“Come now,” Bunlap chided him. “Do you claim to have no knowledge of the attacks your people have made upon human caravans and settlements? The looting, the helpless people they have slain?”
“This cannot be,” the elf protested, although in truth he was not entirely certain it might not be so. The vast forest was home to several small groups, and there was little contact between them. It was entirely possible that some of the more reclusive and mysterious elven clans had decided to take up arms against the humans.
The human leader seemed to sense the doubt in Foxfire’s voice. “I myself have done battle with wild elves,” Bunlap asserted. “I stood beside the farm folk they tried to massacre. Some of the surviving marauders have been put to work, to take the place of the men they felled with their accursed black arrows!”
“Forest People, enslaved?” the elf demanded incredulously. Even among the lawless humans of Tethyr, there were strictures against such things!
“A life for a life,” Bunlap said coldly. “Justice comes in many forms.”
For a moment Foxfire stood silent as he tried to assimilate the possibilities. But even if the man’s claim of elven attacks held some truth, they did not begin to explain all the things this particular human had done. Nor could Foxfire overlook the fact that these men had come to the forest for the purpose of taking more elves as slaves, perhaps to satisfy this bizarre and illogical code of justice. Was it possible these humans actually believed that the death or enslavement of one elf could redress the grievances caused by another?
By the sky and spirits, he swore silently, if the forest People thought that way, they would slay every human who ventured within reach of their arrows! In truth, some elves did think along these terms, and at the moment Foxfire was less inclined to disagree with them than usual.
“My tribe will not stand by to see the People enslaved. If you come to the forest again, my warriors will be here to meet you,” Foxfire said softly. “I myself will be watching for you. I know your face, and I have seen your mark. Know me by mine.”
The bone knife slashed up, tracing a tightly curved arch through Bunlap’s thick beard and up onto his cheek. With astonishing speed, the elf changed the direction of the cut, curving the knife down and then lifting it for another deft, curving slash. The man let out a roar of pain and rage as he clapped one hand to his bleeding face. Bringing his other arm up, he lashed back hard with his elbow.
And met nothing but air. The elf was gone.
“Release the dogs!” Bunlap yelled, and the men hastened to obey, although they suspected it would do no good. The animals dutifully put their noses down and circled and sniffed, but the wild elf had well and truly disappeared.
The man with the elven bow pulled a wad of dirty cloth from his pack and offered it to the leader. Bunlap pressed the makeshift bandage to his cheek and glared into the silent forest.
“Think he took the bait?” the archer ventured.
A slow, grim smile spread across the leader’s face, made ghastly by the smears of drying blood. “I would wager on it. They will come, and we’ll be ready to greet them. But mark me: that elf is mine.”
“I thought you wanted to stir up their war leaders, not take ’em out!”
Bunlap turned his cold gaze upon the archer. “My dear Vhenlar, this is no longer merely a business venture. This has become personal.”
The archer blanched. He’d heard those words before, many times, and each time as a prelude to serious trouble. The first incident had been several years back, when he and Bunlap were soldiers stationed in the fortress of Darkhold. They’d been assigned to escort an envoy from Zhentil Keep through Yellow Snake Pass. One evening he, Bunlap, and one of their charges had entered into a discussion of the dark gods, one that quickly degenerated into a quarrel. Bunlap “took matters personally” and beat his opponent nearly to death. When they learned that the injured man was a high-ranking priest of Cyric, the new god of strife, they did not stay around to see how the situation played out. They’d headed south until Bunlap thought them beyond the reach of the Dark Network, settled down in Tethyr, and built a mercenary band of considerable strength. But though Bunlap might have left the Zhentilar behind, his goals and methods had not changed for the better. In truth, there were times when Vhenlar dearly wished he could be rid of the man. His own love of profit, however, kept him at the side of the one person he feared and despised above all others.
And profit there was! Vhenlar figured that in a few years, he would have enough coin stashed away to allow him to retire in splendor. If the cost of this was a few elven lives, he, for one, would have no regrets.
