by Ed Greenwood
"Ah, now. That's different," Thaerla replied, unbolting the door again.
A hard-eyed guard entered, a loaded hand crossbow aimed at the ceiling and his other hand hovering above the hilt of his blade. Behind him came two chambermen in the maroon-and-gold uniform of the inn, bearing steaming dome-covered platters on their shoulders, followed by another guard. The foremost guard pulled on a carved knob on the wall beside the door that Narm had thought was mere decorative molding atop a pillar-and the whole affair came out of the wall as a table on edge. Expertly he kicked it up and open, and stood back to let the servants set down their platters.
As they did so, the other guard came into the room, drew the door closed, and leveled another hand crossbow at Shandril-as the first guard brought his crossbow down to menace Narm, and the two chambermen lifted the domes away from their platters to reveal small plates of roast boar on skewers-and cocked hand crossbows of their own. With swift deftness they removed wooden safety catches, laid darts into tracks, ready to fire, and pointed their weapons at the two priestesses.
"W-what is the meaning of this?" Thaerla of Chauntea quavered in outrage.
"It means," the first guard said pleasantly, "you're both going to get down on your faces on the floor in front of us, with no hurlings of spellfire or anything else-or well see if someone can wield spellfire with two crossbow darts in her throat. Or eyes, perhaps,"
"Down!" one of the chambermen snarled, gesturing with his crossbow. "On the floor now!"
"Which one of them is the spellfire wench, do you think?" the other guard muttered. "We could kill the other one and-"
Slowly the hooded, penitent priestess wavered uncertainly to her knees, and then down. After a swift glance at her, Thaerla followed, murmuring, "ChaunteadeliverusChaunteasaveusChaunteakeepandpreserveusyourfaithfulservants-"
"Silence! She's a god, so she's heard you. Now, enough!" the second guard snarled, stepping forward to aim his crossbow at Shandril's hooded head from only a few feet away. One of the chambermen did the same. The other two thrust their bows almost into Thaerla's face, and the priestess ended her supplication with a sort of peeping sound and sank floorward.
The spellfire came without warning, roaring forth with enough fury to snatch all four men off their feet and drive them, shattered to pulp, into the wall behind them-in the scant instants before that wall disappeared, and startled faces gaped at Shandril from the room beyond.
The owners of those faces promptly screamed, clawed aside their prop and bolts, and fled. Shandril rose with her face white and set but her eyes dark and terrible with rage.
From the window came a burst of fire and flame that flung iron bars like kindling into the room, to crash and bounce and roll. Shandril caught a glimpse of two faces outside, glaring in at her with expressions that were less than friendly-and as they aimed wands in through the roiling smoke and crumbling hole that had been the window, she gave them spellfire, blasting much of that wall away. uS-shan, easy" Narm hissed, still on his knees. "This building might come down on us if y…"
"So get us out of here," she said in a voice that trembled with rage. "Right now I just want to lash out at anyone in this Nine Hells of a city!"
Narm snatched up their packs and snatched the door open-to stare into the hard-eyed faces of a dozen or more warriors. He barely slammed it again before a crossbow cracked. The quarrel slammed through the closing gap and shivered its way across the room, and Narm was hurled back, the door banging open, under the fury of hard-charging warriors.
Shandril Shessair was waiting for them, spellfire leaking from her eyes and nose as she glared. "Leave me alone!" she howled, slaying them with roaring gouts of flame that seared the passage outside and left small fires raging in its wake. "Just-"
There were angry shouts from the inn stairs, and the thunder of running feet. Figures moved in the next room whose wall Shandril had breached, dark-robed figures who'd obviously come in through its window, and were now waving spells as fast as their fingers could fly.
Shandril hurled spellfire at them-but her searing flames clawed along something that wrestled with it and withstood it, something that looked like black fire. Open-mouthed, Narm watched jet-black flames rage and snarl in the face of white-hot spellfire. Then a wizard moaned, reeled, and collapsed-as if exhausted or drained, not struck by anything Shandril had sent-and the black flames sank back^
"Shan!" Narm cried, "we have to get out of here! The wall behind us-blast it!"
