The Dream Spheres - Elaine Cunningham [63]
He turned her to face him. "That would have saved me the trouble of jumping in after you."
She acknowledged this with a nod, then glanced toward the hole. "We'd better move on. Listen to that. The other tren will be finished soon."
"Finished?" His face took on a pained expression as the meaning of her words came clear to him. "You don't mean to say that these creatures eat their own?" he demanded, although the faint sounds emanating from the tunnel below made the question unnecessary.
"The price of failure," Arilyn said as she kicked into a trot. "I'd say there's at least five or six down there. Now the others will only be more determined. It's a matter of honor now. As tren reckon honor, that is."
Danilo fell in beside her. "Keen motivation! As well, one should not discount the bracing effect of a good meal."
She sent him an incredulous look, but she saw a certain logic in his grim humor. "There's that, too," she agreed.
They ran until they reached a wide, busy street. Danilo flagged down a carriage and promised the halfling driver double his hire if he could get them to the North Ward swiftly. The halfling set a pace brisk enough to inspire angry shouts from some of the passersby.
Arilyn relaxed against the plush seat, certain that their hired driver could outrun any tren that cared to give pursuit.
Why, then, was she still beset by the conviction that she and Danilo were not alone?
Seven
After leaving Arilyn at her lodging, Danilo headed for the North Ward and the Thann family villa. For once the sedate, quiet streets did not have their usual effect on him-the familiar mixture of exasperation and ennui, and the numbing certainty that nothing particularly dangerous or entertaining could possibly occur.
It was an odd belief, one that Danilo had never identified before. Strange, he mused, how a long-held notion could continue to color his thinking, long after he knew it to be false.
The North Ward's serenity was deceitful to one who knew the city and its long, often violent history. Danilo had been well schooled in such matters, and so the repeated tren attacks struck him as having greater portent than they might otherwise have held.
Not many generations had passed since Waterdeep had been torn by the Guild Wars. The merchant families had hired mercenary armies and fought each other in the streets. Many other nobles fell to assassins, poisons, and magic. Entire clans had been destroyed. Though this era was past, Danilo knew enough of history to understand that the pattern was not a line but a spiral. Old wounds festered, sometimes for generations. The last time tren assassins had been used in any number was during the Guild Wars. It was entirely possible that their return signified some sort of holdover from the days of the Guild Wars, the ambition of one family against another.
That was a most disturbing possibility, but if that were true, it provided a possible connection between all the tren attacks. Only one attack had been fatal-that which had killed Oth-but all the others seemed related to the Eltorchul mage. A tren attacked Elaith, who had dealings with Oth. Arilyn had assisted Elaith, thus drawing the ire of the tren clan, and she and Danilo were investigating Oth's death. Twice they had interfered. That was probably enough to add their names to the tren runes scratched in the hidden places beneath the city.
In all, it was a disturbingly plausible explanation. Danilo intended to test it against a mind other than his. Although he knew many of Waterdeep's sages and scholars, he could not name anyone who knew more of the city's history than Lady Cassandra.
The conversation ahead would no doubt prove… interesting. In times not long past, she had been very interested in inflicting this knowledge on her youngest son. Dan supposed he had seemed the most likely to follow his mother's scholarly leanings. Somehow, he doubted that at this late date his mother would regard his sudden interest without skepticism.
He found her, predictably