Downshadow

TWO

The Knight 'n Shadow was a two-story tavern, connected by a long, poorly lit staircase that spanned two worlds: Waterdeep above, and Downshadow below.

The Sea Knight tavern, which previously occupied the site, had utterly collapsed in 1425. Whether the result of a wizards' duel or a bout of spellplague (the accounts of locals differed), no one could ever say for certain. Some enterprising miner had dug out the cellar and discovered its connection to Undermountain. He built stairs, platforms for sitting, and a rope ladder, hired burly, ugly guards with spears to keep the monsters and coinless hunters at bay, and the shadow-dark half of the tavern-was born. The knight above ground grew shabby and dingy, like a sheet of parchment soaking up blood from below. It absorbed the stink of Downshadow and became the same sort of place: a squatting ground for unsuccessful treasure hunters, coin-shy adventurers, and other criminals. Men like Rath.

The dwarf savored the tavern's duality. It reminded him of himself: smooth faced, even handsome on the surface, but hard as steel beneath. Perfect for his line of work.

Quite at ease in his heavy black robe despite the moist heat of the shadow below, Rath sipped his ale, ignoring the two dwarves wholike all dwarves who approached him-had come to test their mettle. Like all dwarves in every wretched land he visited, he mused.

They had seated themselves, uninvited, at his table, and had stared at him without speaking for the last hundred count. The first-an axe fighter with a thick black beard tied in four bunches that brushed his hard, round belly-sipped at his tankard. The other-a dwarf with a thick red-gold beard that spilled over his wide chest-was trying hard not to let Rath catch him laughing. He'd cover his mouth so as not to erupt with laughter, but the sounds that escaped his fingers were reedy and almost girlish-grating in Rath's ears.

Finally, when the stench of the dwarves had grown too much for his nose, Rath said, in a mild, neutral tone, "May I help you gentles in some way?"

The two dwarves looked at one another as though sharing some private joke.

Blackbeard smirked at Rath. "Lose a bet?"

It was the smooth face. Dwarves could respect a bald pate, as many went bald at a young age, but to have no beard was practically a crime against the entire dwarf race.

The red-bearded one let loose a loud burst of his childish laughter, as though this was the funniest jest he had ever heard, and slapped the table. Rath's tankard of watered ale toppled, spilling its contents across the grubby wood and into his lap.

Anger flared-hot dwarf anger that was his birthright. Immediately he rose, and the pair rose with him, hands touching steel. Their eyes blazed dangerously.

"Now, now, boy," said the smiling Blackbeard, hand going for a knife at his belt.

Cold swept through Rath, smothering his natural reaction. It was a trick, he realized, so he did not meet their challenge. Instead, he waved for more ale, then sat down and began picking at his black robe, unable to keep the disdain from his face. He'd just had his clothes laundered.

The dwarves watched Rath warily as he sat, and he knew their game. That had been a move calculated to provoke a brawl. Now, though, their trick spoiled, they stood uneasily, halfway to their. seats, half standing. Rath found it amusing and allowed himself the tiniest smile.

"You're just going to sit there?" asked Blackbeard. "After I insult you?"

"Obviously," said Rath.

Redbeard chuckled, but Blackbeard scowled and cut his companion off with a hiss. He leaned in close. "What kind of dwarf are you that won't rise to fight?"

"A kind more pleasant than yours, it seems."

Blackbeard's race went a little redder, and his red-bearded friend stopped laughing. The eyes in the tavern turned toward them and Rath could hear conversations subsiding.

Rath wondered if these were native dwarves or foreigners. The dwarves of Waterdeep were few enough, but trade and coin were good in the city. Thus they came, those more accustomed to the merchant's scales than hammer and pick. Plenty of mining went on to employ those with traditional skills, in the bowels of fabled Undermountain or in the new neighborhoods popping up all over the city. In UnderclifF, beneath the eastern edge of the old city, dwarves sculpted homes out of the mountainside (illicitly or not). Or in the Warrens, where they could dwell amongst others their own size.

Rath had never considered going to either of those cesspools, and he had no drive to dig or mine. These two did not look like builders or diggers-more like fighters. Foreigners, he decided-sellswords or adventurers, the kind who itched for trouble. He could see it in their bearing and in their confident glares. Besides, had they been Waterdhavian, they might have heard of the beardless, robed dwarf who stalked Downshadow and thus known better than to bother him.

The beardless dwarf, for true, he mused. He hadn't thought of himself as a dwarf in some time-not since he had shaved his beard on his twentieth winter solstice, forty years gone.

"I don't like being ignored," Blackbeard said finally, unable to hold back his anger. "You get on your feet, or Moradin guide me, I'll cut your throat where you sit." He drew his knife.

The red-bearded dwarf gave the same wheezing giggle and reached for his own steel.

Rath opened his mouth to speak, but a murmured "sorry" stole the dwarves' attention. The serving lass with her bright red hair and high skirt came and left his ale, sweeping up the coppers he'd set on the table. Rath thanked her without looking up-without paying her the slightest attention. The other dwarves ogled her, as sellswords are wont, and Rath felt queasy.

