Dissolution

by Richard Lee Byers

Chapter Ten

 

  Cloaked in the semblance of a squat, leathery-skinned orc, whose twisted leg manifestly made him unfit for service in a noble or even merchant House, Pharaun took an experimental bite of his sausage and roll. The unidentifiable ground meat inside the casing tasted rank and was gristly, as well as cold at the core.

  "By the Demonweb!" he exclaimed.

  "What?" Ryld replied.

  The weapons master too appeared to be a scurvy broken-down orc in grubby rags. Unbelievably, he was devouring his vile repast without any overt show of repugnance.

  "What?"

  The Master of Sorcere brandished his sausage. "This travesty. This abomination. "

  He headed for the culprit's kiosk, a sad little construction of bone poles and sheets of hide, taking care not to walk too quickly. His veil of illusion would make it look as if he were limping, but it wouldn't conceal the anomaly of a lame orc covering ground as quickly as one with two good legs.

  The long-armed, flat-faced goblin proprietor produced a cudgel from beneath the counter. Perhaps he was used to complaints.

  Pharaun raised a hand and said, "I mean no harm. In fact, I want to help. "

  The goblin's eyes narrowed. "Help?"

  "Yes. I'll even pay another penny for the privilege. " he said as he extracted a copper coin from his purse. "I just want to show you something. "

  The cook hesitated, then held out a dirty-nailed hand and said, "Give. No tricks. "

  "No tricks. "

  Pharaun surrendered the coins and to the goblin's surprise, squirmed around the end of the counter and crowded into the miniature kitchen. He wrapped his hand in a fold of his cloak, slid the hot iron grill with its load of meat from its brackets, and set it aside.

  "First," Pharaun said, "you spread the coals evenly at the bottom of the brazier. " He picked up a poker and demonstrated. "Next, though we don't have time to start from scratch right now, you let them burn to gray. Only then do you start cooking, with the grill positioned here. " He replaced the utensil in a higher set of brackets.

  "Sausage take longer to fry," the goblin said.

  "Do you have somewhere to go? Now, I'm going to assume you buy these questionable delicacies elsewhere and thus can do nothing about the quality, but you can at least tenderize them with a few whacks from that mallet, poke a few holes with the fork to help them cook on the inside, and sprinkle some of these spices on them. " Pharaun grinned. "You've never so much as touched a lot of this stuff, have you? What did you do, murder the real chef and take possession of his enterprise?"

  The smaller creature smirked and said, "Don't matter now, do it?"

  "I suppose not. One last thing: Roast the sausage when the customer orders it, not hours beforehand. It isn't nearly as appetizing if it's cooked, allowed to cool, then warmed again. Good fortune to you. " He clapped the goblin on the shoulder, then exited the stand. At some point, Ryld had wandered up to observe the lesson. "What was the point of that?" the warrior asked.

  "I was performing a public service," answered the wizard, "preserving the Braeryn from a plague of dyspepsia. "

  Pharaun fell in beside his friend, and the two dark elves walked on.

  "You were amusing yourself, and it was idiotic. You take the trouble to disguise us, then risk revealing your true identity by playing the gourmet. "

  "I doubt one small lapse will prove our undoing. It's unlikely that any of our ill-wishers will interview that particular street vendor any time soon or ask the right questions if they do. Remember, we'rewell disguised. Who would imagine this lurching, misshapen creature could possibly be my handsome, elegant self? Though I must admit, your metamorphosis wasn't quite so much of a stretch. "

  Ryld scowled, then wolfed down his last bite of sausage and bread.

  "Why didn't you disguise us from the moment we left Tier Breche?" he asked. "Never mind, I think I know. A fencer doesn't reveal all his capabilities in the initial moments of the bout. "

  "Something like that. Greyanna and her minions have seen us looking like ourselves, so if we're lucky they won't expect to find us appearing radically different. The trick won't befuddle them forever, but perhaps long enough for us to complete our business and return to our sedate, cloistered lives. "

  "Does that mean you've figured out something else?"

