Condemnation (12 page)

Halisstra trailed close behind Pharaun, studying each group as they passed. She noticed that the wizard was trading discreet signs with Valas as they wound deeper into the marketplace.

Not many merchants here today, the wizard observed. Where are they all?

Valas glanced over his shoulder to make sure Quenthel wasn’t looking, and answered, Chaos in Menzoberranzan means few buyers. Few buyers means few sellers. Anarchy seems to be bad for business.

The scout turned to eye a band of duergar nearby, and said over his shoulder to the rest of the company, “Go on ahead. You’ll find an inn of sorts a little farther on. I will meet you there soon.”

He quietly approached the gray dwarves, making a strange gesture of greeting with his hands folded before him, and engaged the duergar merchants in whispered conversation. The rest of the party moved on.

They found the “inn” to which the scout referred in a dank warren of caves near the southern end of Mantol-Derith. There, a surly duergar woman terrorized a handful of goblin slaves, driving them mercilessly from one task to another. Several small cookfires smoldered haphazardly in the area, warming iron pots of thick stew tended by the harried cooks. Other slaves scrambled to tap casks of mushroom ale or stolen surface lagers, serving silent customers who simply gathered around the fires, sitting on flat boulders arranged like chairs. Sturdy doors of petrified mushroom fiber or rusted iron plate sealed off crevices in the walls nearby. Halisstra presumed that these led to the guest rooms of the gray dwarf’s inn. The chambers were most likely secure behind the strong doors, but she couldn’t imagine that they were at all comfortable.

“How … rustic,” Halisstra said.

She wondered for one terrible moment if it would be her fate to live out the rest of her expatriate existence crouched in some similar hovel.

“It’s even more charming than the last time I was here,” Pharaun said with a forced smile. “The dwarf there is Dinnka. You’ll find that this nameless wayside inn of hers constitutes the finest lodgings available in Mantol-Derith. You’ll get food, fire, and shelter—three things that are hard to come by in the wilds of the Underdark—and pay a small fortune for it.”

“It will be better than resting in a monster-haunted surface ruin, I suppose,” Quenthel said.

She led the way as the party approached one of the cookfires. A trio of bugbears occupied the seats there, apparently mercenaries of some skill, judging by the quality of the armor they wore. The hairy creatures brooded over big leather jacks of mushroom ale, and gnawed at haunches of rothe meat. One by one the hulking warriors looked up as the five drow and Jeggred approached. Quenthel folded her arms and looked at the creatures with contempt.

“Well?” she said.

The bugbears growled, setting down ale and meat as their great fists dropped down to rest on axe-hafts thrust through their belts. The motion caught Halisstra’s eye. Bugbears with any lick of sense would have vacated their places immediately, almost anywhere in the Underdark. They might not have been drow slaves—clearly they weren’t, if they were in Mantol-Derith—but she’d ventured out into similar places near Ched Nasad enough times to understand that creatures like bugbears learned quickly to give way to the truly dangerous denizens of the Lands Below, such as noble dark elves.

“Well, what?” snarled the largest of the three. “It’ll take more’n a drow sneer t’make us give up our seats.”

“Think y’can just push us aroun’?” the second bugbear added. “You elfies ain’t as scary as y’was, y’know. Maybe yous’ll have t’start showin’ off why we’s oughtta do what y’says.”

Quenthel waited for a moment, then said one word: “Jeggred.”

The draegloth bounded forward and seized the first bugbear. With his two smaller arms he clamped down over the bugbear’s hands, preventing him from drawing any of the weapons at his side. He locked one fighting talon around the creature’s head, holding him tightly, and with his other fighting hand he plunged his powerful talons into the bugbear’s face. The mercenary screamed something in his uncouth language and struggled against the draegloth. Jeggred grinned, knotted his claws deep in the shrieking monster’s head, and yanked back hard, ripping off the front of the bugbear’s skull. Blood and brain matter splattered the bugbears companions, who scrambled to their feet, drawing swords and axes.

Jeggred lowered the twitching body a bit and looked over it at the other two.

“Next?” he purred.

The two remaining bugbears stumbled back, and fled in abject terror. Jeggred shook his white-furred head and tossed the corpse aside, taking a seat at the fire. He helped himself to a hunk of roast dropped by a bugbear, and raised one of their jacks in another hand.