His raging wife turned with her hair swirling around her like so many eager, licking flames, and the wall obligingly darkened, melted away, and was gone-but her flames were faltering, now,' and in the darkened room beyond were more hard-faced warriors in dark battle armor, with drawn swords and glaives in their hands.
A cascade of lightnings crashed down around them, and Shandril drank them in eagerly, turning with renewed vigor to face the wizards, trying to draw them into hurling more spells-ere she fed a slaying sheet of spellfire at head-level out into the passage and spun around to give the same to the warriors now surging forward to try to clamber through the hole she'd burned into their room.
The boar-like stench of cooked man-flesh was rising around them now, and Narm was crouching at Shandril's feet with their packs in his hands, trying not to hamper her as she turned and spat fire again and again-brief, careful gouts now, trying to preserve what she had left. The passage was afire; there was no going out that way-and the longer she was forced to fight, the less likely stepping into either of the other rooms, wizards and fresh hostile warriors or none, would give them any easy route to escape. That left "The window!" Narm snapped. "Someone's climbing in the window!"
Shandril wheeled around, smoking hands raised to slay once more-only to stop, her eyes caught by a gleaming silver harp badge.
The man holding it was a smiling, dark-haired figure in leathers, wearing a sly expression on his handsome face that reminded her of Torm of the Knights of Myth Drannor. He gave them an airy wave, and called, "These accommodations seem a little-crowded. I generally provide free guidance to visitors to this fair city. Is there anywhere else you'd prefer to be, about now?"
"I can think of several," Shandril replied, hurling a tongue of spellfire at a wizard in the next room who'd fumbled out a dagger and was raising it to throw, "but none of them are in Scornubel. Do you-harp alone?"
"Most of the time," the black-haired man replied, giving the two priestesses of Chauntea a crooked smile. "I am Marlel, and I believe I already know both of your names-your real names. I can take you to-'ware behind you, in the passage!" Shandril whirled, blasted, and watched the body of a warrior who'd been carrying a full-sized crossbow along the burning hallway toward them dance headless back into the flames, to fall and be lost, his bow firing harmlessly down the passage. There was a thud and a groan in the distance-hmm, not so harmlessly, after all.
"My thanks," Shandril told the Harper crisply. "Now, can you take us to, say, The Stormy Tankard, on Hethbridle Street?"
"Of course," Marlel told them with a smile. "If you can hold onto a rope, the window awaits."
Shandril gave Narm a shove in the Harper's direction, and after two quick glances into the room of the warriors-where no one moved-and the passage-burning too merrily, now, to fear any arrivals that way-turned to face the wizards once more. One of them was just finishing a spell of hurled fists. Shandril gave him a cold smile and awaited it, spellfire racing up and down her widespread arms-and the wizard promptly fled.
Marlel leaned out the window almost lazily, flung a knife, and there was a short, strangled gurgling sound, followed by the heavy thud of a body ending its fall.
Shandril's body jerked under the first few blows of the mage's spell, and then her spellfire rose bright around her and she sighed almost in rapture as she drank in the magic.
The small fires on her body died away, and she smiled and strode to Marlel, who gave her his crooked smile, indicating the window with a flourish.
"Just
a moment," Narm said, and cast his poison-detecting spell on the platters that still steamed on the table mode the shattered door.
The roast boar brought for them promptly glowed bright purple.
Other Lives, Other Dreams
An inn is like a very small and poorly lit realm: It holds arrogant nobles, those who think they rule or believe they're important, the downtrodden who do the real work, and the outlaws and dark-knives whose work is preying on others. The problem is the constant stream of arrivals and departures that robs ye of the time ye need to learn which guest belongs to which group. So ye end up having to be constantly wary of them all. Just as in larger realms.
