Paul Kidd - The Council of Blades

"What do you mean it's going on display?"

"Well it's… it's the only painting that's missing!" Lorenzo felt the words being squeezed bodily out of his throat by Miliana's grasp. "Someone must ha-have taken the picture to put up for the ceremony!"

The girl released her victim, turning herself quite green with shock.

"Was it anything like those-those sketches?"

"Um…" Lorenzo tried to see a way to somehow escape with his life. "Um-no…"

Miliana felt a brilliant ray of hope. "No?"

"Well… yes." Lorenzo felt the sweat pour off him as he glanced at the halberd leaning against a nearby wall. "Um-quite a lot like them actually."

Scorched, torn, and wild, Miliana hoisted Lorenzo up to his feet, turned him about, and dragged him toward the ruins of his apartment.

"Come on! Get the painting of the sea goddess! It's going to take both of us to carry it!"

Confused, Lorenzo felt himself being propelled across the rubble by a freckled amazon in skirts.

"Aren't you going to kill me?"

"I'll kill you later. Now help me get that painting back!"

Standing on a balcony that faced off across the Akanamere, Lady Ulia Mannicci stood in splendor, wearing a hat that would have done justice to the goddess Umberlee herself. Puffing out her indignant bosom, the lady watched the brilliant fireworks with an air of irritation and disdain.

"Miliana should be here to applaud this display! Cappa, my dear-where has your unruly daughter hidden herself now?"

Prince Cappa Mannicci scowled and scanned the crowds, then signaled for the services of an aide.

Standing proud and hostile amidst a crowd of haughty elves, the lady of the Yuirwood threw her cloak back from her pale shoulders and pushed free from the crowds to confront her awesome hostess.

Ulia turned to face the elf like a stone giant confronting a sprite. The two women met eye to eye in a strange fellowship of mutual anger and pride.

"I am called Lonereed Silverleaf, of the Clan of Wandering Spray." The slim queen tilted her angry silver eyes. "I have come here as a guest to your house, and I claim a guest's right of justice!"

Ulia's bodice swelled like a galleon's sails before a storm.

"Justice, you ask? Then my dear, it is justice you shall have!" The human woman gazed down from the celestial heights of her pride. "How have you been wronged within my city, and under my roof?"

"Theft!" The elf drew her robes tight against her narrow frame. "My most prized of jewels-a love gift from my people-has been stolen from me. Stolen! And the thief has the insolence to wear the necklace right here before my very eyes!"

"Then this outrage shall be dealt with at once." Ulia took the elven woman by the arm and led her away from the thunderstorm of fireworks outside. "Tell me the identity of the thief."

Lady Silverleaf raised a long index finger and summoned a figure from among her courtiers; Brightlightning Dragonsbane strode forth and knelt before his lady's feet. Lady Silverleaf indicated the man with a wave of her hand.

"My bodyguard and boon companion has followed the thief to her lair."

"Good." Ulia settled her stomach in its spun-steel and adamantine girdle. "Then describe her to me."

"My lady-it is the girl who stood beside you to welcome us into your home." The elven bodyguard showed no small satisfaction in having completed his assigned task. "The short, speckled human female with eyepieces made of glass."

Half expecting outraged denial, the elves swapped cool glances as Lady Ulia swelled up like a puffer fish in imminent danger of detonation. With a look of triumph in her eye, the woman felt all her worst-and, therefore, her most cherished-suspicions confirmed.

"Miliana! I knew the little wretch had two sides to her coin." Sumbria's first lady signed for two of her own guards and two ladies-in-waiting, then beckoned the elves to follow in her wake. "Lady Silverleaf-come! We shall take back your jewel and at last uncover the whys and wherefores of this city's little cat burglar!"

"Tekorii-kii-kii! Tekorii-kii-kii!"

Mad with panic, Tekoriikii fought a ferocious battle in the air. A lean black javelin of feathers had lashed upward from the palace stables, crashing into him like lightning out of a storm. Claws ripped through empty feathers-Tekoriikii beat wildly at a pair of snapping jaws, and then both combatants tumbled free into a sky shot through with brilliant falling stars.

Carrying the massive Sun Gem, and trailing a hundredweight of tail feathers at his rear, Tekoriikii's flight was a thing more spectacular than speedy. Laboring his wings, the bird arced like a comet past the palace towers and nodded his head this way and that, wondering where his enemy might have gone.

"Awk!"

A black streak ripped out of the night and tried to disembowel Tekoriikii with its claws; the firebird tucked in his stomach, let his foe pass under him, then nimbly plucked a fistful of hairs from its tail.

In mating fights-the only combat most firebirds would ever know-the plucking of tail feathers was the coup de grace. Tekoriikii had won a mighty victory! He swooped into a gleeful little victory roll, whirring out his wings in utter joy.

"Tekorii-kii-kii! Tekorii-kii-kii!''

The air shuddered as a skyrocket exploded fifty yards away, the bright flash illuminating a frozen scene of running soldiers, fleeing bats, and broken walls. Having out-flown his opponent and snatched his precious prize, Tekoriikii folded his wings and sped away, crooning in smug self-satisfaction over being the cleverest bird in all Faerun.

The sudden flicker of motion above him came as a surprise; his angry black opponent had returned for another round, quite against the usual rules of courtly war.

Combat between most birds is a purely ritual affair, a test of dominance with death and damage usually far from anyone's mind. Tekoriikii chuffed in annoyance as his enemy streaked in from one side; then abruptly braked to a halt and watched his outraged foe miss its intended strike by a country mile.

The creature was extremely odd in its appearance; long eagle's wings, and a slender feathered neck topped off with a cruel hooked beak. Most strangely of all, the entire rear quarters were sheathed in short, shining hair. Lacking Tekoriikii's beautiful plumes; lacking his poise, his elegance, his brains and grace, it seemed no wonder that the creature fought with such anger in its heart. Tekoriikii powered himself upward in a giddy half-loop, tucked himself into a dive, and found himself racing head to head with his shrieking, frothing enemy. The firebird made to give vent to his deadly battle scream, drew in his breath-

— and looked straight into an astonishing pair of exotic, feminine eyes.

The bird froze, the hippogriff whipped past, and Tekoriikii gave a blink of astonishment as he felt a sudden breeze across his rear. He looked down between his legs, saw his bare naked rump grinning at him without a feather to its name, and moaned a pathetic, bleating little cry.

With his unlikely aerodynamics scattered to the winds, Tekoriikii abruptly made a crash landing straight into the courtyard rubble pile.

Rummaging through the ruins of Lorenzo's apartments for his painting of the sea goddess, Miliana and Lorenzo rose and watched in bemusement as their feathery friend plunged into the ruins of an old eiderdown. Miliana adjusted her tall pointy hat-now scorched, dented, and with its veil torn all awry-and settled her grimy spectacles on her nose.

"Tekoriikii?"

Lorenzo emerged from the shards of his workroom holding a shrouded canvas in his hands.

"Who?"

"Tekoriikii? I think it's Tekoriikii!" Miliana hitched up her skirts and wended her precarious way across the rubble. "Hey, old bird, are you all right?"

"Glub glub! Yonk-squonk glub glub!"