Inclining his head close to hers, the swordsman murmured a reply. “I’m not sure, but Ehomba is a strange man. A good friend, to be sure. Straightforward and dependable. But different from such as you and I. He knows many things. I believe him to be a great sorcerer.”
“What, him?” Almost, she laughed aloud. Almost.
“Say then that he is a sometime student of that which would mystify the rest of us. If he says there’s something in that bottle, then I believe him, though I can’t see it myself.” He pointed. “It lies there, by the stern.”
“I see it,” she admitted, leaning closer. After a moment she shook her head dubiously. “It looks empty to me.”
“Hoy, but then why is our trawling friend looking so uneasy, and speaking of weapons? Could it be that the bottle contains something of great value, whose nature he is wary of revealing?” In the course of their intense whispering his arm had slipped around her waist. Intent upon the byplay between herdsman and fisher, she took no notice of it, and thus allowed it to remain in place.
Lifting the bottle by its narrow neck, Crice held it up for all to see. Half the crew saw only a thick-walled container, perfectly blown and devoid of bubbles in the glass, sealed with a peculiarly sculpted pewter stopper. Among the rest there were many who thought they saw movement within the translucent vessel. Given the distance between the two craft, it was difficult to say what, if anything, occupied the bottle’s interior. But it was now clear to the most sharp-eyed among the crew that something did.