by Ed Greenwood
The guard towered over her, waiting. The old woman blinked at him, and made a "step aside" wave with her rough-knobbed cane.
He stood his ground and prompted with just a hint of testy impatience beneath his smile, "And it would be?"
"Best conducted inside," the old woman rasped point shy;edly, taking a step forward.
The doorsword stood his ground, clapping a hand to the hilt of his sword. "That's something we'd best dis shy;cuss," he snapped. "My master has given me very specific instructions as to who should be allowed to disturb him,"
"Lean closer, young bladesman," the stooped woman replied. "I'm supposed to whisper one o' them secret passwords to ye now, see?"
Warily, the doorsword drew his blade, held it like a barrier between them, and leaned forward, eyes nar shy;rowed. "Spit at me," he remarked almost pleasantly, "and die."
"Kiss me," the old woman replied, "and be surprised." She was smiling as the guard's startled eyes met hers and he almost drew away. The smile was almost kindly though, and the old woman did have both of hands clearly in view, clasped on the cane at her hip, bony fingers laced together.
She leaned a little closer and whispered hoarsely, "Firebones three."
The guard straightened, astonishment flashing across his face for a long moment before he gulped, became impassive, and said, "Pray forgive the delay I've caused you, lady, and come this way. The house of Blaskar Toldovar welcomes thee."
"Mmmnh, mmmnh," the old woman agreed, setting herself once more into motion. "Thought it would, I did. Thought it would."
She toiled up the steps with some purpose, and smiled and nodded like an indulgent duchess at the two doorswords as they ushered her within. The house hadn't changed much, though the servant who led her up the long stair flanked with blood-red hangings was a burly warrior now, and not the young lady clad only in chains that she recalled from earlier visits.
He left her in a chair in the usual shabbily genteel, dim room, where she sat in silence, knowing she was being watched through spy holes. It wasn't long before a voice that rasped even more than her own asked out of the darkness behind her chair, "Well?"
'"Blaskar," the old woman said, "I need to ask you something, and get an honest answer. I'll need to cast a spell on you, to know that it's truth-and that you're indeed Blaskar Toldovar."
"What? Who are you?" The balding man came around the chair in his usual worn and dirty clothes, adjusting an oversized monocle she didn't remember seeing him with before. He leveled his cane at her-the cane that held a mageslaying dart of silver-coated, magic-dead metal in its end-and snapped, "Answer me!"
"You grow short-tempered, old Toldove. Not a good habit, for one of your profession," the old woman observed calmly.
Blaskar Toldovar came to a halt beside a bookcase that faced the old woman's chair; a large and heavy bookcase with a bellpull beside it … a bellpull the old woman knew summoned no servant, but caused the bookcase to topple forward. The case was hinged in the middle, to bow forward as it emptied its load of ledgers and surely crush anyone sitting in the chair. Blaskar hooked his fingers securely around the bellpull and glared at his visitor.
"Your ledgers won't be improved by getting my old blood all over them," the old woman said, "and I'm not here to harm you. Sit down, be at ease, and pour me a drink, Blaskar-the good stuff, not the rubytart with slavesleep in it."
Blaskar Toldovar stared at the old woman for a moment, breathing heavily, then collapsed onto his desk stool, sending up a cloud of dust that made him sneeze helplessly. When he could see again, he wiped his eyes, settled his monocle into place, and peered at his visitor through it hard and long, thrusting himself forward until he almost fell off the stool.
"No, I don't recognize you," he said at last, with a weary sigh, "but you must know me. I ask again: who are you?"
"I'd prefer not to give you my name," the old woman said tartly, "especially with your man listening behind yon door. Send him away-and not into the spy pas shy;sage."
Blaskar sighed, went to the door, flung it wide, and jerked his head toward the stairs. The impassive ser shy;vant who'd been listening at the door nodded calmly and strode away.
They listened to his boots descending the steps before Blaskar closed the door again, turned, and said, "I'm a busy man, and you did disturb me at a very delicate task. I must ask you to identify yourself forthwith."
"Busy?" the old woman asked. "I hear no chains, and see no young things lined up for inspection. How can a slaver be busy with no slaves in his house? If you were burying money in the garden, I'd expect to see a shovel and a little sweat."
