Элейн Каннингем - Elfsong

“Lovely night for second-story work,” he observed in a casual tone, and handed her a goblet. “That jump was most impressive. But tell me, have you ever miscalculated the rope’s length?”

Arilyn shook her head, then absently tossed back the contents of the goblet. Danilo’s eyes widened. The elven spirits had a kick more powerful than that of a paladin’s mount, but his delicate-looking companion might as well have been drinking water.

“We’re leaving Tethyr,” she stated, plunking her empty goblet on Danilo’s table.

The Harper mage placed his own goblet beside hers. “Oh?” he asked warily.

“Someone has placed a bounty on your head,” she said in a grim tone, giving him a heavy gold coin. “These were given to any assassin willing to take on the job. One hundred more to whoever makes the kill.”

Danilo hefted the coin in a practiced hand and then let out a long, low whistle. The coin felt to be about three times the normal trade weight; the amount Arilyn named was a substantial sum. He glanced at the markings on the coin’s face; it was artfully embossed with an unfamiliar pattern of runes and symbols. “It would seem I’m attracting a better class of enemies these days,” he observed wryly.

“Listen to me!” Arilyn clasped both his forearms and gave him a little shake. The intensity in her blue eyes drove the last bit of mirth from the young man’s face. “I heard someone singing your ballad about the Harper assassin.”

“Merciful Milil,” he swore softly, at last understanding the situation. He’d written the ballad—an appalling bit of doggerel—about their first adventure together. The facts were well and truly disguised, and although it did not identify either Arilyn or him as Harpers, the very mention of that society of “meddling Northern barbarians” could create a good deal of resentment in the troubled land of Tethyr. For months he and Arilyn had worked to undermine a plot to replace the ruling pasha with a guild alliance, he from within the wine merchants’ guild, and she in the dark underworld of the assassins’ guild. All this he had undone with an ill-considered ballad. Danilo silently cursed his own stupidity, but out of habit he hid his emotions behind a frivolous quip.

“The locals express their musical preferences rather forcefully, wouldn’t you say?” He cut off Arilyn’s exasperated rejoinder with an upraised hand. “I’m sorry, my dear. Force of habit. You’re right, of course. We must ride north at once.”

“No.” She reached out and touched one of his rings—a magical gift from Danilo’s uncle, Khelben Arunsun, that could teleport up to three people back to the safety of Blackstaff Tower, or elsewhere if the wielder so chose.

Danilo knew from experience how much Arilyn hated magical travel. If she was willing to resort to it, the situation must be grave indeed. He snatched up his swordbelt and affixed to it the magic bag that held his wardrobe and travel supplies, and he quickly thrust his three spellbooks into the bag. He absently dropped in the assassin’s coin and then reached for her hand.

The half-elf took a step backward and shook her head. “I’m not coming with you.”

“Arilyn, this is no time to be squeamish!”

“It’s not that” She took a deep breath as if to steady herself. “Word came from Waterdeep today. I’ve been assigned another mission. I leave in the morning.” The magical alarm began to pulse again. Arilyn snatched up the magical globe and peered into it. Three shadowy figures moved toward the edge of the roof, just two stories above them. Arilyn tossed the alarm aside and cast a glance toward the open window. “There’s no time to explain. Go!”

“And leave you to face them alone? Not bloody likely.”

Her answering smile didn’t reach her eyes, and she touched the gray silk sash at her waist that proclaimed her rank in Tethyr’s assassins’ guild. “I’m one of them, remember? I’ll say you were gone. No one will challenge me.”

“Of course they will,” he snapped. Assassins in Tethyr rose through the ranks by killing someone with a higher-ranked sash. Arilyn had been forced to defend her reluctantly worn sash more than once.

The rope she’d left hanging outside his window began to sway as someone inched down it toward his room. “Go,” Arilyn pleaded.

“Come with me,” he demanded. She shook her head, implacable. Danilo snatched the stubborn half-elf into his arms. “If you think I’d leave you, you’re a bigger fool than I am,” he said, his words racing against the approaching danger. “This is hardly the moment I’d have chosen to mention this, but damn it, woman, I love you.”

“I know,” she replied softly, clinging to him in turn and searching his face for an intense second, as if to commit it to memory.

Arilyn eased out of his arms and lifted one slender hand to stroke his cheek. Then she doubled her other fist and drove it into his midsection. Danilo went down like a felled oak.

As he struggled to draw breath, he felt her fingers on his hand, twisting the ring of teleportation that would send him back to Waterdeep. He lunged for her wrist, intending to drag her along to safety, but the teleportation spell engulfed him, and his fingers closed on a whirl of white emptiness.

When Danilo arrived in the safety of Blackstaff Tower’s reception hall, his first impulse was to return to Tethyr immediately. His magic ring, however, would not grant him that power again until daybreak. Khelben could send him back, Danilo realized, and when he could muster enough breath to move, he lurched up the curving stone stairway to the archmage’s private chambers. Khelben was not at home, nor was his lady, the mage Laeral. Danilo made a quick search of the tower, with the same result. He was alone, and thoroughly stuck in Waterdeep.

The Harper hurried back down to the reception hall and flung himself into the chair at the small writing table. He scratched a quick note to his uncle telling him what had occurred in Tethyr. Danilo cast a spell that made the paper float at eye level near the room’s entrance. For good measure, he placed an aureole of sparkling pink lights around the parchment, so that Khelben could not fail to see it upon his return. Meanwhile, Arilyn was alone in Tethyr, and there was not a thing Danilo could to do to help.

Helplessness gave birth to frustration, and suddenly the Harper could no longer abide the symbolic purple he wore. He stripped off his amethyst rings and thrust them into the magic bag on his belt, but the fact remained that he was still dressed like a “walking grape.” He strode out of the tower and through the second invisible door that allowed passage out of the polished black stone wall surrounding it. At a brisk pace he headed toward the townhouse he’d recently purchased. There he could discard the purple reminders of his mission in Tethyr and await his uncle’s summons. For the last two years, both Danilo and Arilyn had received their missions directly from Khelben Arunsun; surely the archmage could tell Danilo where Arilyn had been assigned to go.

As he walked, Dan mentally kicked himself for leaving his magical globe behind in Tethyr. It was a small scrying crystal that he’d adapted into an alarm, but with it he could probably discover how Arilyn fared. Just before the ring of teleportation had carried him away from Tethyr, Danilo had caught one last glimpse of her. Sword drawn, the half-elf had faced the window in a battle stance, limned in the magical blue light of her sword as she stood to confront his enemies. Danilo could not dismiss that image from his mind, or stop wondering about the outcome of the battle that had surely followed.

Danilo was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he gave scant attention to others on the crowded street He hurried past an alley and bumped heavily into a solid frame. Strong hands caught the Harper’s shoulders and held him out at arm’s length. Danilo focused his attention on the smiling face of his friend and fellow nobleman, Caladorn Cassalanter. The man was several years older that Dan’s eight-and-twenty, also taller and broader. He wore his dark red hair cropped short, and he had a warrior’s callused hands. Caladorn had long been city champion in fighting arts and horsemanship. Of late he’d taken to bouts of seafaring adventure, even dropping his family name until he had “done something do prove himself worthy of it.” With difficulty, Danilo summoned the inane grin his friend would expect and pasted it firmly in place.