Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters

her face calm as she slowed to her normal lilting walk, ignoring the shards of tile skittering across the floor in all directions, their clatter almost louder than the rattle of chains as the ceiling stones started their slow journey aloft. . unbloodied. Laeral suspected that if she turned around to look, she'd see their hardened surfaces carved into smiling jester's faces, or something of the sort.

On the other hand, the dark figure standing in front of her was something of a cruelly smiling jester himself from time to time, though that was probably not a description he'd enjoy hearing.

Caught out in the open, he made no move to dart behind cover this time, but shifted one hand to a pendant- probably some sort of magic-and the other to the hilt of a slender sword at his hip. Rings winked with brief magical fire on that hand, but Laeral's smile merely broadened a trifle.

'Elaith,' she asked pleasantly, 'are you merely amusing yourself here, awaiting your chance to rum shy;mage the broken body of a Chosen who's tasted one trap too many, or have you something to say to me? Something involving slaves, perhaps, or drow, or the merchant Labraster?'

Elaith Craulnober's soft smile matched her own. The elf whom Waterdeep called the Serpent spread his empty hands with lazy grace.

'I mean no harm to the Lady Mage of Waterdeep,' he announced in a voice that was almost a purr, 'and must admit I began my walk in your wake purely for … enter shy;tainment purposes. If it's Auvrarn Labraster you're seeking, I must tell you that my professional contacts have confirmed his arrival in Silverymoon last night.' Laeral raised an eyebrow. 'Truth?'

The Serpent spread his hands once more, in a mockery of a courtier's flourish. His easy smile broadened so much that it actually reached his wintry eyes-something Laeral had never seen before. 'Lady, would I dare lie to you!'

'You'd lie to Mystra herself, Elaith,' she replied. A smile was still on her lips, but her eyes were boring into his.

The Serpent took a smooth step back, his face falling into a half smile. 'Naetheless, lady, I do speak truth,' he replied gravely. 'More than that, I can add just as honestly that Labraster and I do not have dealings with each other. Friendly, professional, or otherwise.'

They stared at each other in measuring silence for a long moment before a trace of mockery rose to dance in the elf's eyes. 'May I add, Great Lady, that your lack of confidence wounds me?'

Laeral gave him a tight little smile and lifted a slen shy;der hand to point across the gloomy great hall at sev shy;eral spots along its balcony rail. Elaith's had not been the only stealthy movements she'd seen this last little while. 'And these, wounded one? You just happened to bring a dozen men along when you went for a stroll this evening, I suppose?'

'My associates,' Elaith replied smoothly, lifting his hand in a swift, intricate gesture. A signal.

Laeral turned to watch grim men and half-elves rise into view from behind the ornately carved railing, loaded hand crossbows held ready in their hands.

'Naturally they trailed after me, fearing for my health when consorting with so known and great a danger of the city as yourself, lady.'

'Wise of them,' Laeral replied sweetly, gliding for shy;ward with sudden speed to plant a kiss on Elaith's cheek that burned.

As the Serpent stiffened and staggered back, clap shy;ping a hand to his cheek, Laeral circled to keep him between her and the hand bows along the rail.

'Mind they keep those little darts clear of me as I go, Serpent,' she said pleasantly, her voice raised to ring across the lofty hall like a trumpet. 'Any pain I feel in the next hour or so, you will also feel.'

She smiled almost merrily into elf eyes that glittered with swift anger, blew the Serpent a kiss, and strolled unmolested out of the hall.

Hurrying feet pounded down a balcony stair, and a man in leathers as dark as the Serpent's own came up to his master in haste. His low voice, when it came, was urgent with alarm.

'Sir?'

Elaith Craulnober stood unmoving, still staring after Laeral. At his henchman's query he reached up to rub his cheek once more. Peering, the man saw that it was puckered up in a fresh welt, a silver-hued burn shaped like the imprint of a lady's lips.

'I've got to get me some of that silver fire, Baeraden,' the Serpent said softly, his fingers carefully tracing the burn now, rubbing at it no longer. 'Even if it means serving a misguided mage-goddess.'

The duty apprentice of Blackstaff Tower stared at the Lady Mage of Waterdeep as she strode past his sta shy;tion clad in the torn and tattered remnants of gaudy, ill fitting men's clothing, but wisely said nothing. Briion Dargrant said even less when Laeral turned back to his table, plucked up two specimen jars, and from various places about her ridiculous, and frankly revealing ruined garb produced a handful of odd hairs and another of what looked like pipe ash. She put each carefully in a jar and shut lids upon them firmly, then ordered crisply on her way past him to the passage again, 'Touch those not.'

Briion did, however, turn to stare as the lady of the tower tore off her gaudy rags until they lay pooled on the floor of the passage and she wore only boots, knives strapped to her in various places, and her long, unbound silver hair.

Looking back over her shoulder at him-the appren shy;tice swallowed and hastily lifted his gaze from her rounded rear to her eyes-Laeral added, 'Burn these rags ere I return.'

She gave Briion a smile that he knew was going to bring him fitful sleep during the night ahead, and ducked through an apparently solid wall, into yet another secret passage he hadn't been told about.

The duty apprentice swallowed, shook his head, then scurried to pluck up the ruined clothing from the floor. Diligent obedience was a virtue, as the saying went. He shuddered to think of his fate if Khelben should pass by. Briion's eyes widened, not much later, as the brazier devoured the last of the rags and his nose told him that in addition to the unmistakable musk of a jungle cat just like the one he'd shaped under Khelben's supervi shy;sion less than a month ago, the clothing bore more than a trace of night viper poison. The study of venoms as spellcasting components was Briion Dargrant's proud specialty, and there could be no mistaking its distinc shy;tive, almost citrus scent. Just where had the Lady Mage been, and what had she been doing?

'Kissing serpents,' came a soft voice from just behind him, and he stiffened in horror at the realiza shy;tion that he must have asked that question aloud-and that the Lady Laeral had returned and heard him. 'But not the sort you're thinking of.'

To that cryptic comment she added in a murmur, 'I don't think we need mention your task, or my arrival just now, to anyone at all. Do you?'

Briion Dargrant swallowed with difficulty as the Lady Mage scooped up the specimen jars. She was resplendent now in a flowing, long sleeved gown but, his flickering eyes didn't fail to notice, she was bare shy;foot. With a heroic effort he managed to say, his voice ridiculously solemn even in his own ears, 'Lord Khelhen shall hear nothing from me, Great Lady.'

The grin Laeral gave him then was both despairing and affectionate. Briion swallowed several times rap shy;idly as she ducked through a spell-concealed archway-this one he did know of-taking the jars with her. He was going to have disturbed dreams tonight, by Azuth's Seven Mysteries, and that wasn't, he decided with a grin as he turned back to his scrying globes, going to necessarily be that bad at all.

The deepest spellcasting chamber of Blackstaff Tower was empty of all but old burn scars before a tight- lipped Laeral dragged in two stone pedestals from an antechamber. If Labraster was involved in dark dealings energetic enough to rouse the Serpent into spying on him-to the extent of invading his man shy;sion with considerable armed strength-but well hidden from the informants that kept Blackstaff Tower supplied with whispers of dastardly deeds afoot in the city, he was more than a smuggler or a slaver.

Much more.

Someone had been watching her, somehow, in the cellar and in Skullport. She knew that with certainty, though she hadn't even realized she'd sensed it until now, almost as if a spell had worn off.

A spell a Chosen of Mystra could miss feeling?

Frowning, the Lady Mage of Waterdeep said a rude word. She uttered it far more calmly than she felt. She hugged herself for a moment, running long fingers up and down her arms, then shook herself and began to move