Condemnation (14 page)

“Careful,” Halisstra cautioned.

She sat up straight and deliberately controlled her own impulse to look over her shoulder. Danifae had an uncanny instinct for manipulation, but if Quenthel suspected that Halisstra and Danifae planned to undermine her authority—or even impose limits on her freedom of action—Halisstra didn’t doubt that the Baenre would take quick and drastic steps to remove a perceived challenge.

It is a dangerous thing you suggest, Danifae. Quenthel would not hesitate to kill a challenger, and if I were killed—

I would not survive, Danifae finished for her. I understand the conditions of my captivity quite well, Mistress Melarn. Still, inaction in the face of our danger is every bit as risky as what I am about to propose. Hear me out, and you can decide what you wish me to do.

Halisstra measured the girl, studying her perfect features, her alluring figure. She thought of the conversation between Quenthel and Danifae she had overheard in the catacombs of Hlaungadath. She could put a halt to Danifae’s scheming with a word, of course. She could even compel it through the magic of the locket—but then she wouldn’t know what Danifae plotted, would she?

“Very well,” she said. Tell me what you have in mind.

SIX

Gracklstugh, like Menzoberranzan, was a cavern city. Unlike the realm of the dark elves, the stalagmites harbored great stinking smelters and foundries, not the elegant castles of noble families. The air had an acrid reek, and the clamor of industry rang endlessly throughout the cavern—the roaring of fires, the metallic ringing of iron on iron, and the rush of polluted streams carrying away the wastes of the duergar forges. Unlike Menzoberranzan, lightless except for the delicate faerie fire applied to decorate drow palaces, Gracklstugh glowed with reflected firelight and the occasional harsh glare of white-hot metal splashing into molds. It was a singularly unlovely place, an affront to any highborn drow. Halisstra thought the place seemed like nothing less than the Hells’ own foundry.

At its eastern end, the great cavern of the city sloped down sharply to join the immense gulf of the Darklake, so that Gracklstugh was a subterranean port—though few among the Underdark races used waterways such as the Darklake in their commerce. Consequently the wharves and lakeside warehouses of the duergar city constituted one of its poorest and most dangerous districts. Coalhewer moored his macabre vessel at the end of a crumbling stone quay occupied by a handful of ships of the same general design.

“Get yer things and step lively,” the dwarf snapped. “The less ye’re seen t’be about the streets, the better. Spider-kissers in the City of Blades be well-advised to step soft and quick, if ye take my meaning.”

Valas shot the others a quick look and signed, No killing! It will not be tolerated here.

The scout shouldered his pack and followed the dwarf down the quay, wrapping his piwafwi around him to conceal the swords at his hip.

Pharaun glanced up at Jeggred and said, “You won’t like it here, half-demon. How will you pass the time without something helpless to dismember?”

“I will simply while away the hours considering how I might kill you, wizard,” the draegloth rumbled.

Still, Jeggred blew out his breath and drew his own long cloak over his white mane, doing the best he could to hunch over and make himself inconspicuous. The rest of the party followed after, threading their way through the dilapidated streets of the city’s dock quarter to a fortresslike inn a few blocks from the wharves. A sign lettered in both Dwarvish and Under-common named the place as the Cold Foundry. The building itself consisted of an encircling stone wall, guarding a number of small, freestanding blockhouses. The company halted just outside the inn’s front gate, which stood beside a pen holding huge, foul-smelling pack lizards.

“Hardly an appealing prospect,” muttered Pharaun. “Still, I suppose it’s better than a rock on a cavern floor.”

Valas conferred briefly with Coalhewer, then turned to the rest of the dark elves and said quietly, “Coalhewer and I will arrange safe passage out of the city and look into provisioning. It’ll likely involve some bribes to obtain proper licenses and such, which will take time. We should plan on staying here for at least a full day, perhaps two.”

“Can we spare the time?” Ryld asked.

“That would be up to Mistress Quenthel,” Valas said, “but we may be many days on the next leg of our journey. We accomplish nothing by starving to death after a tenday or two in the wilds of the Underdark.”

Quenthel studied the cheerless duergar inn, and made her decision.

“We will stay two nights, and leave early on the day after tomorrow,” she said. “I would stay longer, but I am hesitant to trust our fortunes to the continued hospitality of the duergar. Events are moving too quickly for us to tarry long.”

