Aestith had found a townhouse he could rent not an unreasonable distance from the Traveler's Club. After Kairon and Tim had tried to break into the laboratory before, he didn't like it being there.

The satchel of holding provided the perfect way to move his laboratory, though it still consumed much of his day. The Piece, a thieve's guild he was affiliated with if not officially part of, had not only upgraded his equipment, but had expanded the instruments as well. The glass was as clear and perfect as colorless taaffeite. After the upgrade, Aestith had really needed more space than the tower had provided anyway, though he was still angry about Kairon and Tim trying to break into the laboratory, and Tim letting the guards search the house at another time.

Tim sat before the small cage on the table and sighed. It was covered by a cloth. He looked up at Aestith. "Hey, I've been trying to train this ice imp, but it's not cooperative. It won't even listen to me and I don't speak Sylvan anyway."

"Was that what you went to the pet shop for?"

He smiled sheepishly.

Aestith sighed. "Well, perhaps you can skin it and turn it into gloves," he suggested before he went outside on the patio to enjoy a cigarette in what he hoped would be silence. This hope was short-lived, as Kairon and Tim came outside a short time later to gripe about the latest story in the Gazette. Tim complained that he had tried to do some advertising and someone asked about rats.

Aestith and Kairon had gone to hire a law firm a while ago to bring a suit against the Gazette for all the slander, but it was a slow process.

Kairon's tail twitched. "What is Emerick's problem with us anyway? We're a brothel, he has a shitty rundown tavern."

Tim shook his head. "He's never liked us."

Aestith dropped ash into the tray. "It must be him spreading these rumors, but unless the Gazette will give us their source, we have no way to prove it."

Four drow strutted up the street, all wearing hats, all in a human guise. Aestith had not seen Xaiviryn or anyone else in Dark Carnival in several days. He wondered what they could possibly want, and took another drag on the cigarette.

Zanisernix leaned against the garden wall. "Hello, Aestith. Nice evening, isn't it?" He made no effort to reign in his accent.

Aestith smiled and offered him a cigarette from his slender silver case. "If you say so."

He plucked a cigarette from the case. Ryze grinned and winked at Tim. Ryze's human guise was a simple one that kept his original facial features. Tim's jaw dropped. "You're all drow," the half-elf said, perhaps realizing that Aestith and the others held similar accents.

Zanisernix shook his head. "There are no drow in Waterdeep."

There are no drow in Waterdeep. Aracnelxeth had said the same thing when Aestith met him. Aestith had never asked him about Zanisernix or Xaiviryn. It wouldn't surprise him at all if he had actually had something to do with them.

Tim and Kairon pointed at Aestith, who smiled.

With the patience of someone being paid for it, Zanisernix said, "There are no drow in Waterdeep." He lit the cigarette with a match and waved out the match. He dropped it into the ashtray. He looked at Aestith and inclined his head. "Let's have a drink." He smiled. The guise had slightly yellowed teeth to disguise his pearlescent black ones that came from some noble bloodline, far enough back that he, of course, had never been one.

Kairon's tail twitched in growing suspicion. Tim said, "Oh, we have alcohol here."

Zanisernix blew out smoke. "I was thinking we'd visit a different bar."

Tim's shoulders squared in taken offense. "What's wrong with our bar?"

"We might have more fun elsewhere." The drow looked at Aestith. "Aestith'Rix?"

He wondered if he had used his full name calculatingly, reminding Aestith of where he had been once. Enainsine male drow did not have a name-only a single syllable added to their family name. Or if it were just that he knew it was Aesith's name.

Aestith picked up his cigarette case. "Excuse me." He rose and moved toward the gate.

Tim stepped in Aestith's way, brow drawn in plain confusion. "But you're here, and-But you said…"

Kairon's aventurine green eyes slid from the disguised drow to Aestith. He grabbed Tim by the arm and said, "Tim, there are no drow in Waterdeep. Particularly not near the Traveler's Club."

Zanisernix grinned. Aestith started to sneer, turned it into a beaming smile and stepped past them. Tim continued to attempt to understand what they meant as Kairon led him back into the brothel.

