by Kate Novak
“Well,…” Cat hesitated and looked down at her lap, then she looked up again. “Do you know what adventurers mean when they say someone was kissed by Selune, Master Giogioni?”
“Well, Selune is the goddess of the moon, so I thought it meant I was born under a full moon or something. Sort of like being born under a lucky star.”
Cat shook her head. “Sometimes it’s used to describe a person who goes a little mad. Usually, though, it means a person cursed with lycanthropy.”
Giogi paled. “You mean like werewolves?”
Cat nodded. “Or wererats or tigers or bears.”
“Wererats or tigers or bears? Do you think that’s why I have those awful dreams about hunting things?”
“Have you ever noticed if they’re stronger when the moon is full?”
Giogi thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I’ve never really kept track. No, it’s too preposterous. I’d know if I was a lycanthrope. I’ll admit that sometimes I get in late after imbibing a little too much grape and things are pretty foggy the next morning, but I’ve never come home in torn clothes covered with blood. And tonight’s a full moon, isn’t it? I haven’t shaved since this morning, but I’m not looking any hairier than usual, am I?”
“Sometimes such curses don’t show up until a person reaches a certain age. Twenty, usually.”
“I’m twenty-three.”
“Sometimes twenty-five or thirty.”
“Then what about Aunt Dorath? She has the same dreams.”
“She does?”
“Well, she did. She said I had to ignore them.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Cat said. “Our dreams tell us important things about ourselves, and sometimes the gods talk to us in them. Do you plan to go back to this Mother Lleddew to find out more about your father and the spur?”
“Yes, the girl in the temple said to try again tomorrow afternoon,” Giogi explained.
“May I come with you?”
“I think it would be safer if you stayed here, so we don’t run the risk of Flattery spotting you.”
Cat looked down at her lap again. “I can’t hide in your home forever, Master Giogioni,” she whispered.
Giogi was suddenly aware of the pounding of his heart. He wanted to say that he wished she could, but he bit back those words. “Just a little while longer,” he assured her. “When we’ve found the spur and locked it safely away again, Flattery will give up and go home. If not, well, I’ll get Sudacar’s advice. He’s the king’s man. He’s supposed to preserve the peace. He’ll know what to do.”
Cat looked up and smiled weakly, but Giogi was afraid he hadn’t reassured her.
“Do you think that if your uncle did know more about the thief, he might have written it down somewhere?” she asked.
“Of course!” Giogi said, smacking his head. “He kept a journal. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. He kept it in his lab.”
“Perhaps, if you don’t think it’s too personal, you could let me help out by reading through it, to save you time while you visit Selune’s temple. Maybe, too, you could ask Mother Lleddew to perform a divination for you.”
“Steele was supposed to be getting that done this afternoon. He may already have learned something. I’ll ask him. The list of things I have to do is getting pretty long, isn’t it? I know it’s not very late, but I’ve had a long day, and I should be getting to bed so I can get an early start tomorrow. Would you think me a terrible host if I left you on your own?” Giogi asked.
“Of course not,” Cat said. “I’m tired as well.”
Giogi escorted the mage from the candlelit dining room to the hallway. He felt very odd following her up the stairs. While he’d offered her his protection without hesitation, no other woman except his mother had ever stayed in his house before.
Cat halted by his bedroom door and turned to face him.
Giogi, feeling very awkward, stopped short and clasped his hands nervously behind his back. “So, you prefer to stay in the lilac room, then?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s too lovely to resist.”
“I’ll let Thomas know in the morning.”
Cat stepped closer and stood on tiptoe to brush her lips against his. “Good night, Master Giogioni. Sweet dreams,” she whispered.
Giogi blinked hard. “Good night,” he replied weakly.
Cat turned and walked down the hall to the lilac room. She let herself in and closed the door behind her without looking back. Giogi stood in place for several moments. With a sigh, he entered his own room.
