'A tempting suggestion, Lord Thann,' she said with prim tones but laughing eyes. 'I am in accord with the spirit of it but not the timing. You go on without me, and I'll follow as soon as I can. Since this is your family's party, your absence would be noticed and remarked.'
'The Lady Cassandra sees all,' he murmured, naming the formidable woman who had given him life and who managed the Thann family fortunes with an iron will and a capable hand.
Arilyn's blue and gold eyes took on the hard, flat gleam common among warriors who heard their neme shy;sis named. 'True enough. Even without delay, I'm sure we'll manage to cause some sort of scandal.'
'That's the spirit,' he said approvingly.
* * * * *
Not much more than the allotted hour passed before Arilyn stepped from her hired carriage at the gates of the Thann family villa. The vast, sprawling white marble mansion commanded nearly a city block of the North Ward, and every pace and breath of it was ablaze with light and sound. Danilo, it would seem, had used a bit of poetic license in naming the starting hour. By all ap shy;pearances, the festivities were well under way and had been for quite some time.
Arilyn surveyed the scene through narrowed eyes, as a warrior might size up a potential battlefield. Though the Gemstone Ball was one of the last fetes of the summer season, in this bright place the drab and chill of coming winter seemed far away. Even the darkness of night was held firmly at bay. The moon cresting the peaked roofs of the villa was as bright and full as a summer rose, and in the gardens surrounding the villa floating globes of light winked on and off like giant, multicolored fireflies. From the open windows floated the sounds of laughter and festive music.
She followed a small crowd of latecomers, cursing the slim skirts that broke her stride into small, mincing steps. Inside the Thann family villa, scores of guests gathered in a great hall ablaze with the light of a thou shy;sand candles. Dancers dressed in vivid gem-toned cos shy;tumes dipped and spun in time to the music. Other guests sipped the rare wines that were a cornerstone of the Thann family fortunes or listened to the fine musi shy;cians who seemed to be everywhere. Paired guests wan shy;dered into artfully designed alcoves and garden nooks to gather the last blossoms of a summertime romance.
It was, Arilyn had to admit, quite a spectacle. This party was considered a highlight of the season, and the merchant nobility rose to the occasion, each guest striv shy;ing to outdo the others in matters of finery, beauty, or gallantry. It was understood-expected! — that on such a night everything must be perfect. Cassandra Thann, the matriarch of her clan and a maven of noble society, would not have it otherwise.
The only discordant note, if merry laughter could ever be thus described, came from the far corner of the great hall. With a certainty born of experience, Arilyn headed in that direction.
She slipped quietly into the crowd surrounding Danilo as he began to recount his misadventures with a riddle-loving dragon. It was a comic retelling and quite differ shy;ent from the story Arilyn had heard. She doubted that those who'd shared that grim encounter would recog shy;nize the tale. Or, perhaps they would. Arilyn had noted that truth had a way of ringing through the words of a bard, even when it, and he, were concealed by gilding and motley.
She studied the man who had been her Harper part shy;ner and who still held her heart in his hands. By all appearances, Danilo was an agreeable and entertaining dandy, well favored by nature and fortune and good company. He was a tall man, lean and graceful, fair of form and face, and completely at home with the finery and deportment that such evenings demanded. The sleeves of his fine emerald green jacket had been slashed repeatedly to reveal the bright cloth-of-gold lining be shy;neath. Gold glinted also on his gesticulating hands and in the pale hue of the thick mane that flowed past his shoulders.
Golden, she decided. That was the word for him. Off shy;hand, she could not name an advantage he had not enjoyed, a task he could not accomplish with almost indecent ease. Danilo was to all appearances well con shy;tent with himself. Nor did he seem to be alone in his high opinion, for his roguish grin and the mischief in his gray eyes brought instinctive, answering smiles to many who beheld him.
It amazed Arilyn still that this effortlessly golden, merry person saw anything to cherish in her, an elf whose life was consumed with duty and danger. But nevertheless when he saw her his eyes lit up with a genuine pleasure that gave lie to the bright facade he wore in her absence.