"You going to say something?" asked Blackbeard. "Or am I going to say it for you?"

At that, Rath had to accept that they weren't going to go away. He took up his tankard and sipped. Nothing for it, he thought, but to deal with the situation.

"Your Moradin," he said softly over his tankard, "weeps for his people."

The dwarves looked surprised at the sound of his gentle voice. "Care to say that again, soft-chin?" said Blackbeard, his voice dangerous.

Rath set his ale on the table and folded his hands. "Do you know why so many of your gods have faded and died since the world before?"

The two dwarves stared. Redbeard uttered a nervous giggle that died halfway through.

"It is because of faith like yours-that of weak, unquestioning dwarves," said Rath. "The gods thrive upon courage, and when you fear the truth, the gods become weak."

"What?" The black-bearded dwarf was aghast, and the others face was turning red as his beard. "How dare you?"

"You bluster and boast, but I see fear in your eyes-cowardice that would shame your fathers. You have never questioned your heritage, but accepted it without thought, and so you do not know what it is to be a dwarf. I know this, and I choose not to accept it. You…" Rath looked at them directly for the first time, "you do not deserve to be dwarves. You are nothing."

His speech had exactly the effect he had expected-expected, not merely hoped for. Rath was not a dwarf given to hope.

The black-bearded dwarf drew his dagger and spat at Rath, hitting his tankard. "You beardless thin-blood," he snarled. "You take that back, or you draw and fight me."

Redbeard giggled again-malevolently.

Rath picked up his tainted tankard and looked at it distastefully. He made no move to draw his sword-sacred to his order-from the gold-leafed scabbard at his side.

"It is simply the truth," he replied.

Blackbeard growled low like a murderous dog. "You insult your blood, smooth-face. Take it back!" He prodded at Rath with his blade. "Take it!"

"As you wish," he murmured.

Rach flicked his half-filled tankard in the air to draw their eyes. They looked.

In a blur of motion, Rath twisted the dagger out of the black-bearded dwarves hand and plunged it-to the hilt-into his companion's right lung. Redbeard looked down at the hilt sticking out of his ribs and his giggle turned into a wet cough.

Blackbeard just watched dumbly as the tankard fell and clattered to the floor, splitting open and sending ale over his boots.

The dwarf looked mutely at his unexpectedly empty hand, then at Rath, then at his companion, who gaped down at his injury. As if on cue, the red-bearded dwarf's eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he slumped in his chair.

"Really," Rath said. "Why would you stab your companion like that?"

The dwarf looked at him again, eyes wide, and they went even wider when Rath smiled. It was not a pretty smile-handsome enough, but cold and sharp as drawn steel. The dwarf didn't bother to catch his ally but turned and ran for the stairs.

Trembling hands pawed at his side. Rath glanced down at the panting, wheezing dwarf and looked at him indifferently. The dwarf, mouthing pleas for help that went unanswered, fell to the floor with a wet burble that might have been a laugh.

Rath waved for more ale.

"Here's for the tankard-and the blood," he said, pressing silver into the terrified serving woman's palm.

In a secluded corner, behind the half-closed velvet curtain drawn for private dealings, a pair of gray eyes set in a feminine half-elf face sparkled as they watched, with some bemusement, the beardless dwarf defending himself against his assailants. A trifle unsubtle, that one, but some matters did not demand subtlety.

"That," said her patron, indicating her breast with one languid, silk-gloved finger, "is a passing fair brooch."

"It pleases?" Fayne ran her delicate fingers over the edges of the dragon-shaped brooch. "I just obtained it today. Had to elude the fastest red-haired chit of a guard, but I managed it."

She went back to watching the beardless dwarf, and she giggled when he drove one antagonist to the ground and scared the other away with a glance. Hesitant tavern-goerestepped forward to recover the bleeding dwarf-Rath did not so much as acknowledge their presence.

That sort of man, Fayne thought, could be very helpful in certain situations. She would have to see about acquiring hold of his stringscoin-pouch or breeches. Either. Both.

"Whence?" Her patron pointed at the brooch.

Time for business, it seemed. Fayne turned to him. "A bumbling old fool of a merchant up on the Dragon," she said. "I've been robbing him blind for two tendays now."

"Different faces?" Her patron's tone was mild.

"What am I, dull? Of course." She rolled her eyes. "Art is pointless if you don't use it."

"Quite right."

Her patron rubbed at his cheek, where she could see two small scratches that were the only flaw on his otherwise smooth, ever-bemused face. His elf cheekbones were thin and high, his nose sharp without being aquiline, and his eyes a rich gold that matched the soft hue of his skin and his deeper golden hair. He wore a fashionable doublet and coat, rich but not attention grasping, and several rings over his white silk gloves. Each high, pointed ear bore several jewels, and though a great flounce of lace hid it, she knew he wore a thin silver chain around his throat with a locket that she'd never seen him open.

He bore no weapon, but Fayne knew he needed no such thing.

"So to business," Fayne said. "Who shall I ruin this time? Another lordling, perhaps? You'll read about the Roaringhorn girl on the morrow." She smiled at the memory.

