Aestith mentored Adam for a short time on how to properly break into houses. He gave him a dagger to defend himself. The boy was a little more beat up than he had used to be, but he stood up straighter, walked with more boldness. He was even dressing better. Moreover, the boy understood, without Aestith needing to point it out, that the drugs were no longer free. The stolen money, Adam gave to Aestith, and Aestith gave him more of the candy. Aestith also inquired as to any information or rumors Adam had picked up.
Some of it was just guard schedules, a bit of gossip, but anything at all could turn out to be of use. Before Aestith quite let Adam go, the drow told him that, sometimes, the letters in someone’s pockets could be more valuable than the gold. Adam couldn’t read, however, so was confused by this, but shrugged, said he could try that next time he was pickpocketing. Aestith made a mental note to go over that with him a bit more efficiently too, but not today.
He had been doing odd jobs for the guild from time to time, but the Piece was more interesting.
The Piece had mentioned to him that a shop in the South Ward was giving them some trouble. He made his way to the shop, verified the location, and walked past it. He checked the back alleys and the side streets, and eventually found what he was looking for. He fitted a bolt to the hand crossbow, then fired once. He put the weapon back and went to pick up the rat. The creature was not yet dead, which suited his plans. He carried it by the scruff back to the shop.
He threw the door open. The proprietor jumped, saw Aestith, saw the huge sewer rat, and stared, mouth agape. Aestith slammed the dying animal down on the countertop. He removed his knife from his boot and scratched a symbol of a puzzle piece onto the counter. It was crude, but the message would be clear. Aestith tucked the knife away and grasped the bolt sticking out of the rat. He ripped it out. The barbed head tore the animal open. Blood splattered over the countertop.
He smiled sweetly at the gaping store owner and slid the bolt back into the quiver. “Have a nice afternoon, sir.”
Aestith checked back in with the Piece the next evening. They had, apparently, been paid their dues. He smiled. The bartender leaned against the counter. “So. Aestith, was it? Right. Do you want a job?”
Aestith tilted his head. “Maybe. Keep talking.”
“It seems like you can certainly get things done. Regarding the territory dispute in the South Ward. The Tarsqueakers.”
Aestith made a face. Did he really need this in his life? “What’s in it for me?”
He shrugged, pulling back. “Money. A fair cut of the profits.”
It sounded, to Aestith, like just another restraint placed around him. The guild was a restraint. His stolen apartment was a restraint. Everything on the surface was just one more fiber in the rope tethering him to the surface. But the money could get him home, couldn’t it? He missed the faerzress in the Underdark the way someone else would miss their own bed.
“I’ll have to consider it.”
“Don’t take long.”
He nodded and left with a puzzled frown. Was he ready to go home?
He sat in his small apartment, on the swept baked clay floor before the altar. The cellar room hadn’t been large before Aestith had taken it, and if anyone has space, the space tends to fill. One corner was fully devoted to his alchemical lab, and another to the padded chair he meditated in, a few scavenged boxes and trunks he put foodstuffs and clothing. The altar, though, was what mattered. All that mattered.
Lolth was what mattered the most to him, and maybe that was why she had granted the powers of a cleric to someone so young, and someone who thought of themself as “he” no less.
I am a cleric, he thought, eyes closed. He could cast spells. He could turn back the undead. Now, he could levitate like a noble, or dispel magic like one. He could even detect such things at will when he cared to. She had graced him beyond what he ever would have dared to even hope, let alone ask. He felt grateful, and would say that he was unworthy but such a thought was in itself sacrilegious; Lolth had deemed him worthy so he was. If she didn’t think he was worthy, he wouldn’t be here.
He’d be dead, which is what he certainly deserved. Every pull of air into his lungs was through her favor alone. It wasn’t blind luck; that wouldn’t have saved him time and again. He was here, and existed, because of her.
Nothing filled him with as much joy as serving her. He only wished he knew how to better serve her. How could he make himself a better servant to her? He lacked the formal training and the benefits of an education in the church. What he knew came only through revelation and learning what other clerics of different denominations could do, and came under the assumption that his own abilities were likely similar. They were, which made sense to him; Lolth was a goddess as well as the Spider Queen. The gods, like all living races, existed at the same time, together. There were similarities, weren’t there?
Two arms, two legs, a head. Yes, many races were all quite similar in that respect.
He inhaled the incense deeply. It was something he concocted himself. Drow made their incense strong enough to dull the olfactory senses, so he had to find similar blends. When he couldn’t, he had learned to make them himself based on a memory of a smell almost forgotten. It wasn’t perfect.
His eyes slid open, watching the burning embers of the incense block on its censor.
He would return. And his sisters would accept him. They would leverage to get him into the church. And Tith’Rix would rise with him. What did it matter if he forever had to pretend to be fully female? He was already doing that now.