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

  The masters entered a crowded section of street outside of what was evidently a popular tavern, with a howling, barking gnoll song shaking the calcite walls. Pharaun had never had occasion to walk incognito among the lower orders. It felt odd weaving, pausing, and twisting to avoid bumps and jostles. Had they known his true identity, his fellow pedestrians would have scurried out of his way.

  As the two drow reached the periphery of the crowd, Ryld pivoted and struck a short straight blow with his fist. A hunchbacked, piebald creature - the product of a mating of goblin and orc perhaps - stumbled backward and fell on his rump.

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

  "No pangs of nostalgia?"

  Ryld glowered. "That isn't funny. "

  "No? Then I beg your pardon," Pharaun said with a smirk. "I wonder why this precinct always seems so sordid, even on those rare occasions when one finds oneself alone in a plaza or boulevard. Well, the smell, of course. We don't call them the Stench streets for nothing, hut the buildings, though generally more modest than those encountered elsewhere in the city, still wear the same gracefulshapes our ancestors cut from the living rock. "

  The teachers paused to let a spider with legs as long as broadswords scuttle across the street. The Braeryn notoriously harbored hordes of the sacred creatures. Sacred or not, Pharaun reviewed his mental list of ready spells, but the arachnid ignored the disguised dark elves.

  "That's a foolish question," said Ryld. "Why does the Braeryn seem foul? The inhabitants!"

  "Ah, but did the living refuse of our society generate the atmosphere of the district, or did that malignant spirit exist from the beginning and lure the wretched to its domain?"

  "I'm no metaphysician," said Ryld. "All I know is that somebody should clear the scavengers out of here. "

  Pharaun chuckled. "What if said clearing had occurred when you were a tyke?"

  "I don't mean exterminate them - except for the hopeless cases - but why just let them squat here in their dirt like a 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, then, that no Menzoberranyr can find contentment without someone upon whom she can look down. "

  "We have slaves. "

  "They won't do. Predicate your claim to self-respect on their existence and you tacitly acknowledge you're only slightly better than a thrall yourself. Happily, here in the Stench streets, we find a populace starving, filthy, penniless, riddled with disease, living twenty or thirty to a room, yet nominally free. The humblest commoner in Manyfolk or even Eastmyr can turn up his nose at them and feel smug. "

  "You 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 meets the goddess herself in the Braeryn. Supposedly she likes to visit here in mortal guise. The matrons may feel that the neighborhood is, in some sense, under her protection. "

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

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

  Pharaun pointed. "Look. "

  Ryld turned.

  On a curving wall below a dark elf's eye level was a sketch, this time smeared in blue. It consisted of three overlapping ovals, conceivably representing the links of a chain.

  "It's a different mark," said Ryld. "Hobgoblin maybe, though I couldn't tel
l 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. Two signs, representing two races, implying two specimens of the lesser races demented in precisely the same way? Unlikely, yet why would a single artist daub an emblem not his own?"

  "Coincidence?"

  "I doubt it, but as yet I can't provide a better answer. "

  "It's a puzzle for another day, remember?"

  "Indeed. "

  The masters walked on.

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

  Ignoring the question, Ryld pointed and said, "That's our destination. "

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

  Ryld had been born in a similar warren, had fought like a demon to escape it, and he felt a strange reluctance to venture in, as if squalor wouldn't let him escape 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 in his illusory orc 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 notion of what these little hells are like, though I confess I never entered one. "

  "Then stick close and let me do the talking. Don't stare at anybody, or look anyone in the eye. They'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 claustrophobic nightmare he remembered. Kobolds, goblins, orcs, gnolls, bugbears, hobgoblins, and a sprinkling of less common creatures squeezed into every available space. Some, the warrior knew, were runaway slaves. Others had entered the service of Menzoberranyr travelers who picked them up in far corners of the world, took them back to the city, and dismissed them without any means of making their way home. The rest were descendants of unfortunate souls in the first two categories.

  Wherever they came from, the paupers were trapped in the Braeryn, begging, stealing, scavenging, preying on one another - often in the most literal sense - and hiring on for any dangerous, filthy job anyone cared to give them. It was the only way they could survive.