It wasn’t until Giogi had finished undressing that he remembered that he meant to stop in at the Fish to look for Olive Ruskettle and ask her about Alias of Westgate. “Bother,” he muttered, “I’m just too tired. It’ll wait until tomorrow,” he decided, sliding between the sheets.
As exhausted as he was, the nobleman lay awake for a long time, afraid to fall asleep and dream. If only Cat’s wish of sweet dreams for him could come true, he wouldn’t feel so anxious.
He thought he heard Cat crying once, and he hovered on the edge of the bed for several minutes, debating whether he should leave her to her privacy or go in and try to comfort her. The crying subsided before he’d made up his mind. Part of him was relieved, since offering comfort to a lady in the middle of the night could be misinterpreted, but part of him was disappointed he’d missed his opportunity to show he cared. He got back into bed feeling agitated and unhappy. He sat propped up against the headboard, listening for any further sounds from the lilac room.
Finally, unable to resist the silence and his fatigue, he drifted off, still sitting up. As the guardian had threatened, the dream came.
As usual, he soared over the meadow. The field was different tonight, though. It was the meadow atop Spring Hill, and the House of the Lady stood in the center. A great black bear stood on the temple stairs. The young girl acolyte ran through the meadow. Giogi had no control over the dream. His flight was quick and smooth, and the girl didn’t stand a chance. She dodged and darted like a rabbit, but, in the end, Giogi dropped down on her with his rending claws. She shrieked with the death cry of all the other prey in his dreams.
Giogi started awake. He was drenched with sweat but very, very grateful he’d missed the end of the dream.
Then he realized he still heard the shriek. It came from Cat’s room.
Olive’s Investigation
Giogi leaped out of bed, burst from his room, and dashed down the dark corridor to the door of the lilac room. Before he got there, the shrieking had stopped. Bursting into a lady’s room could prove awkward, but the silence coming from the room seemed even more ominous to Giogi. He flung open the door without knocking.
Cat had lit a fire in the fireplace, but a few glowing embers were all that remained. Dressed only in his nightshirt, Giogi shivered with cold. Moonlight streaming through the windows silhouetted everything in the room. The mage, looking pale and shaken, sat up in her bed.
“Are you all right? What’s wrong?” Giogi asked.
“There was someone in here!” Cat gasped. “He tried to smother me with a pillow!”
“Where did he go?”
“Through the wall!” Cat cried, pointing to a spot next to the fireplace. “Like a ghost!” The woman’s cool, analytical manner had crumbled. She sounded terror-stricken.
Giogi turned up the wick in the lamp on the dressing table, and lit it with a bit of burning straw from the fireplace. He drew aside a silk wall hanging, but there was nothing behind it but wall. He tapped it. It sounded solid.
“I’ve never heard of a ghost in this room before,” Giogi said.
“What did he look like?”
“Like Flattery,” Cat said with a sob. “But that’s impossible.”
“Is it?” Giogi asked, uncertain.
“If Flattery were trying to kill me, he wouldn’t leave the job half-finished,” Cat insisted. “He wouldn’t have needed a pillow, either.”
Gi
ogi positioned himself prudently at the foot of Cat’s bed. She now wore one of his mother’s nightgowns, and though it was a prim flannel thing, it was, after all, only a nightgown. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Cat lowered her head and nodded. Her long, loose hair veiled her face, but from the way her shoulders shook, Giogi could tell she was crying.
Damn propriety! the nobleman thought as he rushed to her side. “It’s all right,” he insisted, sitting beside her on the bed and wrapping his arms around her. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Cat laid her head against Giogi’s chest and hugged him close. It was a full minute before her sobbing subsided. Then she sniffed and pulled gently away from his arms. “I’m sorry to be such a coward, but I’ve cast all the magic I can for the day. I’m helpless until I’ve slept and studied.” Her voice quivered, and Giogi was afraid she would go to pieces again.
“Anyone would be upset by what you’ve just been through,” Giogi replied. He stood up. “I think you should wait here,” he said.
“Where are you going?” Cat asked with alarm, grabbing at his arm but stopping herself.
