Letter Twenty-three

Dear Sneffles,
The celebration has been nonstop since we returned to Korvosa but my heart isn’t in it. So I might as well finish my account of the events that saved thousands from death and the city from becoming the plaything of hellspawn.

We left by ship for a second time as Findis’s teleport only works places she’s been and PJ’s windwalk is too puny to use over such distances. We went in style this time, though, in a navy schooner. The trip took us a week of boredom, mixed with a growing sense of dread that built steadily the closer we came to our goal.

I spent some of my time with the crew, teaching them a few card tricks and how to play knivesies. I also cornered a couple of lads I knew to be in the Thieves’ Guild back home. They are both fuck-ups but one shows promise. I pointed out flaws in their fighting technique and clever recipes for wine out of just about anything except fish guts. The fourth day out I pulled the bright one aside and talked with him about the importance of working within the navy, doing what his officers wanted, anticipating their needs, and gaining their trust. “Patience,” I cautioned him. “The higher you climb the more you can steal—and they’ll thank you for it.” He had a thoughtful look as we parted. With any luck he’ll become a captain of industry someday.

I saw Findis staring out over the bay waters one evening and sat down beside her. I’d been trying to speak with her ever since the “change” happened but she always hustles away as soon as she sees me coming. I guess I shouldn’t have joked about turning her into my “ho.” Like I’d ever kiss anyone who tastes like a zong butt. No, I just wanted to be pals again, like we were in the old days when I’d call him my little buddy and he’d offer to give me one up the ass.

“What’s happening, sis?” I said, looking out over the water where the sun was setting, red and orange, like the royal flag of Korvosa burning.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“If I could I wouldn’t need you,” I laughed in rejoinder. I guess I said the wrong thing again, but she’s just such an easy target, I can’t resist. Still, I should watch it, it could get me killed. “Kidding, kidding,” I temporized.

“Phah,” she puffed out a lungful. “I don’t know what to tell you, man.”

“Tell me we’re going to live through this.”

She gave that exasperated look, which has somehow become fetching on little Findis, even though she doesn’t know how to use makeup, or even take care of her face. I mean, fair or not, a man can get away without shaving, a woman can’t. She’s got what it takes, though, like a new girl in from the country. I just hope Shelley can teach her how to use it.

“Now that Szechuan has Serithtial I don’t think anything can oppose us, even that bitch Queen,” she grunted.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Also, PJ got himself engorged . . .”

“Enlarged, nimrod.”

“Whatever. Look, Findis—Finarfin—I know you’re still in there. We’ve had our differences, but really, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go into battle with . . .”

“Don’t patronize me, honky!” She leapt up and would have kicked me right into the water with one of those big-ass feet of hers except I was quicker and got out of the way.

“You didn’t let me finish,” I taunted. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go to battle with than Szechuan, Bardar, and PJ! I said nothin’ about you!”

Cruel, I know, and absurd, but suddenly, astonishingly, tears welled up in her eyes.

“Oh, no, no,” I admonished, rushing over and taking her into my arms. “I didn’t mean it.” I cosseted her for a time as the tears gushed forth. She was obviously having problems adjusting to the change in her body’s female humors.

“I feel hot all over,” she wailed, “and then cold, and sometimes like I want to bite someone and sometimes . . . !”

“That’s all right, hush, hush, darling little Findis.” I held her for a time, comforting her, nuzzling the top of her head comfortingly. Then I heard her gasp.

“You, you bastard!” she howled, pushing me away. “That’s the kind of shit I used to pull on women! You almost had me there . . .” By this time sparks were flying out of her pretty little ears and I was running for my life. I managed to lose her long enough to disguise myself as a midshipman and spent the night sharing a bunk below deck with a halitosis enhanced helmsman by the name of Frak.

We arrived the next morning off the coast near the aptly-named Greenrust Reef, waiting solemnly until PJ was ready to take us inland, ship rocking with every step of his freakishly huge form. “If he can’t get girls now he never will,” I thought peevishly as we waited to begin. Finally, after a long while spent silently meditating, PJ said the words and we turned into a wispy cloud and rose into the sky.

