'Keep your eyes on me, Mr. Quaid, and you'll do better,' — Olivia said without turning — 'Yes, ma'am,' I said, coughing to show myself chastened.
We mounted the stairs. The cold beneath my shoe leather made me think the steps weren't glass, but pure, clean ice. I almost blurted my surprise, but had dealt the lady a strong enough hand already.
She led me through the red iron arch and up three floors, then out along a gaslit hallway with guest rooms. Like the rest of the palace, this hall had elegant, rounded lines-more a ribbed windpipe than a door-lined corridor. I knew the rooms would be the same, organ-shaped chambers where lurked Faerun's beautiful and wealthy and powerful, sleeping and eating and defecating like flies inside a corpse.
Beautiful and wealthy and powerful… I'd been riding in midblizzard above the seventeen onion-shaped domes of the palace before I'd realized just how far out of my league I'd be. Still, flies usually don't mind an ant pulling off his own hunk of flesh.
'Voila!' said she, halting. Her pronouncement seemed to swing wide the silver-edged door before her. The room beyond was incredible.
Unlike the great room, cold and stark, this place was as warm and soft and red as a dragon's heart. The door gave onto a railed landing above a velvet-walled sunken parlor. A fireplace, complete with blaze, stood on one wall, and opposite it was a steaming, bubbling bath large enough to bathe two war-horses. Through an open door on the far side of the parlor, I saw a velvet-covered bed that could sleep the two mounts, and in another room, a table where their knights and squires and retainers and a few bards could play a game of poker while their steeds slept. The wide, lead-glazed window above the table showed the teeth of the storm outside.
'For me?' I asked innocently, though truthfully there wasn't much acting in my delight.
'For you, Bolton Quaid.' She started down into the room, and I didn't know whether to look at the brocade chairs or the bright chandelier or the tasseled drapes or those swaying hips.
I stammered after her. 'The Dock Ward's my usual digs. A street rat like me is-'
She spun around and placed a finger on my lips to silence me. 'If you're half the street rat I think you are, you'll be worth the room, and much more.'
Those words, those eyes, that touch-suddenly the magic of the place seemed not so amazing, but a mere extension of her. She shone with power.
Her hand dropped from my lips, and like a schoolgirl, she clutched my fingers and drew me after her. 'You must see this view.'
I nodded, and after a few stumbling steps, did. Through the wide window, I saw her wintery palace, glowing cold and blue like a rock-stranded moon. The towers stood fearless and alien in the blizzard, and the curving curtain wall was draped in icicles; but the courtyard within was hot and bright and sandy.
Now I did blurt my amazement. In the midst of this waste of rock and snow, the lady had made a garden. From this height, the palm trees looked like ferns, the green bunches of Chultan flowers like field clover. And in the midst of the garden lay a winding, sandy lagoon, overarched here and there with footbridges, surrounded by paths and benches, peopled by folk so beautiful and powerful and rich that they seemed fey creatures, seemed to glide above the sand without leaving footprints.
I started to speak-what words, I do not know-and found I couldn't because I had not breathed in moments, perhaps minutes. But I needed no words; Olivia was speaking for us both now.
'You haven't even got the chill out of your poor Water-dhavian bones yet. Look how you shiver.' She spoke like a doting mother to a child. Some part of me knew she was drawing the rough cloak from my shoulders, was running that small hot hand along my bare side. 'There'll be plenty of time for Mr. Quaid to rig traps and alarms. First, though, a recuperative bath.'
'I–I-I-' came my reply as she led me to the huge, steaming tub. With a tremble-whether of fear or cold or joy-I knew I was naked, stripped bare. I lowered myself into the foamy, hot, bubbling waters. Hmm. The seduced innocent was a new role for me.
She moved up next to me, and now it was not her hot hand that touched my lips, but her own lips. They seemed to scald, and the fresh warm breath of her puffed for a moment over my face as she drew back.
