Streams Of Silver (4 page)
The docks harbored the roughest section of the city, where thieves, outlaws, and beggars abounded in their narrow alleys and shadowed crannies. A perpetual ground fog wafted in from the sea, blurring the already dim avenues into even more mysterious pathways.
Such was the lane the four friends found themselves turning down, the last lane before the piers themselves, a particularly decrepit run called Half-Moon Street. Regis, Drizzt, and Bruenor knew immediately that they had entered a collecting ground for vagabonds and ruffians, and each put a hand to his weapon. Wulfgar walked openly and without fear, though he, too, sensed the threatening atmosphere. Not understanding that the area was atypically foul, he was determined to approach
his first experience with civilization with an open mind.
“There’s the place,” said Bruenor, indicating a small group, probably thieves, congregating before the doorway of a tavern. The weatherbeaten sign above the door named the place the Cutlass.
Regis swallowed hard, a frightening mixture of emotions welling within him. In his early days as a thief in Calimport, he had frequented many places like this, but his familiarity with the environment only added to his apprehension. The forbidden allure of business done in the shadows of a dangerous tavern, he knew, could be as deadly as the hidden knives of the rogues at every table. “You truly want to go in there?” he asked his friends squeamishly.
“No arguing from ye!” Bruenor snapped back. “Ye knew the road ahead when ye joined us in the dale. Don’t ye be whining now!”
“You are well guarded,” Drizzt put in to comfort Regis.
Overly proud in his inexperience, Wulfgar pressed the statement even further. “What cause would they have to do us harm? Surely we have done no wrong,” he demanded. Then he proclaimed loudly to challenge the shadows, “Fear not, little friend. My hammer shall sweep aside any who stand against us!”
“The pride o’ youth,” Bruenor grumbled as he, Regis, and Drizzt exchanged incredulous looks.
The atmosphere inside the Cutlass was in accord with the decay and rabble that marked the place outside. The tavern portion of the building was a single open room, with a long bar defensively positioned in the corner of the rear wall, directly across from the door. A staircase rose up from the side of the bar to the structure’s second level, a staircase more often used
by painted, over-perfumed women and their latest companions than by guests of the inn. Indeed, merchant sailors who put into Luskan usually came ashore only for brief periods of excitement and entertainment, returning to the safety of their vessels if they could manage it before the inevitable drunken sleep left them vulnerable.
More than anything else, though, the tavern at the Cutlass was a room of the senses, with myriad sounds and sights and smells. The aroma of alcohol, from strong ale and cheap wine to rarer and more powerful beverages, permeated every corner. A haze of smoke from exotic pipeweeds, like the mist outside, blurred the harsh reality of the images into softer, dreamlike sensations.
Drizzt led the way to an empty table tucked beside the door, while Bruenor approached the bar to make arrangements for their stay. Wulfgar started after the dwarf, but Drizzt stopped him. “To the table,” he explained. “You are too excited for such business; Bruenor can take care of it.”
Wulfgar started to protest, but was cut short.
“Come on,” Regis offered. “Sit with Drizzt and me. No one will bother a tough old dwarf, but a tiny halfling and a skinny elf might look like good sport to the brutes in here. We need your size and strength to deter such unwanted attention.”
Wulfgar’s chin firmed up at the compliment and he strode boldly toward the table. Regis shot Drizzt a knowing wink and turned to follow.
“Many lessons you will learn on this journey, young friend,” Drizzt mumbled to Wulfgar, too softly for the barbarian to hear. “So far from your home.”
Bruenor came back from the bar bearing four flagons of mead and grumbling under his breath. “We’re to get our business finished soon,” he said to Drizzt, “and get back on the road. The cost of a room in this orc-hole is open thievery!”
“The rooms were not meant to be taken for a whole night,” Regis snickered.
But Bruenor’s scowl remained. “Drink up,” he told the drow. “Rat Alley is but a short walk, by the tellin’s of the barmaid, and it might be that we can make contact yet this night.”