She looked at the scout, and at Coalhewer, who stood a short distance off, watching the street with arms folded and pointedly not listening in on the dark elves’ conversation.

Is this place safe? she signed. Will the dwarf betray us?

Safe enough, the scout replied. Keep Jeggred out of sight. The rest of you should be fine, as long as you avoid confrontations. He flicked his eyes at Coalhewer and added, The dwarf understands that we will pay well for his services, but if he should come to believe that we might kill him rather than pay him, he will undoubtedly find a way to have us all arrested. He knows we’re something more than merchants, but he doesn’t care what errand brings us here as long as he’s paid.

A loose end to be tied up? Ryld asked.

Too dangerous now, Valas signed. I will keep a close eye on him as long as we’re here.

“Take Ryld with you, just in case,” Quenthel said.

Ryld nodded and tugged at his pack, adjusting it to ride better between his shoulder blades.

“Ready when you are,” he said.

“I can’t say I won’t welcome the company, if trouble comes,” Valas replied. “Well, let’s not keep Master Coalhewer waiting. If you don’t hear back from us by midday tomorrow, presume the worst and get out of the city by the quickest means at hand.”

The scout hurried off with Ryld striding along a step behind him. They collected Coalhewer and made their way deeper into the city.

“It’s that boundless good cheer we find endearing in you, Valas,” Pharaun remarked to the scout’s back. “Well, I too have errands to run. I must find what passes for a dealer in arcane reagents in this grim place, and replenish my spell components.”

“Don’t take too long,” Quenthel said. She glanced over at Halisstra and Danifae. “Well, aren’t you coming?”

“Not yet,” Halisstra said. “As long as we’re here, I think I will see to providing Danifae with weapons and armor. We’ll be back when she is suitably equipped.”

“I thought you didn’t care to allow your battle captive to fight for you,” Quenthel said, her eyes narrowing in calculation.

“I have decided that Danifae is something of a liability as long as she’s unarmed and unarmored. I don’t want my property damaged for no good reason.”

Halisstra could almost feel the depth of Quenthel’s suspicion, and the Baenre silently stroked the hilt of her whip as she studied the Ched Nasadan and her handmaid thoughtfully.

Good, thought Halisstra. Let her wonder what hold I have over Danifae that I feel confident arming her. A little uncertainty might improve her assessment of our usefulness.

“Don’t wander far or get yourselves into trouble,” Quenthel said. “I won’t hesitate to set out without either of you if the circumstances so dictate.”

She motioned to Jeggred and marched into the Cold Foundry, apparently dismissing both the Ched Nasadan and the Eryndlyrr from her thoughts.

Halisstra couldn’t repress a smile of satisfaction as Quenthel disappeared from view, Jeggred slinking behind her. She exchanged looks with Danifae, and the two set off into the duergar city.

Though Coalhewer had insisted that the city was open to folk of all races, provided they brought gold, Halisstra could not convince herself that a pair of dark elves were truly safe in Gracklstugh. The short, stocky gray dwarves crowding the streets went about their business with a sullen purposefulness that Halisstra didn’t like at all. They didn’t laugh, or primp and preen, or even trade veiled threats with one another. Instead, they glared angrily at passersby of any race, including their own, and stomped along beneath heavy shirts of mail, fists gripped tightly on the hafts of axes and hammers thrust through their broad belts. Only after Halisstra and Danifae had passed half a dozen folk of other races in the streets did she begin to relax.

Halisstra paused in a spot between two towering smelters and looked around.

“There. I know little Dwarvish, but I think those signs advertise weaponsmiths.”

They turned down the street, which was little more than a winding footpath rounding the castle-like stalagmites. Past the great stone pillars, they came to something resembling a town square of sorts, an open place surrounded by low, fortlike buildings of mortared stone. Here they found a large storefront displaying dozens of weapons and suits of armor beneath a merchants sign.

“This seems promising,” Halisstra said. She ducked through the low door and stepped inside, Danifae behind her.

