The guild members divided the gold from the brewery contract among themselves. Brass Monkey called over to Douglas, “Hey, Douglas! Why are we getting stiffed on this contract?”
Douglas lifted his head and stared at the group flatly. “You were paid to solve the problem at the brewery. When he sent the contractors into the new basement you uncovered, they found a nest of fire beetles, so you didn’t actually clear it, did you?”
They looked at one another. “Yeah, but the heat from the furnaces isn’t spoiling the beer anymore, and that’s what he wanted,” Deekin said.
“We completed that contract to the letter,” Kairon insisted.
Dee pointed at Kairon. “That should be our new catchphrase.”
“To the letter?” Tim said.
Aestith nodded. “Makes sense. Blight on your crops? Burn the crops. No more blight.”
Eilora finished, “To the letter.”
Douglas stared off into some middle distance as he contemplated his life choices. The others around the table nodded in agreement before they collected their gold. “Off to court?” Dee reminded them.
The court battle itself was uninteresting. There was a great deal of arguing, but in the end, the contract was a simple one and without a great deal of to-do. The judge ruled in favor of the guild, and the original contractor forfeited property instead of the offered gold, because he didn’t have it.
The rest of the day was thus tied up in further court fees and details of the deed.
“What do we want to do with it?” Dee said.
Monkey frowned at the deed; he disliked his name on paperwork. “We could try to sell it.”
“Let’s at least look at it first,” Tim said. They didn’t arrive there until well after dark, and night, for most of the party, was not the time to see this place.
“It looks like something out of a haunted house story,” Eilora said flatly.
“Well, I can see why he didn’t put up much fight about keeping it,” Aestith sighed.
Monkey’s shoulders drooped. “We’re not going to get anything trying to sell it.”
“Let’s look inside,” Tim said, ever cheerful.
“I think I’ll take my apprentice home,” Deekin said slowly.
Aestith had almost forgotten about his apprentice. The boy had been unusually quiet beyond the occasional shriek after Monkey attacked him. Kairon scratched his chin. “What’s the kid’s name again?”
“It’s—” the boy tried to say.
“Be ready!” Monkey yelled with a swing of his cutlass. The boy dove backwards to avoid the blade, his eyes as large as discs.
“It’s Jules or Gil or something,” Aestith said.
“Right. Hey, Gil, you want to see the inside of the haunted house, right?”
The kid sniffed, and seemed to resent this treatment, but by now had learned better than to complain about it. The boy eyed the haunted house and looked at Kairon and Aestith. “No.”
“Oh, c’mon, Gil, it’ll be fun,” Dee said. “There are probably no ghosts or demons at all.”
The boy cringed and his eyes opened with a slow dawning of realization that the group had, in fact, renamed him. “But my name isn’t—”
Deekin’s scaly hand landed on Gil’s thin shoulder. “Come on, Gil. You’re up past your bedtime.”
“But my name is Gullian!”
“Isn’t that nice? Everyone likes you so much they gave you a nickname.”
“But—”
Deekin shoved and poked Gil down the street. The house, of course, wasn’t devil-infested until Kairon stepped into it. As for a haunting, the house was free of spirits, but it did look like something anguished and tormented.
“Well. We could just get rid of it,” Monkey said.
Eilora suggested, “We could fix it and then try to sell it. That might be easier than trying to split it between all of us.”
Kairon looked over the bar. Aestith cringed every time he stepped, for each footfall made the floorboards creak as if they might break. “But it’s a pub!” He whirled to look at them. “We could own a tavern.” He spread his arms. “Guys, this is our retirement plan.”
They looked around the room, at the stains, the cobwebs, the broken furniture. A musty smell hung in the air. “Do we really have the money to renovate this place?” Aestith said.
Kairon reached into his breastplate. The metal clanged and echoed. He tossed a heavy purse onto a table so covered in dust that it plumed where he dropped it. “Yes we do.”
