XXVI. GUDENNY COMES TO TOWN
He hated the soot more than he hated the gray skies of Thar, more than he hated the snow, but he did hate them all. Nothing was more miserable than someone who lived in this city, not even him. When he first came to the Moonsea, he had spent three weeks in Melvaunt. He drank deeply, got into merry fights that turned ugly, sang merry songs that turned harsh and desperate. In crowds he was morose and boisterous by turns. To a certain kind of person his antics were good fun until they got scary, which they always did. At the end of three weeks people would leave the Devil’s Fire or the Breakwater or the Floating Fighter or the Crow’s Nest whenever he showed up. Stendale’s men had thrown him in jail twice. He spent his last night in the city weeping and weeping in an alleyway. Someone knelt beside him and asked if she could help, truly help. He killed her and left town.
One thing was strange about the city–the spirit that sometimes whispered in Gudenny’s ear was quiet there. Maybe, unfettered by its evil, Gudenny was free to do his own. Maybe his wild deeds were the results of conscience going in and out of the rut the spirit had made; maybe, in time, clearer thoughts and better habits would have prevailed. Maybe nothing.
In any case, he was back. After infiltrating the pirates’ hideout proved fruitless, he’d followed some days-old halfling tracks to Melvaunt.
“Watch where you’re going!” scolded Ulblyn Blackalbuck as the big Rashemi collided with him in the marketplace. Gudenny growled and thrashed as if he were a horse shaking off flies. Ulblyn went his way, and so did Gudenny. Then he remembered: he was looking for a halfling! He peered backward. He took a few more steps forward and then looped back between people and stalls to follow the Harper. Ulblyn went into his shop. Seeing this struck Gudenny with a previously unthinkable idea: the person who had taken his jade hammer might have tried to pawn it. He gaped at the door for a minute, considering his options and this new possibility, when another halfling–a pale, thin one, almost a girl, carrying a big sack with a sword hilt sticking out of it–went to the door. Ulblyn opened it and ushered her inside.
Instead of following them, Gudenny crept behind the building, where a huge rubbish heap from each day’s market collected until it got so noxious someone carted it away. The city rats were carrying on, talking competitively about how easy they had it.
“Yesterday I got stinking cabbage. Salty, greasy, sour, still warm. You weren’t here. I had it all. You always miss the good days. You’re unlucky, and that’s why I don’t like you.”
“I’m not unlucky at all. I was underground. There was a dead boy. He had small tender fingers and the palm of his hand was very sweet. You don’t know what you’re talking about, as usual.”
When Gudenny interrupted them, they squealed and darted into nearby corners.
“Don’t run. I’ll give you food better than anything you can find here. Go inside that building and listen. Come back and tell me what the halflings are talking about.”
