The Dagger of Trust Read online

  "We're not supposed to leave," Ozrif said.

  "I believe the exact wording was that we would be observed. Very well, we'll be observed."

  There was a pause.

  "Xeritian's favorite tavern is The Capsized Clipper," Viridia said. "Was. He mentioned it."

  "That probably means he also visits its neighbor," Ozrif said, sounding resigned. "The Saucy Starfish."

  "We'll check both," Gideon decided, "and possibly get saucy and capsized ourselves."

  Viridia consented eagerly, Ozrif reluctantly. "But not until tonight," the juggler said. "I still have exams."

  "I may, too," Gideon realized. Xeritian might not have cleared Gideon's schedule after all.

  "Tonight," Viridia said. "We'll meet here."

  The rest of the day passed in a blur of tests, naps, and skipped meals. Gideon was not in fact relieved of his obligations, and his college career was careening toward disaster. He contained the damage as much as he could, and collapsed until his friends awakened him.

  As they all headed back out, they nearly collided with Gideon's roommate. Leothric's head was hidden by the small crate he was carrying, full of puppets and props.

  "Oh, hello! It's Gideon's gang."

  "I strongly object to that term," Ozrif said.

  "Okay, then it's just Gideon and girlfriend."

  "I object to that term," Gideon and Viridia said almost simultaneously, and laughed.

  The laughter seemed to pierce a dark cloud, and when his roommate said, "Say, where are you headed?" Gideon unthinkingly told him it was The Capsized Clipper.

  "Great!" Leothric said. "I just conquered in the solo performance exam, and I've never been to the Clipper. Let's celebrate!" Leothric lurched into the room to put down his crate.

  "This isn't good," Ozrif whispered.

  "It's fine," Viridia replied. "We just tell him we're looking for the missing groundskeeper. Xeritian had two identities after all."

  "I still don't like it," Ozrif persisted.

  "He's cover," Gideon realized. "We'll look more innocent to our shadows with him along."

  Leothric reappeared. "I'm all set. Let's have a night on the town!"

  "You're carrying two puppets," Viridia observed, noting Sir Gothmoor and the dragon Yallazak.

  "If I brought more than one for each hand, that would look strange."

  And so four bards and two puppets ventured into the Westport nightlife. They reached The Capsized Clipper, with its mock-up of a ship's prow bursting through an exterior wall. The streets were quiet, with winter clouds snatching away the last daylight.

  Gideon said, "I think we're being..." and caught himself, for Leothric might be all too interested in the idea of Being Followed. "...far too direct," he finished.

  "What do you mean?" asked Leothric.

  "Might as well admit it." Gideon glanced at Ozrif and Viridia. "We're out looking for the groundskeeper. We consider him a friend, and he's missing."

  Leothric nodded. "Thought you were up to something. I'm glad to help. I like Xeritian, too." Sir Gothmoor scratched Leothric's chin. "We could get a window table at The Saucy Starfish. Perhaps Xeritian will enter or leave the Clipper while we watch."

  It seemed best to agree, even if Xeritian would never appear.

  The Saucy Starfish tried to be especially welcoming to women. A sign proclaimed that their drinks would be cheaper. Another sign said that "gentlemen" seen to be "knavish" would be shown the door or the window. A third admonished men to mind their language.

  Viridia glanced at the signs, swore, spit, and ordered a cheap drink. Ozrif had a thin beer, Leothric (or rather Sir Gothmoor) got himself some hard liquor, to the stares of the others. Gideon contented himself with lemon water.

  "You never drink," said Leothric. "Can't you hold it?"

  "Weak bladder," Gideon said. Viridia snorted.

  Ozrif found them a table where they could watch the tavern opposite. They noted sailors punching each other inside the Clipper.

  "You know," said Leothric, "I'm glad we're over here, not there."

  "It's practically an arena," Viridia agreed. "Some of them begin over here, try to find a bedmate for the night, fail, and console themselves with a brawl over there. Some of them start over there and wander here with bruises, looking for a pity fling."

  "A reciprocal business arrangement," said Ozrif, toasting the air. "I'm impressed."

  "I hear the two owners are sisters." Gideon looked around the tavern, and up and down the street, wondering if he could catch sight of their observer from the Shadow School. He spotted no one. Perhaps he'd been imagining things. "Let's disperse and start questioning people."

