Silver Shadows - Elaine Cunningham [17]
Tou can stay here until I return. If you need anything, contact Hasheth."
"Fine lad," Tinkersdam repeated. "Although I do hope he stays close to Zazesspur. I'm not precisely welcome in Saradush, Ithmong, or Myratma," he confided, naming the rest of Tethyr's major cities.
Arilyn sighed again. "Tell me, Tinkersdam, is there any city on Toril that you haven't blown up at least a portion of?"
"Zhentil Keep," the alchemist responded without a moment's hesitation. "But of course, that would take a far braver man than I."
The comment surprised a chuckle from the Harper. "Almost sorry to hear it," she said with a wry grin. "If any city needs a bit of forceful housecleaning, it's that one."
"Well, someone will get around to it sooner or later," Tinkersdam said absently, his large green eyes roving to the glowing substance popping and bubbling in a large caldron. "Now, if you will excuse me…"
Taking the hint, Arilyn left the cavern and began the ride back to the city. She pressed her mare hard, for she wished to be in the School of Stealth's council hall before moonrise. With the coming of night, new commissions were posted, and assassins came to bid on choice jobs. At no other time did Arilyn receive so much useful information on the underside of Zazesspurian politics.
She rode through the main gate of the complex at dusk. Tossing her reins to the stableboy who ran to greet her, she hurried to the council hall and scanned the bits of parchment nailed to the door. There was nothing of great interest: some baker wished to avenge an insult dealt to his pastry; a harem girl was willing to pay in trade for the death of a self-avowed and apparently spurious eunuch; a wealthy collector wanted a piece of stolen property retrieved from the treasure house of a rival.
"Scant pickings tonight," observed a whispery voice at Arilyn's elbow.
The Harper turned to regard the only other female in the assassins' guild-an exotic beauty who went by the name of Ferret. To Arilyn's way of thinking, the assassin resembled her namesake. The woman was whip-thin and sharp-featured, with black eyes that seemed not quite human, and a long slender nose that lacked only whiskers and a twitch. Remorseless, relentless, she was ferretlike in character as well.
To everyone in the guildhouse, the Ferret was a bit of a mystery. She was never seen without heavy makeup, a tightly wound turban, and gloves. Nor was she ever heard to speak above a whisper. Rumor had it that she'd been disfigured in some accident, but apart from these idiosyncracies there were no apparent flaws in her beauty, which she flaunted by dressing in scant silk garments so tight they appeared to have been painted onto her lithe form. Tonight she wore a gown patterned in jewel-like colors that echoed the resplendent plumage of a peacock. Earrings made from the eyes of a peacock's tail feathers dangled from her earlobes, the only part of her ears that were visible beneath her cobalt-blue turban.
The Ferret folded her arms and leaned indolently against the doorjamb. "So which job strikes your fancy? The baker, the whore, or the thief?"
"Not the baker," Arilyn said with a grim smile. I've tasted his baking. No one should die for insulting it. I say long life to the critic, and may he do better elsewhere."
"Ah, yes," Ferret sneered. "The gods forbid you should take the life of an innocent man! By all means, take the second job-watching a harem girl at work could do you nothing but good."
The Harper shrugged off the insult. It was not the first time Ferret had mocked Arilyn's esthetics of solitude and chastity. In fact, the assassin's favorite taunt for her half-elven colleague was "half-woman," spoken with scathing innuendo.
Ferret, by all reports, had no such scruples. The woman was said to be omnivorous, with an appetite and skills that astonished even those wealthy and jaded Zazesspuran noblemen who sought to imitate the pasha by keeping extensive and exotic harems.
Ferret was also very, very good with a blade. Arilyn had wondered more than once why the Ferret had never challenged