“You listen,” Lief murmured, after glancing around and seeing that the rest were out of earshot, Dion especially, “you did good by me, back at the Ford. You saved my arse, and then some. I don’t exactly get much say in this little venture, but I’ll do what I can. I’ll buy the beer, anyway.”

From Shogg’s Ford Nth knew perfectly well that he didn’t like beer. After the first mug, though, he found that the second was, at least, merely objectionable. Possibly it was different, better beer, or possibly this was some sort of beer magic. It was just one of those human things that Penthos knew nothing of, and so Nth was doomed to know even less.

By that time Dion had absented herself to lie down, and Penthos had declared his intention to go trolling the sellers of arcane trinkets, on the basis that there was no reason to waste a visit here, leaving Lief and Nth at the bar. It was around that time that Harathes and Cyrene renewed their shouting. Nth recalled that something similar had happened on the road, but here, in this populated place, the two of them were apparently not even finding somewhere secluded. With the beer within him providing a buffer against the unpleasantness of the sound, and his surroundings, and indeed his own physical shape, he watched with some interest as the two of them yelled at each other across the room. At first he took it for just some aspect of usual human communication unfamiliar to him, and then perhaps as a form of discordant entertainment, but at the last he realized that it constituted a disagreement. Not that his forced traveling companions were exactly short of internal conflict, but this was their sniping and backbiting taken to quite a new level.

It was exceedingly hard for him to understand precisely what the issue between the two of them was. Nth was not even sure he should care. They were both people who plainly disliked his very existence, and yet they lacked the potency of Penthos or Dion and so were less to be feared. Hence they were arguably the least relevant or important of those he traveled with. At the same time, the spectacle was so fierce and flamboyant he found he could not ignore it.

Apparently Harathes was only concerned with Cyrene’s well-being and intended to keep her from making unwise decisions, while Cyrene was insistent that she was in no way possessed or controlled by Harathes nor under his jurisdiction. Understanding that much, and no more, Nth explained this to Lief, in case the little man had missed the subtleties.

The thief covered his face with his hands for a moment. It took Nth a moment to understand that this was, for some reason, mirth rather than despair. It was true that despair was something he himself was more familiar with.