Part 27 (1/2)

I went on like that to myself as I reached into my pocket and felt for the material component. I had one tiny leather strap left and pulled it out.

And dropped it.

I grabbed for it but missed. I twisted around and stared down into the moonlit cloud tops, seeing no trace of it now.

After I got my breathing under control again, I carefully pulled the leather cuff tie out of my left sleeve. I fas.h.i.+oned it into a loop, gripped it in my fingers until a bull could not have pulled it loose, and hoped the improvisation would not hurt the spell. I closed my eyes and dismissed the old levitation spell.

I went into free-fall again, the wind whipping around my body into every part of my clothes. I managed to turn facedown, into the rush toward the clouds. My eyes ran with tears from the wind as I watched the cloud tops grow steadily larger. Then I panicked and tried to start the spell. The wind made speaking impossible.

I tried to turn so that I fell on my back, faceup, but couldn't get it right and started to spin in the air. Nearly mad with fear, I shut my eyes and began the spell again. I must finish this spell, I thought, growing dizzy and nauseated from spinning. I made the gestures, uttered the words in a shout, and tossed the loop into the air. I opened my eyes at the same moment.

I saw clouds above me-clouds with the moon looking through them. Instantly my body began slowing down. I'd done it!

Then I rolled and saw a forest come up to hit me. I had been just a couple of seconds too slow.

As I heard it later, I lived because a bride ran off on her wedding night. The groom and his family and the bride's family were combing the woods by their farm, searching for the bride (who was hiding in the hayloft with her old boyfriend instead) when I fell through a large pine tree and crashed practically at their feet. Half of those present ran off, thinking I was a monster, and the rest wanted to kill me for the same reason. Fight or flight, the ancient question.

The one who approached me with a knife saw that I looked human enough and was very badly banged up, so they relented and merely tied me up to bring me back into Waterdeep, to deliver me to the watch in case there was a reward.

I came to in my own house, two days later. Every part of my body ached abominably. Someone dabbed at my face with a wet cloth.

”Excellent,” said a familiar voice. ”Bounces back like a professional. Once a watchman, always a watchman.

Priestess, would you please wait outside for a moment?”

”You,” I said through bruised lips. It hurt to even think about speaking.

The soothing wet cloth went away. Someone left the room as a pair of boots walked across a wooden floor, and Civilar Ardrum appeared in my vision. His face bore a number of pale scars across it, one of them crossing his right eye. ”You'll be fine in a few days. The watch picked up the tab for the beetling spells. We found that little boat about two miles outside of town, to the east. Kindling.

You wouldn't even recognize it. I didn't recognize the scattered remains of the guy in it, though he did have the most remarkable coded papers on him, which your a.s.sociates in the order translated for us.”

”How is it,” I managed, ”that you are here? Alive?” Ardrum held up his right hand and carefully pulled off the glove. A bright silver ring shone out from his third finger. His entire hand and visible arm were covered with healed-over scars, like his face.

”The Priceless Circlet of Healthful Regeneration,” he said. ”Found it in Turmish when I was younger. And your ring is .. . ?”

I licked my lips. ”Unfailing Missile Deflector.” ”Ah, so that was why the trap gunne did nothing to you. We are lucky that we are careful shoppers.” ”What about the papers? From the flying s.h.i.+p?” ”From the spelljammer, you mean. You know about spelljammers? No? We'll chat sometime when you're well. The half-ore priest in the s.h.i.+p-yes, a half-ore, with lots of disguising bits to look as human as possible-was the ringleader of a smuggling group. They were bringing gunnes and smoke powder into Waterdeep and selling them to unsavory groups. They were alsotrafficking disguised gunnes from Lantan to the Savage North, apparently to humanoid armies there. The Yellow Mage was about to stumble across their whole operation. Then he got the wrong delivery, one of the special gunnes being delivered from wilds.p.a.ce. The new guns fire several shots in rapid sequence using clever springs and mechanisms.

