Now they neared the top of the stairs. The mage stepped through the open doorway and turned left. As Tas raced after him, he collided with something invisible and stopped dead. He tried to move his wings, but the right one was stuck. The left one buzzed futilely, then it, too, brushed against something and stuck fast.
Selana's voice rang in his mind. "What's the matter? Why have you stopped?"
"I'm not sure," Tas responded. "I'm stuck in something, but . . . oh, my."
"What is it?"
Tas's voice was thick with apprehension. "It's a spider web, and I'm all tangled up in it. My legs and wings are caught, and the more I struggle, the more I get tangled."
"Wait there." Selana launched herself off the mage's back and headed back toward the doorway. She had just gotten the web in sight when Tas, who was working on freeing his legs, heard the mental equivalent of a scream. "Above you, Tas—the spider!"
The kender looked up in time to see a brown, hairy, murderous monster with venom-coated fangs racing across the sticky web toward him. Before he could do anything, it was on top of him, spinning web line as it whipped the trapped fly between its back legs. Tas felt the strands tightening with each revolution.
He wasn't frightened—kender rarely were—but the situation did seem grave. At the same time he was fascinated, marveling at the spider's efficiency and speed. Each time it turned him around he could see his own dark face reflected in the multifaceted eyes of the spider.
Selana buzzed helplessly past the web, too frightened to get close and too upset to think clearly. The webs began lapping over Tas's face. The spider's unblinking eyes hovered near Tas's neck, poised before driving its paralyzing fangs into its prey. Tas abruptly closed his eyes and relaxed. A moment later, surrounded by tiny, sparkling flashes, the fly became a little brown mouse. The web strands encircling him burst apart, the web itself shredded, and Tas plummeted to the floor as a mouse, twisting in the air to land on his four feet. The spider fell away, then caught itself on a hastily spun web, which it climbed as quickly as possible to the safety of the ceiling.
Laughing almost hysterically with relief, Selana landed next to Tas and metamorphosed into a mouse herself. She stood on shaking legs as Tas stretched his bruised limbs.
"Why didn't you think to do that right away?" she asked.
"I didn't hear you thinking to suggest it," he retorted. "Anyway, everything turned out OK. Why are you so upset?"
Selana ignored the question.
"There's old One Eye now," said Tas. They saw their quarry standing before a door at the end of a long hall lit by candles. The two mice skittered down the hall, hugging the base of the wall, staying in shadows until they were across from the door. The mage opened the plain wooden door and stepped through. Tas, ahead of Selana, could see there was a room beyond, not more hallway. But the door shut before they could reach it.
The two mice approached the door cautiously. Their sharp mouse ears could detect him moving around on the other side. The bottom edge of the door cleared the stone floor by at least an inch, plenty of room for two mice to squeeze through.
"After you," thought Tas, motioning with his whiskered snout. Selana slipped noiselessly under the door, followed by the kender, both of them wondering what horrors they would encounter on the other side.
Chapter 13
A Two-Sided Coin
Using his good hand, Balcombe shook fragments of a squirrel's brain from a pair of calipers into a stoneware bowl. His work area was a waist-high wooden table in the laboratory that adjoined his apartment in Castle Tantallon. The room was small, as magical labs were measured, but quite generous by the standards of normal castle chambers. One narrow loophole in the outside wall let in a small amount of light, though torches were still needed for full illumination.
Frowning, he licked the last, tart droplets from the porcelain bowl in the palm of his right hand. The spellcasting draft made from a snow-white pearl and an owl feather steeped in wine sharpened his senses in an unpleasant way. Noises took on a jarring quality, filling his head with sharp reverberations; smell brought with it an unsettling sense of time and the sequence of past events; worst of all, colors and shapes became more distinct, as if the two were no longer associated but could be separated and examined individually. Of course, that was the point. The elixir empowered him to identify the characteristics of a magical item. He could, quite literally, see, feel, hear, and smell the magical capabilities of an item he was handling. Currently he was examining the copper bracelet on his wrist.
Balcombe ran his fingers over the bracelet as one would stroke a lover. He liked the feel of heavy jewelry, took an almost sensual pleasure in certain pieces. This one was particularly stimulating in that regard, with the added benefit of the gems on its face; he coveted faceted stones of any sort.
Balcombe could see that the bracelet revealed the future through visions to its wearer, just as the pathetic little con man had said. Far more curious was its background. It appeared that it had been fashioned by a dwarf but it also bore the unmistakable signs of elvish influence. He could not identify the specific elf kingdom involved, but it was neither Silvanesti nor Qualinesti, of that he was sure. A faint but persistent saline odor clung to it that he had never encountered before. It could have come from the Isle of Sancrist, perhaps, or even beyond.
Regardless of its origin, Balcombe suspected that a practiced wearer could, in any twenty-four-hour period, seek answers to a set number of specific questions about the near future. Its potential was enormous in the hands of a skilled
