VI. DEVIL’S FIRE
“Four days ago, Cuatala saw a slave ship sailing west,” Ulblyn explained. “That ship never made port. Since then, I’ve heard that a pirate named Corwyn Jaffe is trying to unload some slaves under the table. Dangerous but lucrative–he doesn’t have to register them, doesn’t have to pay any fees. Slavers would try it more if people in cages weren’t so visible. Now, there are two mysteries: if these slaves are from that ship, how did he get them, and where did he put them?” The best place to start looking, he concluded, was the Devil’s Fire Tavern, recently opened by Corwyn himself. Cuatala would show them the way. And so the trio became a quartet, a fateful and long-lasting change that happened almost without anyone realizing it.
Vahaera guessed that their reserved and unassuming new companion came from lands near the Shaar. Cuatala nodded.
“Then all four of us are from the south,” she declared.
“Isn’t Menzoberranzan in the north?” asked Graddick. A Melvauntian passing the group as they followed a street west gave them a double take.
“I suppose it is. Why?”
“Well, isn’t that where you’re from?”
“A half-human would have a hard time growing up in Menzoberranzan,” she said ambiguously.
“Yes, you’ve made hints that you had a difficult childhood,” said Graddick. She was evading him again, undermining–if not quite contradicting–what she’d once made almost plain.
“Well, Menzoberranzan... It’s a city that should only be hinted at. It’s dangerous even to name, you know. Sinister, dark, luminescent… No one marked by Lolth’s treachery doesn’t dream of it, be the dreams good or bad. Drow, part Drow–We are all from Menzoberranzan, in a sense.”
They had come to the tavern. Cuatala hushed them and put her hand on Ystrien’s as he made to open the door. “We need to be discreet. No talk at first. We keep a low profile.”
The tavern was filthy and sparsely occupied. The mixture of grime that lay over everything in Melvaunt appeared to have been applied with great care to every corner and object in the barroom, customers included. Cuatala spotted Corwyn immediately–a shifty, pot-bellied, strong-looking man locked in a whispered exchange with someone who looked like a merchant. Behind the bar, a gaunt young woman, half skeleton, half slatternly beauty, was wiping cups with a dirty rag. Cuatala chose a large table close to the two men.
::That’s him:: she said to Vahaera without saying it. Like all ghostwise hin, she could use telepathy. Vahaera nodded, unfazed. “Our new friend can speak with her mind,” she said in a low voice to the other two. “She’s going to tell you something.”
