impassable through the thick fog. Long, low warehouses lined both its
sides, and broken crates and boxes cluttered the alley, reducing the
already narrow passage in many places to single-file breadth.
"Nice place to be walkin' down on a gloomy night," Bruenor stated
flatly.
"Are you certain that this is the lane?" Drift asked, equally
unenthused about the area before them.
"By the words o' the merchant in Ten-Towns, if one's alive that can get
me the map, the one be Whisper. An' the place to find Whisper is Rat Alley
- always Rat Alley."
"Then on with it," said Drizzt. "Foul business is best finished
quickly."
Bruenor slowly led the way into the alley. The two had barely gone ten
feet when the dwarf thought he heard the click of a crossbow. He stopped
short and looked back at Drizzt. "They're on us," he whispered.
"In the boarded window above and to the right of us," Drizzt explained,
his exceptional night vision and hearing having already discerned the
sound's source. "A precaution, I hope. Perhaps a good sign that your
contact is close."
"Never called a crossbow aimed at me head a good sign!" argued the
dwarf. "But on, then, and keep yerself at the ready. This place reeks of
danger!" He started again through the rubble.
A shuffle to their left told them that eyes were upon them from that
way as well. But still they continued, understanding that they couldn't
have expected any different a scenario when they had started out from the
Cutlass. Rounding a final mound of broken planks, they saw a slender figure
leaning against one of the alleyway's walls, cloak pulled tightly against
the chill of the evening mist.
Drizzt leaned over Bruenor's shoulder. "May that be the one?" he
whispered.
The dwarf shrugged, and said, "Who else?" He took one more step
forward, planted his feet firmly, wide apart, and addressed the figure. "I
be looking for a man named Whisper," he called. "Might that be yerself?"
"Yes, and no," came the reply. The figure turned toward them, though
the low-pulled cloak revealed little.
"What games do ye play?" Bruenor shot back.
"Whisper I am," replied the figure, letting the cloak slip back a
little. "But for sure no man!"
They could see clearly now that the figure addressing them was indeed a
woman, a dark and mysterious figure with long black hair and deeply set,
darting eyes that showed experience and a profound understanding of
survival on the street.
3
Night Life
The Cutlass grew busier as the night wore on. Merchant sailors crowded
in from their ships and the locals were quick into position to feed upon
them. Regis and Wulfgar remained at the side table, the barbarian wide-eyed
with curiosity at the sights around him, and the halfling intent on
cautious observation.
Regis recognized trouble in the form of a woman sauntering toward them.
Not a young woman, and with the haggard appearance all too familiar on the
dockside, but her gown, quite revealing in every place that a lady's gown
should not be, hid all her physical flaws behind a barrage of suggestions.
The look on Wulfgar's face, his chin nearly level with the table, Regis
thought, confirmed the halfling's fears.
"Well met, big man," the woman purred, slipping comfortably into the
chair next to the barbarian.
Wulfgar looked at Regis and nearly laughed out loud in disbelief and
embarrassment.
"You are not from Luskan," the woman went on. "Nor do you bear the
appearance of any merchants now docked in port. Where are you from?"
"The north," Wulfgar stammered. "The dale . . . Icewind."
Regis hadn't seen such boldness in a woman since his years in
Calimport, and he felt that he should intervene. There was something wicked
about such women, a perversion of pleasure that was too extraordinary.
Forbidden fruit made easy. Regis suddenly found himself homesick for
Calimport. Wulfgar would be no match for the wiles of this creature.
"We are poor travelers," Regis explained, emphasizing the "poor" in an
effort to protect his friend. "Not a coin left, but with many miles to go."
Wulfgar looked curiously at his companion, not quite understanding the
motive behind the lie.
The woman scrutinized Wulfgar once again and smacked her lips. "A
pity," she groaned, and then asked Regis, "Not a coin?"
Regis shrugged helplessly.
"A pity it is," the woman repeated, and she rose to leave.
Wulfgar's face blushed a deep red as he began to comprehend the true
motives behind the meeting.
Something stirred in Regis, as well. A longing for the old days,
running in Calimport's bowery, tugged at his heart beyond his strength to
resist. As the woman started past him, he grabbed her elbow. "Not a coin,"
he explained to her inquiring face, "but this." He pulled the ruby pendant
out from under his coat and set it dangling at the end of its chain. The
sparkles caught the woman's greedy eye at once and the magical gemstone
sucked her into its hypnotic entrancement. She sat down again, this time in
the chair closest to Regis, her eyes never leaving the, depths of the
wondrous, spinning ruby.
Only confusion prevented Wulfgar from erupting in outrage at the
betrayal, the blur of thoughts and emotions in his mind showing themselves
as no more than a blank stare.
Regis caught the barbarian's look, but shrugged it away with his
typical penchant for dismissing negative emotions, such as guilt. Let the
morrow's dawn expose his ploy for what it was; the conclusion did not
diminish his ability to enjoy this night. "Luskan's night bears a chill
wind," he said to the woman.
She put a hand on his arm. "We'll find you a warm bed, have no fear."
The halfling's smile nearly took in his ears.
Wulfgar had to catch himself from falling off of his chair.
Bruenor regained his composure quickly, not wanting to insult Whisper,
or to let her know that his surprise in finding a woman gave her a bit of
an advantage over him. She knew the truth, though, and her smile left
Bruenor even more flustered. Selling information in a setting as dangerous
as Luskan's dockside meant a constant dealing with murderers and thieves,
and even within the structure of an intricate support network it was a job
that demanded a hardened hide. Few who sought Whisper's services could hide
their obvious surprise at finding a young and alluring woman practising
such a trade.
Bruenor's respect for the informant did not diminish, though, despite
his surprise, for the reputation Whisper had earned had come to him across
hundreds of miles. She was still alive, and that fact alone told the dwarf
that she was formidable.
