by Ed Greenwood
"Gods," Simylra murmured, swallowing noisily, "how can anyone compete with that?"
"Simmy," her cousin said grimly, "either get me a drink-a very large drink-or let me go home."
"May I say, my lady, what a splendid costume you chose to grace our eyes with, this night?" Dauntless offered gallantly, keeping his eyes carefully on hers.
Qilue laughed, low and musically. "You may indeed say so, Lord Dauntless. I find your own appearance very pleasing to the eyes."
Dauntless chuckled. "As I've said, good lady, I'm hardly a lord, but I am, I must confess, a man smitten. I would know your name."
In reply he got a light laugh and the murmured com shy;ment, as the devastatingly lovely lady leaned into his grasp, "I'd much rather remain a woman of mystery this night, if you don't mind."
"Ah, but I do," Dauntless said smoothly, handing her forward into a curtained alcove where a waiter was holding a tray of drinks ready. "A woman, did you say? You mean you're not really a drow princess?"
"A drow princess? No," Qilue replied, curling long fin shy;gers around a glass. "Magic can work wonders for the outward appearance, if deftly applied,"
"Your own spellcraft," Dauntless asked, leading her on into a shadowed bower, "or did someone else trans shy;form you?"
"Dauntless," the lips so close to his breathed, "that would be telling, now, wouldn't it?"
The Harper moved in close, until their noses were almost touching, and said, "I appreciate both your choice of such a daring disguise, and the skill with which it has been spun."
Her response was a low purr of laughter, and the huskily whispered words, "Go ahead, my lord, test it."
Dauntless looked into her eyes, found a welcome there, and extended his head forward until their lips met. . and clung, tongues darting a soft duel. . then tightened, mouth to mouth, bodies melting together.
When at last they broke apart to breathe, Qilue spun deftly out of his arms, and asked, "So, Dauntless: do I pass your test?"
"Several tests, and more, Lady of Mystery. Are you free for the rest of this evening-or any part of it?"
"Regretfully, no, my lord. Business brings me hither, and business must be my master this night. Had I free shy;dom to pursue pleasure, good Dauntless, rest assured that I'd be at your heels, and nowhere else, until dawn-and as long after as you might. . desire."
"Forgive my forwardness, lady," the Harper mur shy;mured, "but tell me, if your true shape returned to you at any time during such a pursuit as you've suggested, would I be aghast? Or disappointed?"
"That, my lord Dauntless, would depend entirely on your own tastes and inclinations," the dark elf said gently, "not, I believe, on whom I turned out to be. I'm not one of the well-known and well-wrinkled noble matrons of the city, gone out to play in a disguise. It is my fond hope that my true shape would not offend you overmuch. Now, if you'll excuse me? That business I mentioned, you understand."
"Of course," the handsome young man agreed, bowing deeply. "The pleasure has been mine."
"Well, someday perhaps 'twill be," she purred in reply, unhurriedly stroking the back of one of his hands, then putting her emptied wine glass into the other, before she stepped away.
Dauntless watched her lilt across the room beyond the bower, through an envious and watchful crowd, and his eyes slowly narrowed. Business here, now, would be what, exactly? What would a drow pretending to be a human wearing the spell shape of a drow be doing here at a revel for nobles and would-be nobles? She'd left suddenly, as if catching sight of someone she wanted to meet. Who?
Dauntless faded in behind a potted fern as the Lady of Mystery turned at the far end of the room to look back, almost challengingly. Gods, but her lips had been inviting.
He was doomed to spend most of the next hour acting innocent and unobtrusive, trying to stay in the background but within sight of the drow princess as she glided enthusiastically around the revel, letting many men and women test the efficacy of her costume. . often, Dauntless was sure-though she never once looked in his direction-just to silently tease him.
It wasn't until the end of the second hour, and fre shy;quent subterfuges of being either drunk or about to be sick to escape the clutches of enthusiastic matron after smitten matron, that Dauntless thought he saw the guest that his drow princess was shadowing. He wasn't sure until that person-a buxom lady in a plain-fronted mauve gown with shoulder ruffles-moved to a spiral stair masquerading as a large plant stand in one corner of the room, and began to climb it.
The Lady of Mystery moved purposefully, too. She slipped into a dark alcove where a beaded curtain hid her from public view for, it seemed, just long enough. By the time Dauntless drifted up to it, it was empty. The casements of its lone window stood open to the night.
He peered out and up once, quickly and quietly, and was rewarded by the sight of a shapely body the hue of glossy jet climbing up through the shadows of the wall to a stone gargoyle-shaped waterspout protruding from the overhanging balcony on the floor above. It was the same balcony that the spiral stair led to. In another instant, his Lady of Mystery was going to be hanging upside down from that gargoyle, just under one end of the balcony.
He'd have to move like silent lightning, but there was another window-and another gargoyle-at the other end of the balcony, hidden from the Lady of Mys shy;tery's perch by the curving buttresses that supported the balcony. Fortunately Dauntless could move like silent lightning, and he did so.
