Most beloved Zann,

Coy and Lasl were telling the truth when they said they knew of a tavern that was still open and operating normally. It was a place called Sosi’s, and I thought I might have been there once before. Just a little waterfront joint made of two joined cellars.

The first thing I saw coming down the stairs into the common room was a glass jar with a human head in it, in some kind of green liquid, hanging over our heads. The head glared at me for a moment, and then nodded, allowing me to pass.

“He gave you a good long look,” Lasl said. “Got some secrets? Usually he’ll let any normal customer in.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Always just call him ‘the head’. I think he was a wizard.”

The common room was about half full. We sat at the end of a long table. Coy looked over at Sosi, behind the bar, and held up three fingers. Sosi nodded.

“So, Ybel,” Coy said. “Do you think you’re going back to the Guard?”

“Maybe. Probably. Something like it, anyway. I’m still thinking. What about you two? How do you live?” They will glance at each other before answering me, I thought to myself.

Before answering me, they glanced at each other. “We get by,” Lasl said. “There’s always something you can do with a boat. Fishing, if nothing else.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“It’s a pretty good life. Lot of dangerous people in the streets that don’t come out onto the water. Lot of politics that can be avoided. And the air’s always fresh.”

Sosi brought us a large trencher of bread with some strips of fried fish, pickled radishes, and wedges of cheese. Also, three mugs of stout.

“Sounds nice,” I said, trying not to stuff my mouth too greedily. The bread wasn’t very good, but it was fresh.

“Sort of thing that appeals to you?”

I smiled. “I hate to say this, because I’m so hungry for this food, and you’ve already done so much for me. But… you’re only telling me the good parts.”

“What do you mean?” Coy asked.

“I mean that sailing up and down the river in the sunshine sounds much better than having to worry about palace intrigue… but I don’t think I’d like smuggling goods into the city very much, especially when I’d have to deal with the neighbourhood gangs.” I wasn’t sure whether to look Lasl dead in the eye when I said that, or to look Coy dead in the eye, so I switched back and forth between the two of them. I don’t think it made me seem as formidable as I wanted.

“There is that,” Lasl said calmly.

“If you don’t mind my asking, does your gang think of you as their soldiers or their mercenaries?”

“Oh, mercenaries, definitely. They’re too close-knit for us to be anything else. You have to have grown up in their same four-block area or they don’t trust you. Why?”

“I’m just wondering. I don’t have an offer to make, but I would like to start collecting useful people who are available to, well, help the city out from time to time.”

“Are we not helping the city already?” Coy said, pointing a radish at me. “That stuff we bring in, most of it’s food.”

“Food that some mean dastards get a nice profit on before anyone gets to eat it. I agree, it does help, some, but I’d like some other choices for us.”

Lasl shrugged. “If you’ve got something to say, I’ll listen.”

I took a swig of stout. “Sometimes I think we never really woke up from the Nap.” Coy looked at me questioningly, but I didn’t elaborate.

The Nap. We all fell asleep and drowsed while the greenfolk took everything from us. And then we woke, and saw what had happened, and… nothing. We didn’t fight, or leave, or band together. We reacted slowly. We accepted this new madness as a fact and went along with it. Me as much as anybody.

And that was unusual for me. Back before the Nap, up north, I wasn’t like that at all. I… well, never mind that right now. I did a lot of things. I made people react to me. And now? I gave up everything I ever cared about to loiter around a palace on the offchance that a drop of the Sauce would fall in my mouth. But then, I was a different person now, wasn’t I?

But I’d never be so different that I would let everything come to an end just because I was too busy counting the bubbles in my piss. Maybe the people of Crideon had lost the trick of making things happen. Fine. I would relearn it.

And I knew who I had to find first.

All my love,

Ybel