Part The Fifth

Minsc stepped closer to his female companions as they slipped between the houses of this great city. It had taken the combined efforts of Minsc, Jaheira and Boo to awaken Duran from her state of shock and sorrow, but she had quickly recovered, seeking out a friendly face among the crowd around them and asking the young woman questions about their situation.

They were in Athkatla, the City of Coin, in Amn, and the cowled men who had taken Imoen from their side were the Cowled Wizards, a collection of men who had outlawed spellcasting and maintained the peace. Lady Beth had no idea where they would have taken Imoen, and still less about the identity of the mage taken with her.

With a great show of kindness to the three, who were looked on with suspicion because of their outland accents and dress, Lady Beth had provided them with a map of the city, suggesting that if they had limited means, they go to the Slums, where they would be able to acquire some decent equipment for a low price. Duran had thanked her heartily, glad that she hadn't lost her ability to pinpoint the most helpful person in a crowd.

So here they were, walking along a dirt track that could hardly be called a street, between musty shacks that could not even be called huts, let alone houses. Duran gazed about her, horrified. She had never really come face to face with the injustice of poverty. All around her, children and old men gathered on corners, competing for the gold of the passers by. In the alleyways, she could hear shady deals and the sounds of scuffles. Every eye turned to stare after the beautiful half-elf and her companions.

Duran felt Minsc and Jaheira draw closer to her. The druid bent closer to her ear, her eyes still on the faces around her.

'This place is not a friendly one,' she warned her young companion. 'Be wary of who you deal with.'

Maintaining her steady pace, Duran turned her head to look at her friend.

'Why?' she asked. 'What would anyone here wish from me?'

Jaheira sighed, rolling her eyes in such a condescending manner, if Duran had not been accustomed to it, she would have been offended.

'Perhaps not here as such,' Jaheira murmured, her eyes flicking to the dilapidated homes around them. 'But you are still a valuable commodity. There are those that know of the Children of Bhaal, and they may desire . . . services of you.'

'What kind of services?'

'The kind that you have proved yourself good at,' she was told. 'Fighting, solving disputes . . . but there may be other, darker errands people wish to send you on. Those are the ones you must be wary of. You will not know them from their garb or accent; you may not know them at all.'

Duran laughed suddenly, one hand to her forehead to hide the huge grin that spread across her pretty face.

'Aunty J, I'm a bard,' she said softly. 'I've been trained to read people, not what they're wearing. Have I ever steered you wrong?'

A huge warm hand descended onto her shoulder as Minsc joined the conversation.

'No!' he declared enthusiastically. 'You have never steered us away from the butts of evil that must be kicked!'

Duran swallowed her laughter hurriedly, patting her big friend's hand reassuringly. Jaheira gave her a small smile.

'Very well, but I feel it is my duty to warn against such things. And I have asked you not to call me that.'

The bard gave her a look of wide-eyed innocence.

'What, Aunty J?'

The druid heaved a great sigh, picking up the pace slightly. Duran shared a cheeky grin with Minsc, before they both hurried to join their friend. As they passed beneath an overhanging walkway, someone called out to them, and Duran turned, trying to place the voice. Beside her, Jaheira was doing the same, her sharp eyes fooled by the similarities of dress and attitude among the people here.

Minsc grasped them both by the shoulder, turning the two women to face a scruffy looking young man leaning against a wall only a few feet away. Grinning as they approached, obviously amused by their caution, he bowed low to Duran, straightening to tower over her again as many humans did.

'Coo,' he whistled, looking her over. 'You be the one I be looking for if I not be mistaken. Duran be your name, eh?'

Before Jaheira could stop her, Duran had nodded, smiling cheerily.

'Yes, I am she,' she told the stranger. 'What is it that you want?'

Ignoring the druid's expletive strewn muttering, the stranger nodded in approval.

'Tis not what I want, but what I can be doing for ye. Ye might be wanting information about a young lass arrested by the wizards on your arrival here, aye?'

Duran's face paled abruptly. This man could help her, she knew it, but somehow she also knew this information wouldn't come cheap.

'You're talking about Imoen? What do you know about her?' she demanded, aware that her tone was, perhaps, not the most friendly.

The stranger nodded again, this time to himself, as if squirreling away information for later use. His wide grin and placating smile were beginning to grate on Duran's nerves, and she found herself longing for an opportunity to wipe the irritating expression off his face.

'Now, Imoen, aye,' he said softly. 'That be her name.'

