My Road To Mystra
Year of the Broken Blade
The carpet was as soft as tomb-moss under her boots. The tomb-moss of the City of the Dead... which was right where Narnra Shalace would end up, or at least in the Marsemban equivalent—one of the canals for all she knew!—if she didn't get clean away from here.
By Mask and Tymora, of all the deadly foolish mistakes . . . literally leaping into this unknown mansion, full of nobles plotting treason and lady mages who spoke so casually of shattering spells laid covertly by others who'd just left... or had they really left?
Flaming fury of Mask! She had to get away from here, had to ...
Narnra went down that dark and unfamiliar passage like a racing wind, as stealthily as she could at full run, trusting in its straight, uncluttered path to keep from crashing into anything. Statuettes and plants on marble pedestals occurred often on both sides, but the central rug stretched out clear and arrow-straight, on into the darkness, on to ... an ending.
The wall ahead was adorned with a huge statue, pale white and gleaming. An elf female standing amid sculpted ferns like a queen—if, that is, queens went outside wearing nothing but their crowns and haughty expressions—with various naked male elves entwined around her legs and torso, long whipswords in their hands. Their faces, like hers, stared endlessly down the passage in eternal challenge. To either side of this great carved group of elvenkind was a closed door. Narnra drew in a deep breath and without hesitation opened the one to her right as quietly as she could. It opened into—darkness, and steps leading down. Thank you, gods!
As she crept down the unseen steps in a crouch, fingertips brushing one wall, Narnra shook her head. A Red Wizard conspiring against the Crown of Cormyr with this Lady Ambrur! Oh, there must be folk in Suzail who'd pay well to learn about this! Why—
Something caught hold of Narnra's throat and slammed her back against the wall. It was a hand, reaching brutal and unseen out of the darkness below her—and a second hand dug brutal fingers into her elbows and slammed them against the wall too, one after the other, leaving her arms all fiery numbness.
She couldn't snatch at her daggers, couldn't. . . The hands were at her throat and the scruff of her neck, now, dragging her leathers up in a grip that left her whistling and struggling for air.
"You, my little hare with long teeth," the voice of Glarasteer Rhauligan muttered in her ear, "are coming with me."
Narnra's head swam, and she struggled weakly as deeper darkness crept in ... but the fingers never loosened.
* * * * *
The heavy, jarring fall woke her. She was hooded in something that smelled of sweaty man and jolted on Rhauligan's shoulders. The Harper grunted under Narnra's weight, stifled a curse then added in a curt whisper, "Sorry."
Apologizing? To me? A bit late, you bastard!
He broke into a run, hard and swift, bouncing and bruising her but somehow keeping his balance. His boots were on cobbles, now, with the sounds of Marsember all around. More echoes, the distant rumble of cartwheels, some chatter, and a growing din.
Rhauligan carried her into somewhere quieter that stank of dung, rotting fish, and other decaying things, turned a few corners, scraped her boots once against stone, and set Narnra down on what felt—and groaned—like a rickety wooden cart.
She sat still as he fastened something around her neck then set her on her feet and kicked away the cart. Its wheels set up a protesting squeal that ended in a crash of wood against stone. Narnra heard the familiar sound of a rat scuttling through refuse.
His hands were at a buckle, and . . . she was unhooded and blinking in the sudden light of day, gasping as none-too-fresh air was hers once more for the taking. Rhauligan shook out the hood, which proved to be a vest. His vest.
Narnra drew in deep breaths, looking around. She was in a garbage-strewn Marsemban alley, hobbled and with her thumbs and fingers wired together behind her back . . . and the cord around her waist and thighs led up to—she turned, lifting her head to look, and discovered she wore a choke-leash—the underside of a rusty iron outer staircase. The leash led there, too. It looked like the back stair of a warehouse that saw little use but presented an unfriendly, rotting fortress face to Faerun anyway.
Rhauligan, of course, stood not far away—but out of any possible reach, no matter how furiously she might try to strangle herself reaching him.
"Important folk seem very interested in you," he said thoughtfully as their eyes met. "I wonder why."
Narnra shrugged at him through her tangled hair. "I know not," she snapped, "but I do know that I'm not yours nor your Mage Royal's to take and confine like some sort of pet or bauble—just as I was not Elminster's to give!"