He clasped his hands together in a silent prayer, and contacted Amalette.
The spell was limited in ways, but powerful in others. He considered carefully what he would tell her. He sent, I want to go home, Amalette. I’m on the west coast. I can bring bloodmoss.
The reply was a long while in coming, and at first, he thought it wouldn’t. Her words made him reel, for he almost heard her voice aloud, We thought you were dead. You’d be welcomed home, little brother. We can meet you in Skullport, but we won’t hurry.
He could send the spell once more, and he thought for a long time about what he might say to Amalette. He wanted to ask her a great many things, wanted only to talk to her, but the spell wouldn’t allow for pointless drivel. Instead, he replied, I understand. I will try to meet you there and contact you when I arrive.
It will be good to have you home.
He hugged his legs to his chest, terrified and terrifically happy at the same time. His eyes squeezed shut and he bit back a sudden laugh. He couldn’t believe how easy that had been. What had she thought, he wondered, getting those particular spells? Did she guess that he was a cleric?
Then he frowned. No. Wizards or bards could cast similar spells, and she knew he had been training to be a wizard when he left. She probably thought she was picking up some kind of wizard to bring home. His throat felt dry. What would she say when she saw him? He lifted a palm and a glowing orb of light appeared above it. He stared at the small polished brass mirror on the wall, his reflection. What did he look like to others?
This freckled, androgynous-looking drow. He had finally grown into his own face, and even he couldn’t say if it were more effeminate or masculine. His petite body, so masculine in stature, but too shapely for a male. His hair, that he had used to hack so painfully short, now luxuriously long and cared for, pinned to his head and braided to an inch of its life. What would they say when he arrived, wearing heels with his hair done, breasts heaving in agitation? They would be shocked, certainly. Would they view him as too threatening?
He sneered. They might. But what could they do? He was a cleric. He was a cleric. And what were they? A bard, a warrior, a blacksmith, a poisoner? None of them could do anything beyond keep their family stagnating in the merchant class forever. They needed him. His family needed him. A grin split his features. Even when Haeltania burned with jealous rage, what could she do?
Without him, the family would never rise. Without him, they were nothing.
He need not be concerned with meeting them, only of reaching Skullport. What did he know of the place?
He paced as he thought. A large place, held in a tense neutrality. His family had had trade routes there, if he recalled correctly. Even Skullport was a long way for them to travel personally, but he assumed he would meet a convoy there to trade and go back with the family trade route.
Aestith was done with surviving; he wanted to thrive.
#
Getting to Skullport would be the real problem. For one, it wasn’t like he could hitch a ride with a merchant caravan or just go himself. Beyond the technical difficulties that it would take months to get there through the only two routes he knew for sure would bring him there, it was dangerous to go alone. Even that had taken a lot of research.
He could try to find that cave he had popped out of last fall, but he had tried to pinpoint it on a map. Surface maps just didn’t make sense to him, though. Even when he knew it had to be near that first village he had been at, he couldn’t say how near, because it had taken him so long to learn the cardinal directions by the sun--something he still frequently had trouble with, and forget finding the location based on a star chart or something similar.
He could head back there and look, but he didn’t really hold much hope for that. The cave had been so small, and in a different season he could not hope to recognize the area. Even if he did find it, that cave system had been complicated enough that it may take him over a year to get anywhere, let alone Skullport. He had really only made it to the surface because he had gotten lost.
The best way down was through the Yawning Portal, for a given value of “best”. He hated that idea--it sounded suicidal.
Unless he could convince those idiots at the guild to come along. What could he use to entice them? Rumors, perhaps. The owner of the Yawning Portal had gone into the hole and came back out wealthy enough to build a tavern. Then there was his sister’s smithing, their money. He couldn’t guarantee much, but he could request that his sisters bring such things. Whether or not they would honor the request was hard to say, and it may just be a discount that they’d give, but Desarandian’s smithing was expensive and some of the best he had ever seen.
It was worth a try at convincing them anyway.
He spent the morning at the guildhall. When the others arrived and started looking at jobs and discussing, he inserted himself into the conversation. “There doesn’t seem to be many high-paying jobs, does there?”
Dee, a halfling, nodded agreement. “Seems that way.” She sighed. “It’s all manual labor or menial tasks. Nothing high-paying.”
“Hey, Douglas, anything good?” Kairon called.
Douglas shook his head, and tried to act as if a wall separated him from the guild. Aestith drummed his fingers on the table, and said, “You know, I’ve been wanting to get to Skullport, in the Underdark. I know that’s quite a long way, and it’s dangerous, but--have I ever mentioned that my family is actually quite wealthy? One of my sisters is a blacksmith.”
Kairon seemed intrigued. “Underdark weapons?”
Aestith shrugged one shoulder. “Yes, quite possibly.”
Eilora, predictably, made a face. “But that’s so far. And we could die.”
