think. Use magic on my mind to be sure, Lady D-ahem, lady. I… I can't avoid any fate you give to me, I guess.' He was struggling on the edge of tears again, but he managed to add, 'I'm so tired of being afraid.'
'That,' Dove said in a voice of doom, 'is why I won't do to you what I once vowed to: spell-change you into a beautiful lass, chain you, and sell you into slavery to give you a taste of what you did to so many. You've suf shy;fered, and there are times when Mystra bids us to rise above 'death for death' justice, and show kindness to those worthy of it. In my eyes, those most worthy of it are those who've been kind to others, in private and with no thought of benefit to themselves. You're one of those few.'
A long-fingered hand closed on the throat of the man gaping at her, and she added in a voice of sudden steel, 'Yet never forget, Blaskar, that I can make you a slave girl, or legless beggar, or disease-riddled outlaw, wear shy;ing the face of someone hated and hunted, in the time it takes me to tell you this. I can come to doom you, if you turn to your old ways once more.'
The slaver was trembling. She opened her mouth to say something more gentle, but he lifted his head and said, 'I'll submit to whatever doom you choose. If you'd be kind to me, though, let me try to bargain a better one.'
Dove snorted. 'From how strong a position? What, for instance, would your opening gambit be?'
They exchanged smiles. The slaver's grin turned sly and he asked, 'What if I should just happen to forget where I put the key to your cuffs?'
'Then I'll break them,' Dove told him, 'and help you go looking for that key. You might not be seeing things all that well after I'd stuffed two lengths of chain down your throat and made you swallow, so we'd have to do things properly. I think I'd start by taking firm hold of your ear, then go around behind you and start looking for where I could pull on the other end of my devoured chain.'
Blaskar stared at her for a moment, then threw back his head and let out his first real laugh in years.
The same sun that would set over Waterdeep long before a certain fat merchant found his way back to its gates-and would shine through the windows of a cer shy;tain Scornubrian house now forever empty of Blaskar Toldovar-was lowering in the western sky when a weary, muddy-booted peddler led four limping, footsore mules into Scornubel. He trudged down the wide, dung-strewn streets to a certain stables where he paid grudging coins to have his beasts penned, fed, and watered. He paid rather more to have his saddlebags lock-stored, and trudged out again into the gathering dusk, rubbing at a paltry mustache that sat like a hairy caterpillar upon his unlovely upper lip. He gave 'Tarthan' as his name, and he walked as one who knew the Caravan City but wasn't particularly glad to find himself therein.
His eye seemed to fall only upon Scornubel's newer establishments, but always, it seemed, to soon find them lacking. At the threshold of The Rolling Wheel he peered into the din of scrawny dancers and wearily roaring men, sniffed, and turned into the darkness again. At the shoulder-rubbing-crowded outer room of the Black Bowl gambling club he spat onto the purple carpet and went out as wearily as he'd come in, giving the bouncer who moved threateningly forward a grin of savage promise and the flourished point of a needle-thin blade three feet long.
The Bowl of Serpents seemed more to Tarthan's liking. He sat for some time tossing copper coins at the serpent-tailed dancers who undulated into view amid its many mauve tapestries, and polished off an entire decanter of emerald green Starlartarn wine from the Tashalar. The peddler was weaving slightly, but still steady of purpose, when he stopped outside Cata's Pump a little later, sniffed the air appreciatively, and told the world, 'Ahh, a good broth. Worth the little walk from Waterdeep.'
That comment made the eyes of the doorswords widen above their half masks as the dusty peddler stepped between them and sought the dimness within. Half a dozen merchants and burly porters were loung shy;ing drowsily in chairs around the edges of the tavern's lone taproom, the large empty bowls in front of them attesting to the reason for their collective torpor. A single tankard stood neatly before each diner; no one had spilled anything, or was calling for more yet. In fact, no one was saying anything. Tarthan cast a nar shy;rowed eye over the tomblike taproom, found a smallish table hard by a pillar, and sat.
