Downshadow

TEN

Bath's eyes narrowed. That was the only sign of unease he allowed himself-a slight squint-at her appearance. Otherwise, sirring back in his booth at the Knight 'n Shadow after a night of drinking, an open bottle of brandy before him, the dwarf might have seemed perfectly at ease. No one could see the conflict inside him, which he drank to pacify. "You," Rath said. "Me," she replied.

The red-haired half-elf slid casually onto the bench across from him. She was quite fetchingly attired in flattering black breeches and a green doublet trimmed in gold, puffed at the throat and wrists. The lady threw her legs-long, sinuous, smooth legs-across the edge of the table and leaned back on her right hand. Her left hand, still in view, danced along her knee. Her deep gray eyes appraised him wryly.

Rath couldn't deny a stir in his loins. Strange that she would affect him so. The curve of her hips, the lines of her face-perhaps that was simply her way. Mayhap it was the drink.

The dwarf silently inclined the bottle of brandy toward her.

"No, my thanks," she said with a sweet smile.

He poured himself another. "You're taking an awful risk coming to me."

"What can I say? I'm brave." Fayne waved to the serving lass for wine. "All passes "well in Downshadow, I trust?" Rath only stared at her silently.

When the wine came in a chipped bowl, Fayne raised it to her lips and drank it down greedily, more like a beast than a woman. Rath liked that, too.

"Aye?" Fayne blushed and adjusted her seat. "You're wondering about me?"

"Weighing you." Rath ran his hand across his grizzled chin. He hadn't shaved, he realized, and took his hand away. To look anything but impeccable filled him with self-loathing. "Judging, specifically, whether you purposely arranged matters for me to meet Shadowbane. It seems very much in character."

Fayne put a hand to her throat. "My dear" she said. "Certainly not. Why, I would never so much as go near that foul creature, even for a thousand dragons. The very idea!" She gasped in mock offense, then went back to smiling. "And have no fear of any tension between us, either: Ours was a legitimate disagreement regarding coin. We are both professionals-I bear no grudges, and I trust you do not either."

Though she smiled broadly, her eyes betrayed nothing.

Rath shrugged. He drained the last of the brandy from the bottle and waved for another.

"You ought take care with such strong drink," Fayne said. "Or does your dwarf stomach ward you from its ill effects?"

Erik Scott de Bie

Downshadow

Ill effects, Rath mused. It would be worse if he did not drink.

The second bortle came, and he snatched it from the tavern wench with a scowl.

He hated this-hated his occasional and inconsolable desire for drink. It reminded him of his dwarf blood, and that heritage was one of the things he most hated about himself. Also failure and his urges. He hated that he could not master himself.

The need for drink had first come before he had shaved his beard and fled his homeland for the monastery hidden deep in the mountain. Training among the monks had suppressed this desire to connect with his hated blood-for a time, at least. He had drunk himself to a stupor just before he killed the masters of the monastery, took their most sacred of swords, and fled to Waterdeep. And for a while, with the blood he spilled almost as easily as brearhing, he had not felt the urges.

Until this night-until that thrice-cursed Shadowbane.

Was this the third time he would drink to excess?

"Rough eve?" Fayne asked, pointing to the empty bottles-three of them.

Hard as it was-and it was hard, indeed-Rath set the bottle back on the table and pulled his gaze away from it. He still thought about it-craved the sweet fire on his tongue and in his belly, dulling his base impulses-but she could not see his mind.

"What do you know of it, girl?" Rath asked. "I am a master at my art-I have never been defeated, or I would be dead." He was saying too much. It was the liquor in his stomach, saturating his blood and making him weak. Making him into a dwarf, when he should be free.

"And yet," Fayne said, "you look like a man who bears a vendetta. Against a foe who left you alive, perhaps?"

Rath would dance to her steps no more. "What do you want?"

"The question," Fayne said, "is more correctly, do I know what you want?"