Gray eyes slid toward her. “I’d like to remind you that, while some people who go into the Underdark never come back, those that do usually return well-compensated for their travels.”
Deekin nodded amiably. “It would be an educational experience for Gullian.”
“We are not bringing a child into the Underdark!” Eilora snapped.
A smile tugged at the corner of Aestith’s lips. “So…?”
“We should consider it,” Kairon said slowly. “But I think we’d need to take some time to prepare for a trip like that.”
Hiring people would have been too risky, but enticing people down out of greed, while still proving to be a risk, would be preferable. It helped that he knew each of them a fair bit, and he could better anticipate their actions than with strangers.
With nothing to do at the guild, the group dispersed. Aestith returned again a few hours later, mostly out of boredom.
A half-elf looked over a sliver of paper on the notice board. Dee sat in a chair, slowly falling asleep. Kairon cleaned his sword by the window. The half-elf called, “So this one is new, right?”
Douglas, still at his desk, looked up. “Oh, the Dechagney contract. Yeah.” He shrugged. “Came in a couple of hours ago. He seemed pretty distraught.”
The half-elf nodded. “Well, if his friend is missing, I think that would be stressful.” An imp peered over the half-elf’s shoulder at the paper.
Kairon looked up. “How much is it for?”
“500 gold,” the warlock said.
The tiefling looked back at his sword with a dismissive snort. Dee rubbed one eye and hopped off of the chair. “Well, I’ll look into it.” She looked to Kairon, then to Aestith.
Kairon lifted his head only briefly. “500 gold split four ways isn’t worth me getting off my ass.”
Aestith looked again at the notice board, then sighed deeply. Was it worth not being bored all day? “I’ll go,” he said with reluctance. He raised an eyebrow at Kairon. “I suppose tieflings are just lazy.”
Kairon’s spine stiffened. The half-elf smiled warmly, interrupting Kairon before he spoke. “Well, I’d love to go out and see the city. I just arrived in town.” He pointed at himself. “My name is Tim.”
Dee nodded. “I’m Dee.”
Tim glanced at Kairon, who stared at Tim a long moment, then said, “Kairon.”
Tim looked at Aestith, who ignored him. Tim cleared his throat, then stepped toward the drow. “Hi, I’m Tim.”
Aestith snorted. “Is that so.”
Tim paused a moment, but the smile did not falter. “What’s your name?” A pause, slight concern. “Do drow have names?”
Aestith suppressed a groan. “Aestith.” He pushed past Tim and went to Douglas to sign the contract.
Kairon smoldered as the other three accepted the contract, then added his name to it too, as if to spite them. The four of them filed out of the guildhall and huddled over the contract details. The Dechagney man was supposed to be at a nearby tavern, so the odd group marched their way there. They had to ask around for him, and eventually found a frazzled, sleepless man sitting hunched over a mug of untouched ale.
Aestith had little interest in speaking or trying to calm him; the half-elf made chitchat and, ultimately, came up with something resembling a lead.
Dee set a napkin with an inked doodle on it on the table. She said, “This is about what the patch on their clothes looked like.”
The doodle on the stained handkerchief was a circle with some squiggly lines. The ink had blotched and there were prints from Dee’s fingers on it. Aestith couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be. “Anyone brazen enough to wear a gang symbol like that would be in the South Ward.”
Kairon nodded. “They were abducted in the Docks, so it’s not far to transport him either.” He scratched at his beard. “Someone around there might have seen it.”
More gang problems in the South Ward. Aestith groaned internally. He really didn’t want to deal with some stupid turf war. It was a lot of bloodshed and risk of death with little to no reward, and he said so.
“Friendship is its own reward,” Tim said obliviously.
Aestith stared at him for a long moment, then pushed past him to lead the way. Kairon fell into step beside Tim and Dee dawdled after Aestith. The conversational topic of choice--friendship--seemed to be chosen to antagonize Aestith. Friendship, to a drow, carried very different connotations and expectations than for these iblith. True friendship was rarer than two equal lovers, because at least mutual lust would keep the lovers together.
Aestith had only been alive for 42 years, but had spent much of that time apart from the only society he had ever really felt a part of. In all that time, he had observed the phenomenon of friendship. He couldn’t understand the unburdening of emotions they lent to one another, talking and gossip and such. There was some value in helping each other, quid pro quo of course, but there didn’t seem to be much point to it otherwise.
“Perhaps we should ask around about that gang,” the cleric said blandly. He thought it best that Tim did this, as the one that the peasants were most likely to talk to.
Kairon and Aestith hung back while Tim and Dee tried to charm people into coughing up information. An uneasy, but familiar and thus comfortable, tension hung in the air between them.
“What did you say your god was, Kairon?” Aestith said, eyeing his tabard of Helm. He certainly didn’t act like any paladin of Helm.
