THE CITY OF SAILS

Pymian Loodran burst out the tavern door, arms flailing with terror. He fell as he turned, tearing the skin on one knee, but he hardly slowed. Scrambling, rolling, and finally getting back to his feet, he sprinted down the way. Behind him, out of the tavern, came a pair of men dressed in the familiar robes of the Hosttower of the Arcane, white with broad red trim, talking as if nothing was amiss.

"You don't believe he's fool enough to enter his own house," one said.

"You accepted the bet," the other reminded.

"He will flee for the gate and the wider road beyond," the first insisted, but even as he finished the other pointed down the road to a three-story building. The terrified man ascended an outside stairway on all fours, grabbing and pulling at the steps.

The first wizard, defeated, handed over the wand. "May I open the door, at least?" he asked.

"I would be an unappreciative victor to deny you at least some enjoyment," his friend replied.

They made their way without rushing, even though the stairway moved back along an alleyway and away from the main road, so the hunted man had passed out of sight.

"He resides on the second floor?" the first wizard asked.

"Does it matter?" said the second, to which the first nodded and smiled.

As they reached the alleyway, they came in sight of the second story door. The first wizard pulled out a tiny metal rod and began to mutter the first words of a spell.

"High Captain Kurth's man," his companion interrupted. He motioned with his chin across to the other side of the street where a large-framed thug had exited a building and taken a particular interest in the two wizards.

"Very fortunate," the first replied. "It's always good to give a reminder to the high captains." And he went right back to his spellcasting.

A few heartbeats later, a sizzling lightning bolt rent the air between the wizard and the door, blasting the flimsy wooden portal from its hinges and sending splinters flying into the flat.

The second wizard, already deep in chanting to activate the wand, took careful aim and sent a small globe of orange fire leaping up to the opening. It disappeared into the flat and a blood-curdling, delicious scream told both wizards that the fool knew it for what it was.

A fireball.

A moment later, one that no doubt seemed like an eternity to the fugitive in the flat - and his wife and children, too, judging from the chorus of screams coming forth from the building - the spell burst to life. Flames roared out the open door, and out every window and every unsealed crack in the wall as well. Though not a concussive blast, the magical fire did its work hungrily, biting at the dry wood of the old building, engulfing the entire second floor and roaring upward to quickly engulf the third.

As the wizards admired their handiwork, a young boy appeared on the third story balcony, his back and hair burning. Out of his mind with pain and terror, he leaped without hesitation, thumping down with bone-cracking force against the alleyway cobblestones.

He lay moaning, broken, and probably dying.

"A pity," said the first wizard.

"It's the fault of Pymian Loodran," the second replied, referring to the fugitive who had had the audacity to steal the purse of a lower-ranking acolyte from the Hosttower. The young mage had indulged too liberally of potent drink, making him easy prey, and the rogue Loodran had apparently been unable to resist.

Normally, Loodran's offense would have gotten him arrested and dragged to Prisoner's Carnival, where he likely would have survived, though probably without all of his fingers. But Arklem Greeth had decided that it was time for a show of force in the streets. The peasants were becoming a bit more bold of late, and worse, the high captains seemed to be thinking of themselves as the true rulers of the city.

The two wizards turned back to regard Kurth's scout, but he had already melted into the shadows, no doubt to run screaming to his master.

Arklem Greeth would be pleased.

"This work invigorates and wearies me at the same time," the second said to the first, handing him back his wand. "I do love putting all of my practice into true action." He glanced down the alley, where the boy lay unmoving, though still quietly groaning. "But..."

"Take heart, brother," the other said, leading him away. "The greater purpose is served and Luskan is at peace."

The fire burned through the night, engulfing three other structures before the area residents finally contained it. In the morning, they dug out eleven bodies, including that of Pymian Loodran, who had been so proud the day before when he had brought a chicken and fresh fruit home to his hungry family. A real chicken! A real meal, their first that was not just moldy bread and old vegetables in more than a year.

The first real meal his young daughter had ever known.

And the last.