“Bugbears… .” he muttered.

“Hey, you!”

The surly duergar innkeeper—Dinnka—scuttled forward, anger plain on her face.

“Those three hadn’t settled their tab yet,” she complained. “Now how in all the screaming hells am I going to get my gold from them?”

Ryld stooped and removed the bugbear’s belt pouch. He tossed it to Dinnka.

“Settle up with this,” the weapons master said, “and start our tab with what’s left. We’ll want good wine, and more food.”

The duergar woman caught the purse, but she did not move.

“I don’t appreciate your scaring off paying customers, drow. Nor killing them, neither. Next time do your murdering at home, where it belongs.”

She marched off, already barking orders at the goblin slaves underfoot.

Halisstra watched her go, then she looked back to the others and flashed, That was odd. Did you hear what the bugbear said?

“What he said about the drow not being as scary as they used to be?” Ryld said, then he switched to sign. Has word of Ched Nasad’s fall reached this place so quickly? It was only a couple of days ago, and Mantol-Derith is many days’ travel from the City of Shimmering Webs.

It’s possible that magical scrying or spells of communication might have spread the word already, Halisstra said. Or … perhaps he meant something else. Perhaps something of our unusual difficulties is known here.

That, thought Halisstra, was a very disturbing scenario. Gray dwarves and mind flayers were competent foes, creatures who knew many secrets of sorcery. If they had discerned the drow’s weakness, it would not be unduly surprising, but if common bugbear mercenaries were aware of matters in Ched Nasad or Menzoberranzan, it must be widely known indeed.

Goblin slaves returned to their fire, laden with somewhat better fare than the bugbears had enjoyed, and flagons of cool wine from some surface vineyard. The small slaves gathered up the hulking body of the fallen bugbear and dragged it off into the darkness. The dark elves paid them scant attention. Goblin slaves were so far beneath their notice that they might as well have not existed. The party ate and drank in silence, occupied with their own thoughts.

After a time, Valas joined them, accompanied by another gray dwarf. This one was a male, with a short beard of iron grey and not a single hair on his head above his eyebrows. The duergar wore a shirt of chain mail and carried a wicked hand axe at his side. His visage was maimed by a set of three great furrowed scars that had taken off one ear and twisted the right side of his face into a nightmarish map of old pain. He might have been a merchant, a mercenary, or a miner—his dour attire offered few hints as to his trade.

“This is Ghevel Coalhewer,” the scout said. “He owns a boat moored nearby, on the Darklake. He will take us to Gracklstugh tomorrow.”

“I’ll want me payment in advance,” the gray dwarf warned. “And I’ll have ye know I’ve a contract o’ redress with me guild back home. If ye think to slit me throat and dump me over the side out on the lake, ye’ll be hunted down for it.”

“A trusting soul,” Pharaun said with a smile. “We’ve no interest in robbing you, Master Coalhewer.”

“I’ll take me precautions, just the same.” The duergar looked at Valas and asked, “Ye know where the boat is. Pay me now, and ye can meet me there tomorrow early.”

“How do we know you won’t rob us, dwarf?” rumbled Jeggred.

“It’s usually bad business to rob drow, not unless ye be sure to get away with it,” the dwarf replied. ” ‘Course, that may be changing, but no’ so fast that I’ll chance it today.”

Valas jingled a pouch in front of the duergar and dropped it into his hand. The dwarf immediately poured out its contents into his big, weathered palm, appraising the gemstones there before scooping them back into the pouch.

“Ye must be in a rush, or yer man here might’ve struck a better bargain. Ah, well, ye drow don’t appreciate a good gemstone, anyway.”

He turned and stumped away into the darkness.

“That’s the last you’ll see of him,” Jeggred said. “You should have waited to pay him.”

“He insisted on it,” Valas said. “He said something about wanting to make sure we didn’t kill him to recover the fare.” The scout looked after the duergar, and shrugged. “I don’t think he would cheat us. If he was that kind of duergar, well, he wouldn’t last long in Mantol-Derith. People here don’t take kindly to being cheated.”

“He can secure safe passage through Gracklstugh?” Ryld asked.

Valas spread his hands and replied, “We’ll have to carry some kind of documents or letters, which Coalhewer can arrange for us. I think it’s some kind of mercantile license.”