“I’m going to get Thomas and search the house,” Giogi said. He lit a second lamp and carried it with him out into the hallway. Halfway down the stairs, he met Thomas hurrying up in the darkness.
“Sir! I thought I heard a scream! Is something wrong?” the servant asked.
“Yes, Thomas,” Giogi explained. “Someone attacked Mistress Cat in her room. We may have a burglar or worse.”
“In the red room, sir? Are you sure?” Thomas asked.
“No. Someone in the lilac room. Mistress Cat preferred it to the red room, just as I thought she might, so I invited her to use it instead. Someone tried to smother her, but fled when she screamed. She says her attacker went through the wall, but she may have been confused or the attacker capable of magic. In any case, we ought to search the house.”
Thomas nodded and moved up the stairs toward Giogi. “Perhaps we should start in the lady’s room,” the servant suggested.
“I was just in there, Thomas. I told you, the intruder fled when Mistress Cat screamed.”
“There may be, um, footprints, or some other evidence, sir,” Thomas offered.
“Hmmm. You’re right,” Giogi agreed. He turned around and marched back to the lilac room with Thomas right behind him. The door stood open. Cat had risen from the bed and wrapped herself in a robe. She stood staring out the window at the grounds below.
Giogi knocked on the door frame to announce his presence. The mage whirled around, brandishing a small crystal dagger.
“It’s just me, with Thomas,” Giogi said.
Cat gave a relieved sigh. She crossed the room to stand at Giogi’s side and lean against him.
Thomas nodded politely to Cat before entering the room. “Perhaps I could use that lamp, sir,” he suggested.
Giogi handed him the light. As the nobleman stood beside Cat, watching his servant investigate the windows, something brushed against his legs. Giogi let out a cry and jumped aside.
A large black-and-white cat looked up at him and meowed with annoyance.
“Spot! Thomas, it’s Spot.” Giogi said, picking up the large tomcat and brushing its face fur. The cat began purring immediately.
“Is it possible, Mistress Cat,” Thomas asked with an exaggerated patience, “that Spot tried lying on your face and you mistook him for a smothering pillow? When you screamed, he would have jumped away. His shadow in the moonlight could have been mistaken for a larger figure. When he landed, he would have disappeared from your sight and perhaps slunk beneath a piece of furniture.”
“It was not a cat,” Cat insisted.
“Someone must have sneaked in somehow, Thomas,” Giogi said.
“I will check all the doors and windows, sir, though it is also possible that someone broke in magically, in which case, they would undoubtedly have left by that way as well.”
“Well, Thomas, we’d better have a look around, just in case.”
Master and servant went through every room in the house but turned up no forced or broken windows or doors, nor any house-breakers. Giogi dismissed Thomas and trudged back upstairs to the lilac room.
“Nothing,” he reported to Cat. “Is it possible Flattery might have sent someone else to do his dirty work, someone less competent than he would be?”
Cat paled. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Perhaps.”
“I think, just to be safe, you had better sleep in my bed. I’ll stay in here.”
Cat nodded. Giogi escorted her to his room. He checked behind all the curtains and wall hangings and under the bed. “All clear,” he said.
“I don’t know if I can sleep,” Cat said.
“You must try. I’ll be right next door if you need me.” Feeling a little more confident, Giogi bent over and kissed Cat on the forehead before he turned and left the room.
Back in the lilac room, Giogi sat on the edge of the bed, wondering if Thomas could be right about Cat mistaking Spot as her attacker. The nobleman certainly hoped so, for the lady’s sake. But suppose Thomas had been wrong. Who but Flattery would want to harm the mage? Cat felt sure that Flattery wouldn’t have failed if he meant to kill her, but suppose the wizard had meant his attack as a warning? Suppose Flattery were trying to frighten Cat into returning to his side?
I have to find some way to protect her from him, Giogi thought with determination. He lay in bed debating whether or not to tell Sudacar about Cat and Flattery. Before he came to a decision, though, he fell asleep. Despite the nobleman’s anxieties, no more screams or dreams disturbed his rest.