Drizzt nodded and sipped the mead, not really wanting any of it, but hoping that a shared drink might relax the dwarf. The drow, too, was anxious to be gone from Luskan, fearful that his own identity—he kept his cowl pulled even tighter in the tavern’s flickering torchlight—might bring them more trouble. He worried further for Wulfgar, young and proud, and out of his element. The barbarians of Icewind Dale, though merciless in battle, were undeniably honorable, basing their society’s structure entirely on strict and unbending codes. Drizzt feared that Wulfgar would fall easy prey to the false images and treachery of the city. On the road in the wild lands Wulfgar’s hammer would keep him safe enough, but here he was likely to find himself in deceptive situations involving disguised blades, where his mighty weapon and battle-prowess offered little help.
Wulfgar downed his flagon in a single gulp, wiped his lips with zeal, and stood. “Let us be going,” he said to Bruenor. “Who is it that we seek?”
“Sit yerself back down and shut yer mouth, boy,” Bruenor scolded, glancing around to see if any unwanted attention had fallen upon them. “This night’s work is for me and the drow. No place for a too-big fighter like yerself! Ye stay here with Rumblebelly an’ keep yer mouth shut and yer back to the wall!”
Wulfgar slumped back in humiliation, but Drizzt was glad that Bruenor seemed to have come to similar conclusions about the young warrior. Once again, Regis saved a measure of Wulfgar’s pride.
“You are not leaving with them!” he snapped at the barbarian. “I have no desire to go, but I would not dare to remain here alone. Let Drizzt and Bruenor have their fun in some cold, smelly alley. We’ll stay here and enjoy a well-deserved evening of high entertainment!”
Drizzt slapped Regis’s knee under the table in thanks and rose to leave. Bruenor quaffed his flagon and leaped from his chair.
“Let’s be going, then,” he said to the drow. And then to Wulfgar, “Keep care of the halfling, and beware the women! They’re mean as starved rats, and the only thing they aim to bite at is your purse!”
Bruenor and Drizzt turned at the first empty alleyway beyond the Cutlass, the dwarf standing nervous guard at its entrance while Drizzt moved down a few steps into the darkness. Convinced that he was safely alone, Drizzt removed from his pouch a small onyx statuette, meticulously carved into the likeness of a hunting cat, and placed it on the ground before him.
“Guenhwyvar,” he called softly. “Come, my shadow.”
His beckon reached out across the planes, to the astral home of the entity of the panther. The great cat stirred from her sleep. Many months hid passed since her master had called, and the cat was anxious to serve.
Guenhwyvar leaped out across the fabric of the planes, following a flicker of light that could only be the calling of the drow. Then the cat was in the alley with Drizzt, alert at once in the unfamiliar surroundings.
“We walk into a dangerous web, I fear,” Drizzt explained. “I need eyes where my own cannot go.”
Without delay and without a sound, Guenhwyvar sprang to a pile of rubble, to a broken porch landing, and up to the
rooftops. Satisfied, and feeling much more secure now, Drizzt slipped back to the street where Bruenor waited.
“Well, where’s that blasted cat?” Bruenor asked, a hint of relief in his voice that Guenhwyvar was actually not with the drow. Most dwarves are suspicious of magic, other than the magical enchantments placed upon weapons, and Bruenor had no love for the panther.
“Where we need her most,” was the drow’s answer. He started off down Half-Moon Street. “Fear not, mighty Bruenor, Guenhwyvar’s eyes are upon us, even if ours cannot return their protective gaze!”
The dwarf glanced all around nervously, beads of sweat visible at the base of his horned helm. He had known Drizzt for several years, but had never gotten comfortable around the magical cat.
Drizzt hid his smile under his cowl.
Each lane, filled with piles of rubble and refuse, appeared the same, as they made their way along the docks. Bruenor eyed each shadowed niche with alert suspicion. His eyes were not as keen in the night as those of the drow, and if he had seen into the darkness as clearly as Drizzt, he might have clutched his axe handle even more tightly.
