by Ed Greenwood
Under her firm hand, Ruthgul kept still. There was a satchel covered with short planks strapped to his back, to protect the documents he’d told her about, and though he almost certainly had a blade in either boot and probably a strangling cord somewhere, she could see nothing ready to menace her.
“In,” she commanded tersely, and plucked up one shutter bar, holding it ready to brain him with. Ruthgul landed on the floor, grunted, then got up and took hold of the other shutter bar, moving slowly to reassure her.
He turned, drew her shutters closed, put the bar in its place, and did up the catches. Then he held out his hand for the other bar.
Amarune gave it to him, holding the spear steady at his throat. He sighed, mumbled something about trust being rarer and rarer these days, and finished bolting her shutters.
Then he kneeled down, spreading his hands again to show he wasn’t reaching for any weapon. Slowly worming his way out of the satchel straps, he slid his burden off his back.
“The contract,” he muttered, “is an agreement-”
“I don’t want to know.”
Their usual phrases. Ruthgul uncovered just the signature of one document and let her look at it long and hard. An ordinary ink, as far as she could tell. She lit her last precious candle to check its hue closely.
“Four lions,” she decreed flatly.
Ruthgul knew better than to haggle. He fished out a purse from somewhere amid his filthy rags and leathers-it wasn’t the one riding his belt-and slowly set forth four gold coins in an arc around her candle lamp, each one sticking to his middle finger until he set it down soundlessly and twisted firmly.
Then he used the purse and her glowstone to hold open the document bearing the signature, and uncovered the contract for her to sign.
Or rather, to peer closely at the rush paper it was written on. Then again at the signature.
Amarune fetched several bottles of ink, the right quills, and some scraps of paper, to practice a few swashes. Ruthgul waited in patient silence. His hands had once been young and strong and unsmashed enough to do such work himself; he knew what was necessary, and he knew the true measure of her skill, too.
She caught up the edge of her robe and wiped her forehead. She’d be sweating before she was done.
Then she sat back to breathe slowly, as if falling asleep in her chair, and let her hand mimic the signature again and again, until it flowed.
Ruthgul nodded approvingly and waited.
She signed it with a smooth, swift flourish, then sat back to mop away sweat again.
Perfect, or so it seemed to her eye-and she judged such things as critically as any miser of a coinlender.
The grizzled old man sat still as stone, waiting for the ink to dry. He let Amarune decide when the contract was ready to be covered again, and let her restore both documents to the wrappings he’d brought them in, too, and return them to the satchel.
“Thanks, lass,” he said, sitting back and away from her.
“You are welcome,” she said firmly.
“Better I go,” Ruthgul said. “I’ll be needing the rest of my falcons …”
The blade that thrust into the room through the shutters at that moment was much longer than Ruthgul’s knife, and gleamed very brightly.
“Not this night, thank you,” Amarune said firmly in its direction, raising her voice a trifle. “I have business unfolding in here already.”
“Will it have unfolded completely and be done, if I return in two hours?” The speaker was female, sharp-tongued, and unfamiliar.
Amarune rolled her eyes. “What price my slumber, this night?”
“I’ll pay double. Just a little copying.”
“Two hours,” Amarune agreed and heard the voice outside echo those words in confirmation, already sounding fainter and more distant.
Only then did she notice that Ruthgul was cowering on the floor, both hands over his mouth.
She joined him down there, close enough to whisper in his ear, “What?”
“ ’Tis her!” he said fiercely, eyes wide with fear.
“Which her? She and I aren’t the only females in Suzail this night, look you.”
“She whose name you just …” Ruthgul gestured frantically at the satchel then looked wildly around what little he could see of her dimly lit room. “I’ve got to get out and away-!”
“Oh, Ruthgul,” Amarune sighed into his ear, her exasperation as quiet as she could make it. “Let me get some boots on and lead you out through the cellars. It links up behind the cobbler’s, with Tathlin’s-the message runner’s-two doors down. He’ll probably charge you a lion, though, to wear one of his caps and capes and go out with one of his lads. So you will be needing the rest of your falcons.”