Blorgar Hanthaver of Myratma, Doors Open To All: Forty Winters An Innkeeper, Year of the Striking Falcon
If The Sun Over Scornubel laid claim to the mantle of "a superior inn of service and distinction," The Stormy Tankard made no such pretensions. It was the sort of place where no one had ever cleaned anything since it was built, and rooms were small, dark bunk-holes boasting furnishings that were sparse, mismatched, and either battered or outright broken. This squalor was enlivened by the sounds of unclasped and uncloaked revelry from adjacent chambers-all such rental-quarters being situated up narrow, creaking stairs above a smoke-filled, ever-noisy den of drink and brawling and harsh-voiced chatter. There was nothing unpopular about the Tankard's taproom-it was crowded with folk of half a dozen races, who by their looks and garb hailed from a score of lands or more.
Night was falling over Scornubel like a dark cloak spread across a red, starlit sky as Marlel led Narm and Shandril-still in their robes, but fat she-priestesses no longer-in through a side door of the Tankard.
"Wait your turn," a cold voice greeted them sourly, out of the darkness.
"Aye," another voice agreed. "Just stand still and keep shut an' wait."
"Fair evening to you, Tulasker," Marlel said merrily. "As it happens, we're not in the market just now-make way, please, so I can get to Pharaulee and book a room."
"Ho, ho, the Dark Blade of Doom has chosen already, has he?" Shrewd eyes peered at Shandril and Narm in the gloom, and Tulasker added with an unlovely laugh, "Strange tastes for you, Marlel!"
"Not half so strange as what you'll be tasting if you don't roll aside, old blade," Marlel replied lightly.
"Ho ho! And what if I don't?"
"Then, Tulasker, I'm afraid you'll learn firsthand how I came by my rather grand professional title. It will be one of those sharp, painful, and rather final lessons, too."
"Aye, aye, impress us all," Tulasker muttered disparagingly, as he slowly shuffled aside.
At the far end of the gloomy room, a sharp-featured woman wearing rather too much face paint and rather too little of anything else ducked out from behind a curtain and snapped, "Next!"
"Fraea," the cold-voiced man said quickly.
"Four gold," the woman said promptly, holding out her hand.
"Four?"
"Dispute with me, Nalvor, and it'll be five," was the swift reply. "Four, or be off with you!"
Marlel led his two priestess-robed companions in the other direction, down a dark and narrow passage, to a doorway where a tall, bald mountain of flesh with tusks and large ears-a half-ore, whose face and chest were covered with old, wandering sword scars-stood with arms folded and a spike-handled axe gripped in each heavy hand, blocking the way.
"Business with Rildra," the Harper told him.
The guard's eyes narrowed. "You, Marlel?"
"Strange times, Ulburt, and strange doings. Look upon it as free entertainment, sent by the gods especially to you."
"I look upon it as trouble," the half-ore told him bluntly, "especially when you're involved. What business with Rildra?"
"A chance to flip her a coin and so get to talk to Pharaulee."
"That you can do directly," the guard told him, waving them past. "Rildra met with a little accident earlier today."
"Her last?"
"Unless she knows some way to come back to life after hanging for half a day with two glaives run right through her. But she took a Red Wizard down to the worms first, and one of his bodyblades, too-I guess they're not used to roughing up women who aren't slaves and don't carry hairpins. Right through the eyes, she skewered them."
Ulburt's voice was full of grudging pride. Against Narm's shoulder, Shandril convulsed in a silent, sudden shiver.
Marlel turned to his two companions. "Wait here. Ulburt will look after you, or I'll come back, cut off his down-belows, and feed them to him as Ms next meal."
Without waiting for a reply, the Dark Blade of Doom ducked past the half-ore's deep, annoyed rumble, through the doorway.
He returned quickly, standing aside with a flourish in Narm and Shandril's direction. They were momentarily aware of a pair of old and very sad eyes regarding them out of a large and gray-haired but lushly beautiful face, ere that face nodded and withdrew behind the half-ore once more.
"Pharaulee just wanted to see you," Marlel explained. "All settled. You have the-well, I'll show you."
Running a hand over the apparently solid wall next to Narm, the Harper found something with his probing fingers. There was a click, and a section of the weathered paneling shrank back into the wall. Marlel gave it a push, and it receded reluctantly.
"Hurh!" Ulburt growled. "You're not supposed to know about that!"
