by Ed Greenwood
Laeral spun around so abruptly, this time, that her own swirling hair didn't quite have time to get out of her way. She plunged three racing steps through it, back the way she'd come.
Right behind her, huge ceiling stones smashed down onto the new tiles with a booming impact that shook the entire mansion, sent dust swirling up into the air all around, and almost threw the Lady Mage from her feet.
Hah-finally, a trap more worthy of a Chosen of Mystra!
Laeral smiled at that thought, and her own foolish shy;ness in conceiving of it, and kept her gait smooth and her face calm as she slowed to her normal lilting walk, ignoring the shards of tile skittering across the floor in all directions, their clatter almost louder than the rattle of chains as the ceiling stones started their slow journey aloft. . unbloodied. Laeral suspected that if she turned around to look, she'd see their hardened surfaces carved into smiling jester's faces, or something of the sort.
On the other hand, the dark figure standing in front of her was something of a cruelly smiling jester himself from time to time, though that was probably not a description he'd enjoy hearing.
Caught out in the open, he made no move to dart behind cover this time, but shifted one hand to a pendant-probably some sort of magic-and the other to the hilt of a slender sword at his hip. Rings winked with brief magical fire on that hand, but Laeral's smile merely broadened a trifle.
"Elaith," she asked pleasantly, "are you merely amusing yourself here, awaiting your chance to rum shy;mage the broken body of a Chosen who's tasted one trap too many, or have you something to say to me? Something involving slaves, perhaps, or drow, or the merchant Labraster?"
Elaith Craulnober's soft smile matched her own. The elf whom Waterdeep called the Serpent spread his empty hands with lazy grace.
"I mean no harm to the Lady Mage of Waterdeep," he announced in a voice that was almost a purr, "and must admit I began my walk in your wake purely for … enter shy;tainment purposes. If it's Auvrarn Labraster you're seeking, I must tell you that my professional contacts have confirmed his arrival in Silverymoon last night." Laeral raised an eyebrow. "Truth?"
The Serpent spread his hands once more, in a mockery of a courtier's flourish. His easy smile broadened so much that it actually reached his wintry eyes-something Laeral had never seen before. "Lady, would I dare lie to you!"
"You'd lie to Mystra herself, Elaith," she replied. A smile was still on her lips, but her eyes were boring into his.
The Serpent took a smooth step back, his face falling into a half smile. "Naetheless, lady, I do speak truth," he replied gravely. "More than that, I can add just as honestly that Labraster and I do not have dealings with each other. Friendly, professional, or otherwise."
They stared at each other in measuring silence for a long moment before a trace of mockery rose to dance in the elf's eyes. "May I add, Great Lady, that your lack of confidence wounds me?"
Laeral gave him a tight little smile and lifted a slen shy;der hand to point across the gloomy great hall at sev shy;eral spots along its balcony rail. Elaith's had not been the only stealthy movements she'd seen this last little while. "And these, wounded one? You just happened to bring a dozen men along when you went for a stroll this evening, I suppose?"
"My associates," Elaith replied smoothly, lifting his hand in a swift, intricate gesture. A signal.
Laeral turned to watch grim men and half-elves rise into view from behind the ornately carved railing, loaded hand crossbows held ready in their hands.
"Naturally they trailed after me, fearing for my health when consorting with so known and great a danger of the city as yourself, lady."
"Wise of them," Laeral replied sweetly, gliding for shy;ward with sudden speed to plant a kiss on Elaith's cheek that burned.
As the Serpent stiffened and staggered back, clap shy;ping a hand to his cheek, Laeral circled to keep him between her and the hand bows along the rail.
"Mind they keep those little darts clear of me as I go, Serpent," she said pleasantly, her voice raised to ring across the lofty hall like a trumpet. "Any pain I feel in the next hour or so, you will also feel."
She smiled almost merrily into elf eyes that glittered with swift anger, blew the Serpent a kiss, and strolled unmolested out of the hall.
Hurrying feet pounded down a balcony stair, and a man in leathers as dark as the Serpent's own came up to his master in haste. His low voice, when it came, was urgent with alarm.
"Sir?"