Passed over empty marshland with patches of wild, dense jungle we felt no qualm about making rain as the need arose. It was far less messy than pissing out of a moving cart because its driver can't be bothered to stop, I'll tell you that. Following the river we were soon far inland. On one side we passed huge mounds that Bardar said were the graves of Runegiants buried a long time ago. One the other we occasionally glimpsed a rough trail, its milemarkers shaped like frogs, and crude mounds that were home to something I didn't care to ask about.

By evening we were standing before a tall isosceles pyramid—the Sunken Queen—listing in the fetid, swampy water. The were no obvious entrances but with the holy power of Serithtial acting as a guide, we were brought us to a place where the wall let us pass, like stepping through warm suet pudding.

We were met by giant frog-things—boggards according to Bardar, who shouldered me aside in his haste to get at them. Szechuan wasn’t so lucky, catching a load of puke right in the kisser. I expected him to rage but he smiled instead, as if he enjoyed the awful smell, cracking wise as a second boggard took a hunk out of him. Then PJ, giant fists whirling, punched the second beast out. Stunned, it stepped right into Szechuan’s killing blow, which cleaved it neatly in half. As Findis’s scorching ray wilted a couple, I nicked one, but not seriously, and Bardar finished him off.

With the Queen so close we didn’t have much stomach for looting so we moved down a hall, stopping when reaching water. Findis sent her arcane eye to reconnoiter and found its flooded rooms blooming with red algae. She saw ominous crystal tubes leading upward through the ceiling in another place, and endured the sight if not the smell, of the roach-infested quarters of the late boggards. There was also a shaft leading upward. Findis carried us up one at a time although she insisted that I face away from her before she would wrap her arms around me. “You ain’t getting a poke at me,” she griped unnecessarily.

There were four rooms on this level, all empty. One was the Queen’s bedroom, illuminated by three globes of fire. It was expensively furnished, Rahadoum carpets covering the floor. A porcelain third dynasty vase with fresh violets and lotus flowers stood on the bureau—I remembered how you love lotus flowers. And song, next to the bed was a golden harp. Amongst the Queen's baubles I found a ring that I recognized—something I’d exchanged years ago with someone—and quickly put it into my pocket.

The next room smelled of blood. A large basin dominated one end where crystalline tubes emerged crimson from a pool of rich red blood. A woman’s body floated face down in the kroovy. For a moment I feared it was Ileosa but when we fished it out it was a simulacrum of her like the one in Korvosa. I breathed a sigh of relief.

The third room held torture and interrogation devices (ho-hum) and the final room contained an iron stand cradling a large dark blue sapphire. Always game, PJ picked it up and found that it had Szechuan’s name on the bottom. It was a soul trap that reached out violently for the Shoanti barbarian. His face contorted with rage, agony, fear as it tried to pull him inside. Tthe rest of us stood by, helpless spectators of his trial. We all knew that the success of our enterprise could well rest on this moment, this toss of the dice as it were.

Then PJ remembered the harrow card he was keeping, the one that allowed Szechuan respite as he fell to his knees gasping, sweat pouring rivulets from his brow. “Fuck me!” he croaked and I knew that he had beaten it.

With some relief we gathered at the bottom of the upslope tube. “This is it, boys,” Bardar said. I looked around at my comrades of the last few months: Szechuan the strong (in more ways than one), PJ the impetuous, Findis/Finarfin the damaged soul, Bardar the imperturbable, Cordobles the unfortunate. “Let’s do it,” PJ cried eagerly.

We followed the shaft up another level. On one wall was an ancient map, “Thassalon,” Bardar muttered.  In the middle of the room floated an immense bubble of blood at the apex of the crystalline tubes—the fabled Everdawn Pool, legendary place of power and bloody miracles. Ileosa was here, I knew it. Faces, parts of bodies, buildings emerged briefly from the gore, only to quickly submerge.

As the agitation of pool increased, from peaceful ripples to angry waves, we saw the skyline of Korvosa emerge and fall, reminding us of what was at stake. Then it birthed three mordant blobs—dread wraiths. Then her eyrinyes made their entrance, apparently waiting for the most melodramatic moment. Finally, Ileosa herself emerged, all violent fury, and then a second, and a third until there were seven beautiful, angry women challenging us. My heart sank into my boots.