  This particular lot had likewise learned to live packed intothe common space without the slightest vestige of privacy. Undercreatures babbled, cooked, ate, drank, tended a still, brawled, twitched and moaned in the throes of sickness, shook and cuffed their shrieking infants, threw dice, fornicated, relieved themselves, and, amazingly, slept, all in plain view of anyone with the ill luck to look in their direction.

  As Ryld had expected, within moments of their entrance, a pair of toughs - in this instance bugbears - slouched forward to accost them.

  With their coarse, shaggy manes and square, prominent jaws, bugbears were the largest and strongest of the goblin peoples, towering over the rest - and dark elves, too, for that matter. This pair was, by the standards of their destitute household, relatively well-fed and adequately dressed. They likely bullied tribute out of the rest.

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

  He wore what appeared to be a severed goblin hand strung around his burly neck. Drow occasionally affected similar ornaments, usually mementos of hated enemies, but they sent them to a taxidermist first. It was too bad the bugbear hadn't done the same. It would have prevented the rot and the carrion smell.

  "No," Ryld said, tossing the bugbear a shaved coin, paying the toll to pass in and out of the house. "We came to see Smylla Nathos. "

  The hulking goblinoids just looked at him, as did several others creatures. A scaly, naked little kobold tittered crazily.

  Something was wrong, and the Master of Melee-Magthere didn't know what. He felt a sudden tension and exhaled it away. Looking nervous was a bad idea.

  "Isn't this Smylla's house?" he asked.

  The shorter bugbear, who still loomed nearly as huge as an ogre, laughed and said, "No, not no more, but she still live here . . . kind of. "

  "Can we see her?" said Ryld.

  "What tor?" asked the bugbear with the severed goblin hand.

  The weapons master hesitated. He'd intended to say that he and Pharaun wished to consult Smylla in her professional capacity as a trader in information. It was essentially the truth, though that didn't matter. What did was that he hadn't expected it to provoke a hostile response.

  Pharaun stepped up beside him.

  "Smylla sold our sister Iggra the secret of how to break into a merchant's strongroom," the wizard said in a creditably surly Orcish rasp. "How to get around all the traps. . . . Only she left one out, see? It squirted acid on Sis and burned her to death. Slow. Almost got us too. It's Smylla's fault, and we come to 'talk' to her about it. "

  The smaller bugbear nodded. "You ain't the only ones wantin' that kind of talk. Us, too, but we can't get at the bitch. "

  Pharaun cocked his head. "How come?"

  "A couple tendays ago," said the bugbear with the severed hand necklace, "we decided we was tired of her bossing us and her lamps hurting our eyes. We jumped her, hit her, but she chucked one of those stones that makes a flash of light. It blinded us, and she run up to her room. " He nodded toward the head of a twisting staircase. "We can't get through the door. She locked it with magic or somethin'. "

  Pharaun snorted. "Ain't no door my brother and me can't bust through. "

  The bugbears exchanged glances. The smaller one, who, Ryld noticed, was missing several of his lower teeth, shrugged.

  "You can try," the larger one said. "Only, Smylla belongs to us, too. Hit her, bleed her, slice off a piece of her and eat it, but you can't keep her all to yourself. "

  "It's a deal," Pharaun said.

  "Come on, then. "

  The bugbears led them through the crowded room and onto the stairs, where they still had to pick their way through lounging paupers. Partway up, the brute wearing the decaying hand put it in his mouth and began slurping and sucking on it.

  At the top of the steps were a small landing and a limestone door with a rounded top. Two sentries, an orc and a canine-faced gnoll with sores on his muzzle, sat on the floor looking bored.

  The disguised teachers made a show of examining the door.

  "Can you knock it down?" Pharaun whispered.

  "When the bugbears couldn't? Don't count on it. Can you open it with magic?"

  "Probably. It's magically sealed, so a counterspell should suffice, but I don't want our friends to observe me casting it. That really would compromise my disguise. Stand where you obstruct their view and do something distracting. "

  "Right. " Ryld positioned himself in the appropriate spot and glowered up at the two bugbears. "We can open it. What loot is inside?"

