Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [89]
"It almost seems as if we know what we're doing," Belkram commented, flexing his right arm, which was lengthening steadily into what looked like a gigantic crab claw.
Itharr nodded. "Just behave as if you know what you're about and have every right to be doing it, and most folk will accept you." He looked critically at his own arms, one of which was a deep red in hue. "A fairly simple deception at heart," he observed. "I suppose that's why so many kings have managed it down the years."
* * * * *
Elminster's Safehold, Kythorn 19
Elminster paced back and forth in the bookshelf-lined Safehold, frowning and stroking his beard. From time to time he lifted his head to stare at one of the room's four doors, noting absently that Ao had shuffled through the spell-stored animated scenes he displayed as hangings on those doors, and put on display the most alluring of each. He gave one of them-a lady who had been dust for almost eight hundred summers-a half-smile as he banished her, shaking his head. "Distracting," he muttered, and returned to his pacing, striding up and down the room, face dark with thought.
"This is ridiculous," he muttered after a time, coming to a halt by the table. "I must know."
He waved a hand. The chamber darkened obediently except for a small point of whirling light above the table, which grew and grew until it became as large as his face… whereupon it spun a book out of itself and vanished with a satisfied sound.
Elminster took the floating book and stepped on the floor tile that would whisk him at will onto the seat of his private privy. 'Twas time for some serious reading, before some bespectacled twit at Candlekeep noticed this tome was missing, and called on magic to trace it. Oh, he had his own copies of Alaundo's predictions, but the Commentaries of Iyrauthar, the book in his hands, was the only text to gather related records, rumors, legends, and testimonials about the Mad Sage's thunderings. Moreover, Candlekeep's copy had been annotated by First Reader Taltro some six hundred years ago, collecting even more useful lore on the Endless Chant and its various fulfillments-much of it errant nonsense, but one can't have everything.
"Oho," he said softly, after a while. "Oh ho ho, indeed." He summoned his pipe with a crook of one finger and sent the book back to its rightful home with a wave of his other hand, rising up through the floor from jakes to study in slow, stately majesty. Tablets of Fate, my wrinkled old behind, he thought sourly. Did even the divine lack taste and inspiration these days?
* * * * *
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 19
The door through which the Malaugrym had come proved to open into a long gallery, with pillars and a railing on their right. The view over the railing looked down into a shadow-shrouded hall where various robed folk- Malaugrym, presumably, in largely human form-strode back and forth from door to door. A smell wafted up that could only be described as something fishlike being fried. They did not tarry to watch, for fear of attracting attention. At the end of the gallery, a door opened into a room dominated by a deep, echoing well. They dared not confer in that room, in case the well took their voices to unseen ears far away. So they chose one of the other three doors leading out of the room and found themselves in a little closetlike space lined with benches. A hole in the floor made them suspect this was a Malaugrym garderobe, and useless to them for the same reason as the well room. Retracing their steps, they chose a different door and entered a room with a stair descending in front of them, curving off to the right as it did so.
"What did you make of that cooking smell?" Belkram murmured from at the head of the stairs. "My stomach just growled."
"Is that what I heard?" Itharr asked, eyebrows dancing.
"Belt up and stow it," Shar murmured with menacing softness. "The question is a good one." As if in agreement, her stomach turned over with an audible sound of protest.
The look she gave them