Aestith wondered, at first, if the imp were following them. He didn't think so, but it was difficult to tell with the limited range of his abilities to detect it. He walked beside Zanisernix. Zanisernix tossed the cigarette butt into the gutter. Aestith dropped his beside it and as they passed, used a cantrip to incinerate them.

Ryze said, as if they were picking up a conversation from earlier, "I'm a great driver, Eiranish."

The other three snickered. Eiranish said, "Define 'great'."

"We're all still alive."

Bingath rolled his eyes. "Should Lolth punish me for all eternity, it will be with you as my chauffeur."

Ryze scowled at his brother, then turned back to Zanisernix. "All I am saying is, I want to drive the cart."

"You can drive the cart to the bar," Zanisernix said diplomatically.

Aestith looked forward to whatever they were going to do. Bingath moved to Aestith's other side in a way that made Aestith uneasy, but he wasn't sure if it were intentional or not. "It's been a while, Sister," he said.

Bingath knew perfectly well what Aestith's anatomy was. But what else would he call him? Aestith wore women's clothing and hairstyles. Why wouldn't he assume otherwise? Aestith wasn't about to correct him; there was little to gain in that. "Sister" was simply the Enainsine colloquial term of address for a cleric too, so Aestith didn't need to think much more of it. Yet they had used Aestith's full name. "A short while, yes," he said.

He made a face. "I don't imagine I'll see you again for some time, and things are about to get interesting and I may not have this opportunity, so I wanted to say… You should come with us to Neverwinter."

"All of you really think that?" Aestith frowned. "Now I can't on principle. You shouldn't apply so much pressure-you're bound to break whatever you're trying to bend." The corner of his lips tugged to a smile to ease the edge of the comment. "What's for me there, really, Bingath?"

He chuckled. "Zelvier likes you," he mused, his voice low. The other used Xaiviryn's alias, perhaps because they were in public. "You're really exactly his type." A pause. "And a cleric, besides. A cleric of Lolth should be with other drow."

"What he's saying is that we need you," Ryze said. He dodged a smack from his elder brother but the one from Eiranish landed.

Aestith sighed. He didn't need to ask why they thought that way. They were all drow. Ran to the surface for one reason or another, but without the religious guidance that was so central to their lives. They knew what they had given up by coming here, but it didn't mean they didn't face regrets, or a desire to reconnect with their culture. "Indeed."

Eiranish chuckled. "Well, you could continue living in a brothel and dealing with that lot."

Aestith glanced back at him with a smirk. "You say that like living in a brothel is a bad thing."

"I imagine it's frustrating actually," Ryze butted in. "All those iblith all the time, and you're all alone."

Aestith scowled, but not because Ryze was inaccurate. "Do you speak from experience, Ryze?"

Ryze's face heated, and even the disguise's face reddened. Eiranish chuckled and his hand trailed against Ryze's spine in a gesture Aestith took for intimacy. Ryze lifted his head. "Why don't you ask Bingath?"

Bingath smacked his brother on the side of the head, but his face was equally warm in infrared. "Ryze."

Ryze grinned at Aestith and said, "You see, Bingath really prefers to limit himself to women, so—"

"If we want to talk about limits, Ryze, we can discuss your preferences, which are much more difficult to satisfy."

Aestith rolled his eyes. "I think I can win that pissing contest."

Eiranish purred, "Which circles back to Zelvier, really."
Aestith did not want to listen to the three of them insist he should tag along with them and leech off of Xaiviryn's assets. "Ah, dick measuring. Another contest I can win."

The others laughed.

The tavern hunched in front of them like a grizzled drunkard over their last cup. The interior was precisely what Aestith might have expected; a broken window had been patched with greasy boards and the stink of sweat and spilled ale had sunk into the rundown furniture. The grease seemed to be set into the wood over years, as if the only way to ensure it would ever be clean would be to replace it. Emerick stood behind the bar in a stained apron stretched over a blubbery belly. The bar was vacant, even after the workday. Was that also Dark Carnival's doing?

