woman,' he growled, 'perhaps you'll find time enough to tell me just whose shape I now wear, eh?'
'Blandras Nuin,' Meira told her own tankard promptly, scratching herself and reaching for the pile of rags that evidently served her every wardrobe need.
Labraster watched her with fresh disgust, and asked unwillingly,
'A man I sacrificed on the Altar of Night a few days back,' the priestess said, bending to a nearby stool to kiss the oily lashes of a black, many-tailed whip reverently.
The merchant grunted, and shifted a little away. Any shy;thing dedicated to Shar was best avoided. 'After you served him as you served me?'
Meira's head snapped around. She looked more shocked than angry, but her voice was as sharp as a thrusting sword as she said, 'He was for Holy Shar, and Shar alone.' Her thin lips drooped into a catlike smile, and she added, 'He looked quite-ah, striking as he died.'
'And the body?' Labraster asked, looking around as if he expected to find severed hands serving as cloak hooks, and hairy, bloodless legs bound together to hold up a table.
'Once a ritual is done, and it is properly blackened or doused in purple sauces, any suitable sacrifice to the god shy;dess may be devoured by her worshipers,' Meira said primly, then glanced sidelong at her unwilling guest as he gagged, and added slyly, 'I did keep certain pieces for dessert.' The merchant's shaking hands spilled soup on the cave floor.
She knelt and slithered forward between his legs to lap it up. Labraster hastily backed away, seeking another place to sit. His shoulders came up against the rotting, blackened hides that served her as doors, and in an instant he spun around and shouldered himself out into the light and the fresh, frigid air.
'Gods,' he growled, blinking at the brightness and cradling his hands around the battered tankard. His stomach lurched anew at the thought of the wrinkled priestess stirring a man's hairy leg into her soup caldron.
Soup caldron … he looked down in horror, and hurled the tankard as far and as hard as he could, found his knees in scrabbling haste, and vomited everything in him onto the ground so furiously that his spew splashed his eyebrows. Hot tears of rage and revulsion blurred his eyes as he coughed and spat.
'Such a waste,' that sharp voice he was beginning to hate so much said coolly from behind him. 'There's none of him left in that. 'Tis all bustard and black voles and rockscuttler lizards. Oh, and a snake; a rock viper, but a little one, too young for his fangs to be deadly.'
Her words failed to reassure Labraster. The merchant turned his white, trembling face away from her as he rose and stumbled over to one of the standing stones. He leaned against it weakly and drew in deep, shuddering breaths of air. A hand like a wart-studded claw patted his behind, the fingers lingering to caress.
'More, valiant merchant?' Meira cooed, clear mockery in her biting tones.
Auvrarn Labraster sprang forward and away, whirling around and slapping at his sword hilt.
The wrinkled, toadlike creature in front of him looked almost comical as it pouted, but one look into those green eyes quelled any mirth that might have been rising in Auvrarn Labraster now and for perhaps the next month or so. They held a cold and waiting promise that told the merchant he'd been judged expendable. One wrong step would be his last, or worse he'd be violently unmanned and teleported, maimed and still screaming, into the hands of Alustriel of Silverymoon, only to be hauled back again like a hooked fish, if Alustriel should show him any mercy. Back to the cooking pot, no doubt strapped to that bloodstained worktable and cut up alive, piece by piece, while Meira the Dark discussed seasonings with him, and-no, no more!
Labraster shook his head, his eyes closed, and he heard himself gasp, 'For pity's sake, priestess! I’ve a heavy load, and mean no offense, but, truly, I-'
“You find Meira not to your taste,' the priestess said, her voice more sad than angry. 'Well, you're not the first, nor the last.' She glanced up at him with the suddenness of a snake, eyes bright. 'You'll find your way back here, though, when next your needs outstrip that ambition of yours, and Meira will be waiting. Oh, yes, perhaps to play the man, then, to your woman, hmm? We'll see. Oh, aye, well see.'
Labraster shivered. She meant every word, and a small part of him was even excited. What sneaking spells had she worked on him, to make him think so? How much of a leash did Auvrarn Labraster now wear?