But the dwarf and drow weren’t overly concerned. They were far from typical of the drunkards that usually stumbled into these parts at night, and not easy prey for thieves. The many notches on Bruenor’s axe and the sway of the two scimitars on the drow’s belt would serve as ample deterrent to most ruffians.
In the maze of streets and alleyways, it took them a long while to find Rat Alley. Just off the piers, it ran parallel to the sea, seemingly impassable through the thick fog. Long, low warehouses lined both its sides, and broken crates and boxes cluttered the alley, reducing the already narrow passage in many places to single-file breadth.
“Nice place to be walkin’ down on a gloomy night,” Bruenor stated flatly.
“Are you certain that this is the lane?” Drizzt asked, equally unenthused about the area before them.
“By the words o’ the merchant in Ten-Towns, if one’s alive that can get me the map, the one be Whisper. An’ the place to find Whisper is Rat Alley—always Rat Alley.”
“Then on with it,” said Drizzt. “Foul business is best finished quickly.”
Bruenor slowly led the way into the alley. The two had barely gone ten feet when the dwarf thought he heard the click of a crossbow. He stopped short and looked back at Drizzt. “They’re on us,” he whispered.
“In the boarded window above and to the right of us,” Drizzt explained, his exceptional night vision and hearing having already discerned the sound’s source. “A precaution, I hope. Perhaps a good sign that your contact is close.”
“Never called a crossbow aimed at me head a good sign!” argued the dwarf. “But on, then, and keep yerself at the ready. This place reeks of danger!” He started again through the rubble.
A shuffle to their left told them that eyes were upon them from that way as well. But still they continued, understanding that they couldn’t have expected any different a scenario when they had started out from the Cutlass. Rounding a final mound of broken planks, they saw a slender figure leaning against one of the alleyway’s walls, cloak pulled tightly against the chill of the evening mist.
Drizzt leaned over Bruenor’s shoulder. “May that be the one?” he whispered.
The dwarf shrugged, and said, “Who else?” He took one more step forward, planted his feet firmly, wide apart, and addressed the figure. “I be looking for a man named Whisper,” he called. “Might that be yerself?”
“Yes, and no,” came the reply. The figure turned toward them, though the low-pulled cloak revealed little.
“What games do ye play?” Bruenor shot back.
“Whisper I am,” replied the figure, letting the cloak slip back a little. “But for sure no man!”
They could see clearly now that the figure addressing them was indeed a woman, a dark and mysterious figure with long black hair and deeply set, darting eyes that showed experience and a profound understanding of survival on the street.
he Cutlass grew busier as the night wore on. Merchant sailors crowded in from their ships and the locals were quick into position to feed upon them. Regis and Wulfgar remained at the side table, the barbarian wide-eyed with curiosity at the sights around him, and the halfling intent on cautious observation.
Regis recognized trouble in the form of a woman sauntering toward them. Not a young woman, and with the haggard appearance all too familiar on the dockside, but her gown, quite revealing in every place that a lady’s gown should not be, hid all her physical flaws behind a barrage of suggestions. The look on Wulfgar’s face, his chin nearly level with the table, Regis thought, confirmed the halfling’s fears.
“Well met, big man,” the woman purred, slipping comfortably into the chair next to the barbarian.
Wulfgar looked at Regis and nearly laughed out loud in disbelief and embarrassment.
“You are not from Luskan,” the woman went on. “Nor do you bear the appearance of any merchants now docked in port. Where are you from?”
“The north,” Wulfgar stammered. “The dale … Icewind.”
Regis hadn’t seen such boldness in a woman since his years in Calimport, and he fell that he should intervene. There was something wicked about such women, a perversion of pleasure that was too extraordinary. Forbidden fruit made easy. Regis suddenly found himself homesick for Calimport. Wulfgar would be no match for the wiles of this creature.
