The Dream Spheres

by Elaine Cunningham

  far surpassing the images his mind had painted of it. Its color was clear and flawless, and it had been perfectly cut and faceted to catch light. The kiira was a marvel of elven gemcraft. And elven magic.

  He was disturbed by the dark, compelling power in the stone. Not even the dire legends he had heard from his boyhood fully prepared him for the impact of the Mhaorkiira Hadryad. This stone had twisted and ultimately destroyed an ancient elven clan. Only the last-born, a mage of such utter evil that he might as well have been an orc or a drow or other such abomination, could bend it fully to his will. The gem had been found several times since then, but always slipped back into oblivion with the destruction of the elf who dared to take it up. This was an enormous gamble. Elaith knew he was quite literally putting his life on the line. Was it truly so important that he know his own deepest measure?

  "You want it, or don't you?" Balthorr had asked, seeing his reluctance. "I could sell it easy if you don't. Two, three people looked at it this afternoon."

  That had interested Elaith. "Any make an offer?" "No," the fence had admitted, and Elaith had let the matter go.

  The kiira was his. The gem settled into his hand with an inaudible sigh of contentment, as if it had found its proper owner at last. At that moment Elaith's hope died, his heart turned to stone. He had his answer. Nothing elven remained to him but the Mhaorkiira. That would have to be enough—that, and the power it would give him.

  So be it. He left the gem in his most secure property, then hurried toward the Dock Ward to meet his waiting contacts. A second group would have gathered by now, brought in through the tunnel that ran between the tower and a nearby warehouse. The members of the two groups would not know each other if they passed on the

  street. Such precautions, he had learned many long years ago, were necessary to those who lived as he did.

  He slipped into the warehouse and made his way through the labyrinth of aisles that wove among the high-stacked crates. Without warning, the pile ahead collapsed, crashing down to seal off the passage.

  Elaith spun in a half turn, so that he could see both behind and ahead. A trio of hooded men leaped from the heights as another four closed in from behind. The elf scanned the stacked crates on either side. Several other men knelt in position, nocked crossbows aimed at his heart.

  Chagrin poured through the elf as he acknowledged himself trapped. He lifted his hands to show that he held no weapons and turned to face the band behind him. He addressed his remarks to the largest form among the hooded men, knowing that brute physical size was deemed important in the sort of primitive hierarchies common among human thugs.

  "If you had wished to kill me, you would have done so by now," he pointed out. "Now that you have my attention, speak your mind."

  "We bring a message," intoned a gruff, familiar voice from beneath one of the hoods. "You have taken too much upon yourself. The elf lord, they call you."

  "So I am, by right of birth and property," Elaith pointed out. "My concerns, both in this city and the one below, outstrip that of most of the merchant clans. Yours included," he added slyly.

  The man's sudden jolt of surprise was gratifying— and enlightening. Elaith was not certain until this moment that Rhep, the Ilzimmers' mercenary captain, was beneath that hood. Well enough. At least he knew with whom he dealt.

  "This is a city of laws and customs," the man continued, as if determined to put the discussion back on his terms.

  "Really" Elaith smiled blandly. "I have not heard the law permitting armed trespass. This little visit must therefore fall under the banner of local custom."

  "Mind your tongue, elf," snarled Rhep. "Your welcome in Waterdeep is wearing thin. Play tavern keeper if you will, but close up your Skullport trade. This will be your last warning."

  "Good," returned the elf. "I find this particular custom rather tiresome. Please, bring my regards to your masters."

  He reached into a pocket sewn into the shoulder seam of his jerkin and drew out a small, silver rod. This he pointed at one of the crates stacked high overhead, which had been marked with a curving rune that none of these louts could read.

  A shower of sparks leaped from the tiny staff and coalesced into a single, arrowlike shaft. This sped toward the box and exploded into a second dazzling shower. This explosion was followed by a second, as the contents of the box—smokepowder, highly illegal and as unpredictable as a dryad's romantic fancy—caught flame.

  Streams of burning light arced down, spitting and whistling in their descent. The archers dropped their bows and fell to their stomachs in an attempt to hold their perches on the swaying piles of crates.

  Elaith drew his sword and ran at the trio guarding the blocked tunnel. He lunged and ran one man through the gut, then shifted his weight onto his back leg and lifted his bloodied sword to meet the second man's attack. A quick twist disengaged his weapon, another deft turn brought the blade slicing across the man's throat. On the backswing he caught the final man's blade. He pushed up, forcing the enjoined blades high, and leveled his silver wand at the man's chest.

  Another tiny arrow of light sizzled forth, diving into the man's chest. Elaith dove aside as the magic weapon

  exploded from within, transforming the man into a crimson mist.

  The elf ran up over the spilled crates and raced nimbly down the other side. Quickly he found the second hidden door, one known only to him, and slipped down into the tunnel that led to a tailor's shop two streets down.

