Gauntlgrym (16 page)

Several days later, somewhat shaken but thoroughly intrigued, Dor’crae arrived once more in the chambers of Valindra Shadowmantle.

The queen of Luskan’s underworld had many candles burning, and seemed more animated than usual, more lucid. She greeted Dor’crae pleasantly, even expressing her regret at not having seen him for a tenday.

“I followed the root of the Hosttower,” he explained. “You remember the Hosttower …?”

“Of course.”

“Do you know the place, the grand hall where it disappears under the ground?”

“She has no answers for you,” came another voice.

Dahlia stepped into sight from around one of the many decorative screens set about the chamber. She gave a little grin and nodded toward the skull gem on the shelf, the one inhabited by the spirit of Arklem Greeth. “But he does.”

“You’ve been …?”

“Tell me of this ‘grand hall’.”

“It’s a most remarkable place, as big as some cities in the Under—”

“Gauntlgrym,” Dahlia interrupted, and Dor’crae looked at her, obviously not understanding.

“The ancient homeland of the Delzoun dwarves,” Dahlia explained. “Long lost—some consider it a myth.”

“It is real,” said Dor’crae.

“You explored it?”

“I was turned away before I could get too far.”

Dahlia looked at him with one eyebrow raised.

“Ghosts,” the vampire explained. “Dwarf ghosts, and darker things. I thought it prudent to return to you with what I had unearthed. What did you call it? Gauntlgrym? How can you know?”

“Greeth told me. The Hosttower was tied to that most ancient of dwarven cities, and was built by dwarves, elves, and humans in a long-ago age, and for the benefit of all, though few dwarves ever lived in the Hosttower itself.”

“But its power benefitted this city, this ‘Gauntlgrym’?”

Dahlia crossed the room, shrugging as she went. “I would expect as much. Arklem Greeth knows little more, or at least I could discern little more, though I will try again soon enough. He is old—not that old, of course, but he seems confident of the work, masonry and magical, that built the Hosttower of the Arcane, and that it was indeed somehow tied to …” Her words trailed off as she noticed the puzzled look upon Dor’crae’s face.

“You wear two diamonds again in your right ear,” the vampire explained. “Eight in your left, and two, again, in your right.”

“Surely you cannot be jealous,” Dahlia replied.

“Borlann the Crow needed incentive, I expect?”

Dahlia merely smiled.

“Jealous?” Dor’crae replied then, with a laugh. “ ‘Relieved’ would be a better word. Better another in your right ear than you come to believe your left might look better with nine.”

Dahlia stared at him for a very long time, and the vampire feared that perhaps he hadn’t been wise to tip her off to the fact that he understood the significance of her jewelry.

“We know where to look now,” Dahlia said after a very long and uncomfortable silence. “I will continue my work with Arklem Greeth, gaining whatever insight he has to offer, and you must gather as much information as can be found about Gauntlgrym, or of how we might navigate its wards, like these ghosts you speak of.”

“It’s a dangerous road,” the vampire replied. “Were I trapped in this physical body, I would have had to fight my way in, and fight my way out, against formidable foes.”

“Then we will find even more formidable allies,” Dahlia promised.

A DROW AND HIS DWARF

W
ERE IT NOT FOR THE MORNINGSTARS SET DIAGONALLY ACROSS HIS
back, their glassteel heads bobbing with every stride, Athrogate might have struck passersby as a diplomat rather than a warrior. His thick black hair was well kept, and his long beard was neatly tied into three thick braids set with shining onyx gems. He wore another onyx—a magical one—set into a circlet on his head, and his broad belt, dyed black, imbued him with great strength. Black boots showed the scuffs of a thousand mountains and a thousand trails. The rest of his clothing was of the finest cut and style: breeches of deep gray velvet, a shirt the color of the darkest of amethysts, and a black leather vest that served as a harness for the mighty weapons strapped to his back.

He was a common sight in Luskan, and his shadowy relationship with the dark elves was the worst kept secret in the City of Sails. But Athrogate walked the streets openly and often, in appearance, at least, alone. It was almost as if he was inviting some opportunist to take a try at killing him. And the dwarf liked nothing more than a good row, though that pleasure had been hard to find of late. His partner frowned upon it.

He walked to the corner of a building across the street from his favorite pub, Bite o’ the Shark—an apt name for anyone who had ever sampled the establishment’s private stock of Gutbuster. At the corner of an alley, Athrogate put his back against the wall and took out a huge and curvy pipe and began tapping down his pipeweed.

He was well into his smoke, blowing rings that drifted lazily over the street, when a striking elf woman exited Bite o’ the Shark and paused near a gathering of drunks, who began throwing suggestive, lewd comments her way.

“Ye see her, then?” the dwarf said out of the corner of his mouth, pipe still firmly in place.

“Hard to miss that one,” a voice answered from the shadows beside him. With the suggestive cut of her skirt, the high black boots on her shapely legs, the low cut of her blouse and a striking black and red braid, his words seemed a great understatement.

“Aye, and I’m bettin’, sure as the sun’s settin’, that one o’ them fools’ll go for her jewels. And oh, then they’ll know in the heartbeats to come, that her sticks’ll play skulls with the sound of a drum.”

The voice in the shadows sighed.

“Never gets old, does it?” Athrogate asked, quite pleased with himself.

“Never was young, dwarf,” came the reply, and Athrogate bellowed, “Bwahaha!”

“Someday, perhaps, I’ll come to understand how your thoughts flow, and on that day, I fear, I’ll have to kill myself.”