  The larger bugbear scowled and, the odious object in his mouth garbling his speech a little, said, "We made a deal. It didn't say nothing about no loot. "

  "Smylla took Sis's treasure," Ryld replied. "We want it back, and extra too, for wergild. "

  "Hell with that. "

  The bugbear with the missing teeth reached for the knife tuckedthrough his belt. Ryld could see it was a butcher's tool, not a proper fighting blade, but no doubt it served in the latter capacity well enough.

  Ryld rested his hand on the hilt
of his short sword, the weapon of choice for these tight quarters, and said, "You want to fight, we'll fight. I'll slice your face off your skull and wear it like a breechcloth, but my brother and I came to kill Smylla, not you. Let's talk. If you never get the door - "

  "Open," Pharaunsaid.

  White light shone at Ryld's back, making the bugbears wince. Squinting, the warrior whirled and scrambled for the opening.

  "Hey!" yelped the smaller bugbear.

  Ryld felt a big hand fumble at his shoulder, trying to grab him, but it was an instant too slow. He followed Pharaun over the threshold and slammed the door.

  "You need to hold it shut," the wizard said.

  "I can't do it for long. "

  Leaning forward, Ryld planted his hands on the limestone slab and braced himself.

  The door bucked inward. For a split second, the dark elf's feet slid on the calcite floor, then they caught, and he held the barrier in place. Barely.

  Meanwhile, Pharaun was peering about. He gave a little cry of satisfaction, picked up a small iron bar, and set it so it overlapped the edge of the door and the jamb about halfway up. When he took his hand away, the charm remained in place.

  "This is quite a clever little device," the wizard said. "Oh, and you can let go now. "

  Pharaun turned the mechanical locks his spell of opening had disengaged, snapping each shut in its turn. It was actually the enchanted length of iron that had up to then kept the goblinoids out, but he thought he and Ryld might as well be as secure as possible. It also seemed the courteous thing to do.

  His hostess, however, didn't seem to appreciate the gesture.

  "Get out!" she croaked. "Get out, or I'll slay you with my sorcery!"

  The masters turned. Smylla Nathos had lit her sparsely furnished room with a pair of slender brass rods, the tips of which emitted a steady magical glow. They protruded from the necks of wax-encrusted wine bottles like tapers sitting in candelabra, which they perhaps were meant to resemble. Maybe Smylla missed the spellcaster's traditional mode of illumination but couldn't obtain it anymore.

  She herself lay at the limit of the light, on a cot in the shadows at the far end of the room. Pharaun could just barely make her out.

  "Good afternoon, my lady," the wizard said, bowing. "It shames me beyond measure to ignore your request. Yet should this gentleman and I pass through your door a second time, the bugbears and their ilk will rush in, and that, I think, is the very eventuality you sought to forestall. "

  "Who are you? You don't talk like an orc. "

  "My lady is a marvel of perspicacity. We are in fact drow lords come to consult you on a matter of some importance. "

  "Why are you disguised?"

  "The usual reason: To confound our enemies. May we approach? It's tedious trying to converse across the length of the room. "

  Smylla hesitated, then said, "Come. "

  Pharaun and Ryld started forward. Behind them, the bugbears were cursing, shouting threats and questions, and pounding on the far side of the door.

  After four paces, the wizard's stomach turned at yet another stench, this one humid and gangrenous. He'd half expected something of the sort, but that didn't make it any easier to bear. Even the phlegmatic Ryld looked discomfited for an instant.

  "Close enough," Smylla said, and Pharaun supposed it was.

  He had no desire to come any nearer to that wasted form with its boils and pustules, even though the enchantments bound into his mantle and Ryldscloak and dwarven armor would probably protect them from infection.

  "Can you help us?" asked Ryld.

  The sick woman leered. "Will you pay me with the magnificent great-sword you wear across your back?"

  Pharaun was somewhat impressed. The illusion of pig-faced orcishness shrouding his friend made Splitter look like a battle-axe, but Smylla's rheumy, sunken eyes had pierced that aspect of the deception.

