Years ago they'd discovered that this one small stretch of passage was safe. It ran between the archway whose pillars were carved into the likenesses of many writhing gargoyles and the little hall where four passages met, where it was rumored a hidden portal opened betimes to admit something large, dark, many-clawed and lurking that liked to hunt mages.
Safe, that is, from sending echoes-even of whispered converse-elsewhere.
It was always chill and dark, and as cold as stone everywhere that never sees sunlight, but those wizards who knew about it often tarried here to murmur words back and forth, like guilty young wastrelblades discussing secrets whose careless revelation would mean swift and harsh punishment. Their conversations were usually low-voiced, cryptic, and short-for even Zhentarim wizards have no love for slow deaths in torment.
Two wizards were standing in the safe stretch now, facing each other with their backs to the rough stone walls, where each could look down one direction of dark passage and see the slightest intrusion or approach when it was yet far away.
'If I have anything to say about such things,' the taller wizard was saying sharply, 'there'll be no more chasing about after useless, overly dangerous might-be's like this spellfire. We've strayed very far from being a fellowship founded on coins and power for all, with a hierarchy intended merely to keep peace amongst us and keep the ambitious from blasting the rest of us or betraying all our secrets in their eagerness to command all. Now we're venturing into an overboldness that's going to get us badly burned. Why make foes of Red Wizards, or even come to their notice at all, when there's no cause for it or gain in it? Why? Do our leaders now see themselves as Great Ruling Archwizards of the Realms or some other such fools' fantasy?'
'Don't let Manshoon or Fzoul or their like hear you speak like that, Korr,' the shorter, stouter Zhentarim murmured, waving his hands toward the floor in a mute appeal for quieter speech. 'We're very far from holding rank high enough to make such judgments or decide any policies.'
'No,' Korthauvar agreed, lowering his voice to an angry hiss, 'we're of the great middling mass of competent wizards of the Keep-not overly ambitious magelings, but not masters who give orders, either That's precisely why the masters should listen to us, Hlael. If we have such great misgivings, isn't it just possible that snatching at this spellfire is-ahem-wrong? A mistake that endangers us all, instead of dooming a handful of us sacrificed for the long chance at gaining it? Spend a few lives chasing spellfire, yes, but don't send us out in wave after wave to get slaughtered!'
'Well put, Korthauvar,' a cold voice said out of the darkness above them. 'Very well put. I shall remember your cogent arguments with the very precision you desire. No, tremble not-you're right. As much as some of us 'masters' may hate to admit it, your conclusions are unassailable.'
Silence fell, leaving Korthauvar Hammantle and Hlael Toraunt staring at each other in terror in the dim cold, their hurried breaths curling away like smoke between them.
That silence stretched and grew long. When at last hope crawled back into their hearts and they began to straighten and breathe more calmly, the cold voice snapped suddenly, 'Now the policy so cogently outlined by Korthauvar Hammantle sees its first application. Both of you-a handful of us, one might say- are now-right now- welcome in my chambers for a little task that needs doing: a little snatching after spellfire.'
Mirt the Moneylender took the broad steps that curved up to the upper floors of his mansion two at a time, puffing like a brace of harnessed boars dragging a heavy wagon.
'Ha-ha!' he roared, in full gloat. 'Has ever a man strutted and swaggered in Dock Ward with more just cause than I?'
He rubbed his hands together in glee as his old, flopping boots found the uppermost step, and took him briskly past the frankly buxom wench of glossy ivory and fully life-sized stature that crowned the stairpost. Beyond, on a tray of gleaming silver large enough for Dambrathan slavers to serve up bound slaves upon-for they'd done just that, ere a certain fat and fiercely mustached mercenary swordlord relieved them of it-stood a sparkling forest of finely etched and smooth-blown glass decanters.
Snatching up the tallest and unstoppering it for a healthy swig without wasting time on such fripperies as a goblet, the Old Wolf of Waterdeep hurtled onward, borne along on a hearty trail of chuckles.
'Asper, m'gel,' he roared, 'I'm a very prince among thieves-a deal-master among merchants! Old Thaglon surrendered all his fine steel-and-silver Amn-work for half what he should have asked-all because they're nigh- starving down there, and I threw in those two warehouses full of rotting nut-marrows I've been trying to get rid of. Ha-ha! Even if he delivers half the amount he promised, at a third the quality he claims, I'm ahead several wagonloads of coin! Come here and kiss this bottle with me!'
