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Nine-Fingers Keene was not a picky woman. Being picky wouldn’t have gotten her to the top of the Gate. She’d seen it time and again as she rose through the ranks—a gang lord or guildmaster would pass over an opportunity, overlook an option, because of grudges or pride or a weird stab at honor. Nine-Fingers had watched and she had learned. When she saw her opportunity, she took it without pretense or hesitation.
And because she was not especially attached to her pride, because she was never too good for a good deal, Nine-Fingers had a lot of friends in a lot of places. A lot of those friends hated each other, a lot of those friends hated her, but Nine-Fingers was useful and a threat and was never one to sour a friendship by avenging something. So she was able to call on connections none of her rivals had, pull on threads none of the aspirants to her throne could touch. Nine-Fingers was a friendly guildmaster, and she was always in the market for more pals.
The Bhaalist high priestess sat on the other side of Nine-Finger’s desk. She was not a friend.
She’d walked in like one. Completely circumvented the Guildhall’s guard—Nine-Fingers had been expecting that much, based on the intelligence she had on her. She blended in with most of the denizens here—big cloak, face mask, could be anyone just getting back from a job.
She’d been courteous, or sensible, enough to wait for Nine-Fingers on the other side of the Ladies’ Court. When Nine-Fingers offered her a drink, she asked for water.
She introduced herself as Dread. Nine-Fingers wasn’t sure if that was a title or a name, but she was hardly one to judge what people chose to go by.
Dread had come to ask for something, like Nine-Fingers’s friends always did. The guild held a monopoly on smuggling lanes into the city. Dread wanted to move something in without city eyes on it. She didn’t offer what it was, and Nine-Fingers didn’t ask.
Dread’s wasn’t just asking for Nine-Fingers to wave the toll. She was asking for Nine-Fingers to give the Bhaalists control of a cave-river for an entire day.
“My people can tell you how much you’d owe us in lost revenue,” Nine-Fingers said. “Of course, we’ll also have to take into account increased pressure on other lanes, contracts that need to be amended, guarantees of your discretion—” Nine-Fingers shook her head. “Well. Fortunately, Uktar likes a challenge.”
“I can get you the gold,” Dread said. She answered immediately and, as near as Nine-Fingers could tell, honestly. She did not seem concerned by the implications, though really, Nine-Fingers hadn’t been to discern a single emotion from the elf the entire time she had been here.
“Unwise to agree to a sum you haven’t heard,” Nine-Fingers said.
“Mhmm.” Dread tilted her head. She still wore her mask. “I’m willing to negotiate.”
Nine-Fingers smiled indulgently. “Alright. Let’s ‘negotiate,’ then. What exactly do you have, that’s worth more to me than your gold?”
“You must want people dead,” Dread said.
Nine-Fingers scoffed. “Believe it or not, I already have that talent on payroll.”
“I know. I recognized some faces walking through your hall. People who come to make offerings to my god.”
Nine-Fingers resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She didn’t tell her people what to do off the clock. She wasn’t losing sleep over some of her assassins telling Dread how Nine-Fingers Keene took her tea.
And it wasn’t like they only talked to her. After all, the Ladies’ Court were all carrying Daylight spell scrolls, to erase any shadow Dread might try to escape into. Dread’s followers bragged about her far more than she’d like to believe.
But then again—the Bhaalists wouldn’t tell her a damned thing about the temple or what went on in it. Anytime Nine-Fingers’s questions go under the cobblestone streets, they clammed up.
And that was what made it very hard for Nine-Fingers to consider Dread a friend. Dread was not a very charming woman, which did endear her to Nine-Fingers. But she was a priestess and any of the priests with an ounce of power in the Gate that Nine-Fingers had known, had been exceedingly charming. You needed to be charming to get a flock, you needed to be charming for someone to thank you when you took their money. Dread was not charming and she had a cult and funds behind her, and a secret that run-of-the-mill cutthroats feared more than the wrath of the Guild. Nine-Fingers was missing something here.
“There are people they can’t kill, though,” Dread said. “People they can’t, but I can. If there’s someone who’s been too protected for you to touch, too hidden for you to find, then, well. I’d say use of a canal for one day would be a bargain.”
Nine-Fingers leaned back in her chair. She had people her assassins couldn’t get to, of course, but she had options. There were other ways to neutralize a politician or a patriar, and those ways were often more efficient, more effective.
The people her assassins couldn’t find though—that was tempting, if Dread could follow through. And Nine-Fingers had a prospect Dread would be very motivated to follow through on.