Kairon gestured at the emblem adorning his garments. Aestith nodded once, filing the information away for future use. Dee gave up and came back but Tim returned in high spirits. His imp, invisible but not weightless, latched to his shoulder, making odd indentations in his robes. “I made a new friend, and she told me where to find the warehouse.”
Aestith’s expression remained blank. “That so. Well, lead on.”
Tim turned down the street that would lead to Aestith’s basement. The drow’s fingers opened and clenched but was otherwise impassive. Then Tim turned on a different road. It was several blocks from Aestith’s basement. The four passed it by once and Tim jerked his head toward it. They stopped at the end of the block. Tim sent his invisible imp to look around it.
“How do we want to break in?” Tim asked when the imp returned. He used a stick and sketched a rough outline of the place in the dirt. They stared down at it in a tight huddle.
Aestith shrugged a shoulder. “We could always try the front door and ask them nicely to return our client’s friend.”
Tim didn’t seem to know what sarcasm meant. “Well, I’m sure they didn’t intend to kidnap someone.”
The paladin and the cleric exchanged glances. Dee said, “Tim. Where did you say you were from?”
“A temple. I’ve never really been outside it before.”
“Ah.” Kairon looked at Aestith. “So how about Tim goes up to the front door. I come in through this side door with Dee, you stay out here and backup Tim when things go to shit.”
Tim smiled. “I’m always happy to make new friends.”
“Right. Go make some new friends at the front door of the warehouse,” Aestith encouraged. Tim strolled forward. The others walked behind him. Aestith whispered, “He’s going to get himself killed.”
“I know, but it’s so funny,” Kairon whispered back.
Kairon clanked and clunked in his plate mail on his way to the other entrance. Dee, in comparison, was entirely noiseless. Aestith nodded to Tim, and Tim rapped politely on the front door. He paused, then knocked more loudly. Tim was silent a long moment. He called, “Hello? I’m here to tell you about our lord and slaver, the Great Fiend below. Is anyone there? I can hear you!”
Dee mouthed, Roll with it. The tiefling disappeared around the corner.
Tim knocked ferociously for a moment, then tried the door. He glanced at Aestith. “Hey, it’s unlocked.” He peered inside. “Hello?”
Aestith waited for the inevitable crossbow bolt to Tim’s face, but it didn’t happen. When nothing continued to happen, he strolled up to Tim. “Kairon! Dee!” Aestith called. “The door is open.”
There was a pause, some more clanking of armor, and Kairon joined them. “The door was jammed,” he explained. “Dee is trying to break in to flank them.”
Aestith raised an eyebrow, then looked at Tim. “Well. In you go.”
Kairon booted the door open. “Prepare to be saved!” He clanked inside like a wagon full of tin drums. Tim charged in after him. Aestith checked the sides of the building, looked again at the street. “I’m going to check around back,” he said.
“Coward!” Kairon yelled. Aestith ignored this, and walked around the building. The sound of Kairon fighting something was audible even from outside, though it was fairly brief. Dee seemed to be struggling with the lock and swearing under her breath; it was jammed. Aestith peeked around the back of the building, pleasantly surprised to find that the gap between it and the next warehouse was about the width of a book.
The sounds of the fighting had died out by the time he got back to the front door. Kairon was yelling at someone. Aestith groaned and stepped inside. The interrogation was going poorly, in that Kairon had intimidated the man, but had intimidated him to the point that the gang member was a drooling lunatic instead of a source of useful information.
Tim ignored the goingson and perused the warehouse. Aestith drew Kairon back and moved to the gangster. He stared down at the man. Aestith rarely stared down at anyone, except in circumstances like these. He smiled sweetly. “Things are going to go very badly for you if you don’t tell us what we’d like to know.” He squatted on his haunches to be level with the man. “Now, why don’t you explain to us what you did with a human you kidnapped? What was his name, Kairon?”
Dee replied, “Mr. Nicholas Fauntleroy.”
Aestith nodded, his gaze never leaving the thug. “Yes. Him. Now, do be a dear and tell us where you keep your guests.”
The man looked from Kairon to Aestith and gibbered. Aestith sighed and stabbed him in the leg, which stopped the gibbering with a quail of terror and pain. He removed the knife and tapped it against the man’s other thigh. “If you insist on making noises like a monkey, I’m afraid you’re of no use to me.” The knife trailed down to the man’s right ankle. “You keep doing that, I’ll slice through this little tendon on the back of your ankle. If you ever walk again, it will be with a limp. Can you promise to calm down?”’ Aestith’s smile remained fixed. The thug nodded. Aestith said, “Good. Now, please tell me where you keep your guests. Specifically, Mr. Fauntleroy.”
The man moved his arm so suddenly that Aestith nearly stabbed him on impulse, but the man was pointing at a wall. Tim looked up from the boxes he was trying to open, then stalked over to the wall. He called, “Where?”