"Well, you shouldn't be so careless, Ulburt," the Harper replied serenely. "You're the one who showed me this back stair, last month-taking a body through it after you had a little accident with your axe, as I recall." Giving the section of moving wall a last shove, he grabbed Narm's forearm and tugged him into the gloom.
"I never! I-"
"Come" Marlel murmured to Shandril with some urgency, "let's get up above before anyone decides we're interesting enough to follow."
Shandril rolled her eyes. "Oh, half Faerun already seems to have taken that view," she murmured. "You lead the way."
Marlel grinned. "You've done this before, haven't you?"
"I hesitate to agree until I know just what you mean by 'this,'" Shandril replied evenly, waving at him to precede her. "Increasingly, I find, I dislike disagreements-they tend to be so final."
"No doubt," Marlel said thoughtfully, giving her a look that was devoid of his usual smile for once. "No doubt."
He went up the narrow, foul-smelling stair in the darkness, Shandril followed warily and close behind him, and Narm watched the half-ore haul the section of wall closed and watched out behind them as best he could in the deep gloom that followed.
They were at the top of the stair, on a little landing where their way onward, up a few steps and along a passage of many closed doors, seemed to be blocked by two dark figures who were hissing curses at each other, when Shandril felt the first tinglings of a spell. It felt like cold tendrils, caressing her mind-without hesitation she drank the magic, her spellfire flickering in her eyes.
Each time it felt wilder. Each time she had the frightening feeling that it was going to overwhelm her thoughts and will and what inside of her was Shandril Shessair, and just burn its own willful way on in wild destruction. That feeling was growing stronger-but damn all these greedy, ruthless fools if they didn't keep on trying to snatch her, to take her spell-fire for their own.
What if they finally grew enough stone cold everyday wits and good sense to wait until she was exhausted and took her while she slept? What then?
Trembling, Shandril heard Narm make a queer sound behind her. She whirled. He was reeling, his face twisting as he looked at her wildly, nostrils flaring like a wolf smelling blood-gods! The spell had taken him-and as he reached for her, she caught the side of his head in her hand and slammed it into the stairway wall.
His eyes went dark, like two snuffed candles, and he slumped. Letting go of him, Shandril rode her rage around in a whirling turn that brought her nose to nose with Marlel- who leaned forward, frozen, with his hands out to grab at her.
Feeling fresh magic rol
ling at her, the kitchenmaid from Highmoon sent spellfire racing along the paths of those unfolding spells-stabbing out through the walls around her in three directions. There were brief screams as half-seen wizards staggered, in both directions-but Shandril ignored them to snarl at the Harper, "If you had any hand in this trap, Marlel, I'll make your death slow and terrible, believe you me!"
"Lady, I never!" Marlel protested. "I-let me past and I'll take up your man and carry him! We must get to your room-here: the keys! Third door on the left along yon passage!"
He certainly looked guilty-but then, he also looked afraid, and for men who carried secrets in plenty, there often wasn't much difference between the two looks. Moreover, there might not be a man who dwelt in all Scornubel who didn't have dark secrets enough not to look guilty, if you seared him with the candle that was fear.
"Do so!" Shandril snapped, snatching the keys. "If you do him harm, I'll make you regret it for days!"
Her eyes were like two flames, and the Harper flinched away as he slipped past her. Shandril made sure the wizards in the two rooms she'd gutted moved no more, and by then Marlel was on his way past her again, panting under Narm's limp weight.
It seemed like a very short time before Marlel had them both into the room he'd indicated. Shandril made no protest when he snatched the keys back from her and used them on the door with a deftness that told her his usual profession more clearly than anything else he'd done thus far. The Harper slammed the door behind them, laid Narm gently on the bed, and whirled back to the door to drop its two wooden bars into place.
"You didn't leave anything burning, back there?" he panted.
"Why?" Shandril snapped, still furious. "Were those wizards friends of yours?"
"Lady, if the Tankard catches fire…"
"A few floorboards were smoking. Most of what I seared, I took to ashes. I'll care about such things when my Narm is awake and-whole again."
Marlel gave her a worried look, and bent over the young mage. "Have you means of healing?" he asked quietly, after a moment..