Ed Greenwood: Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters

The slaver drew in a deep breath, let it out in a shud shy;dering sigh, then gave her a weak smile. "In your arms, I almost think I can do that. My mother used to hold me like that."

He swallowed, and asked, his face very pale, "B-but you're a Harper, aren't you? I thought-I thought you people killed slavers, or made us slaves."

"We do, more often than not," Dove Falconhand replied calmly. "Consider yourself an exception."

"But-oh, gods, I know this is stupid of me, but- why?"

Keen eyes seemed to blaze right through the slaver, and he caught his breath with a fearful gasp.

"Blaskar," the woman he'd once enslaved said qui shy;etly, "I've spent most of my life being a hearty, capable lady of the blade. Harder than steel, colder than stone, more merrily rough and foul-mouthed and ruthless than men who live by the sword. I've done it because I've had to. I haven't the magic my sisters can boast, to do my fighting for me. I need time to be soft, to surren shy;der myself… to be with someone I don't have to fear. You showed me such times, more than once. As I said, I've been back to check on you. You've no idea how much I value tenderness and kindness in a man."

They stared into each other's eyes, and all the color slowly ran out of the slaver's face.

"Yes," Dove told him grimly, "I've magic enough to change my own body. I was Emmera, and Sesilde. Callathrae, too, and the little dancer from Tharsult whose name you never learned, who liked to oil herself and dance in a ring of candles. I know your true meas shy;ure, Blaskar. Slaver you are, yes, and a little too leering for most tastes, though kind in that, too. The cruel and the cold and the slayers you sent in chains to hard-handed buyers in Calimport and like places. The gentle ones you treated gently."

She tilted her head to one side, and seemed to see right through him as she added, "All this time you've been looking for a woman who will cook for you and sleep with you and worship you with her eyes-and not thinking yourself worthy of anyone who passed through your hands that you liked the look of. It took you too long to learn not to judge females by their looks, but you learned it at last, old dog. Almost too late, but you learned it, and the one you had your heart set on grow shy;ing old with turned out to be a dark elf one night, didn't she? You killed her, didn't you? Just as she must have slain your real beloved-quick, then getting rid of the body in a panic. Since then, you've cowered here waiting for all the other drow to show up and cut a bloody revenge out of your hide."

The slaver was looking at her like a small boy who'd been caught doing something clever but forbidden and doesn't yet know if he'll be punished or laughed at. He opened his mouth, but said nothing. He didn't have to speak for her to know she was right.

"How many matches did you make, down the years?" Dove asked. "A little coin to the right passing merchant here, after you'd judged him suitable, and off with the chains and another partnership.. how many times? I know of twelve, but your neck is still within easy reach, Blaskar; how many more?"

The slaver swallowed, held up a hand to buy himself some thinking time, then said slowly, "Twenty-three. I think. Use magic on my mind to be sure, Lady D-ahem, lady. I… I can't avoid any fate you give to me, I guess." He was struggling on the edge of tears again, but he managed to add, "I'm so tired of being afraid."

"That," Dove said in a voice of doom, "is why I won't do to you what I once vowed to: spell-change you into a beautiful lass, chain you, and sell you into slavery to give you a taste of what you did to so many. You've suf shy;fered, and there are times when Mystra bids us to rise above 'death for death' justice, and show kindness to those worthy of it. In my eyes, those most worthy of it are those who've been kind to others, in private and with no thought of benefit to themselves. You're one of those few."

A long-fingered hand closed on the throat of the man gaping at her, and she added in a voice of sudden steel, "Yet never forget, Blaskar, that I can make you a slave girl, or legless beggar, or disease-riddled outlaw, wear shy;ing the face of someone hated and hunted, in the time it takes me to tell you this. I can come to doom you, if you turn to your old ways once more."

The slaver was trembling. She opened her mouth to say something more gentle, but he lifted his head and said, "I'll submit to whatever doom you choose. If you'd be kind to me, though, let me try to bargain a better one."

Dove snorted. "From how strong a position? What, for instance, would your opening gambit be?"

They exchanged smiles. The slaver's grin turned sly and he asked, "What if I should just happen to forget where I put the key to your cuffs?"

"Then I'll break them," Dove told him, "and help you go looking for that key. You might not be seeing things all that well after I'd stuffed two lengths of chain down your throat and made you swallow, so we'd have to do things properly. I think I'd start by taking firm hold of your ear, then go around behind you and start looking for where I could pull on the other end of my devoured chain."

Blaskar stared at her for a moment, then threw back his head and let out his first real laugh in years.

The same sun that would set over Waterdeep long before a certain fat merchant found his way back to its gates-and would shine through the windows of a cer shy;tain Scornubrian house now forever empty of Blaskar Toldovar-was lowering in the western sky when a weary, muddy-booted peddler led four limping, footsore mules into Scornubel. He trudged down the wide, dung-strewn streets to a certain stables where he paid grudging coins to have his beasts penned, fed, and watered. He paid rather more to have his saddlebags lock-stored, and trudged out again into the gathering dusk, rubbing at a paltry mustache that sat like a hairy caterpillar upon his unlovely upper lip. He gave "Tarthan" as his name, and he walked as one who knew the Caravan City but wasn't particularly glad to find himself therein.

His eye seemed to fall only upon Scornubel's newer establishments, but always, it seemed, to soon find them lacking. At the threshold of The Rolling Wheel he peered into the din of scrawny dancers and wearily roaring men, sniffed, and turned into the darkness again. At the shoulder-rubbing-crowded outer room of the Black Bowl gambling club he spat onto the purple carpet and went out as wearily as he'd come in, giving the bouncer who moved threateningly forward a grin of savage promise and the flourished point of a needle-thin blade three feet long.

The Bowl of Serpents seemed more to Tarthan's liking. He sat for some time tossing copper coins at the serpent-tailed dancers who undulated into view amid its many mauve tapestries, and polished off an entire decanter of emerald green Starlartarn wine from the Tashalar. The peddler was weaving slightly, but still steady of purpose, when he stopped outside Cata's Pump a little later, sniffed the air appreciatively, and told the world, "Ahh, a good broth. Worth the little walk from Waterdeep."

That comment made the eyes of the doorswords widen above their half masks as the dusty peddler stepped between them and sought the dimness within. Half a dozen merchants and burly porters were loung shy;ing drowsily in chairs around the edges of the tavern's lone taproom, the large empty bowls in front of them attesting to the reason for their collective torpor. A single tankard stood neatly before each diner; no one had spilled anything, or was calling for more yet. In fact, no one was saying anything. Tarthan cast a nar shy;rowed eye over the tomblike taproom, found a smallish table hard by a pillar, and sat.

A serving wench drifted up to stand over him. "Your pleasure, goodman?" she asked tonelessly, staring over Tarthan's head at something mildly captivating that seemed to be occurring several days' ride to the east, through the dirty taproom wall.