Authors: Paul S. Kemp
Bawdy songs erupted at intervals from a group of dark-skinned Calishite sailors who sat on the other side of the common room. Gaming for coppers went on at several tables and in every corner: scum, scales and blades, roll-the-bones, and king’s ransom. Shouts of glee or moans of despair went up from time to time, depending upon the roll of the dice or the draw of the deck.
Kexen smiled. He understood well what it was to lose a month’s pay on a throw of the dice or a hand of cards. He had long ago served his time crewing a slaver, squandering his pay in dives like the Pour House-but not anymore. As a rising member of Zstulkk Ssarun’s organization, he was accustomed to finer surroundings. All he wanted was to complete his business with Thyld and get back to his residence in the Middle Heart.
A patient man by nature, Kexen continued to wait without fidgeting, staring through the smoky air at the curtain of strung oyster shells that served as the main door of the Pour House. Thyld was due presently.
Kexen and Thyld had a longstanding relationship. Thyld, a member of the Kraken Society and hence a man with considerable contacts, sold pertinent information to Kexen on the side, and occasionally acted as a middleman between Zstulkk Ssarmn’s organization and third parties in need of certain services. It was the latter that Kexen expected. It just annoyed him to have to meet at the Pour House. For reasons inexplicable to Kexen, Thyld had chosen that time to hold their meet in the Lower Port tavern.
Kexen shifted in his chair-taking care not to upset either the rickety table or the even less stable cave viper affixed to his armand adjusted the two cocked and loaded magical hand crossbows he wore on his hips. He had taken them from the corpse of a drow mercenary he’d put down a year earlier. The open-bottom holsters, flexibly affixed to his weapon belt, permitted easy aiming and firing while still holstered, even under a table. The bolts carried a quick acting paralytic he’d purchased from a duergar herbalist. A professional precaution. The cutlass on his hip could serve too, if necessary.
Obviously, Kexen thought it unlikely that Thyld meant him harm, else he would not have come alone. In truth,
Thyld was naught but a scrawny skulker done well. Still, Kexen preferred to be overcautious rather than underbreathing. Operatives of the Xanathar knew Kexen to be a member of Zstulkk’s organization. With a war in the offing between the yuan-ti slaver and the beholder crime lord, an overzealous servant of the Xanathar could decide to make a name by trying to put Kexen down. Best to be prepared. In Skullport, it always paid to be prudent.
Still, it made him uncomfortable that Thyld was late. It smelled ever-so-slightly of a set-up. Typically, Thyld was nothing if not punctual. He decided to give the ferret-nosed fool another hundred count and he would leave. He was busy with Zstulkk’s business-a Luskan caravel filled with flesh was due in port within hours, and he needed to process the stock. He had only scant time to waste with Thyld.
As if summoned by Kexen’s thoughts, the seashell curtain parted and there stood Thyld, balding head, nervous eyes, potbelly and all. Behind him lurked another man, tall and muscular, with a huge axe strapped across his back.
Kexen breathed easier. It was no set-up.
Thyld looked around the common room and Kexen hailed him with a raised handthe hand attached to the arm free of a serpent. Thyld nodded his oversized head and waded his skinny body through the sea of sailors and whores. The large man followed, eyeing the sailors coldly.
Kexen figured the big man was an Amnian, possibly a ship’s captain to judge from his bearing. He wore a threatening scowl and a dark cloak interlaced with silver thread.
Thyld slid into the chair opposite Kexen. He looked a bit different somehow but Kexen couldn’t quite place the change. The big Amnian sank into the chair beside Thyld, bumping the table and nearly toppling Kexen’s tankard. Thyld showed surprisingly quick reflexes in snatching the ale before it tipped.
“Kexen,” Thyld said with his typical brisk nod. “This is… a client.”
Thyld indicated the big man, who nodded.
“Potential client,” Kexen corrected automatically. “Zstulkk takes only the highest paying jobs.”
“Of course,” Thyld acceded with a bow of his misshapen head. “This potential client needs goods moved and protected. I recommended Zstulkk, which naturally brought me to you.”
“Naturally,” Sessa hissed as she slithered down Kexen’s forearm, head first.
The viper, concealed by Kexen’s sleeve, went unnoticed by either Thyld or the Amnian. Her hissing voice was so quiet Kexen only barely heard her himself.
Kexen looked in the mustachioed face of the Amnian and asked, “Nature of the goods?”
“Where did you get that shirt?” asked Thyld, studying Kexen’s overshirt.
