Intersection
"Oh hello," S'kaerik made an effort to look surprised, even though the noisy metal clashing of Jarlaxle's bangles had been very audible while he had been climbing the staircase up to her room. "I had begun to think you'd forgotten about me."
"You do not seem too displeased, abbil," Jarlaxle said pleasantly.
"Mrrr," S'kaerik's tail twitched, a sign of uncertainty, "Well, I have been too busy of late to entertain visitors appropriately. Please, have a seat."
Jarlaxle bowed briefly as thanks, and sat down near the nest. S'kaerik reflected that either she now paid more attention to his mannerisms, or he was becoming more obvious, because now she could see him surreptitiously glancing at the translated documents from her perch on a chair. "How have the dwarves settled in?"
"Rather well – they've all had rooms in the place the dwarves marked for their own," S'kaerik said. She did not add in that the humans and the Weyr-cats had let them have their own 'place' with great relief, because dwarves tended to stay up late – by the hands of the timeclock the Company used anyway - and stay noisy. One could not believe how much they could go on, talking amount stone and minerals and family…
"They certainly like your company," Jarlaxle smiled briefly. S'kaerik wondered where this conversation was going. She got slightly paranoid every time she was exposed to him.
"Because I am one of the few Cats to study their history in detail," S'kaerik said, "Instead of specialising in Human history. Dwarven and Elven histories are more interesting. In my opinion, of course," she added conscientiously.
"You speak of history almost as though it were just a good book."
S'kaerik glanced quickly at his face to see if she'd given offence, but Jarlaxle seemed only mildly curious as to what her response would be. Try a joke? "Ah well, not all of us have lived through histories," she winked.
Jarlaxle grinned. "If I start listening to you about my age, I may soon start to act it."
"Really."
"It would be your fault if I end up a senile, withered heap trembling on a bed somewhere in a dark corner."
S'kaerik sniffed. "Somehow I cannot imagine you in such… reduced circumstances, unless there was some profit involved."
Jarlaxle did his best to look injured.
"A lot of profit involved, then," S'kaerik conceded mockingly. It was probably time to change the subject, before Jarlaxle decided to come up with a crushing backhand. "You didn't come to see the dwarves arrive?"
"No. Contrary to possible popular opinion, I do have better things to do than watch an extended dwarven reunion, sprinkled with repetitive humour about dwarven heights from dwarves."
"Touché," S'kaerik stretched a little, yawning. It was rather early in the morning, and she was due at a site in Manyfolk soon. "Don't you like dwarves?"
"I like your company better, Lady Cat," Jarlaxle said archly, fielding the question quickly. An answer to such a question would be undiplomatic, given the number of dwarves that might eventually hear of it, in the Company. One thing dwarves were more or less still united on was in their dislike of Elves. And since Dwarves were more or less half of the Company…
"It's too early in the morning for me to think of a suitably charming rejoinder," S'kaerik retorted in good nature.
"Your smile would be enough of a 'rejoinder', Lady Cat."
"At least dwarves don't try funny words on me," S'kaerik muttered. Unfortunately, Jarlaxle's sharp ears picked this up.
"Because there are not enough words in the dwarven tongue to describe beauty," Jarlaxle said gallantly.
"They do have a lot of words to describe beauty, actually," S'kaerik said, mind still on auto-correct, which it normally stuck on early in the morning until she hit lunch.
"Inanimate beauty, especially that of rock," Jarlaxle said dryly.
"It's still beauty," S'kaerik said, deciding to argue language with him. That way, it was quite likely she would not lose track of the conversation.
"I am sure all words for beauty would still apply to you," Jarlaxle grinned mischievously.
"I am sure," S'kaerik imitated his tone, "That you say that to all the ladies." Mentally she ticked that phrase off her list of Things she'd always wanted to Say But Couldn't Find the Context.
"What ladies?" Jarlaxle asked innocently.
"Hmmph. Making a list of your known conquests would take a decade. If one typed quickly."
"Conquests?"
"As I said before, Jarlaxle, you really shouldn't try to look innocent."
"Was I being innocent?"
"You're doing it right now."
"I am?"
S'kaerik realized that Jarlaxle was in enough of a certain mood this morning such that he could continue on this thread forever if he wanted to. "If I am not being intrusive – why are most of your conquests non-drow?"
Jarlaxle raised an eyebrow.
"Sorry," S'kaerik apologised quickly. "I really should drink more coffee in the morning. It does wonders for my sense of tact."
Jarlaxle tapped his chin absently with a finger. "Hmm… if I answer that question, would you answer some of my less tactful ones?"
"What less tactful ones?" Warning bells went off in her head.
Jarlaxle's grin looked particularly wicked.
"You ask your question first." S'kaerik said quickly.
"Have all of your… 'conquests' been Weyr-cat?"
S'kaerik tried to keep the relief from showing on her face. That was an easy one, considering she didn't have many 'conquests'. "I think so, yes."
"You think so?"
"Well," she blushed a little, "There was an elf once, but I think we were probably just fooling around. It was nothing serious, anyway."