They didn’t begin the task until the next day, when Kairon had enthusiastically gotten contractors and carpenters out to the house. When Aestith arrived, the tiefling was already there, on a wooden table outside. Aestith sat beside him, and as the others arrived, they looked over the blueprint to the house, making plans to install a dumbwaiter, to knock down a wall here or install walls there.
The owners debated what they would like to do with the place. It had used to be some kind of inn and tavern, though none of them seemed too keen on it. Aestith suggested converting it into a brothel, half-expecting everyone to immediately shut that down, but they actually debated it. They also considered just having it be a house, but Kairon kept insisting that it was a retirement plan and they needed to invest in it.
The end result was that they named the inn “The Traveler’s Club”, which was just as much based on the theme of the brothel as well as that they were all adventurers. Roles almost naturally fell upon them, rooms were divided out, locks and keys were forged. Aestith somehow acquired the old library room with the only door to the tower.
Some of them were more involved in the renovations than others, but most of the group didn’t leave the city during the construction. Aestith, for his part, had too much to do to prepare to move to go out adventuring. He saw Arcedi on occasion, and used the opportunities to, very gently, explain drow culture and religion to him. He also began teaching the other Undercommon and deep drow, which Arcedi took to surprisingly well.
Arcedi was always interested in these discussions, but Aestith quickly found that he actually preferred to speak to Arcedi instead of listen to Arcedi. Arcedi may be a drow, but in many ways, he was very fey. It wasn’t his fault; he had been raised by moon elves and believed he was most of his life. The result was nothing short of obnoxious. Arcedi was prone to acts of whimsy and silliness that no drow would ever partake in, which sometimes caused some concern that this was cultural and not innate.
Arcedi also refused to admit, in any official capacity, what he was. He didn’t seem afraid of it, nor did he seem in denial or against it; he merely, for whatever evasive reason, refused to say he was a drow out loud.
One thing that was innate with Arcedi, however, and it may have only been that he had been raised a moon elf, was that he was automatically respectful toward Aestith, bordering on subservient. Aestith at first only asked him for small favors, or requested he watch things for him while Arcedi wandered about the city, as he asked of Adam. Arcedi told Aestith once that he “only had to ask”. The tilt of Arcedi’s head and the low tone of his voice implied things that made Aestith squirm, but he refused to give in to his base urges. What would come of it? What would Arcedi think if he saw Aestith? And, worse, what would he do or say?
#
After the construction, Aestith slowly packed his things from the warehouse basement and transported them in boxes to the guildhall, one at a time, until everyone else was ready to move. He hadn’t seen Arcedi in several days, but he was mostly unconcerned. He left a note with Douglas, and they moved into the brothel.
Aestith really only brought his lab equipment, the shrine, and the bloodmoss. Everything else he purchased new, including some clothing. He had the only key to his laboratory, which he kept on his person. He also had to keep a copy of the deed on him at all times, because the guards liked to stop him when they saw him in the nicer part of town.
Eilora had little real interest in running the brothel, beyond that it did well. Deekin was mostly interested in training Gil and performing. Monkey disappeared before renovations were even complete, but they left a room for him. The roles of the brothel seemed to otherwise fall into place. Tim balanced the books with an obsessive attention, Kairon took care of most of the hiring, and Aestith began creating and placing ads.
They had an exclusive “soft” opening of the brothel after hirings, wherein they had a small party and invited guests.
The evening started off slow but steady. Aestith quickly found himself running interference with the wealthier invited patrons when he realized that his cohorts interacted with clients the way that they interacted with one another, which simply wouldn’t do. He kept busy entertaining and balancing these guests when a nearby balding barkeep shuffled in. He was dressed as if effort had been made, however little there had been.
The balding man scoffed at the drinks and the food. Aestith sent the other female courtesan to flirt with him, but he turned up his nose at the tiefling. Kairon offered to show the man a private tour. He invited Tim along.