Ryze knocked a table over. A kick from Bingath toppled a chair. Emerick glared. "Who the hell are you? Get out of my bar!"
Zanisernix grinned pearly black teeth as his disguise fell. "We're just here for some shots." He put a hand on the bar and leaped over the side of it. He lined up a string of shot glasses and grabbed a bottle from the shelf.

Emerick's splotchy face scrunched with anger. "You can't be back there!"

Ryze drug a chair to the center of the room. Bingath and Eiranish shoved the furniture toward the chair.

Zanisernix tossed a bottle and Eiranish caught it, then broke it over the chairs. Emerick looked from one disguised face to the next. "What are you doing? I'll call the guard! Get out!"

Zanisernix tossed the next bottle, another, then stopped to pick up a glass. The shot glasses were yellowed and impure. He raised it. "To Emerick," he said with a grin. The other three picked up the glasses. Aestith lifted his glass. They repeated the toast, drank, and threw the glasses. Emerick threatened to call the guards. The dark elves paid him no heed, continuing to drag the furniture into a pile.

Then they turned toward him. Aestith sat at the bar. Bingath wrenched Emerick's arms behind his back. Eiranish grabbed his shoulder in one hand and the human's hair in the other while Ryze force-fed him one of the bottles of cheap rum. He gagged and spit. He choked on it and it ran down his nose, but the drow left him with the option of drink or drown. The dark elf tossed the empty bottle and hauled back his fist. He slammed it into Emerick's gut.

Aestith grinned.

Ryze broke a few more glass bottles, then wandered outside. Bingath let Emerick go with a blow to the back, then trotted upstairs. The remaining two took turns alternately piling furniture into a heap or beating Emerick. When Bingath came down the stairs, Zanisernix and Bingath drug Emerick out the door. Eiranish removed a small bomb from his jacket.

Aestith shook his head and passed by him toward the door. "Save it." He raised a hand. Just before it caught flame, the symbol of Lolth etched the floor. The dry tinder went up in a radiant blaze.

Eiranish shrugged, pocketed the bomb, and followed Aestith outside.

Bingath had an arm slung around Emerick's shoulders. Zanisernix held the human's arm. The building began to smoke, and a wagon trundled toward them. It had clearly been commandeered from somewhere else, with an advertisement for a business painted on the canvas cover.

Ryze sat at the reins. Zanisernix slapped Emerick on the back. "Let's go for a ride, friend."

They hit and pushed Emerick toward the wagon. Eiranish dropped a lasso of rope around his thick middle. They laughed and mocked his drunken helplessness. A thick cord fixed his wrists together. They shoved and kicked him into the back of the wagon. Aestith peered in curiously, then couldn't help but laugh. They had sawed through the floor of the wagon to leave only the supports, which they lashed Emerick to. They knotted a gag in place and Eiranish turned toward Aestith, offering him a hand up. Aestith accepted and moved to the interior bench, his back to the driver. Ryze had surrendered the reins to Zanisernix, with some complaint.

The horses took off at a run. To Aestith, the cart jostled and was merely uncomfortable, with a load that was too light and quick for what it was designed for. To Emerick, tied to the support after being beaten and forcibly intoxicated, it was terrifying. Every jostle and movement from the wagon made Emerick jerk or slide. His head banged against the support and he flopped from side to side. He wept and would have begged had he been capable.

The drow in the cart dropped their disguises, only the one driving retained it. The four bantered good-naturedly, offering commentary on the ride, about the people they harassed as they ran past, about their guest. Eiranish looked at Emerick. "I don't think he's having fun." He grinned. "Let's change that." He rose. "Emerick! You don't look like you're enjoying yourself! You should really loosen up."

He sprang forward, nimbly on the support beam. He swayed briefly and called back over his shoulder. "Slow down for a minute!"

The cart slowed and he stood, one foot balanced on each remaining support, over Emerick. The grin he gave the human was all the other races saw in the drow. It was cruelty and delight at cruelty, malice and joy in that malice, sadism with no need for masochism. It was a look that never knew mercy and viewed pity as a weakness to weed out.

The look one his face was all the answer one needed as to why he had abandoned the teachings of his Eilistraeean family and converted.