“Farruk,” he snarled.
“No, you haven’t brought enough for that,” she replied brightly, crawling quickly out of his reach.
He glared at her. Then, slowly, face twisting as wry humor won out over angry fear, he managed a grin.
A grin that wavered into confused disbelief as Amarune calmly took off the cloth belt of her robe and let the garment fall open.
“I’m going to blindfold you,” she murmured, stepping past him, and did so, tying her worn and raveled belt securely over his eyes. He offered no resistance as she gently guided him up to his knees.
“Try to remove that, and die,” she added, as softly as any lover.
The grizzled old man nodded carefully.
“Crawl forward,” Amarune murmured into his ear then. “Straight as an arrow and slowly, so as not to blunder into me. Without my guidance, there are several places ahead on our journey where you could easily meet your death. Very easily.”
“Understood,” he muttered. Then, satchel carefully clutched close, he started crawling cautiously after her.
Amarune swallowed again. Fear was making her throat very dry.
She hoped her face was as impassive as she was trying to keep it. Her rooms had never seemed smaller or more tawdry.
She hated and feared her newest client and suspected the woman knew that-and was amused.
Only two lions gleamed on her desk between them.
On the other side of it stood the woman who’d put them there. Someone Amarune knew she’d never seen before; someone lean, lithe, and clad in black leathers that covered her from head to the pointed tips of her boots, hooding her face in a mask that left only her mouth and large, lion-bright yellow eyes visible. Someone who’d given her name as Talane and held a drawn sword in her hand.
It was a blade that drank all light, reflecting back not the slightest gleam, and emanated a silent something that made Amarune feel ill even from across the desk.
Its bearer was every bit as agile as Amarune and probably far deadlier in any fight. If she happened to want the Dragonriders’ best mask dancer dead, Amarune was doomed.
“I’ve offered you fair coin,” Talane purred, “and really don’t believe you’re in any position to bargain with me, Silent Shadow. Or do you prefer to be called Amarune Lyone Amalra Whitewave? Only daughter of Beltar, last of your blood, whom the Helhondreths and the Ilmbrights would dearly love to find. They want their gems back, little Rune.”
Amarune stared at her visitor, not knowing what to say, fighting to keep her face as calm as stone.
She knows. She knows all about me. But how?
“Oh, I know you don’t have that chest of waterstars,” Talane added. “I do. Pity they blamed Beltar for that little theft; he was more useful to me alive. Almost as useful as you’re now going to be, little Rune.”
Her voice became softer, yet somehow more vicious. “One word from me and Cormyr’s proud wizards of war will be turning your mind inside out, learning all your little secrets and leaving you a drooling idiot as the price of their schooling. Which means you accept that fate-or you’ll be doing my bidding at prices I set henceforth, doing little tasks all over fair Suzail. I’ve amassed quite a list of little tasks, some of them too dirty for my hands t
o be seen anywhere near them. Quite a list; I hope you can flourish on mere scraps of sleep.”
She backed away. “I’ll come with the first of such tasks four nights from now. Feel honored, little Rune; you are my new ‘dirtyhands,’ and I don’t choose such agents lightly.”
“Honored,” Amarune repeated flatly.
Talane’s mouth twisted in something that was more sneer than smile. “Four nights,” she murmured, and she backed right out the window-and was gone, falling from view in eerie silence.
Something made Amarune hang back from rushing to where her shutters were swinging gently in the first gray hints of coming dawn.
She knew, somehow, that her unwanted new client would be nowhere to be seen. Certainly not as a sprawled, crumpled corpse on the cobbles below.
If Talane was flying, wriggling, or sheer-wall-climbing away right now in her real shape, and was in truth some sort of horrid monster, Amarune knew she should learn that as swiftly as possible … but in truth, didn’t want to know anything about it at all.
