Talane crouched.
Targrael never let her stare leave the ruined tyrant, not for an instant. Would it crash and splatter on that club rooftop, right beside Manshoon’s slinking little mind-slave?
It certainly looked as if… no… no. It was going to drift just far enough to fall past, to be dashed to wet ruin in the street behind, or across the fronts of the shops and balconies of the next building beyond.
Then Targrael’s vigilance was rewarded.
She saw the briefest of flashes in the air between the beholder and the dark figure on the edge of the rooftop. Manshoon, plunging into the mind of his Talane.
Talane, who by day was the Lady Deleira Truesilver, resident of a noble mansion that not even the founder of the Zhentarim could hide or move.
Targrael forgot all about the falling beholder. Talane was her new target.
She started to run. Dragons were running, too, and some of them were eyeing her as their swords came up, but she ignored them, sprinting all the faster, heading for the street that ran beside that club, trying to circle around behind the rooftop.
She was in time to see Talane, high above her, make the dangerous leap to the roof of the next building.
“You!” a man commanded from close behind her. “Down steel, or die!”
Targrael rolled her eyes. Did clod-headed Dragons never give up?
Still running, she looked back. Stlarn! The man had friends, about a dozen of them, and a war wizard was running with them. Looking neither winded nor afraid in the slightest, to boot. He had a tluining wand out!
She’d passed the club and was running along the side of the second building, knowing that Talane was likely several buildings along by now, making much shorter rooftop leaps and acquiring a wide choice of ways down to the street-or deeper.
More Dragons were coming at her down the sidestreets, closing in.
“Stlarn it,” she said aloud. “Enough of this! I will go to Truesilver House to hunt myself a Talane, but I need that gem from Queen Alendue’s cache first, anyhail. If I capture his mind, he can’t use his magic on me!”
Rounding a corner she knew, a good six strides ahead of the Dragon who was still commanding her to surrender or taste death, she came upon the wooden hatch she remembered. Plucking it up, she flung it back in his face without even looking and plunged feet-first down the revealed shaft.
She was half a dozen sloshing steps along a noisome sewer quite large enough for tall warriors, heading into the palace by one of the wetter ways, before the Dragon whose face she had crushed with her hurled hatch drew in his last, gurgling breath and died.
Mirt’s headlong flight through the palace had slowed to a fast, stumbling lurch, restoring wind enough to him to roar, “Help! Ho! A rescue! Beholder attack! War wizards and Dragons beset! The palace breached! Aid!”
Where were all the doorjacks and guards? Usually the stlarned pests were everywhere, like flies on fresh dung, forever stepping forward to politely bar your way, and He came to a lamplit meeting of passages that had to be a guardpost, and it was deserted, too. Oh, well, mayhap they were all out there in the street already, and busy dying…
An old shield hung on the wall beside the lantern, adorned with peeling paint that had once proclaimed a no-doubt-famous blazon. It was probably a precious relic of some famous old Obarskyr king, a hero of the realm storied in song.
Well, old relic, time to save Cormyr again. Reversing his daggers into a pair of improvised clubs, Mirt started hammering on the shield, belaboring it like a gong until it rebounded repeatedly off the wall, raising a terrible racket.
He could hear the echoes rolling back from six or seven rooms away, setting various distant and unseen metal trophies to ringing in sympathy. Grinning, Mirt dented the shield even harder, paint flying into dust all around him.
A door flew open, and a man staggered through it, face contorted in anger.
A war wizard.
Of course.
Seeing Mirt, he waved his hands imperiously and snarled, “Stop that, sirrah! Madwits! Old fool! Folk are trying to sleep!”
Mirt went right on ringing the shield but used one hand to point back the way he’d come, and then waved the dagger he was holding.
The Crown mage was unimpressed. “Under attack, my left elbow! Bah!”
Snatching out a wand, he marched up to Mirt, planted himself dramatically to blast this noisy nuisance-and collapsed senseless to the floor, struck on the back of his neck by something plummeting from above.
Mirt peered down at the mage with interest, then recoiled. The thing that had felled him looked a little like a wraithlike wisp of something dark, and a bit like a spider. It was unwrapping its long legs-which began to look more like human fingers-from around a ceiling tile it had obviously ridden down on. Spiderlike, it scuttled toward Mirt, who resisted the urge to stamp on the thing with both boots.
Now the wraith looked more like an old man’s face, the cloud trailing away in the suggestion of a beard. Beneath that face were definitely human fingers, a hand, rather… but the face was walking across the floor on the tips of those fingers.
Aye, the floor; it had come down off the unconscious wizard and was crawling toward Mirt. Who devoted himself to backing away warily.
“Mirt of Waterdeep,” the spiderlike thing greeted him dryly. “Well met. Vangerdahast, Royal Magician of Cormyr, at your service. Keep ringing that shield.”
Mirt bowed, nodded, and resumed striking the shield, with enthusiasm.
The din was tremendous, almost deafening when the echoes got going, and it wasn’t long before someone who looked both groggy and angry lurched around a corner and came striding along the passage toward Mirt.
Watching this second arrival closely for any signs of a wand or a spell being cast, Mirt barely noticed that the spiderlike thing had crept around to stand in the lee of his boots, hidden from the oncoming courtier.
Who shouted, “Cease your noise! Who are you, anyhail, and what do you want? I am Palace Understeward Corleth Fentable!”
The man had said his name as if he expected Mirt to be impressed, so Mirt shrugged and smiled. “I’m Mirt, and I’m ringing this shield to let all the palace know there’s a beholder out in the street blasting Dragons and war wizards-oh, and a big hole in the side of the palace, too. Well met.”
“Oh?” Fentable seemed less than impressed. “Wait right here. I’ll be back with suitable minions.”
Whirling around, he marched back the way he’d come.
“He’s going to get Dragons to come back and arrest you,” Vangerdahast said quietly, from down by Mirt’s boots. “Run after him, and smite him cold.”
Mirt smiled. This seemed the best advice he’d heard in some time. Drawing in the breath he’d need for a swift lurch down a passage, he hefted his daggers in his hands, pommels up-and did as he’d been told.
When he looked back at Vangerdahast from above the understeward’s sprawled body, one spiderlike finger was crooking to beckon him back.
Mirt bent down, grabbed a good handful of palace understeward tunic-front, and gave the royal magician a questioning look.
Vangey nodded, so Mirt dragged the man back to the lamplit shield.
“This man’s a traitor to the Crown,” the royal magician explained. “Just whom he’s working for, and to what ends, I don’t know yet-and right now, we haven’t time to try to force answers out of him. And the realm needs answers, not all this shouting and chasing about after disasters have befallen. So, I need you to take him down to the royal crypt for me.”
Mirt shrugged. “As long as the guards won’t try to inter me there, that’s fine with me.”
“Good. Hold still.” The man-headed spiderthing started to climb Mirt’s leg. “I’ll ride on your shoulder and guide you. It should be unguarded, except by the sealing spells, and I can take care of those. We have some empty coffins there, and anyone put in them is held in spell-stasis. I can think of quite a few persons in this kingdom I’d prefer to entomb there until I’m ready to deal with them, but this wretch is a start.”
Mirt chuckled. “Guide me.”
