Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [11]
It had been a simple matter to use carefully chiseled plugs of granite to block the two ventilation shafts connecting the Thack apartments to the rest of vast Thor-bardin. Then Gantor Blacksword had visited one of the Theiwar alchemists, who were always willing – for a price – to aid the nefarious activities of their clients.
Armed with a smudge pot full of highly toxic vile-root, Gantor had approached his neighbor’s front door during the quiet stillness that descended over the Theiwar city in the midst of the sleeping hours. Gantor had ignited the highly toxic mixture of herbs, hurled open the barrier, tossed the smudge pot inside, then slammed shut the door and fixed it in place with several carefully tooled steel wedges.
The rest of the killing had only taken a few minutes. There had been screams and gasps and a few feeble bashes against the door, and then silence.
Cantor still remembered his elation as he had awaited outside the door.
Dwayal, his wife, his collection of brats-three or four offspring, so far as the murderous Theiwar had remembered-and whatever slaves and servants Dwayal Thack had employed had been inside the crowded apartments. They were inevitably dead by poisonous suffocation within minutes, though they suffered horribly during their last moments. The telltale stink of the vile-root extended into the corridor, so those who came in response to the commotion had no choice but to wait. Fortunately one of the things that made vile-root such an effective tool for this kind of work was the fact that the toxins in the smoke settled into a layer of soot within a few hours of vaporization.
When it was safe to enter, Cantor and several Theiwar wardens had entered the apartments-and then the true horror had been revealed.
One of Dwayal Thack’s sons-may his name be cursed by the gods through eternity!-had been friends with one Staylstaff Realgarson, a favored nephew of none other than the Theiwar thane. Worse, Staylstaff had been visiting his friend, engaged in a bout of gambling, at the time of the murder. Naturally he, too, had perished as a result of the toxic fumes.
And Thane Realgar had proved utterly unwilling to treat the mishap as the unfortunate accident that it had surely been! Instead, the ruler of the Theiwar clan had reacted to the killing as if it constituted some sort of heinous, even unprecedented, crime. Cantor had been called before a clan tribunal, forced to listen to all sorts of accusatory remarks, and eventually came to realize that he would be punished for his natural and understandable-by Theiwar standards-attempt to defend his right to contested property.
Faced with the deliberations of the august body of wild-eyed, bristling dark dwarves, the accused had been prepared to accept his sentence bravely. He had vowed to himself that, no matter how heinous the tortures, he would not give the thane the satisfaction of seeing him, Cantor, lose his dignity or his pride. Indeed, he had been prepared to spit contemptuously when he was confronted by the terms of his punishment.
Yet all that resolve had vanished in the face of the actual sentence.
Exile! Never in his worst nightmares- and Cantor Blacksword suffered some very horrible nightmares indeed-had the dwarf pictured a punishment so terrifying, so unutterably bleak, as that which cruel fate had delivered unto him. Thane Realgar’s pale and luminous eyes had gleamed with a wicked light when he pronounced sentence, and the cheering of Dwayal Thack’s many relatives had echoed from the rafters of the vaulted Judgment Hall when he had made his announcement:
“Cantor Blacksword, you are banished forever from the Theiwar Realms, and as well from all attended and allied steadings of the Kingdom of Thorbardin. You are sentenced to the world above, where you will live out your miserable days under the cruel light of the sun and without the comfort of your fellow dwarves.”
His own scream of shrill terror had been drowned out by the delighted cheering of the gathered throng. With bitterness, Cantor remembered