Out and up, thus, and he was there. A pleasant night outside, to be sure. He'd just hang around for a while in the cool night air, to catch whatever words the lady in purple was going to whisper over the balcony rail. He hoped-before all the gods, he hoped-they wouldn't be something that would force him to have to kill his Lady of Mystery.
The voices began, then, and Dauntless got another sur shy;prise. The first voice was unfamiliar to him, but he could see from purple ruffles and a moving chin, just visible over the edge of the balcony, that the speaker was the lady in purple. The second belonged to someone who must have been already on the balcony, waiting, and it was a distinc shy;tive harsh croak that belonged to only one woman in all Waterdeep. Mrilla Malsander was one of the most ambi shy;tious of the rich merchants currently trying to become noble by any means possible. Their words were sinister, but too cryptic to force him to kill anyone.
Qilue clung to the crumbling curves of the snarling gargoyle, and listened intently as the slaver Brelma-who made a very fetching lady in purple, she had to admit-said without any preamble or greeting, "The trouble was a spy, but she's dead now. The project is still unfolding nicely."
"Good," the other lady replied, her voice like the croak of a raven. "See that it continues to do so. If not, you know who to speak with."
With that she turned away and started down the stair, leaving Brelma to look innocently-perhaps wonderingly-out at the lamp-lit night skyline of Waterdeep.
As Qilue swung herself back in through the window, she felt another twinge of the nausea that had plagued her recently, and it strengthened her resolve. Duty to Dove was one thing, but blundering around in Waterdeep making matters worse was another. The time for an expert on drow was past; the time for an expert on the City of Splendors had come. . and her sister Laeral dwelt not a dozen streets away, in the brooding city landmark of Blackstaff Tower.
Leaving the revel swiftly was simplicity itself. Every Waterdhavian mansion has servants' stairs, and in the shadowed, many-candled light, concealing gloom was everywhere. If her handsome pursuer wanted to come along, he was quite welcome. Whether he was part of those she was investigating or some nosy Waterdha shy;vian watchwolf, Blackstaff Tower should give him something to think about.
One of her own covert contacts in the city had told her that the endless renovations of the tower interior had recently reached a pace she described as "enthusiastic." Hoping the back entrance she remembered still existed, Qilue strolled unconcernedly thence through the streets of the city, acting as if she had every right to be
there. The three watch patrols she encountered gave her hard stares, seemed about to challenge her, then thought better of it. She must be a noble matron wealthy enough to squander spells on a party disguise-after all, didn't real drow creep and skulk about, maniacally attacking any human they saw?
With that sarcastic thought still twisting her lips, Qilue came to a certain spot along the curving wall of Blackstaff Tower, turned to face the dark stone, and with her fingertips traced a line to a certain spot. Her fingers dipped into an almost invisible seam, then emerged, moving diagonally a little way down to touch a junction of stone blocks, before-she knelt smoothly-darting into a gap right at ground level. The wall receded silently into itself, magic lending a velvet silence to what should have been a grating of weighty stone. Qilue slipped into a dark embrasure.
It would remain open for only a few seconds before the wall shifted forward again to expel her straight back out onto the street, but if she reached thus, in the darkness, a side way should open.
It did, and Qilue stepped forward through some space of magical darkness, into a dimly lit, curving pas shy;sage whose inside wall was seamed with many closed cupboard doors, warning radiance flickering around their locks and catches. What she sought was just ahead: a tall, narrow cupboard or closet door.
There it was. A touch here should open it, and-
The moment she touched the panel, a sickening, tin shy;gling feeling told Qilue that something was wrong. The locking spells must have been changed. She stepped hastily back and away from the panel, but the flock of guardian hands bursting out of the outer wall of the passage swerved unerringly toward her, snatching and grabbing with their usual icy accuracy.
With three quick slaps the drow priestess kept them clear of her face and throat, then Qilue simply hunched down, gasping at the pain, and endured their cruel grasps all over the rest of her body. Oh, would she have bruises. .
She could try to pry off each of the flying obsidian hands and shatter them before they began their numb shy;ing, ultimately paralyzing washes of electricity, but she needed to see Laeral anyway, and a little lock picking would attract immediate attention from the duty apprentice seeing to the wards.
Struggling against the rigid holds of the gripping hands, Qilue plucked the dangling dagger ornament from her crotch, twisted it to its full length, and shielded it in her palm from any guardian-hand strike or clawing. Khelben's one failing was to purchase all of his locks, before he laid spells upon them, from the same dwarven crafter whose work, sold in Skullport to the few who could afford it, was familiar to Qilue. Their maker had shown her the one way to force them open. It required a lock pick of just the right angle.. like this one.
A sudden movement, a twist, a click, and the panel sighed open. Qilue got her nails under the edge, hauled it open with a strength that surprised the being who was watching her by then, and sprang onward, straight to the next door.
The duty apprentice was attentive. As she moved, the hands began to crawl up her body with bruising force, seeking joints to jam themselves in and her throat to strangle. Qilue snarled her defiance at them as she picked the next door, rushed up a short flight of steps-then threw herself out of the way of the huge iron fist that slammed down across the passage.
The iron golem it belonged to emerged into the narrow way with ponderous care, and by then she was through the door beyond and into a room where spheres of flickering radiance drifted toward her from all sides in menacing, purposeful silence.
