“Ah! But our goddess works in obsessive, irrational patterns!” the young acolyte said, with the eager gusto of a lawyer revealing a brilliant new piece of evidence. His look of triumph withered under the priestess’ glare.
Brouse shrugged and started packing his bag again. “Oh. Fine. Her. I’ll give you that one. But even if we’ve got no idea what their holinesses are plotting up there, we can see how they’re doing whatever it is down on Arth. And they don’t seem to be up to anything here.”
“You can’t—”
“The beads in this here causal numenometer would be dancing a jig if any god in the hall so much as blessed your lunch.” Brouse waved the device at the priestess before shoving it in his bag. “The smoke in my pipe would be turning purple if it was a wizard messing with the weave. This is your standard act of fate, and given that all that’s happened is a bit of bronze shifting by an inch or two, it probably ain’t a big one. No emergency. Send for me if he hops down from the pedestal or eats a pigeon. That sort of thing.” He picked up his bag and touched the tip of his cowl.
“But…” The priestess pursed her lips. “It’s just… creepy. I really feel like something meaningful is happening here.”
“Well, feelings and meaning are your realm, your grace,” said the support friar. “Never pay much attention to that sort of thing myself. We just keep the water holy and the eternal flames lit. There’s not anythin’ here needs me.”
“If you say so,” said the priestess uncertainly. She looked up at the bronze cast of the most recent failed incarnation of the Seventh Hero of Destiny. The statue of Niln held a book in one hand, while the other was raised from his side in an upturned fist, as though bracing himself against the winds of a storm. His face was twisted into a manic grin.
“It does seem a little odd.” Thane looked around as he and Poldo made their way down the winding, scrabbly path toward Adchul’s dock.
“What does?” huffed Poldo. The path zigzagged down a steep slope toward the water, making a pattern almost like slanted stairs for a Troll of Thane’s height. A Gnome such as Poldo, however, had to run back and forth for several yards to descend the same amount as one of the Troll’s steps, and Poldo was almost winded trying to keep up with the Troll’s leisurely pace.
“That we’re leaving now. It doesn’t look like a good day to sail,” Thane said.
Poldo looked down the path. The sky and the sea beneath it were both a dull gray, and an ominous shadow darkened the distant sky. A steady wind kicked up small whitecaps on the ocean and chilled the Scribkin through his thick, black coat. The weather shook him a bit, but he was reassured by the stout Dwarven ship that waited at the dock, banging against the pylons with an irregular rhythm as it rocked in the surf. It was nothing like the sleek Elven schooner that had brought them out to Adchul months before; this boat was wide, low to the water, and covered with enough steel to arm a battalion of knights. Instead of masts, thick pipes extended from the middle of its deck, belching black smoke into the air.
“Fortunately, we’re not sailing,” he told Thane with a nod to the boat. “Our ship has runic forge-engines, and it’s probably watertight belowdecks. Most ships catch the wind and race the storms, but Dwarven vessels ignore the weather.”
Thane nodded reluctantly. “It still doesn’t seem like a particularly good day to begin a voyage.”
“It isn’t a particularly good day, but soon every day will be a particularly bad one, and this is the last scheduled delivery this week.” Poldo clutched his hat against the wind and stared with naked envy at the bevy of Wood Gnomes riding in the Troll’s fur. “The winter storms will start in earnest by Highmoon, and they’ll last well into next year. The lawyer-monks said that when spring finally settles the water, the kraken and sea wyrms start their mating seasons, and there are few captains mad enough to brave the waters at that point. There will be few ships in Adchul until Bloomtide.”
“And that’s longer than the lawyer-monks would care for us to stay?” asked Thane.
“Burn what they care for,” wheezed Poldo. “It’s too long for me. Besides, it’s a short voyage. If those clouds hold and the currents are favorable, we’ll have dinner in Chrate this evening.”
A profane shout rang out. The Dwarven sailors had noticed their passengers approaching, and now they pointed and cursed, backing away from the Troll.
Thane wavered at the edge of the dock. “And did you—”
“All your information is on the manifesto I sent the captain,” said Poldo, wheezing as he stumbled past Thane and onto the wooden planks. “It’s their problem if they didn’t read it carefully. Come on.”
The Troll hesitated, then took a deep breath and stepped carefully onto the old timbers of the dock. The wood groaned and screeched in protest, but the noise was drowned out by the thundering of iron boots on oak. The Dwarven sailors pushed back up the gangplank as one, watching their passengers warily from beneath iron helms.
Poldo ignored them. “It will be nice to be back on the mainland again. Better food, more to do, much easier to conduct business. I hope to find a sprite from Mrs. Hrurk waiting when we arrive in Chrate.”
Thane paused near the gangplank and looked out over the water. A bitter wind blew from the north, carrying droplets of seawater that felt like needles of ice. The Wood Gnomes hanging from the Troll’s shaggy coat huddled closer together for warmth. “Did she take that job with... with the Orc company?” he asked absently.
“Warg Incorporated,” said Poldo, bracing himself against the gust. “I should hope she will, and I’ve encouraged her to do so. Possible news of her career is just another reason to look forward to the letter. Why, imagine where she could go after landing a job with Asherzu Guz’Varda! One could easily see business travel bringing her to Chrate or Monchester. We might even be able to meet her there, if her schedule allows. It would be good to see her again.” Despite the bitter cold, Poldo found himself smiling at the thought. Unfortunately, the Wood Gnomes also saw him smiling, and several of them were giving him impertinent grins. Poldo cleared his throat and brushed the ice crystals from his mustache with a deep scowl.
Fortunately, the Troll didn’t seem to notice. The Troll didn’t seem aware of anything, for that matter.
“Thane?” asked Poldo.
There was no response. The Troll stared to the east. He wasn’t searching for something, or scanning the horizon, or even staring blankly as his thoughts wandered. Thane watched a point across the waters with the determined focus of an opera enthusiast with bad balcony seats. Poldo followed his gaze out across the gray water and saw nothing but a dull mist.
“Thane?” the Gnome repeated.
“Uh… right. Yes.” Thane shook his head. “What were we discussing?”
The Wood Gnomes started to chitter something, but Poldo cut them off with a raised voice. “I was merely pointing out that we might have a chance to see Mrs. Hrurk if the fates align.”
“Ah. Good.” Thane wore a smile that never reached his eyes. “It would be nice to meet her.”
Poldo nodded. “And perhaps there is someone else we could try to meet.”
The Troll flinched, prompting some squeaks of alarm from the Wood Gnomes in his fur. His hand rose up to his face as his gaze drifted back to the east. “I… I doubt it,” he said.
“Thane, I am sure that if your Elf met you under different circumstances, she wouldn’t have… uh…” The Gnome struggled to find gentle words for a violent act.
“Put an arrow in my eye?” said Thane.
“Not to put too fine a point on it,” muttered Poldo.
“Oh, it was quite sharp.”
“She might not have shot you under different circumstances,” the Scribkin said firmly. “You told me she first saw you with a dead man in your hands, and no way to know that the corpse was her would-be assassin. How would she react to anyone after such a first impression?”
“I didn’t think it was a first impression.” The Troll shook his head. “I just… I thought that we had been connected, somehow. That even if she hadn’t seen me, she knew me. I was wrong.”
He loosed a sigh that sounded like a rockslide in a gravel pit. “And since she didn’t know me, what was I doing? What was I to her? A monster lurking at the edge of the darkness? A beast to be slain or evaded? And all that time, I thought… Well, I was a fool. A deluded fool.”