“We’re carrying no goods,” Pharaun observed dryly. “Doesn’t that explanation seem a little thin?”

“I told him that Lady Quenthel’s family has business holdings in Eryndlyn she wishes to check on, and that if she finds things in order, she might be interested in negotiating for the services of duergar teamsters to transport her goods across Gracklstugh’s territory. I also implied that Coalhewer might do well to make himself a part of the arrangement.”

Pharaun didn’t have time to reply before the cavern echoed softly with the stealthy padding of numerous feet. The dark elves glanced up from the fire to see a large band of bugbear warriors approaching, led by the two mercenaries who had fled a few minutes before. At least a dozen of their fellows followed close behind them, axes and spiked flails dangling from hairy paws, murder in their eyes. The other patrons of Dinnka’s inn began to slip away from their places, seeking safer environs. The hulking humanoids muttered and growled to each other in their own tongue.

“Tell me,” said Valas, “did someone happen to kill, maim, or humiliate a bugbear when I was talking with Coalhewer?” The scout glanced back at the others, and at Jeggred, who shrugged. He sighed. “Was I unclear when I advised against starting fights here?”

“There was a misunderstanding over the seating arrangements,” Quenthel explained.

Ryld stood, threw his cloak over his shoulder to clear his arms for fighting, and said, “Should’ve guessed there might be more of them nearby.”

“Time to remind these stupid creatures of the order of things,” Halisstra remarked.

Quenthel stood and drew her five-headed whip, eyeing the approaching warriors with a wry smile.

“Jeggred?” she said.

Gromph Baenre stood on a balcony high above Menzoberranzan, studying the dim faerielights of the drow city. He had been waiting for nearly an hour, and his patience was almost exhausted. Under most circumstances an hour here or an hour there would have meant nothing to a dark elf with centuries of life behind him, but this was different. The archmage waited in fear, dreading the arrival of the one who had summoned him to this clandestine encounter. It was not a sensation Gromph was accustomed to, and he found that he did not care for it at all. He had, of course, taken extreme steps to protect his person, girding himself with an array of formidable defensive spells and a carefully considered selection of protective magical devices. The archmage was not entirely confident that those precautions would deter the one who came to meet him in that lonely, windswept spot.

“Gromph Baenre,” a voice, cold and rasping, greeted him. Before the archmage even began to turn, he felt the presence of the other, an icy chill that somehow managed to sink past his defenses, the smell of great and terrible magic. “How good of you to accept my invitation. It has been a long time, has it not?”

The ancient sorcerer Dyrr approached from the shadows at the back of the balcony, leaning on his great staff, his feet seeming not to move at all as he glided forward in a rustle of robes no quicker than an old man’s shuffle.

Among the ambitious drow of his own House, it suited Dyrr to wear the shape of a venerable old dark elf of fantastic age, but Gromph’s arcane sight pierced the guise to the truth behind it. Dyrr was dead, dead these many centuries. Nothing remained of the ancient mage but dusty bones clothed in tattered shreds of mummified flesh. His hands were the claws of a skeleton, his robes were faded and threadbare, and his face was a hideous grinning skull, the black eye sockets alight with the bright green flame of his powerful spirit.

“I see that my poor guise does not deceive you,” the lich rasped. “In truth, I would have been disappointed if you were so easily beguiled, Archmage.”

“Lord Dyrr,” said Gromph, a cautious greeting. He inclined his head without taking his eyes off the lichdrow. “In truth, I am surprised to find that you are still among us. I have heard whispers that you still lived—er, so to speak—secluded in your house. I thought from time to time that I detected an old and canny hand guiding the affairs of Agrach Dyrr, but I have not met anyone who claims to have seen you in almost two hundred years, and it’s been almost twice that since last we spoke.”

“I value my privacy, and encourage my descendants to value my privacy as well. It’s best for all involved if my hand remains hidden. We wouldn’t want to make the matron mothers nervous now, would we?”

“Indeed. In my experience they react poorly to surprises.”

The lich laughed, a horrible sound that chilled the blood. He moved closer, gliding forward to stand by Gromph’s side and look out over the city. The archmage found himself more than a little unsettled by the unnatural presence of the undead creature—again, a sensation he did not experience often at all.