Blaskar glared at her and opened his mouth to say something-but only shut it with a snap.
"Well?" the old woman asked, eyeing him right back. "Wouldn't you?"
The slaver mastered his temper with visible effort and said shortly, "You know me, and my habits, and yet say you must cast a spell on me to be sure of me! You refuse to give your own name, and sit here insulting me rather than getting to the reason for this social call… and so far as I can tell, I've never seen you before in my life! I refuse to have spells cast on me"-he aimed his cane at her again, and the old woman saw that he had a row of identical ones in a rack behind his stool- "without knowing who is to cast them, and why. This city is becoming too dangerous for me to extend such trust."
"That," his visitor said in dry tones, "is what I've come to talk to you about. Scornubel seems to be undergoing some changes-or rather, a lot of its citizens are … aren't they? Something a slaver would know about, hey?"
Blaskar Toldovar went pale and said tightly, "I won't listen to this much longer, whoever you are." The cane trembled in his hand. "I'll warn you once more …"
"Blaskar," the old woman said gently, "be at ease." She reached with her cane under the chair she was sit shy;ting in, fished around, and dragged out something that clanked: two sets of manacles. "Would you feel more comfortable if I put these on?"
Blaskar stared at her, open mouthed, then said slowly, "Yes. Yes, I would. Are you an escaped slave, come back to me for revenge?"
"I'm not here for revenge," the old woman told him, calmly snapping one set of manacles around her ankles. "I'm here for information." She settled the cuffs of the second set around her wrists after propping her cane against one bony knee, and snapped them closed witn a clack. "But I won't tell you my name."
The old slaver's eyes narrowed, "Your brand?" he asked.
The old woman nodded, and rolled onto one hip with surprising ease, extending her legs toward the low foot shy;stool beside the one Blaskar was sitting on. He kicked it under her feet out of long habit, got up, and extended his cane to her filthy skirts, lifting them up past a green and mottled map of veins until he could see the back of her left knee. He peered, but could see no mark there.
"Is this some sort of game?" he snapped.
"Look again," the old woman said calmly. "The light in here is not good."
The slaver wiped his eyes, then his monocle, and peered again … and as he stared down at surprisingly clean and milk-white flesh, something faded slowly into view. A familiar mark, and a number. .
All the color drained from Blaskar Toldovar's face, and he whispered, "Sweet Mystra forfend! You're D-"
"Hush!" the old woman said sharply. "No names!" She rolled over again and Blaskar retreated from her as he would from a rearing viper.
"B-but what's happened to you?" he asked, backing away behind a chair and feeling for the shelf that held his most precious warding magic. "Why are you here?" The old woman held up her manacled wrists and shook them so the chain rattled. "Be at ease, Blaskar, I'm not here to harm you, or take revenge for what you did to a young girl all those years ago. Besides, the master you sold me to was kind and I was his slave for only about two days. I've actually been back here to check on you a dozen times since then … you just didn't recognize me."
"Spell-shapes," the slaver murmured. "False bodies, like the one you're wearing now."
"Like the ones a lot of folk seem to be wearing in Scornubel these days," the old woman said sharply. "Mind if I cast a spell or two, Blaskar?"
He come beside the chair, and sat on it carefully. Their knees almost touched. "If one of them will shield us from all spying," he said firmly, "I do not mind. We need to talk freely."
"Now we're getting somewhere," the old woman said, shifting forward so that their knees did touch. "That'll be my first spell."
"And the second?"
"The truth telling. I know I'm talking to Blaskar, but I don't know if Blaskar's wits have been played about with, magically."
"Neither," the slaver whispered, his face white again, "do I."
The woman in chains looked into Blaskar's eyes and asked softly, "Would you like me to take you far from here, old Toldove? To a house in Neverwinter where the neighbors have never even seen a dark elf?"
The slaver looked at her with a sudden, fierce hope kindling in his eyes. "Yes!" he cried, and burst into tears. "Oh, yes!"
With a rattle of chain, the old woman put her arms around him in a gentle embrace. "You'd have to give up slaving," she murmured, "forever."