So she stood where she was, panting as if she’d run miles. Panting in fear that wouldn’t go away.
Why did life have to get darker and darker and more and more complicated? Why couldn’t it be like all heartsong chapbooks, where every last mask dancer had a dashingly handsome noble lord fall in love with her, whisk her away to his castle to lavish countless riches on her, marry her, and dwell with her there happily ever after?
“Farruk,” she whispered into the familiar darkness around her. It made, as usual, no reply.
No matter how much she tossed and turned, her bedclothes drenched and twisted around her as she fought with them and conjured up scene after scene of discovery and doom in her mind, sleep was nowhere to be found.
Which meant she’d be wan-eyed and weary indeed when next she took to the Dragonriders’ stage. Which in turn meant she’d be earning disapproving frowns from Tress, and far fewer coins than usual.
“Farruk farruk farruk farruk farruk,” Amarune hissed at her ceiling, more despairing than angry, rolling onto her back and flinging her damp linens aside. “What am I going to do?”
Something swam promptly back into her mind. The grinning face of Arclath Delcastle, that airy, idle, free-from-all-troubles nobleman. Heir of his House, which meant he hadn’t a care in the world and would never have to work a moment in his life or spend an instant thinking about where any coins he’d need might come from.
She should hate him for that-did hate his ruder moments of jesting and smirking coin-flicking at her most intimate spots, and his everpresent carefree jauntiness-but somehow …
Angrily she thrust him aside, tried to think of this Talane and who she might be, how to discover who she was and somehow use that to get free of her-only to have young Lord Delcastle pop right back up to grin at her, nose to nose, winking and smirking as he always did. As if he could be of any use in …
She stiffened and then whistled in astonishment, long and low. Perhaps he could be of use, at that. Clearly he fancied her, if only as a night’s conquest; that should give her some sort of reins to lead him by.
As the old nobles’ saying went, “Dancers are meant to be used.” Well, so are young noblemen who can be led around by their manhoods.
But how, precisely?
Well …
Wouldn’t Lord Arclath Argustagus Delcastle himself know that best?
She’d have to interest him, have to become one of his enthusiastic little whims … a whim he clung to for long enough to deal with Talane.
Which meant she must not seduce him-at least, not right away-but lead him in a merry little dance. A rather long merry little dance …
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JUSTICE, ORDER, AND REFINEMENT
Elminster stared down at all the sprawled and headless bodies for a long and silent time. The only movement he made was to fling out one arm as a barrier when Storm joined him, an arm that then pointed at the floor. It was awash in a dark, sticky carpet of drying blood.
“Should I-?” she asked, pointing past the bodies.
He shook his head. “Whatever Stormserpent came for-the long-lost Wyverntongue Chalice, most likely-is gone, and him with it. We’ve come too late.”
He turned back a few paces, moved purposefully to the wall, did something that revealed another hidden door, and waved Storm toward it.
Obediently she ducked through it. “We’re departing before the war wizards-and whatever Purple Dragons still survive in the palace-get here to blame us for this?”
“Exactly,” Elminster said shortly. “We’ve failed. Standing and staring won’t mend that.”
He set a brisk pace down the old and narrow secret passage he’d ushered Storm into; the strong smell of ancient and flourishing mildew grew stronger as they advanced.
“Just the two of us can’t do this anymore, lass,” he added grimly, as the passage split and he headed to the left without slowing, leaving the mildew reek behind. “And it’s time to stop fooling ourselves that we can.”
“Do ‘this’?”
“Save the Realms.”
“So we go now to find some comfy chairs and sit back to watch the world fall apart?” Storm asked softly, arching an eyebrow in devastating mimicry of his longtime mannerism.
El sighed, came to an abrupt stop, and spun to face her. “It’s time to recruit successors to take over the task of saving the Realms. We need new hands and sharp eyes and vigor.”
Storm studied his face. “You mean it.”
