by Kate Novak
After the hasty wedding ceremony with the only attendant being a wobbly priest of Mystra, goddess of magic, Flattery had become irrationally angered by her request to have the gem. He demanded she prove her worth before he restored her memory to her. Then he assigned her the task of sneaking through the Immersea catacombs to fetch the wyvern’s spur from the Wyvernspur family crypt.
Eager to get her hands on something the wizard truly desired, something she could barter for her memory, Cat didn’t think twice about entering the secret door to the catacombs. It felt good to be away from the undead and free of Flattery’s nerve-racking presence. She even enjoyed encountering some of the monsters that lived in the catacombs. They were awful, but at least they were alive; you could talk to them and bribe or trick your way around them.
Finding the spur missing came as a crushing blow to all her hopes. Finding her escape blocked hardly seemed to matter. Trapped inside those horrible tunnels, without even the comfort of having succeeded at stealing the spur, she wandered as aimlessly as any monster. As she wandered, Cat began to reevaluate her last few months. She decided she could have done better.
Then she’d stumbled across Drone’s nephew, Giogi. Giogi’s offer of protection had been pretty amusing. Even if the nobleman found the spur, he didn’t stand a chance against Flattery. She knew that Giogi’s Uncle Drone could be a powerful ally, though. Flattery had taken the trouble to warn her how shrewd Drone was and how cleverly he’d warded the crypt against magical entry and scrying. After talking to Giogi, Cat fell upon a plan: In exchange for information on Flattery and his plot to steal the family’s heirloom, Cat had hoped to get Drone’s help stealing the crystal that held her lost memory.
To Cat, Drone’s death had been nearly as big a blow as finding the spur missing from the crypt. Giogi’s chances at finding the spur did not look very good to her, but he was her only hope. If Flattery found the spur first, she would have nothing to barter for the memory crystal—until the wizard found some other, possibly even more dangerous or distasteful, way for her to prove her “worth.”
Then someone had tried to smother her in her sleep. In the moonlight it had looked like Flattery. Frefford and Steele Wyvernspur both resembled Flattery, but neither of them had any reason to kill her, and she doubted that either of them could walk through walls.
Flattery could have been playing some sick game or testing her loyalty. Or he might have decided to make himself a widower, in some mad fit of anger or jealousy, and then changed his mind.
On top of last night’s shock had come Olive Ruskettle’s accusations about Flattery killing that Jade person. Giogi seemed to trust Olive completely. At Thomas’s mention of the halfling’s name, the nobleman had raced down the stairs with positive excitement. No one challenged the halfling’s claim to be a bard, even though Cat was pretty sure halflings were not accepted at barding college, but then Cat hadn’t known that Harpers accepted halflings into their organization, either.
Then, when confronted with the accusation that he’d been responsible for Drone’s death, Flattery not only did not deny it, but joked about it. That had been the final blow. Cat realized she was an absolute fool to trust him.
Finding the spur was no longer enough. She had to find the power to ensure herself against Flattery’s power and deceptions. Olive Ruskettle’s amulet of protection had been her first lucky break. The halfling convincing Giogi to bring her to Drone’s lab had been her second.
Even if Drone’s journal did not reveal information on the spur’s whereabouts, Cat could loot from it enough magic to guarantee her survival.
And, if Giogi reaches Mother Lleddew in time to learn whatever she knows but which Flattery does not want Giogi to learn, then manages to bring that information back to me, Cat told herself hopefully, I may even have some power over Flattery.
The mage could not deceive herself about Giogi’s chances, though. They were very, very small. He’s so aimless and ridiculously romantic, she thought. One knock on the head, and he thinks he’s been kissing a goddess, for heaven’s sake. Even with a potion of superheroism in him, he’s not likely to be much of a challenge against Flattery’s hordes of undead. Still, I’m obeying Flattery’s suggestion to use him to get what I want. Now, if I could only concentrate on the task I’ve set for myself.