He roared with gusty laughter and swung around a cabinet carved into the fanciful likeness of a wyvern's head, its eyes being doors, each fashioned of a shield-sized slab of smooth-carved amber, into the sun-drenched open space at the center of the chamber where furs and cushions lay thick (with Asper betimes lounging upon them, though she wasn't lying there now). He kicked a cushion at the head of an obsidian unicorn statue with an accuracy and fervor that could not have failed to startle the beast had it been alive, and added in loud and leering tones, 'Hah! Then ye can kiss me, by the back hind tooth of Larloch's pet dragon-devouring dragon! We're rich!'
'You know, Old Wolf of mine, I believe I'd noticed that,' a quietly musical and gently amused voice said from somewhere very near. 'In fact, we've been rich for as long as I've been old enough to notice anything.'
'Aye, but now we're richer-and 'tis so damned clever! Little love-lass, where are ye?' Mirt demanded in an amiable roar, stamping around the trophy-crowded room impatiently. Still rubbing his hands, he peered into the bedchamber, where the great canopied bed hung from the ceiling on thick gold-cord ropes overhung by the magnificent canopy Asper had made. Her wardrobe doors stood open, but so many clothes were bulging forth that there was no way that even so slender an imp as his little lady could be hiding therein. The bed hung well clear of the floor, with only a huddled pair of his old boots beneath. The bed-sized bathing-pool in which she loved to soak was empty, though the scent of blossom water bespoke its recent use. Nay, she was not here!
'Where are ye, love?' he roared, whirling back to face the domed trophy chamber and spreading his arms wide. 'Wher-'
The air shimmered in front of him, over the widest open expanse of furs and cushions, and that shimmer became an opening door of silver sparks and roiling blue flame. Silent flames traced a doorway that hung upright in midair.
Through it stepped a very long, shapely leg, followed by a tall, even more shapely body that sported a face even the most unattentive Waterdhavian knew. Emerald eyes framed by long, flowing silver hair, the limbs below half-seen through a gown of fine silk worn over thigh-high boots, the gown itself covered by a tight-waisted stomacher adorned with flowing, sapphire-studded elven traceries of silverstar-thread. The Lady Mage of Water- deep strode forward to face the gaping merchant, who stood silent, teetering with the half-empty decanter in his hand and his mouth hanging open where he'd broken off in mid-bellow.
'Old Wolf,' Laeral said crisply, 'we have to talk.' There was the faintest of sounds-and cold steel pressed against the Lady Mage's throat from behind.
'After,' Asper said softly into Laeral's ear, from just behind the knife, 'you identify yourself. I suspect you're the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, but we've been having a little trouble lately with shapeshifters.'
Mirt made a half-amazed, half-delighted rumble deep in his throat. Like a striking snake, his leather-clad lady had swung down from the plant-filled skylight in the ceiling and now hung upside down above the Lady Mage, dangling from one foot caught in one of the rope loops used by those watering the plants.
Laeral calmly pushed the knife aside, turned around without stepping out of Asper's reach, and replied with a wry smile, 'Most of the time I suspect I'm the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, too. Please accept my apologies for this overbold intrusion; 'tis not my habit nor to my liking, but-Asper, what shapeshifters?'
'Two I was forced to slay,' Asper said, just as calmly, dropping barefoot and catlike to the floor with the knife still raised in her hand and ready to throw, 'and one-'
'Who regrettably fell off yon balcony,' Mirt rumbled with an airy wave of his hand, 'when discussing the finer points of existence with me: my existence, to be more particular, and its chances of continuing.'
'Malaugrym,' Laeral muttered, 'even here!' Mirt made a dramatic show of sighing. 'Even in the best neighborhoods…'
Laeral gave him a sigh of her own and snapped four words: 'Asper. Mirt. Spellfire. Shandril.'
'What?' Asper asked, stepping forward, Mirt only a pace behind. 'What's happened to Shandril?'
'She's heading this way,' Laeral said grimly. 'With half the darker folk in the Realms right behind her, blades