Using his giant size to full effect, PJ quickly destroyed the wraiths, then helped Szechuan with the Illeosas until only one of them remained. Findis looked cross-eyed as she endured a drubbing, shrieked, then attacked her big buddy Szechuan, who held her off with the flat of his sword. Wanting to stay as far away from the remaining Ileosa as possible, I killed one of the erinyes, lethal beauty that she was, and immediately turned on another.

That’s when PJ called in a planer ally and for the first time I saw the Queen sag. I tried calling my new formians to the battle but something prevented their arrival. Suddenly, like Findis, I realized that my will was not my own. Ileosa shook me like an old rag doll, tearing my mind apart, controlling me. Our thoughts become one as she sucked away all my memories of you, sweet Sneffles.

When we first met I was nine, you seven. The drunks and drug addled louts who inhabited that place cruelly made you dance for their amusement as, one after another, they fucked our mothers in the stale back room. You smiled for them and danced anyway, while a slim young boy emptied their pockets of everything they owned. You won my heart that night, although I didn’t know it at the time.

No, I knew that I truly loved you years later, the first time we kissed. We were still virgins (although not for much longer). It was one of those rare evenings in Old Korvosa when the breeze brought in sea air instead of the smell of rotting garbage and it was cool instead of hot.

We were hiding away together with a pie I’d found on somebody’s window sill. There was a smudge of raspberry filling at one corner of your mouth and I wiped it away absent mindedly with my thumb, brushing your hair, red as the dawning sun, from your eyes—laughing eyes that were the coolest shade of green. I could not look away. From that moment on you were all I will ever care about. Our kiss seemed to last forever, and maybe it has, because I never did get over it. When we finally made love, after so many false starts, I knew that you were with the person who completed me. How many people can say that about another? Even for a moment.

And this is where it’s brought us Queen Ileosa—my Sneffles. My heart cries out to you, but the man is done crying over what you’ve become. These letters I’ve written were meant for the girl I remember, the one I loved and who loved me. The one I protected, and who protected me. When you first seduced the old king we thought it a lark, a game where we could both profit. We cooked up that ridiculous story about you being some runaway upper-crust Cheliax party girl and Korvosa’s royal court swallowed it whole because you are so beautiful and, like all men, they wanted you.

I waited for you, thinking that you would one day tire of the game and we would take our loot and run but instead something else happened—you found the Fangs of Kazavon and they took you. I hoped, and prayed that deep inside, you were not corrupted by the forces you’d unleashed. I thought that when the end came I could save you. But when I see you there beside the bloody Everdawn Pool, and look into your dead eyes, seeing no recognition there, no love left for a little boy lost, I know that the woman I love is gone forever and only a sad fraud remains. I pray for death to take both of us so I can follow you to hell.

Then you hesitated, recognizing something in the thoughts you were ravaging from me, some spark of love lost forever. Our eyes met briefly, a single tear slid down your cheek as Szechuan brutally forced Serithtial through your quarrelling body, bringing an end to your ambition and to my hope.

"No," I whispered helplessly. "Oh no."

“That strike was for my people!” Szechuan gloried. “This . . . is for me!”

But before he could violate you further Serithtial interrupted him, leading him to the crown of fangs, which had fallen from your head onto the floor, and he battered it to pieces.

Oh, there was more. The Everdawn Pool tried to puke up some form of Kazavon but the boys handled it—they always do. I could only stare down upon your poor shattered body as the others celebrated, too exuberant to notice my distress. Wrapping you in my mantle, I used my ring of invisibility to spirit you away, rappelling down the shafts and into the dark, cold morning, tears blinding me as I stumbled and fell and rose to stumble again.

Finding a quiet spot amongst a small copse of trees near a brook, I set you down carefully onto the wet grass. As dawn brought the new day, I washed your body of the blood that had so obsessed you. I did not think, but did what had to be done, as you taught me back when it was just the two of us. In my mind I saw you smile, felt your soft touch on my arm, your warm, gentle sigh, heard the laughter we shared as I told you about my latest misadventure.

