arguments, and cultured words belong only to the highborn and a few courtiers? Are we beasts to you, barely able to do more than grunt and snort? We unwashed citizens who are your dupes, your servants, your slaves? For that matter, have you any idea what mask dancers-gods spit, what any two-coin pleasure lass-get to overhear, in any given season? I am Amarune Whitewave!”
Still on her knees, she wrapped her arms around herself and snapped, “And this body is mine! I’m not some old wizard pretending to be your Rune; I am your Rune! Get that through your thick head, Lord Highnose Delcastle-if you can!”
Arclath blinked. “Uh-ah-but Rune, how can I be sure? I-”
“You can’t, Lord Delcastle! None of us can! All of us must trust in others in life or shun them completely and wander the wilderlands alone-until the first prowling wolf or hungry bear gets us! I have to trust you; you have to trust me; and we both have to trust others-the bard and wizard with us, for instance. Now, let me tell you something!”
Arclath blinked at her, then-wisely, El thought-nodded. And refrained from pointing out that Rune had been doing just that.
Good lad. Ye might live through this, after all.
“I am hurt, Arclath. I have just met a goddess. Face-to-face-stlarn it, and she touched me! It was terrible, and it was wonderful. I was lost in awe and wanted nothing more than to come back here and tell you how utterly magnificent it was. The most shining moment in my life thus far, possibly the finest happening I’ll ever know. And you’ve ruined it, Arclath, utterly ruined it! I need to share it with you; I need you to understand it; and what do I find? You’re waving a sword around as if that will solve everything! How typically noble! Gah!”
“B-but Rune, he’s stolen your body!”
Amarune exploded up off the floor and marched right up to Arclath, slapping his sword aside with the flat of one hand, angry eyes glittering. “Now you listen to me, Lord Delcastle! Elminster-my ancestor, and don’t you high Houses set much store by your bloodlines and hallowed forebearers, hey? — has borrowed my body. With many misgivings and no intention of keeping it, and I have seen that in his mind. We share my head, remember? I’ve seen his thoughts, and I know. Him I need not trust, because I know what he thinks and feels.”
She halted right in front of Arclath, chin to chin, not quite pressed against him, and said fiercely, her breath on his face hot with anger, “And hear me well, Arclath Delcastle-that borrowing is fine with me. So, if you care about my feelings and my freedom at all, it should also be fine with you.”
Arclath stared into her eyes, going pale, his sword sinking forgotten in his hand.
“If you can’t accept that,” his Rune added, “perhaps you’d better instead accept that none of this is really your business at all.”
The young noble lord studied her face, and then he shook his head and backed away, sword coming up again.
“No,” he said. “No. You’re not my Rune. These words are coming from Elminster, seeking to trick me. Wizard, what have you done to my lady?”
Amarune clenched her fists at her sides and leaned forward to let out a shriek of frustration.
Arclath fell into a fighting stance, sword up. “You’ll have to do better than that!”
“Why?” asked a gentle voice from just behind his right ear. “Can’t we all calm down and sit by the fire to chat about this? I’ve made some tea.”
Storm Silverhand! How had she-?
Arclath spun around, sword slicing the air to lash out And came to a sudden halt, shaking and aghast.
Not only had he almost struck down a naked, unarmed woman, but during his whirling turn, fingers like iron fangs had come out of seemingly nowhere and done something to his wrist to make his sword fly free, then taken his sword arm in a grip he very much doubted he could break.
Storm was stronger than he was. Not to mention much more beautiful than he’d ever be, and pressed against him.
“Applying a binding over clothing won’t keep captive someone willing to shed her garments,” she murmured. “You might with advantage remember that, Lord Delcastle.”
She added a friendly smile, and it was as if the sun had risen in the hut. Silver tresses rose, seemingly on their own, to stroke his cheek and trace the line of his chin.
Arclath stared at her, fighting to keep his eyes on her face. Gods, but she was stunningly good-looking! He- he-it was hard not to stare at all of her or refrain from taking a half-step forward and feeling all of her. If they struggled now, their contact would be both vigorous and… intimate.
“I–I know not what to do,” he blurted, feeling a soft hand (Rune’s, and stlarn it, she was unclad, too!) slide around his waist from behind.
He sighed and gave up. “Where’s that tea?”
CHAPTER THREE
T wo steps into the room above the shop of Immaero Sraunter, Understeward Corleth Fentable came to a sudden halt, his eyes going very wide. “I–I-”
The smiling man seated down the far end of the table, at Sraunter’s elbow, waved an airy hand.
“Ah, Fentable, you remember me? Favorably, I hope.”
Fentable was too busy sinking into shocked horror to manage a reply-a state of mind he saw mirrored in the eyes of the third man at the table.
Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake looked as if he’d swallowed a fatal dose of poison, and only just realized it.
They were all the mind-slaves of the man at the end of the table. The handsome, amused man whose dark eyes devoured Fentable.
Under their thrall, he sat down in the last empty chair, barely noticing he was doing so.
He, Sraunter, and Mreldrake had been pawns of the dark-eyed man until some brief time before yestereve, when he’d withdrawn from them and made them forget all about him.
Now he was back, to begin their servitude anew.
“I know we all know each other,” Manshoon said, “though I’ll admit I’d not intended us all to ever meet like this. Yet, circumstances change, and my paramount needs with them. So, gentlesirs, hear and heed attentively.” He gave them a soft, sharklike smile and added, “as I know you will.”
“Pull,” Storm commanded, turning away from him. A trifle gingerly, Arclath obeyed.
“Harder,” she added. Setting his jaw, he put his strength into it.
Suddenly, her arm moved sickeningly in his grasp. The silver-haired woman grunted like one of his guards taking a dagger thrust, reeled a little under his hands, and gasped, “Good. Back where it should be.”
Disengaging her arm, she turned to face him and growled with mock severity, “Now don’t make me have to do that again.”
Arclath drew in a deep and somewhat unsteady breath and then let it out again before he dared to reply, “I’ll try not to, Lady Immerdusk.”
Storm rolled her eyes. “Just ‘Storm,’ please. Whenever I hear that title, I feel several centuries older.” She reached for his tankard with the arm he’d just put back into its socket. “More tea?”
Arclath nodded, glanced at Amarune, and looked back at Storm. “I’m… ah, sorry to the both of you. To all three of you, rather, but Rune most of all. I-this is still going to take some getting used to, for me.”
“You’re not alone,” Amarune told him. “Raise the door bar again, and let’s get some sleep. I’m not just tired now; I’m cold.”
Storm proffered tea with one hand and a sleeping fur with the other. Then she leaned between the two Suzailans, long and sleek and shapely, to blow out the smoldering brazier.
“Let’s snuggle up. Elminster can keep watch.”
Arclath’s head came up. He gave her his best frown, and then peered all around the hut’s lone room… but
