TRILEMMA GAME

The man picks up a goblet with his right hand and pours with his left, head tilted as if he is listening to the wine splash into the cup. Before it overflows he cuts the pour and holds out the goblet in Dahlia's close direction. "Myrven, eh? I had a cousin Marvin once. Are you a bigger fellow?" After Dahlia takes the goblet, he picks up the other cup.

"I have business in the Borderlands," the blind man says.

Dahlia's ring throbs on her finger.

"It's old business," the young man says. He taps his finger against the red rag wrapped around his eyes.

The young man turns his head intently a little bit aside from Dahlia, as if he's trying to … listen to her face? "First we must take ship across the Haver Soont," he says. "We land at Lastfort. Then we ride a guided canoe up the Serpentfork River to the foothills, and follow the old road east to High Kellan."

These are places you've heard of, in tales of tumult. Folk say there are ORCS in that part of the world. And real wizards, like those three you saw in the Broken Boat last night.

A chuckle. "Folk call me Red."

It's afternoon. The boat heaves on the Haver Soont. The west wind blows hard across the Gulf of Winds, beneath a sky that is thick and dim with heavy grey clouds. The bouncing waves are darkest blue with foaming turquoise caps where the wind breaks them off. Spray continually strikes you as the bow keeps smacking on wave tops.

The captain said it would be another two days to first landing at the town called Spittle. You're not by any means sailors and your stomachs have been roiling since noon yesterday.

Guess who else are passengers, besides you two and Red? Hurry-up and Jake. They were looking askance at you on the first day and haven't had much interaction with you aside from nods and passing food (biscuits, mystery jerky, and seaweed today — the first four days when the water was calmer, and the cook could make rice, you had sushi).

Is Hurry-up the one with the nose ring? It would be embarrassing to ask for names again … he spits over the side of the boat, into the heaving waves. The wind makes his gob curve wildly toward the head of the boat. "Plenty to do for hard men, there," he says in his weird accent. "Yez might do well to hire on such like us."

Myrven spends the voyage polishing his new armour. He is obsessed. A piece of mystery jerky dangled from his mouth as he tried to keep the metal free of saltwater, rubbing it with an old rag.