Arilyn elbowed one out of the way. "Don't encourage them," she told Danilo in a low voice. "Do you plan to die down here?"
"Oh, surely not. Three kobolds are no threat."
"Neither is one mouse. Problem is, there's never only one mouse. More are always hidden nearby. How do you think 'three kobolds' got their merchandise in the first place?"
This excellent reasoning prompted Danilo to pick up his pace. He kept step with the half-elf as she wove her way through the squalid town, toward the small shop where assassins purchased death by the drop.
"Pantagora's Poisons," Danilo said, reading the sign aloud. "Right to the point. No pretense, no dissembling. I find that quite refreshing."
Arilyn sent him a warning look and pushed open the door. The scene beyond was like something from a North shy;man's battlefield or a butcher's nightmare.
The air was thick with a distinctively sweet, coppery scent. Flies buzzed over sodden shapes. Dark pools seeped into the old wood of the floor. Somehow, blood had been spattered as high as the rafters. Here and there it had dried even as it dripped down, making it appear that the sodden timbers had wept long, black tears over the poison merchants' fate.
Never had Arilyn seen anything quite like it. She kicked at an empty boot, wondering how it had hap shy;pened to come loose of its wearer. On impulse, she made a quick mental tally of bodies and footwear. This boot was an extra. To all appearances, its former wearer had been dissolved as surely as if he'd been hit by a blast of dragonfire. From the inside.
She stooped beside one of the dead men. To someone who had seen death as often as she had, a corpse could talk without benefit of spell or prayer.
The signs were there, but they were conflicting and deeply disturbing. Thin, precise cuts marked the man's body. Arilyn rolled the dead man over and tugged up his shirt. There was little bruising on his back. Small wonder. By the time he died, there had been little blood left in his body to settle. The fine, thin sword that had killed this man had left layers of wounds, dealing death by the inch, by the trickle and drop. Someone had toyed with the man, taking time to kill him so he lingered far longer than she would have imagined possible.
Strange behavior for a thief. It was possible, of course, that the killer was an assassin by trade, perhaps a reg shy;ular customer whose skills and habits made it easier to kill than to pay. It seemed to Arilyn, though, that any assassin prompted by survival would never risk such an expenditure of time and vitriol. This killing held all the hallmarks of vengeance-or rage, or insanity, or an evil so intense that it no longer considered proportion or consequence.
Stranger still was the nature of the weapon. No human-made blade was so thin or so keen. The man had been slaughtered with an elven weapon. Of that Arilyn was grimly certain. Her mother's people were fierce, often merciless fighters, but few were given to such depravity. She knew of only two or three elves who would do such a thing. Just recently, in fact, she had seen Elaith Craulnober toy with a tren assassin, in very similar fashion.
Her sharp ears caught the sound of furtive foot shy;steps on the walkway outside the shop. She rocked back onto her heels and rose in a single, swift move. Gliding over to the door, she drew her sword and ges shy;tured for Danilo to move to the other side of the frame.
Slowly the door eased open, and a small, furtive faced peered around the corner. Arilyn stepped in and pressed the tip of her blade against Diloontier's throat.
The perfumer shrieked and squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could block out the double terror of the looming sword and the carnage beyond. His face paled to the color of old parchment, and the bones of his legs seemed to melt to the consistency of jellied eel.
Before Arilyn could speak, Danilo seized the swaying man by the front of his shirt and jerked him into the room. He shook the perfume merchant as a vermin hound might worry a rat. This served to bring some color back to the man's face. When he started to struggle with a resolve and vigor that suggested he could stand on his own, Danilo released him.
Diloontier cracked open one eye and shuddered. "Too late," he mourned. "Gone, all of it!"
"That raises some interesting questions. We'll get to them in time," Arilyn assured him. She lifted her sword to his throat again. "What do you know about the tren?"
The man's eyes slid furtively to one side. "Never heard of them."
She gave her sword an encouraging little twitch. "Odd, that tunnels riddled with tren markings should converge beneath your shop. Strange that a door from the sewers leads into your drying shed. You can talk to me about this, or you can sit before the Lord's Council."
"Talking!" he conceded in a high-pitched voice. "Yes, it is true that sometimes I act as a broker for wealthy men and women who desire the tren's services. I make arrangements, but only through a second or third or twenty-fourth party! Truly! That is the agreed-upon method. It ensures I cannot give you or anyone else the name of my clients."
Arilyn wondered how the man might respond if pre shy;sented with a name. She sent Danilo a look that mingled inquiry and apology. His lips thinned, but he gave a slight nod of agreement. She turned back to Diloontier.
"All right, then. If you can't name your clients, I'll do it for you. Lady Cassandra Thann."
"I am a perfumer. Many of the noble folk patronize my shop," he began evasively. His explanation broke off in a surprised yelp of pain, and he looked down in horror at the stain on the half-elf's gleaming sword and the blood dripping onto his shirtfront.
"Not an important vein," Arilyn said evenly, "but I know where those are."
"I cannot tell you anything! My customers prize con shy;fidentiality!" he protested.
"More than you prize your neck?"
Diloontier didn't need long to balance that particu shy;lar scale. "Potions of youthfulness," he said, speaking so quickly that the words almost tripped over each other in their eagerness to emerge. "The Lady Cassan shy;dra has been buying them for ages, with the coming of each new moon. Forgive me, but how else could she keep the passing years from wresting her beauty from her?"
"I take it that you are not well acquainted with the lady," Danilo said dryly. "If anyone could stare down Father Time and win, it is she."
Arilyn lowered her sword. "What did you come here to buy?"
"It hardly matters, does it? There is nothing more here of value. Clearly, I did not kill these men. For all I know, you did!"
The half-elf's eyes went hard, but she realized at once that this was no idle threat. She was not the only one who would recognize the marks of an elven sword, and once again, here she stood over the work of an assassin. Fortunately, Diloontier had his own reputation with which to contend. "Mention our presence here to anyone," she snapped, "and the Watch captain will be reading an anonymous letter about your visit to this little shop. Now go!"
Diloontier darted for the exit. His boots beat a fran shy;tic, stumbling rhythm upon the wooden walk. The half-elf sighed and sheathed her sword.
Danilo looked sharply at her. "You let him go. Do you believe him?"
"About Lady Cassandra? Not a word of it. What does she need with youth potions, if she has elven blood? Although I suspect she would support Diloontier's lie rather than lay claim to her heritage."
He did not refute her. "There is nothing more to be seen here."
Arilyn was silent for a long moment. Actually, she suspected there was much, much more to be gleaned in this city. The tren came from these tunnels. So did poi shy;sons, which had most likely been used to kill Lady Dez shy;lentyr. Arilyn had gone to considerable trouble to find out Diloontier's supplier, visiting acquaintances she had not seen for years and creating markers that she dreaded paying.