She couldn’t, though. The silly fop’s face kept appearing in her mind’s eye, wearing her earring and hair-beads and that priceless headband. She kept hearing his voice offering her his protection and telling her it was going to be all right and begging her not to die.
He cared about her. For all Cat knew, he was the only person in the Realms who ever had.
She also kept hearing him describe his dreams—the death cry of prey, the taste of warm blood, and the crunch of bone. For no good reason she could think of, the words excited her. In her own dreams, she was always fruitlessly searching dull desertscapes for something. She never knew what the something was. The dreams left her unhappy and anxious. Flattery denied having any dreams. He claimed they were for the guilty. How could such a weak fool as Giogi have such interesting dreams?
Cat looked down again at Drone’s journal, but her elbows were in the way. “Damn!” she muttered. The swig of invisibility potion she’d swallowed had worn off already, which meant she’d been staring into space far too long.
Outside the tower she heard the rattle of a carriage. She ran over to a window and looked down. Giogi and Ruskettle were driving away. They’d finished lunch already, servants had loaded the carriage with packages for Drone’s memorial service, and the halfling and noble were leaving for Selune’s temple.
I’ve been staring into space far, far too long, Cat thought with a frown.
She flipped through Drone’s journal. It was merely a day-to-day diary. There were no spells written within, no formulas for magic potions scribbled in the margins, no treasure maps stuck between its pages. Page after page accounted family squabbles, purchases, meals, and rumors from court. The last entry was dated the twentieth of Ches, yesterday, just before Drone was killed. The full entry read:
Giogi arrived at last night’s meeting twenty minutes early, astonished Dorath. Boy looks fit. Traveling must agree with him. Didn’t get a chance to speak to him alone. Thomas went to meet his girl, but she never showed. Taught Spot a new trick. Gaylyn up all night with contractions. Frefford a wreck. Dorath in her glory. Healthy baby girl born after dawn—Amber Leona, named for both the parents’ mothers.
Breakfast burned.
Nothing, Cat thought with a sigh. An ordinary day in an ordinary castle. Arrivals, departures, births, deaths, the love affairs of servants, the muddling of a meal. A boring life.
A peaceful life, some other part of Cat’s mind argued.
The mage slammed the journal closed. She surveyed the lab impatiently. Where are his spell books? she wondered. Were they destroyed with their master? Which of the undead that Flattery commands can cast a spell of disintegration?
Cat took up Gaylyn’s catalog. What sort of wizard lets his possessions be cataloged in a pink book with pressed flowers on the cover? she thought disdainfully.
Yet, as she stared at the flowers beneath the crystal plate fastened to the catalog binding and thought of Gaylyn, she knew she was envious of the life the Wyvernspurs lived. They got to be happy—she would have to settle for surviving and, with Tymora’s luck, regaining her memory.
Cat spent half an hour sorting through the stacks of paper, gathering the most powerful spell scrolls and potions she could find. Dust billowed as she moved piles of documents, but her stack of magic grew steadily.
Then she came upon a stack that was missing a scroll—a scroll that held a disintegrate spell. She double-checked the pink book, but everything else was in place. “How odd,” she murmured.
“Don’t move,” a man whispered harshly in Cat’s ear. The point of a dagger pressing lightly against her jugular vein compelled the mage to obey. The dagger’s owner stood behind her. “One word, on
e move,” he said, “and you’ll be dragon bait, understand? Now hand over the spur.”
Cat remained speechless and motionless.
Her attacker shook her by the shoulder. “Did you hear me, witch? I said hand it over.”
“You also said don’t move and don’t speak,” Cat pointed out with a mocking tone, “so I’m just a trifle confused.”
“You’ll be a trifle dead if you keep acting smart, you little ass,” the man said. With his dagger still pressed into her flesh, he moved around her so that they stood face to face.
Cat shuddered when first confronted with the man’s face-Flattery’s face. After a moment, she saw it wasn’t Flattery, though. The man was too young, too nervous, and he had a birthmark by his lips. He was Steele, the kobold-torturer.
“Now, give me the spur and don’t try anything. My uncle was a wizard, so I know all your foolish conjurer tricks.”
