Ishana fixes Gristav with a long, appraising stare but makes no spoken response before turning her back and departing.
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"Well, I think that concludes the business part. Thanks for talking to us. Anything we can do to help you? Apart from killing your crewmates?" "She is no crewmate," Ishana spits. "She is a ... a barnacle." The woman unstraddles the chair and, unless she is stayed by further speech, stalks out of the room without a backward look.
"How does she get word to you folk to pick her up? Or can we just show up on a certain day and time and grab her?" "I believe she leaves a message at the harbourmaster's office," she sniffs, "although I have never seen one of her letters."
She looks amused at the thought. "I have seen halflings who work at the shipyard," she replies, "crawling into the small hatches and crannies a man could not reach. Whether they have ever killed a man, I could not say. And the dwarves work at the smelly smithy that belches smoke into the sky; they have nothing to do with the harbor, or with me."
"Nor there again, for... some five weeks? And in Riddleport now, or at least at last sighting. Do we imagine her coming here soon? Ever? IF we do, do we imagine your vessel is her preferred method? Could you tolerate her presence again, if she sailed toward us?" "I told you," Ishana repeats, "Riddleport to Devil's Elbow, and back again. Nowhere else. Lil is too fine for the Cove." "You spoke of the Boneyard. Can you guide us, on how to secure an allowed approach, to prepare a saddening surprise for her, ahead of her meeting your jolly boat? The place's reputation, is well established in some of our minds." "The reputation is well deserved," she shrugs, "from what I've heard. A ghost, the ratcatcher's gang, and a crazy old hermit. Only those with good reason to avoid the Overlord's eye move goods through there. I have taken cargo on board a jollyboat at the shore, but I know nothing of the way through by land, save that there must be one. I believe a toll must be paid to the ratcatchers for safe passage."
"The Devil's Elbow is a full day's sail past Riddleport from the Cove," Ishana informs him, "and you will do well if you persuade a ship's crew to go anywhere near it. Besides," she goes on, "I told you these things so that you could serve the tiefling what she deserves, not so you could go off and get yourselves killed or drowned or marooned while she goes her way. Lil is no longer on Devil's Elbow."
Pressing on one other line of inquiry "Any knowledge of when she's due back in your Captain's presence?" "'Never' would be best," she answers darkly, then goes on to give a more helpful response. "She seeks passage to the Devil's Elbow perhaps once each six weeks. There and back again. She never spends the night on the island." "Beside the lady herself, any passengers or unusual baggage conveyed to this island? Or elsewhere, at her direction?" "Only what she may carry with her," she shrugs. "Nothing large enough to be baggage. Except for the caged bird. If Treeg has conveyed anything else for her, I have not known about it."
Ishana lifts a diffident shoulder. "It is more than Treeg is worth to convince the crew to take the risk. The Teeth anchors offshore, and he takes her in in a jollyboat. Then again, that is also how he drops her at the Boneyard, just the two saying their farewells," she finishes bitterly.
"When did she get on board?" Ishana waves her hands irritably. "Three, maybe four days she was aboard." You get the feeling that sums and accounting are not Ishana's strong suit. "Did she get a letter?" "From whom?" she asks. "Little birds in the air? We took on no packets and met no envoys." "What's on this haunted island? Is it really haunted?" She shrugs. "I have never set foot on it, only seen it from the sea. Trees, cliffs, a few abandoned towers. They say everyone there died of the plague. Ships would not approach to bring them supplies for fear of the sickness, and in their anger, the spirits of the dead never left their shores, vowing death to any crew whose ship dares to make landfall."
Tendal:
You have heard tales about Devil's Elbow: a mountainous and heavily forested island. Surrounded by reefs and dangerous rocks, it is said to be approachable only by a narrow approach to a sheltered cove on its northern side, the rest of its perimeter consisting of rocky cliffs that fall abruptly to the sea.
Decades ago, a merchant named Yaris Neraken raised money and workers in Magnimar to construct a settlement on the island, in the hopes of harvesting its rich lumber, but those who invested in his enterprise lost everything when the business failed and Neraken himself disappeared, no doubt one step ahead of his creditors. Failed businesses, particularly risky ventures in pirate-infested waters, are common, but the local sailors were convinced that Neraken's plan fell prey not to ill fortune, bad weather, or poor management, but to their superstition that the island itself was haunted and, thus, the arrangement had been doomed from the start. Sighing Phillip gives a knowing nod to Ishana "When was that?" She purses her lips as she counts backward on her fingers. "A week tomorrow," she concludes. "He took her in on the boat on Oathday with the Teeth anchored off the Boneyard. She is a celebrity, you know," she explains in a mincing tone. "She can't come aboard and disembark at the wharf like a regular person, or she'd be mobbed by her adoring public." It occurs to everyone in the room that Ishana and Thuvalia could have a long and mutually-supportive conversation on the subject of Lil Scarlet.
"Slowly, always slowly," she chides Braddon. "In both lust and revenge, the anticipation is everything." She glances back at Phillip. "She is not aboard my ship, and I will be glad if she never returns. It is always back and forth with her: Riddleport, and the haunted island. Fortunately for you, we dropped her at the easier end to get to, back in Riddleport, but if she is in the wasp's nest, she will be well protected, as you should know."
Phillip:
Ishana visibly stiffens at your blunt statement, her expression curdling. It would appear that Brett Scabb did not overstate her dislike of the tiefling. "I am not the captain," the woman corrects Tendal, "but I appreciate the principle of a person getting what is coming to her." Her eyes flicker over to Phillip. "The woman you are looking for is no longer aboard my ship. What do you want from me?" Phillip: You see her take notice of your holy symbol. Her final question could be taken as flippancy, but you feel that she is instead making an offer.
"I am afraid your information is out of date," she smiles waspishly. "The woman you are looking for is no longer aboard the Teeth of Araska."
Ishana accepts the chair proffered by Gristav, spins it around, and straddles the back as she sits at the table. "So you are looking for this Lil -- who I am not saying I know," she qualifies as an aside. "What has it to do with me?"
Ishana leisurely follows Braddon and Snake, appearing not to notice the undercurrent of leering murmur that floods the room behind her. Just as she reaches the door, however, her hand twitches the whip coiled at her belt, and the lunchers immediately fall silent. Just past the threshold she pauses, and her eyes flicker quickly around, taking the measure, it seems, both of the room and of its inhabitants. Phillip: Aside from Brett Scabb, who appears comfortably ensconced at the bar for the immediate future, you see no one else entering with or after Ishana. If there were already agents of the Teeth in the Fish and Fortune before her entry, they aren't giving themselves away. After the woman passes through the common room, the only movement is a quiet outburst of lascivious chuckles and comments, pitched quietly enough not to reach her ear in the other room.
The Garundi woman is no great beauty, but she carries herself with a self-confident and dangerous swagger. Every eye on the place is on her as she enters, with lust, fear, or a mixture thereof, but she pays not the slightest attention to anyone else in the room, including Brett Scabb once he has directed her. She walks immediately to Braddon's table and stands with one hip swayed out, looking down at him appraisingly. "I hear you have a proposition for me?" she asks, the lilt of an accent giving otherwise blunt words an intriguing melody. |