“As long as it doesn't have a red beard,” Drizzt replied without missing a beat.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“I heard you were traveling with a great barbarian warrior named Wulfgar,” Bellany said to Morik when the rogue finally woke up long after the following dawn.
“Wulfgar?” Morik echoed, rubbing the sleep from his dark eyes and running his fingers through his matted black hair. “I have not seen Wulfgar in many months.”
He didn't catch on to the telling manner in which Bellany was scrutinizing him.
“He went south, to find Deudermont, I think,” Morik went on, and he looked at Bellany curiously. “Am I not enough man for you?” he asked.
The dark-haired sorceress smirked in a neutral manner, pointedly not answering the rogue's question. “I ask only for a friend of mine,” she said.
Morik's smile was perfectly crude. “Two of you, eh?” he asked. “Am I not man enough?”
Bellany gave a great sigh and rolled to the side of the bed, gathering up the bedclothes about her and dragging them free as she rose.
Only then, upon the back of her naked shoulder, did Morik take note of the curious brand.
“So you have not spoken with Wulfgar in months?” the woman asked, moving to her clothing.
“Why do you ask?”
The suspicious nature of the question had the sorceress turning about to regard Morik, who was still reclining on the bed, lying on his side and-propped up on one elbow.
“A friend wishes to know of him,” Bellany said, rather curtly.
“Seems like a lot of people are suddenly wanting to know about him,” the rogue remarked. He fell to his back and threw one arm across his eyes.
“People like a dark elf?” Bellany asked.
Morik peeked out at her from under his arm, his expression answering the question clearly.
Wider went his eyes when the sorceress lifted the robe that was lying across one chair, and produced from beneath it a thin, black wand. Bellany didn't point it at him, but the threat was obvious.
“Get dressed, and quickly,” Bellany said. “My lady will speak with you.”
“Your lady?”
“I've not the time to explain things now,” Bellany replied. “We've a long road ahead of us, and though I have spells to speed us along our way, it would be better if we were gone from Luskan within the hour.”
Morik scoffed at her. “Gone to where?” he asked. “I have no plans to leave. .”
His voice trailed off as Bellany came back over to the edge of the bed, placing one knee up on it in a sexy pose, and lowered her face, putting one finger across her pouting lips.
“There are two ways we can do this, Morik,” she explained quietly and calmly—too calmly for the sensibilities of the poor, surprised rogue. “One will be quite pleasurable for you, I am sure, and will guarantee your safe return to Luskan, where your friends here will no doubt comment on the wideness and constancy of your smile.”
Morik regarded the enticing woman for a few moments. “Don't even bother to tell me the other way,” he agreed.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“Arumn Gardpeck has not seen him,” Catti-brie reported, “nor have any of the other regulars at the Cutlass—and they see Morik the Rogue almost every day.”
Drizzt considered the words carefully. It was possible, of course, that the absence of Morik—he was not at his apartment, nor in any of his familiar haunts—was nothing more than coincidence. A man like Morik was constantly on the move, from one deal to another, from one theft to another.
But more than a day had passed since the four friends had begun their search for the rogue, using all the assets at their disposal, including the Luskan town guard, with no sign of the man. Given what had happened in Waterdeep with the agents of Sheila Kree, and given that Morik was a known associate of Wulfgar, Drizzt was not pleased by this disappearance.
“You put word in at the Hosttower?” Drizzt asked Regis.
“Robbers to a wizard,” the halfling replied. “But yes, they will send word to Sea Sprite's wizard, Robillard, as soon as they can locate him. It took more than half a bag of gold to persuade them to do the work.”
“I gived ye a whole bag to pay for the task,” Bruenor remarked dryly.
“Even with my ruby pendant, it took more than half a bag of gold to persuade them to do the work,” Regis clarified.
Bruenor just put his head down and shook it. “Well, that means ye got nearly half a bag o' me gold for safe-keeping, Rumblebelly,” he took care to state openly, and before witnesses.
“Did the wizards say anything about the fate of Sea Sprite?” Catti-brie asked. “Do they know if she's still afloat?”
“They said they've seen nothing to indicate anything different,” Regis answered. “They have contacts among the docks, including many pirates. If Sea Sprite went down anywhere near Luskan the celebration would be immediate and surely loud.”
It wasn't much of a confirmation, really, but the other three took the words with great hope.
“Which brings us back to Morik,” Drizzt said. “If the pirate Kree is trying to strike first to chase off Deudermont and Wulfgar, then perhaps Morik became a target.”
“What connection would Deudermont hold with that rogue?” Catti-brie asked, a perfectly logical question and one that had Drizzt obviously stumped.
“Perhaps Morik is in league with Sheila Kree,” Regis reasoned. “An informant?”
Drizzt was shaking his head before the halfling ever finished. From his brief meeting with Morik, he did not think that the man would do such a thing. Though, he had to admit, Morik was a man whose loyalties didn't seem hard to buy.
“What do we know of Kree?” the drow asked.
“We know she ain't nowhere near to here,” Bruenor answered impatiently. “And we know that we're wasting time here, that bein' the case!”
“True enough,” Catti-brie agreed.
“But the season is deepening up north,” Regis put in. “Perhaps we should begin our search to the south.”
“All signs are that Sheila Kree is put in up north,” Drizzt was quick to answer. “The rumors we have heard, from Morik and from Josi Puddles, place her somewhere up there.”
“Lotta coast between here and the Sea o' Moving Ice,” Bruenor put in.
“So we should wait?” Regis quickly followed.
“So we should get moving!” Bruenor retorted just as quickly, and since both Drizzt and Catti-brie agreed with the dwarfs reasoning the four friends departed Luskan later that same day, only hours after Morik and Bellany had left the city. But the latter, moving with the enhancements of many magical spells, and knowing where they were going, were soon enough far, far away.
Chapter 16 UNEXPECTED FRIENDSHIP
As usual, Wulfgar was the first one to debark Sea Sprite when the schooner glided into dock at one of Waterdeep's many long wharves. There was little spring in the barbarian's step this day, despite his excitement at the prospect of seeing Delly and Colson again. Deudermont's last real discussion with him, more than a tenday before, had put many things into perspective for Wulfgar, had forced him to look into a mirror. He did not like the reflection.
He knew Captain Deudermont was his friend, an honest friend and one who had spared his life despite evidence that he, along with Morik, had tried to murder the man. Deudermont had believed in Wulfgar when no others would. He'd rescued Wulfgar from Prisoner's Carnival without even a question, begging confirmation that Wulfgar had not been involved in any plot to kill. Deudermont had welcomed Wulfgar aboard Sea Sprite and had altered the course-of his pirate-hunting schooner many times in an effort to find the elusive Sheila Kree. Even with the anger bubbling within him from the image in the mirror Deudermont pointedly held up before his eyes on the return journey to their home port, Wulfgar could not dispute the honesty embodied in that image.