said, “Thanks for the help.”
The woman acknowledged Diran’s gratitude with a nod. “It was nothing. You’d have slain him in the end. I simply helped matters along a bit.”
“Don’t be modest. You may well have saved my life.”
The woman’s smile was tender this time. She reached up and touched Diran’s cheek. “It’s the least I could do for an old friend.”
Ghaji groaned. It looked like this woman was going to be just as dangerous as the changeling.
CHAPTER
“Why is it taking so long? We’ve been sitting here for almost half an hour!”
The woman, whose name was Makala, raised her hand in an attempt to capture the attention of the serving girl, but she continued past them to another table. A trio of sailors sat there, talking and laughing, and soon the girl was laughing along with them. One of the sailors, a man with red hair and a beard to match, laughed loudest of all, sounding more like a braying donkey than a human, Ghaji thought.
It was a typical dockside tavern in Port Verge. Wooden chairs and tables were sticky with spilled ale, their surfaces scored with knife-carved graffiti. The floor, covered with sawdust, soaked up whatever liquids might spill upon it. The room was lit by everbright lanterns, windows open to allow in the cool evening breeze coming off the sea. The sole ornamental touch was a fishing net strung across the ceiling with shells and dried starfish hanging in its weave. Instead of a minstrel, tonight’s entertainment was an elf-woman who stood juggling in front of the empty stone hearth. She stood a touch over five feet, was slender, and had the pointed ears and elongated head common to her race. She wore her brunette hair in a pattern of complex braids, as was common in the Principalities, and was dressed in the typical garb of a traveling player: white blouse, brown tunic, green leggings, and brown boots. She was juggling ten red wooden balls in a circular pattern with graceful ease.
“Don’t take it personally,” Diran said. “Ghaji and I have encountered similar treatment before. People are often uncomfortable in the presence of priests, let alone one who killed a changeling only a few blocks from here.”
“They’re wondering if Diran really is a priest of the Silver Flame,” Ghaji added, “or if he’s just some lunatic who might well decide the next person who looks at him cross-eyed is a monster and start throwing daggers around the room. It doesn’t help that he travels with me either.”
Makala frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“People find us a rather unlikely pair,” Diran said. “A priest and a half-orc… it gives them further reason to suspect I’m not truly a priest, or if I am, that I’m a mad, dangerous one.”
“Well, you are dangerous,” Makala said. “As for mad…” She trailed off, smiling.
“Forget about the others,” Ghaji said. “They’ll ignore us for a while and hope we get the message and leave. When we don’t, they’ll realize the best way to get rid of us is to serve us quickly. Then we’ll drink, eat, and go, and everyone will be happy again.”
“This is ridiculous, Diran,” Makala insisted. “I’ll go talk to that wench and let her know that we’d like to be served-now.” Makala started to rise, but Diran took hold of her elbow and stopped her.
“Don’t bother. The girl will attend to us or she won’t. In the end, it’s of no real importance which she chooses.”
“It’s important to my stomach,” Ghaji muttered.
The half-orc warrior didn’t like how the evening was going. So far, neither Diran nor Makala had seen fit to enlighten him any further on the details of their shared history. Had they once been lovers? Ghaji had no idea if Diran’s order discouraged or even forbade romantic relationships. During the time they’d traveled together, he’d never seen Diran show more than a clerical interest in women.
Despite himself, Ghaji had to admit that Makala was an attractive woman. Her features tended toward pretty rather than beautiful, but she exuded a quiet strength and confidence that drew all male eyes toward her. She was surely a warrior, Ghaji guessed. That was no lucky strike she’d hit the changeling with. Some men found women who were as strong, if not stronger, than themselves off-putting, but not Ghaji, and neither, it seemed, did Diran.
How did Diran know her? Ghaji wondered. Had they met during Diran’s early days as a priest, before Ghaji had become his companion, or had they met before, during the Last War when Diran had served a far different master than the Silver Flame? If so, just how dangerous did that make Makala?
Whatever the nature of their past relationship, Makala had certainly disturbed the mental and emotional equilibrium Diran normally maintained. The priest sat more stiffly than usual, and when he spoke, his voice held an edge of tension.
His manner was friendly enough but guarded, almost as if he suspected Makala might be yet another creature of darkness that they’d have to dispatch, and he was waiting to confirm the fact before striking.
After they’d dispatched the changeling, an officer of the City Watch had finally appeared. He’d questioned Diran and Ghaji about the incident, but the man hadn’t seemed overly concerned about the changeling’s demise.
“Just another urchin-sting addict with poor judgment,” he’d pronounced. The officer had taken down Diran and Ghaji’s names then told them to leave.
“And try not to kill anyone else while you’re in town,” he’d added.
Ghaji hadn’t replied. He didn’t like to make promises he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep.
“What I don’t understand is why the changeling acted the way he did,” Ghaji said. “His kind usually prefer to avoid direct conflict whenever they can. Besides, when you mistook him for a rakshasa, all he would’ve had to do was show us he was a changeling, and we would’ve left him in peace. Instead, he transformed himself to appear like a rakshasa and attacked. Why?”
“He was intoxicated,” Diran pointed out. “That could easily explain his erratic behavior.”
“Maybe,” Ghaji said, “but then what about what he said right before he died? ‘Tonight the streets of Port Verge will run thick with blood.’”
Makala shrugged. “An empty threat. The man was dying and wanted to strike out at Diran one last time with the only weapon he had left: words. I’ve heard such words many times before, and they meant no more than they do now.”
“Last words always mean something,” Diran said.
Makala looked at Diran as if truly seeing him for the first time. “You’ve really changed, haven’t you, Diran Bastiaan?”
Diran smiled. “More than I could ever have imagined, but still not as much as I’d like.”
Makala grinned. “Now that’s the Diran I remember. No matter what, he’s never quite satisfied.”
Diran’s smile didn’t falter, but his voice became a trifle colder. “I like to think there’s always room for improvement, regardless of the person or the situation. How about you, Makala? Have you changed?”
Makala’s grin fell away, and Ghaji felt himself becoming extremely uncomfortable. Thus it came almost as a relief when one of the sailors at the next table, the red-bearded one, said, “Hey! Ugly!”
Ghaji ignored the taunt, so the man hurled another.
“Tell me, what’s a beauty like her doing sitting at a table with a beast like you?”
Makala started to say something, but Diran motioned for her to remain silent. The other two men sitting at Redbeard’s table laughed, but once again, Ghaji ignored the loudmouth, refusing to even look at him this time. A moment later came the sound of chair legs sliding on sawdust, and Ghaji knew Redbeard had stood up. The next sound was the clump of boots as the man walked over to their table and stood behind Ghaji.
“What’s wrong, orc? You hard of hearing or just too stupid to understand?”
Though Ghaji’s back was to the idiot, he could sense the man quivering with anger behind him. Still Ghaji didn’t react.
Redbeard poked his index finger hard into Ghaji’s right shoulder. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”
One of Redbeard’s companions shouted, “Hit him, Barken! That’s the only way to get an orc’s attention!”
