You win some, you lose some, Kali mused. It was a week later and she was halfway down her third tankard of ale, draped at the table by the captain's chest in the upper nook of the tavern, the affair of the Spiral — despite a lingering nag about her vision — fading from her mind. Time to think about what to do and where to go next — there was, after all, enough choice out there. The Lost Canals, as she'd mentioned to Merrit? Uummm, maybe — she didn't yet know. But it was something that she intended to plan out, here, at this very table, over the next few days.
While at the same time getting some serious drinking done.
She quaffed the rest of her ale in one and signalled Aldrededor for another — no, make that two. The swarthy, grey-haired and ear-ringed Sarcrean winked and blew her a kiss as he set the golden brews down, pleased to have her back where she belonged. Behind him, down a small flight of bowed, skewing steps, business in the Here There Be Flagons was busy and lively, the air thick with laughter and banter, and a cloying mix of pipe, rolly smoke and sweat whose strength could still not mask the heady aroma of Dolorosa's Surprise Stew. The stew had been on the menu — was the menu, in fact — for as long as Aldrededor and his wife had been at the Flagons, and the surprise about it was the reaction anyone got if they were stupid enough to enquire what was in it. 'Why you wanna know?' the tall, thin and equally swarthy woman would demand loudly. 'You think Dolorosa trying to poison you, ah? You think maybe she cook witha the weebleworm anda the flopparatta poo? Well, Dolorosa tell you, iffa Dolorosa wanna you dead she would sticka the cutlass inna your belly and she woulda laugh! Like-a this — ha-ha- ha-ha-haaar! Now go! Getta outta theees taverno! Go away, go, shoo, go, go, go…'
Kali smiled. Dolorasa's more… unusual approach to business was, along with the captain's chest in a tavern landbound for leagues in every direction, a clue to the fact that before the elderly couple had fetched up here, they had pursued their own, long career on Twilight's roiling seas. Exactly what that career had been she had never felt the need to ask, because as far as she was concerned the ear-ring and the cutlass and the hearty laugh said it all.
It was what she loved — had always loved — about this place — the mixed bunch all of them were. Looking down towards the bar, she could see Fester Grimlock and Jurgen Pike engaged in a game of quagmire, the merchant and the thief staring daggers at each other as usual. There was Ronin Larson, the local ironweaver, and Hetty Scrubb, the herbalist. Between them weaved Peter Two-Ties, who had prepared the render for her expedition to the Sardenne. And then there, perched on his groaning and perpetually buckling stool, as he was perched every day — but only during the day — was Red Deadnettle, the flame-haired giant of a man who was the reason she was here in the first place.
All of them had made her welcome over the years, and all of them were friends, but to Red she owed it all. Kali knew nothing of her parents or her origin, only that she had been found, twenty-two years before, abandoned and naked as the babe she was, by an unknown adventurer exploring an Old Race site — a site she had never since been able to find. The becloaked adventurer had rescued her and walked the roads on a storm-lashed night, looking for somewhere or someone to take her in. That someone had been Red, who, seeing dawn coming, had brought her here. The rest, as they said, was history — and the adventurer had never been seen again.
A number of shadows darkened the outside of the small, whorled-glass windows of the tavern, before continuing on towards the door. Kali would not normally have given them a second thought — more customers — but their bulk and the way they had skulked for a second outside gave her cause to suspect something might be amiss. Sure enough, a second later, five half-uniformed thugs entered the tavern and headed straight for Red. They were heavies for hire, guards in the employ of local landowners to protect their interests on their estates, and while they had every right — at least in the eyes of the law as it had conveniently been written by their employers — to apprehend people on their land, they had no right to do so in a public place such as this.
'Mister Deadnettle?' their somewhat obese leader enquired. 'Mister Red Deadnettle?'
Still hunched at the bar, his back to the man, Red did not move or respond to the question in any way. The thug swallowed and thumped him on the shoulder.
'Deadnettle, I know it's you. I insist you — '
There were sharp intakes of breath — warning hisses, really — from the others seated along the bar, and then a slow and universal shaking of their heads. The hubbub of the tavern quietened as Red rose from his seat, dwarfing the hulks before him as his fists balled.
Kali sighed. She was tempted to let Red continue but if she didn't want her relaxation — and indeed the Flagons itself — ruined by the earthquake that would suddenly and inevitably come, she knew she had better intervene. She leaned down and opened the captain's chest Aldrededor let her use, pulling a small blackjack from beneath a pile of maps, diagrams, schematics and other Old Race paraphernalia, just in case. Then she picked up her ale, descended the steps, and with a slow lowering of her hand bade Red sit down. That done, she tapped the guard on the shoulder.
'Is there a problem, officer?'
'No problem,' the guard said tiredly, without even looking at her. 'This gentleman and I needs a little chat, that's all. A matter of a small misdemeanour.'
'He was taking a short cut across your boss's fields, unless I miss my guess,' Kali said, though she knew full well that Red had been poaching again — it was in his blood. 'Don't you think misdemeanour is a little strong?'
'It's the law of our lands, Miss. Or do you think that folk should just be allowed to wander wherever they want, eh?'
'I do, actually, yes. To wander… and explore.' She gestured outside, beyond where the ramshackle tavern was slumped like a knackered cat beside Badlands Brook. 'To see what's out there.'
The guard turned and looked Kali up and down. She'd only got back to the place an hour before and, having spent a chunk of that time stabling Horse and reassuring him that Dolorosa's stew did have bacon in it, as yet hadn't changed, and the guard took in her sap-stained and torn clothing, the general dishevelment of her appearance. He sniffed as he saw the toolbelt at her waist.
'Oh, you're one of those. Take my advice and stay out of this, adventurer,' he said with undisguised disdain. 'Our business with Deadnettle is no flight of fancy — and no concern of yours.'
Kali immediately railed at his attitude. She had never understood how people such as him could live on a world such as theirs and not be curious about it. As Merrit had said, their lives were mired in the mundane, obsessed with petty issues and their own selfish concerns. When all they had to do was look up at Kerberos and wonder -
Hells. She would have given him a lecture but he wasn't worth the bother. 'Red is a friend of mine,' she said.
'Yeah, he looks like he would be. Now off with you before I have the innkeeper eject you from the premises.'
Red said something for the first time, then, leaning down to whisper quietly in the guard's ear. It was still a rumble. 'That might be difficult, Mister Policeman. 'Cause Miss Hooper, she owns the place.'
The guard guffawed and looked Kali up and down again. 'Don't make me laugh. A strip of a girl like her owning a grub's den like this in the back of beyond. Why would she want to do that?'
Kali took a sip of her ale and stared at the guard measuredly. What Red said was true — the tavern had hit hard times a few years ago, and so, when she'd had the funds, she'd bought it, simple as that. But she hadn't changed anything. Except the name. You just didn't with this place. The year before one of the local gentry had objected to the fuggy atmosphere and had suggested it became a non-smoking tavern. After the laughter had died down — a non-smoking tavern? — Red had dragged the man to Bottomless Pit and thrown him in. After setting him on fire.
'It relaxes me.'
Fatso guffawed again. 'Bet that don't take much, either. Size of you, it'd only take a thimbleful before you was off your bloody head!'
'And ready for a good time, eh?' Kali said, calculatedly.
The guard's eyes narrowed, and he smacked his lips. 'Tell you what — why don't we put that to the test?'
'I'm sure I don't know what you mean.'
'A little competition. You, me, a few drinks. And if you're the one that remains standing, I let Deadnettle off
