diamonds behind a loose stone in the chimney, and four separate coin caches under the floorboards. He went to each in turn, removed the contents, and put them in his coin purse.
He was leaving; he knew that. Possibly, he would not return. Cale didn't see that yet, but Riven did. Whatever they were involved in, whatever Vraggen and this half-drow were scheming, it was bigger than Selgaunt. It had to be. Riven's dream visions had become more frequent, the pain in his skull upon waking more intense. Mask was preparing him for something….
A scratch at the door drew his attention, a chuffing at the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.
'Here I come,' he said, smiling.
He rose and glided across the room. He checked the buckets-one filled with water, one filled with the boiled scraps he regularly purchased from a butcher on Tenderloin Street. Typically, he pre-paid by the month, and a butcher boy delivered the buckets of scraps every day or two.
He opened the door and the girls thundered in, tails wagging and tongues lolling.
He kneeled down to receive their charge and they nearly bowled him over. He rubbed each behind her ears.
'Hey, girls, hey. Good dogs, good dogs.'
They licked him in greeting, fairly covering him in dog spit, while their tails wagged furiously. He fought through their affection to shut his door. The smaller of the two, a short-haired brown and black mutt with bright eyes, flopped onto the floor and showed Riven her stomach. Riven obliged her with a belly rubbing.
The larger brown hound with the gentle eyes, obviously the smarter of the two, left off Riven's affection and went for the buckets while the other was distracted with the belly rub. The smaller caught on fast, though. She rolled onto her feet and scampered over to the food. The larger made a hole and the two began to eat in earnest.
Riven slid near them and patted their flanks as they ate. He marveled at how gentle they both were. Most strays would squabble over food, and growl if they were disturbed while eating. Not his girls. He thought they might be a bitch and her daughter but he had no way of knowing for sure.
'I'm thinking I'll be gone for a bit, girls,' he said, surprised at how sad those words made him.
He'd grown attached to his girls, as attached as he got to anything. They looked back at him, meat and drool hanging comically from their mouths. He scratched each behind the ears again. The smaller licked his hand.
'But I'll make sure you're cared for.'
He had encountered the girls on his way home one night, perhaps two months before. Both dogs, obvious strays, had been as weak as infants and as thin as reeds. When Riven held out his hand and softly called to them, they had approached him timidly. But when he gently rubbed their muzzles and flanks, their diffidence vanished and they fairly overwhelmed him with licks. Since then, they'd been his girls, and they returned to his flat almost every day. He suspected that they lived in the alley nearby.
He'd never bothered to name them. He wasn't sure why. Maybe he would someday.
Riven had loved dogs since boyhood. Back in Amn, in a life that was so far removed from the present that it seemed to be someone else's past, he had been a kennel boy for Lord Amhazar, an insignificant but sadistic nobleman with a taste for women and violence. Riven's hours with the dogs had been the only happy moments in an otherwise harsh boyhood typified by episodic beatings and chronic hunger.
One morning, that nobleman had beaten him senseless for a reason Riven still did not understand. It was Amahazor's signet ring that had popped Riven's eye. Afterward, he'd left Riven for dead on the side of the road. But Riven didn't die. A passerby, a slaver out of Calimshan, had taken him in and for reasons still unclear to Riven, nursed him back to health, and trained him with weapons. Looking back, Riven realized that he owed that slaver much. He might have told him so if he hadn't put a punch dagger into the base of his skull over a decade before.
When Riven reached early manhood-even then he was already a highly efficient killer-he'd returned to the Amhazar estate in the night, murdered his former lord and the entire Amhazar family, then burned the place to the ground. He'd spared only the serfs and the dogs from the slaughter.
You can always trust dogs, he thought, looking at his girls as they licked the bucket clean. Dogs were utterly guileless. Dogs always stayed loyal. Not so with men, as Riven knew well from experience.
Absently, he rubbed them each in turn. They lay on their bellies on either side of him, full and content.
He would not betray the trust they had given him.
'Stay,' he said to them, and he rose.
They gave no sign they understood, but both their tails drummed the wood floor.
'I'll be back.'
He opened the door and walked next door to the scribe's shop.
The door was ajar so Riven walked in without knocking. The small shop was crammed full with shelves covered with parchment rolls, inkpots, quills, paperweights, and a host of other paraphernalia that Riven, who could not read and write, didn't recognize. The scribe, a thin, plain looking man with squinty eyes, sat behind a huge walnut desk on one side of the room. He was writing something on a piece of parchment and had not yet looked up at Riven.
'Hold just for a moment,' he said. 'Let me finish this thought.' He thumped the paper with his quill point. 'There.' He looked up. 'Now-'
When he saw Riven, his gaze went in rapid succession from Riven's scabbarded sabers to the window that looked out on the street, to Riven's face. His squinty eyes went as wide as fivestars.
'You! Ah-I mean, how can I help you? Is something wrong with the flat? Or do you want to purchase something?'
Trying to get out from behind his desk, the scribe tripped over his feet. When he caught himself on the desk, he toppled his ink pot and spilled ink over whatever it was he had been writing.
'Oh, dark! Dark and empty!'
He tried to sop up the dark fluid with some spare paper, succeeding only in staining his fingers black.
Hearing the scribe curse in anger almost brought an amused smile to Riven's face. Instead, he adopted his professional sneer and stalked toward the desk.
'I do want to purchase something' he said. 'Your services.'
The scribe wiped his fingers with the parchment.
'You n-need something written for you?' the scribe said, his voice shaking.
Riven eyed him coldly and replied, 'No. Something else.'
The scribe's eyes moved around but not once did they settle for more than a heartbeat on Riven's face. He dropped the ruined paper and wiped his hands, still shaking, on his trousers.
'Wh-what then?'
Riven leaned forward and rested his fingertips on the desk. He knew he had to tread carefully-create enough fear to ensure compliance with his request, but not so much that he frightened the scribe into fleeing town.
'Two bitches scratch at my door in the late afternoon or evening. You've seen them?'
The scribe's mouth hung open slightly. He nodded.
'I'll be leaving for a while. I won't be returning to the flat for a time.'
The scribe started to speak, but Riven cut him off.
'You are not to re-let it. No matter how long I'm gone. Here.'
He reached into his cloak, removed a diamond-a small fortune, more than the scribe earned in a year, perhaps two-and placed it on the desk. The man's eyes went wide.
'Take it. That is advance rent for the next twelve months. It's also advance payment for the service you are to perform for me.'
The scribe eyed the diamond but did not reach for it. He met Riven's gaze.
'The dogs?' he asked.
Riven nodded. At least the man wasn't stupid.
'A butcher's boy delivers a bucket of meat scraps to my place daily. I feed the scraps to the gir-dogs. I also provide them with water. They rely on me for that. I will make arrangements with the butcher for the deliveries to continue while I'm away. You will see to it that the dogs are fed and allowed entry into the flat. That's all.'
The scribe didn't dare refuse but Riven thought he looked less than enthusiastic. The assassin decided to