“We are poor travelers,” Regis explained, emphasizing the “poor” in an effort to protect his friend. “Not a coin left, but with many miles to go.”
Wulfgar looked curiously at his companion, not quite understanding the motive behind the lie.
The woman scrutinized Wulfgar once again and smacked her lips. “A pity,” she groaned, and then asked Regis, “Not a coin?”
Regis shrugged helplessly.
“A pity it is,” the woman repeated, and she rose to leave.
Wulfgar’s face blushed a deep red as he began to comprehend the true motives behind the meeting.
Something stirred in Regis, as well. A longing for the old days, running in Calimport’s bowery, tugged at his heart beyond his strength to resist. As the woman started past him, he grabbed her elbow. “Not a coin,” he explained to her inquiring face, “but this.” He pulled the ruby pendant out from under his coat and set it dangling at the end of its chain. The sparkles caught the woman’s greedy eye at once and the magical gemstone sucked her into its hypnotic entrancement. She sat down again, this time in the chair closest to Regis, her eyes never leaving the depths of the wondrous, spinning ruby.
Only confusion prevented Wulfgar from erupting in outrage at the betrayal, the blur of thoughts and emotions in his mind showing themselves as no more than a blank stare.
Regis caught the barbarian’s look, but shrugged it away with his typical penchant for dismissing negative emotions, such as guilt. Let the morrow’s dawn expose his ploy for what it was; the conclusion did not diminish his ability to enjoy this night. “Luskan’s night bears a chill wind,” he said to the woman.
She put a hand on his arm. “We’ll find you a warm bed, have no fear.”
The halfling’s smile nearly took in his ears.
Wulfgar had to catch himself from falling off of his chair.
Bruenor regained his composure quickly, not wanting to insult Whisper, or to let her know that his surprise in finding a woman gave her a bit of an advantage over him. She knew the truth, though, and her smile left Bruenor even more flustered. Selling information in a setting as dangerous as Luskan’s dockside meant a constant dealing with murderers and thieves, and even within the structure of an intricate support network it was a job that demanded a hardened hide. Few who sought Whisper’s services could hide their obvious surprise at finding a young and alluring woman practising such a trade.
Bruenor’s respect for the informant did not diminish, though, despite his surprise, for the reputation Whisper had earned had come to him across hundreds of miles. She was still alive, and that fact alone told the dwarf that she was formidable.
Drizzt was considerably less taken aback by the discovery. In the dark cities of the drow elves, females normally held higher
stations than males, and were often more deadly. Drizzt understood the advantage Whisper carried over male clients who tended to underestimate her in the male-dominated societies of the dangerous northland.
Anxious to get this business finished and get back on the road, the dwarf came straight to the purpose of the meeting. “I be needing a map,” he said, “and been told that yerself was the one to get it.”
“I possess many maps,” the woman replied coolly.
“One of the north,” Bruenor explained. “From the sea to the desert, and rightly naming the places in the ways o’ what races live there!”
Whisper nodded. “The price shall be high, good dwarf,” she said, her eyes glinting at the mere notion of gold.
Bruenor tossed her a small pouch of gems. “This should pay for yer trouble,” he growled, never pleased to be relieved of coin.
Whisper emptied the contents into her hand and scrutinized the rough stones. She nodded as she slipped them back into the pouch, aware of their considerable value.
“Hold!” Bruenor squawked as she began to tie the pouch to her belt. “Ye’ll be taking none o’ me stones till I be seeing the map!”
“Of course,” the woman replied with a disarming smile. “Wait here. I shall return in a short while with the map you desire.” She tossed the pouch back to Bruenor and spun about suddenly, her cloak snapping up and carrying a gust of the fog with it. In the flurry, there came a sudden flash, and the woman was gone.
Bruenor jumped back and grabbed at his axe handle. “What sorcerous treachery is this?” he cried.