Then I covered you with the simple white gown I’d found in your chamber, using my kit of disguise to repair your ravaged face. I combed your hair, drawing it back into the ponytail you favored when we were young, placing my amulet of armor about your throat and my silver holy symbol of Desna into your hands, which I then crossed above your heart. On your feet I put the dragonhide boots I’d had made for you. Then I slipped my ring of friend shield onto your wedding finger before kissing you one last time. Wrapping you protectively in my mantle of spell resistance, I lowered you into the unforgiving earth. Kneeling, I prayed to Desna that someday I can join you in whatever dark corner of hell you inhabit.

“Yo, ’Dobles!”

I looked up and saw your killer, Szechuan, resplendent in his gear, Serithtial glowing in his hand.

“The party’s breaking up, dude. I’m heading home to kick ass and take names. What are you doing out here?”

I sighed, looking away. “I felt bad for Ileosa,” I told him. “She was like me, she came from the streets. I thought someone should bury her.”

“Good idea, just make sure to hide her well, you don’t want anyone to dig her back up, you know what I mean?”

“So where do you think she’s buried?” I asked him.

He looked around, then grinned, clapping me on the shoulder hard enough to knock the wind from my sails. “See you around, hoss. Better get back there pronto because Findis is about to teleport them away and she says she ‘ain’t waiting for no skinny-assed pimps!’

“To tell you the truth,” he winked, “the wee lass is on the rag again.”

“What else is new?” I wanly smiled.

I watched him go, whistling as he strode away, unknowingly passing over your grave. Even Serithtial didn’t cop to it. Saying goodbye to you at last, I returned to my friends and the hurly-burly of the city.

Love forever,
Cordobles

Letter Twenty-two

Dear Sneffles,
I don’t know where to begin, things have changed so completely. We’ve chased the Queen from her lair, I’ve been offered a new job, and Finarfin has had quite a change of heart.

But let’s begin at the beginning.

Back in our catacomb lair we began preparing for the next day’s assault on the castle. Kroft, Orisini, Bardar, and Neolandus were all excited over our talks with Vimanda and Merrin. You could see that for the first time they really thought we could pull it off. Me, I’ve never had any doubt in the boys, having seen them wade through the horrors of Scarwall.

Poring over the maps of the castle we’d obtained from Sabina, PJ came up with the clever idea of using his wind walk spell to invade the castle’s sewers, rather than floating over its walls. You see, wind walk turns flesh into a cloud-like mist that can take to the sky, or in this case, pass through the plumbing.

Vimanda’s crew, we hoped, would create a diversion by drawing the Gray Maidens from the castle. Once the gate was open, Kroft’s and Sabina’s forces could complete a frontal assault on the castle, gaining entry and routing the Red Mantis who occupied the castle.

With this decided the group, running on nervous energy, started squabbling like hungry siblings and I took my leave to get some rest and write you, dear girl.

In the morning I was awoken before the others with word that a messenger had arrived for me from the Thieves' Guild. Figuring they wanted back dues I dressed in my most ragged gear, leaving all my most expensive bling well-hidden in the boneyard. As a point of honor I kept my Starknife. To my surprise the messenger was none other than underboss Boskus Rey, natty in his blue uniform. You probably remember him as one of those who claimed your cherry the summer you sold it so many times over.

He was quite unctuous, a man who had kicked me to the curb more than once when I was a youngster. Taking him to a quiet alcove I asked the attending acolyte to bring us coffee. While he was gone I inquired as to what Boskus wanted with me and to my absolute amazement he offered me the position of Guildmaster of the Cerulean Society! Apparently Guildemaster Boule has succumbed to Blood Veil and the factions in the thieves’ guild can not agree on whom to make their new master. So they decided to ask me, someone neutral, a hero, and one of their own. And if I'm a bit naive, all the better. Of course, Boskus didn’t say that last thing but he was thinking it.

I was still sitting in stunned silence when the boy returned with our coffee and I absently donated one gp to their donations box before dismissing him.

“I cannot refuse this honor,” I finally told Rey. “But I still have to finish what I’ve started here.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “We expected nothing else. Scragg and Frogleggy are watching over the organization right now.”

“And who’s watching over them?” I laughed and, thankfully, he joined me. “I suppose you wouldn’t be averse to keeping an eye out for my interests?”