See, Baneites used to be a dime a dozen in the Guild. They were always just so enthusiastic about breaking the kneecaps of wayward debtors. Then, starting a couple years ago, they all started dropping jobs and letting dues lapse. It had been stark enough that she had checked in with her friends in the Zhentarim to see if her talent was being poached. But the Zhents were losing their bruisers too.
Nine-Fingers did not necessarily miss their ham-fisted political plays, but she wasn’t a fan of cults like Bane’s shoring up their ranks. Especially when none of her people had a gods-damned clue who the new High Imperceptor is.
She’d had her people keeping a closer eye on the barracks—the Black Hand was never far from the Flaming Fist. Any patriar that showed a modicum of ambition or bite got a portfolio. But if sadistic Fists and arrogant patriars were all tyrants, the Gate would be a Black Keep a thousand times over. No one arrogant asshole stood out as worthy of the God of Arrogant Assholes, all this time she’d been looking for them, and it was bothering Nine-Fingers more than any inaction should. Uktar, of all people, told her to worry about it less.
If there was anyone who should share her concern, it would be the Bhaalists. Nine-Fingers had never gotten to go to a proper school, couldn’t tell you the theology of the Dead Three. But she’d had to break up fights between Bhaalists and Baneites in her Guildhall plenty, back when the latter still hung around. She was well educated in bad blood. And if the Baneites didn’t want to be friends then, well—
“How much do you know about the resurgence of the Cult of Bane?” Nine-Fingers asked.
Dread raised an eyebrow and it was the most Nine-Fingers had seen her face move. “I didn’t know the Guild was concerned with that.”
“Any player in the Gate is the Guild’s concern.” Nine-Fingers rested her chin on her hands. “So you’re concerned, too.”
Dread shrugged, but Nine-Fingers saw her eyes sharpen. More intent than emotion, but she would take it.
“You haven’t been able to track them well either, have you?” Nine-Fingers asked. Dread did not respond. “I think I know why that is. I think they’re working through proxy groups right now, covering their tracks. What I’d really like is to talk to one of those contractors who knows they’re a contractor.”
“You want someone who you can keep tabs on,” Dread said. “See if you can get a link to the High Imperceptor.”
“Oh, that’d be very nice and all. But knowing is just half the fun.”
“You want to leverage them against the Baneites.”
“See, now you’re getting in the spirit of things!”
Dread said nothing for a moment, just steepled her fingers. Then she said, “I’ll warn you because I like you, Guildmaster. I don’t think that would work.”
Nine-Fingers hummed. That was fascinating, she could dissect that later, but— “Be that as it may. Knowing is half the fun.”
“So it is,” Dread said. She stood. “I can bring you a contractor, if that’s the price you set for use of your lane.”
“Bring them alive.”
If that disappointed the Bhaalist, she did not show it. “Alive,” she agreed.
“There’s a warehouse a couple blocks from here. On the far end of the docks. Bring them in five days. My people let you in.”
Nine-Fingers waited to see if Dread would contest the deadline, but she just nodded. “If that’s all?”
“That’s all. A pleasure, High Priestess.”
“Dread,” she said, and then she disappeared.
Nine-Fingers waved down the Ladies’ Court. She did not need a Daylight spell to make out the fuzzy outline in the shadows of the Guildhall, just visible from her office. She could not make out Dread’s features, just knew that she stared at Nine-Fingers a moment longer before sweeping away.
-
Nine-Fingers smelled spilled blood as she approached the rendezvous point. She smelled blood and heard nothing, which formed a pit in her stomach. She climbed up boxes and jumped to get to the rafters, not willing to give herself away with a flash of magic. Any noise was lost to the growl of the sea and the clamor of the city. Nine-Fingers slid on her belly through a gap in the ceiling to get to the main room.
She had a bird’s eye view of a massacre. A lake of blood, far more than there should be even in such a vicious fight. The guild members Nine-Fingers assigned to the stake out were in various states of dismemberment, or in the end state of implosion. In the center, having shed her cloak and mask and breathing heavily, sat Dread.
Dread must have been expecting her to come sauntering in the front entrance. She was sitting facing it, legs crossed, idly scanning the room. Nine-Fingers’s wrapped boots made no sound as she walked across the rafters.
From her perch, she could see that Dread had taken care to preserve the faces of the people she’d killed. Even wiped some blood from their features, so Nine-Fingers would have no doubt it was the Guild crew.
It wasn’t personal with her crews, Nine-Fingers wasn’t dumb enough to let it get personal with any of them. But what Dread had done was clearly very personal to her. That disgusted Nine-Fingers more than any scattered entrails.
She dropped from the rafters behind Dread, activating her Feather Fall ring on the way down. Dread was on her feet by the time Nine-Fingers landed. At first, Nine-Fingers was pleased by the open surprise on Dread’s face, but then her face did not close.