Aestith learned later that Kairon had stealthily poked the barkeep, Emerick, with a sleep bolt and put him in the cheapest room, the Luskan Rough and Tumble. He paid the tiefling courtesan, Flareglow, to stay in the room with him and pretend that Emerick had drunk himself silly and got a room with her. To add to this nonsense, he poured some cheap liquor on Emerick. Aestith made faces and mumbled about the cost of the sheets as they counted out the night’s earnings.
They sent the remaining courtesans home, had the halfling maid Hogpen clean up the used suite, and closed shop.
Aestith wandered upstairs. By some stroke of luck, the washroom connected directly to his quarters, and was shared with only Monkey. Since Monkey was still missing in action, he had it to himself. He hadn’t been in a real tub in so long he could scarcely wait to climb into it. He spared nothing, pouring soap into the water to create frothy bubbles.
Steam fogged the mirror in the room. The low light from the sphere behind him just illuminated the room enough to read, and spoil his infrared, which was something Aestith had to compromise. He soaked up to his neck in the bath, his hand raised above a thick swathe of white bubbles. The water was scented, not the flowery odors that surfacers liked so much, but musk and amber. His hair was pinned and fastened in a high bun, with the intention of washing it later.
A bottle of wine sat on the short table beside the bath, next to a glass nearly drained. The bottle itself held less than half its original liquid. Sometimes, Aestith told himself that he needed to stop drinking--just as soon as his life stopped being so stressful, which never ceased to amuse him. He prayed his life was never less stressful. If he lived peacefully, he would be displeasing Lolth. That brought him all the peace he needed.
His other hand slid from the hot water, covered in bubbles, and reached for the glass. He pressed it to his lips, then stopped. He shifted in the water to peer past the open door to his quarters. He sighed and took a sip of the wine. He said, eyes on the book, “It’s rather impolite to enter a room without knocking. It is customary to apologize when you interrupt someone. Particularly if they are bathing.”
Arcedi tilted his head, a wisp of a smile about his lips. He did not even have the grace to be sheepish. “Then I suppose I must make an apology.” He stalked through Aestith’s quarters to the bath and bowed his head. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to intrude on your bath, though I couldn’t have anticipated the washroom door being open.”
The cleric set the book and the glass aside and twisted to look at Arcedi with narrowed eyes, his breasts just above the lip of the tub. Arcedi’s eyes lingered. “I trust I locked the bedroom door.”
“You probably did.”
“Look, love, you can either leave, or you can climb into this bath with me, but don’t hover in the doorway like that.”
Arcedi tossed whatever he had been delivering this time aside and reached for the buckles on his bandoleer.
Aestith said, “Arcedi.” He hesitated, then sighed. “You’re not getting from me what you might expect.”
He tilted his head. “Didn’t you just invite me in? Or are we literally just going to wash our hair?”
Aestith smiled, but it faded quickly. “Ah, that is…” He shook his head. “This is easier if I just show you.” Aestith gripped the sides of the tub, braced himself more for the other’s reaction than for leverage, and lifted himself from the water. Soap bubbles clung to his dark skin. In case it obscured the other’s infrared, he lifted his palm and the little orbs of light floated about Aestith. It left little to the imagination.
Arcedi, for his part, seemed unperturbed. “Lovey, that only makes you more interesting.” Systematically, he turned toward the vanity. Aestith sunk into the water. Arcedi removed the bandoleer and slung it over the chair. His clothes, he piled into a heap, and he looked back at Aestith. The tattoo that covered him like some kind of horrid bruise, swept from his eye to his ankle and curved partway down one arm to meet the old scars and prison brands.
All Aestith had ever seen of what the night sky looked like to other races was over Arcedi’s albino-pale body. It looked like some fanciful thinking, an abstract painter trying to mimic an impressionist piece. It looked like watercolor paints had been splattered over his body in shades of mostly blue and purple, red, green, bits of black. Was that what every non-drow saw in the sky stretched out over millions of miles? No wonder so many of them were prone to whimsy; with so much open air and a collage of color, they had nothing to remind them that their lives were lived far below it.