He drew a knife and cut the bonds tying Emerick's legs to the beam. With his ankle pinioned with another rope, Emerick squirmed desperately, trying to keep his place on the support. Eiranish leapt back to his seat and yelled at the driver to speed up again. Every turn and jostle, Emerick was pushed from one side to the next. His own weight threatened to flip him under the cart. Only the tightness of the ropes prevented it.

The ride lasted over half the hour. The drow smoked, dropping ashes and cigarette butts on Emerick. They drank and tossed the bottles at him, or poured liquor over him. They joked, bantered, sometimes aimed a kick at the human male. Eiranish danced over the exposed supports. If he fell, he could have been caught under the wagon and died, but he never missed a step. He could spin on one foot, leap to the other beam and turn like a ballerina then step into a type of solo salsa, all without losing his balance. His confidence propelled him during the dance, his surety of foot on par with a goat.

Amalette Tith'Rix could dance like that, lightly over anything. Aestith missed his sisters, his home in Enainsi. He could never go back.

Eiranish dropped into his seat sweating with the exertion and Bingath clapped him congratutorially on the shoulder. Ryze had a dark look to his eyes that promised something when he and Eiranish might have a moment of privacy.

The cart drew to a sudden, almost violent halt. The others' disguises flickered and settled back onto them like a mantle. Aestith glanced out of the opening at the South Ward. Eiranish cut the rope pinning the human to the support, then kicked him through the hole. They climbed out of the wagon. Bingath hauled Emerick out from under it by his collar. He slammed his fist into Emerick's gut and turned to Aestith. He gave a practiced, courtly bow that incorporated lifting his hat from his head. He straightened, the disguise dropped. He grinned, then dropped the hat back onto his head.

Eiranish drove his booted foot into Emerick's stomach and gave Aestith a slightly clumsier but no less elaborate bow, removing the hat for the briefest of moments. Ryze's bow was more similar to Bingath's and he also kicked Emerick. Zanisernix punched Emerick and bowed to Aestith, raising his head and flashed a dazzling grin before it, too, disappeared under the disguise. They left him alone with Emerick.

Emerick was alive, intoxicated, and whimpering. Aestith chuckled and moved slowly toward him. He knelt and took his knife. He cut Emerick's clothing to rags, then sliced the gag. He dropped two drugged candies into the man's mouth, and forced it down with the contents of a waterskin. Aestith leaned close to him and whispered, "Remember, we could have killed you, Emerick. And no one will ever believe what happened."

He cut the man's bonds and left him lying in the trash with the sun going down. At the end of the alley, Aestith saw a familiar silhouette in a red hat. Wizards liked hats by some strange and universal tradition, but Xaiviryn wore fashionable hats, rather than traditional ones.

Xaiviryn offered a hand to him. Aestith smiled, and took it. Xaiviryn was a wizard; he was lithe but not muscular, dextrous and intelligent, but not strong. It was difficult to say if his charm or his cunning were greater. He was far older than Aestith and his past shoulder length hair had long ago turned silver instead of a more traditional grey. Aestith might have thought he dyed it, except the hair was the same color in other places. It was rare that drow could grow a beard, and yet it did not surprise Aestith at all that he had grown one, cropped short because it would be a waste of a fine jaw line if he were to hide it.

Xaiviryn led Aestith to a waiting carriage, far too plush for this area of town. He poured the cleric a glass of wine as the carriage trundled into the city.

"I'd like to share something with you," he said. In infrared, the other was warm, his heartbeat informing Aestith that he was calm. Without his disguise and in the light, his eyes would be a rare and exquisite shade of blue. It was not universal to all drow, Aestith had learned, but many drow sporting an Enainsine bloodline, maybe in a few other places too, had eyes that changed color from infrared to the color spectrum vision.

Aestith was content to share the bottle of wine, but the carriage halted before they had quite finished the first glass. Xaiviryn grinned when the door opened. He stepped down and held a hand to Aestith. Aestith accepted.

Most of the guardian statues around the city were occupied, but there were one or two that, due to their structure or location, were left to crumble and decay. Xaiviryn looked up, seemed to measure the distance briefly, then stepped just so. They had to levitate upwards, which made Aestith reluctant because he could only do that once a day.

