with relief that he seemed not badly hurt. With Nisstyre's support, he made his way over to the huge corpse.
'Look at the breast plates,' the wizard directed.
Gorlist looked. The red scales were mottled, and beneath the bright hue was another color.
'This was actually a green dragon, painted to appear red in the bright light,' Nisstyre said with obvious chagrin. 'I did not believe Slithifar would take the deception to another level.'
'So the powder that should have quenched a red dragon's fire-breath had no effect on the cloud of gas.'
'A little, fortunately, or you would be dead. I suspect that you were also aided by the magical smoke. Its purpose was to hold the poison in the arena, protecting the crowd. Slithifar is clever,' Nisstyre concluded ruefully. 'The light served three purposes: to put you at a disadvantage, to disguise the dragon's true nature, and to provide a misleading explanation for the poison filter.'
Gorlist nodded, taking it all in.
'My face,' he said, touching his burning cheek.
'The pain will fade,' Nisstyre assured him, 'but the mark will not. I took the liberty of giving you a magical tattoo, one that will glow with colored light-all but invisible to any eyes but a drow's-that corresponds to the color of any nearby dragon.'
'A tattoo?' Gorlist repeated, finding the notion strangely appealing. Scars were unacceptable, but a magical tattoo that marked him as a dragon slayer? That he could wear with pride.
'Let it be a reminder to us both. Dragons are treacherous beasts, but it is possible to know their nature and predict their actions. This is not true of our most deadly enemy: our fellow drow. It is no longer safe for us in Ched Nasad.'
Gorlist responded with a derisive snort.
His father waved the sarcasm away with a sharp, dismissive gesture and said, 'I am without clan, which makes me anyone's meat. Once you leave the arena, you will leave behind the protection that successful gladiators enjoy. Do not think for a moment that Slithifar's wrath will not follow you.'
'But what else is there? The wild Underdark?'
'The wide world,' Nisstyre replied. 'There are other males like us, other places we might go, other gods we might worship.'
The blasphemy of that struck Gorlist like a fist, but the possibilities were intoxicating. He was still speechless when Murdinark approached, hands held out wide in a gesture of peace or surrender. As unobtrusively as possible, Gorlist gathered up a handful of dragon teeth and put the vial of poison among them. He clenched his hand, breaking the vial and coating the ivory daggers with the poison.
'Gorlist, I swear I knew none of it. It was Slithifar-'
Gorlist surged to his feet, slamming into Murdinark and driving them both several paces back. They struck the arena's stone wall. Gorlist shoved his forearm against the other drow's throat, all but cutting off his air. With his free hand he slammed a dragon tooth into Murdinark's upper arm.
'That's for the blue-metal sword.'
He thrust a tooth though the fleshy part of Murdinark's nose.
'This for the tail swipe.'
Another tooth went into the traitor's belly.
'And this for the peace-tied dagger.'
Gorlist had several grievances and enough dragon teeth to lend emphasis to the recital. When only one was left, he lifted it to Murdinark's face, prepared to drive it into his eye.
After a moment, he released the gasping warrior and threw the tooth aside.
'Every drow has hidden weapons,' he said dully, 'and you were Slithifar's. No warrior melts down a sword because it was used against him. Go to Slithifar, tell her I will return to the arena in a tenday. I will challenge and defeat her, as I did Chindra.'
He sent a quick glance toward Nisstyre, and received an almost imperceptible nod of approval. Every drow had hidden weapons. Gorlist would use Slithifar's against her. He gave the poisoned drow a final, contemptuous shove and followed his father out of the arena, away from Ched Nasad.
And he never glanced back.
THE KEEPER OF SECRET
The Year of the Weeping Moon (1339 DR)
It was the eve of the Revel of Storms, and as the gods usually seemed to want such an evening to be, it was a warm, breezy night in crowded and stinking Waterdeep, with the sort of eager rising wind that meant rain was coming.
Laughter and eager chatter carried far on the scudding airs, and folk were out in plenty on the streets. Little of that restless wind, however, found its way past the smoke-blackened tapestries that shrouded the inner booths of Darth's Dolphyntyde, a tiny fish-and-quaff corner shop on south side Watchrun Alley, to stir the stinks of its deepest, darkest corners.
The fat bulk that most of Waterdeep knew rather unfavorably as Mirt the Moneylender sat in the rearmost booth, the awakened power of his ironguard ring tingling on one finger.
Blades in the ribs were a peril all too easily offered hereabouts not to spend the magic-and Darth himself was one who owed him coin, and would shed no tear if something befell Mirt in a dark corner of the Dolphyntyde.
The beads of the booth curtain rattled slightly, and Mirt's forefinger tightened on the trigger of the cocked and loaded handbow that lay ready in his lap, under the table.
'If you slay me now,' a nasal voice came from the darkness beyond the curtain, 'you'll see far less than what I owe. Far, far less.'
'But I'll be rid of all the waiting in places like these for ye, Yelver,' Mirt growled. 'Ye're late-as usual.'
'So arrive late yourself, and save the waiting,' Yelver Toraunt hissed, sliding in through the curtains like a wary snake in an uneasy hurry. 'I fear I've no welcome words for you this night, where're the gods smile.'
'Ye can't pay off thy debt just now,' Mirt said, his words a judgment rather than a question. 'As usual.'
Yelver Toraunt shrugged and said, 'I can't find coin for so much as a raw eel to eat, just now. Rooms, clothes-all gone. Just Yelver, trying to scare up coins owed to him, so as to have something to hand to you. Times are hard.'
The fat moneylender scowled, 'So they say, loud and often, yet 'tis strange that not every last one o' my sometime business associates fail to hand me some o' the glint, when 'tis due. Thy tardiness'll cost ye an extra four dragons-and none o' thy shaved gold, neither!'
'Fair enough, I s'pose,' Yelver replied with a shrug. 'Blood-written?'
Mirt lifted his visible hand aside to reveal a waiting parchment, and thrust it forward with two fat and hairy fingers. Unhooding his lamp just one notch, he illuminated a small arc of table that included the page and a needle- knife too short to be much of a weapon.
Yelver took up the knife, the moneylender's eyes never leaving him, and slowly and carefully pricked the tip of one forefinger and wrote out the added debt, adding his mark. Then he set the blade down with the same exaggerated care and stepped well back.
'And so?'
'And so,' said Mirt, 'a tenday hence, at dusk, we'll meet at the Yawning Portal, where ye'll render something in the way of payment-or I'll start seizing the trade goods ye forgot to mention, from the loft on Slut Street, Moro's cellar off Fish Street, and thy oh-so-secret hidehdlds in Sea Ward.'
Yelver swallowed at the moneylender's grim ghost of a smile and muttered, 'Aye. I'll do that. Some coins, at least.'
'And if ye don't? And if, say, the city holds no hair of ye by sunset tomorrow?'
'Then it'll profit you little to go looking for my bones,' Yelver replied. 'Seek for whatever I've left with the