You could call them 'machine gunnes,' I suppose. The half-ore's had been enchanted for absolute silence. He was the Yellow Mage's killer. We burned his body so no one can bring him back.”

I just stared at the halfling. ”You're not serious.”

”Ah, but I am,” Ardrum said. ”You and I broke the back of the operation and nearly died in the process.” He frowned. ”Of course, we haven't found the exact source of their supply in wilds.p.a.ce, but we have contacted the Lords of Waterdeep, and one suggested that elements of a scro fleet left over from the Second Unhuman War might be in orbit around Toril. Sounds like a mission for someone else to handle, some burly heroic sorts but not us, the lowly foot soldiers against crime.”

Scro, unhumans, wilds.p.a.ce-I hadn't a clue as to what he was talking about. ”I need to rest,” I finally said.

”But of course, and so you shall, good Formathio. So you shall. But do not be long about it. We will need your help in finding out how the gunne smugglers were disguising their s.h.i.+pments, and no one could tell us better than you, the expert in illusions. I'll be round tomorrow at noon. See you then.”

He started to go. ”Oh.” He came back and carefully placed a bottle on the small table beside my bed, looking at it with a faraway gaze. ”And when I return, we shall finish off your bottle of Dryad's Promise, which you left behind elsewhere, and drink a quiet toast in memory of fallen comrades and deeds long ago.”

Civilar Ardrum looked back at me and actually smiled. ”And a toast to those who have fallen-and survived.” He patted the bedpost, then turned and quickly left me to the ministrations of the priestess and her fellows.

I had a million questions, but I was very tired. It had been anything but a grand night in Waterdeep. I closed my eyes, and dreamed of nothing at all.

THE DIRECT APPROACH.

Elaine Cunningham.

Skullport, an underground city hidden far below the streets and docks of the more respectable port of Water-deep, was one of the few places on the Sword Coast that offered wary welcome to the drow. Elsewhere, the dark elves' fearsome reputation earned them the sort of reception otherwise reserved for hordes of ravening ores; in Skullport, a drow's night-black skin merely guaranteed that she could walk into the tavern of her choice and not have to wait for a table.

Dangerous and sordid though it was, Skullport appealed to Liriel Baenre. A few short months before, she'd been forced from her home in Menzoberranzan, that fabled city of the drow. She'd just finished a dangerous trek across the northlands and led a successful raid on the stronghold of a rival drow faction. The next part of her journey would soon begin, but Liriel had a few days' respite to relax and enjoy life. In her opinion, Skullport was a fine place to do just that.

It boasted all the chaos of her hometown but lacked the inhibiting customs and the ever-vigilant eyes of its priestess rulers. Uriel's stay in the underground port had been brief, but long enough for her to learn that anything could happen in Skullport. And usually did.

Even so, she was not prepared for her midnight visitor, or for the strange manner in which this visitor arrived.

Earlier that evening, Liriel had retired to a comfortable chamber above Guts and Garters, a rather rough-and-tumble tavern renowned for its dwarf-brewed ale and its bawdy floor show. This was her first quiet evening since entering Skullport, and her first opportunity to study the almost-forgotten rune lore of an ancient barbarian race known only as the Rus. Liriel's interest in such magic was pa.s.sionate and immediate, for in two days she would sail for far-off Ruathym. There lived the descendants of the Rus, and there Liriel would learn whether this rune magic could shape the destiny of a drow. Much depended upon her success, and she was determined to aid her chances by learning all she could about the people and their magic.

After several hours of study, she paused and stretched, catlike. The sounds of the tavern floated up to her: the jaunty dance music, the mixture of heckling and huzzahs, the sound of clinking mugs, the occasional brawl-all muted by thick stone to a pleasant murmur. Liriel did not desire to join the festivities, but she enjoyed knowing that excitement was readily available should the spirit move her to partake. Besides, the noise made an agreeable counterpoint to her reading. With a contented sigh, the young drow lit a fresh candle and returned to her book, absently tossing back a stray lock of her long white hair as she bent over the strange runes.

