Elvenbane

He took the collar and put it inside a tiny leather bag, sealing the edges by pressing the leather together. Now no one would be able to open that pouch but Lord Dyran or one of his trusted associates.

He rose from his bed, left his room, and went out the front door of the caravansary, strolling out into the square with the air of someone who is out simply to stretch his legs. But his stroll took out him of the square and far beyond the area ruled by Lord Berenel, where all the streets were marked with a copper-and-red checkered brick just past the crossroads. He took himself to a part of the city he knew very well indeed, where the crossroads were all marked with bricks of gold and red.

Once there, he wound his way down into an area where fighters with reward-tokens to spend congregated, using them on stronger drink, stranger food, and wilder women than they could have at the caravansary. Everything was owned by Lord Dyran, of course, but it gave the fighters something special to strive for, something beyond what 'everyone' could have. Something that had at least the appearance of the forbidden, and that was iced with the sweetness of real luxury.

Harden found an establishment with a sign depicting a phoenix engaging in an anatomically unlikely act with a wildly beautiful, implausibly endowed, red-haired young woman. He got into the place, which was guarded by a large, well-armed individual, seemingly by telling the guard at the door a rather odd, pointless joke. That was what passers-by would think; in actuality, he was giving the guard not one, but a series of passwords. The guard let him into the main room; he stood on the top stair of three that led down into the room, had a moment to look around before the denizens of the place noticed him.

It hadn't changed much; the red silk shrouding the walls was new, and the incense heavily perfuming the air was jasmine instead of orchid this time. But for the rest it was the same; chattering girls in things that were more ornament than garment lounged on cushions in the center of the room, and a soft, amber light glowed from the ceiling. The walls were covered with silk hangings, which Harden knew concealed the entrances to little cubicles much like the one back at the caravansary, except that the pallets were softer, the cubicles a little bigger, and there was a rack of implements of the young lady's specialty in each. Oils for massage, for instance...or a musical instrument...or other things.

And for those who preferred absolute privacy and extensive attentions, there were soundproof rooms upstairs.

This was not an establishment normally frequented by humans. Elven lords of too low a rank to own concubines came here, as did young elven lords seeking excitement in the 'lower city,' and the very occasional high-ranking lord who felt a need for variety, but not a pressing enough need that he felt he had to add to his harem to get it. The humans who did come here were generally fighters being rewarded for unusual service. As such, Harden looked the part.

Harden stepped down into the room, and was immediately surrounded by young women who did not have much more in common with the lady of the sign than sex, general attractiveness, and red hair.

'Is Marty free?' he asked the first one to take hold of his arm, knowing what the reaction would be. Much as he would have enjoyed dallying here with the girl, he knew what the penalty would be if he did so without explicit permission. She let go of him immediately, a frightened and panicked look transforming her face into that of a terrified child, as the rest of the girls vanished as quickly as they had materialized.

'Y-y-yes,' she stammered, obviously hoping he wasn't going to ask her to escort him there. He toyed with the idea for a moment, because she was so very frightened, and it would have been rather amusing; but he was not by nature a cruel man, and decided against it.

'Off with you,' he said, slapping her on her mostly bare buttocks, so that she squealed and jumped. 'I can find my own way.'

She followed the example of her 'sisters' in fleeing to one of the many curtained cubicles lining the walls, whisking through the curtains as if he were a demon. Harden ignored her, heading instead for the only true door in the room, a massive, uncarved ironwood piece, red-and-brown-grained wood blending into the red, watered silk of the hangings. He knocked once, then entered.

The same amber light gleamed down on wood-paneled walls and a crimson-carpeted floor. Marty looked up from his desk, the room's single piece of furniture, as Harden closed the door behind himself. Marty was...a prodigy. He couldn't have weighed more than half what Harden weighed; he was slender as a willow-twig, with a mild, even sweet, face. Truth to tell, he looked like a girl with a mustache. There were men who'd taken that sweet face for an indication of Marty's preferences in partners.

Those men had never had a chance to make a similar mistake; they'd been dead before their bodies hit the floor. Marty was one of Lord Dyran's own highly trained assassins. He was also Dyran's chief agent in the city, and had replaced the contact Harden had worked with two years ago. That contact had been an old man; Harden knew that he had been retired to one of Dyran's estates to train younger agents. He knew, because he himself was still alive. If the human had betrayed the elven lord, Lord Dyran would have eliminated every agent that had reported to him as well as the traitor.

Harden rather liked the lad; demons knew he hadn't many other friends. The girls were terrified of him, and for no good reason, so far as Harden could see. Maybe his tastes were a little more exotic than even they cared for. Maybe it was just what he represented...

Maybe it was that, in his capacity as the manager of this house, he held the power of life and death over them. And at the hands of a trained assassin, death could be very prolonged, and very unpleasant.

'Harden, good to see you,' the young man said warmly, rising to offer Harden his chair. Harden shook his head at the implied offer of hospitality.

'I can't stay long,' he said. 'I'm supposed to be getting a girl at suppertime and since I've been on the road for weeks, if I don't show up, it'll look odd. Here. This needs to get to the Lord.'

He tossed the little leather pouch down on the desk. Marty looked at it curiously, but didn't touch it.

'Now, this is where it came from...' Harden said, and explained, as briefly and concisely as he could, the events of the past several days. 'So when the girl started to fight, she dropped this. I had to wait until I got to the city to check it out. It's a collar, gold and jewels; looks like a concubine's collar to me. And it's got Lord Dyran's seal on it.'

'Lord Dyran's seal, on a concubine's collar, held by a wild child.' Marty tilted his head a little to one side. 'Well, the obvious solution is that she found it. The Lord has had caravans lost in the desert before, some with high-ranking concubines on them.'

Harden grimaced, chagrined that he hadn't thought of that possibility.

'But...' Marty continued, 'I must admit that having the monster attack the caravan is stretching coincidence a great deal. All things considered, we'll let the Lord handle it however he sees fit. You did well, Harden. If nothing else, in returning a valuable bit of jewelry to Lord Dyran. Certainly Berenel's men would not have bothered.'

That was a dismissal, no question about it.

'I'll be getting back to the caravansary,' Harden said quickly. 'If I hear anything, I'll let you know.'

'There is one thing I would like you to find out,' Marty said, just as Harden got his hand on the door handle.

Harden turned immediately.

'There was a runaway concubine about fifteen years ago, a pregnant favorite near her time, and she escaped into that particular area of the desert...' Marty didn't say anything more, but Harden knew more than enough to fill in the rest. Far more than most humans would.

If she had actually been pregnant by Lord Dyran...if she had survived long enough to whelp the child... A halfblood was forbidden, absolutely forbidden, and this child was near enough in age to be that halfblood...

'The girl's red-haired and about twelve or fourteen,' he offered. 'Now, I didn't see any wild magic out of her, and I think I would have when she fought Kel if she'd had it.'

'But she was drugged,' Marty reminded him. 'And what about that monster? What if she conjured it to distract the rest of you while she escaped?'

'But she didn't try to escape,' said Harden, then thought a moment. 'Of course, her grel took off with her, and she just might not have been able to control it. Still I'd think anybody that could produce a monster could control a grel.'

'A good point,' Marty acknowledged. 'But keep an eye on her, if you can. It's stretching coincidence to think that this girl could be the concubine's child, but...it's better to let Lord Dyran decide what he wants to do about it. And at any rate, if there is any indication that she's a halfblood, come straight to me, and