The Dream Spheres - Elaine Cunningham [88]
That he intended to do. His vengeance would be lingering, highly amusing-and deadly.
The elf set a quick pace back toward his fortress home and the beckoning, compelling magic of the dark gem.
Ten
Arilyn led the way through the narrow streets of Skullport, with Danilo following close on her heels. Although the city lay directly beneath his native Waterdeep, and though both were port cities, he could not conceive of two places more different.
Here all was squalid, sordid, and ugly. Ramshackle buildings leaned and listed as precariously as scuttled ships. Creatures from at least two-score races, many of them outlawed in the city above, shoved past each other on the crowded streets. A one-legged beggar was toppled by the rude throng. He made no call for help, obviously realizing that none would be forthcoming, but struggled to right himself with the aid of a home-carved crutch. But like most of Skullport, the man's appearance was deceiving. Far from helpless, he nimbly sliced the ear off a sly-faced goblin who sought to pick his pockets. Like his intended victim, the goblin did not seek aid. He merely snatched up the bit of living leather, clapped it to his head, and reeled off in search of a healer-or possibly just a mirror and a needle.
Arilyn's companion took this in with growing dismay.
She'd had misgivings about bringing Danilo into this dank, dismal, lawless place. Though at her insistence he had donned rough clothes more suitable to a dockhand than a gentleman bard, he looked thoroughly, miserably out of place.
"I must say, this is no improvement on Oth's cistern," he commented. "At least that was dry."
Arilyn could see his point. In Skullport, water was everywhere. Although it was a port city, it was entirely underground, far below sea level. Water dripped from the cavern ceilings and puddled on the walkways. It gave sustenance to the strange creeping molds and glowing fungi that writhed on the walls of the ramshackle buildings or inched along the walkways. The scent of rot and mildew permeated everything, and foul mist clung to the lamplight. Even after a few minutes in the city, Arilyn's clothes clung damply to her, and her companion's mood was becoming nearly as oppressive as the thick air.
"You wanted to be part of my world," she said with only a moderate degree of exaggeration. "This is the sort of place I end up going."
Danilo glanced pointedly at her sword, which was dark and silent. "I would wager there are few forest elves in these parts. Shouldn't we go find some? Elsewhere?"
She pulled the neck of her clinging shirt away from her throat and dashed a damp lock off her forehead. "The sooner we're finished here, the sooner we leave." She nodded toward a row of dangerously tilting wooden buildings, lined up with all the precision of a patrol of drunken orcs, and started toward the narrow street that snaked between them.
Behind her Danilo cursed with impressive creativity. "For what, exactly, are we looking?"
"Perfume," Arilyn said dryly as she skirted a rather suspect pile. She recognized it as the spoor of a manticore and quickened her pace. It was relatively fresh, and she had no desire to confront a monster with the body of a lion and the face and cunning of a man.
"Perfume. Good thinking," he congratulated her. "Given our current surroundings, I suggest we purchase it by the vat."
She shot a glare over her shoulder. "Do you intend to whine the entire way there?"
"Back, too, I should think. No sense doing half a job."
A trio of kobolds scuttled toward them from behind a pile of crates. They were hideous creatures, goblinkin whose bald heads came not much higher than Arilyn's sword belt. Their bulging yellow eyes held a frantic look, but their ratlike tails wagged in an eerily precise imitation of hounds eager to please their master. Their arms were full of fabric, not weapons, but Arilyn did not slow her pace.
"You look, maybe buy," one of them pleaded as it jogged alongside the half-elf. "Got lotsa good cloaks. Not much worn. Only one gots