“Third-hand, if your words are Baram’s words relayed to you.”

“Bah yerself,” Duragoe fumed. “I’m to say them exactly as Baram told me to say them!”

“Then say them.”

“But I’m not for liking that ye’re to then take them to yer father that we might get something done!”

“If anything is to be done due to your request, good Duragoe, the action will be at my command, not my father’s.”

“Are ye calling yerself a high captain, then?”

“I have done no such thing,” Kensidan was wise to reply. “I handle my father’s daily business, which includes speaking to the likes of you. If you wish to deliver High Captain Baram’s concerns, then please do so, and now. I have much else to do this day.”

Duragoe looked around and rubbed his grizzled and ruddy face again. “In there,” he demanded, pointing to the room behind the young Kensidan.

Kensidan held up a hand to keep the man at bay and walked back just inside the audience chamber’s door. “Be gone. We have private matters to discuss,” he called, ostensibly to the guards within, but also to give Suljack the time he needed to move to the next room, from which he could eavesdrop on the whole conversation.

He motioned for Duragoe to follow him into the audience chamber and took his seat on the unremarkable, but tallest, chair in the room.

“Ye smell the smoke?” Duragoe asked.

A thin smile creased Kensidan’s face, purposely tipping his hand that he was pleased to see that another of the high captains had taken note of the devastation the two Hosttower enforcers had rained upon a section of Luskan the previous night.

“Not a funny thing!” Duragoe growled.

“High Captain Baram told you to say that?” Kensidan asked.

Duragoe’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared as if he was on the verge of catastrophe. “My captain lost a valuable merchant in that blaze,” Duragoe insisted.

“And what would you ask Rethnor to do about that?”

“We’re looking to find out which high captain the crook who brought the fires of justice down was working for,” Duragoe explained. “Pymian Loodran’s his name.”

“I’m certain that I have never heard that name before,” said Kensidan.

“And yer father’s to say the same?” a skeptical Duragoe asked.

“Yes,” came the even response. “And why would you care? Pymian Loodran is dead, correct?”

“And how would ye be knowing that if ye don’t know the name?” the suspicious Duragoe asked.

“Because I was told that a pair of wizards burned down a house into which had fled a man who had angered the Hosttower of the Arcane,” came the reply. “I assume the target of their devastation didn’t escape, though I care not whether he did or not. Is it recompense you seek from the high captain who employed this Loodran fool, if indeed any high captain did so?”

“We’re looking to find out what happened.”

“That you can file a grievance at the Council of Five, and no doubt attach a weight of gold to repair your mercantile losses?”

“Only be fair….” Duragoe said.

“‘Fair’ would be for you to take up your grievance with the Hosttower of the Arcane and Arklem Greeth,” said Kensidan. The Crow smiled again as the tough Duragoe shrank at the mere mention of the mighty archmage arcane.

“The events of last night, the manner and extent of the punishment exacted, were decided by Arklem Greeth or his enforcers,” Kensidan reasoned. He sat back comfortably and crossed his thin legs at the knee, and even though Duragoe remained standing, he seemed diminished by the casual, dismissive posture of the acting high captain. “Whatever this fool—what did you name him? Loodran? — did to exact the ire of the Hosttower is another matter all together. Perhaps Arklem Greeth has a case to present against one of the high captains, should it be discovered that this fool indeed was in the employ of one, though I doubt that to be the case. Still, from the perspective of High Captain Baram, the perpetrator of his loss was none other than Arklem Greeth.”

“We don’t see it that way,” Duragoe said with amusing vigor—amusing only because it reinforced the man’s abject terror at the thought of bringing his bluster to the feet of the archmage arcane.

Kensidan shrugged. “You have no claim with Ship Rethnor,” he said. “I know not of this fool, Loodran, nor does my father.”

“Ye haven’t even asked him,” Duragoe said with a growl and an accusatory point of his thick finger.

Kensidan brought his hands up before his face, tapped his fingertips a couple of times, then folded the hands together, staring all the while at Duragoe, and without the slightest hint of a blink.

Duragoe shrank back even more, as if he had realized for the first time that he might be in enemy territory, and that he might be wise to take greater care before throwing forth his accusations. He glanced left and right nervously, sweat showing at his temples, and his breathing became noticeably faster.

“Go and tell High Captain Baram that he has no business with Ship Rethnor regarding this matter,” Kensidan explained. “We know nothing of it beyond the whispers filtering through the streets. That is my last word on the subject.”

Duragoe started to respond, but Kensidan cut him short with a sharp and loud, “Ever.”

The thug straightened and tried to regain a bit of his dignity. He looked around again, left and right, to see Ship Rethnor soldiers entering the room, having heard Kensidan’s declaration that their discussion was at its end.

“And pray do tell High Captain Baram that if he wishes to discuss any matters with Ship Rethnor in the future, then Kensidan will be pleased to host him,” Kensidan said.

Before the flustered Duragoe could respond, the Crow turned to a pair of guards and motioned them to escort the visitor away.

As soon as Duragoe had exited the room, High Captain Suljack came back in through a side door. “Good fortune to us that Arklem Greeth overplayed his hand, and that this man, Loodran, happened to intersect with one of Baram’s merchants,” he said. “Baram’s not an easy one to bring to our side. A favorable coincidence with favorable timing.”

“Only a fool would leave necessary good fortune to coincidence at a critical time,” Kensidan not-so-cryptically replied.

Behind him, the tough dwarf with the morningstars giggled, drawing a concerned look from High Captain Suljack, who had long ago realized that the son of Rethnor was many steps ahead of his every move.

“Sea Sprite will put in today at high tide,” Kensidan said, trying not to grin as Suljack tried hard not to look surprised, “along with Lord Brambleberry of Waterdeep and his fleet.”

“Int’resting times,” High Captain Suljack managed to sputter.

“We could have gone straight to Icewind Dale,” Regis remarked as he and Drizzt passed through the heavily guarded gate of Luskan. The halfling looked back over his shoulder as he spoke, eyeing the guards with contempt. Their greeting at the gate had not been warm, but condescending and full of suspicion regarding Regis’s dark-skinned companion.

Drizzt didn’t look back, and if he was bothered at all by the icy reception, he didn’t show it.

“I never would have believed that my friend Regis would choose a hard trail over a comfortable bed in a city full of indulgences,” the drow said.

“I’m weary from the comments, always the comments,” Regis said. “And the looks of derision. How can you ignore it? How many times do you have to prove your worth and value?”

“Why should the ignorance of a pair of guards in a city that is not my home concern me at all?” Drizzt replied. “Had they not allowed us through, as with Mirabar when we ventured through there with Bruenor on our way to Mithral Hall, then their actions affect me and my friends, and so yes, that is a concern. But we’re past the gate, after all. Their stares at my back don’t invade my body, and wouldn’t even if I were not wearing this fine mithral shirt.”