"If I wanted to speak with Rethnor's brat, I'd've come here looking for him!" said Duragoe, a ranking captain in the Ship of High Captain Baram. He finished his rant and moved as if to strike the Ship Rethnor soldier who had tried to divert him to Kensidan's audience chamber, but held the slap when he noted the dreaded Crow himself entering the small antechamber with a look on his face that showed he'd heard every word.

"My father has passed the daily business onto my shoulders," Kensidan said calmly. In the other room, out of sight of Duragoe, High Captain Suljack quietly snickered. "If you wish to speak with Ship Rethnor, your discussion is with me."

"Me orders from High Captain Baram are to speak with Rethnor hisself. Ye'd deny a high captain a direct audience with another of his ilk, would ye?"

"But you are not a high captain."

"I'm his appointed speaker."

"As am I, to my father."

That seemed to fluster the brutish Duragoe a bit, but he shook his head vigorously - so much so that Kensidan almost expected to see bugs flying out of his ears - and brought one of his huge hands up to rub his ruddy face. "And yerself'll take me words to Rethnor, so he's getting it second-hand..." he tried to argue.

"Third-hand, if your words are Baram's words relayed to you."

"Bah yerself," Duragoe fumed. "I'm to say them exactly as Baram told me to say them!"

"Then say them."

"But I'm not for liking that ye're to then take them to yer father that we might get something done!"

"If anything is to be done due to your request, good Duragoe, the action will be at my command, not my father's."

"Are ye calling yerself a high captain, then?"

"I have done no such thing," Kensidan was wise to reply. "I handle my father's daily business, which includes speaking to the likes of you. If you wish to deliver High Captain Baram's concerns, then please do so, and now. I have much else to do this day."

Duragoe looked around and rubbed his grizzled and ruddy face again. "In there," he demanded, pointing to the room behind the young Kensidan.

Kensidan held up a hand to keep the man at bay and walked back just inside the audience chamber's door. "Be gone. We have private matters to discuss," he called, ostensibly to the guards within, but also to give Suljack the time he needed to move to the next room, from which he could eavesdrop on the whole conversation.

He motioned for Duragoe to follow him into the audience chamber and took his seat on the unremarkable, but tallest, chair in the room.

"Ye smell the smoke?" Duragoe asked.

A thin smile creased Kensidan's face, purposely tipping his hand that he was pleased to see that another of the high captains had taken note of the devastation the two Hosttower enforcers had rained upon a section of Luskan the previous night.

"Not a funny thing!" Duragoe growled.

"High Captain Baram told you to say that?" Kensidan asked.

Duragoe's eyes widened and his nostrils flared as if he was on the verge of catastrophe. "My captain lost a valuable merchant in that blaze," Duragoe insisted.

"And what would you ask Rethnor to do about that?"

"We're looking to find out which high captain the crook who brought the fires of justice down was working for," Duragoe explained. "Pymian Loodran's his name."

"I'm certain that I have never heard that name before," said Kensidan.

"And yer father's to say the same?" a skeptical Duragoe asked.

"Yes," came the even response. "And why would you care? Pymian Loodran is dead, correct?"

"And how would ye be knowing that if ye don't know the name?" the suspicious Duragoe asked.

"Because I was told that a pair of wizards burned down a house into which had fled a man who had angered the Hosttower of the Arcane," came the reply. "I assume the target of their devastation didn't escape, though I care not whether he did or not. Is it recompense you seek from the high captain who employed this Loodran fool, if indeed any high captain did so?"

"We're looking to find out what happened."

"That you can file a grievance at the Council of Five, and no doubt attach a weight of gold to repair your mercantile losses?"

"Only be fair...." Duragoe said.

"'Fair' would be for you to take up your grievance with the Hosttower of the Arcane and Arklem Greeth," said Kensidan. The Crow smiled again as the tough Duragoe shrank at the mere mention of the mighty archmage arcane.

"The events of last night, the manner and extent of the punishment exacted, were decided by Arklem Greeth or his enforcers," Kensidan reasoned. He sat back comfortably and crossed his thin legs at the knee, and even though Duragoe remained standing, he seemed diminished by the casual, dismissive posture of the acting high captain. "Whatever this fool - what did you name him? Loodran?  -  did to exact the ire of the Hosttower is another matter all together. Perhaps Arklem Greeth has a case to present against one of the high captains, should it be discovered that this fool indeed was in the employ of one, though I doubt that to be the case. Still, from the perspective of High Captain Baram, the perpetrator of his loss was none other than Arklem Greeth."

