the red plumes receive?'
'Too bad we don't have a pair of helms like that.'
'Follow me,' Volo ordered, venturing farther on, past the gate and behind a hedge that obscured easy viewing of the road from the gate guardhouse.
'What are you doing?' Passepout asked.
'You,' he replied, not answering the question, 'are going to tell a joke to those two gentlemen who are now leaving the city gate.'
'A joke!'
'More than one if necessary,' Volo replied, and with that scurried into a break in the hedge.
'A joke,' Passepout repeated to himself, shrugged, marshalled his minute capacity of courage, and stepped out in front of the two oncoming Red Plumes.
'Hey!' called the thespian, doing a convincing job of not appearing scared. 'How many halflings does it take to feed a wolf? Only one if he's fat enough.'
The Red Plumes slowed, and then stopped to listen to the plump comedian.
'Uh… here's another,' he sputtered, trying to think of a different one fast enough. 'What is the difference between loading a cart with bricks, and loading a cart with dwarves?'
One of the Red Plumes raised his hand, and said, 'Wait! I think I know this one!'
Thud!
With the sound of a makeshift bludgeon meeting the base of a skull, both Red Plumes went down, revealing Volo standing behind them, two stockings filled with coins swinging from each hand. A well-placed blow beneath their helms had succeeded in knocking the mercenaries out.
'Quickly!' Volo ordered. 'Help me tie them up. I'm sure they won't mind if we borrow their helms. Where did you get such horrible jokes?'
'An entertainer must be prepared for any sort of audience,' Passepout replied, and pitched in immediately with the divestiture of the mercenaries' headpieces. 'And where did you ever learn that coins-in-the-sock maneuver?'
'At one time I was thinking of doing a book on self-defense for the common man called Volo's Guide to Street fighting, but my publisher was afraid that it would become a how-to book for brigands. Oh, and one more thing,' Volo added. 'What is the difference between loading a cart with bricks, and loading a cart with dwarves?'
Passepout smiled.
'You can use a pitchfork when you're loading dwarves,' he replied.
Volo just rolled his eyes. With the Red Plumes' helms upon their heads, they passed into Hillsfar without incident and immediately headed to the harbor, where the Greenwood Twain had just announced its final boarding call.
The trip eastward and south was uneventful but depressing. The riverboat that Marks had booked them passage on also trafficked in the slave trade, and once a day the poor unfortunates were brought on deck for their exercise. This jumping up and down would last for about twenty minutes, at which point they would be returned to the crowded, unsanitary hold.
Volo couldn't stand to watch, and would turn his back to look at the cold, clear, deep, almost purplish waters of the Moonsea.
'There but for the grace of Eo go I,' he muttered, sickened by the inhumanity of it all.
Passepout was just sickened by the voyage itself. The cold north wind rocked the vessel on the unforgiving Moonsea. He wasn't able to keep down any solid foods until they reached the River Lis. He would only venture from their cabin to, at the proper time, throw a red gem overboard, or to heave the contents of his delicate stomach into the watery darkness below.
When the Greenwood Twain finally reached its destination of Harrowdale, Volo and Passepout quickly disembarked, leaving behind the depressing memory of the rolling waters and human chattel.
'Where to now, Master Volo?' Passepout asked. 'It's good to be back on dry land.'
'I'm afraid that I have bad news for you, son of Idle and Catinflas,' Volo answered. 'We will be booking passage on the first available ship heading south.'
Passepout sighed with hapless resignation.
'But first,' the master traveler added, 'we will find a cleric who can cure you of your propensity for seasickness.'
The thespian brightened a bit at hearing this, and responded, 'Well, in that case, I guess another voyage won't be too bad. Thank you, Master Volo.'
Volo braced at hearing the word 'master,' in light of his shipboard observations.
'And another thing,' he added, 'consider the debt that you owed me to be filled.'
'But, Master Volo…'
'No,' Volo insisted, 'you've more than repaid me for the incident at the gates of Suzail, so please don't address me as 'master' any longer. From this day forward, let the bond that exists between us be one based on the friendship of two companions on the road.'
Passepout was almost speechless.
'What about the 'magical bond' that was imposed on us back in Suzail?'
'It is my hope,' Volo answered, 'that will be a temporary one, but the one we have forged out of friendship will last forever.'
Passepout, sheepish in the gratitude he felt toward the master traveler, forced a slightly choked expression of gratitude.
'Thank you, Mast…, uh, Mister Volo.'
'Thank you, Passepout, son of Idle and Catinflas,' Volo replied, adding, 'Now let's go find that cleric.'
Chapter 9
The cleric cured Passepout of his motion malady and assured him that he was now seaworthy. As the two travelers were leaving the healer's shop, Volo inquired if the cure would do for other forms of motion malady, such as air-sickness and the like.
Air-sickness? Passepout thought, what's that?
The healer assured them that it would, and the two left the shop, almost as quickly as Passepout's question left his mind.
The two travelers had pitched their red-plumed helms overboard before the riverboat passed through the River Lis, and felt confident in the safety of their true identities, or at least as safe as travelers could be in Faerun.
Volo booked them passage on a merchant vessel called the Amistad's Bounty that was bound for Arrabar, down the Dragon Reach, and through the Sea of Fallen Stars, under the able command of Captain Bligh Queeg, a legendary ship captain and disciplinarian of the high seas. They were allowed first-class accommodations, which were private, provided they were willing to sleep in an above-deck storeroom rather than in crews' quarters or the hold.
The captain was at the gangplank when it was time for them to board. He was a short dumpling of a man who wore the uniform of a veteran of the Cormyrean Freesails and had a posture straighter than the main mast of the ship. In one hand he held a pair of metallic marbles, which clanked together while he extended the other hand to greet the new arrivals to his ship.
'Mister Volo, and Mister Passepout, welcome aboard,' he declared with all of the formality of a Tethyrian noble negotiating a treaty. 'We shall be setting sale shortly. Our cargo has been loaded, and we are merely awaiting the arrival of my first mate, Mister Nordhoff.'
'What type of cargo are we carrying?' Volo inquired.