"Lady," he said, sniveling, "I'm too old for it anymore. Bold young men with no fear and sharp knives were giving me troubles long before. . before this shadow fell on us here."
He sobbed then and she rocked him in her arms, stroking his neck and murmuring wordless comfort.
When at last he mastered his voice again, Blaskar asked roughly, "Lady? What must I do for this rescue to happen?"
"Tell me all you can about the drow here," she said. "That's all."
"Lady! Your shielding spell! They'll hear-"
"I cast it," she said gently, "when first you touched me. Be at ease, Blaskar."
The slaver drew in a deep breath, let it out in a shud shy;dering sigh, then gave her a weak smile. "In your arms, I almost think I can do that. My mother used to hold me like that."
He swallowed, and asked, his face very pale, "B-but you're a Harper, aren't you? I thought-I thought you people killed slavers, or made us slaves."
"We do, more often than not," Dove Falconhand replied calmly. "Consider yourself an exception."
"But-oh, gods, I know this is stupid of me, but- why?"
Keen eyes seemed to blaze right through the slaver, and he caught his breath with a fearful gasp.
"Blaskar," the woman he'd once enslaved said qui shy;etly, "I've spent most of my life being a hearty, capable lady of the blade. Harder than steel, colder than stone, more merrily rough and foul-mouthed and ruthless than men who live by the sword. I've done it because I've had to. I haven't the magic my sisters can boast, to do my fighting for me. I need time to be soft, to surren shy;der myself… to be with someone I don't have to fear. You showed me such times, more than once. As I said, I've been back to check on you. You've no idea how much I value tenderness and kindness in a man."
They stared into each other's eyes, and all the color slowly ran out of the slaver's face.
"Yes," Dove told him grimly, "I've magic enough to change my own body. I was Emmera, and Sesilde. Callathrae, too, and the little dancer from Tharsult whose name you never learned, who liked to oil herself and dance in a ring of candles. I know your true meas shy;ure, Blaskar. Slaver you are, yes, and a little too leering for most tastes, though kind in that, too. The cruel and the cold and the slayers you sent in chains to hard-handed buyers in Calimport and like places. The gentle ones you treated gently."
She tilted her head to one side, and seemed to see right through him as she added, "All this time you've been looking for a woman who will cook for you and sleep with you and worship you with her eyes-and not thinking yourself worthy of anyone who passed through your hands that you liked the look of. It took you too long to learn not to judge females by their looks, but you learned it at last, old dog. Almost too late, but you learned it, and the one you had your heart set on grow shy;ing old with turned out to be a dark elf one night, didn't she? You killed her, didn't you? Just as she must have slain your real beloved-quick, then getting rid of the body in a panic. Since then, you've cowered here waiting for all the other drow to show up and cut a bloody revenge out of your hide."
The slaver was looking at her like a small boy who'd been caught doing something clever but forbidden and doesn't yet know if he'll be punished or laughed at. He opened his mouth, but said nothing. He didn't have to speak for her to know she was right.
"How many matches did you make, down the years?" Dove asked. "A little coin to the right passing merchant here, after you'd judged him suitable, and off with the chains and another partnership.. how many times? I know of twelve, but your neck is still within easy reach, Blaskar; how many more?"
The slaver swallowed, held up a hand to buy himself some thinking time, then said slowly, "Twenty-three. I think. Use magic on my mind to be sure, Lady D-ahem, lady. I… I can't avoid any fate you give to me, I guess." He was struggling on the edge of tears again, but he managed to add, "I'm so tired of being afraid."
"That," Dove said in a voice of doom, "is why I won't do to you what I once vowed to: spell-change you into a beautiful lass, chain you, and sell you into slavery to give you a taste of what you did to so many. You've suf shy;fered, and there are times when Mystra bids us to rise above 'death for death' justice, and show kindness to those worthy of it. In my eyes, those most worthy of it are those who've been kind to others, in private and with no thought of benefit to themselves. You're one of those few."
A long-fingered hand closed on the throat of the man gaping at her, and she added in a voice of sudden steel, "Yet never forget, Blaskar, that I can make you a slave girl, or legless beggar, or disease-riddled outlaw, wear shy;ing the face of someone hated and hunted, in the time it takes me to tell you this. I can come to doom you, if you turn to your old ways once more."