'Of course it is her name, silly man!' Minsc interrupted. 'She is our dear friend Imoen, and we will retrieve her by any means necessary, by -'

He was cut off by Jaheira's elbow jabbing with expert precision into his midriff. As he doubled over, coughing and spluttering, the stranger continued.

'Young lass made the misfortune of casting a spell or two in a city that frowns upon such business. Bad timin', it was.'

He glanced sidelong at Duran, obviously trying to read her tight-lipped smile.

'You be thinking you wants to find her, then?'

Duran had had enough of his dodging around the question. She grasped his tunic in both hands, and with strength most people refused to believe such a tiny woman could have, she slammed him up against the wall. The colour drained from his face as he realised his error in angering the little woman.

'Of course I want to find her!' the bard hissed, furious at his avoidance of the truth. 'What do you know?'

Her dagger by now was pressing into his ribs, the stranger standing on his tip-toes to avoid being skewered on the sharp blade.

'I knows very little meself, me lady,' he stammered quickly, shocked by the change in her mood, and intimidated by the two standing behind her with murder in their eyes. 'I can, however, link ye up with a group that knows. Or can be finding out.'

Slowly the dagger was removed, Duran stepping back with suspicious eyes. The stranger relaxed, though not much. He glanced up at the tall ranger beside the half-elf, and found himself on the end of a curiously angry gaze. The strange thing was, it was coming from a rodent, nestled comfortably in the crook of the ranger's neck. Somewhat unnerved by this, he turned back to Duran, and the hostile druid.

'This be not the best place to hold such a dialogue,' he warned them, glancing towards the guard on the corner, who was taking an unhealthy interest in their exchange. 'I be having a place that would suit far better. It be just a short walk from here.'

The guard was now moving towards them, trying to be nonchalant, and failing completely.

'Why don't I take you there right now?' the stranger offered. 'Unless you have some reason for not wanting to come along?'

Duran looked him up and down, unable to shake the feeling that in some ways she would come to regret getting involved with this irritating fellow. Still, he had information about Imoen, and she couldn't afford to overlook a lead.

'How do we know that this isn't some kind of trap?' Jaheira asked suddenly, her tone hard and unforgiving, promising pain to the man who crossed her.

The stranger laughed.

'I have no interest in setting up a trap,' he scoffed. 'It be more profitable to serve. I will speak no more . . . come with me, and you can decide whether to enter me house.'

With that he wandered off. Duran looked helplessly at her companions.

'He seems genuine enough, but there's something there I don't trust,' she confessed to them, watching as he moved further away.

'He has clues to the whereabouts of Imoen!' Minsc declared. 'We shall find her and return to dust his buttocks with our heel!'

Jaheira ignored their hyperactive friend, squeezing the bard's shoulder.

'You must do what you think is best,' she told her young friend. 'I am with you.'

Nodding, Duran sighed, and quickly followed their new-found ally. They caught up to him just in time to see his tall form duck into a slightly better crafted building along a street of stone houses. Exchanging a cautious glance with her companions, she followed, stepping into the house with no little trepidation, ready to scream blue murder should she be double-crossed.

All that greeted her, however, was the stranger's approving whistle.

'Coo! I see you were able to keep up with me alright, eh? I was afraid I'd lost ye there, heh . . .'

His half-hearted laugh trailed off in the face of the bard's stony countenance.

'Don't dawdle,' she told him, trying to ignore the fact that she sounded almost exactly like her foster father. 'I have to find Imoen and make sure she's alright.'

'Aye, I'll be doing that as quick as ye blink.'

It seemed he was as anxious to be out of their company as they were to be out of his.

'I tell ye straight that I know a powerful group that can be helping ye. They can be finding the wizard and the young woman both, they can.'

Jaheira raised an eyebrow.

'We have seen no evidence of their trustworthiness, and will doubtless see none at all, if you are anything to go by.'

His face hardened momentarily at the insult, and he seemed to be holding himself back. Out of his line of vision, Duran pinched her friend, warning her to keep her mouth shut.

'They can be doing far better than the telling, my friend,' he continued. 'They can also effect a rescue of your lass, to boot.'

A bright smile of genuine joy spread across the bard's face, and the stranger's features softened under the full onslaught of her beauty.

'They can rescue Imoen?' she repeated. 'Of course I'm interested!'

He smiled to see her so quickly transformed, charmed by her sudden trusting nature.

'Ah, good,' he grinned, 'but you should know that it requires my friends to cross the Cowled Wizards. Not something ye be able to do on yer own.'