He nodded mutely, and they stared into each other’s eyes for a time. During which both silently found astonishment at how shaken this late arrival-this one theft not prevented-had left them.
Devastated and close to tears.
Storm nodded slowly, her gaze never leaving his. “Defending Cormyr from behind the scenes-even in the days when Vangerdahast prowled these halls like a sly old lion, meddling and manipulating and thinking he was protecting Cormyr-was what we did,” she whispered. “What we excelled at. The cornerstone of the Realms that should be, a world of justice and order and refinement …”
Elminster sliced the air impatiently with the edge of his hand, as if to chop aside her words. “We start training my unwitting descendant Amarune. Right now.”
Storm shook her head slowly, wincing. “It will take some time,” she murmured.
“Time we have,” Elminster snapped, “if we start right now. Shall ye approach her first, or should Elminster the Terrible frighten and enrage her?”
Storm frowned. “I’ll try luring her a bit, first. Then you can frighten and enrage her, if it becomes needful. In the meantime, start hunting up more suitable magic for feeding Alassra. In a palace so full of decaying and forgotten magical gewgaws, even after all your foraging, there must yet be something.”
“Heh. Lass, this place holds entire war wizard armories-walled away and ward-guarded, mind ye-full of enchanted baubles. This current crew of Cormyr’s most puissant guardian mages knows not the worth or working of half of them. Yet seizing any magic of Cormyr is going to upset Alusair.”
Storm smiled tightly. “Everything upsets Alusair.”
“Aye, but lass, lass, forget this not: given what we’ve become, if she catches us at the wrong time and uses all her power, she can readily destroy us.”
Storm shrugged. “I doubt it. The gods are seldom that merciful.”
That feeble jest did not bring a chuckle from Elminster or even a smile.
After a moment, she added, “And didn’t something or someone in these halls just come close to destroying her?”
The Old Mage nodded grimly. They shared another long look, then a mutual sigh-and with one accord turned and began the long trudge back out of the haunted wing, toward one of the older secret ways out of the royal palace. One that was least likely to be guarded by current and puissant Purple Dragons or wizards of war.
Amarune Whitewave was somewhere in the city outside the palace and wasn’t likely to be invited in
side anytime soon.
Not unless King Foril developed a sudden taste for skilled mask dancers.
Six passages later, El stopped in midstride, glared at a certain stone in the passage wall as if it personally offended him, then bent down to the floor, felt among the stones where wall and floor met, and drew a small block out from between its fellows with a little grunt of satisfaction.
Behind it proved to be a flat, rusty iron coffer that El persuaded to open with one firm bounce of his fist. Inside was a little pendant on a fine chain, such as a court lady might wear, a mask, and two gleaming steel vials, firmly stoppered and sealed. El passed all but the pendant to Storm. “Nightseeing mask and two healing vials; ye carry them.”
He put the pendant around his neck; it vanished entirely beneath his beard.
Storm pointed at where she knew it was. “So what does that do?”
“Read passing surface thoughts. Nothing like a mind-ream, mind, but it should help me tell how many guards are standing on the other side of a door, or the like, as we go on from here. Back when Vangerdahast was building up the wizards of war to be what he wanted them to be, they established scores of identical caches all over the palace to aid them as they rooted out disloyal courtiers.”
He straightened up and pointed at the stone that had first caught his eye. “See yon slanting chisel mark? That tells ye to look low, if ye’re in a rough-walled passage like this one.”
Storm nodded. “Harpers told me to look for an inverted T of chisel-scars.”
“Ah, those were the caches that held poison-quelling as well as healing. They were for fighting nobles,” El informed her gruffly. “Not so many of them survive, and they were fewer to begin with. I remember-”
He stiffened then and fell silent, raising a hand sharply to command silence. Storm gave it.
A moment later, from beyond the wall on the other side of the passage-a wall that must be very thin-they heard a door open and a sneering voice speak in a loud and sudden pounce of triumph.