He nodded. "Someone more important." Plucking a pink quill from nowhere-it might have come from his sleeve or from the air-he wrote three words, two short, one longer, on a scrap of parchment, without benefit of ink. This he pushed across the table to her.

"Who-?" Fayne furrowed her brow in thought. Then her eyes widened. "You don't mean it." Her hands trembled in her excitement.

He straightened his gloves. "You've prepared for this for some time, yes?"

"Decades," she said. "Suppose that doesn't mean much to you. Just a wink of an eye."

He smiled and handed her a scroll bound with a burgundy leather thong and his seal, a silver shooting star surrounded by a ring of tiny flames.

"I'll do it." She stuffed the instructions into her bodice. "Besha's tits, I'd do it for free."

He put a hand up, and she froze as though he'd smitten her with a binding spell. "Have a care upon which goddess's bosom you swear, dear one," he said. "And mind: as much as you've looked forward to this, take care." He slid his fingers along her cheek. "Do not grow careless."

She smiled. "You know me-I am the picture of care."

He didn't look convinced. "I am very familiar with hatred, my little witch," he said. "And I know well the damage it can cause. Do not let it control you."

She closed her eyes and laughed. "I haven't spent half a century sculpting myself to fail now. Don't-" She looked up, but he was gone as though he had never been there.

Fayne sniffed. His abrupt comings and leavetakings had startled her in her youth, but then she'd started to wonder how to do it herself. She hadn't quite mastered that power-yet.

She put her small belt satchel on the table and waved for ale. The serving woman nodded and held up three fingers. Fayne shrugged, took out a small mirror, a quill and ink, and a bit of parchment, and began writing.

When next Fayne looked up, the woman was standing over her, hands folded in front of her apron. "Aye, lady?"

She was a pretty thing, the serving Iass^ with hair that fell in ruby ringlets to her midback. Fayne liked her looks-had worn such herself, once upon a tenday.

"Take this"-Fayne pressed the note into the girl's fingers, along with a disk of polished platinum-"and a bottle of your best amber brandy to yon beardless gentle."

The young woman looked where Fayne pointed and blanched. "You don't mean… Arrath Vir, aye? Oh, lady… unwise, methinks."

"What?" Fayne flicked blonde hair out of her eyes. "He's not one for the ladies?"

The serving lass shook her head, then slid into the booth opposite her. " 'Tis said he's a mystic or some such, heartless and cruel. Hails from a temple of some sort of… emptiness? Void? Sommat the like. Only"-she leaned closer to speak softer-"only he tired of his brethren, killed 'em all, and now he sells his sword for coin. He'd slit your granddam's throat for a copper nib. Him, or one of the Downshadow folk what worship the ground he treads."

"Mmm," Fayne said. "Sounds perfect." She could feel her heart in her throat and a heat in her belly. "I wonder at his skill with his blade-perhaps I'll sample it myself."

The woman didn't look convinced. " 'Ware, goodlady-his in't the sort you ought toy with. And his taste-" She looked down at Fayne's clothes and bit her lip.

Fayne understood. Beneath her greatcoat, she wore the immodest working clothes-low-cut, high-slit-one might expect of a Dock Ward dancer. The shirt was frilly, the vest cheap, and the skirt revealed more than it hid: the wares of a lady of negotiable virtue at best. In truth, the crass garb did ride Fayne's rather fine curves and lines very well-at least, in the body she'd made for herself with her flesh-shaping ritual.

She'd just come from scandalizing one Sievers Stormonr in a Dock tavern, luring him into just the sort of irresponsible play that would cast a pall on his upward-bound older brother, Larr Stormont. Not that she had any idea why-she trusted her patron to keep his own counsel regarding the cut-and-thrust of the nobility (and of those who yearned to join them, like Stormont). This, of course, hadn't stopped her from spending a night in the elder Stormont's bed and acquiring evidence that led her to believe he was a Masked Lord.

Which, of course, only helped in writing her next tale for the

Minstrel-one of Waterdeep's most caustic, sarcastic, and thus widely read broadsheets. A lass has to earn a living, she thought, and if she did it by ruining the wealthy and self-important, then so be it!

The serving woman was staring at her, Fayne realized. For a reply, and yet, something more…

"I like your hair." Fayne leaned across the table and fingered the lass's red curls. Then, impulsively, she kissed the woman on the lips. Then: "Go to, go to! Enough eyes on my chest."

Blushing fiercely, stammering some kind of reply, the serving lass hurried off.

Fayne put the quill and ink away and looked in the silver mirror. She pulled from her belt a thin wand of bone and waved it across her forehead. Her blonde hair shifted into a strawberry red, then a vivid scarlet.

There. Just like the servant's. Only-there. Fayne's hair shortened until it just kissed the tips of her shoulders. Perfect.

Still looking in the mirror, she pressed the wand to her cheek. A scar crept onto her face: not causedhy the wand, but rather revealed by it. The wand peeled the magic back.

She remembered that day. A thumb to the right, and she wouldn't be sitting there at that moment.

"Oh yes, bitch," Fayne said. "I remember you-I remember you quite well."