was short, almost like a man’s. She’d tried it long but hated the feeling of it brushing her shouldersnot to mention the feeling of having shoulders in the first place. “Harkhuf?”
Horemkensi blinked and said, “Alas, he is in Innarlith on an urgent errand. But what could we two possibly require of him?”
T’juyu fought not to let her disappointment show. No matter, she thought. She had the head, so what of the fate of the tail?
“You have very lovely skin,” the man said, leaning against the little table, his meal forgotten. “Where are you from?”
“The Chondalwood,” she said, not even bothering to lie.
He didn’t seem to have heard her anyway, as though he had asked the question but had no interest in any answer.
“What brings you to my door this evening, T’juyu?” he asked, and she was surprised that he’d remembered her name. “All this way from the city…”
“Not what,” she replied, “but who.”
He raised an eyebrow, waiting for more.
“I am a gift, my lord,” she said, pleased that she managed not to choke on calling him that. “I was sent by Ransar Pristoleph with his thanks for your efforts on the city-state’s behalf.”
Horemkensi burst out laughing and brought his hands together in front of him with a loud slapping noise that startled her.
“That old scoundrel,” he said. “And here I was worried that that street urchin cum king was going to have me sent home in disgrace, if not killed.”
“But you have done so well here. The whole city is talking about it,” she said, and again it wasn’t easy for her to keep up the pretense. She knew full well that it was another who had brought the growing canal back from the brink of disaster.
He stopped laughing, but smiled still and nodded. He took his eyes away from her and she took that opportunity to move closer to him in just a few small steps. He didn’t look up when she stood only inches in front of him. His eyes traveled up her legs slowly, then lingered in her middle. Uncomfortable in the rough fabric anyway, she let her simple woolen gown fall from her shoulders. He drew in a breath.
“You like what you see?” she asked. “My form pleases you?”
“My compliments to the ransar,” he whispered.
And something about that, and the way he said it, drove the last sliver of patience from T’juyu. She couldn’t wait for the man to look her in the eye on his own accord. He obviously had no interest in her eyes or her face. He reached out to touch her and she let him, forcing herself to lean in closer. With the tip of one finger under his chin she drew his face up to meet hers. He smiled playfully and she thought again how handsome he was, but how dull and lifeless were his eyes.
She stared deeply into those dull orbs and held him, reaching out with her gaze, then with her mind, then with a power that rose up from the core of her being like a tide slowly rising under the gentle but relentless influence of Selune.
T’juyu wasn’t the slightest bit surprised when the man fell under her spell. She robbed him of the ability to move.
“Don’t be afraid, Little Lord H,” she whispered into his still, confused face. “To be quite honest, this is more about me than it is about you.”
He could hear her, she knew that, but she didn’t get the feeling he quite understood what was happening to him, let alone what was about to happen.
“I came from the Chondalwood,” she told him, “because the water nagas had made an arrangement that made my kind very, very nervous. We don’t like water nagas, you see. But then I spent some time listening, some time understanding, and it’s occurred to me that, despite how this hole in the ground might benefit the naja’ssynsa it seems I was on the wrong side.”
He tried to shake his head, to tell her he didn’t understand, not to break the eye contact that held him rigid and helpless before her. The spell wouldn’t let him look away.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” she asked.
His eyes told her she was right.
“That,” she whispered into his ear, letting the eye contact break, “is only one of the reasons why I’m killing you.”
He started to move, but only the slightest twitch before T’juyu let her fangs grow out from her human gums. The long, needle-like teeth sank deeply into the warm, soft flesh of his neck and she let her venom pour into him.
22
3 Marpenoth, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR) The Palace of Many Spires, Innarlith
'Oh… oh, Ransar…” the alchemist babbled as he was hustled into the lavish sitting room by one of Pristoleph’s black firedrakes. “Please, my lord, oh, please allow me to explain. I beg you. I didn’t think… I mean, I didn’t realize… I don’t know…”
He doesn’t know what he’s defending himself against, Pristoleph thought, rolling his eyes.
The black-armored soldier let go of Harkhuf’s arm and the alchemist dropped to his knees, his green-stained hands shaking and scrabbling at the fine Calishite rug. He was dressed in dingy gray undergarments and a tattered weathercloak. His face was sweating and great brown stains showed under his arms. From the state of his hair and the redness in his eyes it was obvious that the black firedrakes had roused him from a sound sleep. It was well after middark after all.
“Calm yourself,” Pristoleph said, but the groveling man hardly seemed to hear him.
“Harkhuf, really,” Marek Rymiit scolded, almost as though Harkhuf were his own unruly child.
It was only then that Harkhuf seemed to notice that the Red Wizard was in the room. He scrambled to his feet and crossed to where Marek sat and Pristoleph could see his knees bending ever more with each step.
“There is no need to bow to me, Harkhuf my friend,” the Thayan said, and Pristoleph imagined his next words might have been: “At least not in the presence of the ransar,” but the Red Wizard left that unsaid.
“Sit down, man,” Pristoleph said, taking a seat himself on a particularly garish, massive wingback easy chair of Waterdhavian design.
Harkhuf took two steps on weak knees and collapsed on a foot stool in front of Marek, looking for all accounts like a dog caught soiling his master’s rug.
“I assume we had to wake you, this evening?” Pristoleph said.
“Oh, oh, no, Ransar, no, not at all. Not at all,” the alchemist replied around a hissing, toadying laugh that made Pristoleph’s skin crawl. Marek rolled his eyes behind the alchemist’s head.
“Since you were sleeping,” Pristoleph pressed on, “I will assume you have not yet heard of the death of Senator Horemkensi.”
“The… what?” Harkhuf said. If it was possible for his face to get any whiter, it did just then. “The what… of… who? Who died?”
“You heard him,” Marek said.
Harkhuf tried to look at both of them at the same time and appeared almost more regretful of having sat between them than he was of the word of his master’s death.
“How?” he asked in a voice as small as a little girl’s.
“He was murdered,” Pristoleph said.
“Poisoned,” Marek added.
“No,” Harkhuf whispered, his bloodshot eyes bulging. “Oh, blessed Azuth, you can’t possibly believe that I had anything” He threw himself to the floor, pushing the foot stool toward a startled Red Wizard, and commenced a most unseemly groveling. “Oh, Ransar, I beg you. I beg you to hear my defense. I was not even there when it