“Of course, Guildmaster.” He bowed and would have kissed my ring if I hadn’t hidden it before coming down to meet him.

Quietly, he ran over a list of his most trusted mates and I suggested a few droogies of my own to help them out. We parted with some understanding of what must be done. Oh Sneffles, this is not exactly what I wanted for us but that a bastard son of Gaedrun Lamm could rise to be crime lord of all Korvosa is Desna’s plan for me—Desna’s plan for us—and we dare not refuse her.

Returning to our quarters I saw the boys were up and that another heroes' feast was being prepared before our assault on the castle. As we ate I thought about you, my love. Prayed that that fool you're married to has taken you from the city, or at least barred the door.

Once Vimanda’s diversion was set in motion we made it to the castle. PJ cast his spell and we dissolved into warm mist, a vague eerie feeling. Being somewhat claustrophobic, I kept my eyes closed as we bumped over the rank sewage and were eventually decanted into a room beside the grand staircase. Gathering our wits, and with some trepidation, we carefully inched upward. It was surprisingly quiet. With no one to deny us we marched (me invisible) straight into the throne room, its galleries—usually crowded with petitioners, sycophants, and lawyers—standing vacant.

There, on the awe-inspiring Crimson Throne, Queen Ileosa waited for us with a sneer on those beautiful lips and the Fangs of Kazovon resting comfortably on her head. Surrounding her was a small retinue of Crimson Maidens and three ferocious warhounds. She taunted us, but in a half-hearted way. If she hoped for rescue she had a long wait coming for I could hear the faint sounds of battle outside through the thick walls. “Kill them,” she breathed dispassionately, so quietly I could barely hear her words. “Kill them all.”

Then she disappeared. The throne was indeed crimson now as Driar’s spell of holy smite juiced the Queen like overly ripe fruit, pulp and all, leaving a pool of sticky, hot blood in its wake. “Whoa,” I thought as the hellhounds and Maidens rushed to attack. I ghosted behind one of them, slipping a blade between the joins in her armor. I heard her gasp and then sigh lifeless to the floor. Sweet girl, I hate this.

Looking about the room, I saw that our fracas was attracting every warrior in the joint as a murder of winged erinyes emerged into the room. They are beautiful, hellish creatures, landing gracefully around the room’s perimeter while unlimbering their flaming longbows. Closer, the warhounds stalked, coughing hot breath louder than Szechuan’s battle-farts.

“Balls nasty,” I thought, smiling like Little Alex before a caper.

PJ took care of the devilish erinyes, though, sending most of them back to the netherworld before I had a chance to try my rapier on the nearest one.

Finarfin appeared to fighting the very air itself and I realized he must be jousting with an invisible foe, perhaps the Queen’s errant seneschal Togomor, who had so far been missing. Then a fat horned devil arrived and the party really started cooking as Red Mantis ran willy-nilly through the room with Sabina’s Maidens close behind, shrieking their terrifying war cries.

PJ and Szechuan—the latter, as always, fighting to his last breath—worked over the immense horned devil who finally succumbed to a combination of lethal “Butcher Blows” from the monk of Irori. It howled with disbelieve as its spirit returned to its Source.

Driar had also located the invisible Togomor, quite literally taking his life from him. Twisted like a rag doll, the bloat-mage fell to the floor with a loud, wet thud. In the silence afterward I could hear the drip of blood, the hiss of the dying, the cheers outside the castle, a faint slithering from the hall approaching. We stood in anticipation until finally the dimly lit head of a man poked shyly from the ruined jamb of the doorway.

“Ey Oh,” he said. “Y’all.” Rheumy, lush’s eyes surveyed the room distantly. “We got us a spot o’ trouble here,” he allowed to someone beside him.

A second head arose, as disreputable as the first, and then a third. They reminded me of that act at the street carnival. The one with the three halfling clowns—Larry, Moe, and Curly. Only these three clowns were attached at the shoulder and behind them lurked a fat slug-like body.

“We’re going to tear the cocks from your balls!” One of them promised, Larry I think.

“Yeah, and shove them up your ass through your mouth,” Moe added.

“Woo, woo, woo,” was all Curly could think to say.