He went anyway, call it arrogance. Xaiviryn navigated around it by doing minimal climbing and pushing himself up or off of the structure. Aestith followed, counting minutes until he started to sink back down. They moved onto the weather-beaten head of the statue. Xaiviryn stalked around it until they had an excellent view of the city. A blanket had been spread out over it, a bottle of champagne cooling in a bucket of ice, two fluted glasses.

Aestith took a seat on the blanket and curled his legs slightly. "How terribly banal," he said as Xaiviryn popped the champagne cork with a loud bang.

Xaiviryn poured one glass and handed it to Aestith. "It's a beautiful night." He set the bottle down in the ice and gingerly sat on the other side of the blanket. He did not yet sip the champagne. He had said that line before, as if it were some kind of code, the way he and the other Drow said "there are no Drow in Waterdeep".

Aestith frowned. What was all this really about? Xaiviryn had no need of cheesy seduction scenes, and he knew Aestith cared little for views or stars particularly, and this height only gave them a good view of the horizon, which was sickening. What were they really doing?

The high solitary view and the champagne were like something out of one of those horrid romance novels he liked to read. Aside from how Aestith had gotten here, of course and the events leading up to that.

Xaiviryn looked over the city, rarely at the stars, and the horizon and the sea held little interest to him. He was staring at one particular section of the city, where a new tower was slowly rising and due to be completed soon. Desmaduke.

Xaiviryn's eyes, red with infrared, flicked toward Aestith's face. "Getting the leverage over the paladin was simple enough. It was sheer convenience that the noble family were cultists too. I really thought we'd need more clout there, but it all sorted itself out." He seemed like he might go on. Against the untrue dark of the night, Xaiviryn's skin was an inky black silhouette.

Aestith interjected, "Are you certain they're really cultists?" He certainly knew they were; Arcedi had given him the evidence of it. He wondered how Xaiviyn knew though.

"I have a contact that happened to break in." He smirked with some imagined self-importance.

Useful information; he and Aracnelxeth knew one another, but Arcedi wasn't part of his collective. Arcedi had obviously kept two pieces of evidence, which made his stomach twist. He had put the candle of human fat in a lead-lined trunk immediately-if Arcedi had other evidence, it hadn't been guarded the same way. "And the one I babysat?"

"The clerk arrived in Waterdeep sooner than anticipated, which threw a bit of a wrench into our plans. I thought it may have been compromised once or twice, but you solved the issue." He tilted his head. "After that, it was a matter of infiltrating the temple. It took a while to get everything in place, but we are ahead of schedule." He cast Aestith a grin. "I had wished, you see, to do this with a bit more style. It would be more climactic to wait until the last possible moment, the day before the tower was due to complete." He shook his head. "But that would be foolish."

Aestith's eyes traced back to the tower. That kidnapped man Aestith had babysat had been part of Desmaduke after all. The paladin Xaiviryn had doubtless blackmailed with love letters had let them into the temple.

For several minutes, the night continued. It was a normal, boring, middle-of-the-tenday type of night. The brothel would be quiet, and most people would be tucking in to rest for the next day's work. The light from the city and the smog obscured the view of the sky to most eyes, but Aestith could see through the thinner smog, and at the thousands of eyes glaring downwards from the sky. He tried not to look at it.

The tower fell.

It wasn't a huge explosion or a bang. It wasn't a column of smoke. It was as if someone had stacked books and removed one from the bottom of the pile; it wobbled, then toppled. From this distance, it was silent as it fell. Slowly, downward.

Xaiviryn said, "Bit of art, that. Wore down a few key supports. I had to bribe several gnomes and a dwarf to tell me how to bring it down after I acquired the blueprints. The building is made mostly of stone, so I imagine-no, there's the fires. All without a trace of magic."

Smoke rose from the ruined tower.

He tinked his champagne glass against Aestith's and drank. He smiled. "You see, it had to appear to have failed." He smirked. "They'll never get the permits to reconstruct it now."

