Elminster in Hell

Nalitheen shrugged again. "I have two daughters. They J must eat. For myself, I don't care anymore, now that Borold is gone. I used to think I'd hear him call, and he'd come up the street again as he always did, singing. But I know he won't now. Ever again."

They were silent, for a time. Then Mirt asked again, roughly this time, "But why-sell yourself?"

Nalitheen turned in his arms to face him, in the darkness. "What else have I?" she asked simply. "I can cook, aye, but there are a hundred hundred folk this side of the castle who can cook better than 1.1 have no skill at handiwork, nor strength to load or unload goods in the streets for whatever coin is offered. All else in this city is guild work, and I lack the coins even to apprentice to a guild. And 'prentice wages won't feed two younglings, even if I near starve."

Mirt ran a hand along her ribs. "Naught else to spare, have you?"

Nalitheen chuckled. "Borold used to say that. I have always eaten little."

"I've no complaints," Mirt assured her, and they chuckled together. He fell silent then, and soon after began to snore. Nalitheen lay still in his arms, looking into the night-and surprised herself by falling asleep almost immediately.

You humans certainly rut a lot. If you wasted less time talking your way into each other's arms, you'd have more time for killing and plundering.

My thanks, Nergal, but some in Faerun, as it happens, have noticed that already.

[snort] Reveal more, wizard. My patience is a shorter thing than it was when i first captured you.

And as it happens, I've noticed that. [diabolic chuckle, images flying by]

When Mirt awoke and rolled over, it was gray dawn. Beside him, the bed was empty. He looked first for his sword and laid it by long habit close within reach. Then he dressed quickly and quietly, as was his wont, stretching once or twice as cats do.

Nalitheen came into the room before he was done, with two steaming tankards of what smelled like bull-tongue broth. She stopped suddenly at the sight of him fully dressed.

She was barefoot, and as a warming-robe wore a once-fine, patched gown, open down the front but loosely belted at the waist. She handed him one tankard with what might have been a smile and sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling what she wore more tightly around her.

"You'll be leaving, then?" she asked, raising her eyes to his. There was something strange in them.

Mirt nodded slowly. "I must. The company rides again, this afternoon, after we've bought food enough to ride on." He sipped, and nodded appreciatively. "My thanks- this is welcome, indeed."

Nalitheen looked at him. "So was your kindness last night," she said. Mirt met her gaze steadily, and then deliberately drained his tankard and rose. A gold piece fell from his hand to clatter inside it as he set it down.

"One more thing, if you will," he said slowly. Nalitheen raised her eyebrows over her tankard, as she sipped her still-steaming broth.

"Show me your daughters," Mitt said softly, almost pleading.

Nalitheen looked at him for a moment, the tankard suddenly forgotten in her hand, and then nodded and led him to a curtain in one corner of the room.

The door behind it was locked. Expressionlessly, Nalitheen put one end of the curtain into Mirt's hand'. Then she bent and took a slim key from beneath a floorboard in a corner nearby, fitted it to the lock, and swung the door wide. A ladder led upward into soft gloom.

Nalitheen waved him forward. Mirt nodded and climbed the ladder slowly and carefully. The rungs creaked under his weight. The ladder ended in a little room under the eaves of the house, rosy now with the first true light of dawn. Great, wondering dark eyes waited for him there, as two sleepy, tousle-headed lasses stared at him from their shared bed.

"Naleetha and Boroldira," Nalitheen introduced them from behind him. Mirt turned at the harshness of her tone and saw her knuckles white around a dagger she clutched, its wickedly sharp point toward him. "Borold's," she added, flatly, nodding down at it.

Mirt met her burning eyes for a long, silent moment, then deliberately turned his back, to face the girls in the bed. "Ladies." he greeted them gravely, bowing as if they were high ladies of a court, "I am Mirt the Wolf. Pray accept my apologies for disturbing your slumber. Naleetha, Boroldira; I am pleased to have met you."

He smiled and turned back to Nalitheen, the smile still on his lips. "Thank you," he said simply. He stepped past her blade as though it was not there and went back down the ladder, not hurrying. He strode on, with Nalitheen behind him, on and down the stairs below, to the front door of the house.

When he turned, Nalitheen was standing on the lowest step of the stair, trembling, the dagger in her hands. Tears glistened in her eyes.

"Put the blade away, milady," Mirt said softly. "There's no need for that."

Nalitheen shook her head, slowly and helplessly, and let the dagger fall to the floor. She stared down at it silently, her hair fallen around her shading her face.

"How long have you known?" Mirt asked her quietly.

"T-they told me who killed him," Nalitheen whispered, and then looked up at him angrily through her tears, head to one side. "They told me Mirt the Merciless killed my man. I've waited for you. Two long seasons, lying alone and crying every night. I wondered if you'd ever come close enough to me for this dagger to reach."

"And now?" Mirt asked, unmoving, holding her gaze.

"Last night was different," Nalitheen sobbed, and looked away, striding along the bottom step of the stairs. She wheeled at its end, and cried, "How long have you known? Who I was, and wh-that you'd killed my husband?"

"Last night. When you told me how he died," Mirt told her truthfully.

"And you stayed?"

"I'd paid," Mirt replied mildly, and then added, "No, that was cruel. I trusted you with my life, Nalitheen. Then and now."

He drew his blade, slowly. Nalitheen flinched but did not draw back. Meeting her eyes steadily, Mirt upended his scabbard and shook a cloth bag out of its depths. The coins inside it clinked heavily as he put it into her hands.

"This," he said gently, closing her fingers around it with his own, "is for you, and Naleetha, and Boroldira. I'm sorry. I'll come again, and there'll be more. You have my word on that."

Nalitheen looked at him, unmoving and expressionless, the gold in her hands. Mirt kissed her forehead gently, resheathed his blade, and fetched down his cloak from a peg.

"Gods bless you for your charity, Mirt," Nalitheen whispered, sounding more weary than bitter. She shivered, shook her head a little, and closed her eyes, leaning against the door frame.

" ‘Tis not charity," the Wolf of Waterdeep told her almost fiercely as he turned to go out into the brightening street, "for I'll be back."

Ah, so touching! The misplaced pity that humans call "honor," i relieve. Ok loyalty, ok some other weakness like tiiat. And yet-minds like mazes, this one especially.

Rest not, captive wizard-nergal craves entertainment! Snow on!

"You offend me, pig of a merchant," the Calishite said, his accent as heavy as his perfume. Though Velzraedo Hlaklavarr of Calimport was hardly slimmer than the wheezing figure sprawled with his boots up on the chair, Velzraedo was far better dressed. His spade-beard wagging, the Calishite added a delicate stream of curses that called into question Mirt's ancestry, personal hygiene, dietary habits, the hobbies and judgment of his mother, and his familiarity with camels. "Kindly," he added with a sneer, "remove yourself from this seating you so indolently occupy. Its use is required by myself- Velzraedo Hlaklavarr of Calimport, First Finger of the Masked Vizier!"