“The wall,” the man gasped. Sweat dripped down his blotchy cheeks like coagulated blood. “Switch.” He swallowed hard and looked at Aestith and Kairon. “I can go now? I told you what you wanted?”
“Why’d you take him?” Aestith said quietly.
He shrugged. “Boss said we gotta. Said, we had a chance to ransom a noble.”
Aestith sighed. He had been hoping for more. “That’s it? Think hard.”
Sweat pooled in the wrinkles of his forehead and spilled into his bushy eyebrows. “Boss don’t like nobles.”
The drow was silent a moment, then cleaned his knife on the man’s pantleg. He slid it back into his boot and rose. “Kairon?” Aestith said. “Why don’t we show our friend to some new accommodations?” He inclined his head toward an open crate. Once the sacks of rice were removed, it very neatly fit an adult human male. Kairon nailed it shut and placed a barrel over it. By then, Tim and Dee had located a switch. The man sobbed and clawed at the wood.
The switch was less dramatic than one may have hoped, and only unlocked a panel so that a section of the wall could be slid to one side. Inside, a tired, beaten man was tied to a chair. “Fauntleroy?” Aestith said.
The man nodded once. They untied him and Dee offered him water. They left the warehouse with scarcely a backward glance toward the captured thug.
“Do you know why they captured you?” Dee asked Fauntleroy.
The man scratched at the stubble on his chin. “No.” He frowned. “But, you know, I’d always been told things like that could happen. Idiot thugs trying to kidnap nobility for ransom and things like that.” He laughed without humor. “But nobility doesn’t equate to wealth.” He paused. “I’m lucky you showed up when you did. I fear what they’d have done when they learned I really couldn’t have paid.”
Aestith was only half-listening and he fell behind the other three. Nobility did not beget wealth. True on the surface as well as Enainsi, and the reverse as well. Though, wealth could lead to nobility. For him, acquiring the password to the speakeasy of nobility was not straightforward. Even if he could do some of their tricks, he wasn’t a noble. He’d never look like one, certainly. There was no guarantee that the church would accept him either, his abilities or no. Without enough backing, he would just be killed.
What Aestith should have been doing in that moment was listening to the latter part of what Fauntleroy said; the contractor claimed he would send the money to the guildhall by the end of the day, but he never did. The guild, being a small guild and without much means, would have ordinarily been stiffed out of the offered gold and thus so would the members, but they were livid enough to raise the funds for a lawyer. After all, it was also about being cheated out of money, and Aestith was vindictive. He wanted to just kill both of them in retaliation, but managed to stifle his more base urges for a potentially larger payout further on. Tim, Dee, and Kairon pontificated on their plight to Eilora, Monkey, and Deekin, who, in exchange for a promised cut, also chipped in for the lawyer.
A court date was set, but they still had to earn a living in the meantime. A noble paid the guild to send out extra hunters. They quickly learned that the noble was hiring their guild because it was inexpensive and his friends “weren’t stupid enough” to hunt the kinds of things he was interested in hunting--monsters. Boris took them out to hunt manticores and other creatures, but at least he paid well, which was more than Aestith could say about Dechagney.
Eilora and Deekin quickly forgave Tim his plentiful naive missteps, but Aestith was not so forthcoming. How could anyone live long enough to stand in battle yet was so incredibly naive? How could anyone allow someone else to go out into the world with such a poor notion of reality?
Aestith struggled to understand how such a thing could even come to be. He always had to remind himself of how very different things were between here and Enainsi. The surface world was plenty dangerous, and Aestith couldn’t fathom why so many people were so useless.
He walked back from the docks to the warehouse basement. He passed a poverty-stricken family of six. The stench of cheap ale clinging to the father denoted where the sweat of his daily toils went, and the gauntness of the pregnant mother’s bruised cheeks to where the funds should have gone.
He was repulsed at the concept of a patriarchal society, and disgusted that someone would choose to have so many children when they clearly could not afford it. Drow shed the excess, because they couldn’t support it; he understood that now. He had grown up in wealth and had used to think that the sacrifice of the third son was nonsensical, but watching the sad, beaten woman, he understood.
All those children were deadweight, when fewer were supportable. You might as well keep the ones that were of value and shed the others. And, if the wealthy were allowed to keep their third sons and the poor were not permitted the same privileges, they would likely keep them anyway. Hide them, perhaps, but keep them all the same. They would be even worse off. And what happened if a wealthy family fell on hard times? What happened if a poor family rose? Wasn’t it better to have the same rules apply to everyone? Besides, it kept the poor in line. If the wealthy were exempt from such a custom, that way led to rebellion.
