Эд Гринвуд - Crown of Fire

“Where to?” Mirt rumbled.

“We’ve got to get her out of the city,” the other pleasure-queen said. “There’s no place to hide a woman in a house of pleasure.”

“Don’t ye have cellars?”

“The busiest places of all,” Belarla told him crisply. “Too many men like to pretend they’re in a dungeon—gods know why! No, Oelaerone’s right, Old Wolf. We’ve got to move her from here. Half the soldiers in the citadel will be in and out of here by next morning. My younger girls start coming in just after evenfeast—and the first customers hot on their heels.”

“Or something,” Oelaerone said quickly before Mirt could. “I’ve been in better places to defend against the Zhentarim than this old breeze-box, too.”

“If the Zhentarim discover Shandril’s here,” Belarla responded, “it’s not defending the place we’ll have to worry about—it’s dying well in the few breaths we’ll have left.”

A chill ran through Shandril. Here were yet more folk she’d pulled into danger. Mirt must have followed her to the citadel, somehow, and rescued her … she had hazy memories of seeing him running toward her after the last beholder had finally gone down. He’d brought her to a house of pleasure …. Typical of Mirt.

Her lips quirked, but she was too horrified to smile. These two ladies could be dead before night fell if the Zhentarim found her here …. And who can hide from the magic archmages wield?

The voices downstairs went on. As quietly as she could, Shandril swung her legs over the side of the couch. She felt empty and weak inside, and her arms and one hip were stiff, but she was whole and everything moved properly. Someone had sponged her face and hands clean, but she was still dressed. Experimentally, she held up a hand and gathered her will.

A dull ache instantly smote the back of her head from within—but her hand flamed with spellfire. She was ready for a fight. Stretching and wiggling her fingers, Shandril gathered her courage and slipped out of the room. If she could help it, she’d never bring death to any friends again … the way Delg had found death. Her lips moved in a soundless prayer: gods will it so.

With the air of a man who had expected to ruin a task but had triumphed instead, Mirt passed warm, fluffy towels to Oelaerone. She merely raised amused eyebrows, and Mirt harrumphed at her and reached for the bottle of wine they’d brought him. He took a swig of the ruby red Westgate vintage, sighed lustily, and took another. His lips were still at the mouth of the raised bottle when he saw movement out of the corner of one eye—Shandril, passing the doorway like a wind-driven ghost, on her way to the front entrance.

Mirt choked, coughed good Westgate Ruby all down the front of his clothes, and bellowed, “Shan! Stop! ” The answering bang of the door told him she was out onto the street. Mirt groaned, pulled on his boots, stamping in haste, and snatched up his saber as he hurried for the door. “She’ll be needing me,” he said.

Belarla looked at the drawn blade and reached under the table.

There was a snapping sound as she twisted something free, followed by a grating noise as she slid a long, needle-like blade into view. It gleamed blue in her hand. “Where are we bound?” she asked calmly.

“The Wizards’ Watch Tower,” Mirt rumbled from the doorway.

Belarla raised her eyebrows and sighed. “Ah, well,” she said, as they hurried out. “I was getting tired of Zhentilar men, anyway.”

“A good life, while it lasted,” Oelaerone agreed, slamming the purple door behind them. “Lead on, Old Wolf.”

The time for secrecy was past. Fzoul strode across the antechamber. By the flickering light of the gate behind him, he pushed the eyes of the gasping maiden carved on the wall. Her ivory tongue slid out from between the parted lips, and he pressed it down with one finger. There was a dull grating sound, and the rest of the carved wall—satyrs, nymphs, and all—slid inward and sideways, revealing a dark opening. Fzoul snapped his fingers, and glow-fire swirled into being around that hand. Holding his arm high like a torch to light the way, he set off down the secret passage, excited underpriests hurrying behind him.

The passage was long, cold, and damp. Where it dipped in the center of its run, shallow puddles glistened on the floor. Fzoul ignored them, and the illusion of the lich rising from its coffin to stare at the intruders. He strode on past it—and right through the stone wall behind it. The passage continued into a round room somewhere beneath Wizards’ Watch Tower.

Fzoul set off briskly up the spiral stair there, passing the many closed doors that led off its steps. He climbed round and round until he was quite out of breath—and the stair ended at a door inset with a palely glowing white orb. He touched the door, hissed the word that opened it, and the light in the orb faded away. When it was dark and the door was safe to open, he waved a silent order to the priests behind him. Strong, eager hands slid the heavy stone sideways, and Fzoul stepped into the spell chamber he’d met Manshoon in, once or twice.

A man, the only occupant of the room, turned from studying glowing symbols on the floor. Orbs of shimmering glass floated above the runes, drifting in slow orbits above the symbols they were linked to. Fzoul came to an abrupt halt and said coldly, “I did not expect to find you here, Sarhthor.”

Sarhthor nodded, not smiling. “I could say the same of you, Lord Priest.” He waved at the floor. “I’ve been working spells, trying to trace the maid Shandril—she must be in the citadel still, cloaked by the scrying defenses we’ve built up so carefully. Otherwise, I’d surely have found her by now.”

“Have you set the magelings to searching in person?”

“That’s why you find me alone,” Sarhthor replied calmly. “My time for spitting orders is past.”

Fzoul gave him a sharp look but said nothing. The high priest looked down at the winking runes inset into the floor, and up at the orrery turning ponderously overhead, and finally said, “Well, I suggest we begin to work together, tracking Shandril by magic.” He turned. “Ansiber—you and all other Brothers of Striking Hand rank and greater, attend here to me. The rest of you—split into sixes and eights and search the citadel. Instant elevation to the Inner Ring awaits any priest who brings Shandril to me alive. Rouse the citadel against her!”

There was an excited murmur and a rushing of robes until only a dozen or so priests remained. Fzoul looked at them, nodded, and said to Sarhthor, “Have you any water?”

“The quenching-pool, there; the drinking-ewer, there—and, somewhat used, in the chamber pot behind that screen.”

“The pool will do.” The Master of the Black Altar turned to the priests. “Attend!” he commanded, and they hastened to his side. He pointed at the pool and ordered, , “Prepare it for scrying.”

The priests bent to their work, and soon a thin, dripping disc of water as large across as the span of seven men’s arms floated at waist height in the spell chamber, rippling and glowing faintly.

As he stepped forward to look into it, Fzoul smiled.

“She cannot escape us now,” he said in satisfaction.

Beside him, Sarhthor shrugged. “I’ve thought that before. Yet perhaps this time, we can make sure.”

By the time he caught up with Shandril, three streets away, Mirt was puffing like an old and irritated walrus. He came around a corner to find her surrounded by wary Zhentilar warriors. A patrol, by the black backside of Bane! Well, he reflected sourly, the best thief that ever lived couldn’t wander the streets of the citadel and avoid them forever.