Worse, at the other end of its enormous body was a monstrous asshole spouting scores of razor sharp teeth. It was a powerful creature known as a bdellavritra fiend. I only wished that Laori was here to see this. It must have been desperate because normally the creatures prefer to stay hidden in the background—kind of like us rogues.

To say that with all the build-up the dénouement was anticlimactic is to undervalue the enormous stink the creature left behind. I’ll never eat baked beans again.

We looked around at each other, silly grins on most faces, except for Driar and Szechuan, the latter upset because there was no one left to kill—being righteous has made him more ferocious, if anything—and the former because he'd figured out what had just happened. “I thought the Queen’s demise came a bit too easily,” he said, walking over to help Finarfin climb from the thing’s guts, which had pungently buried him.

“Could it be she was merely some kind of simulacrum?” he asked after he’d finished vomiting. “A device that Togomor meant to lure us into the room? That we have yet to actually face off against the Queen?”

“What’s a simulacrum?” I asked.

“A magical construct,” PJ answered. “A proxy of sorts made of blood or earth or whatnot—kind of like a fancy puppet.” Now he was speaking language that I could understand.

“It looks like our dead mage friend here,” Finarfin pointed to the body of Togomor, “made this one, and it came apart when Driar cast his spell.”

“Oh,” I said, still rather confused. “I thought it was the bdellavritra that specialized in 'possession using hosts.' I get it now, my bad.”

Just then Kroft, Neolandus, Orisini, and Sabina found us. “Is it over?” Sabina’s eyes darted to the Throne and the pool of blood beneath it.

“I think not,” Driar scowled. “The Queen has fled.”

“Damnation!” Kroft cursed. “Who knows what she’ll pull next?”

I was too busy looting to bother listening to the rest of their fretting. ‘My thoughts are with the gold vaults,’ as preacher Sam would say. So we set off to explore the rest of the castle. Poking around in one set of apartments we came across a glass case filled with sets of cards like the kinds the three-card-Monty sharks use on the waterfont, along with cheap harrow decks. But on closer look I saw a rarer breed of divination cards hidden there, some quite holy, some displaying demonic ensigns.

A secret panel led us into quiet chambers with a bed, a chair, and a small table with an antique redwood case inside which there was an ancient yellowed Harrow deck. As I reached to pick it up a mist formed protectively around it, warding us away. What then emerged was a restless tiefling ghost who had apparently been walled up nearby as punishment for some offense. “My bones,” it moaned. “My bones. My kingdom for my bones.” Then it faded away.

“All righty, then,” PJ said, turning to leave.

For the next hour we poked through hastily abandoned chambers without finding more than trinkets, then we uncovered a secret staircase (Don’t you love castles?) leading into the gloom below. In the passage at the bottom we found a place that was broken through, entering an ancient chamber, smooth stone walls covered with carved, ferocious, long-forgotten, gods and demons, like some drunken late night tattoo spiraling up your spine that you wake up with the next morning.

We passed four lifelike statues of servants awaiting the lash. They seemed to be watching us, eager to step out of their stone and get at us, but there was nary a movement. We then entered a modest room where, on a low alabaster plinth, sat the empty coffer that had once housed the dread Fangs of Kazavon. “Just the ornament for a vain young queen,” Driar grimaced.

“I think it’s time to roll up some zong,” Finarfin muttered in reply, proceeding to do just that, its cloying fragrance quickly filling the small room. “Loosen up man,” he offered me a drag but I declined.

“There’s got to be more to it than this,” I said, poking around the room.

“Oh, sure,” Finarfin replied. “Why don’t you just start knocking holes in the wall?”

“Good idea, wee laddie,” Needing no encouragement Szechuan immediately swung his earthbreaker, joyously battering a rent in the wall that improbably revealed a dusty corpse hidden there, a desperate look upon its face, fingernails shredded and torn in his desperate attempt to breech his tomb’s wall. On his forehead were tiefling’s horns.

“Bingo,” Finarfin grunted with satisfaction, relighting his spliff.

So we hauled the thing back upstairs, being greeted by the rest of our crew, who had the castle, and the city, well in hand. Back in the tiefling’s cozy apartment we discovered the apparition already awaiting us, joyful over our recovery of his bones.