  "I'm going to flirt with sailors," Viridia said. It seemed to Gideon that her gaze flicked to Ozrif, so as to observe his reaction.

  "That sounds like a good ploy," Ozrif said, voice bright and eyes frowning.

  "Who says it's a ploy? See you soon. Or not." And she was off.

  Ozrif considered his drink. Leothric downed his. Sir Gothmoor opened his mouth as Leothric said, "Ahh!"

  Watching Ozrif, Gideon said, "It might be useful if someone went to the brawling bar..."

  "Ozrif!" said Leothric, his voice pitched for a livestock auction. "Why do you let her do that?"

  "Excuse me?" Ozrif said.

  "I can tell you swoon for her. Take it from me, my friend—I've done a lot of swooning." Leothric's movements embellished the point, his chair seeming as tippy as a juggling pin. Gideon had observed a great deal of drunkenness, from inside and out, and he'd never seen alcohol hit a brain this fast. "How can you just sit there like that?"

  "What would you suggest," Ozrif asked, each syllable like a grain of sand counting down the seconds left in Leothric's life, "my friend?"

  "The bar fight?" Gideon murmured to Ozrif.

  "I'd love to start one," Ozrif said, staring at Gideon's roommate.

  "Over at the Clipper."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  "Very well." Ozrif stood. "You're lucky in your roommate," he said to Leothric and strode out the door.

  "Yeah!" Leothric called after him. "Gideon's a great guy! I just wish he'd drink."

  "I tell you what," Gideon said, pulling out a gold coin. "My next order was going to be the Genuine Wispil Bog Whiskey. You can have it on me."

  "Wow! Thanks! You're the best, Gideon—the best!"

  "Sir Gothmoor, be sure to keep him safe." Gideon followed Ozrif out to the street. He cast a look back at Viridia, who was laughing between two urbane mariners from Jalmeray, who regarded her like doves and each other like hawks. It seemed to him Viridia was casting glances at the door, but he might have imagined it, for she swiftly turned her back. He caught up with Ozrif as the Keleshite was striding for the swinging doors of The Capsized Clipper and the raucous noise within.

  "He's a lout, I know," Gideon said. "But what he said—"

  "Eye of Abendego take what he said. Viridia is her own woman."

  "Well, yes. A woman..."

  "You're talking, when there's a fight awaiting us."

  "That's not quite what I—" Gideon gave up as Ozrif entered the tavern.

  There were signs here, too. We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone. We Reserve the Right to Serve Anyone to the Refuse. When We Say We're Cutting You Off, the First Time It's Just an Expression. Spellcasters Pay Any Damage Done to the Facilities.

  A Taldan getting pounded by an Andoren wielding a chair looked up to see Ozrif deliver a kick to his opponent's midsection, toppling the burly mariner like Leothric after some Bog Whiskey. Helping the Taldan up, Ozrif said, "You! What's your name?"

  "Umfrey," the man said, bleeding from his nose and looking shocked.

  "Umfrey!" Ozrif bellowed at the Andoren's colleagues. "You've hurt my best friend Umfrey! Now you'll pay!"

  As he dove for the enemy, the Taldan followed, crying muzzily, "My friend! My friend is here!"

  "Sorry," Gideon muttered, patting his dazed c
ountryman on the shoulder. "It's about a woman. I think."

  "Women!" muttered the man. "Women and Taldans!" He pounded the floor for emphasis, having evidently attained some key philosophical insight. Then he crawled out the door. That, at least, Gideon reflected, was wisdom.

  A couple of Taldans had joined the fight beside their new ally. There was a bit of sloganeering as they screamed, "Crown and Lion!" in response to their opponents' cries of "Liberty! Justice!" Somewhere in there Ozrif was shouting, "Throat! Knee! Solar plexus!" Meanwhile a group of Chelaxians was sipping wine and placing bets. Gideon thought there might be a moral in that somewhere, but disregarded the thought as he prepared an illusion.

  Yesterday he'd cast a goodly portion of his magic, and Xeritian's death had cost him the chance to refresh it. But he retained one of his most effective spells, a phantasm that incorporated sound. He pulled out a bit of fleece, and recalled a tune of his own devising, his mnemonic for the incantation.