Drizzt was considerably less taken aback by the discovery. In the dark
cities of the drow elves, females normally held higher stations than males,
and were often more deadly. Drizzt understood the advantage Whisper carried
over male clients who tended to underestimate her in the male-dominated
societies of the dangerous northland.
Anxious to get this business finished and get back on the road, the
dwarf came straight to the purpose of the meeting. "I be needing a map," he
said, "and been told that yerself was the one to get it."
"I possess many maps," the woman replied coolly.
"One of the north," Bruenor explained. "From the sea to the desert, and
rightly naming the places in the ways o' what races live there!"
Whisper nodded. "The price shall be high, good dwarf," she said, her
eyes glinting at the mere notion of gold.
Bruenor tossed her a small pouch of gems. "This should pay for yer
trouble," he growled, never pleased to be relieved of money.
Whisper emptied the contents into her hand and scrutinized the rough
stones. She nodded as she slipped them back into the pouch, aware of their
considerable value.
"Hold!" Bruenor squawked as she began to tie the pouch to her belt.
"Ye'll be taking none o' me stones till I be seeing the map!"
"Of course," the woman replied with a disarming smile. "Wait here. I
shall return in a short while with the map you desire." She tossed the
pouch back to Bruenor and spun about suddenly, her cloak snapping up and
carrying a gust of the fog with it. In the flurry, there came a sudden
flash, and the woman was gone.
Bruenor jumped back and grabbed at his axe handle. "What sorcerous
treachery is this?" he cried.
Drizzt, unimpressed, put a hand on the dwarf's shoulder. "Calm, mighty
dwarf," he said. "A minor trick and no more, masking her escape in the fog
and the flash." He pointed toward a small pile of boards. "Into that sewer
drain."
Bruenor followed the line of the drow's arm and relaxed. The lip of an
open hole was barely visible, its grate leaning against the warehouse wall
a few feet farther down the alley.
"Ye know these kind better than meself, elf," the dwarf stated,
flustered at his lack of experience in handling the rogues of a city
street. "Does she mean to bargain fair, or do we sit here, set up for her
thievin' dogs to plunder?"
"No to both," answered Drizzt. "Whisper would not be alive if she
collared clients for thieves. But I would hardly expect any arrangement she
might strike with us to be a fair bargain."
Bruenor took note that Drizzt had slipped one of his scimitars tree of
its sheath as he spoke. "Not a trap, eh?" the dwarf asked again, indicating
the readied weapon.
"By her people, no," Drizzt replied. "But the shadows conceal many
other eyes."
More eyes than just Wulfgar's had fallen upon the halfling and the
woman.
The hardy rogues of Luskan's dockside often took great sport in
tormenting creatures of less physical stature, and halflings were among
their favorite targets. This particular evening, a huge, overstuffed man
with furry eyebrows and beard bristles that caught the foam from his
ever-full mug dominated the conversation at the bar, boasting of impossible
feats of strength and threatening everybody around him with a beating if
the flow of ale slowed in the least.
All of the men gathered around him at the bar, men who knew him, or of
hire, nodded their heads in enthusiastic agreement with his every word,
propping him up on a pedestal of compliments to dispel their own fears of
him. But the fat man's ego needed further sport, a new victim to cow, and
as his gaze floated around the perimeter of the tavern, it naturally fell
upon Regis and his large, but obviously young friend. The spectacle of a
halfling wooing the highest priced lady at the Cutlass presented an
opportunity too tempting for the fat man to ignore.
"Here now, pretty lady," he slobbered, ale spouting with every word.
"Think the likes of a half-a-man'll make the night for ye?" The crowd
around the bar, anxious to keep in the fat man's high regard, exploded into
overzealous laughter.
The woman had dealt with this man before and she had seen others fall
painfully before him. She tossed him a concerned look, but remained firmly
tied to the pull of the ruby pendant. Regis, though, immediately looked
away from the fat man, turning his attention to where he suspected the
trouble most likely would begin - to the other side of the table and
Wulfgar.
He found his worries justified. The proud barbarian's knuckles whitened
from the grasp he had on the table, and the seething look in his eye told
Regis that he was on the verge of exploding.
"Let the taunts pass!" Regis insisted. "This is not worth a moment of
your time!"
Wulfgar didn't relax a bit, his glare never releasing his adversary. He
could brush away the fat man's insults, even those cutting at Regis and the
woman. But Wulfgar understood the motivation behind those insults. Through
exploitation of his less-able friends, Wulfgar was being challenged by the
bully. How many others had fallen victim to this hulking slob? he wondered.
Perhaps it was time for the fat man to learn some humility.
Recognizing some potential for excitement, the grotesque bully came a
few steps closer.
"There, move a bit, half-a-man," he demanded, waving Regis aside.
Regis took a quick inventory of the tavern's patrons. Surely there were
many, in here who might jump in for his cause against the fat man and his
obnoxious cronies. There was even a member of the official city guard, a
group held in high respect in every section of Luskan.
Regis interrupted his scan for a moment and looked at the soldier. How
out of place the man seemed in a dog-infested spittoon like the Cutlass.
More curious still, Regis knew the man as Jierdan, the soldier at the gate
who had recognized Drizzt and had arranged for them to pass into the city
just a couple of hours earlier.
The fat man came a step closer, and Regis didn't have time to ponder
the implications.
Hands on hips, the huge blob stared down at him. Regis felt his heart
pumping, the blood coursing through his veins, as it always did in this
type of on-the-edge confrontation that had marked his days in Calimport.
And now, like then, he had every intention of finding a way to run away.
But his confidence dissipated when he remembered his companion.
Less experienced, and Regis would be quick to say, "less wise!" Wulfgar
