Chapter 6: The Information Broker
Drizzt got his first good look at the target of the night's activities when the group of panting drow, and Artemis, finally hauled the motionless body into a warehouse that Drizzt had appropriated in the Eastmyr district. The former owners had used it to traffic substances that even Menzoberranzan's tolerant elite didn't care for, and were therefore no longer in business in the city, but Eastmyr was sufficiently poorly administered that Drizzt believed no-one had yet realized their warehouse was now empty and unused. So, for now at least, it belonged to Drizzt, and his fledgling counter-intelligence program.
Once the group had all caught their breath, Drizzt got his first true look at the target. Of middling height for a drow, and with classic long white hair, he would have been handsome if not for the fact that his eyes were set far too narrow on his face, bordering his nose tightly. A lump had formed above his left ear, where Ghazryn's punch had struck and knocked him out, but from the rancid smell of alcohol on his breath Drizzt wondered if the punch had even been necessary. Drizzt grasped the male elf under his armpits and heaved him into a chair, then picked up a length of rope and bound him tightly. A bucket of water to the face from Yalael roused the captured drow, who winced with pain before opening his eyes, then cringed with true fear.
"Ah, Mestires," Drizzt drawled from behind, projecting calm and confidence that he did not necessarily feel, "so kind of you to finally join us. Now, what can you tell me that will make me want to let you live? Surely the 'greatest information broker in Menzoberranzan' knows something worth more than his life?"
Mestires sputtered, spraying water from his lips, and opened his mouth as if to speak before stopping. Drizzt paced slowly behind him, allowing his usually silent footfalls to ring out, making the captive drow well aware of his location. Mestires swallowed slowly, red eyes darting from side to side seeking something that could help him out of his predicament. Eventually the information broker spoke. "How did you find me?" he asked, "Not even my subordinates know what my face looks like, let alone where to find me."
It was a transparent attempt to buy time, but Drizzt decided to indulge his captive. After all, there would be no escape for Mestires. The drow had himself confirmed that there would be no rescue. How could he be rescued if he could not be found by his subordinates, nor recognised even if he were found? "Anyone can be found if you know who to ask," Drizzt replied cryptically, "but did you really think that you could encroach on the business of Bregan D'Aerthe without leaving a trail? They may have let it slide for a century or more, but Jarlaxle doesn't just ignore his competition. You over-extended your organization, Mestires, and the information you gathered had to come from somewhere. All we had to do was start a rumour, then see where it ended up, and connect the dots in between." Of course, Drizzt had nothing to do with Bregan D'Aerthe, but other than that, the story was true. The information broker known only by the name 'Mestires' had sprung to prominence over a century prior, and Malice had made it a priority to find out what she could about the mysterious drow. Over the years House Do'Urden had started and traced a number of rumours throughout Menzoberranzan, but only recently had Drizzt put together all the pieces and tracked down Mestires' base of operations, as well as his habit of visiting the gambling and pleasure dens of the Stenchstreets on a regular basis. Using the name of Bregan D'Aerthe was a redundancy, just in case Mestires somehow managed to escape. The crafty information-broker was resourceful, and it wouldn't do to have such an enemy for House Do'Urden. This of course also meant that Drizzt and his distinctive lavender eyes would have to stay hidden, for which reason he was doing his questioning from behind the tied-up drow. "So, Mestires," Drizzt continued, "what is your life worth to you?"
Once again the prisoner's glowing red eyes darted around the room, desperately searching for salvation, but no salvation was forthcoming. He swallowed, then spoke, voice coming out strangely high-pitched. "Depends on what you want to know, I suppose. But you know that all the information I have is kept in my head, and I won't share a thing without some guarantees that I'll get out of here alive." Mestires' voice grew stronger and clearer as his confidence grew. "You know," the captive drow continued, buoyed by the lack of interruption so far, "this will ruin me. Everything I've built is gone now, I'll have to leave Menzoberranzan, start again, somewhere else, with a new name and a new life. So I'll need some compensation as well. And a monitor lizard to ride. Supplies for a long journey. Then I might tell you the truth. Otherwise, who knows if you can trust my information?"
Silence reigned for a long moment, then a cool female voice cut through the quiet. "Oh, don't worry about that," the new arrival spoke, sending a shiver through the prisoner's spine, "I have just the dweomer from Lady Lloth to make sure that we're all speaking the truth." Drizzt grinned. She'd cut it close, but Zayana had arrived.
It took the priestess a few moments to cast the spell, but then the four of them were inside a zone of truth, Drizzt, Zayana, Mestires, and Yalael, all felt the metaphysical weight of the dweomer settle on them, now physically preventing everyone inside its range from speaking a lie. "Does this satisfy you?" Zayana asked of Mestires coolly.
"It satisfies me that you will speak the truth," the broker replied. "Now, will I leave here alive, as you promised?"
"If you uphold your end of the bargain, you will leave here alive," Drizzt confirmed, causing the prisoner to slump slightly in relief. "But that will require you to answer every question I ask truthfully, to the best of your ability."
"Very well, let us begin."