Arcedi slipped into the water, and waited, subservient. Aestith slid over him, crawling up his torso to push his lips against the other.
Aestith couldn’t have known it, but from that moment, Arcedi was his to command. Arcedi wouldn’t have said it was because Aestith was a good lay. It wasn’t Aestith’s face, for Aestith looked quite androgynous, and was pretty but not beautiful. To Arcedi, Aestith was an enigma. Aestith represented a sort of unity that Arcedi longed for, and a faith that Arcedi had never before found. Aestith was a tie to a culture that Arcedi felt a kinship for. It wasn’t love, for neither of them were quite capable of such an emotion, but it was lust and a sort of devotion on Arcedi’s part.
After their initial embrace, Arcedi would have left had Aestith told him to, would have likely left without his leave, but Aestith asked him to stay, hinted at a second round, which there certainly was.
Arcedi dressed and Aestith, wrapped in a robe, picked the twine off the package the other had dropped off.
“Guard schedules, routes, addresses, and a couple letters and receipts I thought you might find interesting,” Arcedi said.
“Try again in Undercommon,” Aestith said. Arcedi paused, mulled over the response, then repeated it. Aestith smiled. “You’re getting much better.” He looked up. “And try to sign it.”
Arcedi made a face, made a rude gesture that made Aestith laugh, and signed it out. Aestith made the odd correction here and there, but Arcedi seemed to grasp it overall. Signing seemed to come more naturally to Arcedi, for that matter, but that made sense, given his background. He liked to dance and move, communicating so much with his body already. It was a shame he hadn’t been born into it.
But that was Lolth’s way. If Arcedi had been born somewhere in the Underdark, he wouldn’t be here, delivering Aestith information.
Arcedi lifted one of the thick curtains to the side. Even the meager light from the street was blinding and both flinched. Arcedi glanced back at Aestith, maybe only to give his eyes time to adjust. “So. Can I come back tomorrow?”
Aestith considered what they were doing tomorrow. “No. It’s opening day, so I can’t.” He threaded his lower lip through his teeth and considered closing that curtain and dragging Arcedi back to bed. “What about the night after?”
He tilted his head. “Sure.”
Aestith never asked him if he wanted to use the door; he didn’t think Arcedi would want to anyway. Aestith leaned against the writing desk and watched the pale drow climb nimbly out of the window into the alley. He went to the curtain in time to see the other drop the last few feet, then slink away in the dark. Aestith shut the window and latched it, knowing full well that a locked window would never stop Arcedi. He was glad of it.
#
Aestith studied the notes and letters with interest, mulled over the receipts. In the morning, he traveled down to the docks to find Adam. Adam couldn’t read, but Aestith told him some of the information anyway, then asked him to tail a particular noble.
“I suspect an affair,” Aestith added.
Adam, not quite understanding the implications of this, nodded absently and took the candy. His filthy hair almost obscured a deep purple bruise on one side of his face. He gave Aestith a scrap of hide tied with twine to hold coins. Aestith tilted his head. “Adam, did you get into a fight?”
“No,” he said defensively, then frowned. “I broke into someone’s house.”
“And?”
He made a face. “Well, I got caught.”
“But not by the guard, so that’s good.” Aestith smiled reassuringly. “Did you go at night?”
“Yeah! I’m not stupid.”
Aestith shook his head. “Most people are home at night. But single men and women work during the day, and no one is home. Married couples, without kids, usually have more money, but sometimes one of them is at home in the day, so act appropriately.” Aestith reached into his own purse and gave the boy a small sum, dropping the given coins in as he did. “Take this, and buy yourself some clothes. Middle class, so you don’t look too out of place in the daytime. Clean up. You’ll want the houses on corners, because they have fewer neighbors.”
