“You think he’s dead?” Storm asked, by way of reply.
That fair evening, he and Storm were strolling along a sweeping, lamplit street lined with noble mansions, neither of them showing Suzail their true selves.
Eccentric old Lady Darlethra Greatgaunt was known as a collector of curios, and an independent-minded walker and huntress. She was also known to always demand the protection of the wizards of war when she was in “godless, perilous, almost — as-bad-as-Westgate” Suzail. In the form of a lone mage as her constant escort. A handsome, young male wizard, of course.
Wizard of War Reldyk Applecrown was far from the most handsome mage about the palace, and was far from the most powerful. However, he was happily eager to perform the duty, which was more than most of his fellows had been.
It wasn’t that Lady Greatgaunt expected her escorts to set foot in her bedchamber-indeed, she would have been loudly appalled and offended at the slightest hint of such “disgustingly forward” behavior. It was just that she liked to walk. And walk and walk and walk. No matter how foul, crowded, dusty, or stormswept the streets of Suzail were when she started down them, she wanted to walk them all. Setting a steady pace that permitted no dawdling or shopping moments, yet never approached what might be termed “brisk.”
Wizards seldom tended to be walkers for the sake of walking, and very often discovered that the hard, hard cobbles of Suzail’s lanes and byways made their feet hurt. Soon, and a lot.
Wherefore, there was little competition for Greatgaunt escort duty, and Applecrown had spent a long, footsore day-and most of the preceding eight or nine days, too-exhaustively scouring Suzail for a cobble that Lady Greatgaunt hadn’t set elegant slipper upon, yet.
For her part, Storm had worn out three pairs of slippers, had frankly grown tired of nodding politely to each watch patrol, most of them so often that she knew every last Dragon and Crown mage by the informal, daily short versions of their names, and was quite bored enough to tear off her expensive gown, snatch the nearest merchant by the hand, and dance with him the length of whatever street they were on.
Lady Greatgaunt, of course, would not have approved of such antics.
Not that she was soon likely to know someone had borrowed much of her wardrobe and been enspelled into her exact likeness, being as she was lying abed in Mirt’s lodgings, deathly ill after some unknown noble rival-or one of several much younger Greatgaunt heirs, succumbing to an attack of inheritance impatience-had tried to poison her and almost had succeeded.
Yes, her counterfeit had walked even more energetically than the real Lady Greatgaunt, but she and El had really been spending most of the last tenday exhaustively scouring Suzail for traces of a blueflame item, by walking the streets and covertly casting little pulses of magical fire that should send back an echo if such an item was nearby.
If they’d fashioned the spell correctly, that is. Though after centuries of twisting the Weave to myriad uses, very few folk in all the realms were better suited to probing for unusual magics.
“Dead or fled,” El replied now, stumbling in weariness. “I’m about done, lass. Let’s get home. Not a trace of anything strong enough to be a blueflame item, down all these streets.”
He glanced at her eyes. Lady Greatgaunt looked as leathery and indomitable as ever, but Storm’s eyes would tell him what Storm felt like, underneath. She, after all, was the one who’d been anchoring his spells, steadying him constantly; she had to be far more tired than he was. “How are ye, lass?”
“Ready to get home,” she sighed, letting her exhaustion show for a moment. “Rub my feet, when we get back to Mirt? I hope he won’t be roaring drunk this time. His snoring drunk is bad enough.”
“Heh. Don’t ye prefer finding seven or eight warmskirts snoring along with him?”
Storm rolled her eyes. “I do not. Seeing their charms-even when they’re worn out and snoring, too-makes me feel all the older. I’ll grant that Mirt has the stamina of a fresh young stallion. I just wish he didn’t feel the need to prove it every second day or so! One of these nights he’s going to host the wrong lass, and she’ll slit his throat for him and take away everything he’s neglected to nail down.”
“Which is everything,” Elminster agreed. “Well, perhaps tonight will be different.”
It was.
Mirt was happily wrapped in the embraces of a willing playpretty when something that felt like his own weight in cold hard stone struck him on the back of his head and sent him down into darkness.
The coinlass beneath him was still drawing breath for a scream when she got a cloak tossed over her head, then received the same stone-to-head treatment.
Men in leather who were bristling with weapons suddenly flooded through Lord Helderstone’s rooms, two frowning and alertly peering hired wizards among them.
One of whom suddenly stiffened and snapped, “Someone-no, two people-climbing the stairs!”
“I’ll take care of it, Morl,” the other mage said. “Keep your scrying going. I want to make sure we get not just the two we can see, but anyone else, too.”
The blasting spell he hurled down the stairs then was far more powerful than it needed to be, but he had a fee to earn, and a surviving witness was a curse that could haunt you for the rest of your life in this city.
“You got them, Scarmar,” Morligul Downdagger announced with some satisfaction. “Smashed the man right down the stairs and back out of the building. The woman got tangled in the railings, but she’s down. Don’t see any lurkers yet.”
“Keep looking,” Scarmar snapped. Pulling out his paralyzing wand, he waved at six or seven armsmen to come with him.
From the head of the stairs he triggered the wand at the sprawled woman, then told the armsmen, “Get out there and find the man I blasted! I want him back in here fast!”
They raced past in a wild thunder of boots. Scarmar Heldeth followed more slowly with the rest of the armsmen, knowing Downdagger of Highmoon was guarding their rear; in Athkatla, where he came from, folks who rushed into unknown danger were usually soon known as “corpses.”
“Kind of old for a playpretty,” one of the armsmen lifting Storm’s frozen body commented. “Expensive gown, too.”
“Looks noble,” said another.
“They said he has a maid,” a third one put in, “so unless old noblewomen are suddenly hiring themselves out as coinlasses, this has to be her. She’s about the same age as him, right? This is Helderstone’s maid, probably dressed up for a night out.”
“They’re not finding him,” Downdagger said suddenly, staring off into the distance.
“Stlarn,” Heldeth muttered. “I hate loose ends.”
Armsmen were coming back to the doors now. He could see by their faces that Downdagger was right.
He looked at his fellow mage, whose face wore the same uneasiness he was feeling.
“Let’s be gone from here,” he muttered.
Downdagger nodded, then snapped at the armsmen, “Leave the playpretty in the bed, but take Helderstone and his wench to the warehouse-and hurry!”
The armsmen hurried Mirt’s limp body down the stairs to where they’d laid the old woman in the gown, snatched her up, and rushed off into the night.
“We should be with them in case they meet with any watch patrols,” Downdagger muttered as Heldeth laid a staying hand on his arm. “Besides, the reek of yon dung wagon isn’t impressing me.”
He would have been surprised to know a scorched and angry Wizard of War Reldyk Applecrown was crouching in the fresh, wet nightsoil on the other side of the weathered boards of the dung wagon’s side, listening to their every word-and even more astonished to learn that Applecrown was really Elminster, the legendary dragonslaying and throne-toppling Chosen of Mystra.
As it happened, Elminster wasn’t interested in enlightening him. Yet.
“We have to decide what to say about the one who got away,” Heldeth snarled.
“Tell him we tarried for a moment because we knew he was hiding, found the fool, and blasted him to ashes,” Downdagger snapped. “What else?”
“You tell him,” Scarmar Heldeth snapped right back. “He only paid me for one night’s work-and now that I’ve tasted this work, I want to be well away from Suzail before he decides to rid the realms of those who could tell others too much of what he’s up to. Guard yourself accordingly.”
“Huh,” Downdagger sneered. “He dare not do that to me. If I die, half the spells that protect him from