Vhenlar fell into step beside his employer. As they walked, he dreamed of the wondrous things his share of the profit would buy him, and he stroked the smooth wood of his stolen elven bow with a lover’s touch.
* * * * *
Leaving Zazesspur behind, Arilyn followed the trade route north into the sun-baked flatlands that lay between the city and the Starspire Mountains. The mountains themselves were deeply forested, watered by numerous lakes and streams as well as an abundance of rain and even snow. And this was well, Arilyn thought with a touch of dark humor, considering the number of magical conflagrations that had broken out in the area in recent months!
The Harper veered off the path to follow the base of the southernmost mountain. She reigned her mare in at a thick stand of conifers and swung down from the saddle. After securing her horse, Arilyn pressed through the trees to the steep, sheer rock wall they concealed. A vertical crevice slashed through the moss-dappled rock.
Arilyn slipped into the cave’s mouth and made her way down the labyrinth of passages that led to a deep and soaring cavern. Here, hidden from the eyes of the skeptical—and the vengeful—labored the alchemist known as Tinkersdam of Gond.
It was an odd-looking lair, vast and open, yet cluttered enough to give the impression of bustling activity despite the fact that it had but one occupant. Several book-laden shelves were propped against the cave walls, and half-finished mechanical wonders littered a dozen or so long tables. Small cooking fires dotted the cave, and a muted symphony of hissing, crackling sounds rose from pots of bubbling, often luminous, substances.
Arilyn lifted her eyes to the ceiling vent, taking note of the new layers of viscous black substances staining the rocks around the overhead opening. Explosions were to be expected when dealing with Tinkersdam. Even the residents of Zazesspur no longer commented on the brief but spectacular displays of fireworks which lit the eastern skies from time to time, except to take the occasional snide jab at newly rich merchants who apparently possessed more money than taste. Arilyn had counted three such explosions since her last visit, and in truth was relieved to see that the alchemist was still hale and whole.
No one could mistake Tinkersdam for anything other than what he was. A native of Lantan, where Gond the Wondermaker, the god of inventors and artificers, was worshiped almost exclusively, Tinkersdam had the odd coloring typical for the Lantanna—only taken to extreme degrees. His sparse red hair approximated the color and texture of copper wire, his sallow skin captured the exact hue of yellowed ivory, and his large, rather bulbous eyes were a strange shade of light green that did not occur elsewhere in nature. Out of lifelong habit, Tinkersdam wore a short tunic of bright yellow—the traditional color of Lantan—and sandals on his bare feet. His plump, extremely bowed legs were hairless, as was his face—no doubt the result of the many explosions that his work occasioned.
A skilled inventor and a daring alchemist, Tinkersdam had a particular fondness for lethal gadgets that could kill or disable people in innovative ways. He had been exiled from Lantan years ago when one of his experiments blew up someone influential. He had since been invited to leave several other cities for similar reasons.
Arilyn would be the first to acknowledge that Tinkersdam, although he was undoubtedly brilliant, straddled the line between eccentricity and insanity. Yet the odd little man had become one of her most
valued allies. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship. Over the years he’d provided her with any number of gadgets and alchemically derived substances. She devised a practical use for them, in the process often finding new and unanticipated applications that delighted the alchemist.
Arilyn’s gaze swept the workshop, searching for the items she’d requested. There was never any guarantee that Tinkersdam would complete a project by the requested date. Time had little meaning to the man, and he was likely to desert a given task to work on some new and wondrously destructive toy that caught his fancy.
At the moment Tinkersdam was standing before a small stove, his attention wholly absorbed with the concoction he was stirring. Steam rose from the iron skillet, and with it the rich, earthy scent of cooking mushrooms. It was a homey enough scene, except for the agonized screams that came from the pan, and for the large brown mushrooms that lay on the table beside him, twitching frantically and emitting shrieks of horror as they awaited their fate.
Underdark mushrooms.
The realization sent a shiver up the Harper’s spine. She’d heard tales of the bizarre fungi that grew in those deep tunnels. How Tinkersdam had managed to obtain some—and what he planned to do with them—were matters she did not care to contemplate.