He absorbed all of this with wide eyes, nodding along as Aestith spoke. He shoved the coins into his pocket. “Right. I’ll try that.”
“I know. Best of luck.” Aestith turned from him. He didn’t doubt that some people wouldn’t like what he was doing, that it was even illegal. Adam, however, didn’t seem to mind. Fact of the matter, the kid would probably be doing much the same anyway, and might even be worse off. He certainly seemed to be in better shape since Aestith had met him.
Aestith didn’t have anything in particular in mind for the noble having an affair, but he liked having the information. Secrets were expensive.
Aestith went to the South Ward orphanage, somewhere he spent the occasional afternoon. It wasn’t an act of charity on his part; it was that watching someone else in misery made him feel better about his own life. The headmistress, Meredith, was initially suspicious of Aestith, but too world-weary and exhausted to turn down help, even from a drow. Which spoke volumes of her abilities to mind the children. She tried, though.
Aestith mostly tended to bruises and scrapes that the kids had, dressing the wounds expertly and treating any rat or insect bites with care. He diagnosed illnesses. Sometimes, he gave the child a candy, though normally the mundane sort.
By now, Meredith was relieved to see Aestith when he knocked on the door; when he was around, the thugs that usually bothered her made themselves scarce. She dry-washed her hands. “Aestith,” she said in relief. “I’m glad you’re here. You see…” She threw up her hands. “Derek has fallen ill.”
“A flu maybe?” Aestith suggested. Flus were dangerous enough to the average citizen and, worse, contagious. Those in places like the South Ward did not have the means to take care of themselves when they were ill, and were likely to die.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I mean, perhaps, but I’m not sure.”
They walked toward the small room she used as an infirmary. There were a few sparse cots in the room, and in the far wall, a small boy wrapped in blankets. He sweat profusely.
“Could you tend to him?”
“Yes, of course.”
She hovered for a moment, then something in another room crashed, and she jumped, then excused herself. A tin bucket of tepid water sat on a rugged chair pulled beside the bed. A rag hung wet on the side of the bucket. Aestith dipped the stained rag and rung it out, then mopped the boy’s brow. His skin was warm to the touch, sweaty. Mostly unresponsive. The drow dropped the rag back over the side of the bucket. Aestith squinted in the light from the windows. How could humans see anything like this? This spectrum enabled him to read the pages on a book, but what good was it if he couldn’t distinguish the warmth of the body or the blood flow, a pulse of life?
He closed the shutters to engulf the room in darkness. No longer inhibited by the sunlight, the infrared showed him more. Out of the daylight, the boy did not flinch so much, but his body was flush with heat. The boy twitched under the patchy blankets, toes curling and uncurling. Fingers grasped at the sheets. His pulse was too quick, the flash of his throat as he breathed too rapid. His heart beat like a rat’s.
Aestith opened the shutters again, cringing only a little as his vision shifted to accommodate the sudden flush of light.
He strolled out of the room. Meredith met him in the hall. “Did you see him? Do you know what’s wrong?”
Aestith shrugged one shoulder. “He’s sick. Make sure he’s eating and getting enough water. I’ll be back later to check on him.” He considered when the next full moon was. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“Do you think I should take him somewhere? A temple?”
He knew she didn’t have the money for that. “No. You can’t leave the other children, and it’s just an illness. It’s a fever, yes, but make sure he’s clean and hydrated. And keep him separated from the other children of course.”
She nodded, but seemed deflated. She lifted her head. “There’s… another thing.”
He suppressed a sigh. “Yes?”
“These thugs… They’re part of a gang around here. They make me pay a protection fee, and if I don’t pay, they come in and break things and hurt the children. But I don’t have the money. And…” She stared at him with dewy eyes. “I just want them to leave us alone.”
He had been half-expecting her to ask for a loan. Of course, she had seen the armor. The weaponry. The reputation of drow preceded him, and she had seen the way the thugs dissipated when he was about. He groaned inwardly. He didn’t need this in his life.
