“Drizzt!”

“It is not a permanent punishment, for Bidderdoo can undo that which he has enacted,” the drow explained. “He is neutering the warring offenders by rendering them harmless—unless, of course, he is turning the other side into carrots.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I know,” Drizzt admitted with an upraised hand and a smirk. “But who are we to intervene, and haven’t the Harpells earned our trust?”

“You trust in what you saw?”

“I trust that if the situation alters and calls for a recanting of the justice delivered, the Harpells will undo the transformations and return the no-doubt shaken and hopefully repentant men to their respective places. Easier that than the dwarves of Mithral Hall sewing a head back on a criminal there.”

Regis sighed and seemed to let it all go. “Can we stop back here on our return to Mithral Hall?”

“Do you want to?”

“I don’t know,” Regis answered honestly, and he too looked back toward the distant town, profound disappointment on his normally cheery face. “It’s like Obould Many-Arrows,” Regis mumbled.

Drizzt looked at him curiously.

“Everything is like Obould lately,” the halfling went on. “Always the best of a bad choice.”

“I will be certain to relay your feelings to Bruenor.”

Regis stared blankly for just a moment then a grin widened and widened until it was followed by a belly-laugh, both heartfelt and sadly resigned.

“Come along,” Drizzt bade him. “Let us go and see if we can save the rest of the world.”

And so the two friends lightened their steps and headed down the western trail, oblivious to the prophecy embedded in Drizzt Do’Urden’s joke.

CHAPTER 9

THE CITY OF SAILS

P ymian Loodran burst out the tavern door, arms flailing with terror. He fell as he turned, tearing the skin on one knee, but he hardly slowed. Scrambling, rolling, and finally getting back to his feet, he sprinted down the way. Behind him, out of the tavern, came a pair of men dressed in the familiar robes of the Hosttower of the Arcane, white with broad red trim, talking as if nothing was amiss.

“You don’t believe he’s fool enough to enter his own house,” one said.

“You accepted the bet,” the other reminded.

“He will flee for the gate and the wider road beyond,” the first insisted, but even as he finished the other pointed down the road to a three-story building. The terrified man ascended an outside stairway on all fours, grabbing and pulling at the steps.

The first wizard, defeated, handed over the wand. “May I open the door, at least?” he asked.

“I would be an unappreciative victor to deny you at least some enjoyment,” his friend replied.

They made their way without rushing, even though the stairway moved back along an alleyway and away from the main road, so the hunted man had passed out of sight.

“He resides on the second floor?” the first wizard asked.

“Does it matter?” said the second, to which the first nodded and smiled.

As they reached the alleyway, they came in sight of the second story door. The first wizard pulled out a tiny metal rod and began to mutter the first words of a spell.

“High Captain Kurth’s man,” his companion interrupted. He motioned with his chin across to the other side of the street where a large-framed thug had exited a building and taken a particular interest in the two wizards.

“Very fortunate,” the first replied. “It’s always good to give a reminder to the high captains.” And he went right back to his spellcasting.

A few heartbeats later, a sizzling lightning bolt rent the air between the wizard and the door, blasting the flimsy wooden portal from its hinges and sending splinters flying into the flat.

The second wizard, already deep in chanting to activate the wand, took careful aim and sent a small globe of orange fire leaping up to the opening. It disappeared into the flat and a blood-curdling, delicious scream told both wizards that the fool knew it for what it was.

A fireball.

A moment later, one that no doubt seemed like an eternity to the fugitive in the flat—and his wife and children, too, judging from the chorus of screams coming forth from the building—the spell burst to life. Flames roared out the open door, and out every window and every unsealed crack in the wall as well. Though not a concussive blast, the magical fire did its work hungrily, biting at the dry wood of the old building, engulfing the entire second floor and roaring upward to quickly engulf the third.

As the wizards admired their handiwork, a young boy appeared on the third story balcony, his back and hair burning. Out of his mind with pain and terror, he leaped without hesitation, thumping down with bone-cracking force against the alleyway cobblestones.

He lay moaning, broken, and probably dying.

“A pity,” said the first wizard.

“It’s the fault of Pymian Loodran,” the second replied, referring to the fugitive who had had the audacity to steal the purse of a lower-ranking acolyte from the Hosttower. The young mage had indulged too liberally of potent drink, making him easy prey, and the rogue Loodran had apparently been unable to resist.

Normally, Loodran’s offense would have gotten him arrested and dragged to Prisoner’s Carnival, where he likely would have survived, though probably without all of his fingers. But Arklem Greeth had decided that it was time for a show of force in the streets. The peasants were becoming a bit more bold of late, and worse, the high captains seemed to be thinking of themselves as the true rulers of the city.

The two wizards turned back to regard Kurth’s scout, but he had already melted into the shadows, no doubt to run screaming to his master.

Arklem Greeth would be pleased.

“This work invigorates and wearies me at the same time,” the second said to the first, handing him back his wand. “I do love putting all of my practice into true action.” He glanced down the alley, where the boy lay unmoving, though still quietly groaning. “But…”

“Take heart, brother,” the other said, leading him away. “The greater purpose is served and Luskan is at peace.”

The fire burned through the night, engulfing three other structures before the area residents finally contained it. In the morning, they dug out eleven bodies, including that of Pymian Loodran, who had been so proud the day before when he had brought a chicken and fresh fruit home to his hungry family. A real chicken! A real meal, their first that was not just moldy bread and old vegetables in more than a year.

The first real meal his young daughter had ever known.

And the last.

“If I wanted to speak with Rethnor’s brat, I’d’ve come here looking for him!” said Duragoe, a ranking captain in the Ship of High Captain Baram. He finished his rant and moved as if to strike the Ship Rethnor soldier who had tried to divert him to Kensidan’s audience chamber, but held the slap when he noted the dreaded Crow himself entering the small antechamber with a look on his face that showed he’d heard every word.

“My father has passed the daily business onto my shoulders,” Kensidan said calmly. In the other room, out of sight of Duragoe, High Captain Suljack quietly snickered. “If you wish to speak with Ship Rethnor, your discussion is with me.”

“Me orders from High Captain Baram are to speak with Rethnor hisself. Ye’d deny a high captain a direct audience with another of his ilk, would ye?”

“But you are not a high captain.”

“I’m his appointed speaker.”

“As am I, to my father.”

That seemed to fluster the brutish Duragoe a bit, but he shook his head vigorously—so much so that Kensidan almost expected to see bugs flying out of his ears—and brought one of his huge hands up to rub his ruddy face. “And yerself’ll take me words to Rethnor, so he’s getting it second-hand…” he tried to argue.