Вилорп

→I sit down at my desk. There's a brief silence.

→"Hanama was trying to tell me something," says Makri.

→I grab a bottle of klee and take a slug. All these sick women in my private quarters, it's starting to unnerve me. Makri springs lithely to her feet. Everything she does is lithe, agile and nimble. I never noticed before how annoying it can be.

→"What the hell are you doing?" I demand. "No, don't answer that. Just do it somewhere else."

→The only problem is I'd swear there isn't a whale beside the harbour. I'm still musing on it as I arrive back at the Avenging Axe. I'm not pleased to find Makri in my office and my mood isn't improved by the way she's kneeling over Hanama, their faces almost touching.

→"I'm leaving," I say, and bid farewell. I leave the tenement very thoughtfully. She didn't seem crazy and her memory seemed to be intact. Her story wasn't that unlikely, given the history of Turai's naval past, and the greed of the Palace. Any captain arriving back with a fortune might well find someone there trying to relieve him of it. Besides, I've been offered a reward of 1,000 gurans for finding the loot, which makes me even more inclined to believe the story.

→The servant comes in and looks questioningly at me.

→I break off. Tanrose's mother's eyelids are starting to droop. Any second now she's going to nod off.

→"Even so—"

→"Not in the harbour. Beside it."

→"I really don't think there's a whale in Turai harbour."

→"That's what he told my mother. Under the whale. And that's what she told me."

→"I don't know of any whale at the harbour."

→I scratch my chin.

→"Under the whale."

→"What?"

→"Near the harbour. Under the whale."

→"Where exactly did he bury it?"

→"But the Orcs can't get my father's money. Find it for me. There's fourteen thousand gurans. If you find it you can have one thousand."

→She pauses again. She seems to be tiring. She revives long enough to look up at me sharply.