They stopped before a twin-masted, square-sailed cog. The blazing red and gold pennon dangling from the midmast declared its port of origin to be Bezantur, a city in Thay. Several other flags and pennons adorned the masts. Riven had no idea of their meanings. A stylized demonic face decorated the prow, mouth open, fangs bare. Riven could not read the writing on the hull and would be damned to admit as much to the slaadi.
"Demon Binder," Azriim said aloud. "What a quaint name."
Deckhands climbed the ship's rigging, swabbed the decks, and formed a human chain to load barrels and crates from the pier into the hold. The ship would be setting to soon enough.
Riven knew enough about the Thayans to think it likely that the ship carried more than barrels in its hold. Thayans were notorious slavers. Slavery and trafficking in slaves were technically illegal in Sembia, but the right coins in the right palms made enforcement lax, particularly when the ship carrying the human cargo was merely stopping in Sembian ports for a refit.
"Thayan," Dolgan observed, unnecessarily.
"See the captain there, on the sterncastle?" Azriim asked. "My, he is a nice dresser. And that thin fellow beside him, with the earring, beard, and long hair, leaning on the rail? That must be the first mate."
Riven saw the two men to whom Azriim referred. The captain wore a fitted jacket with shiny buttons, black pantaloons, high boots, and a tailored, high-collared red shirt and vest. A cutlass hung from his belt. The first mate wore similar clothes, but without the jacket and cutlass. Instead, he wore a long fighting knife on his hip.
Riven understood immediately what the slaadi proposed to do.
"We could just purchase passage," he said, not because he cared about the slavers, but because he was not sure how they could easily dispose of bodies. Besides, if the ship boasted one of the notorious and powerful Thayan Red Wizards as a passenger, things could get ugly very fast.
Dolgan chuckled.
Azriim grinned. "Now where is the enjoyment in merely buying passage?"
Riven looked into the slaad's mismatched eyes. "I did not realize that enjoyment was the object. Efficiency and effectiveness are the only things I'm interested in."
"Enjoyment is the only goal worth pursuing," Azriim said, still smiling.
Frustrated with the slaad's unprofessionalism, Riven could not hold his tongue. "You and your boy here are sloppy. You'll leave a trail."
"Boy?" Dolgan growled.
Azriim's grin widened. "Indeed we will. And that's the very point. Now, I'm sure there's something you can do in this city to occupy yourself for a time. At the very least, get some better attire. Really. I'm embarrassed to be seen with you. Return here tonight, say, around the tenth hour. You are to be a wealthy merchant with a secret destination. Dolgan and I will.. . relieve the captain and first mate of their duties and prepare the crew for your arrival."
Riven saw no point in arguing further. He shook his head in disgust, spun on his heel, and walked off. As he headed away from the slaadi and the docks, still stewing, he saw a trio of stray dogs slink down an alley. He thought of his girls and the anger went out of him.
He would have gone to his old garret already to check on them but he had not had a moment away from the slaadi, and he had not wanted the creatures to know of his girls. He knew well that affection for anything was a weakness others could exploit.
He wandered for a time, circling back a few blocks to ensure that neither of the slaadi was following him.
Neither was.
Relieved, he turned a corner and headed south and west, toward the Warehouse District. He would take a moment to check in on the girls.
* * * * *
After the assassin walked away, Dolgan said, "I think we should kill him. Father is wrong about him."
"You have made your views clear," Azriim replied, looking up and down the wharfs.
Azriim needed to procure the services of a second ship. He agreed with Riven that the priest of Mask would not easily give up his pursuit, so he was planning a misdirection.
"I just made them clear again," Dolgan said, and spat a glob of saliva onto the street. "He called me 'boy'."
"He certainly did," Azriim said, and grinned.
Azriim was fond of Riven. He regarded the human as a fosterling, not unlike the way in which the Sojourner regarded Azriim and Dolgan. It amused and pleased him to have a ward of his own. He turned and faced his broodmate.
"He is an ally, Dolgan. He hates this priest of Mask, is that not clear? The Sojourner read his mind, is that not enough?"
"But..."
"Dolgan, of the two of us that are standing here now, one of us is stupid." He let the meaning sink in; as he expected, it took a moment. "Let us leave the decisions to the other one, eh?"
Dolgan's brow furrowed and he showed his teeth in a snarl. "One of us standing here is the stronger, too."
"True," Azriim acknowledged. "Which is why I leave the axe work to you. Now leave the thinking to me. Done?"
Dolgan shrugged noncommittally and chewed his lip. Azriim decided to take that as acquiescence.
"Come," he said, and started walking the wharf. He did not seem able to keep mud from his boots, so he resigned himself to a layer of filth.
"Where?" Dolgan asked.
"You will see."
Azriim found what he wanted within an hour-a large, three-masted open sea caravel sporting the scarlet and green flag of Urlamspyr. He knew the Sembian caravel would be faster than the Thayan cog.
An open-mouthed wooden porpoise adorned the caravel's prow; it held in its jaws a representation of a coffer filled with gold coins. Azriim smiled. Everything in Sembia related back to coin in one way or another. He saw only a few crewmen on deck, tying off lines or climbing in the rigging. Most of the hands must have been on shore leave.
"Remain here," Azriim said. "I will return apace."
"Another ship?" Dolgan asked. "Why?"
"Because I have learned to respect the doggedness of our priest of Mask."
"Huh?" Dolgan asked. "Doggedness?"
Azriim patted his broodmate on his muscular shoulder. "Remember, Dolgan-I do the thinking. Remain here."
Though it galled him a bit, Azriim changed his facial structure to eliminate the half-drow features. As he walked, he lightened his skin, rounded his eyes and ears, and softened his cheekbones. Then, donning a businesslike smile, he walked down the pier toward the gangplank. He hailed the first sailor who made eye contact, a thin youth who had seen fewer than twenty winters.
"Is the captain aboard?" he called up.
The sailor rested his hands on the rail and squinted. "Who wants to know?" The human had a hole where one of his front teeth should have been.
"I do," Azriim answered, and flicked a fivestar up to the sailor.
The youth caught it and the coin vanished into his sash belt.