“I don’t have the spur,” Cat objected.
“Don’t lie to me. I was at the inner stair door. That halfling freak locked it, but her people aren’t the only ones who can pick locks or listen at doors. I was listening. I heard Giogi call you a little ass, and he was right. Only an ass would risk her neck to save that idiot. The divination said the spur was in the little ass’s pocket. Now, reach into your pocket very slowly and pull it out and hand it to me.”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Master Steele. I haven’t got the spur. Maybe the divination referred to the little burro that Master Giogi had yesterday. A burro is a small ass, you know. It’s missing, though, like the spur, I’m afraid.”
“Asses don’t have pockets!” Steele shouted angrily. “Now give me everything you’ve got in yours.”
“I have to put these scrolls and this book down to use my hands,” Cat said.
In a fury, Steele knocked the book and the scrolls out of Cat’s arms.
“Now, that pocket first,” the nobleman ordered, pointing to the right-hand side pocket of her dress’s skirt.
One at a time Cat pulled out three potion vials she’d removed from Drone’s shelves. Steele knocked each one to the ground, where all three smashed to pieces. Cat bit her upper lip angrily but remained silent.
“I want to see you turn the pocket out to prove it’s empty,” Steele said.
“There’s something else in there,” Cat replied.
“Give it to me.”
“Very well.” Cat drew out the last item and held it out for Steele’s inspection.
“What is it?” Steele growled.
“Something inflexible, Master Steele,” she said, inscribing a circle in the air with the small iron nail she held. At the word “inflexible” the tip of the iron bar sparked and the nail vanished.
Steel tensed to lunge, but he was transfixed by the mage’s spell. He stood as still as a statue with his one hand reaching for the magically expired nail, the other still holding the knife. Cat pulled away carefully from the Wyvernspur’s blade. Steel remained immobile. Hastily the mage gathered up the scrolls she’d dropped and stuffed them into a sack. She wiped the broken potion vial glass and liquid as thoroughly as she could from the cover of Gaylyn’s catalog and left the book on Drone’s desk.
Snatching up her fur muff, Cat backed toward the outer stair’s door. “Apparently that’s one trick you didn’t learn from your uncle, hmmm, Master Steele? Mages call it ‘hold person,’ spell component, a small piece of straight iron.”
Cat laughed and was turning toward the door when something heavy cracked across her temple. The blow felt as if a fireball had exploded in her skull and left a fire raging there.
Cat collapsed to her knees as a woman’s voice said, “We know the trick ‘hold mage,’ though. Spell component, a stout stick.”
Cat felt a pinprick at her throat.
“This pin’s coated with poison. If it breaks your skin, you’ll be dead,” the woman’s voice warned. “Now, release Steele,” she demanded.
Despite the agonizing pain in her head, the mage managed to recall the magic word. “Willow,” she whispered.
Steele sprang back to life, half falling forward, jabbing at the empty air with his knife. He caught himself and straightened up. “Good work, Julia,” he said. “You managed to tear yourself from your peasant lover, I see,” he added with a sneer. “You’ve hobbled up here just in time.”
Julia, Steele’s sister, Cat remembered. She must be as crazy as he is, the mage thought. Julia drew her poison pin away from Cat’s throat, but Cat remained kneeling on the floor. The fire in her skull made any movement too excruciating, and the light in the room was too bright to open her eyes.
“Aunt Dorath’s been looking for you everywhere,” Julia said anxiously. “She’ll check up here any minute now. You are going to catch Nine Hells if she finds you here. You know she’s put the room off-limits.”
“Nothing will be off-limits to me in a moment,” Steele said. He pointed at Cat. “Check her pockets. She’s Giogi’s little ass. She has the spur.”
“What are you talking about?” Julia asked.
“Just do as I say,” Steele ordered.
Using the large staff she’d used to club the mage, Julia lowered herself clumsily to one knee. Keeping her poison pin pointed at Cat, Julia ran her hands through the folds of the mage’s gown until she came on an item. Julia drew out a silk scarf wrapped around a lumpy bundle—the amulet of protection against scrying and detection.