He had to get out of there. He had to get away from this woman and her foul cave. Fleeing all the roused Spellguard through the High Palace of Silverymoon was starting to seem preferable to this. Labraster drew in a deep breath, lifted his head, and forced himself to open his eyes and to smile.
'A part of me looks forward to that,' he admitted, and saw Meira's green eyes flash. 'You can use spells if you want, to confirm that I speak truth.'
The priestess shook her head. 'Nay, lad, I can see. I can also see that you want very much to be off and about your scheming, tarrying here no longer. Hear then my advice. Go nowhere that Auvrarn Labraster would, and reveal your disguise to no one. Let your affairs be run by your agents, even if they begin to subvert and swindle. The ring will keep you out of even the cycle's summons. You know how to contact those of us who matter, if need be. Don't go wandering back to claim treasures Labraster hid and finish deals he left hanging. The Chosen-and the Harpers, now-will be waiting and watching for that.'
'For how long?' Labraster growled. 'The High Lady of Silverymoon still has no proof against me. After all, I did not slay the tradelord. Such legal niceties would not matter, say, to those who rule in Luskan, but she is one who does take refuge in laws, and hold to them.'
Meira lifted her misshapen shoulders in a smooth shrug. 'For as long as need bo. You lost a life, merchant- yes, the one you'd built, but most of us only ever get one. Think of a fresh start, a chance to deal with some travel shy;ing traders who'll come unaware that you know their true natures as a challenge, hmm?'
Labraster bowed his head, 'I grant that, though it does not yet seem a gladsome thing to me. So tell me, who am I? Blandras Nuin, yes, but who is Blandras Nuin?'
The priestess lifted her lip in an unlovely smile, like a dog about to snarl. 'A man of moderate prosperity, ruled by honesty. An innocent in the intrigues of the world, con shy;tent to live out his life in trade.'
'Trade in what, and where?'
'Blandras Nuin is a trader in textiles,' the priestess said grandly, as if telling a fireside tale to rapt children, 'respected in his home city of Neverwinter. He seldom travels, and when he does, 'tis usually to Everlund or Sil shy;verymoon, on matters of business. He's a kindly man, with little interest in women beyond watching tavern girls dance, and has no family or relatives.'
Labraster looked pained. 'Textiles? What do I know about cloth?' he snarled.
Green eyes twinkled. Their owner replied crisply, 'Whatever you'll learn between here and Nuin's house. It is a tall and narrow abode, roof of old shields sealed with pitch, stone lion gateposts, on Prendle Street. You'll have six servants, but the old chambermaid Alaithe is the only one who really knows you-that is, the real Blandras Nuin.'
Auvrarn Labraster sighed, glanced around at the standing stones and the hillside falling away into the trees, then brought his head up to peer at the priestess who'd transformed him. 'I've no choice, have I?' he asked, his words more bitter than he'd meant them to be-but not nearly as bitter as he felt.
'None at all, Blandras Nuin,' Meira told him. 'Now start walking.'
Labraster's brows lifted stormily. 'Can't you teleport me?'
The priestess pointed a wart-studded finger at the merchant's hand and shook her raven-haired head. 'The ring, remember?'
The darkness of closed eyes, and the roaring that meant Labraster's snoring would render his ears useless until he awakened, left the eldest of the Seven Sisters utterly alone once more. She was alone and alert, not needing to sleep, but unable to ride a body around to look at new things, and talk to other beings, and see more. She was alone to think.
So what had she to show for all the hard work Dove, Qilue, Laeral, and Alustriel before her had done? A little more than the usual quiet, underhanded alliance between a rogue at one end of a caravan route and a thief at the other. A little more even than a trading coster gone bad, or illicit goods bought with stolen coin. It was a shadowy chain of varied individuals who worked covertly in Scornubel, Waterdeep, Silverymoon, a hermit's cave some shy;where north and east of Longsaddle in the wild hills between the Long Road and the Goblintide, here in Neverwinter, and presumably in distant Thay. . probably also in Sembia and Cormyr, and possibly in Amn and other Sword Coast ports such as Luskan and Baldur's Gate.