He reached out a hand to touch the cuff and Sessa tensed.
Taken aback, Kexen looked curiously at Thyld, then at the black sleeves of the wool shirt he wore.
“Don’t touch it,” he said, and withdrew his arm. “What in the Hells kind of question is that?”
Thyld stiffened, frowned, and wagged a finger at Kexen.
“I’ve recently sworn off the use of expletives,” he said. “Please refrain in my presence.”
Never a man of quick temper, Kexen resisted the urge to shoot Thyld in the belly and walk away. Business was business.
“Very well,” Kexen said to Thyld. He looked at the Amnian and asked again, “Nature of the goods?”
Sessa poked her head out from under Kexen’s cuff, apparently to allow Zstulkk a better view of Thyld. Neither of the humans noticed the serpent and it quickly withdrew into the shirt sleeve.
“Highly magical,” the big man replied to Kexen, with a curious sidelong look at Thyld. His voice was deep but had the lazy diction of a dullard. “Let us leave it at that.”
Kexen nodded, unsurprised. Most of his clients were secretive about their wares. He didn’t need, and typically didn’t want to know what it was his men were guarding.
“Very well,” said Kexen. “How many wagons will you need?
After a thoughtful pause, the man replied, “Only one.”
Kexen raised his eyebrows, looked to Thyld, and said, “You understand that I don’t arrange transport unless the fee, in addition to expenses for the manpower, is in excess of a thousand gold?”
“We understand,” Thyld replied with a smile.
His teeth, Kexen noted, were perfect; he had never noticed that before.
Thyld continued, “The cargo is extremely valuable and my companion here understands and accepts your minimum. He would want not fewer than twenty-five experienced men with substantial magical support. The latter is critical.”
The Amnian nodded agreement.
Kexen raised his eyebrows and nodded. Whatever was in that wagon must be valuable indeed. Sessa gently coiled around his forearm, as though content.
“Costly,” Kexen said. “Location?”
The big man shifted in his chair, shared a look with Thyld, and said, “A meet with a buyer two leagues into the northern tunnels of the Underdark.”
Kexen ran some calculations through his head. The wilds of the Underdark were dangerous territory. He would need to hire experienced men, probably Underdark natives.
“Four thousand gold,” he said, and quickly added, “and I do not haggle.”
Sessa rested her head on his wrist.
The Amnian frowned, but Kexen could see the thoughts behind his eyes. The cargo was valuable, that much was obvious, and there were few organizations in Skullport with the manpower and expertise to provide the kind of protection Thyld and the Amnian had requested. Kexen sat in silence, waiting for the Amnian to draw the obvious conclusion.
“When can you have arrangements completed?” Thyld asked.
Kexen considered the question then said, “I’ll let you know. But not longer than twelve cycles.”
Thyld’s eyes flashed excitement, and Kexen wondered what stake the skulker had in the cargo.
“Done,” the Amnian said, and thumped his fist on the unsteady table, again nearly sending Kexen’s beer to the floor.
Irritated with the sudden movement, Sessa hissed and her tongue flicked Kexen’s arm. He kept it perfectly still. The two men across the table from him seemed not to have heard the serpent.
Thyld smiled and asked of Kexen, “I’ll take my usual finder’s fee?”
Kexen waved a dismissive hand and replied, “Of course.”
“You can leave word for me here,” the Amnian said. “I’ll provide the wagon and pack lizards. You provide the men.”
Kexen rose from the table, nodded at each of Thyld and the Amnian, and said, “I’m pleased we’ve reached an agreement. Expect to hear from me soon.”
The Amnian nodded and Thyld smiled a mouthful of perfect teeth.
*****
A few cycles later, still dressed in Thyld’s flabby, dirtencrusted skin, Azriim stood unobtrusively to the side of a narrow Lower Trade Lane street a ad awaited Ahmaergo. The so-called “Horned Dwarf,” a high-ranking member of the Xanathar’s organization, had insisted on meeting Thyld in the open street. A symptom of the dwarf’s wellknown paranoia, Azriim assumed.
Azriim patted and pinched disgustedly at Thyld’s potbelly as he watched the slaves, sailors, and malnourisked skulkers materialize out of the darkness and walk past. A squad of street sweepers hustled by, collecting the rothé dung and worse that littered Skullport’s streets. No one seemed to notice Thyld, so unremarkable a being was the human.
What a pathetic life the man had led, Azriim thought. I did him a favor by eating his head.