  When he recovered from his surprise, Ryld shook his head. "No, I won't give you the sword, I worked too hard to get it, and I need it to stay alive, but if you want, I can use it to clear away the goblinoids outside. My comrade and I are also carrying a fair amount of gold. "

  Her dry white hair spread about her head, Smylla lay propped against a mound of stained, musty pillows. She struggled to hitch herself up straighter, then abandoned the effort. Apparently it was beyond her strength.

  "Gold?" she said. "Do you know who I am, swordsman? Do you know my history?"

  "I do," Pharaun said. "The gist of it, anyway. It happened after I more or less withdrew from participation in the affairs of the great Houses. "

  "What do you know?" she asked.

  "An expedition from House Faen Tlabbar," the wizard replied, "ventured up into the Lands of Light to hunt and plunder. When they returned, a lovely human sorceress and clairvoyant accompanied them, not as a newly captured slave but as their guest.

  "Why did you want to come? Perhaps you were fleeing some implacable enemy, or were fascinated by the grace and sophistication of my people and the idea of living in the exotic Underdark. My hunch is that you wanted to learn drow magic, but it's pure speculation. No outsider ever knew.

  "For that matter, why did the Faen Tlabbar oblige you? That's an even greater mystery. Conceivably someone harbored amorous feelings for you, or you, too, hadsecrets to teach. "

  "I had a way of persuading them," Smylla said.

  "Obviously. Once you reached Menzoberranzan, you made yourself useful to House Faen Tlabbar as countless minions from the lesser races had done before you. The difference being that you were accorded a certain status, even a degree of familiarity. Matron Ghenni let you dine with the family and attend social functions, where you reportedly acquitted yourself with a drowlike poise and charm. "

  "I was their pet," said Smylla, sneering at the memory, "a dog dressed in a gown and trained to dance on its hind legs. I just didn't know it at the time. "

  "I'm sure many saw you that way. Perhaps some saw something else. From all accounts, Matron Ghenni behaved as if she regarded you as a ward, just one notch down from a daughter, and with the mistress of the Fourth House indulging you, few would dare challenge your right to comport yourself like a Menzoberranyr noble. Indeed, no one did, until she turned against you. "

  "Until I fell ill," said the sorceress.

  "Quite. Was it a natural disease, bred, perhaps, by the lack of the searing sunlight that is a natural condition for your kind? Or did an enemy infect you with poison or magic? If so, was the culprit someone inside House Faen Tlabbar, who saw you as a rival for Ghenni's favor, or the agent of an enemy family, depriving their foes of a resource?"

  "I was never able to find out. That's funny coming from me, isn't it?"

  "Ironic, perhaps. At any rate, several priestesses tried to cure you, but for some reason, the magic failed, whereupon Ghenni summarily expelled you from her citadel. "

  "Actually," Smylla said, "she sent a couple trolls, slave soldiers, to murder me. I escaped them and the castle, too. Afterward, I tried to offer my services to other Houses, noble and merchant alike, but no door would open to a human who'd lost the favor of Faen Tlabbar. "

  "My lady," said Pharaun, "if it's any consolation, you were still receiving precisely the same treatment we would have given a member of our own race. No dark elf would abide the presence of anyone afflicted with an incurable malady. The Spider Queen taught us the weak must die, and in anycase, what if the sickness was contagious?"

  "It's not a consolation. "

  "Fair enough. To continue the tale: Unwelcome anywhere else, you made your way to the Braeryn. Despite your infirmity, some magic remained within your grasp, and you employed it to cow the residents of this particular warren into providing you with a private space in which to live. I daresay that wasn't easy. Then, using divinatory rituals, your natural psionic gifts, and whatever secrets you'd discovered during your time with House Faen Tlabbar, you set up shop as a broker of knowledge. At first, o
nly the lower orders availed themselves of your services, then gradually, as your reputation grew, even a few of my people started consulting you. We wouldn't let you dwell among us, but some were willing to risk a brief contact if they anticipated sufficient advantage from it. "

  "I never heard of you," said Ryld, "but within the district, your reputation seems to be considerable. We've been asking questions all day, and more than one suggested we seek you out. "

  The door banged particularly loudly, and he glanced back to make sure the bugbears weren't breaching it.

