“Different,” she whispered again, shaking her pretty head and swallowing hard.
“How so, girl?”
“I went to the homes of nobility, but you would send him to the depths in pursuit of the treasure vault of a lich.”
Pericolo looked at the nautical map spread before him, at the spot where his poking finger had dented the parchment, the spot where he believed Thepurl’s Diamond lay. For a long while, he said nothing, but then he looked up at Donnola and nodded.
“The greater the risk, the greater the reward.” He wore a determined smile.
“The risk to Spider, the reward to Pericolo?” she replied sarcastically.
The Grandfather narrowed his eyes. Donnola sucked in her breath, unused to seeing a threatening expression from him directed at her. “All glory to Spider if he succeeds,” he said evenly. “All glory and a pick of the treasures. What might I need with them, indeed? Nay, it is the adventure, the conquest, and I shall oversee it, and forevermore, when my name is spoken along the coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars, it will be mentioned that it was I, Pericolo Topolino, who salvaged the Lichwreck! And Spider will be mentioned, as well.
“Do you not understand, my girl?” he asked with great exasperation. “I offer Spider a chance at immortality, a chance to make a name that will resound around Aglarond for centuries hence!”
“And if he fails?”
“We mourn him and find another who might be up to the task,” the Grandfather answered without a moment’s hesitation. He gave a little chuckle and shook his head, staring hard at Donnola. “I will not live in a walled fortress, nor will you. Look past your personal feelings for Spider. Is caution what you truly desire, my beloved granddaughter? Have I taught you nothing, then?”
Donnola swallowed hard.
“What do you feel when you enter the window of a rich fool’s house unbidden?” he asked. “What does Donnola feel when the shadows around her reveal the presence of an assassin, or a deadly blade comes forth against her?”
The young halfling woman didn’t blink.
“Alive,” Pericolo answered for her. “You feel alive. This is what I have taught you, this is how you have lived. Indeed, this is how I have lived! Is there any other way?”
Donnola lowered her gaze in shame. The adventures she had known over the last decade came flooding back to her-how many times had she stood at the edge of her own grave? And Pericolo had known the razor-thin edge of disaster more than she in those laAlpirs and UntarisI ‘onst ten years, by far. From everything she had ever heard of her grandfather, of the Grandfather, the last ten years had been the quietest decade of his most adventurous life.
“Do you doubt my love for you?” Pericolo asked.
“Never,” Donnola answered without the slightest hesitation, her gaze shooting up so that she could look Pericolo in the eye as she answered him. “If I could offer you this dive, would you take it?”
The woman licked her lips. She didn’t answer, but both she, the Grandfather, and Wigglefingers, who was quietly chuckling, knew the answer, of course.
“Then do not doubt my love for Spider, either,” Pericolo begged. “I offer him the grandest adventure of all, Thepurl’s Diamond!”
“A cursed ship of mighty undead.”
“A sunken ship of grand treasures,” Pericolo corrected. “And I know where it is, and Spider, with the help of Wigglefingers, can get there. Ah, but how I envy the young one!”
Donnola started to reply, but stopped short. Would she make the dive to Thepurl’s Diamond, if that were possible?
Of course. Without hesitation.
A smile, not of defeat, but of acceptance, began to spread over Donnola’s face, and she found herself envying Spider more than a little, as well.
Regis entered the small but well-appointed cottage with a bit of trepidation, as he always did when he came here. He couldn’t shake the memory of those early days, when he had often found Eiverbreen passed out on the floor, smelling of whiskey.
He came upon his father in the living room, fast asleep in a chair, but by the look of his clothing-only a bit disheveled-he seemed to be taking an honest nap. Regis, who had lived his previous life lying on the banks of Maer Dualdon in Ten-Towns with an un-baited fishing line tied to his toe, could certainly relate to that.
He quietly stoked the fire in the hearth and took a seat opposite Eiverbreen, then patiently waited. His duties at Morada Topolino were done for the day, so he was in no hurry.
He watched the halfling across from him, studying Eiverbreen’s expressions. The man was dreaming, though not contentedly.
Had Eiverbreen Paraffin ever known contentment?
Regis silently chastised himself-a typical sensation of late-as he watched the man. He recalled when Eiverbreen had dunked him in the sea-and truly he thought that he would drown! — to learn if Regis was possessed of the same blessing as his lost mother. And then had come the dangerous dives in any and every weather. Eiverbreen had thrown his son to the sea, and above all else, Regis had to get the oysters-that single obsession fueled by the man’s need for drink at any cost to himself or to his son. For a long while, Regis had resented Eiverbreen, as any child born of such a troubled father might.
But Regis had been no child in Delthuntle. He had seen poverty before, and had felt the sting of hopelessness that so often accompanied it. In Calimport, in his first youth, Regis had known many Eiverbreens, indeed had quietly championed them even while he was rising within the guilds of the ruling pashas.
He couldn’t help but smile when he recalled one particularly lucrative heist: He wasn’t about to get away with it, he had soon enoughAlpirs and UntarisI ‘on realized, for the golden coins of the pasha he had robbed had all been cleverly marked. So Regis had taken that sack of coins to one of the most destitute reaches of Calimport in the dark of night and had strewn the treasure up and down the lane! The next day, every tavern and bakery in that region of the city became flooded with the dirty and the downtrodden.
Regis had known, and shown, mercy and compassion to the unfortunates of Calimport, and yet it had taken him many years to acquire the same level of compassion for this halfling now sitting before him.
The resentment had only worsened in the first years Eiverbreen had lived in this house, for Pericolo, on Regis’s demand, had indeed made it harder for Eiverbreen to purchase alcohol. No tavern would sell the liquor to him, on order from Pericolo, and Eiverbreen hadn’t taken well to that demand, and had blamed his son, Spider, most of all. Oh, he still found liquor, to this day, despite every attempt by Regis to tamp down the sources.
Only gradually had the two settled into a truce. They didn’t discuss Eiverbreen’s drinking, for there was no common ground to be found there, but Eiverbreen had stopped blaming his son, openly at least, and had even occasionally expressed gratitude that Regis had cared enough to try. And Regis had stopped resenting the downtrodden halfling, instead coming to see Eiverbreen in the same manner he had viewed those poor souls on the dirty streets of Calimport. He couldn’t “fix” Eiverbreen, but so be it.
The realization that Eiverbreen wasn’t actually his father had allowed the reborn halfling the emotional room he needed for objectivity.
Eiverbreen snorted and licked his lips, moving his head side to side suddenly, then opened one lazy eye to look back at Regis.
“Hey boy,” he said through sleep-sticky lips.
“Father,” Regis lied.
Eiverbreen rubbed a hand over his face, sitting up straighter in the process.
“I’m seein’ you less,” Eiverbreen slurred.
“I’ve much to do now.”
“With them Topolinos.”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you the fancylad!” Eiverbreen said with a laugh, but one that was only half-mocking. He sat up straighter still, rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes. “You still dancing with that pretty girl, are you?”