A gang of six bugbear slave overseers emerged from a nearby street, each garbed in a leather jack, a series of piercings, and armed with a whip and axe. Laughing and talking loudly in their guttural tongue, they stomped in Azriim’s direction. Their muscular, fur-covered bodies stank of alcohol and pent-up violence. Their bloodshot eyes promised a quick end to any who got in their way.
Like the rest of the skulkers on the street, Azriim-asThyld scurried out of their path. Though it galled him, Azriim avoided eye-contact and feigned fear until the savage, ill-dressed creatures passed him by.
Thyld’s rag of a cloak, moist from the ever-damp air, chafed Azriim’s skin. The irritation of his borrowed flesh mirrored his irritability of mind. He was bored. For a moment, he toyed with the idea of casting away his carefully planned ruse and simply attacking the Skulls outright. After all, he and his brood-mates had deduced the general area in which must lay the Skulls’ hidden lair, and there too must be the origin of Skullport’s mantle.
He smiled at the thought but dismissed the idea. The Sojourner had instructed him to avoid alerting the Skulls until the seed was planted, and Azriim always obeyed the Sojourner, albeit grudgingly. Besides, the Skulls actually were formidable foes.
Azriim recognized the root of his boredom: things had gone too easily. He felt no challenge, and hence no thrill. He and his brood-mates had surveilled the Skulls for over a tenday and located the vicinity of their lair, all the while avoiding notice. They had eliminated Thyld and Azriim
had clandestinely stolen his skin and identity. They had annihilated a Xanathar caravan in under a ten count. And they had put an additional spark to the embers of a brewing gang war, embers that would turn into a wildfire after Azriim’s meeting with Ahmaergo.
All too easy, he thought with a sigh. Even DoIgen could have planned it.
He adjusted the sling satchel he wore over his shoulder. Within were some of the magical items he’d taken from the slaughtered Xanathar caravanfodder to feed Ahmaergo’s ire. He put his back to the warped wooden wall of a brothel, and reminded himself that success in planting the seeds of the Weave Tap would result in his transformation to gray.
Above him, the windows of the brothel leaked giggles, growls, and playful screams. The faint smell of rotted flesh carried through the dark streets and filled his nostrils. Something nearby had died recently. Had he been in his own form, Azriim would have been able to pinpoint the source and the nature of the corpse. His senses in human form, however, were much too dull for such fine work.
Except for the tactile sense, Azriim reminded himself. Human skin was an unequalled medium for transmitting the pleasure of touch. Perhaps after his meeting with Ahmaergo, he would visit the brothel himself.
A few glowballs, seemingly in the possession of no oneescapees, no doubt, from one the city’s glowball dealersfloated randomly down the narrow street. Otherwise, all was cloaked in the gloom of the Underdark. In the distance, the faint voice of a caller announced the hour. Dogs and cats scrounged the shadows of garbagestrewn streets. A gang of skulkers, scrawny adolescents all, lingered at the mouth of a nearby alley, whispering amongst themselves and sifting throtntii a pile of trash. Most would eventually be rounded up by the Iron Ring and sold as slaves, Azriim knew, if the streets didn’t claim them first.
The brothel against which Azriim leaned sat sandwiched between a cooper’s workshop and the Black Pot Inn. A black pot hung eponymously over the door of the dilapidated building. Smoke billowed out of do Black Pot’s windows and Azriim caught the tantalizing tang of mistleaf. He resolved that if Ahmaergo did not soon show, he would take a meal at the inn and enjoy the smoke-saturated air. No doubt Thyld’s body would feel the effects of the drug quickly.
Just as he was about to give up on the dwarf and head into the inn, Ahmaergo stomped into view. He appeared to be alone. Azriim grimaced, both because he would not yet get to enjoy the mistleaf haze and because the dwarf dressed like an idiot. Azriim was amazed that such a dolt could have risen so far within the Xanathar’s organization.
Ahmaergo wore a bright yellow shirt with gaudy, embroidered cuffs, a wide black belt, black pantaloons, and enough jewelry to fill a wyrmling’s hoard. A breastplate peeked from under the shirt, a helmet sprouting two horns sat atop his stewpot head, and a huge axe hung across his back. A large iron ring swimming with keys hung from Ahmaergo’s beltan indication of his profession as a slave trader.
Azriim surreptitiously attuned his vision to see dweomori and saw that the dwarf’s armor, axe, horned helmet, two beard rings, and one of his front teeth all glowed red.