Prince of Lies - James Lowder [36]
"Hodur, you know I hate it when you ignore me like that," Rinda said angrily. "If you want to talk about something else, just say so."
The dwarf smirked. "All right, then. I want to talk about something else. Anything's fair game, just so long as it ain't how little food there'll be this winter or how the Zhentilar beat up on prisoners or anything else about the riffraff around here." He paused to scratch furiously under his beard. "You're the most depressing person I've ever met, you know that?"
The young woman dropped the copper coins into a chipped teacup. "So why are you always here?"
"Maybe I like to be depressed," Hodur replied. "I've always heard we dwarves are supposed to be melan – uh, meloch – er, unhappy.A streetpreacher in the Serpent's Eye talked about it once. He said it's because we're a doomed race. Not enough little dwarves to carry on our crafts and our wars, so we've got no future." His voice painted the words with emotions he'd meant to hide. "Or maybe I ain't got nothing else to do. No work for a stonecutter with mitts like these," he said, holding up palsied hands. They trembled in fits and starts.
Tactfully, Rinda let the subject drop. She pried up one of the few sound floorboards and secreted the cup in the mud beneath. The ground squelched nastily as she set the treasure in place. "So what's this about Lord Chess?"
"Oh, nothing important," the dwarf conceded. "I just heard he was all tore up when Cyric announced to Leira's priests that the goddess was gone."
Rinda smiled knowingly. "He hasn't been a practicing cleric in years. All he'll miss are the banquets the Leirans threw – masks required, no debauchery too unusual, and no questions asked."
"How would you know?"
With mock sweetness, Rinda held her hands to her cheeks. "Why a dwarf told me," she said. "How else?"
Hodur laughed, his mustaches flapping in front of his mouth with each loud bark. "You know, it must be pretty rotten to be a Leiran right about now. I mean, rumor is Cyric's the one that done her in, right? But if you kill yourself in despair over it, you just end up in the dark-hearted bastard's domain anyway!"
"Careful," Rinda warned. "You don't know who's listening."
"Why is it human gods have nothing to do but plague their worshipers with quests or eavesdrop from the heavens so they can squash anyone who says something bad about them?" The dwarf dropped his feet to the floor. The chair creaked dangerously as he shifted his weight. "You don't find dwarven gods wasting time like that. Moradin and Clanggedin and their lot have better things to do with their time – you know, crushing the orc gods' armies or insulting Corellon Larethian and the other immortal elvish sots."
"It's not the gods I'm worried about," Rinda said. "It's the clerics – and the Zhentilar. Patriarch Mirrormane has asked Lord Chess to make speaking out against Cyric or the church equal to treason. And Chess is coward enough to make the army support Mirrormane's wishes."
"The Zhentarim won't stand for that," the dwarf said, dismissing the notion with one trembling hand. "And they're the ones who really run this place."
Rinda's green eyes grew thoughtful. "We can only hope that's still true," she murmured. "They're a lot less dangerous than Cyric's men…"
"I never thought I'd hear you say a good word about the Black Network," Hodur exclaimed. He clapped his hands together. "Could it be the truth of the world has penetrated that ridiculous armor of good intentions you've hammered out for yourself?"
"I see the world a lot more clearly than you think," she said. "But there's nothing wrong with hoping things might be better than they seem. The-"
A pounding on the door cut Rinda short and startled Hodur to his feet. "Open up in the