Hence the nobles he had blackmailed. "Why not just alter the spell?" The spell they had been constructing was a terrifying and slightly altered version of the Zone of Truth spell, which would ultimately be city-wide. With such a thing under construction, it would only be a matter of time before it might catch on in other towns.

"That was my first thought." He sighed.

Aestith sipped the champagne.

"Interfering with the spell meant that it had to be cast, however. And it wasn't a risk I was willing to undertake. Anyway, I wanted the residuum." He tilted his head. "You've helped me make quite a bit of money, Aestith."

"Did I now?"

He drained the glass and set it aside. "How much money does a temple like that have, do you suppose? And all that residuum they never got to use."

"Isn't that suspicious? A heist while the tower falls?"

"The heist was yesterday. Smuggled out with the waste building materials." He chuckled. "I appreciate the work you did, and with so few questions or second-guessing me. Are you sure you don't want to go to Neverwinter?" Xaiviryn lived there most of the time. Allegedly, his persona Zelvier Zanziric had an estate there; he said he liked the weather, always with some sarcasm. Weather was a terrible affliction of the surface, but Xaiviryn felt that if he must endure it, it was best in a place like Neverwinter.

Aestith looked at his glass. He drained it, just to buy a bit of time. He set the glass down. "I want to go with you."

He smiled, eyes on the city. "Which is why you'll be very angry when I tell you that I'd like you to stay."

The cleric bristled. "All this damned effort you put into trying to convince me to go with you, getting half your entourage to apply similar pressure. You're quite a tease, aren't you."

His eyes flicked toward Aestith. "Only because I'd like to offer you something more, Aestith."

He raised an eyebrow. He crossed his arms to contain their furious shaking. "Oh? What could you possibly offer me to stay on as some lackey to you in Waterdeep?" He lifted his chin. "If you can't get me to the Underdark, and you can't get me out of Waterdeep, why do I care? Would you offer me money? Are you aware they mint more of that every bell? I don't believe you can give me anything I want, Xaiviryn." In the heat of his anger and in his first tongue, he fell to the slang from his hometown, Enainsi.

He cocked his head to one side. "Community? An end to loneliness?"

Aestith snorted. "Yet you want me to stay here. Why should I spend my time helping you, Xaiviryn, when you can offer me so little in return?"

He paused. "I would offer you money." He watched Aestith's face contort to rage. "Enough to purchase land. And enough to start on a temple, with the promise of more to come. Once the temple is built, it would be simple enough to install a teleportation circle. So come visit me whenever you like." He raised an eyebrow. "Aestith, you're young, and I understand you haven't lived long enough to realize that impatience does you little good, but we have, theoretically, centuries. And you, Sister, shall have a temple."

Aestith's lips parted, all his fury evaporated like mist. He wanted to speak, but his tongue could not shape words. He swallowed, and his eyes slid toward the place the tower had been. "It's like you know precisely what I've always wanted."

"It's what any cleric would want, I imagine."

It benefited Xaiviryn as well. More drow would concentrate, so he had a larger recruiting base. The religion would keep more of them in one place, and more of them in check. They would be easier to corral. Aestith's lips curved to a suggestive smile. "How would you know what a cleric wants?"

Xaiviryn grinned. Aestith dropped the champagne glass in the ensuing grapple.

As he lay pressed to the blanket, half-naked and cold with the spring chill, he whispered a command for Xaiviryn to fall, lacing his power into it. Xaiviryn struggled and fell from him. Aestith rolled over him. He pinned the other's wrists and leaned down to kiss him.

#

Aestith had a brief moment when he couldn't find his underpants, then looked up to see Xaiviryn dangling them from one finger, a tempting smirk about his lips. Aestith liked the other's self-confident grins; they made his stomach twist and blood rush to his loin. The most attractive attribute Aestith could think of was not physical appearance at all, but confidence. Xaiviryn wore it very well.

He snatched them back.

Xaiviryn said, "We should go or we'll end up out here at dawn, which frankly isn't a sight I care to see. Do you want me to drop you off at that brothel?"

He shrugged. "I suppose. You know where it is, of course." Xaiviryn had visited the brothel recently, and purchased every courtesan available for several hours. He tilted his head. "How did Tirowan react, when your hat came off?"