Elaith Craulnober stood unmoving, still staring after Laeral. At his henchman's query he reached up to rub his cheek once more. Peering, the man saw that it was puckered up in a fresh welt, a silver-hued burn shaped like the imprint of a lady's lips.
"I've got to get me some of that silver fire, Baeraden," the Serpent said softly, his fingers carefully tracing the burn now, rubbing at it no longer. "Even if it means serving a misguided mage-goddess."
The duty apprentice of Blackstaff Tower stared at the Lady Mage of Waterdeep as she strode past his sta shy;tion clad in the torn and tattered remnants of gaudy, ill fitting men's clothing, but wisely said nothing. Briion Dargrant said even less when Laeral turned back to his table, plucked up two specimen jars, and from various places about her ridiculous, and frankly revealing ruined garb produced a handful of odd hairs and another of what looked like pipe ash. She put each carefully in a jar and shut lids upon them firmly, then ordered crisply on her way past him to the passage again, "Touch those not."
Briion did, however, turn to stare as the lady of the tower tore off her gaudy rags until they lay pooled on the floor of the passage and she wore only boots, knives strapped to her in various places, and her long, unbound silver hair.
Looking back over her shoulder at him-the appren shy;tice swallowed and hastily lifted his gaze from her rounded rear to her eyes-Laeral added, "Burn these rags ere I return."
She gave Briion a smile that he knew was going to bring him fitful sleep during the night ahead, and ducked through an apparently solid wall, into yet another secret passage he hadn't been told about.
The duty apprentice swallowed, shook his head, then scurried to pluck up the ruined clothing from the floor. Diligent obedience was a virtue, as the saying went. He shuddered to think of his fate if Khelben should pass by. Briion's eyes widened, not much later, as the brazier devoured the last of the rags and his nose told him that in addition to the unmistakable musk of a jungle cat just like the one he'd shaped under Khelben's supervi shy;sion less than a month ago, the clothing bore more than a trace of night viper poison. The study of venoms as spellcasting components was Briion Dargrant's proud specialty, and there could be no mistaking its distinc shy;tive, almost citrus scent. Just where had the Lady Mage been, and what had she been doing?
"Kissing serpents," came a soft voice from just behind him, and he stiffened in horror at the realiza shy;tion that he must have asked that question aloud-and that the Lady Laeral had returned and heard him. "But not the sort you're thinking of."
To that cryptic comment she added in a murmur, "I don't think we need mention your task, or my arrival just now, to anyone at all. Do you?"
Briion Dargrant swallowed with difficulty as the Lady Mage scooped up the specimen jars. She was resplendent now in a flowing, long sleeved gown but, his flickering eyes didn't fail to notice, she was bare shy;foot. With a heroic effort he managed to say, his voice ridiculously solemn even in his own ears, "Lord Khelhen shall hear nothing from me, Great Lady."
The grin Laeral gave him then was both despairing and affectionate. Briion swallowed several times rap shy;idly as she ducked through a spell-concealed archway-this one he did know of-taking the jars with her. He was going to have disturbed dreams tonight, by Azuth's Seven Mysteries, and that wasn't, he decided with a grin as he turned back to his scrying globes, going to necessarily be that bad at all.
The deepest spellcasting chamber of Blackstaff Tower was empty of all but old burn scars before a tight-lipped Laeral dragged in two stone pedestals
from an antechamber. If Labraster was involved in dark dealings energetic enough to rouse the Serpent into spying on him-to the extent of invading his man shy;sion with considerable armed strength-but well hidden from the informants that kept Blackstaff Tower supplied with whispers of dastardly deeds afoot in the city, he was more than a smuggler or a slaver.
Much more.
Someone had been watching her, somehow, in the cellar and in Skullport. She knew that with certainty, though she hadn't even realized she'd sensed it until now, almost as if a spell had worn off.
A spell a Chosen of Mystra could miss feeling?
Frowning, the Lady Mage of Waterdeep said a rude word. She uttered it far more calmly than she felt. She hugged herself for a moment, running long fingers up and down her arms, then shook herself and began to move with brisk haste. Setting the hairs from the man shy;sion on one pedestal and the pipe ash on the other, Laeral spread her fingers over them, and closed her eyes.