“Do you know the name of the gang?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He made a face. “Any identifying clothing? Hair? Tattoos?”
“No.”
He sighed, nodded. He couldn’t know for sure, but he would be willing to wager that it was the Tarsqueakers. And this got out of hand because I didn’t bother to help with it while it was only a minor problem. “Right. I’ll look around.”
“Thank you.” She acted like she wanted to embrace him, but held herself back. He moved past her to the main hall and left.
Aestith arrived back in the brothel with plenty of time to clean up and change, then do any last-minute preparations. He asked the others how things had gone with Emerick, as he had been in his room all that morning. They told him that Emerick had left after paying his tab and seemed pissy as all hell.
Deekin and Tim had gone out advertising, and everyone was hopeful for the first day, which of course meant that things were slow. It picked up briefly, two of the courtesans were even selected. Unfortunately, Tim seemed to have advertised the brothel badly, and drew in a crowd of boozers that were wrong for this style of bar.
The owners tried to run interference with them as much as possible. It was almost relieving when Emerick showed up, scoffed at all the brews, and invited the three to his tavern. They cheered and followed him out. He smirked. Aestith and his co-owners glowered.
“Yeah, fuck that guy,” Dee said.
Even Eilora nodded in agreement. Kairon went out. After their clients left, and the hour grew late enough to send the courtesans home, they counted out the night’s earnings, dismally low for an opening night.
Kairon slammed the door closed behind him. “So apparently Emerick has been talking shit about our business.”
“What?” Deekin said.
Eilora threw up her hands. “What is this guy’s deal? We aren’t even in the same business as he is.”
Dee’s lips twisted into a frown. She glanced at Eilora. “Let’s see if we can mess with him. You in?”
To Aestith’s surprise, Eilora agreed, and the pair hurried out. Kairon and Deekin went to bed. Tim remained a while longer as he balanced the books, then retired himself. Eilora and Dee arrived an hour later.
Aestith looked up from his novel. “How’d it go?”
Dee sighed. “Kinda shit. We couldn’t get in.”
“Oh.” Aestith frowned, disappointed.
Eilora went past him to her attic room. Dee had a room in the basement, because she liked being close to the pantry. Aestith closed the book and climbed the stairs to his room.
The sound of shattering glass made Aestith jump. He dropped the book, hand reaching to his rapier as he turned toward the noise. He nearly collided with Dee, and the two ran into the Waterdeep Suite.
Shattered glass spread on the floor of the room. Aestith disliked glass on principle, at night anyway. In the daylight, it wasn’t so bad, even practical, but once it was dark and he relied on infrared, the glass blocked his vision like a brick wall. Glass was ordinarily too cold for him to see through; he saw right through the shattered window.
Dee held a hand out, and an eldritch wind assaulted the rock-thrower. One of the assailant’s life flared, a red-hot beacon in the dark, and fell. The assailant’s compatriot turned and ran, screaming. Aestith looked at her. “What the fuck?” he demanded, then ran to the door downstairs. Aestith was the first at the body.
He knelt beside it, relieved to find that Dee had only grazed him. He shot her a glare and stabilized the man. “Dee, seriously, what the fuck?”
Dee wailed, “I didn’t know!”
“What did you think would happen?”
Dee stared at Aestith.
Aestith’s teeth ground. “Well, now what? We have a witness out there.”
Eilora ground to a halt. “What’s going on?”
Aestith rose. “We need to find the other witness. Someone needs to bribe this one.” He glared at Dee. “Dee almost killed him.”
Dee shrugged weakly. “We get attacked all the time.”
“Not usually in town.” He looked at Eilora. “Can you track him?”
Tim trotted up to them. “Do you mean this guy’s friend? My imp is following him.”
“Good. Kairon! Get Franklin--we have to catch this other guy.”