“I was Venster Arabasti,” he shambled around the room as he talked, stopping to look each of us in the eye. “The late king’s half-brother.” The rumors are true, then. Because of his savage lust for Ileosa he had murdered his own brother.

Well, he wasn’t asking our forgiveness. He thought the gods had dealt rightly with him. His punishment when his contemptuous lover had sealed him away to die slowly, starving, lonely. With the dead’s placid acceptance of their fate—as if nothing on this plane matters any more, even injustice—he said, “If you living knew what we, the dead, know, you would thank your murderers and move on as quickly as possible. The reason I linger,” he went on, “is to give you fair warning. Ileosa is planning to use the magic given to her by Kazavon, the Blue Dragon, to steal the lifeblood of all Korvosa.”

“The priests of Asmodeus!” Vencarlo interjected savagely.

“Yes,” the wraith quietly agreed. “They collected the blood samples from all over the city for her. Now she just has to complete the ceremony and poof!” Arabasti fluttered his hands like a puff of black smoke. “The souls of the innocent become her soul and half the city dies.”

“Crap,” Orisini groaned. “Where did she go?”

“The Sunken Queen,” he said unhelpfully. The spirit smiled, faded for a moment, and then returned. “Take this ring to Mother’s tower.”

He handed it to Finarfin, who took it hesitatingly, staring as it rested in the palm of his hand. “Precious,” he whispered.

“Now give me the Harrow deck you carry, little one,” Arabasti quietly asked him. Quickly pulling the cards given him by Zellara so long ago from the pocket of his soiled breeches Finarfin gave them to the almost-solid wraith standing before him.

“Zellara, my pet, come forth and join me,” he called in a sing-song voice. “Together, we will give these heroes a boon . . . or a curse.”

“Or maybe a little of both!” she cackled, spirit joining his.

To call it a love act is like comparing a touch to a kiss; or a glance to a commitment. Joy filled the room as the two spirits commingled, pulsing rainbow light dazzling, carrying us along in something not unlike orgasm. It was hard to meet the others’ eyes afterward.

Bardar was the first to gather his wits. “What have we here?” he asked looking down at the table with its stack of cards.

“It’s a game,” I said, remembering my years helping Dame Jakkkus with her street scams. “A simple game of chance. You see, you tell the dealer how many cards you wish to draw. Some are good, some are bad. You can discard one but you must redraw and you’re stuck with the rest.”

“Bring it on!” said PJ, with the bravado of an ex-junkie.

“Let me warn you,” I smiled. “The mark never wins.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself,” Finarfin replied testily. “Give me three.”

PJ went first and his luck held true (I guess) as one card caused him to grow to giant proportion. He strode around importantly until banging his head on a hanging lamp and sitting with a thud. Szechuan eyed him enviously.

Finarfin was next and his first card was very good because it changed him into a woman! We all stared in amazement at the transformation. At first he seemed indifferent to the change but then his face became redder and redder as the implications of what had just transpired hit him/her. Caught on the horns of a dilemma, Finarfin could not re-draw a card because something worse might come next. He took it like a woman, though, and drew twice more. Now he can walk a little faster and pick locks a little quicker, while pleasing the stray eye in the meantime.

I wasn’t as lucky as Finarfin but still obtained two Formian bodyguards (who will be very useful when we start reorganizing the Guild) and a holy sword worth 80,000 gp! (I was set to sell it to Driar at a discount when he got one of his very own!) Hallalujah!

Everyone came out ahead except Cressida, who was sex-bound to a genie, which isn’t all that bad in some ways but means that she has to end things with Bardar. From the look on his face I’d say that if a holy man ever needed a drink, it’s this one. Worse, it means Kroft is no longer qualified to be regent. Since the rest of us are bandits, that leaves Neolandus to shoulder the burden. Secretly, I’m delighted. He’ll be much more open to the needs of the Cerulean Society than Kroft would ever be. Vencarlo is as incorruptible as ever, of course, but I feel certain that his vanity will lead him astray eventually.