"Khelben!" she snapped to the empty air, as magic mis shy;siles burst from her hands to destroy these guardians, "Laeral! Call off your watchwolves. I've no wish to destroy them."
Numbing lightning was leaping from the hands on her body, playing across her skin until she hissed at the pain and stumbled like a drunken dockhand under their punishment. The next door was there, but could she reach it?
Grimly Qilue staggered on, gesturing rudely at a crystal sphere that descended from the dimness near the ceiling. Its depths held a voice that said, "She called on the lord and lady master! We'd best open the doors." It also held the frightened face of a young man sitting at a glowing table, who stared out of the sphere at the struggling intruder and gasped, "But she's a drow!"
"Get Laeral!" Qilue roared. "Bring her to me, or I'll start really destroying things." In sudden fury she tore a crawl shy;ing guardian hand from her breast, waved it at the sphere, and hurled it to the floor, bounding onto it with all her strength and ignoring the lightning it spat around her boots as it died. "Are you deaf, duty apprentice?"
"You hear? She knows our duties. She must be-"
"Half Waterdeep has heard of the defenses of Black-staff Tower," the young man said scornfully. "She's a dark elf, and I'm not letting any dark elf into this room with us."
"But-"
"But nothing. You've always been too soft, Araeralee. You'd let Szass Tam of Thay in here, if he put on the body of a beautiful maid and whimpered at the door! How do we know that isn't him now? Or Manshoon of the Zhentarim, up to another of his tricks?"
"Well, I'm rousing Lady Laeral to decide for-"
"Araeralee, don't you dare! This is my duty watch, and-dark gods take you, wench! You've done it! You've burning well gone and done it. It'll be the lash of spells for you, once I tell Khelben. Now I'm going to have to rouse all the apprentices. . don't you know we're sup shy;posed to do that first, before bothering the masters? Drown you!"
"Drown you, enthusiastic young idiot," Qilue snarled at the sphere, as she forced the lock of the next door and came out into a large, many-pillared chamber that by rights shouldn't have fit within the tower walls. The chamber was rapidly filling with barefoot, sleepy-eyed apprentices.
"A drow!" one of them gasped, and others quickly took up the cry. Young faces frowned in fear and determination, and young hands moved in a weaver's nightmare of complicated gestures.
In a chamber whose domed ceiling winked with glim shy;mering stars, Laeral stirred, lifting her head from Khelben's bare, hairy shoulder. The chiming came again, and the Lord Mage of Waterdeep answered it with a louder, barking snore. Laeral's lips twisted in wry amusement. Of course.
She sat up, her silvery hair stirring around her bare shoulders, and sighed. The books they'd been studying lay spread open around them on the bed, abandoned for slumber, and Laeral carefully lifted her long legs over them as she rolled off the bed, plucked up a robe, and went to see what was wrong.
She was still padding down the tower stairs with a crystal sphere of stored spells winking ready in her hand when she heard shouts from below, the whoosh of released magic, then a blast that shook the entire tower. She lurched against the wall, cradling the sphere to keep it from a shattering fall-and was promptly flung across the stair by another, even more powerful blast.
"True trouble," she murmured to the world at large, then launched herself down the stairs in a long glide that called on the stairway enchantments to let her fly. The tower shuddered and shook under another blast before she hit the bottom, and a long, racing crack opened in the wall beside her. Laeral lifted her eye shy;brows at it as she plunged through an archway where dust was drifting down-and headlong into the battle raging below.
"Gods above!" Dauntless murmured. The door he'd seen the drow slip through banged open in front of his nose, and dust swirled out. There was a dull, rolling boom, and doors and windows creaked and slammed all over the tower. "I must be crazed to leap into this," he murmured, touched the silver harp badge pinned to the inside throat of his jacket for luck, and trotted into the booming darkness.
Not far away, in the shadow of another building, a cloaked and hooded figure the Harper hadn't noticed nodded to itself and turned away.
The passages inside were an inferno of whirling spell energies, swirling dust, and shouts, but he could follow their fury up and on, stumbling in the gloom. He came out into a room whose floor was cracked and tilted crazily, where dust-cloaked figures knelt and scrambled and waved their arms in spellcasting.
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br /> In their midst, standing alone in a ring of fires in the center of the room, was his beautiful Lady of Mystery. Shards of black glass lay all around her, something that looked like silver smoke boiled away from her sweat-bedewed body, and fury blazed out of her dark face. He almost cowered back at the sight of it. In his moment of hesitation, a white-faced young man in flap shy;ping robes bounded out from behind a pillar with a long, bared sword in his hand. Green glowing runes shimmered up and down its heavy blade as he charged at the drow.
Spells slammed into the dark elf from three sides as he ran, almost tripping over the embroidered edge of his robe. She was staggering helplessly in their grip when he skidded to a halt, grimly aimed his blade, and with both hands thrust it through her flat belly. The Lady of Mystery coughed silver fire almost into the duty apprentice's face. He reeled back as the sword shattered with a wild shrieking, spat bright shards away in all directions, and slumped into dust around the convulsed dark elf.