With little time to spare, they healed Dee’s victim enough to toss over the back of Franklin’s saddle. The summoned mount had originally been some sort of demonic dog, but when they had needed to advertise the brothel, he decided that a colorful unicorn would do a better job. Tim and Kairon rode off at an overburdened trot to find the other. Aestith glared at Dee. “We would have had to replace the window anyway, and now we have to pay for all these bribes.”
“But they assaulted us!”
“Which is a job for the incompetent guard.” He crossed his arms. “Fuck, they’re going to start rumors that we kill people in the brothel.”
Eilora looked around. “We should get out of the street.” They moved back inside. Dee cleaned up the broken glass. Aestith waited downstairs until Kairon and Tim came back, without the victim.
Tim beamed. “He had almost made it to a guard.”
Aestith’s cringed. “And?”
Kairon said, “We bribed him and paid for his carriage home.”
The drow sighed in relief.
Eilora shook her head sadly from side to side. “What has my life become?”
Kairon cast her a condescending grin. “Who do you hang out with?”
“I’m going to bed,” she announced. Cakecake trotted beside her up the stairs.
Aestith would have snickered at Eilora’s plight, but he often wondered the same thing. She may have wondered that because she had spent all of last night helping to cover up a murder of mostly innocent civilians, but Aestith asked the same question when he was just trying to live his life.
#
Aestith stared at himself in the mirror. His hand trembled only a little and he set the brush down. He had been practicing for a while, but had never been quite bold enough to actually wear it; his normally charcoal lips were a dark red. He pursed his lips at the mirror, made a pouty face, wondered if he shouldn’t just wash it off again. He looked at the other cosmetics on the counter, the bookmarked softcover about makeup. He had paced around the store, quietly wondering how he could avoid the shopgirl seeing the cover. Fortunately, some belligerent old woman had come in to complain, and Aestith had pocketed it while the owner was distracted.
Not all of it could apply to him, of course, and he’d never find something that matched his skin tone, but he thought he had actually done pretty well with what he had. The lips, of course, a touch of color in his cheeks, his eyelids. Maybe it was too much, all at once. Maybe if he just wore the red lips, and washed off the rest.
His stomach tightened. He wished he had someone he could ask. Arcedi? He made a sour face. Arcedi wouldn’t understand it. Aestith liked the pale drow well enough, or maybe just liked proselytizing at him and lusting after him, but he could really only bear to be near the other for a couple of hours at a time. Arcedi was overbearing and often obnoxious, which was a downright shame.
Maybe he could just ask… He ran through a mental tally of his co-owners before he dismissed the idea.
A knock at the door made him look up. An old, familiar knot of anxiety balled in his stomach. He walked from the washroom, through his bedroom, to the door. He opened it. “Yes?”
Hogpen seemed anxious. “There’s…” She struggled. “There’s someone downstairs asking to see one of the owners.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “Can’t one of the others see to it?”
She made a face. “Yes, but… It’s a dark elf.”
He blinked. A thousand questions raced through his head, half in trepidation. His sisters knew where he was. He hadn’t made much effort to hide himself, as far as his name went. What if they had sent someone? It couldn’t be Arcedi; he would have stubbornly insisted he was a moon elf--and he would have come in through the window. Aestith had expressly forbidden Arcedi to appear around the guildhall and the Traveler’s Club beyond Aestith’s quarters. Arcedi had never questioned it, but if he did, Aestith would tell him a variation of the truth, which was that Arcedi raised too many questions. “So?”
She squirmed. “Well, I said I’d check if you’re available, and you’re here. They said they’d wait.”
He frowned. “Of course. I’ll be right down.”
She nodded and turned to leave with a relieved sigh.
“Uh, actually. Hogpen?” he said. She turned back. He struggled, made a face, and smiled sheepishly. He whispered, “Does my makeup look stupid?”