  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 "messengers." 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 Dreamspheres. 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 lingering, highly amusing-and deadly.

  The elf set a quick pace back toward his fortress home and the beckoning, compelling magic of the dark gem.

  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, she 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 possibly 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 that was dry."

  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 ramshackle buildings or inched along the walkways. The scent of rot and mildew permeated everythi
ng, 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 manticore 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 merchant. 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 one mouse. More are always hidden nearby. How do you

  think 'three kobolds' got their merchandise in the first place?"

  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-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 happened 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 regular 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 a thing. Just recently, in fact, she had seen Elaith Craulnober toy with a tren assassin, in very similar fashion.

  Her sharp ears caught the sound of furtive footsteps on the walkway outside the shop. She rocked back onto her heels and rose in a single, swift move. Gliding over to the door, she drew her sword and gestured for Danilo to move to the other side of the frame.

  Slowly the door eased open, and a small, furtive faced peered around the corner. Arilyn stepped in and pressed the tip of her blade against Diloontier's throat.

  The perfumer shrieked and squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could block out the double terror of the looming sword and the carnage beyond. His face paled to the color of old parchment, and the bones of his legs seemed to melt to the consistency of jellied eel.

  Before Arilyn could speak, Danilo seized the swaying man by the front of his shirt and jerked him into the room. He shook the perfume merchant as a vermin hound

  might worry a rat. This served to bring some color back to the man's face. When he started to struggle with a resolve and vigor that suggested he could stand on his own, Danilo released him.

  Diloontier cracked open one eye and shuddered. "Too late," he mourned. "Gone, all of it!"

  "That raises some interesting questions. Well get to them in time," Arilyn assured him. She lifted her sword to his throat again. "What do you know about the tren?"

  The man's eyes slid furtively to one side. "Never heard of them."

  She gave her sword an encouraging little twitch. "Odd, that tunnels riddled with tren markings should converge beneath your shop. Strange that a door from the sewers leads into your drying shed. You can talk to me about this, or you can sit before the Lord's Council."

  "Talking!" he conceded in a high-pitched voice. "Yes, it is true that sometimes I act as a broker for wealthy men and women who desire the tren's services. I make arrangements, but only through a second or third or twenty-fourth party! Truly! That is the agreed-upon method. It ensures I cannot give you or anyone else the name of my clients."

  Arilyn wondered how the man might respond if presented with a name. She sent Danilo a look that mingled inquiry and apology. His lips thinned, but he gave a slight nod of agreement. She turned back to Diloontier.

  "All right, then. If you can't name your clients, I'll do it for you. Lady Cassandra Thann."

  "I am a perfumer. Many of the noble folk patronize my shop," he began evasively. His explanation broke off in a surprised yelp of pain, and he looked down in horror

  at the stain on the half-elf's gleamin
g sword and the

  blood dripping onto his shirtfront.

  "Not an important vein," Arilyn said evenly, "but I know where those are."

  "I cannot tell you anything! My customers prize confidentiality!" he protested.

  "More than you prize your neck?"

  Diloontier didn't need long to balance that particular scale. "Potions of youthfulness," he said, speaking so quickly that the words almost tripped over each other in their eagerness to emerge. "The Lady Cassandra has been buying them for ages, with the coming of each new moon. Forgive me, but how else could she keep the passing years from wresting her beauty from her?"

  "I take it that you are not well acquainted with the lady," Danilo said dryly. "If anyone could stare down Father Time and win, it is she."

  Arilyn lowered her sword. "What did you come here to buy?"

  "It hardly matters, does it? There is nothing more here of value. Clearly, I did not kill these men. For all I know, you did!"

  The half-elf's eyes went hard, but she realized at once that this was no idle threat. She was not the only one who would recognize the marks of an elven sword, and once again, here she stood over the work of an assassin. Fortunately, Diloontier had his own reputation with which to contend. "Mention our presence here to anyone," she snapped, "and the Watch captain will be reading an anonymous letter about your visit to this little shop. Now go!"

  Diloontier darted for the exit. His boots beat a frantic, stumbling rhythm upon the wooden walk. The half-elf sighed and sheathed her sword.

  Danilo looked sharply at her. "You let him go. Do you believe him?"

  "About Lady Cassandra? Not a word of it. What does she need with youth potions, if she has elven blood? Although I suspect she would support Diloontier's lie rather than lay claim to her heritage."

  He did not refute her. "There is nothing more to be seen here."

  Arilyn was silent for a long moment. Actually, she suspected there was much, much more to be gleaned in this city. The tren came from these tunnels. So did poisons, which had most likely been used to kill Lady Dezlentyr. Arilyn had gone to considerable trouble to find out Diloontier's supplier, visiting acquaintances she had not seen for years and creating markers that she dreaded paying.