"I can scarce believe, she-thief, that you've not yet learned that if anyone can do a thing to you, they've the right to do it—if they stand for law, and you do not."
Rhauligan cast quick glances up and down the deserted, refuse-heaped alley and added, "Brutal, yes, but outlanders like you who deal with the Lady Ambrur are buyers and sellers of information . . . and the whereabouts and doings of Vangerdahast is information that could make you very rich and doom Cormyr at the same stroke. Had the Mage Royal not commanded your capture, I'd be slaying you now, not bandying words with you. I dislike slaying young lasses, but if I must choose between spilling the blood of just one of them and saving a bright realm full of them, my choice is clear."
Narnra glared at him, straining against the wires until her fingers burned, and spat, "So you can sell the information yourself, no doubt, or we'd not be in this alley. I know Waterdeep, not Cormyr. I couldn't even find my way to a gate out of this city unless you let me search for a bit. Who'm I going to sell anything to? And how'm I supposed to know anything useful to sell to a realm full of folk I don't even know?"
Rhauligan's only reply was a wordless, crooked smile.
"So what's going to happen to me now?" she snarled. "Why'm I here?"
"Business meeting," Rhauligan said, looking up and down the alley again. "Important business."
"With?" Narnra demanded, staring around at the deserted, garbage-heaped alley with a skeptical eyebrow arched.
A sensation broke over her then, a creeping and tingling quite unlike anything she'd ever felt before. It was energetic, swift . . . and magical.
Narnra tried to curse, but her tongue seemed huge and heavy, and her suddenly slack mouth not her own. She tried to toss her head and—with a sudden leap of fear—found herself still standing motionless, still gazing just where she'd been looking before.
The invisible, paralyzing force was streaming into her from off to her left, about six paces away . . . where a heap of trash suddenly shifted and rose up with a little grunt of effort, falling away untidily to reveal a woman in trim dark robes, a gentle but noble face, and long flowing auburn hair—one lock of which had gone white.
"With me, as it happens," the woman said gently but firmly. "I believe we've seen each other recently. I'm Laspeera of the War Wizards."
Narnra glared at her, or tried to. War Wizards again, she thought, and I can't even move my mouth to ask, or protest, or ...
Laspeera cast a smiling glance at the Harper. "I'd like to hear what's so urgent that the smooth and urbane Glarasteer Rhauligan races across Marsember like an overeager dog, toting smart-tongued street thieves."
"So you shall," Rhauligan replied and began to pant rapidly, his tongue hanging out.
Laspeera gave him a look. "What's got into you?"
"Revealing my innermost overeager dog, Lady Mage," he replied brightly.
Laspeera sighed, waved one graceful hand, and murmured, "Get on with it, faithful hound. I grow no younger."
* * * * *
Lord Vangerdahast of Cormyr leaned back contentedly from the table. His stomach promptly rumbled, sounding every bit as contented as he was.
The plate on the table in front of him was empty of all but a few smears of sauce, though it had been heaped high with rabbit stew not so very long ago. Good sauce, that. . .
The former Royal Magician of the Realm reached for the plate, leaning forward with tongue extended to lick it clean—but a grinning Myrmeen Lhal reached in under his arm with the speed of a striking adder and plucked the plate away. Vangey's fingertips thumped down on bare tabletop, leaving him blinking . . . then turning with a growl.
"You can thank me whenever you remember your manners," the Lady Lord of Arabel said impishly, heading for the washbasins beside the sink.
Vangerdahast scowled at her, which caused her to lift an eyebrow reprovingly at him, over her shoulder.
Under the force of her disapproving gaze he sighed, waved his fingers as if to banish what he'd just done, and muttered, "Have my thanks, Myrmeen Lhal. You . . . surprise me. I thought you were merely the best of Alusair's mud-spattered, eager she-blades, determined to outfight and outsnap any man."
"Oh my, and here I thought you were just a manipulative wizard driven by whimsy, a hunger for power, and a love of being mysterious and rude to everyone in sight," Myrmeen replied merrily, hurling herself into Vangerdahast's favorite lounge chair.
She bounced once amid its overstuffed, highbacked, and rather shabby comfort—and bent to sniff, frowning in appraisal. Then she shot him a scowl of her own. "Don't you ever wash things? Gods' grief, man! The lice are leaping all over me!"