The place was filled with martial accoutrements of all sorts, much of it dwarven, but a number of pieces from other races—heavy iron blades of orog-work, kuo-toan armor made from the scales of some great pale fish, and black mithral mail of drow-make. Two well-armed duergar busied themselves with assembling a suit of half-plate armor at a workbench to one side of the door. They fixed suspicious stares on Halisstra and Danifae when the dark elves walked in, and kept a wary eye on them as the priestess and her handmaid examined the merchandise.

“Mistress Melarn,” Danifae called.

Halisstra turned to find the girl gazing up at a well-made suit of drow chain mail, worked with the emblem of a minor House she did not know. A matching buckler hung near the mail, with a morningstar of black steel alongside it. The head of the weapon was fashioned in the shape of a demonic face with twisting, spikelike horns. Halisstra carefully muttered the words of a spell of detection, and smiled at the result. The arms were magical—not overwhelmingly so, but certainly as good as or better than anything she’d hoped to find in the city.

“What can you tell us of these drow arms?” she asked of the shopkeepers.

The duergar halted their work. The two might have been twins; Halisstra could hardly tell them apart.

“Trophy,” one of them rasped. “A captain in the service of Laird Thrazgad sold ‘em a couple of months ago. Don’t know where he got ‘em.”

“They’re enchanted,” said the other dwarf. “Won’t be cheap. Not at all cheap.”

Halisstra moved over to the counter, and fished a small pouch from inside her hauberk. She pored through its contents, and picked out several fine emeralds to set on the counter.

“Do we have a deal?”

The gray dwarf stood and approached to study the emeralds.

He scowled and said, “More than that. A lot more.”

Halisstra met his gaze evenly. She hadn’t managed to carry away much from her House before it fell, and she simply couldn’t waste it on a gray dwarf’s greed, not if she had other options open to her.

“Danifae, have another look at the mail,” she said over her shoulder. “Make sure it’s what you want.”

Danifae read her intent perfectly. The girl picked up the morningstar and hefted it in her hand, feeling out its balance. As Halisstra had hoped, the second dwarf became nervous, watching a dark elf handle merchandise so valuable. He set down his work and moved over to keep a closer eye on her, making sure he stood between Danifae and the door. Danifae immediately began to offer a variety of comments about the arms, admiring the mail, questioning the strength of the enchantments, and generally engaging the fellow in conversation.

“It’ll take five times that weight of gemstones,” the duergar at the counter told Halisstra. “And they’ll have to be good stones, too.”

“Very well, then,” Halisstra said.

She shrugged a leather case from her back and set it on the countertop. Unwrapping it carefully, she withdrew her lyre, a small, curved instrument of dragonbone, strung with mithral wire and chased with mithral filigree.

“As you can see, it’s an exquisite piece of work,” she said.

She picked it up and strummed it as if to show off its qualities—and quietly sang a bae’qeshel song. The dwarf gaped at her, then recoiled in horror when he realized she was casting a spell. Before he could call out a warning, the magic of the song ensnared him.

“What’s going on there?” the duergar watching Danifae demanded.

“Tell your friend it’s all right,” Halisstra whispered across the counter. “You don’t want the lyre.”

“It’s fine,” the first dwarf said. “She’s offering the lyre, but we don’t want it.”

“Of course not,” the second muttered. “Do you see any instruments in here?”

He returned his attention to Danifae, who asked him about the best way to care for mail in damp places.

“Now,” said Halisstra to the dwarf she’d beguiled, “we’re a little far apart at the moment, but I’m certain we can strike a good bargain. You’re going to sell us the arms my handmaid is looking over. Will you take the emeralds as a down payment? I will come back in a couple of days with a very handsome sum to square my account.”

“The stones’ll do as a down payment,” the merchant allowed, “but my partner won’t be happy with that. He’ll think you don’t mean to come back.”

“Let him think I’ve paid in full, then, and he won’t trouble you.” Halisstra said.

She thought for a moment more, then leaned forward and held the fellow with her eye.

“You know,” she said softly, “if something were to happen to your partner, the entire business would be yours to run as you see fit, wouldn’t it? You could keep all of the profits, couldn’t you?”

An avaricious gleam came to the merchant’s eye.

“I think you’re right,” he said. “I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before!”

“Patience,” Halisstra advised. “Anytime today would be fine. Oh, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention to anyone else that my friend and I had done business with you. Let’s just keep this between the two of us.”