As he emerged from the fitting room, Elaith heard the tolling bells that summoned the Watch to tend the fire. He was not particularly concerned: The warehouse was constructed of solid stone and would withstand the blaze. It held little of value, and he could well afford to lose a few empty crates.
Nor did he regret the survival of some of the 'mes shy;sengers.' If a few escaped to bring word of his defiance to the merchant lords, so much the better. After all, he had the Mhaorkiira and the dream spheres. He now possessed the perfect weapon to strike back at those who had the best reason to send such a message.
That he intended to do. His vengeance would be lin shy;gering, highly amusing-and deadly.
The elf set a quick pace back toward his fortress home and the beckoning, compelling magic of the dark gem.
Ten
Arilyn led the way through the narrow streets of Skullport, with Danilo following close on her heels. Although the city lay directly beneath his native Waterdeep, and though both were port cities, he could not conceive of two places more different.
Here all was squalid, sordid, and ugly. Ramshackle buildings leaned and listed as precariously as scuttled ships. Creatures from at least two-score races, many of them outlawed in the city above, shoved past each other on the crowded streets. A one-legged beggar was toppled by the rude throng. He made no call for help, obviously realizing that none would be forthcoming, but struggled to right himself with the aid of a home-carved crutch. But like most of Skullport, the man's appearance was deceiving. Far from helpless, he nimbly sliced the ear off a sly- faced goblin who sought to pick his pockets. Like his intended victim, the goblin did not seek aid. He merely snatched up the bit of living leather, clapped it to his head, and reeled off in search of a healer-or pos shy;sibly just a mirror and a needle.
Arilyn's companion took this in with growing dismay.
She'd had misgivings about bringing Danilo into this dank, dismal, lawless place. Though at her insistence he had donned rough clothes more suitable to a dockhand than a gentleman bard, he looked thoroughly, miserably out of place.
'I must say, this is no improvement on Oth's cistern,' he commented. 'At least
Arilyn could see his point. In Skullport, water was everywhere. Although it was a port city, it was entirely underground, far below sea level. Water dripped from the cavern ceilings and puddled on the walkways. It gave sustenance to the strange creeping molds and glowing fungi that writhed on the walls of the ram shy;shackle buildings or inched along the walkways. The scent of rot and mildew permeated everything, and foul mist clung to the lamplight. Even after a few minutes in the city, Arilyn's clothes clung damply to her, and her companion's mood was becoming nearly as oppressive as the thick air.
'You wanted to be part of my world,' she said with only a moderate degree of exaggeration. 'This is the sort of place I end up going.'
Danilo glanced pointedly at her sword, which was dark and silent. 'I would wager there are few forest elves in these parts. Shouldn't we go find some? Elsewhere?'
She pulled the neck of her clinging shirt away from her throat and dashed a damp lock off her forehead. 'The sooner we're finished here, the sooner we leave.' She nodded toward a row of dangerously tilting wooden buildings, lined up with all the precision of a patrol of drunken orcs, and started toward the narrow street that snaked between them.
Behind her Danilo cursed with impressive creativity. 'For what, exactly, are we looking?'
'Perfume,' Arilyn said dryly as she skirted a rather suspect pile. She recognized it as the spoor of a manti shy;core and quickened her pace. It was relatively fresh, and she had no desire to confront a monster with the body of a lion and the face and cunning of a man.
'Perfume. Good thinking,' he congratulated her. 'Given our current surroundings, I suggest we purchase it by the vat.'
She shot a glare over her shoulder. 'Do you intend to whine the entire way there?'
'Back, too, I should think. No sense doing half a job.'
A trio of kobolds scuttled toward them from behind a pile of crates. They were hideous creatures, goblinkin whose bald heads came not much higher than Arilyn's sword belt. Their bulging yellow eyes held a frantic look, but their ratlike tails wagged in an eerily precise imitation of hounds eager to please their master. Their arms were full of fabric, not weapons, but Arilyn did not slow her pace.
'You look, maybe buy,' one of them pleaded as it jogged alongside the half-elf. 'Got lotsa good cloaks. Not much worn. Only one gots blood and guts on it, and them's already dried.'
'Now there's a vendor's cry that any of Waterdeep's roving merchants might envy,' Danilo murmured. He slowed down to address the kobold. 'Blood and guts, eh? Does one pay extra for that sort of ornamentation?'
'Sure, sure. You want it, we put.'
'Ah. An admirable arrangement, provided one is not the source of that particular decoration.'
This bit of locution clearly baffled the small mer shy;chant. He settled back on his heels, and his rat's tail lashed about in apparent consternation, but the moment passed quickly, and the kobolds pressed in.
Arilyn elbowed one out of the way. 'Don't encourage them,' she told Danilo in a low voice. 'Do you plan to die down here?'
'Oh, surely not. Three kobolds are no threat.'
'Neither is one mouse. Problem is, there's never only
This excellent reasoning prompted Danilo to pick up his pace. He kept step with the half-elf as she wove her way through the squalid town, toward the small shop where assassins purchased death by the drop.
'Pantagora's Poisons,' Danilo said, reading the sign aloud. 'Right to the point. No pretense, no dissembling. I find that quite refreshing.'
Arilyn sent him a warning look and pushed open the door. The scene beyond was like something from a North shy;man's battlefield or a butcher's nightmare.
The air was thick with a distinctively sweet, coppery scent. Flies buzzed over sodden shapes. Dark pools seeped into the old wood of the floor. Somehow, blood had been spattered as high as the rafters. Here and there it had dried even as it dripped down, making it appear that the sodden timbers had wept long, black tears over the poison merchants' fate.
Never had Arilyn seen anything quite like it. She kicked at an empty boot, wondering how it had hap shy;pened to come loose of its wearer. On impulse, she made a quick mental tally of bodies and footwear. This boot was an extra. To all appearances, its former wearer had been dissolved as surely as if he'd been hit by a blast of dragonfire. From the inside.
She stooped beside one of the dead men. To someone who had seen death as often as she had, a corpse could talk without benefit of spell or prayer.
The signs were there, but they were conflicting and deeply disturbing. Thin, precise cuts marked the man's body. Arilyn rolled the dead man over and tugged up his shirt. There was little bruising on his back. Small wonder. By the time he died, there had been little blood left in his body to settle. The fine, thin sword that had killed this man had left layers of wounds, dealing death by the inch, by the trickle and drop. Someone had toyed with the man, taking time to kill him so he lingered far longer than she would have imagined possible.
Strange behavior for a thief. It was possible, of course, that the killer was an assassin by trade, perhaps a reg shy;ular customer whose skills and habits made it easier to kill than to pay. It seemed to Arilyn, though, that any assassin prompted by survival would never risk such an expenditure of time and vitriol. This killing held all the hallmarks of vengeance-or rage, or insanity, or an evil so intense that it no longer considered proportion or consequence.
Stranger still was the nature of the weapon. No human-made blade was so thin or so keen. The man had been slaughtered with an elven weapon. Of that Arilyn was grimly certain. Her mother's people were fierce, often merciless fighters, but few were given to such depravity. She knew of only two or three elves who would do such