That only left us to search the Queen Mother’s high tower. The room at the top was empty but Arabasti’s ring quickly opened a secret portal into the comfortable study hidden there. It reminded me of Shyster John’s office (the Old Korvosa lawyer who made his bundle keeping the likes of Gaedrun Lamm, OJ Boule, and countless others out of prison and away from the gallows). It even smelled of expensive peach tobacco.

On the desk lay a leather-bound volume—Truths of the Sihedron—about the ancient Runelords. Like the stories they used to tell us as kids to scare us straight. We opened it with trepidation, reeking of some infernal source. One chapter had been dogeared and written upon, as if by a madman in a library.

We listened as Bardar read aloud from the tome about the power of the Everdawn Pool, which lingered in the place known as the Sunken Queen. Ileosa believes she can harness this force to anneal the life force of thousands of innocent Korvosans making her immortal.

A chill ran through me as I wondered if yours was one of those blood samples. My god!

“Ah,” said Driar, holding up a parchment he had found. “Here’s the proof—a contract binding Ileosa to Sermignatto—the Lord of Bloody Quicksands (ew!). It promises him control of Korvosa in exchange for helping her attain immortality.”

“Fuck me!” Szechuan exclaimed.

We left the mopping up to Merrin and her crew but were not done for the night, taking our loot to far-off Kar Maga, where I bought an overgarment of spell resistance and that dancing starknife I’ve always wanted. Afterward we sat in a pub, The Lasting Weasel where, with a little maneuvering and a soupçon of treachery, I managed to be seated next to Finarfin—Findis she’s calling herself—and offered my services to help her ease himself into the ways of womanhood. Like all of my suggestions it met with instant rebuke and an offer to “fry your pimp ass!”

In fact, Findis is a cute little number who can turn quite a bit of gold if she ever decides to go that route. And who would be better to break her in than me? As the song goes, “None of my women have tears in their eyes, you can ask them about me, I swear.”* I know, I’ve retired from all that, but I’m doing this as a favor to a friend.

Seriously, though, Finarfin—Findis—has always known how to dish it out but not how to take it. I mean, as a man he loved women, and this is his/her opportunity to discover what it feels like to get it the other way around. Who wouldn’t want to try that? And who would be a more caring, gentle lover than yours truly to help her cross that threshold? Of course, if she prefers it done up rough I can always find out if old “Cherrypopper” Magdalore is still alive.

After we returned to Korvosa—keeping PJ between Findis and myself—all I wanted to do was sleep but still had to meet with Vimanda in a neutral spot in North Point to hash out our differences. Needless to say, she wasn’t happy.

“This was not our deal,” she rumbled as a frightened looking proprietor brought us ale.

“Yes, that’s exactly right,” I agreed equitably. “But we forgot to include the Cerulean Society in the deal and they won't be played.” I let her simmer for a minute. “Look,” I wheedled like Solemn Jimmie getting a free cinnamon bun out of the baker’s apprentice, “there is going to be plenty to go around once we split up the loot from Queenie’s stash and those of her allies—those fuckers will be lucky to get out with their lives. And with her gone, commerce will be renewed, people will visit again—and they have their needs. Korvosa will be rebuilt bigger, stronger, richer, and this time we’ll get a piece of the action. You can make a lot more legitimate, and the overhead is lower!”

It was her turn to contemplate me.

“Vimanda, for now let the old agreements stand and we’ll go on with business as usual. Once I get my bearings we’ll meet to discuss the future of our . . . collaboration.”

“Cordobles, I don’t know how you did it,” she coldly replied. “I would swear you don’t have a brain in your head but, as you’re spokesman for the Guild, I have to listen.”

Standing, she took her leave but stopped at the doorway for one last word. “I’m holding you responsible,” she stated evenly and was gone.

Boskus Rey smiled, shaking his head. “We’re going to have to watch that one.”

“She’ll calm down and if I’m right she’ll soon be too rich to care.”

The boys laughed, but that’s what I pay them for.

Dear Sneffles, I know you like the life you've been given and considering the hardships you've known, who can blame you? But please remember what we were to each other when all this began. You promised then that you would return to me and I intend to hold you to it.
Sadly, lovingly,
Your Cordobles

"The Dudes Inside" painted by Salvatore Scream

* Lyrics from Nowadays a Woman's Gotta Hit a Man by Don van Vliet