The slaver was trembling. She opened her mouth to say something more gentle, but he lifted his head and said, "I'll submit to whatever doom you choose. If you'd be kind to me, though, let me try to bargain a better one."
Dove snorted. "From how strong a position? What, for instance, would your opening gambit be?"
They exchanged smiles. The slaver's grin turned sly and he asked, "What if I should just happen to forget where I put the key to your cuffs?"
"Then I'll break them," Dove told him, "and help you go looking for that key. You might not be seeing things all that well after I'd stuffed two lengths of chain down your throat and made you swallow, so we'd have to do things properly. I think I'd start by taking firm hold of your ear, then go around behind you and start looking for where I could pull on the other end of my devoured chain."
Blaskar stared at her for a moment, then threw back his head and let out his first real laugh in years.
The same sun that would set over Waterdeep long before a certain fat merchant found his way back to its gates-and would shine through the windows of a cer shy;tain Scornubrian house now forever empty of Blaskar Toldovar-was lowering in the western sky when a weary, muddy-booted peddler led four limping, footsore mules into Scornubel. He trudged down the wide, dung-strewn streets to a certain stables where he paid grudging coins to have his beasts penned, fed, and watered. He paid rather more to have his saddlebags lock-stored, and trudged out again into the gathering dusk, rubbing at a paltry mustache that sat like a hairy caterpillar upon his unlovely upper lip. He gave "Tarthan" as his name, and he walked as one who knew the Caravan City but wasn't particularly glad to find himself therein.
His eye seemed to fall only upon Scornubel's newer establishments, but always, it seemed, to soon find them lacking. At the threshold of The Rolling Wheel he peered into the din of scrawny dancers and wearily roaring men, sniffed, and turned into the darkness again. At the shoulder-rubbing-crowded outer room of the Black Bowl gambling club he spat onto the purple carpet and went out as wearily as he'd come in, giving the bouncer who moved threateningly forward a grin of savage promise and the flourished point of a
needle-thin blade three feet long.
The Bowl of Serpents seemed more to Tarthan's liking. He sat for some time tossing copper coins at the serpent-tailed dancers who undulated into view amid its many mauve tapestries, and polished off an entire decanter of emerald green Starlartarn wine from the Tashalar. The peddler was weaving slightly, but still steady of purpose, when he stopped outside Cata's Pump a little later, sniffed the air appreciatively, and told the world, "Ahh, a good broth. Worth the little walk from Waterdeep."
That comment made the eyes of the doorswords widen above their half masks as the dusty peddler stepped between them and sought the dimness within. Half a dozen merchants and burly porters were loung shy;ing drowsily in chairs around the edges of the tavern's lone taproom, the large empty bowls in front of them attesting to the reason for their collective torpor. A single tankard stood neatly before each diner; no one had spilled anything, or was calling for more yet. In fact, no one was saying anything. Tarthan cast a nar shy;rowed eye over the tomblike taproom, found a smallish table hard by a pillar, and sat.
A serving wench drifted up to stand over him. "Your pleasure, goodman?" she asked tonelessly, staring over Tarthan's head at something mildly captivating that seemed to be occurring several days' ride to the east, through the dirty taproom wall.
"A fist of cheese, a bowl of that broth I smell, and a roundloaf," the peddler said heartily, holding up a closed fist full of coins.
Instead of flicking her fingers in the shorthand ges shy;tures that would give him the price demanded for his meal, the girl simply nodded and turned away. Tarthan nodded too, slumping wearily into his chair, and gave the room a wide-mouthed yawn. A curtain moved back into place across a doorway at the far end of the room, but the peddler gave no sign that he'd seen it-or cared very much about curtains or spying anywhere in Faerun.
Nonetheless, when the serving wench returned with a tray and a face of unchanged blankness, the peddler's seat was empty. There was no sign of him anywhere in the taproom. The girl stood for a moment in silent inde shy;cision, then set the tray down in front of the empty seat and glided away again. There was a thin layer of dust on the tray and the tankard, but no one seemed to notice.
