"That should do the trick," he said happily. At last raising his eyes to Arilyn, he inquired, "Do you sing?"
The Harper blinked. "I don't make a habit of it."
"A pity." Tinkersdam stroked bis bald chin and mused. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. Reaching confidently into the general debris of the table behind him, he pulled from the pile the lid of a large pot. He poured a single drop of the still-steaming fluid onto the metal and then lifted the lid into a shield-guard position
"Be so kind as to strike," he requested. When she hesitated, he pointed out, "The potion did no damage to a tin lid. It is unlikely to harm an elven sword!"
Seeing the logic in this, Arilyn drew her moonblade and obligingly smacked the flat of it against the makeshift shield. Immediately a deep, ringing sound rolled through the cavern, like the tolling of a giant bell might sound to someone who stood in the bell tower directly below it.
The Harper swore and clapped both hands to her sensitive ears. Tinkersdam, however, merely beamed, even though the vibrations from the "shield" ran up his arms and set his pair of chins aquiver.
"Oh, excellent! A fine result," he shouted happily.
Still smiling broadly, Tinkersdam tossed aside the lid, then stoppered the vial with a cork and handed it to Arilyn. "You might find a use for this in your travels. Don't drink it," he cautioned her loudly. "At least, not on an empty stomach. Rumblings, you know."
Since the rejoinder that came to Arilyn's mind paled before this latest absurdity, she merely took the vial and gingerly tucked it into her pack. "The other things?" she requested, shouting to be heard above the ringing in her ears.
"Most of them," the alchemist agreed in kind. He bustled over to the far side of the cavern and took a large, paper-wrapped bundle from a pile of similar packages. *This one is yours. I added a few new devices for you to test. Do tell me how they turn out."
Arilyn noted the insignia of Balik-the family name of Zazesspur's ruling pasha-adorning several of the packages. "Hasheth has been here, I see."
Tes, indeed. Fine lad," the alchemist commented.
The Harper was not so sure she agreed with that assessment. Granted, the young Prince Hasheth had proven to be a valuable contact. Through him Danilo had gained access to the palace, and she herself had received much useful information about Zazesspur. It was Hasheth who had helped her set up Tinkersdam in a wondrous workshop hidden in the mountains overlooking the city, and who continued to supply the alchemist with needed ingredients, often at his own expense. Yet Arilyn could not forget the particulars of their first meeting: Hasheth had been a student assassin, and she had been his assigned prey. Although the young prince had opened a door for her into the closely held assassins' guild and had since moved on to sample several other professional endeavors, the half-elf did not' miss the predatory gleam in his black eyes whenever he regarded her.
Or perhaps she was simply becoming too accustomed to expecting the worst wherever she looked. "Soon 111 be seeing ogres under every bed and drow in every shadow," she muttered.
"That happened to me once," Tinkersdam commiserated. Apparently, his hearing slipped back into the normal range with amazing speed. "Fumes, you know. I was swatting at invisible stirges for days."
Arilyn sighed and shouldered her package. "I was offered another assignment. I might be going away for a while."
"Oh? We're moving again?"
It was not an unreasonable question. An explosion in Suzail a few years back had destroyed a hefty portion of a castle belonging to an influential nobleman and forced Tinkersdam into hiding. Rather than hunt him down whenever she needed him, Arilyn found it worth her while to locate the alchemist near her current base of operations. She paid most of his expenses through the fees she earned adventuring for the Harpers and considered every copper well spent.
Tou can stay here until I return. If you need anything, contact Hasheth."
"Fine lad," Tinkersdam repeated. "Although I do hope he stays close to Zazesspur. I'm not precisely welcome in Saradush, Ithmong, or Myratma," he confided, naming the rest of Tethyr's major cities.
Arilyn sighed again. "Tell me, Tinkersdam, is there any city on Toril that you haven't blown up at least a portion of?"
"Zhentil Keep," the alchemist responded without a moment's hesitation. "But of course, that would take a far braver man than I."
The comment surprised a chuckle from the Harper. "Almost sorry to hear it," she said with a wry grin. "If any city needs a bit of forceful housecleaning, it's that one."
"Well, someone will get around to it sooner or later," Tinkersdam said absently, his large green eyes roving to the glowing substance popping and bubbling in a large caldron. "Now, if you will excuse me…"
Taking the hint, Arilyn left the cavern and began the ride back to the city. She pressed her mare hard, for she wished to be in the School of Stealth's council hall before moonrise. With the coming of night, new commissions were posted, and assassins came to bid on choice jobs. At no other time did Arilyn receive so much useful information on the underside of Zazesspurian politics.
She rode through the main gate of the complex at dusk. Tossing her reins to the stableboy who ran to greet her, she hurried to the council hall and scanned the bits of parchment nailed to the door. There was nothing of great interest: some baker wished to avenge an insult dealt to his pastry; a harem girl was willing to pay in trade for the death of a self-avowed and apparently spurious eunuch; a wealthy collector wanted a piece of stolen property retrieved from the treasure house of a rival.
"Scant pickings tonight," observed a whispery voice at Arilyn's elbow.
The Harper turned to regard the only other female in the assassins' guild-an exotic beauty who went by the name of Ferret. To Arilyn's way of thinking, the assassin resembled her namesake. The woman was whip-thin and sharp-featured, with black eyes that seemed not quite human, and a long slender nose that lacked only whiskers and a twitch. Remorseless, relentless, she was ferretlike in character as well.
To everyone in the guildhouse, the Ferret was a bit of a mystery. She was never seen without heavy makeup, a tightly wound turban, and gloves. Nor was she ever heard to speak above a whisper. Rumor had it that she'd been disfigured in some accident, but apart from these idiosyncracies there were no apparent flaws in her beauty, which she flaunted by dressing in scant silk garments so tight they appeared to have been painted onto her lithe form. Tonight she wore a gown patterned in jewel-like colors that echoed the resplendent plumage of a peacock. Earrings made from the eyes of a peacock's tail feathers dangled from her earlobes, the only part of her ears that were visible beneath her cobalt-blue turban.
The Ferret folded her arms and leaned indolently against the doorjamb. "So which job strikes your fancy? The baker, the whore, or the thief?"
"Not the baker," Arilyn said with a grim smile. Tve tasted his baking. No one should die for insulting it. I say long life to the critic, and may he do better elsewhere."
"Ah, yes," Ferret sneered. "The gods forbid you should take the life of an innocent man! By all means, take the second job-watching a harem girl at work could do you nothing but good."
The Harper shrugged off the insult. It was not the first time Ferret had mocked Arilyn's esthetics of solitude and chastity. In fact, the assassin's favorite taunt for her half-elven colleague was "half-woman," spoken with scathing innuendo.
Ferret, by all reports, had no such scruples. The woman was said to be omnivorous, with an appetite and skills that astonished even those wealthy and jaded Zazesspuran noblemen who sought to imitate the pasha by keeping extensive and exotic harems.