She covered her mouth with a hand to keep from laughing, which did nothing to assure him of his appearance. “I’m sorry, it’s just… It’s the way you asked. You look great.” Then she smiled coyly. “You weren’t expecting someone, were you?”
Aestith felt heat rise to his face, and was terribly glad that she couldn’t see in infrared. “No. Just… experimenting with makeup. Please, tell them I’ll be right down.”
He shut the door and laced his boots before he made his way downstairs. He was nervous when he walked down, terrified that he actually looked ridiculous and Hogpen was just too polite to her new boss, or too terrified of that new boss being a drow, to tell the truth.
He cast a glance around the bottom floor, and saw the drow seated at a table. He looked up as Aestith approached, and a lazy, slow smile spread over his lips, as if he were somehow pleased to see Aestith. In the cleric’s experience, this was rarely a good thing.
Regardless, Aestith sat down across from him, and crossed his ankles. He returned the smile, his back straight, chin lifted. “I understand that you requested to see one of the owners. I’m Aestith. To whom do I owe the pleasure?”
His gaze ran over Aestith’s features and his eyes seemed to soften, even when his spine went rigid. Aestith wondered how long he had been on the surface, how long since he had seen a female drow. The other’s eyes were the same amber shade as Haeltania’s hair.
The male said, “Zanisernix.” He tilted his head slightly. “I must admit, you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. I wasn’t expecting a drow.”
Aestith kept the smile on his face. No drow would admit to that. The other knew perfectly well that there was a drow owner. He would have to ask Hogpen if Zanisernix had requested Aestith specifically. The cleric said, “Of course not. Why would you? So, what brings you here?”
His gaze lingered briefly, then his eyes flicked away. “I wanted to know if you’d be interested in a business opportunity.” He looked past Aestith, at the bar. “Perhaps somewhere more private?”
Aestith showed him up the stairs and they sat down in one of the alcoves. Aestith, not really particularly given to pleasantries, waited for the other to get to the point.
He did, in Undercommon. “A servant from a noble house is delivering love letters between the house and a Desmaduke temple.”
Aestith was silent for a moment as he mentally flipped through any literature he had read on the deity, but couldn’t recall. There were so many surface deities. He tilted his head. “Go on.”
He nodded. “Desmaduke explicitly forbids such carnal acts.” The other smiled, as if amused that a deity demanded such sacrifice. Zanisernix’s teeth were like black spinels, naturally glossier than Aestith’s common white teeth. He had probably come from a noble house too. His bones would be just as black as the ones in the small ironwood box Aestith kept.
The cleric was reminded of his natural pallor, light enough to be considered near to sickly in drow. The freckles seemed to burn on his face. Aestith inclined his head. “You want the letters.”
“Yes.”
Aestith watched him for a moment, trying to judge what he was about. “Why can’t you do it?”
“I’m asking you.”
The phrase told Aestith more than if the other had actually answered. Zanisernix could probably do it himself, but had asked Aestith, which meant he wanted something else and was testing Aestith. It was a common tactic; if you ask someone for a small favor, they were more likely to do the larger favor later. This was merely a stepping stone. “Of course, but why, might I ask, are you interested?”
A slow blink covered his yellow eyes. “Chaos.”
Aestith smiled. Any chance to please Lolth was all Aestith truly required. “Perhaps.” He uncrossed his ankles and inspected his nails. Could this be the same noble house Aestith suspected of having an affair? “Perhaps I’ll have time for this. Tell me a bit more about the noble? What makes you think they’re love letters?”
He watched Aestith carefully. “They’re delivered every third day to a drop point. If they aren’t love letters, they’re more interesting.”
Aestith was silent a moment. He considered his schedule for the day. “Are they being dropped soon?”
“This evening.”
He looked up. “I’ll have a look. Tell me what you know.”
He explained the servant’s livery, the drop point, then slid two sealed letters across the table. Aestith knew at a glance that it was a decoy, so neither the noble nor the paladin would immediately suspect. Aestith saw him out.