A serving wench drifted up to stand over him. 'Your pleasure, goodman?' she asked tonelessly, staring over Tarthan's head at something mildly captivating that seemed to be occurring several days' ride to the east, through the dirty taproom wall.
'A fist of cheese, a bowl of that broth I smell, and a roundloaf,' the peddler said heartily, holding up a closed fist full of coins.
Instead of flicking her fingers in the shorthand ges shy;tures that would give him the price demanded for his meal, the girl simply nodded and turned away. Tarthan nodded too, slumping wearily into his chair, and gave the room a wide-mouthed yawn. A curtain moved back into place across a doorway at the far end of the room, but the peddler gave no sign that he'd seen it-or cared very much about curtains or spying anywhere in Faerun.
Nonetheless, when the serving wench returned with a tray and a face of unchanged blankness, the peddler's seat was empty. There was no sign of him anywhere in the taproom. The girl stood for a moment in silent inde shy;cision, then set the tray down in front of the empty seat and glided away again. There was a thin layer of dust on the tray and the tankard, but no one seemed to notice.
'A quiet night,' the peddler observed, leaning on his elbow. He was the only patron of The Moonshot Tankard, it seemed, but the bar master was diligently polishing boards that already gleamed glassy smooth under the lamplight.
'Indeed, sir,' came the quiet, distant reply, as the bar master turned away to wipe a row of shining, unused glasses behind the bar.
Tarthan sipped soured beer from his tankard, keep shy;ing his face carefully expressionless despite the taste, and asked casually, 'Any news?'
'News, sir?'
'What's befalling in the Caravan City these days? Any new talk of the drow coming up from the depths to kill us all in our beds?'
The bar master's shoulders stiffened for the space of a long breath ere he turned and said quietly, 'Not that I've heard, sir. Some bad storms this past month. . fewer caravans running into town. That's about it, sir.'
'Ah, well, then, I'd best get to my bed,' the peddler replied, draining his tankard with a loud sigh and set shy;ting it carefully back down on the bar. 'Good ale,' he said, rising to go.
'Finest in the city, sir,' the bar master murmured, turning to watch Tarthan lurch toward the door. His eyes never left the peddler's dusty back until the dwin shy;dling, dusty figure turned a corner at the end of the street. Then he turned with the speed of a striking snake, thrust his head back through the curtains that led into the kitchen, and hissed something soft and quick to someone unseen.
It came to pass that four furtive figures met under the cool, clear starlight of Scornubel that night. One had darted out of the Moonshot Tankard not long after its last guest of the night, another had patiently followed a man who'd left Cata's Pump earlier in the evening without a single taste of the meal he'd ordered, and two more had but recently stepped out of other establishments where a dusty peddler had asked for fresh news of the drow.
The four hadn't planned to meet. They converged separately on the same alley in the wake of a dusty man who now stumbled a little, and whistled a few tuneless notes from time to time. When they came together, four pairs of eyes flickered, one hand lifted in an intricate gesture, and four figures moved on as one. If all deals were so simple, swift, and quiet, Faerun might be a more efficient place. Then again, it might well also be a more deadly one.
The alley ended in a cluster of burned out, roofless warehouses, homes for rats and occasional beggars- though beggars didn't seem to linger long in the Cara shy;van City these days. The four silent, graceful men gathered speed, heading for the doorway the peddler had disappeared through. They knew it led into a fire- blackened stone foundation and cellar beneath, now lacking upper floors or a roof. If a certain peddler couldn't climb walls right smartly, they'd have him-a sheep backed into one corner of a shearing pen.
The foremost blank-faced man was still two swift strides from that gaping doorway when someone stepped out of it-someone small, slender, and obsidian skinned, who moved with catlike grace on spike heeled boots. Four hands had already dipped to the hilts of throwing knives and slender long swords. . and all of them froze now in astonishment as the drow who'd stepped out of the doorway drew her dark cloak up around her, gave them all a knowing smile, and slipped down the alley like a graceful shadow.
Four heads turned to watch her go, and four throats were longingly cleared in unison before the foremost man drew his sword and his knife and stepped through the doorway.