Drow hadn’t always lived in the Underdark. That seemed obvious enough to him. Culturally, they had likely been a lot like the moon elves; a matriarchal theocracy. The third son sacrifice had probably only come about because of the limited resources of the Underdark and the tenet of Lolth to sacrifice males, and that she most loved the blood of drow. It probably had not been an easy decision to come to, or to make, originally. But it had allowed them to live and thrive. You trimmed off the weak to keep the rest strong. A bitch shunned a sick puppy to protect its litter.
Certain species of wolf were rare because they cared for the old and sick instead of let them die off. They tried to protect the weakened ones, and tried to help them when they were trapped or injured. If they left them to die instead, the wolves would have thrived instead of died.
This is why written histories are discouraged, he reminded himself. History led to second-guessing one’s ancestors, wondering about one’s culture. Then you had philosophy, which was often diametrically opposed to religion and a stable theocracy. He worried, briefly, that he was becoming too much like a surfacer.
He turned a corner, and nearly ran into the white drow.
Aestith stepped backwards in surprise. The other tilted his head, then sidestepped. “Sorry,” the other said.
Aestith made no move to pass. He turned toward the albino, his gaze rolling over the stylized depiction of the night sky on his face. The tattoo ran down his neck and disappeared into the dirty collar of his leathers. Aestith searched for any hint of magic, and was disappointed to discover that the tattoos were real. “Why would you do that?” he said quietly. “Those tattoos.”
The other paused. He spoke in a lowborn surface accent. “Oh. Moon elves traditionally tattoo themselves.”
Aestith jerked as if slapped. “A moon elf?” he demanded.
The other nodded with the patience of one who explained himself often. “Yeah. Most common elves that go into towns, y’know? Most half-elves are moon elves.”
Aestith twitched. “You believe you’re a moon elf?”
He tilted his head. His long white hair brushed against his leathers. “Well, yeah.” He smiled, as if he thought Aestith were amusing. “What else would I be?”
Aestith stood stunned. “Where did you come from?” he said slowly.
A shit-eating grin slipped over his face. “My mother.”
Aestith raised an eyebrow. “You grew up among moon elves?”
He frowned. Maybe Aestith had been mistaken. His resolve faltered a moment, then he looked again at the stranger’s height--only slightly taller than Aestith--and his slender build. He was, without mistake, a drow. The stranger said, “For a little while.” He made a face, as if he could say more, but didn’t.
In the dim light on the street, the other’s eyes were a pale pink. Aestith felt that he was somehow losing this fight. “Of… course.” He glanced again at the eyes. “Are you albino?”
A smile. “Leucistic, actually.”
Aestith wasn’t sure if he was more angry that a drow kept insisting, to another drow no less, that he was a moon elf, or that the drow in question seemed to believe it. How could he convince him otherwise? Not all drow had eyes that changed colors with anger or infrared, and even if his did, they were pink. “I…” His shoulders sagged. “Of course.”
The other nodded, then started to step away. He was barefoot, which Aestith assumed was a choice, considering the knives and the bow on his back. Only a thick strap of leather wrapped around the arch of his foot, leaving the toes and the heels free. The tattoo reached all the way down to his ankle. The man stopped and looked back at Aestith. “Why do you ask?”
Aestith’s resolve strengthened. He had to do something. He couldn’t let this drow continue on like this. He shrugged. “I glimpsed you in the market the other day and I was curious. What brings you to Waterdeep anyway?”
“I could ask the same of you.” He smiled and tilted his head. Some of his hair was woven into thin braids decorated with beads and small charms, ending in colorful feathers. “Over drinks?”
Aestith’s eyebrows arched in surprise. That had been incredibly simple. Aestith fell into an easy step beside him. He usually had to walk quickly to keep up with people lately, being so much shorter than all of his usual guild members, but the stranger kept a similar stride.
“My name is Aestith.”
The other nodded. “Aestith? Like Aesdondia, the dragon slain about… Less than fifty years ago, I think.”
Aestith’s lips parted in a small “o” of shock. He found himself smiling. “No one ever pieces that together,” he said. “Yes.”
“I remember when she fell,” he mused. “I was in Vaelan. So not far from there. Performing. With my theater troupe. Anyway, my name is Aracnelxeth.”
Aestith stared at him flatly. That was an adult drow name.
He flashed Aestith a grin. “But most people trip over that pronunciation, so it’s Arcedi.”
Aestith frowned quizzically. “Arcedi?”
“In a particular Common dialect, a ‘th’ at the end of a word is an impossible sound, so “di” replaces it. So Arcedi.”
Aestith frowned. Did the drow believe he was a moon elf? With that name, he just had to know better. Then why the tattoos? Aestith’s head spun. The two passed into a bar and plopped down at an empty table. Arcedi was entertaining, speaking so easily to these surfacers like he truly suspected no ulterior motives among them. He didn’t even inspect his drink much before he took a swallow--and that was saying something in the Docks Ward.