Maela’s boarding house, where Olive had taken a room for the winter, catered to an exclusive clientele. While Maela’s rates were reasonable, and her home clean and comfortable, not everyone would consider crossing her doorstep. Maela was a halfling, and she kept a halfling-sized townhouse in the heart of Immersea.
Olive could have stayed at a room in the Five Fine Fish. The Fish was at the center of Immersea night life and where Jade had chosen to stay. The attractions of the Fish could not compete with the comfort of living at Maela’s, though. At Maela’s, a halfling didn’t need to scramble onto the furniture or use her hands to scale the staircases or stand on tiptoes to see out the windows or climb upon chairs to slide door bolts shut. Maela’s low ceilings were enough to make Olive feel safe and cozy. The nicest thing about Maela’s house was its larder, which Maela kept well stocked and unlocked.
Olive’s first action upon returning home to Maela’s the night before had been to visit that larder. The remainders of that raid lay on a plate on the dressing table in Olive’s bedroom. Olive popped another piece of ham into her mouth and licked her fingertips clean before turning back to the mirror at her vanity table.
Last night she’d soaked and scrubbed at her hands and feet for half and hour before she was satisfied they revealed no trace of the catacomb muck she’d been through the day before. Upon waking this morning, she’d inspected her best gown carefully, stitched up a tear in the lace, and rubbed away a spot of extra spicy mustard before she slipped it over her head. Now she brushed her auburn hair until it gleamed and every stray bit of straw had been removed.
With a disgusted crinkle of her nose, the halfling rummaged through the pile of dirty, smelly clothing at the foot of her bed until she had fished out her quilted vest. Holding the vest on her lap, she turned out an inner pocket and unclasped the pin fastened there for security.
The pin, a miniature harp and crescent moon, had been a gift from the Nameless Bard—Finder Wyvernspur, Olive reminded herself. Tossing the vest aside, she reached for the jar of silver polish she’d borrowed from the larder. She removed every trace of tarnish from the jewelry and buffed it to a brilliant luster. Finally, taking a deep breath, Olive pinned it to her dress, right over her heart.
She had never actually displayed the Harper’s symbol before, which some people would have found remarkable, conside
ring the potential for exploitation the pin presented her. Though little was known of the Harpers, rumors regarding their power and good works were widespread enough that their symbol of membership could gain a person instant respect—though not necessarily safety.
Olive understood, however, that possession of the symbol alone did not make her a Harper, even if another Harper, Nameless, had given it to her. Nameless was a renegade, after all. Olive was shrewd enough to realize that another Harper might not look favorably on someone impersonating one of their number, and the farther north she traveled, the greater the likelihood that she would run into a real Harper. So, even though it lent credence to her claim of bardhood—since most Harpers were either bards or rangers—common sense outweighed ego and she had always kept it hidden.
Until now. This is an emergency, Olive thought, and no snooty, goody-goody Harper is going to keep me from seeing justice done. Besides, I’m only planning on doing what a real Harper should be doing—eliminating a menace.
Years of dealing with human prejudices had left Olive unwilling to leave justice in the hands of authorities. She doubted that any of them, even Harpers, ever felt any concern for people like her and Jade. She couldn’t trust them to believe her story about Flattery or do anything about him.
She knew Giogi Wyvernspur was different, though. She would take Giogi into her confidence. Giogi, she figured, will be flattered if he thinks I’m a Harper, and it would never occur to him to check into my credentials. As far as he knows, I’m a bard of some renown, and Cat’s already prejudiced him against Flattery. It won’t be hard to convince him of the truth.
Besides, how can he deny assistance to the woman who restored the wyvern’s spur to his family? Olive thought, tossing her hair and watching it shimmer in the mirror. The halfling couldn’t help but realize that once Flattery was dealt with, the gratitude of a Cormyrian noble, even one as minor as Giogi, could be extremely useful.