"The highborn one? She didn't know, initially-Alter Self is a wonderful spell, but difficult to keep concentration during such times." He shrugged. "Do you know she is actually rather easily bought? I didn't even have to bargain."

Aestith smirked. "High elf, indeed."

He laced his boot. "Oh, she was a bit surprised initially. They all were, but in the end, they're whores." He frowned at Aestith. "I never did get my cakes and chocolates though."

"You're kind of a pretentious cockhole when you want to be."

"You know I'm very demanding in bed."

Aestith looked up at Xaiviryn, a dark, promising expression on his face. Aestith looked back at the buttons on his dress. "You're fortunate you didn't get them. It was midnight. Bakeries are closed, which leaves me."

"You bake?"

Aestith rolled his eyes. "You really know very little about me. It's almost like we don't talk much." He smirked. "I had considered baking you your cakes and chocolates and making a lottery of them, and some of them would of course be spiked with hallucinogens."

He stared flatly at Aestith. "You'd really do that?"

"You'd have a decent trip out of it. It's called the Traveler's Club."

Xaiviryn laughed. "Fair." He tilted his head. "Was that what that clerk was high off his ass on?"

"Yes."

He nodded. "I might have to purchase some from you." He stretched, then picked up the empty bottle of champagne. He frowned then tilted his arm back and threw it. He pointed with his other hand, a spell forming as the bottle arced.

Aestith reached a hand up and cast Sacred Flame. A brief symbol of Lolth formed in the air, then shattered the bottle. Xaiviryn scowled. Aestith grinned at him and tossed the remaining champagne glass. The second one had rolled away at some point. Xaiviryn flicked his hand and the glass exploded in flame. He frowned. "Not quite as flashy as yours."

"Effective."

"Aye, there's that." He glanced at Aestith. "I've been thinking about your condition."

"Condition?"

"Your anatomy."

That he had phrased it medically made the younger drow purse his lips, but he reigned in his impulses to deflect. Xaiviryn was powerful and intelligent; he wouldn't bring it up without due cause.

The wizard continued, "You were born during the Spellplague. It would have ended when you were perhaps twenty." Aestith distinctly disliked where this conversation was going. "There were many mutations born during the tumultuous time."

He crossed his arms indignantly. "I'm not some hideous mutation—"

"I didn't say you were." Xaiviryn reached toward him but Aestith backed a pace. "Aestith."

His lips curled. "Lolth blessed me with clerical powers. She wouldn't do that to someone that was mutated."

He watched Aestith for signs of growing temper. When he judged Aestith would not be explosively violent, he said, "But she would favor someone that other gods view as an anomaly that must be destroyed. I only caution you against strutting about openly."

He stared at him and struggled to breathe. Xaiviryn seemed to like that he wasn't hiding anymore, and now he wanted him to? "Other people have conditions similar to mine."

"Similar to. Not exactly like yours."

Aestith stared out at the city. He knew what he had seen in his vision; a set of twins becoming one. Chimerism. A difficult test beginning at birth. Or was it just an accident of the Weave? He swallowed the lump in his throat. Had the vision, too, just been a result of the Spellplague? What about the others? He knew he had been guided to Nier for the sacrifice. He knew the vision he had had, the words he had heard, at that abandoned shrine. But he had received no such visions, save specifically from sacrifices, since the last. And if he thought hard about the year, it had marked the end of the Spellplague.

Could it be true? He was just some anomaly of the Spellplague? Not Chosen at all, but a mutant? And Lolth had only gifted him the clerical powers because deceiving her followers amused her, because vexing the other gods was pleasing to her. He stuffed down the growing terror with a deep breath. He wouldn't let this break him. The circumstances of his birth didn't matter; he walked this path of his own choosing, and if Lolth had picked him because he was a mutation, or if she had changed him herself, it didn't matter. Both paths led him here.

Then why did the thought of it hurt?

He walked to the edge of the statue and looked down. "I'm afraid I can only use that spell once a day." Levitation was a spell for drow nobility, and was something Aestith had learned as a gift from Lolth, but he was still no noble. Xaiviryn had been, once.