Jarlaxle seemed satisfied about something. "And what happened to this elf?"
"You didn't answer my question."
"Ah… well, I would have thought the answer quite obvious," Jarlaxle said irritatingly. "Dark elven females have a tendency to be quite dominating and predictable. After a while, it ceases to be fun."
The blush increased in intensity for a while as S'kaerik guiltily wondered what he meant by 'dominating', then she quickly shooed the thoughts into a corner. Coffee. She needed coffee.
"Your turn," Jarlaxle said mildly.
"Oh. Well, he returned to Evermeet after he finished his stay in the University of Baldur's Gate." S'kaerik often wondered what would have happened if she had asked that elf to stay, but it would have been rude. Not to mention she'd only kissed him once. It wasn't really worth all the teasing she got from her friends after that incident somehow became public knowledge…
"Are they still that way? Dark elven females, that is." She still hadn't seen any, yet. All the dark elves she had encountered so far were Bregan D'aerthe.
"No, not really," Jarlaxle said thoughtfully. "Most of them have lost religion, and have gone into technology, so it has been leached out of their system. However," he added dryly, "Now more of them are quite a bit more interested in machines than in relationships. There are more things to do, apparently, compared to religion. Dark Elven religion used to be such that the worshipper tended to have a lot of free time, technically for torture or evil deeds and such."
"Oh, okay," S'kaerik decided she really wanted to meet one, now.
"Will you go to Sshamath? When they open a road to it from here."
S'kaerik blinked. Word that the station in Menzoberranzan would eventually extend to Sshamath had only been out in the Company recently. "Well, first it has to pass a few duergar cities, so it may take quite a while to get to Sshamath. But yes, if they open a road to Sshamath in my lifetime, I will go."
"It will be interesting," Jarlaxle smiled. Especially interesting since he had recently discovered that Sshamath had been withholding technology of the sort that he had been looking for since he had offered the book to S'kaerik for translation.
"Well, when Menzoberranzan is manned enough and we can travel…"
"It may be earlier than you believe," Jarlaxle said, "Sshamath has been working with the dwarven cities, and they are putting down rails by themselves."
Now where did he get that from? That had not been common knowledge… as cities impatiently waiting expansion might try that themselves. Sshamath and the duergar cities were doing it under close Company supervision. Some of her surprise must have registered in her face, because Jarlaxle waved a hand dismissively.
"I did mention that Sshamath had a branch of Bregan D'aerthe?"
"Right. Oh yes. You did." S'kaerik mentally shook her head in astonishment. Sometimes he rather scared her. "Would you also happen to know how far work has been done?"
"I would expect complete rails in a few months," Jarlaxle said mildly, grinning at her surprise. "Contrary to what you may think, magic can actually greatly aid technology."
"Ummm. They're using magic on the rails? The Company…"
"No, they are using magic in transporting materials. The actual process of construction is manual," Jarlaxle said swiftly, before S'kaerik panicked. "They are aware of Company restrictions. Although it would be more precise if magic had been allowed."
"The speed is still quite… well, incredible." S'kaerik had thought that construction to Sshamath would have taken years.
"Perhaps you underestimate the profit that Sshamath would attain in terms of foreign exchange if it was linked to the Surface, and to other Old Cities," Jarlaxle smiled. He had done some calculations – only approximate ones, of course – and had immediately instructed the Sshamath Bregan D'aerthe division to try to get a larger handhold on the trading business.
"Ah, yes, I see," S'kaerik said, who didn't at all, because one of her faults was always underestimating the value money had to people as compared to old relics. "But why didn't they do this earlier?"
"Because 'electric lights' have just started mass manufacture in the Surface," Jarlaxle said mildly.
Okay, she didn't even know about that. "Really? That's… how did you… eh, sorry I asked," she added, when Jarlaxle began to smirk. He liked to show off. Electric lights had been, when she left, rather a risky business, such that the Company, though it used some, mainly preferred normal lamps.
"They have discovered some better material of which it would be less unstable," Jarlaxle said. He knew precisely what material, but decided that a surfeit of information would just shock S'kaerik into silence.
"That's… very good," S'kaerik concluded lamely, then mentally scolded herself for the juvenile quality of her words. "But why would they want electric lights? This is the Underdark…"
"You cannot read scrolls by infrared, and parchment is very flammable next to candles, of which the heat by itself may be too much. The brightness of an electric bulb can also be adjusted, while that of a candle cannot."
"Oh, I see," S'kaerik said, blinking. "But just the electric bulb, and they are willing to shoulder the costs and labour of construction? And what do the dwarves get out of this? Normally they're willing to wait…"
"The illumination of the bulb is such that you can see items better. Such as caves," Jarlaxle said dryly, who did not really understand dwarves himself, and did not want to. That had been the best explanation he could come up with on short notice. "And electric light, inside its bulb, would have less of a chance of setting off an explosion if there were… coal in an area." That had been the second best explanation that he had.
