The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [79]
"Coinmaster Eirevaur," Embra said, "have the thanks of Aglirta. Craer, give him something tangible of that."
The procurer frowned at her. "Em…?"
"Coins," the Lady of Jewels said bluntly. "Those purses you stuffed into your boots not so long ago? A man needs coins to get anything in Sirlptar."
Craer gave her a hurt look, then took off one of his boots and upended it. A slithering pile of purses spilled out onto the floor. He spread them with his fingers to make sure no daggers, lockpicks, or the like had fallen out with them, and then pulled his boot on again.
"And now the other one," Embra said flady.
"Graul," Overduke Delnbone told his second boot, as he slid it off and another pile of purses started to appear. "I suppose you want me to give him a dagger, too?"
"No," the Lady of Jewels said calmly. "I can see from here that Coinmaster Eirevaur has a perfectly good one at his belt, and he walks like a man who has at least one sheaDied down a boot. He also acts like the sort of man who'd carry at least one hidden dagger up a sleeve, probably more. He might even manage to stay alive in Sirlptar long enough to thank us."
The treasurer stared at her, and around at them all, disbelievingly, and then down at the pile of purses.
Craer gave him a disgusted look and Embra another, and plucked a wrinkled carrysack of thin cloth from his belt. He tossed it into the air and let it settle over one heap of purses.
"Try not to spend it all at once," he growled, and turned away.
11
A Bowdragon Comes Calling
A man whose robes bore the arms of Stornbridge stood blinking in the shadows of a stinking moonlit alley in Sirlptar, a small but heavy sack of coin-purses in his hands.
Though strewn with rat-haunted rubble from the collapse of two buildings, the alleyway had been entirely empty of men-blinking or otherwise- a moment before.
At first, Coinmaster Eirevaur just looked in all directions, fearing immediate attack. Reassured by the still emptiness of his surroundings, he shook himself like a dog awakening from dreams, and looked up at the sky in wonder, smelling the sour sea air and reassuring himself that yes, this must be Sirlptar.
Then he seemed to recall that he was holding a sack of money-and that this could be a danger in itself. With slow, exaggerated care, seeking to avoid any telltale clink or metallic shifting of coins, he thrust the sack under his robes and folded his arm over it. Moving slowly and bent over, as if he was a beggar or an old destitute, Eirevaur shuffled out into the moonlight and off down the alley, seeking a place of safety-but too happy to entirely hide his wide grin.
He was away from the coldly spying Serpents at last, and his cruel, increasingly treacherous Storn fellows, too. Not far enough to be comfortable, of course. His first move must be to take passage on a ship, and get well away from Aglirta before it erupted in war once more.
A scribe who could keep honest count could readily find work in any port of Asmarand-and any port comfortably distant from Silverflow Vale beckoned warmly about now.
Coinmaster of Stornbridge no longer-gods, yes, he must get rid of these arms on his breast; best turn his robe inside out in this next doorway-Inskur Eirevaur went on down the alley, daring to hope for the first time in months.
Out of a doorway that had seemed quite empty when he passed it slid something that looked like a cat, only larger. It rose, shifting smoothly into manlike stance, but remained black and furred as it loped silently along after Eirevaur, padding closer… and closer…
When the scribe reached his chosen doorway and glanced quickly up and down the alley again, the loping thing had thrown itself onto its face in the refuse, and he did not see it. It risked scarring no features on the littered cobbles by its swift dive, for its otherwise human head had a smoothly featureless face.
Once Eirevaur set down his sack and hoisted his robe up over