Xaiviryn paused, then moved back to Aestith. "Well, it's a good thing you don't quite weigh 100 pounds then." He lifted Aestith. Aestith's hands gripped the other's shoulders with easy familiarity.

He asked, as they floated down, more sedately than the way up, how Xaiviryn had come to where he was. He said, "I could be sarcastic, like you, but I don't think I will." He tilted his head, watching Aestith's face. Drow males weren't generally allowed such familiarity, but Aestith was not quite female enough to enforce such matters even if he wanted to. And, right now, he didn't feel entitled to. "An adopted sister murdered my family. Are you familiar with House Velweb? My adopted sister is Matron Velweb."

"When were you in Enainsi?" He couldn't remember a House Everh'lylraeth.

"Before your time." He paused. "I was away at the time, not that I could have made a difference, but I escaped, and eventually found my way to Skullport. I met a few people there, and we agreed that we could probably do better on the surface. So I forsook everything I had been taught for what you'd call greed, and came here." He sighed. "After that, it took several decades and a lot of work, but I, and those first two allies, built Dark Carnival."

"Where are they?"
He was still a moment. "Well, you met Zanisernix. The other ran away to Luskan to marry some whore's daughter." He rolled his eyes.

"Where do you get the hats?"

He smiled. "All in good time."

"You're a wizard, aren't you? You could have cast levitate on both of us."

He smiled. "But where's the fun in that?" He emphasized his point with a grope.

Aestith's fingers wandered, then he remembered that they were, in fact, floating down several stories to the ground. "Dark Carnival. Was it from a book?"
"You've read it?"
"Yes." He hesitated, then sighed, and told him about the trade route by the same name, what had happened, the real reason he had left. Aestith usually told people that he had "gotten lost", which was true, but wasn't the half of it. Aestith had gone out with the caravan, named by his well-read sister, and two of his other sisters had killed one another. Aestith, as a witness and wounded, fled. He could have claimed to have seen nothing, could have pretended, for a while longer, but he was deformed and didn't think, at a mere fourteen, that he could continue hiding it much longer. Eventually, he had gotten lost and come to the surface, unable to find his way back.

Xaiviryn set Aestith down gently on the stone pavement. "Some would call it providence that my troupe and your caravan bear the same name."

"Some would be idiots," Aestith agreed. Amalette had named the caravan after something from a book. "It's a good book and you and Amalette have similar taste, which is a compliment by the way. The world is small and there were only so many words and names. Some are bound to be coincidental."

"You've no sense of wonder at all." The carriage rolled up to them. The driver must have seen them coming down, or else Xaiviryn had alerted them with a spell. "Though I do find your realism refreshing in someone like yourself."

Aestith assumed he meant his age, which was irritating. He was physically an adult, just not officially by their culture's standards; an awkward time.

The ride to the Traveler's Club, at this hour, was faster going than in the daytime, which proved more a hindrance than a help. The driver stopped the carriage, and Xaiviryn ignored it. Aestith was preoccupied at first, but he noticed a knock at the door. Xaiviryn told the driver to wait, then bent back to his task.

Xaiviryn pulled back a short time later, then grinned brightly and moved to the seat beside Aestith. He said, as if they had never been distracted, "So you were telling me about your plans for the temple?"

Aestith smiled lazily as he adjusted his leather trousers. "Just some fantasies I've had for a while. I'll put some more serious thought into it later."

"You said you'd allow male clerics though?"

"In certain positions, yes." He frowned. "I need to learn more-about the rituals and customs, but it all seems so complicated and I don't know who to go to."

Xaiviryn hesitated and his lips twisted into a frown. "Finding another cleric would be difficult."

He sighed. "I know. A paladin or monk might do for some things, but perhaps it is a wasted hope."

He made a face, seemed to wrestle with some internal struggle, then he sighed. "I might know a paladin."

Aestith bristled. "An oathbreaker?"

He shook his head. "No. Just foolish."

"I must meet him."

His lips pressed together. "I am not certain that is wise. I will make inquiries, I suppose."

Xaiviryn opened the carriage door. Aestith stepped down and Xaiviryn swept back into the carriage. They had no need of farewells.