"We don't see it that way," Duragoe said with amusing vigor - amusing only because it reinforced the man's abject terror at the thought of bringing his bluster to the feet of the archmage arcane.

Kensidan shrugged. "You have no claim with Ship Rethnor," he said. "I know not of this fool, Loodran, nor does my father."

"Ye haven't even asked him," Duragoe said with a growl and an accusatory point of his thick finger.

Kensidan brought his hands up before his face, tapped his fingertips a couple of times, then folded the hands together, staring all the while at Duragoe, and without the slightest hint of a blink.

Duragoe shrank back even more, as if he had realized for the first time that he might be in enemy territory, and that he might be wise to take greater care before throwing forth his accusations. He glanced left and right nervously, sweat showing at his temples, and his breathing became noticeably faster.

"Go and tell High Captain Baram that he has no business with Ship Rethnor regarding this matter," Kensidan explained. "We know nothing of it beyond the whispers filtering through the streets. That is my last word on the subject."

Duragoe started to respond, but Kensidan cut him short with a sharp and loud, "Ever."

The thug straightened and tried to regain a bit of his dignity. He looked around again, left and right, to see Ship Rethnor soldiers entering the room, having heard Kensidan's declaration that their discussion was at its end.

"And pray do tell High Captain Baram that if he wishes to discuss any matters with Ship Rethnor in the future, then Kensidan will be pleased to host him," Kensidan said.

Before the flustered Duragoe could respond, the Crow turned to a pair of guards and motioned them to escort the visitor away.

As soon as Duragoe had exited the room, High Captain Suljack came back in through a side door. "Good fortune to us that Arklem Greeth overplayed his hand, and that this man, Loodran, happened to intersect with one of Baram's merchants," he said. "Baram's not an easy one to bring to our side. A favorable coincidence with favorable timing."

"Only a fool would leave necessary good fortune to coincidence at a critical time," Kensidan not-so-cryptically replied.

Behind him, the tough dwarf with the morningstars giggled, drawing a concerned look from High Captain Suljack, who had long ago realized that the son of Rethnor was many steps ahead of his every move.

"Sea Sprite will put in today at high tide," Kensidan said, trying not to grin as Suljack tried hard not to look surprised, "along with Lord Brambleberry of Waterdeep and his fleet."

"Int'resting times," High Captain Suljack managed to sputter.

"We could have gone straight to Icewind Dale," Regis remarked as he and Drizzt passed through the heavily guarded gate of Luskan. The halfling looked back over his shoulder as he spoke, eyeing the guards with contempt. Their greeting at the gate had not been warm, but condescending and full of suspicion regarding Regis's dark-skinned companion.

Drizzt didn't look back, and if he was bothered at all by the icy reception, he didn't show it.

"I never would have believed that my friend Regis would choose a hard trail over a comfortable bed in a city full of indulgences," the drow said.

"I'm weary from the comments, always the comments," Regis said. "And the looks of derision. How can you ignore it? How many times do you have to prove your worth and value?"

"Why should the ignorance of a pair of guards in a city that is not my home concern me at all?" Drizzt replied. "Had they not allowed us through, as with Mirabar when we ventured through there with Bruenor on our way to Mithral Hall, then their actions affect me and my friends, and so yes, that is a concern. But we're past the gate, after all. Their stares at my back don't invade my body, and wouldn't even if I were not wearing this fine mithral shirt."

"But you have been nothing other than a friend and ally to Luskan!" Regis protested. "You sailed with Sea Sprite for years, to their benefit. And that was not so long ago."

"I knew neither of the sentries."

"But they had to know you - your reputation at least."

"If they believed I was who I said I was."

Regis shook his head in frustration.

"I don't have to prove my worth and value to any but those I love," Drizzt said to him, dropping his arm across the halfling's shoulders. "And that I do by being who I am, with confidence that those I love appreciate the good and accept the bad. Does anything else really matter? Do the looks of guards I don't know and who don't know me truly affect the pleasures, the triumphs, and the failings of my life?"

"I just get angry..."

