Realms of infamy

'Of course not.' Amnestria sighed heavily, but her dancing eyes still teased him. 'That would be hoping for too much.'

'What do you mean?' His tone was sharper now.

'You're a dear, Elaith, but sometimes I worry for you.' She paused, reflecting. 'It's the hardest thing to explain,' she mused.

'Make an attempt,' he requested coolly.

'You're always so proper, and you follow the rules as if they were graven in alabaster. You're-' Amnestria broke off, clearly at loss for an explanation. Her slender hands milled in small circles as if she could create an air current strong enough to draw out the right words. 'You're… you're such an elf.'

'Of course, damia,' he agreed, a little amusement creeping back into his voice. 'What else would I be?'

'But don't you ever think about all this?' she persisted with the earnestness of the very young. Her slender hand traced an arc in the direction of the nearby palace, the wondrous moonstone castle that was the very heart of Ever-meet. 'I've never heard you wonder why, or question, or challenge anything. You just do whatever's expected, and you do it better than anyone else. You're the consummate elf,' she repeated. Her natural effervescence asserted itself, and the golden lights in her eyes danced like giddy fireflies. 'An elf's elf. The very epitome of elfdom,' she elaborated, then bubbled over into giggles.

With another lightening change of mood, the girl snatched up her sword and whirled on her betrothed. 'Fight with me!' The words were half request, half demand.

Elaith made her a formal bow. 'But Your Highness, is that not what we are doing?' The glint of humor in his amber eyes belied his words, and Amnestria let out another peal of laughter.

'I suppose we are.' She struck a pose straight out of an ancient, illustrated tome: sword tip resting on the ground before her, one elegant hand extended. 'My lord, let us make peace. You are my silver knight, and I your only love,' she said, mimicking the courtly language of an elven legend.

Responding in kind, Elaith bent low over her hand and pressed it to his lips. With a sudden flash of insight, he realized that despite her lighthearted game Amnestria spoke simple truth. He loved this child-woman with all his heart. He averted his eyes from her frank gaze, lest he reveal emotions she was not yet ready to comprehend. For Amnestria's sake, he tucked away the pang and the joy of this revelation, hoarding it like a red dragon guards its dearest treasure.

'Why are you practicing an ancient fighting technique?' he asked, turning the conversation to the subject dearest to her heart. 'Are you performing in an historical masque for the midsummer entertainments?'

'No! This is swordcraft, not play,' she told him in a stern voice.

'Then why?'

Her dimples flashed again. 'You've met my great-aunt Thasitalia?'

'Yes,' he said flatly. The elfwoman was a free-sword who'd traveled widely, debasing her ancient moonblade by lending her skills to anyone who could offer gold and adventure. The mercenary's tales enthralled Amnestria, and Elaith considered Thasitalia a bad influence on the restless princess. Still, he had to give the elfwoman credit. Moon-blades were rare and so powerful that few could wield them. As the last in his family line, Elaith stood to inherit such a blade from his grandsire. He considered this his greatest honor, a mark of his heritage no less cherished than the elven princess he loved.

'Thasitalia made me her blade-heir!' Amnestria announced, holding out both hands to him. 'Now we will each have a moonblade. Isn't that marvelous!'

'It is indeed,' he said with genuine warmth, taking her hands and giving them a little squeeze.

'We'll need to have scads of children, so we can choose the strongest among them as blade-heirs,' she said in a matter-of-fact tone that brought heat to Elaith's cheeks. Seeing this, the maiden rolled her eyes and dropped his hands. She arranged her face in a lugubrious pose and intoned, 'It is not seemly to speak of such matters, Your Highness,' in a wicked imitation of Elaith's precise, mellifluous tones.

'But anyway,' she continued in her own voice, 'Thasitalia told me to start practicing with a two-handed grip and a heavy sword. Her moonblade's magic adds unusual speed and power to the strike, and she says that I must develop strength and quick reflexes, or I won't be able to control the sword.'