  "That's all I know of your saga," said Pharaun, "but I infer from the hostility of your cohabitants that a new stanza has begun. "

  "I suppose I couldn't bluff them forever," Smylla said. "My powers, sorcerous and psionic alike, are all but gone, devoured by my malady. Once I acquired my stock in trade primarily through scrying, divinations, and such. In recent years, I've cajoled my secrets from a web of informers, whom I betray one to the other. "

  The withered creature smirked.

  "Well," said Ryld, "I hope you teased out the one we need. "

  She coughed. No, it was a laugh. "Even if I did, why would I share it with you, dark elf?"

  "I told you," the warrior said, "we can protect you from the bugbears and goblins. "

  "So can my little iron trinket. "

  "But eventually, if you simply remain in here, you'll die of hunger and thirst. "

  "I'm dying anyway. Can't you tell? I'm not an old woman - I'm a baby as you drow measure time! - but I look like an ancient hag. I just don't want to perish at the hands of those miserable undercreatures. I've ruled here for fifteen years, and if I die beyond their reach, I win. Do you see?"

  "Well, then, my lady," said Pharaun, "your wish suggests the terms of a bargain. Oblige us, and we'll refrain from admitting the bugbears. "

  She made a spitting sound and said, "Admit them if you must. I loathe the brutes, but I hate you dark elves more. It was you who made me as I am. I bartered information with you for as long as I had something to gain, but now that the disease is finally killing me, you can all go to the Abyss where your goddess lives, and burn. "

  Pharaun might have replied that as far as he could tell, Smylla had sealed her own fate on theday she decided to descend into the Underdark, but he doubted it would soften her resolve.

  "I don't blame you," he said, making a show of sympathy. It wouldn't have deceived any drow, but even though she'd trafficked with his race for decades, perhaps she still had human instincts. "Sometimes I hate other dark elves myself. I'd certainly despise them if they served me as they've treated you. "

  She eyed him skeptically. "But you're the one who's different from all the others?"

  "I doubt it. I'm a child of the goddess. I follow her ways. But I've visited the Realms that See the Sun, where I learned that other races think and live differently. I understand that by the standards of your own people, we've treated you abominably. "

  For a moment, she looked up at him as if no one had commiserated with her about anything since that long-lost season when she was the belle, or at least the coveted curiosity, of the revels and balls.

  She said, "Do you think a few gentle words will make me want to help you?"

  "Of course not. I just don't want your bitterness to get in the way of your good sense. It would be a pity if you turned your back on your salvation. "

  "What are you saying?"

  "I can take away your sickness. "

  "You're lying. How could you do what the priestesses cannot?"

  "Because I'm a wizard. " Pharaun snapped his fingers and dissolved his mask of illusion. "My name is Pharaun Mizzrym. You may have heard of me. If not, you've surely heard of the Masters of Sorcere. "

  She was impressed, though trying not to show it.

  "Who aren't healers," she said.

  "Whoare transmuters. I can change you into a drow, or, if you prefer, a member of another race. Whatever we choose, the transformation will purge the sickness from your new body. "

  "If that's true," she said, "then why do your people fear illness?"

  "Because this remedy is inappropriate for them. It's unthinkable for a drow, one of the goddess's chosen people, to permanently assume the form of a lesser creature except as a punishment. Also, most wizards can't cast the spell deftly enough to purge a disease. It requires a certain facility, which happily, I possess. "

  He grinned.

  "And you'll use it to help me?"

  "Well, to aid myself, really. "

  The soothsayer scowled, pondering the offer.

  Eventually she said, "What do I have to lose?"

  "Exactly. "

  "But you have to change me first. "

  "No, first of all, we must establish that you do indeed possess the information my colleague and I require. We're seeking a number of runaway males hailing from noble and humble residences alike,"

  "We have a handful of drow hiding out in the Braeryn. Some are sick like me. Some are outcast for some other offense. A couple are just taking a long illicit holiday from their responsibilities and female relations. I can tell you where to find most of them. "

  "I'm sure," said Pharaun, "but I imagine they've resided here for a while, have they not? We're seeking rogues of more recent vintage. Menzoberranzan has suffered a mass migration in recent tendays. "

  Smylla frowned. From a subtle shift of expression, the mage knew she was deciding whether or not to lie.

