Of Truth and Beasts

Chane had his new sword strapped on, but he picked up his old one that had been left leaning against the chest. Couched in its cropped sheath, he strapped it over his other hip. Ore-Locks appeared no more pleased than Chane at the sea of people below. The dwarf wore his broadsword, and his grip tightened on his iron staff. Shade let out a quiet rumble. The dog hated crowds in general, and this crowd hardly qualified as general. Only Wynn seemed undaunted, with a tense eagerness on her face.

“I will lead,” Ore-Locks said.

With his own bulky bag lashed to his back, he hefted the chest onto his shoulder, keeping one hand free for his staff. Chane waved Wynn and Shade onward, and brought up the rear as they descended the ramp. Ore-Locks’s bulk proved useful in clearing the way up the dock.

Once they approached the shore, Chane spotted a floating walkway along the rock wall beneath the piers. Between every other pier post were switchback ramps and stairs leading upward from the lower floating platforms for small boats.

“Vanâkst Bäynœ,” Ore-Locks growled.

Chane looked up to find the dwarf had stopped and was scraping his boot on the shorefront’s cobble. There was a line of dung left by the passing of the Sumans’ goats. Passersby gave it no notice.

“This place is a giant gutter,” Ore-Locks said quietly, shoving on through the crowd.

With little choice, they made their way through the throngs. Chane kept close behind Wynn, ready to jerk her back in an instant.

“Ore-Locks is not wrong,” he said. “This place appears to be little more than a haven for pirates and smugglers.”

“That’s because it is,” Wynn replied without looking back. “Keep moving.”

Chane slowed. She had known this and still gone to secret lengths to bring them here?

“Wynn!” he rasped. “How could you—?”

“Look over there,” she interrupted, pointing. “That might be a row of inns.”

“Inns?” he repeated.

“There is no guild annex here. We’ll have to fend for ourselves.”

They entered the city’s edge beyond the waterfront, and Chane grew more irritated by the moment. Wynn had willingly walked them into a lawless port, and now nosed about for an inn like some traveler on holiday?

“You cannot stay here,” he said. “This place is not safe.”

She turned to face him. “I’m in the company of a majay-hì, an armed dwarf, and ... and you. I could hardly be safer.”

Ore-Locks waited on them, his expression flat. Shade ceased growling and pressed up against Wynn’s leg and hip. Chane was speechless, aghast at Wynn’s nonchalance.

“We can’t just stand here arguing,” she told him.

He clenched his jaw, finding his voice. “Fine ... where is this row of inns?”

“That way,” she answered with a flick of her hand.

The gesture almost made Chane heave her over his shoulder to toss her back on the ship.

Again Ore-Locks led, and Chane brought up the rear, watching anyone who came too close. But the farther they went, the more the crowds thinned. In a block and a half down a poorly cobbled street, they soon passed only hard-looking, worn women in faded, low-cut gowns, sailors swilling from clay bottles, and a mix of what might have been merchants, both prosperous and shabby. Everyone kept to his or her business or pleasure, as if expecting others to do the same.

Chane passed a small shop of rough-cut planks. A simple sign above the door had one word written in four different languages: the first said “Apothecary” in Numanese. He slowed as notions rose in his thoughts.

“What?” Wynn asked. She had stopped a few paces ahead.

“Nothing,” he answered, but he noted the shop’s location.

Ore-Locks occasionally drifted to either side of the street, examining eateries, taverns, or inns along the way. Chane could tell nothing from the fronts of these bland, almost neutral establishments. He guessed at the gambling, coin bending, and other illicit endeavors that went on behind their closed doors.

He would not have Wynn sleeping in any such place.

But as naive as she could be at times, she was no fool. As he watched, her brow wrinkled every time Ore-Locks cast a quizzical glance her way before some establishment. When she shook her head, they moved on.

“What about that one?” she said suddenly.

Chane followed her gaze.

At the street’s end stood a large, well-situated, three-story building nearly half a block wide. Constructed of thick planking with not too badly cracked sky blue paint, its white shutters were stained by city smoke and filth. The building sported a sweeping, ground-level veranda with two armed guards standing by the front columns.

As Chane followed Wynn, he was uncertain whether the iron grates over the windows were a good sign. The guards were relaxed but watchful as Ore-Locks stepped between them to the front door. Guards could also be a good or bad indication. A white sign above the door held one gilded word in only Numanese: DELILAH’S.