“How is the eye mask coming?” she asked.
The sound of her voice did not seem to startle the alchemist. Indeed, Tinkersdam did not so much as look up. Arilyn was not certain whether he’d been aware of her from the first, or whether her presence simply didn’t matter enough to register with him.
“Third table from my right,” Tinkersdam muttered in a reedy voice as he picked up a small, moldering tome. “Sauté shriekers until silent; stir in powdered effreet lungs; add two drops of congealed manticore drool,” he read aloud.
Arilyn shuddered again and went in search of the indicated item. She poked around in the clutter for several moments before she found it: a half mask of some pale, supple substance that looked remarkably like the skin of a moon elf, except for the incredibly tiny gear-works packed behind the mask’s painted eyes.
A mirror hung on one wall of the cave. Despite his undeniable lack of physical beauty, Tinkersdam was quite particular about his grooming. Arilyn went to the mirror and pressed the half mask onto her face. The thin material clung to her skin, taking on color as it warmed until it matched exactly the pale hue of her face, even to the faint blue highlights on her cheekbones. Even more remarkable were the eyes. Not only were they an exact replica of her own—large, almond-shaped, a distinctive elven shade of deep blue flecked with gold—but they even blinked from time to time in a most realistic fashion. She could see through them, yet when she closed her own eyes and raised her hand to touch the mask, she was pleased to note that the false eyes remained open. Most extraordinary of all was that Tinkersdam had managed to imbue the mask with an expression of dreamy contemplation—perfect for its intended purpose.
“How is this done? Magic?”
Tinkersdam responded with a derisive sniff. This was an attitude Arilyn could appreciate. She herself had more faith in the alchemist’s inventions than in the caprices of magic. Besides, the forest elves would sense a magical illusion more quickly than a mechanical one. Arilyn had not yet decided whether or not to attempt the mission into the forest, but of one thing she was certain: if she succeeded, it would be in no small part due to Tinkersdam’s devices.
Posing as an elf was no problem for Arilyn—at least, not for short periods of time. In many ways she favored her mother’s race, from her distinctively elven eyes to the preternatural speed of her sword play. Her pearly skin and raven-black hair were common to moon elves, and her slender form was that of an elf—although at three inches short of six feet she was far taller than most. The constant stress and struggle of her tenure in Zazesspur’s assassins’ guild had left her as finely drawn as any moon elf alive. While elven faces tended to be quite angular, hers was a smooth oval, but her ears were nearly as pointed as those of a full-blooded elf, and her features were delicate and sharp. There were little things, however, that could give her away. Not the least of these was the fact that she slept. Elves, as a rule, did not.
Most of Toril’s elves found repose in a deep, meditative state known as reverie. Arilyn had never been able to enter reverie, and when passing as an elf she had to go to extreme lengths to get the necessary rest. This mask was such a ploy. Since no elf would approach another elf in reverie except in the direst of emergencies, she could put on the mask and sleep beneath it, undisturbed.
A sharp pop interrupted her thoughts. Arilyn spun to see a tendril of black smoke wafting toward the top of the cave. Tinkersdam was neither hurt nor perturbed by this development. He regarded the smoking contents of his skillet with satisfaction, then seized a funnel and carefully poured the liquid into a glass vial.
“That should do the trick,” he said happily. At last raising his eyes to Arilyn, he inquired, “Do you sing?”
The Harper blinked. “I don’t make a habit of it.”
“A pity.” Tinkersdam stroked his bald chin and mused. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. Reaching confidently into the general debris of the table behind him, he pulled from the pile the lid of a large pot. He poured a single drop of the still-steaming fluid onto the metal and then lifted the lid into a shield-guard position.
“Be so kind as to strike,” he requested. When she hesitated, he pointed out, “The potion did no damage to a tin lid. It is unlikely to harm an elven sword!”
Seeing the logic in this, Arilyn drew her moonblade and obligingly smacked the flat of it against the makeshift shield. Immediately a deep, ringing sound rolled through the cavern, like the tolling of a giant bell might sound to someone who stood in the bell tower directly below it.