Arcedi smiled, and kept eye contact with Aestith in a way that no male drow should have. Aestith couldn’t understand it. The name seemed to be the only implication that the other even knew what he was. Why would a moon elf have a name like that? None of it made sense.
Aestith, unable to wrestle any direct answer from Arcedi, instead asked him why he was in Waterdeep. This was a long, convoluted story in itself, and Arcedi was not a storyteller. Arcedi could juggle, could dance, said he could play the viol, but his story was out of order, and he left out details more because he seemed to genuinely forget them than that he was being deceitful, for he would fill in the blanks later.
Arcedi used to be a performer, floating around from circus to mystery cycle, to traveling theater. Each of these he used as a front to steal things, quickly out of town again before he could be found out. Eventually, he got bored and graduated to full-fledged piracy. When he grew tired of taking orders, he and a few friends had acquired their own ship and set sail. “That was met,” he said with a grin, “--with disaster.” The captain, in the end, had gone down with her ship. He leaned back in the chair. “The Acquilla was really everything Tasha had ever wanted. It was her dream, and she refused to give it up. Even when she knew she would die otherwise.” He rolled his pink eyes. “So anyway, the ship sank and it was just me’n the other two.” He shook his head. “It all became a dog’s breakfast after that. I went home. Now I’m here.”
Aestith was waiting for such a statement, and he said, “Where’s home?”
The other smiled slyly. “Aestith, you could walk right by a moon elf village and never see it, except for the temples. And I’m not about to tell a drow where one is.”
Aestith’s lips pursed. “Is that so.” He had listened to Arcedi speak long enough to distinguish that while it sounded quite a bit like a drow accent, there were nuances and differences, especially in enunciation of vowels.
“It is. Now, tell me, since I told you, and I think this will be more interesting, why don’t you tell me how a drow ended up in Waterdeep?”
Aestith ran a finger along the uneven rim of the cup. “There are no drow in Waterdeep.”
Arcedi smiled, as if Aestith had finally answered correctly. “Then tell me how you ended up in Waterdeep?”
Aestith felt like a moment ago, he had been standing on something solid, and only just now had begun to slide. He kept his confusion carefully off of his face and he propped his elbows on the stained tabletop. “Would you believe me if I said I got horribly lost?”
He snorted a laugh. “Why do so many drow claim to have no sense of direction?”
“In my case, it’s true.” He tilted his head. He couldn’t figure Arcedi out. Who was he? What was he doing here really? He couldn’t tell if that convoluted story was real or not. There were so many details that he assumed that much of it had to be, but it could have been years ago or each piece was years apart and actually part of a different tale, and it was already difficult to tell how old an elf was. Drow were easier, because of the changes in hair color over time, but this one was leucistic. “How long are you in town?”
He made a face. “I’m not sure. I suppose until I figure out where I want to go next.”
Aestith looked at the cup, then his eyes flicked to Arcedi. “Have you ever been to the Underdark?”
He shook his head. “No. Never been. Wouldn’t mind going.”
Aestith’s brow creased. He supposed that it wasn’t impossible, not with the Spellplague. Just very strange. And the tattoos still didn’t make sense. Aestith couldn’t figure out if the other had ever discovered the truth, or were just fucking with him. “When do moon elves usually get tattoos?”
He drained his cup. “Adulthood.”
Aestith’s gaze ran down the tattoo. The purples and blues were bright and vibrant as watercolor paint. It hadn’t been decades ago. “Do you need to get them retouched?”
“Yeah. But I haven’t been back since I got them, and I wouldn’t have anyone but a moon elf do it.”
He wasn’t asking the right questions. He had been on track with that previous statement, but he felt like he had veered off course somehow. “Your family is there?”
Arcedi was silent a short moment. “I suppose.” He made a face. “People who raised me. That’s family, right?” The last part seemed bitter, and Aestith’s spine straightened. Arcedi inspected his empty cup, glanced at the barmaid, then looked back at Aestith. “I never really fit in there.”
Aestith nodded. “You’re not really like them.”
He smiled, something less a smirk or a laugh. His teeth were as white as his skin. “Took me almost eighty years to figure out what was wrong.”
Aestith pushed his mostly full cup toward Arcedi. The other picked it up almost unthinkingly, but this time, stared at it instead of drinking first. He looked at Aestith. Aestith said, “What was the tipping point?”
“I went home to visit. Me mum mentioned that I’d be getting marked soon, and we workshopped some plans. Well, when I mentioned a constellation or a map, she started talking about colors.” He set the cup down and gestured to the tattoo. “Moon elves spend a lot of time out at night, and a lot of them look at the sky, so they make a lot of star charts. We were looking at one, and I said something about how most star charts have more void space than there really is, and when she didn’t understand what I meant, I knew that I didn’t just feel different than the moon elves; I was.”