  What will I dream when the hangman hauls ...?

  And Gideon dreamed.

  He dreamed of a band of the Westport Guard, appearing against all logic from the back of the room, stomping their way toward the malefactors.

  Cries broke out, and warnings, and the Andorens fled out the door. One lingered, narrowing his eyes at Gideon and raising a fist. "You—you're some sort of wizard—"

  "Bard," Gideon corrected, and punched him.

  Gideon, for all his training, was no brawler—he'd choose a dagger over a fist any day. His blow was strong but imprecise; the Master of Steel and Sinew would have taken points off. The man staggered, but Gideon's hand flared with bright pain.

  Luckily, the Taldan combatants shoved their own way out of the inn, forcing the reeling Andoren out with them.

  Gideon's wrist ached, as well as various tendons in his hand of which he was normally unaware. The proprietor, who did indeed look a lot like her counterpart at the Starfish, brought him a bucket of ice water and a bill for a broken glass.

  "I didn't break a glass," Gideon said.

  "I dropped one when I saw your magic. Impressive stuff. If I saw it on the street I'd pay you." She jabbed a thumb at the sign about spellcasting. "But because you did it in here, you owe me."

  He paid the bill, and she took it and returned with a "free drink" that roughly equaled the change he should have been owed. It looked good, so he didn't argue. As he was about to quaff, Ozrif reentered the bar and sat down beside him, bringing along a couple of the now-quiescent Andorens and Taldans. They all seemed to be friends now, having broken the ice and perhaps a minor bone or two. Gideon thought about things and pushed the drink over to the nearest Taldan.

  "Thanks," the man said. Gideon watched his free drink go away. Well, he still had a bucket of ice water.

  "I explained," Ozrif said, "that we went a little crazy because we're in mourning for our missing and presumed dead friend. The groundskeeper."

  "A good man," Gideon added on cue, but meaning it.

  "It's a hard thing to lose friends," the newly watered Taldan said. "Even you Andorens and Qadirans know that."

  "I'm from Katapesh," Ozrif said.

  "I'm actually from Galt," put in one of the presumed Andorens.

  "You know," said Umfrey, Ozrif's new best friend, from the doorway, "I never admitted it before, but my mum's from Cheliax..."

  "To friends!" said Gideon, raising his mug before international diplomacy broke down. "Present and absent."

  "Hear hear!" chorused the former combatants, and some neighboring tables as well.

  "Umfrey here says he saw our groundskeeper," Ozrif said.

  "He was talking with an old sailor from way off in Riddleport," said Umfrey. "A man with one ear."

  "Him," said the Andoren whom Gideon had hurt himself punching. "I've seen that sailor around. Think he lives down by the Lost Pier. Bad neighborhood."

  "Thanks, that's very helpful." Gideon excused himself and Ozrif as soon as possible, wary of the potential for the refreshed brawlers to fight anew.

  "Was that not effective?" Ozrif said, limping a little.

  "Did it get your mind off things?"

  "I have no idea what you're talking about."

  Outside The Saucy Starfish they discovered Viridia's two would-be paramours unconscious. Viridia herself was sitting at Leothric's table, patting Leothric's slumped head.

  "Ah, there you are," she said. "One of those nice sailors outside told me that he'd seen someone resembling Xeritian at a pesh den called the Kismet House."

  "I know the place," Ozrif said thoughtfully, "it's down by the Lost Pier." A pause. "Hey, don't look at me like that. It's simply that if you're from Katapesh half the people you meet expect to be able to buy pesh from you. It's good to have referrals."

  "I wasn't judging," Viridia said. "Certainly I have plenty of vices of my own."

  "What happened to your sources, anyway?" Gideon aimed a thumb at the street outside.

  "Each mistakenly thought the other was all that stood between him and my charms. They began brawling. Leothric, or perhaps Sir Gothmoor, was gallant enough to intervene. He got a rude punch in the nose which Sir Gothmoor was alas not knight enough to parry. I had to employ my sleeping spell. You gentlemen may recall it."

  "You caught Leothric too?" Gideon said.

  "Only in a glancing way. I think the Bog Whiskey did most of that."

  "Come," Ozrif said, "let's get some cold water and revive our friend. He'll need his wits for the pesh den."

