Some of the liquor went bad and blinded its drinkers, and the owner had fled Waterdeep. I had no idea what the old shop was now.
We slowed to a stop at the front door. I noted it had a simple string-and-bar lock, and a worn one at that. The place looked dirty and little used. Civilar Ardrum unobtrusively walked the short length of the storefront, looking up and down at the closed window shutters, then walked back to me and shrugged.
A board creaked inside the building. The sound came from the second floor. Ardrum and I both heard it and froze, our eyes locked together.
The board creaked again. A footstep for sure. Ardrum motioned me back a step, tucked his watchman's rod under his arm, then pulled a piece of wire from his pocket and undid the lock with surprising deftness. I wondered if his childhood occupational interests had been anything like mine.
Civilar Ardrum looked up at me for a second and almost smiled, then pulled his short-bladed sword and used it to swiftly push open the door.
And we saw a previously unseen string attached to the back of the door. It pulled tight on a wide-mouthed pipe mounted on a short pole just beyond the door itself. The pipe swung slightly to point right at us. It clicked.
Agunne The white shock of the blast imprinted itself in my eyes, the little watch captain's body silhouetted as it was thrown past me, one arm flailing. I clamped hands over my screaming ears, deafened except for a whine so loud as to stab me in the brain. Small objects shrieked past me, clanging off metal and wood and rock and dirt. The top half of the door fell crookedly across the doorway. Dust whirled through the night air.
I was deaf but untouched. The Unfailing Missile Deflector of Turmish was working just fine.
I staggered back and then saw Civilar Ardrum writhing on the street, his clothes smoking. He tried to cover his face with his mangled arms and gave a brief wail of agony. I let go of my ears and went to him, kneeling at his side.
The light-enhancing lens in my eyes let me see the half-ling's condition in perfect detail. I almost vomited. He would be dead within the minute.
He turned his trembling face to mine. He still had one eye.
Very carefully, he raised a hand and pointed past me. He was pointing at the Full Sails.
Go, he mouthed. Then he eased back with a sigh. His eyes closed.
A crowd had gathered. More people were coming. There was nothing else to do, so I got up. I turned to look at up the Full Sails. Someone on the roof looked down at me, then quickly moved out of sight.
'No, you don't,' I said to the figure. My right hand dipped into a pocket, pulled out a bit of leather made into a loop. Lifted by his own bootstraps, went the phrase. I stepped up to the building's base, spoke a phrase, and cast the loop upward. It vanished.
My feet left the ground. I rose toward the rooftop, mouthing the words of another spell. I wondered what the shouting people below thought. If they were smart, they'd be leaving about now.
The moment my eyes cleared the rooftop, I saw the bow of the little pinnace in front of me, what was left of it after years of wear from the elements and youthful vandals. I also saw a burly figure not fifteen feet away, holding what looked like a short Gondgunne. He saw me out of the corner of his eye, turned, raised his gunne in one hand, and fired. A white flash spat from the barrel; my ears rang again from the sharp thunderclap of the shot.
The bullet missed me, of course. I pointed my right index finger at him and finished the spell.
A long, slim missile zipped from my finger and struck the gunner in the chest, splashing as it hit. It knocked the gunner off his feet. As he fell on his back on the rooftop, he began to smoke like a wet rag on a hot iron stove.
As deaf as I was, I could still hear him scream. That acid arrow is a real piece of work.
I had pulled myself over the parapet and was mouthing the words to yet another spell when I saw the pinnace move. It rocked as if something had thumped against it. I stepped away from it, then saw a figure outlined against the starry sky, moving from the back of the pinnace forward, toward me. This guy had a gunne, too, a two- hander with a huge barrel. I had almost finished my spell when he fired. Strange, I thought in that moment, that he would aim at my feet.
I felt the solid thump as the shot hit the rooftop just in front of me. There was a huge flash of light, concussion, and fire-then rooftop, pinnace, sky, and city below spun in my vision as if I'd fallen into a whirlpool. I threw out my arms to right myself, willed myself to cease all movement. I halted in the air, now upside down and twenty feet above a flaming crater in the roof, just a hop away from the pinnace. That Unfailing Missile Deflector was my true love, but I hadn't counted on being flung into the heavens.
A new type of gunne. A gunne that shot bombs or rockets. I'd walked into a hornet's nest.
I slowly righted myself and descended, my immobilization spell ruined. Now I was intent on causing serious harm.
To my complete astonishment, the pinnace lifted free of the rooftop and came up to meet me.
I at least had the presence of mind to reach out and snatch hold of the worn bowsprit as it went by. I swung myself onto the deck and saw that the guy with the big-mouthed, bomb-firing gunne was coming over to greet me. Only now he had dropped the empty gunne and carried a large woodsman's axe.
I raised my hands and touched thumbs, fanning my fingers outward toward him. I loved this spell. It needed only one word to make it work. I said the word.
Roaring jets of flame shot from my fingers and covered the axeman from head to foot. He instantly turned into a man-sized torch. He dropped his axe and flailed at his clothing, his face, his hair. His shrill screaming proved that my hearing was finally getting a little better.
I waited for an opening, then lunged in at him and grabbed a slippery bare arm. He could hardly resist me; I appreciated that, having never been much for wrestling. With an effort, I wrenched his arm back and shoved him hard at the low railing. He stumbled, hit the rail, and went over the side. I didn't bother to see where he made landfall.
The air stank abominably, burnt and foul. I looked down at my hands, grimaced, and wiped them on my clothing. Some of the man's roasted skin had come off when I'd grabbed him. Throwing him overboard had been a kindness.
No one else was around. But the ship was still climbing into the night sky with increasing velocity. I'd never imagined magic like this. Walking low against the wind blast from above, I moved sternward until I found the door into the pinnace's little hold. I thought about the numerous spells I had left; I always traveled heavy. Better prepared than not. I picked out two or three I especially wanted to give to the guy in charge. Then I tossed a light spell into the hold and went below.
I felt I was ready for anything, but I suppose I wasn't. The hold was empty of everything except a marvelously ornate chair against the far wall, just twenty feet away.
I looked left and right, up and down, everywhere in the light from the spell. Nothing. Wind howled through the room, carrying off what little dust was left. Boards creaked as the pinnace continued flying up toward the heavens.
'Mystra damn me,' I murmured.
'Allow me,' said a rough, male voice from the direction of the chair.
I realized that my spell for detecting invisible things had ended some time ago.
A huge blast of white fire and light leapt at me from the chair. It was completely silent. It was followed in a moment by a second, a third, then a fourth, in a bizarre volley of soundless shots. I thought for a moment that an army of gunners was in the room with me.
When the firing ended, I blinked and looked around. The wall behind me was riddled with holes from the gunne shots. I guessed that I'd just been introduced to the new toy that Snorri got by accident: a gunne that fired several shots in a row. And without so much as a bang.
Out of nowhere, a gunne flipped through the air from the ornate chair, curved aside before it hit me, and bounced off the wall, falling on the floor before me. It was a weird-looking gunne. But I didn't care about that right now.
Thick smoke from the rapid gunne fire blanketed the entire room. The air had a thick, bitter, burned smell to it. Through the haze, I could make out the moving outline of a single large manlike being, sitting upright in the chair. He was cursing me mightily-in perfect Elvish.
Elvish? What more could I be surprised at this evening? But I was sick to death of surprises.
