I gave her a place to stay in return for cleaning rooms. But there are others that insist she owes them. They went up after her only moments ago.”
“Who?” Shang-Li asked.
“Murderous vermin.” The old woman spat in displeasure, then quickly checked to see if anyone had overheard her.
“There are a lot of murderous vermin in Westgate,” Iados said as he reached to his hip and freed his sword.
“These are particularly offensive.” She looked at Shang-Li with wide eyes. “That’s who I thought you were. Until I saw your ears and recognized you as elven. They wouldn’t let a half-breed among them.”
“The Nine Golden Swords?” Shang-Li asked, understanding the mistake that was made because of his Shou heritage.
A woman’s scream, filled with fear and rage, ripped from upstairs.
Shang-Li sprinted toward the staircase to his left and ran up the steps three and four at a time. Iados followed at his heels. By the time Thava joined them, Shang-Li held his fighting sticks in his hands. The paladin’s massive weight combined with the armor caused the stairs to shudder and quake, and for a moment Shang-Li feared they might collapse. He gained the landing with his sticks held before him.
The dim hallway ran straight and narrow. Doors to rooms sat off to either side. Scars from scrapes and drunken sailors adorned the plain wooden walls. Weak light from outside the building entered the hallway from windows at either end.