Through clenched teeth Cat growled, “My amulet.”
Slipping her pin into the bodice of her gown, Julia stood and unwrapped the material. “Eeeew,” she said, sniffing at the contents of the scarf with disgust. From the five pieces of dried, cured meat she selected the largest chunk. It was the size and shape of a baby zucchini, and uglier than a three-month-old sausage. “Steele! It is!” she cried excitedly. “It’s the spur!”
Steele strode forward, but Julia stepped back, pulling out her poison pin and holding it out warningly.
“You can’t fool me, Sister, dear. I know you don’t have poison on that pin. You’re too tender-hearted.”
“I do have the sleeping sap you gave me, though, which works just as well for my purposes. I helped you, Steele. Remember what you promised,” she demanded.
“Yes, yes. All right. Now give me the spur.”
“On your honor as a Wyvernspur, swear it.”
Steele huffed. “On my honor as a Wyvernspur, you have my permission to marry any jackass you please. It could be a Calimshan merchant for all I care. Now hand the spur over.”
Cat opened her eyes against the stinging light just in time to watch the spur tossed across the room. It looked like a piece of brown, dried meat someone had kept in a knapsack for a few years too long. Steele snatched it from the air. His laughter sounded like Flattery’s.
Frefford burst into the room. “What is going on here?” he hissed. “Aunt Dorath said she heard glass breaking.”
Gaylyn came in behind her husband. “Julia, you shouldn’t have climbed all the way up here with your ankle. It could get worse …” Gaylyn’s chiding died on her lips and she blanched when she spotted Cat kneeling on the floor.
Frefford looked down at what had upset his wife. “Mistress Cat, are you all right?” he asked, dropping to his knees beside the mage. “What happened?”
“Hit on the head,” Cat muttered. Her head throbbed too much to say more, but she rose shakily to her feet with the Wyvernspur lord’s assistance.
Gaylyn, aghast, stared at the pin in Julia’s hand. “Julia, what have you done?” she gasped.
“Steele’s found the spur,” Julia said, pointing at her brother as if his discovery would explain everything.
“And now its power will be all mine,” Steele declared.
“Steele, it doesn’t work that way,” Gaylyn insisted, trying to keep her voice calm and steady. “Uncle Drone explained it to me the night before he died. Only one of the guardian’s favorites can use the spur safely. Put it down, please.”
Ca
t focused on the spur. It was ugly for an artifact, but its power was already obvious. Blue sparks were shooting from its surface between the fingers of Steele’s fist.
“Oh, no,” Steele said. “I’m not buying that silly story, Gaylyn, dear. The guardian is a family myth only someone as foolish as Giogi could possibly believe in. I am not letting that idiot get his hands on the spur. I don’t care if Drone wanted to give it to him. I found it. It’s mine.”
Steele held the spur with both hands and raised it above his head. “I can feel its power already,” he said. The blue sparks were now bolts of blue light, which flickered down Steele’s arm.
Aunt Dorath huffed into the room and pushed past Frefford and his wife. Like a mother who’d found her little child playing with a dagger, Aunt Dorath fixed Steele with a hard glare. “Steele Wyvernspur, you put that thing down this instant,” she commanded angrily.
Steele just laughed. His arms began to glow blue, and the light bolts spread down his torso.
“It’s happening. The power is mine. I can do anything.” Steele jumped up to the shattered window’s sill.
“Steele, no!” Julia screamed.
“Watch this, Sister, dear,” he said gleefully. He pushed open the broken window’s casement and spread his arms wide.
“Fluff-fluff,” Cat whispered just as the Wyvernspur leaped from the tower.
Aunt Dorath and Frefford dashed to the window. “He’s just floating down!” Frefford gasped.
“What?” Julia cried. “Then it works? The spur works?”
Cat bolted for the door and dashed down the outer staircase. Behind her she could hear Aunt Dorath shout, “Frefford, get down after Steele! Get that cursed thing away from him!”
