slowly.
'In fact, those are the kinds of skills I like to cultivate in potential associates. You never know,' she said slyly, 'you might have a future in this sort of thing. I was only a little younger than you when I started,' she added, casting an appraising eye on Tazi. 'If you carry this off like I expect you will, you should think carefully about your next step.' Then those same obsidian eyes froze over.
'Step out of here again without my express directive, however, and you won't be taking another step ever again. Do I make myself clear to you both?' she asked and took in the dwarf as well with her threatening glare.
'Understood,' Tazi agreed.
The dwarf grunted.
'Good,' Naglatha replied and rose gracefully to her feet. 'Tonight, the two of you will accompany me to the evening meal.'
'As what?' the dwarf demanded.
Naglatha continued to look only at Tazi as if she couldn't be bothered to lower her gaze for Justikar. 'Because it suits me for people to think Milos and Heraclos are other than they are, you will act as my personal bodyguard for the duration of our stay.
'I expect that you will act accordingly. I was going to have you change your attire to match mine more closely,' she told them, 'but I think I will leave you as you are, presuming, of course, you both clean up.'
'Of course, right away,' Tazi replied sarcastically, though Naglatha did not seem to notice.
'You two will more than likely cause a bit of talk, and I rather like the idea of being the center of attention for the evening.' She brushed past them, only pausing by the door.
'And sometimes,' she added thoughtfully, 'the best place to hide a secret is out in the open.'
After Naglatha left, Tazi turned to the dwarf and said, 'This should be interesting.'
On the way to dinner, Tazi once again had the opportunity to marvel at the construction of the Citadel. She marched down a corridor a few hundred feet long that was devoid of any decoration except for the imposing figures of armor displayed in niches every ten feet on either side of her. Some of the plate mail and designs Tazi was familiar with, but others were completely unrecognizable to her and bordered on the fantastic. Suits stood anywhere from three to ten feet tall, and some of the weapons were so exotic, with blades curving and twisting in every direction, Tazi wondered where on Toril they would have come from. The duergar was even more enamored than she was, and she could tell he was just as eager as she to touch some of the metalwork. A sharp word from Naglatha stopped them both, though.
'Don't,' she ordered. So they walked by, and Tazi knew the dwarf would have given much to study the pieces longer.
The passageway emptied into another, large chamber. Tazi found herself in a huge banquet hall that far surpassed any she had visited in Selgaunt, and she had been to more than a few in her time. The entire room, with its soaring ceilings, was lit by torchlight and candles. There was even a very large, elaborate chandelier suspended twenty feet above the table. Tazi didn't envy the slave who had to maintain those candles up so high. Tazi wondered why they didn't use spells and thought perhaps, in a country where sorcery was so very commonplace, that would have simply been too gauche.
In the center of the room was a long banquet table, with a glossy, lacquered finish. It was set with the finest place settings and silver cutlery Tazi had ever seen. Several vases of flowers and greenery dotted the table as if to make up for the fact that there was no view in the entire chamber. But, Tazi thought, their perfume seemed oddly out of place. They were almost sickly sweet, and she wondered if the smell was meant to disguise something else. Thick-cut crystal goblets winked in the firelight, creating a warm, friendly scene. Tazi recognized that the table was staged thusly for effect only.
As she and Justikar flanked Naglatha, it was only when the wizard turned to them with a frown did Tazi realize she was put out. When Tazi surveyed the room and saw no one else had entered, she speculated she knew why the woman was mad. She had made a point of being late so as to be 'fashionable,' as she put it, and now to Naglatha's obvious disappointment, most everyone else had decided to be fashionable as well.
'Where are they?' Naglatha whispered, displeasure evident in her tone.
Tazi wasn't sure what to tell her, but then she heard the sound of voices coming from a different passageway nearby.
'I think they're here now,' she said quietly.
'Well,' Naglatha told her, 'if I can't be last then I may as well be the first. Follow me.' And she led the way into the chamber.
Tazi and Justikar trailed behind as Naglatha strode into the chamber and selected a seat in the middle of the table, opposite what was obviously a seat of honor and could only have been meant for the Zulkir of Necromancy. Tazi was uncertain if, as a bodyguard, she was supposed to pull out Naglatha's chair, but the wizard saved Tazi from the potential gaffe by seating herself.
'You may sit to my right,' she informed the duergar and she added to Tazi, 'and you may sit on my left.'
'Shouldn't we remain standing?' Tazi asked.
'It isn't unheard of to have one's bodyguards close at hand at these events,' she explained quietly.
The other zulkirs and tharchions slowly filed in and made their seating selections seemingly at random. But Tazi knew there was far more going on below the surface. The process, she thought to herself, was a strange dance of positioning, and she wondered if they really thought they were fooling anyone with the act. She also noticed that many had one or two servants with them and, as Naglatha had said, they had one or both join them at the table.
'The woman to your left is Zulkir Zaphyll,' Naglatha whispered to Tazi and nodded toward a bald woman with steel blue eyes.
'She looks like she's even younger than you,' Tazi commented, not realizing the unintended insult to Naglatha's vanity.
'Well,' Naglatha replied in a huff, 'do you see that gaudy amulet she's fiddling with? Tear that from her scrawny neck, and she'd look her true age: a doddering seventy or so.'
'She hides it well,' Tazi replied.
'The tall zulkir sitting beside her is Lallara Me-diocros. They are the best of friends these days and allied with Szass Tarn. If I can turn either one of them,' Naglatha explained, 'the other will surely turn as well.
'The men over toward the far right end of the table are also loosely allied. The older man with the gray hair is Zulkir Nevron. He and I have had some interesting conversations,' Naglatha told Tazi, and Tazi briefly wondered if the two had been close. 'He has an extensive collection of demon spells. And the blond man next to him is-'
'He is Zulkir Lauzoril,' Tazi finished for her, recalling the female servants' earlier comments about the handsome man.
The black-eyed wizard gave Tazi a beaming smile. 'You have been listening,' she said with obvious admiration. Tazi simply tipped her head in the acknowledgement of her skills.
Naglatha pointed out a few others to Tazi, and the thief made a few mental notes for herself. Then a black- haired, brown-eyed woman that Naglatha addressed as Thessaloni drew the wizard into a conversation about some of the ships in her navy, so Tazi continued to simply watch and listen to those around her.
'I've increased the number of darkenbeasts in my stables to nearly cme thousand,' bragged a bald man who Tazi did not know. Like most in attendance, he had various tattoos across his smooth pate. But Tazi was familiar with the monstrous creatures he was referring to.
Part bat, part prehistoric bird, Tazi had fought such a creature not long before her father died. Tazi shuddered inwardly at the thought that the man possessed so many of the creatures, and she fervently wished he was exaggerating for appearances sake.
'For myself,' the vigorous woman to his left replied, 'I prefer the Blooded Ones. Much easier to control.'
'But, Azhir,' he responded, 'how can you afford them? They're terribly overpriced. Or have you and Szass Tarn come to a new arrangement?'
Before the woman could respond, the room began to shake slightly. Everyone grew silent. The plates and goblets rattled, and the chandelier above swayed from side to side. The tremor did not last long, but Tazi could see concern on more than one zulkir's face. Tazi had felt a few minor quakes since they had entered the Thaymount