'Arilyn, you must come watch this!' he called, raising his voice over the applause that followed his tale. He beckoned with the object in his hand-a half-blown rose in a rare, true shade of blue.
A murmur of interest rippled through the group. Such roses were the stuff of legend, known only on dis shy;tant Evermeet. Danilo had somehow managed to charm a few of these treasures away from the fey folk. He had determined to fill the courtyard behind his townhouse with an elven garden in honor of his lady, one that would rival the best Evermeet had to offer. Arilyn had heard that this romantic tale was repeated often by Waterdhavian ladies, always punctuated by wistful sighs. Many eyes turned in her direction now, some envious, some merely curious. The crowd parted, leaving her standing alone.
More than a few stares lingered pointedly on the sword she wore on her hip. She was the only person in the hall thus armed. To be sure, the moonblade was a priceless thing, worth more than the gems that be shy;decked a score of guests, but it was still a weapon. Most likely, a few of them had heard of her dark reputation and regarded an assassin's sword as not merely a faux pas but a threat.
Arilyn ignored the stares and went to Danilo. Her fingertips brushed his outstretched hand and the sym shy;bolic rose he held, then she fell back to observe the spell he clearly planned to cast in tribute.
He held the rose out before him at arm's length as he sang a few words to it. When he drew back his hand, the blue flower remained suspended in the air. Chanting now, he drew from the bag at his belt a pinch of dark powder with a distinctive, unmistakably barnyard aroma. He sprinkled this on the floor beneath the rose, quickly sweetening the burgeoning spell with another layer of powder that smelled of meadows and summer rain. A flurry of rapid, graceful gestures followed, accompanied by a song in the Elvish language.
Power, in the form of green and glowing light, began to gather around the spellcasting bard. Danilo's audi shy;ence fell into expectant silence as the verdant aura reached out to envelop them, as well. Elsewhere in the room, laughter and conversation faded as the guests awaited the effects of the spell. Their faces showed varying degrees of curiosity, wonder, or-in the case of those who knew Danilo's reputation in such matters- apprehension.
His spell ended in a high, ringing note. Some of the spectators responded to the music with a smatter of applause, but most merely gaped at the transformation taking place before them.
The blue rose was growing-not as roses grew in the normal course of events but with the same eerie speed that a dismembered troll regenerated its limbs or a hydra sprouted two new heads to replace one lost to a warrior's axe. Unlike these regenerated monsters, how shy;ever, the elven rose did not stop growing once it reached the size ordained by nature.
The rose's stem lengthened into a stalk, which in turn sent new shoots racing toward the ceiling and roots slithering along the smooth marble of the floor. Leaves murmured as they unfurled. Buds quite literally popped open, sounding like tiny bottles of sparkling wine decanted by unseen pixie folk. In moments dozens, scores, hundreds of rare blue roses covered the magical rosebush.
The monstrous rosebush.
Already the thing was halfway to the vaulted ceiling, and the limbs were beginning to droop down of their own weight. Its growth showed no sign of slowing. This, Arilyn surmised, could be a problem. She grimaced and dropped her hand to the hilt of her sword.
Gracefully soaring branches described a slow, lazy outward arc, then began a plunging descent toward the marble floor.
Murmurs of wonder fell abruptly silent, and a heart shy;beat later returned as cries of alarm. The rosebush's many branches lunged toward the revelers like the grasping, thorny talons of a hundred swooping falcons.
Cries went up for Khelben Arunsun, a relative of the Thann family and the most powerful wizard in all of Waterdeep, but the archmage was not presently in the hall. Frenzied chanting mingled with the growing clamor as a few lesser mages tried their hands at containing the runaway magic. The best that any of them could do was to change the hue of the flowers from their elven blue to a more mundane shade. Still the bush came on.
All of this took less time than the telling would take. In the first moments following his spell, Danilo stood in
