Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [44]
When he turned, Nalitheen was standing on the lowest step of the stair, trembling, the dagger in her hands. Tears glistened in her eyes.
"Put the blade away, milady," Mirt said softly. "There's no need for that."
Nalitheen shook her head, slowly and helplessly, and let the dagger fall to the floor. She stared down at it silently, her hair fallen around her shading her face.
"How long have you known?" Mirt asked her quietly.
"T-they told me who killed him," Nalitheen whispered, and then looked up at him angrily through her tears, head to one side. "They told me Mirt the Merciless killed my man. I've waited for you. Two long seasons, lying alone and crying every night. I wondered if you'd ever come close enough to me for this dagger to reach."
"And now?" Mirt asked, unmoving, holding her gaze.
"Last night was different," Nalitheen sobbed, and looked away, striding along the bottom step of the stairs. She wheeled at its end, and cried, "How long have you known? Who I was, and wh-that you'd killed my husband?"
"Last night. When you told me how he died," Mirt told her truthfully.
"And you stayed?"
"I'd paid," Mirt replied mildly, and then added, "No, that was cruel. I trusted you with my life, Nalitheen. Then and now."
He drew his blade, slowly. Nalitheen flinched but did not draw back. Meeting her eyes steadily, Mirt upended his scabbard and shook a cloth bag out of its depths. The coins inside it clinked heavily as he put it into her hands.
"This," he said gently, closing her fingers around it with his own, "is for you, and Naleetha, and Boroldira. I'm sorry. I'll come again, and there'll be more. You have my word on that."
Nalitheen looked at him, unmoving and expressionless, the gold in her hands. Mirt kissed her forehead gently, resheathed his blade, and fetched down his cloak from a peg.
"Gods bless you for your charity, Mirt," Nalitheen whispered, sounding more weary than bitter. She shivered, shook her head a little, and closed her eyes, leaning against the door frame.
" ‘Tis not charity," the Wolf of Waterdeep told her almost fiercely as he turned to go out into the brightening street, "for I'll be back."
Ah, so touching! The misplaced pity that humans call "honor," i relieve. Ok loyalty, ok some other weakness like tiiat. And yet-minds like mazes, this one especially.
Rest not, captive wizard-nergal craves entertainment! Snow on!
"You offend me, pig of a merchant," the Calishite said, his accent as heavy as his perfume. Though Velzraedo Hlaklavarr of Calimport was hardly slimmer than the wheezing figure sprawled with his boots up on the chair, Velzraedo was far better dressed. His spade-beard wagging, the Calishite added a delicate stream of curses that called into question Mirt's ancestry, personal hygiene, dietary habits, the hobbies and judgment of his mother, and his familiarity with camels. "Kindly," he added with a sneer, "remove yourself from this seating you so indolently occupy. Its use is required by myself- Velzraedo Hlaklavarr of Calimport, First Finger of the Masked Vizier!"
Mirt's reply was a repetition of the mellifluous, echoing belch that had first offended the silk-clad envoy. "My," he told his fingernails, not moving from his sprawled position at the best table in the Brave Bustard, "but it certainly seems mustard and quince were not meant to be in a sauce together-at least not in my stomach. Why, stop me vitals: my very proximity seems to have a marked effect on the sanity of visiting Catamites-or is it 'Calishits'? I can never recall! Why-"
The envoy interrupted his airy observation with a roar of rage. He snatched one of the dozen or so wicked silver-bladed throwing knives from the gleaming row adorning his belt. His arm was a blur of purple silk-right until the moment it crashed down on the table in the violent and bouncing company of Velzraedo Hlaklavarr's nose.
The Calishite's generous behind and gilded boots