Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,87

not Siobhan, who seemed most ill at ease. The half-elf only smiled and shook the hair back from her face, seemingly composed. “Why did you ask me to do that?” Luthien asked bluntly.

“Because you wanted to,” Siobhan replied.

Luthien’s proud shoulders slumped visibly.

“And I wanted you to do it,” Siobhan admitted. “But I thought we should be done with it.”

“Be done with it?” Luthien echoed. That did not sound promising.

Siobhan took a deep breath. “I only thought that you and Oliver should know . . .” she began to explain. She paused, as if the words were hard to come by.

Luthien was beginning to get more than a little alarmed. “Know what?” he prompted, and stepped toward Siobhan, but she put up a defensive hand and took a step back.

“The dwarf,” she went on. “The dwarf who helped you in Morkney Square. He has been taken by the Praetorian Guard and locked in a dungeon to await trial.”

Luthien’s expression went grave, his hands clenched anxiously at his sides. “Where?” he asked determinedly. Siobhan had no doubt he meant to run off that very moment and rescue the dwarf.

Her helpless shrug, accompanied by a sincere expression, thoroughly deflated him. “The Praetorian Guards have many dungeons,” she said, shaking her head. “Many dungeons. The dwarf will be tried in the Ministry on the morrow, along with so many others,” Siobhan quickly added. “He will be sentenced to the mines, no doubt.”

Luthien didn’t understand. He stood in quiet thought for a moment, trying to sort some things out, then looked curiously at Siobhan. How could she possibly know about the dwarf in Morkney Square? he wondered, and it seemed as if she was reading his thoughts, for that coy smile returned to her face.

“I told you there were benefits to being well connected,” she said, answering his unspoken question. “And I thought that you should know.”

Luthien nodded.

Almost as an afterthought, Siobhan added, “The dwarf, Shuglin by name, knew that he would be caught, of course.”

“Was he part of your band?”

Siobhan shook her head. “He was a craftsman and no more.”

Luthien nodded knowingly, but he didn’t know anything at all. Why would this craftsman dwarf help him, fully understanding that he would likely be captured and punished?

“I must be going,” Siobhan said, looking up at the position of the moon.

“When will I see you again?” Luthien asked anxiously.

“You will,” Siobhan promised, and started to fade into the shadows.

“Siobhan!” Luthien called, more loudly than he had intended, his desires getting the best of his judgment. The fair maiden stepped back near to him, an inquisitive look on her face.

Staring into the green glow of her eyes, Luthien could not find any words. His expression said it all.

“One more kiss?” she asked. She barely had the words out before Luthien was up against her, his lips soft against hers.

“You will see me again,” she teased again, pulling back. And then she was gone, a shadow among the shadows.

“It is all a game,” Oliver complained when he and Luthien were walking home later that night, the young man with a few too many ales in him. “Surely you are not so stupid that you cannot understand that.”

“I do not care!” It was a determined statement, if a bit slurred.

“Dwarves are always being accused, tried, and sentenced to hard work in the mines,” Oliver went on stubbornly. “Legal and unarguable slavery. That is how Montfort has become so wealthy, can you not see?”

“I do not care.”

Oliver was afraid Luthien would say that.

Before the next dawn, the two companions were creeping along the city’s dividing wall at the base of the Ministry. They got over the divider easily enough, and Oliver, knowing the routine, positioned them in the shadows of the cathedral’s northern wing: a transept, one of two armlike sections of the long building that gave it the general shape of a cross. Few buildings were close to the cathedral on this side, forming an open plaza. “We must go in the west end,” Oliver explained, peeking around the edge of the huge transept wall, and he told Luthien to put away the cape.

Luthien did as instructed, but he was hardly conscious of the act. This was the closest he had been to the Ministry, and how small the young Bedwyr felt! He looked straight up the side of the building’s wall to the tremendous flying buttresses and many gargoyles hanging out over the edge to look down upon puny humans such as he. Ominous and imposing was Montfort’s