'This is moving a little too fast,' I said, at last able to speak as I looked into those green eyes. Oh, yes, those green eyes. 'You put a tailored suit on a street rat, and all you've got is a rat in a suit.'
'Not if the suit is magic.'
That night, I had the most peculiar dream. I rolled over on the silken sheets to enfold Olivia in my brawny arms, feel her heat against my bare chest, and instead felt the bristling mange of Xantrithicus the Greedy himself. I awoke, screaming.
Next morning when I rose, she was gone. I dressed quickly, donning the white ruffled shirt, red brocade jacket, white hose, and charcoal-gray wool leggings left for me. Just my size. I smiled wryly. She'd had enough chance to check my fit perfectly.
I came down for breakfast and saw Olivia in the hammer-beamed dining hall, presiding royally over a morning feast for her guests. She gave me the same polite nod she gave other late arrivals; either she was a better stoneface than I, or she'd made herself familiar with more guests than just me-men and women, alike.
Breakfast was hot and filling-eggs and fried mushrooms, tortes and jellies, bangers and gravy and biscuits and pie. Still, compared to the feast last night, the food paled. Oh, well. It sure beat the hash slung in the Dock Ward.
I ate too much food and stayed too long staring at those otherwise-occupied green eyes-too much and too long, given that I had a gem to secure. I headed for the vault.
En route, I met my assistant. I'd not known before that instant that I had an assistant.
'Hold up, bloke. Where you think you're off to?' asked the scamp. I could have called him no better; I'd seen enough scamps in my day to know their stripe. Heck, I'd been one myself not so long ago. This scamp had greasy black hair, which he continually finger-combed back from his brown eyes. He sat upon a tall stool, leaning back rak- ishly against the slick wall, and his ruddy, freckled face bore a scowl that revealed less-than-healthy teeth, an idle splinter stabbed between two that were close enough to hold it. And if Olivia had tried to dress this kid in silks instead of knee- and elbow-worn linens, she'd failed.
'I'm Bolton Quaid, new head of security for the Tern.'
'Bosh!' replied the lad immediately. 'Quaid ain't no dandy. Lady says he's a rogue, like me-knows which way's up.'
I kicked the stool out from under him, snagged his collar, and hoisted him high. I'd used a similar technique on alley cats. 'Would you say this way is up?'
The kid hung there, poking his fists at the air and snarling. 'You ain't getting… grrrrh… past Filson Cry-bot… Mister Dandy-Thief. Like to feel… my shiv…?'
'You mean this?' I asked, holding up my other hand to show him his crude little knife, dwarfed on my meaty fingers. 'Or this-' I rolled my fingers to show a white rabbit's foot '-or this-' a slingshot '-or this-' a bent black feather '-or this-' a pair of marbles, and so on. The kid was on the verge of tears, and even I wouldn't reduce a proud street scamp to tears.
'Give 'em back! Give 'em back!'
'All right.' I gently lowered the kid to his feet and shoved his stuff at him.
No sooner had he touched ground than his heel stomped my foot. Ahhh! The walls around me swam, went dim, seeming for a moment to blink out from smooth-polished pearl to filthy cave stone. I let out a gasp and took a step back, only to strike my head against something brutally hard. The kid had already snagged his stuff and backed toward the iron door of the vault, his little shiv thrust out before him. I reeled, almost dropped to my haunches, and my head was filled with the keen of a whistle. It was going to take a while to recover from this one.
Especially now. Olivia was there. She'd appeared suddenly, as though magically summoned: only then did I see the whistle drop from Filson's lips to dangle on a chain around his scrawny neck. Already he was babbling to the lady about the intruder (me) who'd tried to strangle him.
Olivia, in typical aplomb, laughed. 'Filson, meet your new boss. This is Mr. Bolton Quaid.' With that introduction, she gestured to me, and I might have bowed had I not been busy rubbing my head and looking into empty air to see what had hit me.
The ruddy scamp face turned as white as the walls around us, though the color looked less fetching on Filson.