Brief radiance played about her fingertips, and two of the hairs wriggled away from the pile and drifted to the floor.
Laeral opened her eyes again. Everything that was left had come from, or been in intimate contact with, the same human male. If she was fortunate, a much more powerful spell could now use these discards to trace-and spy upon-the absent Auvrarn Labraster. If she was unlucky, they'd lead her to a servant, or per shy;haps some merchant who'd recently visited Windpennant Pillars,
Laeral frowned again. Why was a feeling of forebod shy;ing growing strong within her? One merchant, after all, with no known dark history of misdeeds or penchant for swaggering menacingly around the docks with a large force of hireswords in tow. . why was she so uneasy?
"Mystra preserve," she murmured, and thrust aside dark thoughts.
Laeral looked into the antechamber to be sure no apprentice was going to come bustling in with a mes shy;sage in the midst of her casting, drew in a deep breath, and carefully cast her spell.
The scrying sphere that looks upon the spellcasting chambers flashed once, but thereafter remained dark. Briion Dargrant nodded calmly. The lady was conducting some sort of research with the oddments she'd brought back. He turned back to the writings Khelben had given him to go over, and did not look up until a scrying sphere burst with a flash and flame that hurled him and his stool over backward amid singing shards of glass.
Blinking amid the wreckage as loving tendrils of smoke flowed down over the edge of the table to envelop him, Briion did not have to clamber back up to know which globe had shattered.
"Oh, Great Lady!" he gasped. Tears started into his eyes, and he fainted.
Running feet almost trampled him a breath or two later. Apprentices poured down the passages and stairs of the tower, shrinking back against the walls as a black whirlwind snarled past them and plunged down into the depths.
They started to run again in Khelben's wake, feet thundering down stone steps and racing along the narrow ways to where bright light was raging in the depths. There they came to a halt and stood staring in sudden, panting astonishment, one by one. Astonish shy;ment. . and growing fear.
The largest, deepest spellcasting chamber of the tower no longer had a door. Its arch stood empty, the door now a smear of dripping metal on the wall across the passage. Through the gaping opening, over the black and trembling statue of their master the Blackstaff, the staring apprentices could see that the cham shy;ber held leaping, clawing lightning amid scorched nothingness. A single ribbon of silver flame danced among them.
As the folk of the tower watched, the lightning became fitful, then slowly died away, leaving only the silver flame struggling alone in the darkness. Lord Khelben turned around then to face the apprentices, his face like white marble, with two terrible flames as eyes.
"It would be best," he whispered with terrible gentle shy;ness, "if all of you went away. Speedily."
He turned slowly back to face the ruined chamber without another word. By the time the Lord Mage of Waterdeep faced the flame again, he was alone once more. As the old MageFair saying put it: "Apprentices moved by fear can move swiftly indeed."
Khelben drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and stepped grimly into the room where the flame danced ever more feebly, to shape a spell he thought he'd not have to use for years.
"Only someone of great power could have wrought such a spelltrap," he said grimly, as he stretched forth his hand to let what was left of his lady take the life-force she needed from him, to survive. "The last such I tasted was the work of Halaster the Crazed."
The silver flame coiled around his forearm almost affectionately, and the familiar voice he'd cheerfully die for, any day of any year, spoke in his mind.
True, my lord, and this one feels like his work, too. He who spies on all in Skullport must have watched Qilue and this your favorite lady when we fared thence. Now shape me a body again, that I might speak to Alustriel without delay.
"Some women," Khelben growled affectionately, his voice trembling on the edge of tears, "will do anything to get in some gossip."
Alustriel
When a Good Man Loses his Head
There are some who hold that the High Lady of Silverymoon is a deluded dreamer, doomed to fail in her fair craftings because she thinks too highly of the good in folk, and too little of the evil that lurks always near at hand. I am not one of those.
