later, a gloved hand reached down to the table and took up a silver harp pin. Chuckling, the figure waved, bringing cold flames to pinwheel out of nothingness. The leather-clad form leaned through this fresh flickering and was gone.
Magic, yes, and another memory given you by mystra, but again i find not what i seek! This is ridiculous! wizard, get on with it!
The tale unfolds, Lord Devil.[bright images flying]
The time before dawn grew more difficult as he got older. Durnan stood in the cold, getting dressed for another long, long day. The Yawning Portal was his home and his life, and he loved it dearly, but sometimes- these dark fore-dawns, usually-he wanted to be somewhere else. Somewhere that did not allow innkeepers to rise before highsun, when their old aching feet and shanks were thoroughly warmed by the sun, and someone else had the cooking fires lit long ago, and a hot meal ready, and-
The high, ragged scream made Durnan jump half out of his hose. Tamsil, from the taproom downstairs! He hopped awkwardly, kicked his garments away with a curse, snatched up his sword belt by the hilts, and launched himself bruisingly through the door frame into the dimness.
In the brief whirl of his naked charge down the stairs, he shook the hilts in his hands for all he was worth until the belt fell away, roaring wildly all the while to distract whoever might be attacking his daughter. Tam was more than old and curvaceous enough to catch the eye of a' thief who might think that innkeepers are actually allowed to sleep, and-
Skidding through a doorway with sword and dagger glittering in his hands, Durnan found himself with no foe to fight.
Tamsil and her mother Mhaere both looked up at-' him with eyes large and dark with fear. His wife was;.] holding a double crossbow in her hands, its strings still thrumming enough to tell him that both quarrels had been fired. No foe lay dead or groaning on the floor before them-but it did offer the discerning naked innkeeper's eye a lavish display of broken crockery and fresh blood.
'Are you all right?' Durnan snapped. 'And where is-' He gestured at the wreckage on die floor. '-he?'
Mhaere smiled thinly. 'Yes, and gone. A masked man, armed with a blade. He-'
She drew in a deep, shuddering breath that told him she wasn't half as calm as she appeared to be, threw back her head to gasp for air, then resumed speaking as gently as if she'd been discussing the weather. ''In leathers, alone, not familiar to me. An oval-an upright oval, like a lady's gazing-glass-of flames that were cold white, not hot, was suddenly right
Durnan turned slowly to peer around the field of battle, nodding. 'Whereupon you,' he replied, 'took up the ready-bow from behind the bar and gave him both bolts.'
— Chest and shoulder,' Mhaere added, and he could hear the satisfaction in her voice. 'He fled back through the hole in the flames, and they were gone, just like that, and him with them.'
Durnan stalked across the room like a hairy panther and pounced on something small on the floor. 'Dropping something as he left you,' he growled in bafflement, as he picked it up. He was holding a silver harp pin.
'Papa,' Tamsil said in her high, clear voice, 'I don't ever want to see that man again. How can we stop him ever coming back''
'The only way you can ever really stop any foe,' Durnan muttered, staring at the pin in his hand. 'I must find him-and he must die.'
Chapter Ten
The Lady Mage of Waterdeep bent over the silver harp pin on the table, lying amid the eerie, softly raging glows of her spells, and murmured, 'There. In a moment, we'll see-'
Obligingly, the pin exploded, bolts of lightning snarling hungrily across the room as the world went white and Laeral's body was hurled helplessly away.
A certain Old Wolf scrambled up out of his chair as the lightning that should have slain Aleena melted and toppled a brazier instead. It was still falling across Mirt's seat when Laeral smashed into him and drove him back into the tangle. They crashed to the floor together, bouncing with tooth-jarring force. Flames flickered briefly here and there around the room and then went out.
Pinned under a brazier, splintered furniture, and a wizard sobbing in pain, Mirt glared briefly up at a blinding- bright sphere that floated near the ceiling: Laeral's safeguard.
Having absorbed most of the unleashed magic, it was slowly fading back into invisibility. The ceiling above was decorated with a collection of scorch marks that told him little disasters like this one had occurred a time or two before. He wasn't sure if that was reassuring-after all, Blackstaff Tower still stood.
'Lass?' he asked roughly, struggling to get out from under. 'Are you well?'
He was answered by three sets of moans and curses, one of them from atop his breast. He took gentle but firm hold of the Lady Mage and thrust her up into the air so he could slide to freedom. 'What befell?'
'There was a trap on that pin,' Laeral said, panting. She rolled off his hand and found her own wincing way to her knees, 'left behind deliberately to harm anyone using spells on it. No Harper would do such a thing. Someone is trying to mislead us all into thinking a Harper killed Resengar.'
Mirt nodded. 'This fails to surprise me,' he said, turning his head to see how Asper and Aleena fared. Beside him, Laeral toppled silently over onto her face.
Flames flared up from her body as it struck the floor, writhing, and Mirt roared out a heartfelt curse and a cry for aid. As he rolled the Lady Mage over, Asper ran for the door-and the alarm-gong on the wall just outside it.
Only his smallest belt flask held water, and Mirt dashed it into Laeral's face and pawed at her nose and cheeks to try to keep the flames at bay-greenish-yellow tongues of hot fire that seemingly rose from nothing. Magical fire, of course, damned wagonloads of praise be to Mystra, and all that. It ignored all of his ineffectual attempts to douse it; though it somehow didn't spread to him, the Old Wolf was heartily glad when the room suddenly filled with stern-faced Tower apprentices.
He was thrust aside in an instant, and the room erupted in tense castings and snapped orders and suspicious
II peering. Their health assured, Asper, Mirt, and Aleena vere thrust into chairs in the most distant corner of the room and sternly bidden to wait and not stir.
Just now, none of them felt like doing anything but sitting dazedly and letting the numb tingling die away. Young apprentices were still scurrying in with more chairs. Hard questioning lay in the future of Laeral's three unexpected late-night guests.
Amid the nervous tumult, a tall figure limped into the room. Aleena rose in a flurry of clanking armor to run to him.
'Gently, 'Leen,' Piergeiron cautioned as she rushed to throw her arms around him. Scowling apprentices reached out to claw her back. Piergeiron made straight for the nearest chair, wobbling a little as he came. His face was tight and white with pain.
'Well, young lion?' Mirt said, looking into his eyes.
Those eyes were oddly green, a strangeness that seemed to grow as the Open Lord of Waterdeep collapsed into the chair and gasped, 'Perhaps I'll live.' As his daughter reached him at last and rained kisses on his face, he caught hold of both chair arms and shook himself, wincing.
'Weak as a gutter kitten,' he hissed, waving Aleena back to her chair. 'Now, will all the watching gods- or any of the rest of you-kindly tell me just what is going
Mirt held up a hand to forestall anyone else saying anything and turned to the apprentice standing watchfully