"Ah." S'kaerik felt rather stupid now, and comforted herself by thinking of coffee. She still didn't really understand why a single invention could prove so important, but perhaps it was just her. Certainly when the electric light came out into general, if careful, use for the first time it had generated a sensation. With eyes sharp enough to read even the most garbled manuscript by candlelight, S'kaerik had just continued using candlelight. At least she knew where she stood by it, and candles did not have the possibility of spontaneous combustion.
At that time it was still under experimentation, and expensive, because the most stable materials were somewhat expensive to separate from their ores, or something. She had listened to a dwarven conversation on this and lost track, especially once they slipped into dwarfish.
Still, it had taken years to get to Menzoberranzan…perhaps it was the magic? It was one reason why work had proceeded at a snail's pace… materials from the surface took forever to come down.
Since her brain was still somewhat stunned, she asked the next thing that came to mind without thinking much. "They have electricity?"
Jarlaxle just smiled.
Now she was very curious. She knew that dark elven technology was quite advanced, but no one – outside from a dark elf – actually knew by how much. Before she could ask, though, the conversation somehow steered into that of dwarves in Manyfolk, and after a bit of skilful managing on Jarlaxle's part, she forgot to ask him about drow machinery, or why he kept asking about Sshamath.
**
The dwarves were disagreeing on, as far as S'kaerik could tell, whether or not the axe they found was a ceremonial one – therefore, it had hung on the wall of the pub on which ruins they stood on now – or was a 'normal' one, and had just fallen there. They had turned to dwarfish, a language that she understood only shakily, and then, only if spoken slowly.
To occupy herself, she picked her way carefully around the broken stone, wondering if there was anything actually of value here, or if the dwarves were just hoping to find some extremely ancient alcohol.
Something shiny under the rock – S'kaerik mentally thanked whatever deity had made Weyr-Cats evolve with sharp eyes – and carefully pulled away the rock. Hooks on a decorative carving… as if made to hold up something, probably something heavy. Unearthing it a little more and smoothing away the dust, she realized that there were runes carved carefully above the hooks, probably visible over whatever the hooks had held.
She turned to call the dwarves, and realized with some astonishment that some were already clustered around her. Either she was really losing it, or had been too absorbed in trying to read the runes, which were gibberish to her. Dwarfish was fine, but written dwarfish was weird, even after so many centuries, and even weirder once they integrated duergar into red dwarfish and called it Common Dwarf, or something. The runes were almost definitely ancient duergar, though, which she couldn't read.
The dwarves spoke loudly to each other until by general consensus the axe was brought forward. S'kaerik carefully got out of the way while it was ceremonially lowered onto the hooks. It didn't fit. This sparked off another boisterous argument as the dwarves tried fitting the axe another way. S'kaerik was suddenly reminded of those little kid games where the kids tried to fit shapes into shaped holes, and had to stifle a near unbearable urge to laugh.
"The runes?" she asked politely when there was a lull in the conversation.
They looked at her, bright eyes under bushy, grey or red eyebrows that were overshadowed by steel helmets, and then began to argue again. Finally one said, "'Tis a name. We ain't sure if 'tis the name of the axe, or the maker."
"Or the owner." Another dwarf said. S'kaerik had given up trying to remember their names. As far as she could tell, a lot of them were called Bjorn. It was like humans and the name 'John'. If you lisped a bit, 'John' actually sounded like 'Bjorn', come to think about it…
"Could be the same thing," Maybe-Bjorn said defensively.
"Was it an axe?" S'kaerik asked curiously.
"What other weapon would'a been hung in a dwarven pub?"
He had a point there.
A shout from somewhere behind the rubble that used to be, as far as she could tell, the counter. Her rather pathetic dwarfish informed her that the word 'lager' was in it somewhere.
S'kaerik winced as she went to take a look, but let out a sigh of relief when she realized that they had found a cellar where alcohol used to be stored, not the alcohol itself.
Behind her, ascertaining that lager was not actually in existence, the dwarves continued arguing. The argument heightened when the dwarves 'found' a way to fit the axe onto the hooks.
It all looked rather questionable to her, especially the rather lopsided way the weapon fit onto the whole thing. But since half of her pay from the Company came from dwarves…
She blinked. The dwarves were looking at her. "Yes?"
"What d'ye think?" Could-be-Bjorn asked her.
"Er… er, I think we should clear all the rubble carefully, and then…"
"See, maybe there are other axes," the dwarf said triumphantly at the others.
"I meant…" S'kaerik said quickly, but the argument had resumed. At least the dwarves were now rather efficiently clearing the blocks of stone into neat stacks, examining them carefully beforehand for any more hooks.
Uh oh – another axe. S'kaerik braced herself for a new storm of unintelligible words. Nothing came. She blinked.
The dwarves were looking at her with new respect. "Ye can see 'em through the stone?"
"Er…"
"Ye cats must be amazing!" Probably-Bjorn said. The other dwarves nodded vigorously in agreement.
"Er…?"
In the next few hours, S'kaerik wondered ruefully whether or not being ignored or being followed around closely in the hope that she would 'detect' more axes 'through the stone' was worse.
Dwarves.
--
Notes and References
Abbil: friend