"A sturdy quaff, to be sure," Durnan agreed, standing back with a smile.
The serving lass who stepped in front of him to place a glistening-with-condensation tankard and a half-moon of seed-spiced cheese in front of the man wore only a smile, a magnificent mane of startlingly blue hair, baggy breeches, and a bewildering tangle of dark tattoos that confused every gazing eye.
The sailor blinked away from her beauty and mumbled, "I've no coin for yon cheese. Take it aw-"
"Nay, nay," the tattooed woman said in a husky, smoky, surprisingly deep voice, patting his arm like a hungry whore." 'Tis free-of my making, and Durnan's compliments. We like to treat friends well here, lord of the waves."
The sailor shot her a swift, hard stare, seeking some sign of mockery, but found none. With a rather sheepish grunt, he raised the cheese in thanks, found himself looking into Durnan's half smile, and sought refuge in the tankard.
When he set down both his drink and a remnant of cheese to draw breath a swallow or three later, he looked almost surprised to still be unpoisoned, or free of bitter-salt or other trickery.
By then Durnan was setting an even larger tankard in front of Mirt, moving his first lancer forward to a fortress square, and saying, "I've been hearing about the Keeper of Secrets, Mur. A woman who deals with the desperate, they say. Her shop's in North Ward."
"North Ward? A fence? A pawn-hand? And why've I never heard of her?"
Durnan shrugged and said, "I guess you've not yet been desperate."
Mirt snorted. "Not a rat gnaws nor a chamber pot breaks in this city that I don't hear about-excepting guild inner circle whisper-moots and what goes on behind the walls of the nobles' towers. Ye know that, Dur."
The innkeeper shrugged, his eyes ranging around his taproom.
"She's not been in business long, I'd guess," he said.
Mirt moved a lion, and Durnan's fingers flipped up the trapdoor on the next square to reveal the grinning skull that meant he was bringing his lich into play-and dooming Mirt's piece-without the master of the Yawning Portal ever looking down at the board.
"She does her trade in dark rooms atop an empty all-mending shop on north side Sammarin's Street," he added quietly. "Rooms of locked iron bar gates that're never lit, so no eye ever sees her. Neighbors hear her singing at all hours-haunting airs and unfamiliar tongues, but a beautiful voice."
"Happy dancing hobgoblins," Mirt said, not believing a bit of it. He moved a lancer away from the revealed peril of Durnan's lich. "I can't believe I've never heard a breath of this…"
"Deafness comes to us all, in the end," Durnan murmured, moving his lich forward to capture a lion-and doom Mirt's throne-princess in the process.
The moneylender stared at his imminent defeat and sighed heavily.
"I yield me. Another game?"
The innkeeper smiled and took down his cloak, signaling to Luranla to take the bar. The tattooed lass gave him a smiling wave and wink, and turned to survey the room as Durnan had been doing.
Mirt stared up at his friend and asked, "Do I play that badly?"
"This night, yes. Yet we're friends, so I've agreed."
The moneylender blinked.
"To seek out your other game," Durnan replied, taking down a baldric heavy with warblades from a peg on the wall, slinging it over his shoulder, and reaching for its cross-buckles. "And visit this Keeper of Secrets."
"Your business, gentlesirs?"
The ever-so-slightly hollow voice seemed to come from their left. Down a speaking-tube.
Durnan looked at Mirt, and made the "your speech" gesture they'd both known he'd make. Words had never been his chosen weapons.
Still wheezing from their trip up the dark stairs, Mirt said, "Secrets. Yelver Toraunt told us to seek here."
"What sort of secrets are you interested in leaving with me? Did Yelver say anything of my rates?"
"Nay, he did not-and being upstanding merchants of Waterdeep, lady, we have no secrets," Mirt joked, assuming an air of exaggerated innocence.
Her answer was the snort he'd expected.
"Lady," he added, "we came here, at his bidding, to learn what secrets Yelver had left with you."
"And where is Yelver, to give me his permission to reveal anything to you?"
"Dead," Mirt replied. "Eaten."
"You can prove this, of course?"
Mirt looked at Durnan-who'd acquired a faint smile-and lifted his hand.
"Lady," the innkeeper replied, "I'm the keeper of the Yawning Portal, Durnan by name. Yelver was most definitely dead-murdered-when I put him down the shaft to where the beasts below lurk."
"Interesting," the voice observed.
Mirt waited, but the unseen woman said nothing more. He sighed, and waved at Durnan to unhood the lantern completely.
"Lady," he said, "Yelver was a business partner of mine-"
"So much I know, Mirt the Moneylender, and more- every detail of your dealings together, in fact. Know you something now: I keep secrets, not betray them. Even the secrets of the dead. Especially the secrets of the dead."
The lamplight showed the two men a vertical row of identical small, round holes-one of which must have been the speaking-tube in use-in a stone block wall before them. Stout-and chained and locked-iron bar gates blocked the way to closed stone doors to their left and right. The landing they stood on led nowhere else except back down the steep stair they'd ascended, to the street door below.
"Keeper of Secrets," Durnan asked, "let us understand each other. Is there any way we can learn what Yelver told us to seek here? The payment of a fee, perhaps?"
"No, goodman Durnan. I have no need of bribes, and if, as you say, Yelver Toraunt is dead, I can henceforth never trust anyone claiming to be him, or with a letter purporting to be from him. Unless, of course, you two are lying to me now-which makes you both untrustworthy in my eyes, and so not to be given Yelver's secrets in any circumstances."
"So there's no way we can ever learn Yelver's secret?" Mirt growled.
"None," the voice from the wall said lightly. "A good evening to you, good sirs."
"It seems we've slipped from 'gentle' to merely 'good,'" Durnan observed aloud, waving Mirt toward the stairs.
"Evidently the price one pays for being made wiser," Mirt agreed. "Farewell, Keeper of Secrets."
"Farewell," the calm voice replied.
The two men traded glances, shrugs, and smiles.