The Harper swore and clapped both hands to her sensitive ears. Tinkersdam, however, merely beamed, even though the vibrations from the “shield” ran up his arms and set his pair of chins aquiver.
“Oh, excellent! A fine result,” he shouted happily.
Still smiling broadly, Tinkersdam tossed aside the lid, then stoppered the vial with a cork and handed it to Arilyn. “You might find a use for this in your travels. Don’t drink it,” he cautioned her loudly. “At least, not on an empty stomach. Rumblings, you know.”
Since the rejoinder that came to Arilyn’s mind paled before this latest absurdity, she merely took the vial and gingerly tucked it into her pack. “The other things?” she requested, shouting to be heard above the ringing in her ears.
“Most of them,” the alchemist agreed in kind. He bustled over to the far side of the cavern and took a large, paper-wrapped bundle from a pile of similar packages. “This one is yours. I added a few new devices for you to test. Do tell me how they turn out.”
Arilyn noted the insignia of Balik—the family name of Zazesspur’s ruling pasha—adorning several of the packages. “Hasheth has been here, I see.”
“Yes, indeed. Fine lad,” the alchemist commented.
The Harper was not so sure she agreed with that assessment. Granted, the young Prince Hasheth had proven to be a valuable contact. Through him Danilo had gained access to the palace, and she herself had received much useful information about Zazesspur. It was Hasheth who had helped her set up Tinkersdam in a wondrous workshop hidden in the mountains overlooking the city, and who continued to supply the alchemist with needed ingredients, often at his own expense. Yet Arilyn could not forget the particulars of their first meeting: Hasheth had been a student assassin, and she had been his assigned prey. Although the young prince had opened a door for her into the closely held assassins’ guild and had since moved on to sample several other professional endeavors, the half-elf did not miss the predatory gleam in his black eyes whenever he regarded her.
Or perhaps she was simply becoming too accustomed to expecting the worst wherever she looked. “Soon I’ll be seeing ogres under every bed and drow in every shadow,” she muttered.
“That happened to me once,”
Tinkersdam commiserated. Apparently, his hearing slipped back into the normal range with amazing speed. “Fumes, you know. I was swatting at invisible stirges for days.”
Arilyn sighed and shouldered her package. “I was offered another assignment. I might be going away for a while.”
“Oh? We’re moving again?”
It was not an unreasonable question. An explosion in Suzail a few years back had destroyed a hefty portion of a castle belonging to an influential nobleman and forced Tinkersdam into hiding. Rather than hunt him down whenever she needed him, Arilyn found it worth her while to locate the alchemist near her current base of operations. She paid most of his expenses through the fees she earned adventuring for the Harpers and considered every copper well spent.
“You can stay here until I return. If you need anything, contact Hasheth.”
“Fine lad,” Tinkersdam repeated. “Although I do hope he stays close to Zazesspur. I’m not precisely welcome in Saradush, Ithmong, or Myratma,” he confided, naming the rest of Tethyr’s major cities.
Arilyn sighed again. “Tell me, Tinkersdam, is there any city on Toril that you haven’t blown up at least a portion of?”
“Zhentil Keep,” the alchemist responded without a moment’s hesitation. “But of course, that would take a far braver man than I.”
The comment surprised a chuckle from the Harper. “Almost sorry to hear it,” she said with a wry grin. “If any city needs a bit of forceful housecleaning, it’s that one.”
“Well, someone will get around to it sooner or later,” Tinkersdam said absently, his large green eyes roving to the glowing substance popping and bubbling in a large caldron. “Now, if you will excuse me …”
Taking the hint, Arilyn left the cavern and began the ride back to the city. She pressed her mare hard, for she wished to be in the School of Stealth’s council hall before moonrise. With the coming of night, new commissions were posted, and assassins came to bid on choice jobs. At no other time did Arilyn receive so much useful information on the underside of Zazesspurian politics.
Silver Shadows Page 4