The Dream Spheres - Elaine Cunningham [75]
The young noble's face turned grave as she related the story she'd prepared: a battle with a band of assassins and their elven victim, followed by repeated attempts on her own life.
Her implication was not lost on him. "You are often seen in the company of Danilo Thann," he said thoughtfully. "He is a highly visible member of the peerage. If my father's fears are grounded, there might be those in this city who would take mortal offense at such a pairing. Yes, my father should hear of this."
He took her to a small side parlor and promised to return soon. Arilyn paced about, pausing before a portrait of a golden-haired elf woman.
Corinn's mother looked younger than her own twin children. Had she not fallen to an unknown assassin, she would undoubtedly look much the same now, some fifteen years later, like an undying flower watching the garden around her wither and dry.
Arilyn understood all too well how difficult that could be. Half-elves were eternally out of step with both their human and elven kin. Though she was nearly twenty years older than Danilo, she could expect to outlive him by nearly a century. She could expect to watch their children grow old and die. Not an enviable destiny, but she vastly preferred it to that suffered by Sibylanthra Dezlentyr. Arilyn had no intention of falling to assassins hired to safeguard the human bloodline of Waterdeep's nobility.
Arlos Dezlentyr came in with his son. He was a small, slight man who appeared to be nothing more than a shadow cast by his son's bright light, but the voice with which he greeted her was deep and resonant, and it possessed a beauty that might well have caught the fancy and then the heart of an elven woman. He possessed a graceful charm, as well. He bowed over Arilyn's hand with courtly grace that would have done honor to a queen.
"Corinn has told me your tale." He sighed and sank onto a chair. "If what you fear is true, my children could also be in danger."
"I will find the truth and bring you word," she promised. "I understand Corinn and Corinna are seldom in Waterdeep. Until we have the answers we seek, perhaps it is well to keep them from the public eye."
"A good thought." Lord Arlos glanced up at the portrait. "My first wife was a mage, you know. I had hoped that Sibylanthra's children would take after their mother's art, but so far they both have too much taste for adventure. Now I see the blessing in it."
He turned to his son. "Corinn, you may follow that scheme of yours to sail around Chult and seek to establish harbors to the south. Corinna may take that commission she was offered. Better the uncertainties of Tethyr's seas than the proven dangers of this city. Make the arrangements at once."
The half-elf flashed another of his incandescent smiles. He bowed to his father, then lifted Arilyn's hand to his lips. "Thank you," he said softly and fervently. He was gone, like a golden bird in glad flight.
Arilyn spent an hour with the old man, exchanging reminiscences about Evereska, which had been his wife's childhood home. She learned only that Sibylanthra had been found in the garden, inexplicably dead. There were no wounds, no sign of illness or struggle, none of the usual marks of poison. Yet her husband had been convinced, and was still certain, that this was the work of an assassin. Lord Arlos would have talked until moonrise, but finally Arilyn rose to go. She asked him to show her the kitchen gardens before she left.
The nobleman was surprised but willing. They walked down rows of late cabbages and drying herbs. Arilyn headed for the potting and drying shed and there found what she sought. A large cistern opened into the tunnel below, allowing the kitchen staff to toss husks and parings into the sewers below.
"I'll leave by this way. An assassin would have," she explained.
He started, then shook his head in disbelief. "Why did no one think of this sooner?"
There was an answer, but it was not one Arilyn wished to speak aloud: to find an assassin, you had to think like one. She had spent too many years