only curious citizens glancing up from their daily business. Thank Tymora for that. Oelaerone was pointing again, and Mirt anxiously lumbered in the indicated direction.
'I've run down more streets in the Realms…' he muttered as they turned another corner. This street was narrower, and it smelled; strewn garbage and pools of water were frequent, and Mirt's boots skidded more than once.
'Not far now, Old Wolf,' Belarla said from somewhere near his elbow.
Mirt looked around at the squalid street and replied, 'You know this area? I just hope he was worth it, Belarla-whoever he was.'
'If you weren't carrying the most important being in Faerun right now,' Belarla replied calmly, 'I'd trip you into that next pool.'
Mirt grunted, swayed, and managed to get through it upright 'I always wondered what pleasure-queens did for entertainment.'
'Go down sewers, of course,' Oelaerone said sweetly, from just ahead, 'After all, folk say our morals belong in the sewer-why shouldn't our bodies keep them company?' She led the way into a short, stinking alley and, with a grand flourish, indicated a pile of dung.
Mirt set Shandril gently down in the crook of his arm, and stared at it. 'I was picturing something a little closer to a door,' he rumbled.
Belarla sighed and dug into the pile with both hands. 'Come on,' she said over her shoulder, 'We'll have plenty of chances to wash all this off, down below.'
'I was afraid of that,' Mirt growled, handing Shandril's limp form to Oelaerone.
Water dripped, echoing somewhere in the dim distance. The archways overhead were old and cracked and covered with slimy growths. Here and there, the ends of pipes dripped filth clown into the thick, oily brown waters they toiled through, The muck was chest high.
Mirt ducked under a sagging pipe and muttered, 'No sneezing, now.'
Belarla struggled along at his elbow, helping to keep Shandril's face out of the grime, 'Could this be the worldfamous Mirt the Moneylender I see? Lord of Waterdeep? Harper Lord? Scourge of the Sea of Swords? Mirt the Merciless, Old Wolf of the North? This same old man, plastered with excrement?'
'I'm in disguise.' Mirt growled, squeezing under another pipe, The smell was indescribable; as far as he could tell, the sewers here never drained out except during snowmelt. This would be a great place for a gulguthra lair… and as soon as that thought occurred to him, he wished it hadn't.
He peered around in the gloms; light drifted down from street-gratings high overhead-sometimes accompanied by brief deluges as citadel folk dumped chamber pots or washtubs.
'Are we heading anywhere in particular-' he asked '-besides toward our graves, I mean?'
You mentioned Myrintara, earlier,' Belarla answered carefully, keeping her chin up as she walked over an uneven spot and the filth rose to her lower lilt. Bubbles broke on the dark brown surface all around her, and she gagged.
'Not in my direction, thank you,' Oelaerone told her, edging away 'Mirt, we're getting into the older part.' Ahead, a noisome waterfall carried the waters they were sloshing through down a short cascade to plunge into the blacker waters of a larger channel. A mist hung in the air-As they went down the falls Mirt exclaimed; the darker water, at the bottom, was noticeably colder, Much colder, in fact.
On his arm, Shandril stirred, 'Not now, lass,' Mirt growled at her. 'If you make us fall in this filth, I swear I'll take my hand to your bottom.'
'Uhmm?' her sleepy voice responded. 'Is that you dear?' The Harper ladies giggled; Mirt snorted, and shook the weight in his arms, A moment later, Shandril's eyes fluttered, opened-anti met his. Then she looked around.
'Where are we?' she asked and frowned. 'And what happened?' Then-the Old Wolf could tell by her face-the smell hit her.
'We're with friends,' Mirt said, 'in the sewers of the citadel.'
'I'd worked that much out already,' Shandril replied, wrinkling her nose.
'We're trying to get to the house of Myrintara of the Masks.'
'Who's she?'
'A noted perfumer,' Mirt panted, as they turned through an arch and into an unexpectedly strong flow of effluent, heading in the other direction. 'And an old friend,'
'A perfumer would come in very handy about now,' Shandril observed faintly, 'I think I'm going to be sick,' 'Over my shoulder, lass,' Mirt grunted, as they struggled on. 'Just keep it over my shoulder.'
After a moment, Shandril said in a small voice, 'I burned one of you ladies; I'm sorry.'
Belarla flashed a smile at Shandril and held up one hand to wiggle dung-covered fingers cheerfully at her, 'All better, lass-no lasting harm done.'
'If we can ever scrub this stuff off us, that is,' Oelaerone said ruefully. 'The last time we traveled the sewers, we had a boat.'
Mirt looked around, 'Folk have boats down here?' 'Yes-rafts, and mushroom beds, and lots of little caches where they hide things, too.'
'Treasure?'
'Aye, and the bodies of rivals or rich older relatives, and suchlike.'
A sudden outflow from above drenched them all, They gasped and sputtered and swore; the Harper ladies proved they knew expressions every bit as colorful as Mirt did.
'If we ever get out of here, Shandrl-my-lass,' Mirt said through clenched teeth, 'I'm going to give ye a few choice words about what it means to be a Harper-notably, of considering consequences before ye act.'
Shandril leaned against the comforting bulk of his shoulder as he forged on through the stinking muck, and she said in a small voice, 'I guess you mean I shouldn't have come here at all.'
Mirt shrugged. 'Well, not so fast, lass-'twas high time someone gave the Zhentarim something to think about. And ye've certainly found the knack of giving everyone around a wild time, indeed.'
Shandril grinned, a little lopsidedly-and then Delg's agonized, dying face swam into her mind, and she burst into sudden tears.
Mirt rolled his eyes and wrapped his excrement smeared arms more tightly around her, murmuring soothingly.
Oclaerone turned and reproved him mildly. 'You've certainly cultivated an expert boudoir manner, Mirt of Waterdeep.'
'Only a little way, now,' Belarla added, turning into a side channel, It was shallower; as she went along it, her body rose out of the water as far as her waist Her robes, plastered to her, glistened brown and yellow.
Shandril looked at Belarla, down at her own body hidden under the roiling brown sludge, and involuntarily glanced back at the pleasure-queen's robes-she gagged.
Mirt threw her expertly over his shoulder, but she struggled free and glared at him, 'I'm not a little girl!' 'Aye,' he said dryly. 'I'd noticed. Little girls are never this much trouble.'
Belarla came to a stop, waters swirling around her, and looked up at the vaulted stone ceiling just above her. 'This is the one,' she announced, pointing at a rune burned into a dark wooden hatch overhead.
Dripping, she and Oelaerone reached up and hauled on its heavy bolt together, their hair plastered down their backs and matted with filth, The door fell open, suddenly, and they splashed and staggered in the water, struggling for balance.
Mirt blinked sewer water from his eyes, thanked the two Harpers gravely, and then heaved himself like an angry whale up out of the water and through the hatch. Grunting, he caught hold of the lowest rung of an old, massive iron ladder. 'This must have been used as a well, long ago, ' his voice echoed back to them.
'No wonder they all died of fevers back then,' Oclaerone said disgustedly to Belarla.
'No doubt folk an age from now will wonder at all the barbaric things we do, too' Belarla replied.
'Going through the sewers ranks right up there,' Oelaerone agreed, as they boosted Shandril up the ladder, 'Hmmm,' Belarla responded, ''rank' is the right word, yes!'
After a short, unpleasant climb, the three ladies found themselves facing a closed door in a small, round room crowded with old buckets, Mirt's arrival had evidently awakened some magic here: a faint, yellow-white glow was emanating from the door and growing steadily brighter.