Drizzt pulled him close and laughed, appreciating the support. "If I ever get such a scornful look from you, Bruenor, or Catti-brie, then I will fret," the drow said.

"Or from Wulfgar," Regis remarked, and indeed that did put a bit of weight into Drizzt's stride, for he didn't truly know what to expect when he glanced upon his barbarian friend again.

"Come," he said, veering down the first side street. "Let us enjoy the comforts of the Cutlass and prepare for the road beyond."

"Drizzt Do'Urden! Huzzah!" a man on the opposite side of the road cheered, recognizing the drow who had served so well with the hero Captain Deudermont. Drizzt returned his wave and smile.

"And does that affect you more than the scornful looks from the guards?" Regis slyly asked.

Drizzt considered his answer for a few heartbeats, recognizing the trap of inconsistency and hypocrisy Regis had lain before him. If nothing really mattered other than the opinions of his friends, then such logic and insistence would need to include the positive receptions as well as the negative.

"Only because I allow it to," the drow answered.

"Because of vanity?"

Drizzt shrugged and laughed. "Indeed."

Soon after, they went into the Cutlass, a rather unremarkable tavern serving the docks of Luskan, particularly the returning or visiting merchant crews. So close to the harbor, it was not hard to understand the moniker given to Luskan: the City of Sails. Many tall ships were tied beside her long wharves, and many more sat at anchor out in the deeper waters - so many, it seemed to Drizzt, that the whole of the city could just up and sail away.

"I have never had the wanderlust for ocean voyages," Regis said, and when Drizzt tore his eyes from the spectacle of the harbor, he found the halfling staring up at him knowingly.

Drizzt merely smiled in reply and led his friend into the tavern.

More than one mug lifted to toast the pair, particularly Drizzt, who had a long history there. Still, most of the many patrons of the bustling place gave no more than a casual glance at the unusual pair, for few in the Cutlass were not considered unusual elsewhere.

"Drizzt Do'Urden, in the black flesh," the portly proprietor said as the drow came up to the bar. "What brings you back to Luskan after these long years?" He extended a hand, which Drizzt grasped and shook warmly.

"Well met, Arumn Gardpeck," he replied. "Perhaps I have returned merely to see if you continued to ply your trade - I take comfort that some things ever remain the same."

"What else would an old fool like me do?" Arumn replied. "Have you sailed in with Deudermont, then?"

"Deudermont? Is Sea Sprite in port?"

"Aye, and with a trio of ships of a Waterdhavian lord beside her," Arumn replied.

"And spoiling for a fight," said one of the patrons, a thin and weasely little man leaning heavily on the bar, as if needing its support.

"You remember Josi Puddles," Arumn said as Drizzt turned to regard the speaker.

"Yes," Drizzt politely replied, though he wasn't so sure he did remember. To Josi, he added, "If Captain Deudermont is indeed seeking a battle, then why has he come ashore?"

"Not a fight with pirates this time," Josi replied, despite Arumn shaking his head for the man to shut up, and nodding his chin in the direction of various patrons who seemed to be listening a bit too intently. "Deudermont is looking for a bigger prize!" Josi ended with a laugh, until he finally noticed Arumn's scowl, whereupon he shrugged innocently.

"There's talk of a fight coming in Luskan," Arumn explained quietly, leaning in close so that only Drizzt and Regis - and Josi, who similarly leaned in - could hear. "Deudermont sailed in with an army, and there's talk that he's come here with purpose."

"His army's not one for fighting on the open seas," Josi said more loudly, drawing a hush from Arumn.

The two quieted as Drizzt and Regis exchanged glances, neither knowing what to make of the news.

"We're going north, straightaway," Regis reminded Drizzt, and though the drow nodded, albeit half-heartedly, the halfling suddenly wasn't so sure of his claim.

"Deudermont will be glad to see you," Arumn said. "Thrilled, I'd bet."

"And if he sees you, you will stay and fight beside him," Regis said with obvious resignation. "I'd bet."

Drizzt chuckled but held quiet.

He and Regis left the Cutlass early the next morning, supposedly for Icewind Dale, but on a route that took them down by Luskan's docks, where Sea Sprite sat in her customary, honorary berth.

