Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [57]
She found the tiny courtyard and the well. Just as before, the area was deserted. Scooping up a pebble, Feena murmured a prayer to Selune. A thread of divine energy shivered through her fingers. When she opened her fist, the pebble shone with the light of a full moon. She cupped her hand so that the light shone only downward and played it across the ground. The courtyard was paved with broad flagstones, broken and uneven with time. Dirt and dust blurred its corners, and mingled with a scattering of broken crockery.
There was only the faintest of stains where the Sharran had fallen. Her human nose wasn't as sensitive as her wolf nose, but even so, she could smell only the residue of poisoned blood. She looked closer. A wide patch of the cracked stone paving was cleaner than elsewhere in the courtyard and the dust around it was streaked and pocked by water. Some well-meaning soul had tried to wash away the offense of the man's death, probably with the very water he had been trying to taint. Feena shined her light on the dust and dirt. The only tracks she saw were the prints of boots and sandals. She sighed and looked around the courtyard, then turned her gaze upward to the walkways and platforms above it.
Two levels up, light glimmered and rough sounds of merriment drifted down-the backside of a tavern, she guessed. She stepped all the way to the opposite side of the courtyard and peered closely at the wall, risking an upward flash of her magical light. It barely reached that high, but she could make out long, wet stains streaking the wall-and the figure of a man who staggered and slurred obscenities, twisting around to peer over his shoulder as the faint light caught him. Feena flicked the light back down and wrinkled her nose. The tavern's toilet facilities, such as they were, overlooked the courtyard.
It was a place to start. Some regular patron of the tavern might have seen or heard something to give her a clue. She dismissed the light with a whisper and waited for her eyes to adjust again, then slipped back out onto the street and looked for a way up. A simple ladder two buildings over led up one level; a steep plank ramp led up another. She doubled back along a narrow, creaking platform and found the front of the tavern. It was hardly an inspiring sight. Narrow windows, any glass in them long since broken away, spilled light and the blue smoke of pipeweed into the night. The door of the place had been a window at some point in the past-a frame of rough wood covered the rounded edges of long broken bricks. The narrow alley that led to the courtyard reeked of urine. The tavern didn't smell any better.
And only a short time ago, Feena thought, I was walking in a beautiful garden and shaking hands with the great and glorious of Yhaunn.
She crinkled her nose and stepped through the open door.
In spite of its appearance and odor, the tavern was packed with customers. A few glanced at her-some wearily, some suspiciously, some with an unnerving las-civiousness-but most ignored her presence. The crowd was a surprising mix of rogues off the streets, sailors up from the docks, respectable craftsmen, and well-dressed merchants, all of them squeezed in and sweating together. A bard was giving a raucous performance in one corner. In another, a big, muscular woman in shining bracers was arm-wrestling a burly dwarf to the encouragement of the crowd. Their chants- "Lahumbra! Lahumbra!"- mixed with the screeching of the bard to create quite a din. Feena forced her way through, trying to guess who might be a likely patron to have witnessed something in the courtyard.
She settled on an old man wedged into a corner near the thick plank that served as the bar. He looked as comfortable as if he had grown there, but his eyes were bright and sharp, not addled with too much ale. She stepped in close to him.
"Good evening to you, sir!" she said over the noise of the tavern.
His eyes went wide and Feena bit her tongue. She'd gotten too used to speaking