Duran sighed; here came the bargaining.

'I see,' she conceded. 'And what might this kind of help cost me?'

He raised his hands in a gesture of peace, and she braced herself for the worst.

'It may seem to be costly, but think of the danger in crossing the Cowled Wizards.'

'How much?' she asked softly.

He swallowed.

'A fair price, if you think about it.'

Jaheira's scimitar came whistling out of its sheath to rest against his throat. He gazed down the length of the polished blade into her dull, flat eyes.

'How . . . much?' she asked, slowly and deliberately.

'It be 20,000 gold pieces for their help,' he said quickly, and shut his eyes.

Duran felt her jaw drop.

'20,000!' Jaheira protested, the scimitar slipping to the floor. 'That's an outrageous sum!'

The man skittered backwards until at least one piece of furniture was between him and the furious druid.

'Outrageous, is it?' he asked. 'Tis a lot, but ye ask me friends to go against the wishes of the Cowled Wizards. I told ye it be not a thing to be done lightly.'

Jaheira flung herself at the cowering man, only to run full tilt into Duran. The bard wrestled the weapons from her friend, forcing her to calm down. Her pretty face was flushed with anger at the druid's reaction.

'Jaheira, stop it!' she hissed. 'I am quite capable of dealing with this myself. This is the only help we're going to get, don't you see? I know you're still hurting about Khalid, but I won't let you take out your frustration on everyone we meet, understand? I won't allow it. So shut up and calm down, and if you don't like it, leave.'

Shocked, Jaheira quieted almost immediately, seeing herself in the quiet bard's outburst. She glared down into the stormy green eyes, and was met with a glare equal to her own in potential violence. Concerned, Minsc stepped forward, hoping to dissolve the tense atmosphere.

'Boo asks you, little man, is there no way to lower the cost?'

The man looked confused for a moment.

'None,' he said finally, choosing not to ask who Boo was. 'It be 20,000 or me friends canna be helping ye.'

Still locked in a tense stare, Jaheira muttered,

'It is your decision, Duran. I made a promise, and to that I hold, no matter my personal feelings.'

Duran nodded, sensing the sudden change in their relationship, the underlying discomfort in one another's presence. She should not have said what she did, but Jaheira had taken her hostility too far. She would not allow the druid to murder everyone they met in anger at her own inability to save the man she loved.

She turned to the man cowering before Minsc.

'I do not have that much . . . how am I supposed to raise such an amount?'

He gave her an anxious smile, acutely aware of the hostility in the room. No doubt he was regretting ever having offered to fetch them in the first place.

'I am sure ye have spent as much in the past, and will again. Surely, there be work in the city for ye? Or perhaps some of your expensive goods to sell?'

Without even a glance for her companions, Duran nodded.

'Very well, I will be back with the money.'

The man nodded also, his relief written on his face.

'Aye, I'll wait for it,' he said cheerfully. 'Brus'll be waiting outside for ye. He's me nephew, an' he'll show ye to the Copper Coronet. Ye'll find work there easy enough, ye will.'

As they turned to leave, he called out to Duran.

'I'd check the Five Flagons in the Bridge District, if ye be looking for bardic work. There's a playhouse downstairs.'

She nodded curtly, and stepped into the street outside, ignoring his farewell. Jaheira refused to look at her, and she felt a stab of icy guilt.

'Hoy!'

Looking up, Duran found herself addressed by a small boy, too much alike to his uncle to be mistaken for anyone else.

'You'd be the ones I's watching for, aye? Uncle Gaelan told me to give you a bit o' help to find some work.'

He stepped closer, gesturing for her to lean down. She did so.

'If you go to the Bridge District, there's this place called the Five Flagons. They gots some sort of play going on there. You're a bard, eh? Maybe you'd want to check it out. Do you want me to show you to the edge of the slums?'

Duran smiled, seeing a helpful little boy trying to be his uncle and failing miserably.

'I'd prefer it if you took me to the nearest tavern, actually.'

Brus' face fell.

'Okay, then . . . make sure you stay close, 'cause I don't have time to wait for ya.'

They followed him swiftly through the slums to the central block of buildings, where they could just make out a sign bearing the legend 'Copper Coronet'. Brus turned to them.

'Here ye be. I'm sure ye can find the rest of yer way from here, aye?'

Duran flicked him a coin for his help, watching him hurry away into the crowds around them. She glanced at her friends, ignoring the openly hostile gaze from the woman who had once been as close as family. Then, without a backward glance, she stepped into the public house.