Dread smiled, wide and lazy. “I was beginning to think you stood me up.”
“Oh, but I had to come.” Nine-Fingers kicked a mangled arm. “I simply must avenge the deaths of my dearest, most belovedest friends. Did you want me to go to war for them, Bhaalist?”
“That would be a treat.”
“Do you want anything other than butchery?” Nine-Fingers asked. “Because we had a deal. And I’ll collect on it, one way or another.”
Dread must have heard the frustration in Nine-Fingers’s voice, because her grin widened. “What are you talking about? I got you exactly what you asked for.”
Nine-Fingers looked at the corpses. They were all Guild. And maybe she had read Dread wrong—clearly she had read Dread wrong—but she didn’t think someone like her would be this coy, this excited about clearing traitors from the Guild’s ranks.
Nine-Fingers looked back at Dread. She was rocking on her heels, practically vibrating in her skin. Nine-Fingers wondered if this was the priestess her Bhaalist assassins saw in their temple.
“You brought yourself to me,” Nine-Fingers said.
Dread positively beamed. Like she was proud of Nine-Fingers, for finally solving her little mystery. “Here I am,” she said. She dipped into a shallow curtsy. “You have me.”
Nine-Fingers let her bask in unhinged smugness for a moment more before telling her, “You’re an idiot. I’m an idiot for thinking you were anything more than a Bhaalist.”
“Careful, Guildmaster,” Dread said. It was still in that cloying playful tone but there was a flash of something solid. Nine-Fingers chased it.
“You’re throwing in with a Bane cult. I don’t know how you remember that alliance going for you lot last time, but it seems to me you’re guaranteeing your order’s extinction for some murder sprees that the Fist won’t look too hard at.” Nine-Fingers clicked her tongue. “Short-sighted, gluttonous, idiotic. You had me fooled with your ability to speak for more than a couple sentences without waxing poetic about the caress of intestines, but no. Just a Bhaalist.”
“I think this city has never really known what Bhaal could be,” Dread said. Her voice was low and threatening and Nine-Fingers liked that much better.
“Of course. Sarevok Anchev worked for Bhaal alone, but you remember when he was another half-god’s errand boy—”
“You don’t have what I need,” Dread said. “The High Imperceptor does.” Despite Nine-Fingers’s provocation, Dread’s bout of mania seemed to be fading. Aside from a slight tremor, she seemed closer and closer to the staid presence in Nine-Fingers’s office.
“I can’t imagine Bhaal wants a Black Keep.”
“The ends of our worlds are different,” Dread said. “But the path to them is similar enough.”
Nine-Fingers shook her head. She had bigger concerns than an apocalypse. New ways to choke cults out of her competition. New suspects for High Imperceptor. New people to assign to Dread’s tail. “The lane will be empty at sunset, a tenday from now,” she said. “If your friend’s crew isn’t out by sunrise, they’ll pay twice the toll or they’ll be at the bottom of the Chionthar.”
“Fair enough.”
“I should damn well say so.”
“Don’t be sore,” Dread said. “You’re coming away with this with more than I am.” She wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t make Nine-Fingers any less irritated. “I’m the one playing middleman. All I got for my own trouble was, well,” she gestured to the bodies around them.
“Frankly, I’m surprised you were willing to do that,” Nine-Fingers said. “Is that part of your contract with the Banites? They get to subjugate you, too?”
“This will help our cause. And maybe I could have had one of my people negotiate in my place but oh, you’re right. I shouldn’t complain.” Dread was smiling a little again and Nine-Fingers hated it. “I did this for my benefit too.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, because I like you,” Dread said. Nine-Fingers did not break her gaze. “I’m glad we got the chance to meet. You’re fascinating.”
“From a Bhaalist, all that sounds like a threat,” Nine-Fingers said evenly.
Dread laughed. “I’m not going to kill you. Well. Probably not in the near future, I’m not.”
That was enough. “Then we’re done here.”
Dread inclined her head. Nine-Fingers began to retreat, careful not to turn her back on Dread. Dread reached out to her and Nine-Fingers’s dagger was at her throat before Dread’s hand could come to rest on her shoulder.
Dread looked down at the blade and smiled her terrible smile. She squeezed Nine-Fingers’s shoulder affectionately. “I may not be your death, Astele Keene,” she said. “I think someone else will kill you long before I need to. But I’ll find your body or your bones or your ashes, whatever’s left of you, and I’ll take it home with me. Your death will be mine.”
And with that she left the warehouse. Nine-Fingers watched her back disappear into the shadows. She sheathed her knife and wondered if this was just how Bhaalists make friends.