'Hold!' the guard bellowed, leveling his spear as he broke into a charge.
Argast snarled in disgust and ducked behind the nearest tapestry, shifting shape as fast as he could.
All too soon a spear point thrust through the hanging, its point skittering along the stone wall-but the Malaugrym had shrunk down into a wadded mass by the floor to watch the spear strike sparks overhead. He surged upright as it withdrew. As he'd expected, it reappeared more cautiously, drawing the hanging aside. By then he was ready.
The guard found himself blinking at a buxom, very bare female… the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. He swallowed as she smiled at him, and blinked again as she held out her arms, beckoning…
An inconspicuous taloned tentacle that had snaked across the floor rose up behind his head, reached around, and tore his face off.
Argast stared down at the twisted, blood-spattered body, satisfied the death had made little noise. But what now? If he posed as the guard, he'd be attacked if he left his post and was seen listening at doors… and this body would be found soon enough. He positioned it against the wall behind the tapestry, using the spear as a prop, but anyone who even glanced into the passage was sure to see the bulge… and the blood all over the floor.
He shrugged then, and became a rat again. They were only humans, after all… Blackstaff Tower, Waterdeep, Midsummer Day
Khelben looked up from his work, startled, as Laeral stiffened and laid a hand on his arm. 'Malaugrym!' she snapped, eyes closed, and clutched at her forehead, listening to an inner voice. 'Jhessail's found a guard murdered in the tower and suspects Malaugrym did the killing. He was torn by talons on an upper floor, where no beast could reach unseen and no strong magic has been worked lately…'
The sending ended, and Laeral raised her head, her eyes grave.
'Aye, it would be in Shadowdale,' Khelben said gloomily, reaching out to stroke her long, curly silver hair. 'Have you never noticed: nothing much in Faerun happens anywhere else.'
Laeral gave him a tight smile, but said nothing. She was already bustling about the room, gathering cloaks, wands, and boots.
Khelben stared down at his scribblings and litter of material components, and admitted to himself what they both already knew: his Malaugrym spell was going nowhere, right speedily. He pushed back from the table and sprang to his feet. 'I'm not trusting teleporting in this, mind,' the Blackstaff told his lady irritably.
'I know,' she replied brightly. 'That's why I'm rushing about gathering things instead of being there already.' She held out a wand.
Khelben stared down at it for a long, silent breath. Then the corners of his mouth curled up slightly, and he took it from her. Stepping into the boots she was holding ready, he took both their cloaks over his arm, strode without pause to the door, and held it wide. Laeral gave him a twinkling smile and brushed his cheek with a kiss as she went out.
One of their younger, newer apprentices, Paershym Woodstoke of Neverwinter, was trotting excitedly along a passage, his head down and a precious spell tome clutched in his hands. Its covers, two polished plates of ever- bright silver, flashed suddenly as the lord and lady mage of Waterdeep stepped out of a side door, spilling light into the dim hallway. They leapt across the passage like a pair of pranksome apprentices. With a softly spoken password, they opened the door of a closet that had to be tiny, crunched between two flanking rooms, and crowded into it together, giggling.
Lady Laeral winked at Paershym just before the door closed behind her-leaving the apprentice, who'd halted to gape in astonishment, quite alone in the passage. He blushed a brilliant crimson and stared in disbelief at the closed door of the tiny closet. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he stole up to it and tried the handle. It was locked.
He turned away feeling almost relieved-and stiffened as the doorknob behind him emitted a faint, girlish giggle.
Clutching the book very firmly, he hurried away, wondering how his father would take the news if he wrote a letter home explaining that he'd changed his mind about becoming a wizard…
In a chamber deep within Twilight Hall, a lady laughed. 'We've more than earned this, beloved,' she purred to the person in the heart of the canopied bed. His reply was a wordless growl that left her giggling-until the closet door beside the bed burst open.
'Please excuse the intrusion,' the lord mage of Waterdeep said gravely to the astonished Harper couple as he marched briskly across the room to the closed door of another closet.
Laeral mouthed, 'Sorry,' to the shocked faces above the covers, waved a farewell, and stepped into the closet behind Khelben.
There were a lot of dusty cloaks inside, and she sneezed more than once before Khelben found the catch on the secret door and led her on into a lightless passage that zigged, zagged, and opened into the back of yet another closet.
As the Blackstaff briskly opened the closet door, they saw a bored Harper guard sitting in the room beyond, sharpening his blade. No intruders ever got this far, after all, and…
The guard sprang up as the wizards strode into the room. He waved his sword menacingly. 'Halt, by the silver Harp and the blood spilled for it!' he charged sternly-but the two mages were already past him, heading for one of the doors across the room.
The Harper gaped. 'But you're-you're Khelben!'
The archwizard sighed. 'Has the disguise spell failed again? Oh, dear…' He rolled his eyes theatrically.
Laeral chimed in breathlessly, 'We've tried everything…'
As she spread her hands in despair, Khelben touched the door in a certain spot-and it flared into a blinding glow. The Harper threw up his hand to shield his eyes, just in time to see the two mages fade away… The Castle of Shadows, Shadowhome, Midsummer Day
In a room where shadows were rarely still, two tentacled things met, exchanged grunts of recognition, and rose into manlike forms.
'It's even worse than I'd thought,' Hulurran said without preamble or greeting. 'Since Dhalgrave was slain and the intruders first came, over sixty of the kin have perished or disappeared… perhaps as many as seventy!'
'Seventy!' Gathran sighed gloomily. 'Will we live to see the House of Malaug dwindle to nothing, and the shadowbeasts finally slither in to tear the last few of us apart?'
Hulurran shrugged. 'There's just one good thing,' he said. 'Milhvar was working on a cloak that shielded him from the prying magics of the mages of Faerun… a 'cloak of shadows,' he called it in his notes. If anything's befallen them, the secret of its making is gone with him.'
'You saw his notes?' Gathran did not bother to hide his astonishment.
Hulurran smiled. 'Milhvar was so old that he sometimes forgot that others of us have seen just as many years… He hid some of his notes-and the finished cloak; I saw him testing it-in a hideaway Anduthil created for safe storage. Since Anduthil's passing, I believe he thought only he remembered its existence.' He turned slightly, and made a gesture. 'It's right here,' he added, 'and-'
Hulurran fell abruptly silent. Gathran peered over his shoulder to see why. The hideaway was a small room with a cot, a chair, a desk, and a chamberpot. A few blank scraps of parchment were strewn on the desk, but the cot-where his companion was probing emptiness-was quite bare. ' 'Twas right here,' Hulurran said, frowning, 'and he wasn't wearing it when he met his end-I saw him die.'
'Then where is it?' Their eyes met and held in silence for a long while.
Hulurran sighed. 'Let us hope one of us is wearing it in Faerun right now.'
'A prudent one of us,' Gathran agreed.
They both sighed then, and left that place.
When the world stopped whirling, they were sitting together on a bench in Shadowdale, with Elminster's Tower rising crookedly in front of them-and a startled guard scrambling up from where he'd been lounging on the bench beside them. He swung his gleaming pike down.
Khelben calmly struck it aside and twisted it out of the armsman's hands.
Laeral said mildly, 'Perhaps it's the clothes we're wearing…'