Reld Barunenail, Sage of the Histories from The View from Secomber: Musings on the Years to Come published circa the Year of Maidens
It was a very calming ceiling to stare at, and Alustriel of Silverymoon was staring at it now, lounging back in her chair to lose herself in the delicately painted panels and curving vaulting. Cracks gave the masterpiece character, like the cracks that afflicted and weakened the city she'd shaped. Her eyes followed the vault rib that plunged down in a smooth curve from ceiling to wall to become one of the two pillars framing the door. It was through that door that all urgent troubles came, sometimes jostling each other for attention, to shatter her moments of solitude here. Alustriel gave the door a wry look. It was closed now; trouble was overdue.
Sometimes she felt like a caged panther, prowling restlessly and endlessly along the bars that confined her. Outside this room was a palace, and around the palace stood the city some called the Gem of the North. Her Silverymoon, a walled refuge against the dangers of the wilderlands, and her cage for many a year. Just recently though, it seemed a larger cage beckoned her to let herself out into wider roaming, in a possible union of the Moonlands and the risen dwarf holds.
A folly, some said, but then, what folly is there in striving to bring a measure of security and happiness to even a tiny corner of Faerun? Even if it all ended in bloody failure, leaving behind only legends to echo down the years to come, the attempt would have been worth something in itself. Would be worth something, always, for a striving, however flawed, outstrips empty dreams and the sloth of not having tried to shape or create anything worthy at all. Yet would not the same argument be championed by a tyrant invading a realm he deems decadent, or any woodcutter carving asunder an elven grove?
"Alustriel," she told herself calmly, "you think too much."
She sometimes thought it was the endless leaping and weaving of her rushing thoughts that made her weary, and drove her to seek moments of silence, alone, like this. By the grace of Mystra she no longer needed to sleep, but the wits of every Chosen grew weary of grappling with problem after problem, and memorizing spell after spell; their power a constant roiling in the mind.
"Oh, dear me," she told herself aloud, stretching like a dancer to show full contempt for her own weariness. "Is the High Lady to be pitied, then? Does she want something purring and affectionate to cuddle, and a world without cares to do so in? Well, she'd better join the stampede-"
The air off to the left shimmered and became a float shy;ing, star shaped mirror-sweet Mystra, she'd set it off again!
" 'Cuddle,' " she told it severely, "was perhaps not the wisest trigger word to use."
Obediently, the mirror winked back to nothingness again, but not before it had captured and flung her own image back at her. She beheld a slender beauty of a woman whose emerald eyes were winking with amuse shy;ment as she wrinkled her lips wryly, and guided the tresses of her long silver hair-moving seemingly by themselves-to smooth back the shoulders of her fine dark gown. Gracefully, of course; a certain sensuous grace, some termed it. She was not called "Our Lady of Dalliances" behind her back for nothing.
"Oh, have done!" Alustriel moaned to herself in amused despair. "Enough of teasing and preening and hot and avid eyes. You came here to be alone, idiot, not pose and imagine yourself slinking along in something that will be the height of fashion from now until per shy;haps. . dusk. Think of what you have wrought, not whom you've touched."
The High Lady rolled her eyes, then let them wander again. They followed that plunging vault rib once more, pausing at the arch of the still thankfully closed door. She'd not yet had any arms put up over that arch, despite the eagerness of the palace heralds. Realms were more than names and banners. They were folk thinking themselves part of a place, and she hadn't managed that, yet. This was still, first and foremost, Silverymoon, a haven in the wild and savage North.
There came a single knock upon the door-light, almost apologetic-then it swung open. She knew that knock, and permitted herself a mirthless smile, for just a moment before the man entering the room could see her face. Late for its cue but not unexpected, fresh trouble had come at last.
Taern Hornblade was Master Mage of the Spellguard of Silverymoon and Seneschal of the High Palace, but even the heralds had to think to recall those precise titles. To one and all in Silverymoon he was simply Thunderspell (or, less respectfully and at a safe distance, "Old Thunderspells"), Alustriel's faithful right hand and counselor. He was an astute if stodgy diplomat who ran with calm efficiency what passed for the Shadow Watch-what some southerly realms called "secret police"-of Silverymoon. The problems he brought to his beloved High Lady were never minor, and in recent years Alustriel, accustomed to conducting friendships and intimacies with many folk, had been surprised to realize just how much she'd come to love him.
