Elaine Cunningham - The Dream Spheres

The half-ogre strode to the open tavern door, carrying the last of that night's customers by the rope that belted his britches. His captive squirmed like a hooked trout and filled the air with the salty tang of dockside curses. These efforts did not seem to inconvenience the tavern guard in the slightest particular. At nearly seven feet of meanness and muscle, Hamish could lift and haul any patron in the Pickled Fisherman as easily as a lesser man might carry a package of paper-wrapped fish by the string that bound it.

"Raise your keel and haul in your sails," Hamish rumbled as he hauled the flailing man back for the toss. "You're about to run aground, one way or t'other."

Fair warning in these parts, but the patron failed to take it. The half-ogre waited a moment for the struggles to subside, then shrugged and tossed the man out into the night. The man's protests rose into a wail, ending in a muffled thud.

Hamish slammed the tavern door with resounding finality. Wood shrieked against wood as the half-ogre slid home the thick oaken bar. Outside, the patron he had just evicted began to pound on the locked door.

Two tavern maids stopped mopping spilled ale long enough to exchange a sidelong glance and a resigned sigh. One of them, a dark, scrawny girl whose dream-filled eyes belied the reality of her underfed body, tossed a single silver coin onto the table and then reached for a large, half-empty mug. She lifted it high, like a swords shy;man offering challenge, and turned to the pretty, fair-haired woman who shared the late night shift at the Pickled Fisherman.

"What say you, Lilly? Can I finish this off before old Elton passes out or wanders off?"

Lilly cocked her head and listened. The feeble, irreg shy;ular rhythm of the man's fists was already dying away. She fished in her pocket for a matching coin, despite the fact that this represented the dragon's share of her nightly wages.

"Aye, Peg, that you can," she said stoutly, slapping the coin down with the air of a woman confident of victory.

Lilly looked to the half-ogre, who was watching this familiar exchange with a faintly exasperated smirk. "I'll stand judge," he agreed, rolling his eyes toward the smoke-blackened beams overhead.

The thin barmaid nodded to acknowledge challenge met, then tipped back her head and drank thirstily. Lilly moved around behind, covering Peg's ears with both hands as if to ensure that the wager was played on a level field.

As Lilly had expected, Elton's protests faded off well before Peg's mug was dry. That mattered not and would not change the outcome of the wager.

Lilly waited until her friend had finished drinking, then dropped her hands from the girl's ears and gave her a playful swat on the rump. "You've won again, lass! It's Tymora's pet you are, with such luck. I'm guess shy;ing you've tossed a copper or two toward Lady Luck's temple."

Suddenly uncertain, the girl paused in the act of gathering up her winnings. "Aye," she admitted. "There's no harm in helping luck along, is there?"

"None at all, lass." Lilly sent a look of mock severity in the half-ogre's direction, swearing him anew to secrecy. Hamish lifted both hands and walked off, as if he wanted no further part of this ritual he never quite understood.

It seemed to Lilly a harmless way of putting a bit of much-needed money in Peg's hands, as well as giving the girl an excuse for eating and drinking a bit of the leavings. This was a reality of their lives, something many a down-on-her-luck tavern worker did when need arose, but a thing that Peg's pride would not otherwise permit her. Dipping outright into the tavern's supplies could get a girl fired, and often times a bit of leftover ale and bread and salty pickles might be the only nourish shy;ment available to such as Peg. Not that Lilly was over shy;burdened with personal wealth, but she had certain advantages: a merry laugh, a quick bawdy wit, thick hair in an unusual shade of palest red-gold, and delight shy;ful curves. Tavern wenches thus blessed could count on the occasional extra coin.

But these days, extra coin was in scant supply in Waterdeep's rough-and-tumble Dock Ward. Lilly sent a wistful glance toward the silent door. "If this were last summer, Elton and his mates would be drinking still."

"And we'd be working still," Peg retorted. "Working til we were fair asleep on our feet."

Lilly nodded, for they'd proven the truth of that often enough. The Pickle, like most dockside taverns, stayed open as long as any man or monster could put down good coin for thin stew and watered ale, but the summer of 1368 had been a hard one. Too many ships had gone missing, which meant less cargo coming in through the docks, lower profits for merchants, fewer hands needed on ship or wharf or warehouse, more masterless men with nothing to do but turn predator. Many of the sailors and dockhands who routinely came to soak themselves in the Pickle's brand of brine were coming into hard times. Lilly had even heard uneasy whispers from the young lords and ladies who came into the rough tavern from time to time for novelty's sake. A few among the merchant nobility were getting cautious, and there was even talk of finding alternate ways to move goods in and out of the port city. Of course, when they realized that someone was listening, Waterdeep's lords and mer shy;chants and sages spoke soothingly of endless prosperity. Lilly wasn't buying that at the asking price.

She glanced at Peg. The younger girl was piling wood on the hearth to keep the fire burning until morn, but her eyes kept straying to the far wall. There hung a few battered instruments on wooden hooks, awaiting the rare patron who was more inclined to make music than mayhem. Peg's too-thin face was poignant with longing.

Lilly straightened and placed her fists on her hips. "Off with you, girl!" she scolded. "It's my turn to finish up."

Peg needed no persuasion. She darted across the tavern and snatched up an old fiddle and a fraying bow. Her feet fairly danced up the back stairs, as if they'd forgotten the long hours of toil in anticipation of the music to come.

Left alone, Lilly quickly finished setting the tavern to rights. When the task was done she wiped her hands on her apron, then reached behind her back for the ties. To her annoyance, the strings had been pulled into tight knots. Not an unusual state of affairs. She could not count the times some fumble-fingered patron attempted to pinch her backside, only to tangle himself in the strings that bound her apron or her waist pocket.

Lilly sighed and gave up. She took a small knife from her pocket and severed the apron strings, silently curs shy;ing all tavern patrons on behalf of the man who had condemned her to an hour's toil with needle and thread. Swine, the lot of them!

Yet once, not too long ago, some of the Pickle's guests hadn't looked so bad, and she hadn't always minded their attentions. Lilly tossed aside the apron and walked behind the bar. Hidden there was a bottle of fine elven wine that a visiting lord had given her. She poured a tiny portion of the wine, the better to savor it, and spoke to the nearly empty bottle.

"A dangerous thing it is, to be drinking the likes of you. I've fair lost my taste for the cider and rot-yer-guts we get hereabouts. And what, I ask you, am I to do about that?"

The bottle offered no advice on the matter. Lilly sighed and pushed a stray wisp of red-gold hair off her face. Suddenly she felt very tired and eager for the escape that awaited her in the small room over the tavern. She tossed back the rare wine in a single gulp, then climbed the back stairs to the bedchambers above the tavern.

She paused at her chamber door, leaning against the frame as she surveyed the room with new eyes. Once, it had seemed a near palace-a room all her own, a safe place to put her things, a bed that she need not share unless she chose to do so. Now she looked at it as her lover might.