  "More drow males than usual have visited the Braeryn," she said. "Indulging their most sordid impulses, I assumed, but as far as I know they didn't stay here. If they did, I don't know where. "

  Ryld sighed. Pharaun knew how he felt. Generally speaking, the wizard relished a baffling, brain-cramping puzzle, but even he was growing impatient at their lack of progress.

  Given the lack of any sensible leads, he resolved to follow where intuition led. Still caught up in his role of sympathizer, he dared to step to the cot and pat Smylla on her bony shoulder. She gasped. In all likelihood, no one had touched her for a long while, either.

  "Don't abandon hope," Pharaun said. "Perhaps we can still make a trade. Fortunately, my comrade and I are interested in other matters as well. Has anything peculiar occurred in the Braeryn of late?"

  The clairvoyant rasped out another painful-sounding laugh.

  "You mean aside from the fact that last tenday, the animals rose up against me?"

  "I do find that interesting. As you confessed, your magical talents withered away some time ago. Since then, you've dominated the goblins through bluff and force of personality, and it worked until a few days ago. What changed? Where did the undercreatures find the courage to turn against you? Have you noticed anything that might account for it?"

  "Well," said Smylla, "it could just be they saw me failing physically, but - " Her cracked lips stretched into a grin. "You're good, Master Mizzrym. You give me a smile, friendly conversation, a soft touch on the arm, and my tongue starts to flap. That's loneliness for you. But I will have my cure before I give up anything of importance. "

  "Very sensible. " Pharaun extracted an empty cocoon from one of his pockets. "What do you wish to become?"

  "One of you," she said, leering. "I once heard a philosopher say that everyone becomes the thing he hates. "

  "He must have been a cheery fellow to have about. Now, brace yourself. This will only take a moment, but it may hurt a little. "

  Employing greater care than usual, he recited the incantation and used the ridged silken case to write a symbol on the air.

  Magic shrilled through the air, and the temperature plummeted. For a moment, the whole room rippled and shimmered, then the distortion concentrated itself on Smylla's shriveled body. Tendons standing out in her neck, she screamed.

  Beyond the door, one of the bugbears shouted, "We want to get even, too! We had a bargain!"

  Smylla's sores faded away, and her emaciated form fille
d out into a healthy slimness. Her ashen skin darkened to a gleaming black, her blue eyes turned red, and her ears grew points. Her features became

  more delicate. Her snowy hair thickened, changing from brittle and lusterless to wavy and glossy.

  "The pain went away," she breathed. "I feel stronger. "

  "Of course," Pharaun said.

  She stared at her hands, then sat up, rose from the cot, and tried to walk. At first she moved with an invalid's caution, but gradually, as she proved to herself that she wouldn't fall, that hesitancy passed. After a few seconds, she was striding, jumping, and spinning like an exuberant little girl testing her strength, her grimy nightshirt flapping about her.

  "You did it!" she said, and the pure, uncalculated gratitude in her crimson eyes showed that even wearing the flesh of a dark elf maiden, she was still human at the core.

  Though it was foreign to his own nature, Pharaun found her appreciation rather gratifying. Still, he hadn't transformed her to bask in her naive sentimentality but to elicit some answers. "Now," he said, "please, tell us. "

  "Right. " She took a deep breath to compose herself and said, "I do believe something emboldened the undercreatures in this house. What's more, I think it's aftected goblinoids throughout the Braeryn. "

  "What is it?" asked Ryld.

  "I don't know. "

  The warrior grimaced.

  "What led you to infer this agency?" Pharaun asked. "I assume you were housebound even before you barricaded yourself in your room. "

  "I saw a change in the brutes who live here. They were surly, insolent, and foul-tempered, ready to maim and kill one another at the slightest provocation. "

  Ryld hitched his shoulders, working stiffness out or shifting Splitter to lie more comfortably across his back.

  "How is that different than normal?" asked the weapons master.

