CHAPTER SEVEN

They settled on two of eleven shares for Jack, which was better than he had expected. Zandria's adventuring company included five other full partners, each entitled to a full share. She claimed three shares as the leader of the band. The remaining share was set aside to split between several men-at-arms and specialists retained by the Company of the Red Falcon in order to shore up its numbers for the recovery of a major hoard from the depths of lost Sarbreen. Zandria was willing to assign Jack one share for solving the puzzle, but refused to consider more than that until he promised to share in the company's risks and labors by participating in the expedition.

Even then, Jack thought that the mage agreed too quickly. Upon leaving the company's headquarters, he went straightaway to Anders and Tharzon and began planning the operation by which Zandria's band would be relieved of the burden of managing their newfound wealth. And he also set the Northman to watching Zandria's band night and day, expecting that she would be tempted to use the knowledge he'd provided without actually observing every detail of their agreement. In Jack's experience, a quick assent in any negotiation of this sort meant that the other party had decided they could get what they wanted by more expedient means.

That attended to, he returned to his apartment to prepare for the day's more significant event-the exchange with Elana. He'd been thinking of her more and more frequently as this day approached, until he found himself almost shaking in nervous anticipation as sunset neared. He bathed and dressed with care, selecting clothes that marked him as a serious professional, a man confident in his own abilities, a man who got what he wanted by hard work and hard choices.

Elana was a trained swordswoman, a woman versed in discipline and confidence; she had no patience for fops or dandies, but a fellow thief, daring but not boastful, businesslike but not mercenary… who knew what might happen?

"After all," Jack told himself in the mirror as he shaved, "it would be a matter of common sense to make it as easy as possible for the lady to uphold her end of our arrangement."

Jack dressed in plain black with a padded doublet of glossy leather and well-brushed boots that matched handsomely. He disdained any flamboyance, covering his head with a simple cap and sheathing both rapier and poignard on his left hip in the Vilhonese style. Then he disarmed the numerous traps he'd set over the Sarkonagael's hiding place, wrapped the heavy tome in plain burlap, and stuffed the whole thing into a leather pouch secured to his shoulder.

He sallied forth an hour after sunset, turning up his face to the fine mist that hung in the air. More spring rain-a sign of turbulent weather to come. Yellow lanternlight gleamed on the wet cobblestones, and Burnt Gables was quiet save for the occasional carriage clip-clopping by in the damp night.

"How perfectly suited for clandestine meetings and secret doings," he said with a laugh. "An auspicious start to the evening's festivities!"

A ten-minute walk brought him to the Cracked Tankard. The place was unusually crowded, choked with crewmen from two Chessentan galleons that had tied up at the city's wharves earlier in the day. Jack threaded his way through the crowd, elbowing a space at the bar. No fewer than three barmaids plus the barkeep Kirben were manning the rail tonight; they rushed back and forth, serving draughts as quickly as they could draw them. Jack dropped a silver talon on the countertop as the tavern-keeper stomped past.

"Ho, Kirben! Perchance have you a message for me?"

"Ho, yourself," the barkeep snapped. Kirben swept the coin into a pocket of his apron and handed Jack a small envelope sealed in red wax. "Don't say I never did anything for you."

Jack broke the seal and scanned the note inside. The Storm Gull, Aldiger's pier. Make sure you lose any tails. Don't leave this message here. Skullduggery and dark doings, he thought. A dangerous prize and a lovely lady!

"I won't be back tonight," he told Kirben, stuffing the note into his pocket. Then he headed out into the night again, winding his way through the city toward the harbor neighborhood known as Silverscales.

He turned south on Blacktree Boulevard and followed it to the harbor, pausing at the intersection of Blacktree and Fishleap to look for any signs of pursuit. A man in a dark cloak about twenty yards behind Jack casually halted and began to inspect the goods displayed in a store window; Jack ducked out of sight into a dark alleyway and worked a minor illusion that altered his appearance, taking the form of a hulking half-ogre longshoreman with stooped shoulders and long, powerful arms that hung almost to his knees. Adapting a drunken sway to his walk, he stepped out of the alleyway and roughly shouldered the black-cloaked man aside.

"Outta my way," he rumbled ominously.

"I beg your pardon, sir," the man said. He turned and dashed down the alleyway, intent on reaching the other end to keep Jack in sight, not realizing, of course, that he'd just run right past his quarry.

Jack leered with a mouth full of peglike teeth and continued on his way. Magic was so useful and so easy, it was almost like cheating. He wondered why more people didn't take it up. Wizards and magicians claimed that it took years of tireless study and punishing apprenticeships to glean even the beginnings of the Art, but it had always come naturally to Jack. They studied pages full of exhaustive formulae, pored over ancient texts, scrabbled for hints and ciphers in the works of their predecessors. Jack just thought of things he'd like to be able to do, sharpened all his will and attention on wanting to be able to do them, and through trial and error found out how, through nonsense words and simple gestures and patterns or focuses he could concentrate on, just like a man playing at ninepins might stand on one foot and pull in an arm while trying to will the ball to strike the lead pin dead on.

"Faerun's wizards have, no doubt, a long-standing agreement by which all initiated into the Art swear to make it look as difficult and obtuse as possible," he mused as he walked. "Therefore they ensure that anyone paying for their services believes that he is hiring a rare and talented professional indeed, the one man in a thousand who can make sense of magic. Why, if they let slip that anyone could do it, the whole lot of them would be ruined. Hah!"

He followed Fishleap through Bitterstone and around the end of the city wall into Silverscales. Here a dozen ramshackle piers and wharves jutted out into the outer harbor, crowded with three or four times that number of galleys, caravels, carracks, and yawls. Stomping along the boardwalk Jack came to the last pier, the one opposite Aldiger's Cut, and scanned the ships moored there. At the end a small sloop rocked gently by the wharf. "The Storm Gull," he read from the lettering across the ship's stern. Jack threw one more glance over his shoulder and didn't spot anyone paying him undue attention, so he resumed his own appearance and trotted down the pier to the ship.

Two easterners in metal-studded jerkins lounged on the ship's deck, watching Jack without saying a word. They were strange-looking fellows, with bronzed faces and straight black hair, perhaps from the fantastic lands beyond even Thay or Rashemen. Jack boarded the ship and nodded politely.

"Take me to Elana," he said.

The first easterner straightened with a rattle of steel and pointed at a companionway leading down to the Storm Gull's main cabin. "That way," he said through a thick accent. He returned to his watch, studying the wharves and streets intensely.

Jack clattered down the steep ladder and found himself in a short passageway lined by several doors. At the end of the passage, the door leading into the stern cabin-presumably, the master's quarters-stood slightly ajar. With a shrug, Jack pushed it open and went inside.