  As they weaved their way from the Starfish to the Kismet House, Leothric's gait grew steadier, but the conditions of the surrounding buildings steadily declined. At last Gideon said, "I believe that's our pesh den."

  Beyond the Kismet House's variegated veil and its doorman with palm extended for the entrance fee lay a parlor decorated in a mishmash of styles from Osirian hieroglyphics to Qadiran geometric patterns, imitation Thuvian orchids to fake Jalmeri idols. It was as if the Kismet House pretended everything south of Taldor was one swirling goulash of exoticism.

  At every table and booth men and women were sipping tea or smoking water pipes. Ozrif approached the master of the house, who wore a long, eerie mask of silver sheen, which Gideon supposed was meant to resemble the masks of Katapesh's mysterious Pactmasters. Ozrif argued with the man for a while and paid for a pipe. "We can settle up later," he told the others. "Each group needs at least one." They claimed a table and began looking around for their quarry.

  "We'll look more believable if we indulge," Leothric pointed out.

  "You're not having any," said Ozrif. "You're already drunk."

  "I'm not the one who got into a bar fight."

  "That's not what I hear," said Gideon.

  "Fights are invigorating," said Viridia.

  "Hold that thought. I see our man with one ear. Let me speak to him first."

  Gideon hailed the master of the house and purchased a second pipe. Then he rose and slowly approached the sailor's table. Although Gideon had no disguise kit along, he imitated the body language of the people around him. He stooped and slowed his pace, movements becoming leisurely, yet cautious.

  The man from faraway Riddleport, reputedly a haven of pirates, looked up warily. Gideon set the pipe on the table.

  "I like my privacy," said the man.

  "You also like your pesh." Gideon slid the pipe toward him.

  The man grunted and gestured to the seat opposite. Gideon sat. "What are you buying with your pesh?" said the man.

  "You were seen with a man from the college. An older man. A groundskeeper."

  "You think he's a groundskeeper?" The one-eared man chuckled.

  "I think he's dead."

  The man stopped chuckling. "I think you ought to get far, far away from anything to do with your dead man. If you came for information, that's the best I have."

  "Is it all you have?"

  "No. You were generous, and didn't try to gouge a feeble old sailor, so I'll tell you a little more. And then you
'll leave, for both our sakes. Your groundskeeper was mixed up in something magical, I know that. He was asking about the fogs seen now and then of late."

  "Fogs?"

  "Aye, fogs. I've heard about them from many, though I only saw them once myself. They creep here and there, in defiance of the actual weather, and they bring fear and madness. Not everyone sees them, not unless they choose to be seen. And not everyone who sees them, sees them the same. But all who stare long into them see wretched truths from their own pasts. I saw—well, never mind that. Anyone who stays near them, let alone breathes the vapor in, becomes...strange. Ready to fight over anything. Ready to be led to battle. Or slaughter."

  "Led by whom?"

  "I don't know for sure. But that one time I saw it, I also saw a man, a man in gray, and when he spoke to those bewitched by the fog, his accent was Chelish. The gray man, he walked in the fog itself. It followed him, like a loyal dog."

  "Where did you witness this?"

  "It was on the waterfront, near—ghhh—"

  For what seemed a long, lurid moment, Gideon could not even understand what he was seeing. It was as though the man, quivering and gurgling, had suddenly extruded a length of steel from his neck. In the next moment Gideon understood, and was looking over his shoulder for the assailant who'd just impaled the man with a thrown dagger.

  But he saw only a dark figure ducking out the pesh den's veiled doorway.

  Turning back to the man with one ear, Gideon saw his informant was already dead. It shouldn't have happened so fast. Even with such a wound as this there was a narrow path for survival. Someone was determined to close off even that.

  "Poison," he gasped to the master of the house and his companions, who had rushed to his side.

  "Leave now, and don't return!" said the master. "You bring trouble!"

  Gideon and the others left without a word, Viridia surging ahead. She'd grown up beside genuine wilderness, the Whistling Plains beyond Stavian's Hold, and she alone among them was a true runner. They struggled to catch up with her.

  Soon they had second thoughts about that. For they found Viridia crouched in an alley with dagger drawn, confronting not one but three men in gray.