"My first spell indicated that Delbridge was going to Tantallon, and the one I just cast reveals indisputably that the bracelet is here." The sea elf's blue-green eyes took in the vast, rectangular keep made of foot-square blocks of gray, ribbed granite.
Seated on a stone watering trough, Tanis leaned back against the cold wall of the small pump house in the central courtyard and swung one leg indolently over the other. Dipping a cupped hand into the trough, he splashed his sweat-and grime-covered face with cool water and dried it on his sleeve. He closed his eyes and held his face up to the warmth of the late-afternoon sun.
Next to him on the ground, back against the wall, the old dwarf snored softly into his tipped hat. As he frequently reminded his half-elf friend, he was not as young as he used to be; even though his mind could not recall the night spent under the satyrs' charm spell, doing gods knew what, his body surely remembered. Flint's barrel-shaped body shuddered at the aches and pains.
Things had been a bit more strained between the small group in the eight or so hours since they had awakened among the wreckage of the satyr camp. If possible, the encounter had made the sea elf more headstrong and willful, more driven to retrieve her bracelet and return to the sea, than before.
Most humbling of all, the satyrs had taken nearly everything of value from everyone but Tas. The kender had been almost insulted that they'd overlooked his alabaster ink stopper and the tiny, engraved portrait of his parents, and they'd not taken even a single one of his maps. The sorry quartet barely had enough coinage left between them to purchase one serving of bubble and squeak, and none of them liked that bland cabbage-and-potato dish anyway.
"Well?"
Startled, Tanis popped one eye open. "Well, what?"
"Shouldn't someone go ask if this Delbridge person is in there?"
Tanis laughed. "It's not an alehouse, Selana," he said. "It's the home of the most influential person in this village, to which we are strangers. Perhaps our thief is his guest. You can't just march up and say 'hand over the chubby cheat in the green jacket.' "
"Why not?" asked Tas.
Only half-asleep and listening, Flint laughed himself awake.
"I'm not some little fool from the sea, Tanis Half-Elven," said Selana, glaring the dwarf into uncomfortable silence. "I'll simply tell them the truth, that I've come a long way to find a thief who stole a valuable bracelet of mine, and that I believe he is somewhere in the keep. Curston is a Knight of Solamnia, surely an honorable man. He'll listen with an open mind."
Tanis nodded, surprised to find that he agreed.
Tas jumped to his feet. "I'll come with you, Selana," he offered, having grown bored with winning "Exes and Ohs." Flint yanked him back to the ground.
"I don't like sending her to the door alone," he said, shaking his shaggy salt-and-pepper head, "but knowing the knighthood's distrust of anything not human, she'll have trouble enough without a kender, dwarf, or half-elf at her side. Cinch up your scarf, at least," he advised Selana, giving her hand a fatherly pat.
The sea elf frowned at the necessity, but nonetheless artfully rewrapped her dirty silk scarf about her head. She rehearsed a few lines as she passed through the arched portico and stepped up to the carved door. Taking the brass knocker ring firmly in hand, she slammed it again and again into the metal plate on the stout door.
Suddenly a wrinkled old face popped around the edge of the door, sporting an odd combination of ratty gray and corn-yellow hair. His eyes, slightly milked over with
early cataracts, were red-rimmed. Momentarily startled by the sea elf's unexpected countenance, he wedged himself between the massive door and the jam. Selana could see a black band around the thin biceps of his right arm.
"Excuse me, sir," she began as sweetly as she could manage. "My name is Selana, and I'm looking for a human named Delbridge Fid—"
"Never heard of him. Go away." The stoop-shouldered old servant moved to unwedge himself.
"Wait!" Selana cried. "It's very important that I find him, and I have good reason to believe he's in the keep. Perhaps I could speak with Lord Curston?" She batted her eyelids sweetly.
"Don't try that stuff on me, young lady," the old man said gruffly. "His Lordship isn't seeing anyone. Now, go away."
Selana placed her hand through the door and held onto the jam. "Perhaps he would make one small exception."
The man shook his head sadly, the bite seemingly knocked from him. "Not for Takhisis herself, I'm afraid. Young Rostrevor is missing, kidnapped two nights ago from his bedchamber, right under his father's nose. The keep is in a state, and I have strict orders not to disturb Lord Curston."
The servant looked newly agitated. "I'm a sad old man who's revealed more than he should. Leave us to our grief."
Selana shook her head mutely. "I'm—sorry, I didn't know," she managed to mumble at last, stumbling backward down the steps. Meeting her companions' questioning glances, the sea elf quickly relayed the news.
"A bit of bad luck and timing on our part," said Tanis.
"Is it?" Flint cut in quickly, scratching his beard in thought. "An opportunistic swindler arrives in town, the knight's son is kidnapped, and now there's no trace of either of them, but the bracelet is somewhere inside the keep. Coincidence?"
"Are you saying that you think the bumbling bard Gaesil described to us kidnapped the knight's son for some strange reason, then, for some equally unfathomable cause, left the bracelet behind?" Tanis asked, incredulous.
The dwarf ignored his friend's skepticism, tapping his whiskered chin. "I'm saying I have a hunch that unusual events
