F O U R (35 page)

,  but perhaps long enough for us

to complete our business and return to our sedate, cloistered lives ".

"Does that mean you've figured out some

"Not as such, but you know I'     thing else?"m  prone to sudden bursts of inspiration."The m

asters entered a crowded section of street outside of what was evidently a

popular tavern, with a howling, barking gnoll song shaking the calcite walls.

felt odd weaving, pausing, and twisting toPharaun had never had occasion to walk incognito amavoid bum ong the lower orders. It ps  and jostles.known his true identity, his fellow pedestria            Had they

ns would have scurried out of his

way.

short straight blow with his fist. A hunchbacked, piebald creatAs the two drow reached the periphery of  the crowd, Ryld pivoted and struck a ure—the product of a m

ating of goblin and ore perhaps—stumbled backward and fell on his rump.

"Cutpurse," the warrior explained. "I hate this place."

R"No pangs of nostalgia?"yld glowered. "That isn't funny."

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precinct always seem"No? Then I beg your pardon," Pharaun said with a sms so sordid, even  on those rare occasions when one finds irk. "I wonder why this oneself alone in a plaza or boulevard. W

ell, the smell, of course. We  don't call

them  the Stench streets for nothing,  but the buildings, though generally more

modest than those encountered elsewhere  in the city, still wear the same

shapes our ancestors cut from  the li                  graceful ving rock ".

across the street. The Braeryn notoriousThe teachers paused to let a spider with legs as long as broadswords scuttle ly harbored hordes of the sacred creatures. Sacred or not, Pharaun reviewed  his m

e

arachnid ignored the disguised dark elves     ntal list of ready spells, but the "That'             ld. "Why does the Braeryn seem  f

oul? The

inhabitants!"s a foolish question," said Ry

"Ah, but did the living refuse of our society generate the atmosphere of thedistrict, or did that m

alignant spirit exist from

wretched to its domain?"             the beginning and lure the

"I'm  no metaphysician," said Ryld. "All I know is that some

the scavengers out of here."                body should clear Pharaun chuckled. "What if said clearing had occurred when you were a t

yke?""I don't mean exterminate them

let them  squat here in their dirt like a —except for the hopeless cases—but why just festering chancre on the city? Why not find

something useful for them  to do?"

"Ah, but they're already useful. Status is  all, is it not? Does it not follow,  thenthat no Menzoberranyr can find conten  ent without som          ,tm

e         she

can look down."                    one upon whom

"We have slaves."

"They won't do. Predicate your claim  totacitly acknowledge you're only slightly  better than a thrall yourself self-respect on their existence and you . Happily

,

with disease, living twenty or thirty to a roomhere in the Stench streets, we find a populace starving, filthy,  penniless, riddled , yet nominally free. The humblest

commoner in Many folk or even Eastmyr  can turn up his nose at them  and feel

sm

"Yug."ou really think that's  the reason Matron Baenre hasn't  ordered the slum

scoured clean?"

"Well, if that conjecture seems implausible, here's  another: Rumor has it that

from  time to time, someone m

Supposedly she likes to visit here in meets the goddess herself in the Braeryn. ortal guise. The matrons may feel that the neighborhood is, in som

e  sense, under her protection." The wizard hesitated.

"Though if Lolth has gone away for good, perhaps they don'about it anymore."                    t need to worry

Ryld shook his head. "It's still so hard to belie—"

RPharaun pointed. "Look."yld turned.

smeared in blue. It consisted of On a curving wall below a dark elf's eye level was a sketch, this time

resenting the links of a chain.    three overlapping ovals, conceivably rep-"It's a different mark," said R

yld. "Hobgoblin maybe, though I couldn't tell you the tribe."

"Don't be intentionally dim.  It's  the same  peculiar,  reckless, pointless crime ".

"Fair enough, and it's still irrelevant to our endeavors.""It's a dull mind that never transcends pragmatics. T

wo signs, representing

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two races, implying two specimens of the lesser races demented in precisely thesame way? Unlikely

own?"       ,  yet why would a single artist daub an e

mblem not his

"Coincidence?"

"I doubt it, but as yet I can't  provide a better answer.""It's a puzzle for another day

"Indeed."         , remember?"

The masters walked on.

passed without noticing and exactly what form they took?""Still," pressed Pharaun, "don't you wonder how many scrawled signs we Ignoring the question, R

yld pointed and said, "That's our destination."

The house's limestone door stood open, mointerior radiated a perceptible warmth   st likely for ventilation, for the crammed in together. It also emitted a muddled drone and a thick stink , the product of a multitude of tenants considerably fouler than the unpleasant smell that clung to the Braeryn as awhole.

Rand he felt a strange reluctance yld had been born in a similar warren,to venture in, as if squalor had fought like a demon to escape it, wouldn't let himescape a second time. Unwilling to appear  timid and foolish in the eyes of his friend,  he  hid  the  feeling  behind  an  impassive  warrior's countenance.

Pharaun, however, freely demonstrated his own distaste. The porcine eyes inhis illusory ore face watered, and he swallowed, no doubt trying to quell a  surge of queasiness."Get used to it," said Ryld."I'll be all right. I've visited the Braeryn frequently enough to have some  notionof what these little hells are like, though I confess I never entered one "."Then stick close and let me  do the taanyone in the eye. They'        lking. Don't stare at anybody, or look re likely to take it as an insult or challenge. Don't touch anyone or anything if you can avoid it. Half the residents are sick  and probably contagious.""Really? And their palace gives off such a salubrious air! Ah, well, lead on.”

Ryld did as his friend had asked. Beyond the threshold was the claustrophobicnightmare  he  remembered. Kobolds, goblins,  ores, gnolls, bugbears, hobgoblins, and  a sprinkling  of  less common  creatures  squeezed

Some                       into every available  space. ,  the  warrior  knew,  were  runaway slaves.  Others had entered the service of

Menzoberranyr travelers who picked them them back to the city          up in far corners of the world, took way home. The rest were descendants of, and dismissed  them without any means of making their unfortunate souls  in the first two categories.stealing, scavenging, preyWherever they came from, the paupers ing on one anotherwere trapped in the Braeryn, begging, —often in the most literal sense—and hiring on for any  dangerous, filthy job anyone cared  to give  them.  It  was  theonly way they could survive.without the slightest vestige of privacyThis particular lot had likewise learned to live packed in. Undercreatures babbled, cooked, ate, to the common space

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drank, tended a still, brawled, twitched ashook and cuffed their shrieking infantnd moaned in the throes of sickness,

themselves, and, amazingly        s, threw dice, fornicated, relieved ,  slept, all in  plain view of anyone  with the ill luck to look in their direction.

As R

this instance bugbears—sloucheyld had expected, within moments d forward to accost them.of their entrance, a pair of toughs—in With their coarse, shaggy m

anes and square, prominent  jaws, bugbears were the largest and

strongest of the goblin peoples, towering  over the rest—and dark elves, too, for that m

atter.

relatively well-fed and adequately dressed. They likely bullied tribute out of the This pair was, by the standards of their destitute household,

rest.

"You don't live here," rumbled the taller of the two.

neck. Drow occasionally afHe wore what appeared to be a sefected simvered goblin hand strung around his burly ilar ornaments, usually mementos of hated

enemies,  but they  sent them  to a  taxidermist first.  It was

hadn't done the sam                   too bad the bugbear e. It would have prevented the rot and the carrion smell.

and out of the house. "W"No," Ryld said, tossing the bugbear a shaved coin, paying the toll to pass in e came to see Sm