In any setting, dark elves survived only through constant vigilance. Liriel, although deep in her studies, remained alert to possible dangers. So, when the garish tapestry decorating the far wall shuddered and began to fade away, she responded with a drow's quick reflexes. In a heartbeat, she was on her feet, a dagger in one hand and a small, dangerously glowing sphere in the other.

Before she could draw another breath, the wall dissolved into a vortex of s.h.i.+mmering light-a magic portal to some distant place. Liriel's first thought was that her enemies had found her. Her second thought was that her enemies were definitely getting better.

She herself had been well trained in dark-elven wizardry and was no stranger to magical travel, but never had she seen anything like the silent storm raging before her. The colors of a thousand sunsets glimmered in the whirling mist, and pinpoints of light spun in it like dizzy stars. One thing was clear: whoever came through that portal would be worthfighting. A smile of antic.i.p.ation set flame to the drow's golden eyes, and every muscle in her slight body tensed for the battle to come.

Then the portal exploded in eerie silence, hurling multicolored smoke to every corner of the room. The magical gate disappeared and was replaced by the more mundane tapestry, before which stood a most peculiar warrior.

Liriel blinked, wondering for a moment if a barbarian marauder had somehow stepped off the tapestry's battle scene. The figure before her was more like some ancient ill.u.s.tration, brought improbably to life, than any being of flesh and bone that Liriel had yet encountered.

The drow stared up-way up-at a human female warrior. The woman was taller than the elven girl by more than a foot and was at least twice as broad. Fat braids of flame-colored hair erupted from beneath a horn-bedizened bronze helm and disappeared into the thick reddish bearskin draped over her shoulders. Apart from these garments and a pair of knee-high, s.h.a.ggy-furred boots, the warrior was virtually naked. Leather thongs bound weapons to her person and held in place a few strategically placed sc.r.a.ps of metal-studded leather. The woman's skin was pale, her muscles taut, and her curves of the sort usually encountered only in the fantasies of untried youths and libidinous artists. In fact, the warrior's curves, costume, and theatrically grim expression suggested to Liriel that this woman was supposed to be part of someone's evening entertainment. Obviously, she'd missed a turn somewhere on magic's silver pathways.

”Nice entrance,” Liriel observed dryly, ”but the floor show is in the main tavern.”

The barbarian's sky-colored eyes flamed with blue heat. ”Do you take me for a tavern wench?” she roared. The warrior batted aside a wisp of glowing smoke and squinted in Uriel's direction. With a slow, ominous flourish, she drew an ancient broadsword from its scabbard.

Tossing back her helmed head, she took a long, proud breath-dangerously taxing the strength and expansion capacity of her scant leather garments-and lifted her sword in challenge. Remnants of the luminous smoke writhed around her, adding significantly to the overall effect.

”Behold Vasha the Red, daughter of Hanigard, queen of the ice water raiders, captain of the Hrothgarian guard, and hired sword arm of the Red Bear Clan,” the warrior announced in a voice that shook the windowpanes and promised doom.

Liriel got the feeling that this introduction was usually met with groveling surrender, but she was not overly impressed by her visitor's credentials. That broadsword, however, was another matter entirely.

Candlelight s.h.i.+mmered down the sword's rune-carved length and winked with ominous golden light along its double edge. Liriel's dagger, which was long and keen and coated with drew sleeping poison for good measure, seemed woefully inadequate beside it. The drow observed the furtive, darting path that the barbarian's eyes traced around the room, and a.s.sumed that the human had been temporarily blinded by the brilliant light of the magical portal.

With a sword that size, however, precision was not vital to success in battle. The drow's wisest course would probably be to toss her fireball and settle the damages with the innkeeper later. It'd be messy, but there was something to be said for a quick resolution in such matters. So Liriel hauled back her arm for the throw and let fly.

”Runecaster!” spat the barbarian woman scornfully. Her sword flashed up and batted the glowing sphere back in Liriel's general direction. To the drow's astonishment-and infinite relief-the fireball dissipated not with the expected rending explosion, but an apologetic fizzle.