  Smylla scowled at him and said, "All things are relative. The creatures exhibited those qualities to a greater extent than before, and whenever I heard tidings from beyond these walls, they suggested the entire precinct shared the same truculent humor. "

  Pharaun nodded. "Did you hear about tribal emblems appearing in the streets?"

  "Yes," she said. "That bespeaks a kind of madness, don't youthink?"

  "Maybe in one or two thralls," said Ryld. "What of it? You promised my friend information. Tell us something we don't already know, and I mean facts, not your impressions. "

  The clairvoyant smiled. "All right. I was building up to it. Every few nights a drum beats somewhere in the Braeryn, calling the lower orders to some sort of gathering. Many of the occupants of this house clear

  out. With what little remains of my clairvoyance, I've sensed many others skulking through the streets, all converging on a common destination. "

  "Nonsense," said Ryld. "Why has no drow patrol heard the signal and come to investigate?"

  "Because," said Pharaun, "the city possesses enchantments to mute sound. "

  "Well, maybe. " Ryld turned back to Smylla. "Where do the creatures go, and why?"

  "I don't know," she said, "but perhaps, with my health and occult talents restored, I could find out. " She beamed at Pharaun. "I'd be happy ro try. I fulfilled the letter of our bargain, but I do realize I haven't provided you with all that much in exchange for the priceless gift you gave me. "

  "That remark touches on the question of your future," the wizard said. "You'd have no difficulty reestablishing your dominion here in the Stenchstreets, but why live so meanly? I could use an aide of your caliber. Or, if you prefer, I can arrange your safe repatriation to the World Above. "

  As he spoke, he surreptitiously contorted the fingers of his left hand, expressing himself in the silent language of the dark elves, a system of gestures as efficient and comprehensive as the spoken word.

  "I think - " Smylla began, then her eyes opened wide.

  She whimpered. Ryld pulled his short sword out of her back, and she collapsed. Pharaun skipped back to keep her from toppling against him.

  "Despite her previous experiences," the lanky wizard said, "she couldn't quite leave off trusting drow. I suppose it shows you can take the human out of the sunshine, but not the sunshine out of the human. " He shook his head. "This is the second female I've slain or murdered by proxy in the brief time since our adventure began, and I didn't particularly want to kill either one of them. Do you suspect an underlying metaphysical significance?"

  "How would I know? I take it you bade me kill the snitch because she was feeding us lies. "

  "Oh, no. I'm convinced she was telling the truth. The problem was that I deceived her. Her metamorphosis didn't really purge her disease. It was a bit tricky just suppressing it for a few minutes. "

  Pharaun stepped back again to keep the spreading pool of blood from staining his boots, and Ryld cleaned the short sword on the dead human's bedding.

  "You didn't want to leave her alive and angry to carry tales to Greyanna," the weapons master said.

  "It's unlikely they would have found one another, but why take the chance?"

  "And you asked Smylla about the marks on the walls. You're just too cursed curious to let the subject go. "

  Pharaun grinned. "Don't be silly. I'm the very model of single-minded determination, and I was asking to further our mission. "

  Ryld glanced at the door and the iron bar. They were still holding.

  "What does the strange behavior of goblins have to do with the rogue males?" he asked.

  "I don't know yet," Pharaun answered, "but we have two oddities occurring at the same time and in the same precinct. Doesn't it make sense to infer a relationship?"

  "Not necessarily. Menzoberranzan has scores of plots and conspiracies going on at any given time. They aren't all connected. "

  "Granted. However, if these two situations are linked, then by inquiring into one, we likewise probe the other. You and I have experienced a depressing lack of success picking up the trail of our runaways. Therefore, we'll investigate the lower orders and see where that path takes us. "

  "How will we do that?"

  "Follow the drum, of course. "

  The door banged.

  "First," said Ryld, "we have to get out of here. "

  "Easily managed. I'll remove the locking talisman from the door, then use illusion to make us blend with the walls. In a minute or two, the residents will break the door down. When they're busy abusing Smylla's corpse and ransacking her possessions, we'll put on goblin faces and slip out in the confusion. "