The dwarf waved. "I want nothing."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure." Fayne took a slip of parchment from the scrip satchel she had set on the table and showed it to him. It had a single long word on it. A name.

He read the parchment and his eyes narrowed. "You know this man?" he asked. "Not just know of him, but you know him?"

"Indeed!" She nodded. "It's only a matter of time before I have his face, too-and I'm sure that would be worth something to you." She reached across the table and laid her fingers across his wrist. "And perhaps I can think of a few other things, aye?"

Rath looked at her hand on his arm. His face remained expressionless.

"I had thought," he said, "that your inclinations did not match mine." He nodded to the serving lass, who was delivering a heavy tray of tankards to a group of half-ores. "From your kiss with yon wench of yesterday."

"You noticed," Fayne said. "Would you like to see it againperhaps in a more intimate setting? Waterdeep is the city of coin, after all."

"You mean-" Rath grimaced. "How disgusting."

"You'd be surprised," she said. "Call me… free of mind. I can do many things-even dwarves." She winked. "Especially dwarves."

Rath curled his lip. "Offer me coin, or begone-I'll have nothing else of you."

Fayne pouted. "What a pity."

Rath drank his brandy down and poured another. Fayne took out a second parchment, this with two words written on it, and passed it across the table. He looked at the name.

"Interesting," he said. "The first shall be my reward for this? Why?"

"This is personal," she said. "Someone I've hated for a long, long time." Her face and voice were deadly serious. "You are a professional-I do not think you could understand that."

It was Rath's turn to smile-yet it might have been the brandy. "You'd be surprised at what I would understand." He chuckled. "I am very familiar with hatred."

Fayne paused at that. "Mmm," she said. "Well. I shall deliver your payment-as noted on that parchment-upon completion. Aught else?"

As quickly as a snake might lunge, Rath reached across the table and seized the lace at her collar, wrenching her face close to his own. Fayne went pale.

"You are afraid," he whispered. "Why?"

Fayne blinked. Her face was calm, but her eyes were fearful. "Release me," she said. "Release me, or-"

"Or you will strike me?" Rath smiled. "I could kill you in a heartbeat."

To demonstrate, Rath gave her face a flick with his fingers, splitting open her upper lip. She didn'r wince, and he almost respected her for that. Almost.

He laid his other hand around her neck. "Answer my question."

The woman licked where he had broken her lip. "Dreams," she said.

Rath relaxed his grip. "Dreams?"

"A girl-a girl in blue fire." Her eyes narrowed and her lip curled. "Know one?"

The dwarf sighed and released her to flop back to the bench. He leaned back, drained.

Fayne sucked her broken lip. "So you've caught me," she said. "I suppose I dream of wenches after all-but that isn't a fault, aye?" Discomfited as she was, she winked.

Rath understood something about her then: how she used allurement to fight anxiety. He smiled wryly. So he wasn't the only one who demeaned himself in moments of weakness.

He pulled his hand away. "Within three nights," he said, and gestured for her to depart.

If Fayne had gone then, it would have been well, but instead her eyes held him fast. She reached casually across and plucked up his hand. She rubbed it against her cheek, teasing her lips along his thumb. His arm tingled, and his hand looked blasphemously dark against her skin.

Long after she left the table, her touch lingered.

Rath folded the parchment upon which she'd named his mark and slid it into his black robe. He raised the brandy to his trembling lips, but the cool liquid tasted like ash on his tongue. He threw the bottle aside with a hiss.

Even drink did him no good now. She had ruined it for him.

He needed a woman, he knew, but not her. Not that faceless creature.

His sharp eyes fell on the serving lass. She had smallish breastswell enough-and a strong, rounded backside. He wouldn't enjoy it, he knew, but he had no choice. He wouldn't go so far as ro say he wanred her, but he knew that he needed her.

Needed to drive his demons away-to forget.

"Girl," he said across the tavern, and she stiffened. He raised the mostly empty bottle of brandy. "Come. Drink with me."

He laid gold on the table.