Drizzt, unimpressed, put a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “Calm, mighty dwarf,” he said. “A minor trick and no more,
masking her escape in the fog and the flash.” He pointed toward a small pile of boards. “Into that sewer drain.”
Bruenor followed the line of the drow’s arm and relaxed. The lip of an open hole was barely visible, its grate leaning against the warehouse wall a few feet farther down the alley.
“Ye know these kind better than meself, elf,” the dwarf stated, flustered at his lack of experience in handling the rogues of a city street. “Does she mean to bargain fair, or do we sit here, set up for her thievin’ dogs to plunder?”
“No to both,” answered Drizzt. “Whisper would not be alive if she collared clients for thieves. But I would hardly expect any arrangement she might strike with us to be a fair bargain.”
Bruenor took note that Drizzt had slipped one of his scimitars free of its sheath as he spoke. “Not a trap, eh?” the dwarf asked again, indicating the readied weapon.
“By her people, no,” Drizzt replied. “But the shadows conceal many other eyes.”
More eyes than just Wulfgar’s had fallen upon the halfling and the woman.
The hardy rogues of Luskan’s dockside often took great sport in tormenting creatures of less physical stature, and halflings were among their favorite targets. This particular evening, a huge, overstuffed man with furry eyebrows and beard bristles that caught the foam from his ever-full mug dominated the conversation at the bar, boasting of impossible feats of strength and threatening everybody around him with a beating if the flow of ale slowed in the least.
All of the men gathered around him at the bar, men who knew him, or of him, nodded their heads in enthusiastic agreement with his every word, propping him up on a pedestal
of compliments to dispel their own fears of him. But the fat man’s ego needed further sport, a new victim to cow, and as his gaze floated around the perimeter of the tavern, it naturally fell upon Regis and his large but obviously young friend. The spectacle of a halfling wooing the highest priced lady at the Cutlass presented an opportunity too tempting for the fat man to ignore.
“Here now, pretty lady,” he slobbered, ale spouting with every word. “Think the likes of a half-a-man’ll make the night for ye?” The crowd around the bar, anxious to keep in the fat man’s high regard, exploded into over-zealous laughter.
The woman had dealt with this man before and she had seen others fall painfully before him. She tossed him a concerned look, but remained firmly tied to the pull of the ruby pendant. Regis, though, immediately looked away from the fat man, turning his attention to where he suspected the trouble most likely would begin—to the other side of the table and Wulfgar.
He found his worries justified. The proud barbarian’s knuckles whitened from the grasp he had on the table, and the seething look in his eye told Regis that he was on the verge of exploding.
“Let the taunts pass!” Regis insisted. “This is not worth a moment of your time!”
Wulfgar didn’t relax a bit, his glare never releasing his adversary. He could brush away the fat man’s insults, even those cutting at Regis and the woman. But Wulfgar understood the motivation behind those insults. Through exploitation of his less able friends, Wulfgar was being challenged by the bully. How many others had fallen victim to this hulking slob? he wondered. Perhaps it was time for the fat man to learn some humility.
Recognizing some potential for excitement, the grotesque bully came a few steps closer.
“There, move a bit, half-a-man,” he demanded, waving Regis aside.
Regis took a quick inventory of the tavern’s patrons. Surely there were many in here who might jump in for his cause against the fat man and his obnoxious cronies. There was even a member of the official city guard, a group held in high respect in every section of Luskan.
Regis interrupted his scan for a moment and looked at the soldier. How out of place the man seemed in a dog-infested spittoon like the Cutlass. More curious still, Regis knew the man as Jierdan, the soldier at the gate who had recognized Drizzt and had arranged for them to pass into the city just a couple of hours earlier.
The fat man came a step closer, and Regis didn’t have time to ponder the implications.
Hands on hips, the huge blob stared down at him. Regis felt his heart pumping, the blood coursing through his veins, as it always did in this type of on-the-edge confrontation that had marked his days in Calimport. And now, like then, he had every intention of finding a way to run away.