Jak grimaced and replied, "I'll wait until we've got earth under our feet, thank you. When I was a boy, my father had a dwarf friend—Uncle Korik, we called him. Well, Uncle Korik said that a man could only keep his feet and his sense if he was standing on something solid. He'd never set foot on a ship. That's wisdom, Cale."
Cale grinned.
Jak chuckled and added, "Besides, these sailors have got nothing but saltpork and dried fruit. I need a piping hot stew." He snapped his fingers. "And speaking of pipes." He pulled out his ivory-bowled pipe, tamped, and lit with a tindertwig. After a time, he blew smoke at Starmantle and said, "I haven't heard good things about that city."
"You've heard right."
Though Starmantle had a reputation as one of the least violent cities along the Dragon Coast, it still made Selgaunt look as peaceful as a hamlet of halfling matrons. Thieves, pirates, orcs, and worse were as common in Starmantle as the rats.
"I've seen worse," Riven said, suddenly beside them. He spat over the railing and into the sea.
Cale had not even heard the assassin approach. Dark, but he was good! Almost as good as Cale.
"I don't doubt it," Jak said as he blew smoke rings into the air.
Riven sneered but said nothing.
In silence, the three watched the city approach. The marble facades of the many temples gleamed in the afternoon sun. Ships of all kinds, from galleys to caravels to longboats, filled the harbor.
The voyage had taken nine days. They had only three days to get into the Gulthmere, find the Fane, and stop Vraggen.
"We'll need to find a guide who knows the forest," Cale said.
"Shouldn't be a problem to find a guide," Jak observed, and he blew another smoke ring. "Just a problem to find one we can trust."
"I know one," Riven said. "Or did, if he's still alive. Magadon Kest. He knew the southern Dragon Coast well."
"A Zhent," Jak said, and managed to make the word not sound like an expletive.
"No," Riven said, and nothing else.
Cale looked the assassin in his one good eye and asked, "You trust him?"
"No," Riven said, and spat. "But he's a guide. And a good one."
Well enough, Cale thought, and looked back out to sea. At least they had a lead.
Jak blew smoke into the sky.
Riven turned to Cale and said, "You know that if the mage has spies in the city, he'll know when we arrive. These sailors will sell us for coppers."
Cale knew that, but there was nothing for it.
"It's a big city," he said, and left it at that.
They would have to hope that the crowds would make them anonymous.
Riven cleared his throat and drummed his fingers on the rail.
"We could kill them all," said the assassin, "scuttle this tub, and take a dinghy in."
Cale and Jak both eyed him in shock, and the assassin's sneer gave way to a grin.
"I'm jesting, Fleet. Close your mouth before a gull drops a turd down your gullet."
It took a moment for that to register. When it did, Cale couldn't help but smile. Even Jak chuckled, after he'd recovered himself.
"Drasek Riven making a joke," the halfling said, shaking his head and looking at Cale wide-eyed. "That, I thought I'd never see."
"You'll see everything if you live long enough," Riven said.
"Let's make sure we do, then," Cale said, turning the mood back to serious. "Gear up. We debark the moment we dock. First me, then Jak, then you."
He didn't want them getting off the ship as a group. If Vraggen did have spies watching incoming ships, they would be looking for a trio.
He turned back to the sea and watched as a four-man guide boat separated from the mass of ships in the harbor and oared for Foamrider. It would direct her to a pier. Behind them, Mres started barking orders. Above them, the sailors in the rigging began to furl the mainsail. Foamrider would float into dock under only the foresail.
Cale watched as the city grew larger and larger in his sight. He knew that beyond it were the Gulthmere Forest, the Lightless Lake, and Vraggen.
All they could do was hope that Brandobaris and Mask favored them with some luck.
"This place is a pit," Azriim said.
Vraggen wasn't sure if the half-drow meant their room at the Bent Chalice Inn or the city of Starmantle in general. Either way, he had little patience for Azriim's complaints. Time was short.
"Silence," he ordered. Though healing the hurt given him by the halfling had been a trifling thing, his wounded pride left him irritable.
He whispered the words to a scrying spell as he poured a ewer of water into the shallow silver basin he'd brought with him from Selgaunt. The surface of the water began to shimmer with color. Vraggen willed the scrying basin to show him the Lightless Lake, and an image formed in the water.
"There," he said. "Observe, Azriim."
The half-drow stepped forward and stared into the basin. Dolgan too crowded in to see.
The basin showed a still lake, its waters the color of slate, set in the midst of a reed-filled lowland. Cypress trees loomed on all sides. That was where the Fane would appear.
Vraggen willed the image to move eastward until it fixed upon a simple settlement.
Sod huts with woven reed roofs surrounded a communal fire pit. Goggle-eyed, froglike humanoids about the size of a large man, hopped about the settlement. Their smooth, green skin glistened with slime. The warriors among them wore reptilian scale armor and bore wooden spears with fire-tempered tips. Their females wore nothing and probably lived their lives in service to the males.
"Bullywugs," Azriim observed with distaste.
Vraggen nodded. He had scried the bullywug tribe several times before. They lived in the lowland swamp surrounding the Lightless Lake and numbered about eighty or so. The tribal chief and his shaman aide commanded obedience through a combination of physical strength and religious awe. Central to that religion was the Lightless Lake, which the bullywugs believed to be a manifestation of the mouth of their frog god, Ramenos.
Vraggen smiled. The lake was holy, but not for the reasons the bullywugs believed.
Vraggen continued to scan the settlement until he located the chief—a towering bullywug, grossly fat, dressed in scale armor and adorned with a crown of polished turtleshell.