Dave Gross: Mistress of the Night

That last theory, of course, found its greatest adherents among crackpot treasure hunters and children too frightened to stray from their mothers' sides.

The Stiltways were an image of Yhaunn in miniature: bustling and successful, but so hemmed in on either side that they could no longer grow out, only up. Their lowest level, where the streets twisted through damp darkness, was home to the most desperate of thieves, thugs, and fences. Prosperity and dignity rose with altitude. Three, four, and even five stories stood above the buried streets of ground level, all interconnected by a groaning, ever-changing maze of bridges, ladders, stairs, and ramps. A proper lady from the better part of the city could pass through the upper levels of the Stiltways by day, buy a new dress, and gossip with friends without ever even thinking of the hard-currency girls working in the perpetual shadows two floors below.

By night the shadows rose like foul cream. Proper ladies didn't come to the Stiltways after dark unless they wanted their friends to gossip about them.

On the highest level of the district, one enterprising landlord had managed to bring the bustle and the success, the shadows and the danger together. The tavern called the Sky's Mantle sprawled across the rooftops, a beacon to the more adventurous of the city's wealthy, a chance to brush against the darker dangers of the Stiltways in complete safety. And of course, on a warm summer night, to enjoy the rarest of luxuries in crowded Yhaunn: a wide terrace, open to moonlight and the cool sea breeze.

In one corner of the Mantle's terrace, the laughter of a cluster of young men and women trailed away into barely-restrained silence. Keph Thingoleir watched as one of their numbera golden-haired half-elf lass in a sleeveless jerkin of black leatherrose from the table and swaggered with predatory grace toward the bar. Her route took her past his table and the young man watched her carefully.

She swung her hips sharply as she passed.

Keph grabbed for the goblet and pitcher on the table-top, but the woman's hips were faster than his hands. He rescued the half-full pitcher, but the goblet, entirely full, rocked, wobbled, then fell over. Deep red wine splashed across the wood. Keph leaped to his feet and away from the flooding wine with a curse.

The half-elf smiled at him as her friends snickered.

"Spilled your drink, Keph?" she teased. "That was clumsy of you."

At the tables around the pair, patrons glanced at each other, then grabbed their drinks and scrambled away. Keph brushed light brown hair out of his face and set the pitcher down.

"Buy me another, Lyraene," he hissed through clenched teeth, "and I'll pretend this didn't happen."

"Pretend what didn't happen?" asked Lyraene. "This?" She reached down and grabbed the edge of the table, swiftly lifting it.

Before he could snatch it up again, the pitcher toppled over, adding to the cascade of wine that came rushing toward him. He danced back, but not quickly enough. Wine poured across his boots and trousers. He drew a sharp breath and his hand darted toward the hilt of the slim rapier he wore on his hip. He stopped it just in time.

Of all the nights for Lyraene to pick a fight, he cursed silently. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but if it was, misfortune had wrapped her ivory arms around him. He forced his hand back to his side. Under the whiskers of his goatee, his lips pressed hard together.

Lyraene's smile turned into a sneer. She let go of the table. It dropped back down with a solid thud.

"Damn, Keph, you are having a bad day, aren't you?" she said. "What's the matter? City guard pick you up while they were looking for your big friend, Jarull? Your papa have to come bail his youngest son out of jailagain?

Papa tell you this was absolutely the last time he'd do it?" She smacked her forehead. "Oh, wait. That's exactly what happened."

No coincidence. Damn it. Keph glanced past Lyraene to her table of cronies. They were all watching eagerly. He groaned. They all knew, of course. And if they all knew…

Obey Strasus Thingoleir's ultimatum or rescue his own dignity? There wasn't really any choice.

Cursing his father and Lyraene equally, Keph twisted his glower into a sneer to match the half-elf s. "Now where could you have heard about that?" he asked her lightly. "Oh, wait." He smacked his forehead. "Your brother's on the city guard. Oh, wait." He smacked his head again. "Your fea(f-brother. Shame your mother was already married when she met your pointy-eared father."

Lyraene's breath hissed out between her teeth. Keph caught an ugly murmur from her friends. Lyraene, however, ignored them.

"At least I got something from my father," she said.

Without taking her eyes from Keph's, she reached across her body and drew her sword. All around them, patrons flinched back. Keph didn't move. Lyraene's posture was all wrong for an attackthe half-elf had something else in mind.

She held the rapier horizontally in front of her body and uttered a word of magic, then stroked her left hand along the blade. Where her fingers passed, light clung to the metal.

"Son of two wizards," she hissed. "Brother of two more. But you can't do that, can you, Keph? You've got no magic."

Hot blood rushed to Keph's face and roared in his ears. "Maybe I don't, Lyraene," he said, stepping around the table. "But being able to cast a cantrip that my eight-year-old niece has mastered isn't especially impressive either. Now this-"

His rapier slid from his scabbard with a pure, ringing whisper. He held it up before himself, vertically, turning it so it caught the meager light on the terrace. Lyraene took a step back. Keph followed her, staying close.

"this is impressive. Beautiful workmanship, isn't she?" He glanced up the length of the thin blade. "I call her Quick. She came from the forge of a master weapon-smith, Mandel Oakhand in Iriaebor. The sapphire in the hilt was found in Amn and was cut specifically for her." He looked Lyraene in the eye. She had her sword, still shining with feeble light, up. Her cronies were trying to get through to her, but the other patrons of the Mantle, struggling at the same time to stay back from the impending fight and get closer for a good view, were hampering them. Keph gave Lyraene a thin smile. "And in fact, my father did give me something." He lifted the rapier close to his face and whispered, "Storm's lash!"

With a crisp snap, blue lightning crackled once along the blade then subsided, though deep within the metal, sparks seemed to dance. Keph cocked an eyebrow at Lyraene.

"Do you still want to do this?" he asked. "More than ever," Lyraene repliedand slashed her blade at him.

Startled, Keph dropped Quick down. Lyraene's attack was hard and fast, slapping against the rapier in a flare of blue sparks. Her blow hammered Quick out of Keph's hand and sent her skittering away. Spectators stumbled back from the crackling weapon.

Keph stared down in shock at the point of Lyraene's sword as it hovered in front of his chest.

"Nice sword," she said. "I've heard about it before. It doesn't do you much good when it's lying over there, though, does it?" Her blade rose and fell, traveling between his throat and his groin. "You know, Keph, you've got a reputation, but without your magic sword and that big ox Jarull to back you up, you're not that tough."

"Who says he doesn't have me to back him up?" rasped a deep voice.

Out of the corner of his eye, Keph saw a dark form bull through the crowd. As Lyraene half-turned to meet the charge, he ducked under and around her sword to come up at the half-elf s side and twist her arm back, pulling her sword down. Before she could even cry out, Jarull was out in the open and swinging heavy fists.

A jab snapped Lyraene's head back. Keph let her go and a heavy hook caught her, spinning her around and leaving her sprawled out on the terrace floor. Jarull reached back and snatched up Quick, tossing her to Keph.