Aestith’s eyes slid toward the tattoo. Was the night sky really all those shades of blue, green, red, and purple? Was it more than what Aestith could see in infrared, and less at the same time? The night sky, to Aestith, looked like varying shades of cold with bright points of light. It was colorful, in a way, but nothing like what was on Arcedi. He felt, strangely, cheated. Could every other race see it but dark elves? No wonder drow lived underground. There was nothing for them up here. Aestith’s voice came softly. “Do you know anything about drow?”
He reached for the cup again, tilted the contents from one side to the other idly as he spoke. “Little,” he admitted. “I know what people say.”
“How much of it do you think is true?”
He smiled. “Most of it.”
“And what do you think of it?”
He set the cup down again, untouched. He looked at the closest person, some barfly well into his cups. He looked back at Aestith. “I think that if someone can’t defend themselves, maybe it’s their own fault they died. I think that every culture and race raids and kills another, and that’s normal. And I think the sunlight is vile, and I always have.” He gave a lopsided grin that, unexpectedly, made Aestith’s insides twist. “But, y’know, moon elves are practically nocturnal, so no surprises there.”
And Aestith, suddenly, understood Arcedi’s game. Arcedi wasn’t a drow, because there weren’t any in Waterdeep. He was a moon elf, and it made people more amiable toward him, made him less suspicious, so he wore his albinism like armor, even when he felt out of place posing as a moon elf. Maybe it was even true that he had adoptive moon elf parents who had thought that nurture could win out against nature. He had the tattoos to prove it. He certainly knew little and less of drow anyway.
Aestith gently offered to teach him. They paid the tab and left the bar, Aestith at first only telling him about the cultural norms, habits, traditions, then it slowly trailed to Lolth. Aestith’s life began and ended with the Spider Queen, and his thoughts and behavior reflected that. He spoke with a passion about her that fascinated Arcedi. He seemed to drink in whatever Aestith told him.
The evening grew later, and Aestith felt the wear of the past couple of weeks hang on him. He wanted to go home. He almost wanted to invite Arcedi home. He didn’t, only made a comment that he was eager to rest after the day’s events. Arcedi nodded with understanding. “How can I find you again? I want to learn more.”
Aestith hesitated, but only a moment. “I’m usually around the docks.” He told him about the guildhall.
Arcedi nodded once. “Yeah.” He glanced back at the city. “I need to get going myself.” He winked. “I do my best work at night.”
Aestith’s stomach clenched. “I’m sure you do.”
Arcedi turned. Aestith watched him go. The pale drow gathered his eclectic hair as he walked and tied it back, then pulled the hood of his cloak over his head. Aestith was left standing alone, more alone than he had felt in a long time. Even being near Arcedi had made him feel less isolated for a short time. Now, he was only aware of how alone he was. And how lonely.
He should have asked Arcedi to spend the night.
#
The liquid in the glass bubbled and the substance rose to the surface, traveled down a thin glass tube. It pooled into the glass beaker, a single droplet at a time. So much material for so little substance.
The other jars and bottles on the shelves had all been filled slowly in similar fashion and carefully labeled. To Haeltania, the labels were largely unnecessary; she never confused one liquid for another, no matter how similar. She knew them by consistency, by smell. She sat at her table with a careful, straight posture. A leather apron protected her clothing and skin from possible spills, and the finely tailored gloves allowed the best possible movement and protection. A pin held her amber hair on the back of her head.
The glass she used was the finest Tith'Rix gold could purchase. She would have nothing less near her. Even the mask and the goggles somehow could not diminish her beauty, from her long legs, to her tapered waist, the graceful curve of her neck.
From the ceiling a single dark spider dropped down on a slender strand of silk. It stopped before her eyes. A pair of red lips smirked on the spider’s abdomen, like a black widow with a different marking. Haeltania stilled, her breathing shallow. Why was Lolth watching her? Why was she here, now?
The sultry voice was as clear as her glass instruments in her mind, just as deadly as her worst poison and as smooth as an oil. I would have you as a cleric.
Haeltania tugged down her mask to her neck and inhaled sharply. She wished, suddenly, that she were wearing something more presentable. She bowed her head to the spider. “Only tell me what I must do, Spider Queen.”
I would give you a test to measure your worth.
Her hands shook. “Yes, Queen of Spiders.”
There is one boy masquerading as a woman that has proclaimed himself to be one of my clerics. I have accepted inferior males before, but not ones who pretend to be that which they are not. A male attempting to usurp a female’s place displeases me.
Her throat felt dry and she lowered her head still further. The air felt thick with the presence of the envoy--she spoke for the Spider Queen, but it was quite impossible to have actually been her.
You shall kill him in the Trial of Lolth.
Her eyes squeezed shut. She could barely breathe. “Yes, Queen of Spiders. What is his name?”
Aestith'Rix.