'So you're in training, preparing to inherit a moonblade?'

'Of course. Aren't you?'

Smiling, Elaith touched the shoulder of the white uniform of King Zaor's elite guard. The insignia there proclaimed his rank, and finely wrought pins attested to his expertise in a number of arts and weapons. 'All my life I have prepared.'

Directly across the street from Waterdeep's southernmost docks stood a ramshackle barn of a tavern, optimistically named the Tumbled Wench. The tavern was frequented by sailors and dockhands, free-swords in search of adventure, merchant captains, bored local dandies, and bemused travelers from a hundred ports and a dozen races. Local wisdom had it that the Tumbled Wench wove as good a picture of Waterdeep as a visitor was likely to get: a chaotic tapestry of splendor and squalor.

Exotic smoke filled the air with fragrant haze, and business deals mingled with bawdy laughter in cheerful cacophony. Wealthy merchants and noblefolk with a taste for gritty adventure bumped elbows with low-rent escorts and tattered street people. The prospect served the needs and tastes of all: for a few coppers, patrons could eat their fill or drown their miseries. Efficient barmaids bustled about with trenchers of seafood stew and tankards of foaming ale. More expensive libations were available, and the kitchen would roast herb-stuffed fowl to order, but patrons seldom lingered.

Oblivious to the bustle around him, a dazed young efflord sat at the long wooden bar, nursing a single glass of Ever-eska sparkling water. His choice of beverage, so unusual in the rough taverns of the Dock Ward, caused more than one patron to smirk and nudge his neighbor. The snide witticisms were spoken softly, though, for few seasoned fighters offered open challenge to a well-armed elf.

Elaith sipped at his water, and the vague sickness that had haunted him throughout his long and unaccustomed sea voyage slipped away. As his discomfort ebbed, he was all the more aware of the aching void that both filled and consumed him. Evermeet had been his life, Amnestria his love, and he had chosen to leave them both. His meeting with the princess in the forest glade had been their last; that very night his grandsire's spirit had passed on to Arvanaith, and the Craulnober moonblade had become Elaith's to claim.

Never would Elaith forget the horror of watching the pale light of the moonstone, the magic-bearing gem in the hilt of his inherited sword, fade to the dead, milky whiteness of a blinded eye. The moonblade had rejected him, choosing dormancy over an unworthy heir.

This possibility had never occurred to Elaith. He had felt neither doubt nor fear as he'd unsheathed the sword, although he well knew that many had failed an attempt to claim a moonblade. Most of these unfortunates had been struck dead by the swords, but if an elf were the last in a family line, the hereditary blade would merely fall dormant. To safeguard the potent artifacts from misuse, the original crafters had endowed the swords with the ability to discern character and motivation. The moonblade apparently sensed something about me, Elaith noted with deep bitterness, some flaw that I have yet to discover for myself.

'Your mother uses gray squirrels for currency!'

The cryptic remark, spoken in loud and badly accented Elvish, shattered Elaith's reverie. He spun about on the barstool to face the man who had spoken.

'Are you addressing me?' Elaith asked politely, speaking the widely used trade language referred to as Common.

A nasty grin split the man's bearded face. 'I knowed it! The elf ain't deaf, just too good to speak when spoke to.'

Belatedly, it occurred to Elaith what the human had been trying to say. The man had delivered a mangled version of an insult, of the sort elven children tossed at each other in fits of pique. More amused than insulted, Elaith studied the human with open curiosity.

The man stood a hand's span over six feet, and he appeared fit and heavily muscled. He wore a uniform of sorts-black leather armor that sported an elaborately tooled crest on the shoulder. Curly brown hair rioted over his shoulders and spilled into an abundant beard, and his face was twisted into a leer of challenge. One meaty hand rested on the grip of a dagger, and his booted feet were planted wide. Yet his bravado was marred by a pair of red-rimmed eyes. The scent of cheap whiskey rolled off him in pungent waves.