Drizzt met with Captain Deudermont and the brash young Lord Brambleberry before noon.

And the two companions from Mithral Hall didn't leave the City of Sails that day.

PART 2

MORAL GROUNDING

I put Regis at ease as we walked out of Longsaddle. I kept my demeanor calm and assuring, my stride solid and my posture forward-leaning. Yet inside, my stomach churned and my heart surely ached. What I saw in the once-peaceful village shook me profoundly. I had known the Harpells for years, or thought so, and I was pained to see that they were walking a path that could well lead them to a level of authoritarian brutishness that would have made the magistrates at Luskan's wretched Prisoner's Carnival proud.

I cannot pretend to judge the immediacy and criticality of their situation, but I can certainly lament the potential outcome I so clearly recognized.

I wonder, then, where is the line between utilitarian necessity and morality? Where does one cross that line, and more importantly, when, if ever, is the greater good not served by the smaller victories of, or concessions to, basic standards of morality?

This world in which I walk often makes such distinctions based on racial lines. Given my dark elf heritage, I certainly know and understand that. Moral boundaries are comfortably relaxed in the concept of "the other." Cut down an orc or a drow with impunity, indeed, but not so a dwarf, a human, an elf?

What will such moral surety do in light of King Obould should he consider his unexpected course? What did such moral surety do in light of myself? Is Obould, am I, an anomaly, the exception to a hard and fast rule, or a glimpse of wider potential?

I know not.

Words and blades, I kept in check in Longsaddle. This was not my fight, since I had not the time, the standing, or the power to see it through to any logical conclusion. Nor could I and Regis have done much to alter the events at hand. For all their foolishness, the Harpells are a family of powerful magic-users. They didn't ask the permission or the opinion from a dark elf and halfling walking a road far from home.

Is it pragmatism, therefore, to justify my lack of action, and my subsequent assurances to Regis, who was so openly troubled by what we had witnessed?

I can lie to him - or at least, conceal my true unease - but I cannot do so to myself. What I saw in Longsaddle wounded me profoundly; it broke my heart as much as it shocked my sensibilities.

It also reminded me that I am one small person in a very large world. I hold in reserve my hope and faith in the general weal of the family Harpell. This is a good and generous family, grounded in morality if not in common sense. I cannot consider myself so wrong in trusting in them. But still...

Almost in answer to that emotional turmoil, I now find a situation not so different waiting for me in Luskan, but one from a distinctly opposing perspective. If Captain Deudermont and this young Waterdhavian lord are to be believed, then the authorities in Luskan have gone over to a dangerous place. Deudermont intends to lead something not quite a revolution, since the Hosttower of the Arcane is not the recognized leadership of the city.

Is Luskan now what Longsaddle will become as the Harpells consolidate their power with clever polymorphs and caged bunnies? Are the Harpells susceptible to the same temptations and hunger for greater power that has apparently infected the hierarchy of the Hosttower? Is this a case of better natures prevailing? My fear is that in any ruling council where the only check against persecuting power is the better nature of the ruling principles is doomed to eventual, disastrous failure. And so I ride with Deudermont as he begins his correction of that abuse.

Here, too, I find myself conflicted. It is not a lament for Longsaddle that drives me on in Luskan; I accept the call because of the man who calls. But my words to Regis were more than empty comforts. The Harpells were behaving with brutality, it seemed, but I hold no doubt that the absence of suffocating justice would precipitate a level of wild and uncontrollable violence between the feuding clerics.

If that is true, then what will happen in Luskan without the power behind the throne? It is well understood that the Arcane Brotherhood keeps under its control the five high captains, whose individual desires and goals are often conflicting. These high captains were all men of violence and personal power before their ascent. They are a confederation whose individual domains have never been subservient to the betterment of the whole of Luskan's populace.

Captain Deudermont will wage his battle against the Hosttower. I fear that defeating Arklem Greeth will be the easier task than replacing the control exerted by the archmage arcane.

I will be there beside Deudermont, one small person in a very large world. And as we take actions that will no doubt hold important implications for so many people, I can only hope that Deudermont and I, and those who walk with us, will create good results from good desires.

If so, should I reverse my steps and return to Longsaddle?

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***