All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [75]
"Warded, or Fm a war dog," the man who was not Dorgan muttered. "I don't like the look of those hands."
"So we slide past," the one who was not Areld murmured, extending a ribbon-thin tentacle to point. "Here-see?"
It took some time to flatten themselves out into creeping things thin enough to slip through a tiny gap between the crumbling stone and the old, slowly warping doorframe, with its carvings of satyrs and bunches of grapes and flirtatious sprites, but they passed through without incident, and without being seen.
They stood in a high, vaulted hall whose open bronze doors showed another, loftier hall, with a gallery at its far end, and many doors opening off it here, there, and everywhere. To the left, and nearby (by the smell) was the kitchen; the location of other features they could only guess at.
Wherefore the two men dwindled hurriedly back into the shapes of the two war dogs and padded into the hall with apparent aimlessness, sniffing as they roamed. The doors they passed were closed, but a broad, red-carpeted spiral stair ascended at the far end of the hall, and up this they went-on the theory that most wizards like to look out loftily over the lands around.
Partway up its ascent, the stair paused at a sunny landing, and Bolder slunk over to the small forest of ferny plants there. He peered through, uttering a short whufto signal Warhorn that he'd found something of interest.
The two Malaugrym had retained their own eyes, far keener than those of a dog, and could readily see a small, slender, rather plain stone tower outside.
The tower was ringed by a moat over which tiny lightnings of amethyst hue flickered from time to time- some warding magic, no doubt. The moat in turn was surrounded by a strip of lawn. Flagstone paths led to the edge of the moat, but there was no sign of any drawbridge, and the paths also ran in a great arc in both directions, around the tower and out of view, flanking the walls of a gigantic building… the one in which they stood.
"Rich indeed, this wizard," Bolder growled. "Look: this house goes all the way around."
Warhorn growled a wordless reply of exasperation. How long was it going to take to find a safe way out of this vast house, into the inner garden with the tower?
Not long at all, as it turned out. A two-headed panther, black and deadly, stalked into view on the circular lawn, and a door swung open as if it were expected. They saw a man, a goad in his hand, standing in the open door, and the great cat moved fluidly toward him.
"Feeding time for everyone," Bolder grunted. They turned away from the window to hurry down the stairs.
A little distance along the passage they saw two women carrying bundles of linen. The maids frowned at them but did nothing beyond exchanging the question: "What are the dogs doing in here, I wonder?"
Wagging their tails, the dogs passed on by, proceeding to a place where a momentary shift of a paw into a human hand opened doors that were not locked, skirted a strong smell of cat (they heard a questioning growl from the other side of a door they left closed), and found their way to the inner garden. No one shouted an alarm as the dogs pawed the door open and stepped out onto the lawn.
Strong magic tingled around them, and they looked this way and that in some haste. The lawn seemed deserted.
A huge, curved stone bench adorned the edge of the moat, and beyond it Bralatar saw what he was looking for: the top arc of an old, massive grating in the tower wall, moat water lapping into it. A privy chute.
"Come," he said. He headed straight across the lawn. On the edge of the moat he shifted shape to grow flippers and tentacles, and heard Lorgyn's snort of alarm behind him as the stone bench suddenly shuddered and rose, stretching out hammerlike arms. A golem!
By then Bralatar was in the inky water, and too busy to worry about guardians on land: what felt like large