The questioning was quick, Yalael taking the lead, a list of questions written in the exothermic ink used in the Underdark in his hand, taking down the answers equally quickly in the same ink. That it would only last for a decade or so before fading was unimportant, as any actionable information would be used within days, not years. Of course, much of the information they were collecting was more or less unimportant, as questions impacting House Do'Urden had to be spread few and far between, so as not to tip off Mestires to the true affiliation of his captors. Eventually the sensation of the truth dweomer lifted, and Zayana raised a questioning eyebrow at Drizzt, as if to ask if she should renew the spell. "That's enough," he decided aloud, "we have what we came for. Blindfold him." Yalael moved quickly to blindfold their prisoner, and Drizzt stepped around the chair to in front of the captive drow. "So," he spoke, "unfortunately, you know too much about what happened here tonight to be allowed to spread tales. And for all your prowess in information gathering, you really don't seem too bright to me. But I promised you would leave alive, and so you will. You should have negotiated a clean death instead." With that, Yalael gripped Mestires' jaw with firm hands, opening the drow's mouth wide. Drizzt drew a dagger in one hand, and with the other gripped the prisoner's tongue. He sliced quickly, removing the tongue in a spray of blood, then stepped aside so that Zayana could quickly cast a healing dweomer on the stump, stopping the flow of blood. "Can't have you communicating non-verbally, either," he noted dryly, then quickly brought down his blade on Mestires' fingers, severing them all at the first knuckle, drawing a gurgling scream from his victim. Zayana didn't move to heal this wound, and Mestires was quickly silenced as Drizzt slammed the hilt of his dagger into the already raised bruise on the male's temple, causing him to slump unconscious once again. With deft hands, Yalael untied the prisoner, then lifted him over his shoulder, hobbling towards the warehouse entrance, and threw the now-crippled elf out onto the street, still bleeding profusely. "Well," Drizzt intoned somberly, "he did leave here alive, as promised."
Some hours later, Drizzt, Zayana, and Yalael were woken from a light sleep by the return of Artemis, Ghazryn, and Khazra to the warehouse. They had left as the interrogation had begun, tasked with re-tracing the group's steps and tying up any loose ends or silencing curious onlookers. Fortunately for the citizens of Menzoberranzan, the Do'Urden taskforce had done an excellent job the first time, so there was no need to silence anyone, nor any loose ends to be tied up, but the trio had been thorough in ensuring that the groups tracks were fully covered. "It's rather uncivilised to just leave your trash out in the street, you know," Khazra jibed to open the conversation. "You cut out his tongue and then cut off his fingers? Ruthless, I like it. Did he scream?"
The wizard's apparent pleasure in the gruesome act disturbed Drizzt, who had done it because it was necessary, not out of any joy of inflicting pain, but fortunately he was saved from replying by Zayana. "Of course he screamed, you foolish male," she sneered contemptuously, "he had his fingers cut off. What else would he do? Anyway, how did your task go?" As Khazra started to speak, she cut him off, "Not you, wizard, I don't trust you to know a successful task from a desiccated bat's wing. I was asking Ghazryn."
"Not much to report," the diminutive drow replied, "we didn't leave enough traces to really need to clean them up, so we just made sure nothing out of the ordinary was going on, then watched the streets for a few hours in case anyone came looking for him. Nobody did though."
Drizzt hummed in acknowledgment. "Very good. Well, our first mission has been a success. We'll reconvene tomorrow at Narbondel's zenith in the War Room, there's plenty of new information to look over." With that, the group dispersed, moving soundlessly and near invisibly into the Menzoberranzan night.
The following day did indeed find Drizzt and his team in the War Room adjacent to the Weapons Hall, where Drizzt set them to work corroborating the information provided by Mestires and sorting it into useful, potentially useful, and saleable. Anything that didn't affect the Do'Urdens or one of their rival houses could be turned into currency by selling the information either directly to the subject of the information, or to Bregan D'Aerthe, as the mercenary group would buy anything, as long as the price was right. The work was dull, however, and eventually Khazra piped up in his slow, condescending drawl. "What I don't understand," he stated, "is why we would go to all this effort to capture and kill Mestires, instead of just paying him for the information we wanted. We could even have put him on retainer, and had him give us more information in the future."
Drizzt was about to answer, but instead Yalael scoffed, the wizened warrior affixing the arrogant wizard with a penetrating stare. "The most obvious reason would be that an independent resource is one that our enemies can use as well. And they outnumber us, not to mention their financial superiority. We removed a resource from the board that didn't belong to us, and stripped it of everything of value beforehand. Perhaps your method would have entailed a greater possible pay-off, but the thirdboy's method entails the least risk. Bregan D'Aerthe are once again the biggest player, and not only do House Do'Urden have a good relation with them, but they are predictable."
"Good reasons, Yalael," Zayana praised, interjecting her own thoughts, "yet you miss the most important. We can trust absolutely this information. Without the truth dweomer, we would never have that confidence. But the opportunity for that could only be taken once, and not without making an enemy of Mestires. Better to do that now, with the element of surprise, than later, after making him aware of our interest in his business. And we got plenty to show for it." With that, she pointedly leaned back, returning her gaze to her parchment. Khazra sneered, but said nothing, and returned his own eyes to his parchment. Silence reigned, with all of the room's occupants seemingly not even breathing.
The silence was broken, though not the tension, as the door flew open, clanging against the wall, and Briza stormed into the room, red eyes flaring with rage. The occupants leapt to their feet reflexively, hands flying to weapon hilts and component pouches. "What the fuck are you doing in here," she demanded, harsh syllables seeming to radiate energy fuelled by her anger. "This fucking taskforce is supposed to be protecting our holdings, so why the fuck did our silver mine burn down last night, with all the kobold slaves stolen?" Looking Drizzt directly in the eyes, she spoke more calmly, words dripping with venom. "Matron Malice wants to see you, thirdboy. Now."
The door slammed behind her as the Do'Urden high priestess left as quickly as she had arrived, leaving only echoes and a lingering silence, broken at length by the violet-eyed male.
"Shit."
Author's Note: As a reminder, my writing progress is periodically updated on my Author Bio. To see my thoughts or track my progress, you can go there and see what I have to say for myself.