“What’s to know?” Athrogate asked. “One o’ them’ll go too far with her, and she’ll put the lot of ’em on the ground.” As he posited that very thing, one of the drunks stepped toward the elf and reached for her buttocks. She neatly dodged and smiled at him, wagging her finger and warding him away.

But he came on.

“Here it comes,” Athrogate predicted.

The man seemed to fall over her in a hug, from the vantage point of the dwarf and his companion, at least, but when the dwarf started congratulating himself on being right, the voice in the shadows pointed out that the drunk was up on his tiptoes. He started to turn slowly, the woman coming around to put her back to the open street. The elf had spun her walking stick and poked it up as he came at her, locking its tip under his chin and driving him up to his toes.

She was still smiling sweetly and whispering to the man in tones so low his companions apparently couldn’t hear, and she had angled the ruffian so they couldn’t see her walking stick, either. She released him and stepped away, and the man staggered and nearly tumbled then reached up and grabbed his chin, coughing to accompany his friends’ laughter.

“Bah, thought she’d deck ’em all,” Athrogate grumbled.

“She’s too smart for that,” said the voice in the darkness, “though if they pursue her now, she’d be more than justified in putting that weapon of hers to good use.”

There was no pursuit, however, and the elf made her way up the road, toward Athrogate.

“She’s seen you,” the voice commented.

The dwarf blew another smoke ring, and walked across the alley and continued on his way, his work done.

The elf moved up to where the dwarf had been standing, and with a quick and subtle glance both ways, slipped into the alley.

“Jarlaxle, I presume,” she said when she saw the drow standing before her, with his great, wide-brimmed, feathered hat and purple jodhpurs, his flamboyant white shirt opened low on his black-skinned chest, and his assortment of rings and other glittering accessories.

“I like your hat, Lady Dahlia,” Jarlaxle replied with a bow.

“Not as ostentatious as your own, perhaps,” Dahlia replied. “But it gets the attention of those I wish attentive.”

“Osten—“Jarlaxle stammered as if wounded. “Perhaps I use mine to
distract
the attention of those I wish to
harm.”

“I have other ways of doing that,” Dahlia was quick to answer, and Jarlaxle found himself smiling.

“That is quite an unusual companion you keep,” Dahlia went on. “A drow and a dwarf, side by side.”

“We are anything but common,” Jarlaxle assured her. He grinned again, thinking of another pair he knew, drow and dwarf, who had forged an amazing friendship over many decades. “But yes, Athrogate is an unusual creature, to be sure. Perhaps that is why I find him interesting, even endearing.”

“His words do not match the cut of his clothing.”

“If one can call
‘bwahaha’
words” Jarlaxle replied. “Trust me when I tell you that I have civilized him beyond my wildest expectations. Less spit and more polish.”

“But have you tamed him?”

“Impossible,” Jarlaxle assured her. “That one could fight a titan.”

“We’ll need that.”

“So Athrogate has told me, as he told me that you’ve found a place of great dwarven treasures, an ancient homeland.”

“You sound skeptical.”

“Why would you come to me? Why would an elf seek the alliance of a drow?”

“Because I need allies in this endeavor. It’s a dangerous road, and underground at that. As I’ve considered the powers that be in Luskan, it seems that the dark
elves are more reliable than the High Captains, or the pirates, and that leaves me with … you.”

Jarlaxle’s expression remained unconvinced.

“Because the place is thick with dwarf ghosts,” Dahlia admitted.

“Ah,” said the drow. “You need a dwarf most of all. One who can speak to his ancestors and keep the hordes at bay.”

The elf shrugged, not denying it.

“I’m offering you fifty percent of the take,” she said, “and I expect that take to be considerable.”

“Which fifty?”

It was Dahlia’s turn to wear a puzzled expression.

“You take the mithral and I get a mound of copper coins?” Jarlaxle explained. “I’ll take fifty, but my preferred fifty.”

“One to one,” Dahlia argued, meaning alternating picks on the booty.

“And I pick first.”

“And I, second and third.”

“Second and fourth.”

“Second and third!” Dahlia demanded.

“Have a fine journey,” Jarlaxle replied, and he tipped his hat and started away.

“Second and fourth, then,” the elf agreed before he’d gone three steps.

“Yes, I need you,” she admitted as the drow turned back to regard her. “I’ve spent months uncovering this place, and tendays more narrowing down my first choice as guide.”

“First choice?” Jarlaxle said.

“First choice,” Dahlia replied, and again the drow wore that doubting expression.

“Not Borlann the Crow?” Jarlaxle asked with a derisive snort. “Do you truly believe that one as striking as you can move about the city unseen?”

“Borlann served in the search, but was never the goal of it,” Dahlia replied. “I’d sooner take the drunks down the street with me.” She returned the drow’s sly grin. “He doesn’t think much of you, by the way, or of your many black-skinned comrades. He takes great pride in having driven you from the City of Sails.”

“Is that what you believe?”

The elf didn’t answer.

“That I am driven from the very city I now stand within?” Jarlaxle elaborated. “Or that my … associates would fear the wrath of Borlann the Crow, or any
of the High Captains—or
all
of the High Captains should they band together against us? Which they would never do, of course. It would not take much of a bribe to turn two of them against the other three, or three of them against the other two, or four of them against Borlann, if that was the course we wished. Do you, who claim to have learned the secrets of power in Luskan, doubt that?”

Dahlia considered his claims for a moment then replied, “And yet, by all accounts, drow are more scarce in the city of late.”