Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [36]
She wove her magic this time, though, with a few curt words. The sword rose obediently, quivering with the power racing through it, and then set off through the air, point first, up the stair. It would lead her, like a sure-strike hunting arrow, to Riluaneth's slayer. No doubt his gambling, dark schemes, or philandering had earned him his fate, but no one entered House Alastrarra and struck down one of her own without paying the price, twice over and speedily.
The Lady Namyriitha undid something as she hastened to the stairs, and the lower half of her gown fell away; she kicked it aside and set off up the stairs, bare legs flashing among wisps of patterned lace. Halfway up, her fingers, gliding along the rail, slid through something dark and sticky.
She looked back at the dark blood on the rail without slowing, and then lifted her dripping fingers and looked at them expressionlessly. She made no move to wipe them clean, or to slow her pursuit of the blade cutting through the air before her.
Below, the dancer picked up the discarded skirt uncertainly, and then handed it to a servant and whirled back to the stair to follow the Lady of the House. In his wake, hesitantly, several servants followed.
By the time they reached the landing at the top of the stair there was no sign of Namyriitha or the sword. The dancer began to run in earnest.
* * * * *
El dropped one arm to touch his knee at the last instant, and so it was his rolling shoulder that smashed into the elven servant and the door. Both flew back against the wall of the passage beyond with a mighty crash and rebounded into the passage in Elminster's wake. The elf sprawled on the furs underfoot in a tangle of limbs and did not move again.
Panting, El caught his balance again and ran on. Somewhere beneath him, the gong chimed its chord again. The passage forked ahead-this mansion was big-and El turned left this time. Perhaps he could double back.
A poor choice, it seemed. Two elves in glowing aquamarine armor were hastening down the passage toward him, buckling on their swords as they came. "Intruders!" El called, hoping his shout was close enough to lymbryl's voice to serve. He pointed back the way the guards had come. "Thieves! They ran thence!"
The guards wheeled around, though one gave El a hard, head-to-toe look, and ran back the way they'd come. "At least it wasn't Lady Herself just making sure we were awake," El heard one of them mutter, as they raced along the passage together. Ahead was a chamber dominated by a life-sized statue of a gowned elven lady, arms lifted in exultation. On its far side was another stair, curving down. A cross-corridor ran out of it, flanked by lounges on which the guards had obviously been reclining. Ornate double doors were along this passage; Elminster chose one he liked the look of, and veered toward it. He was into the passage and only a few running steps from its handles when shouts from the stair told him the two guards had noticed he was no longer with them.
He yanked on the ring handles, and twisted. The doors clicked open, and he whirled inside, drawing them closed as swiftly and as quietly as he could.
When he turned to see what manner of peril he'd hurled himself into this time, he found himself staring at an oval bed floating in midair in the middle of a dark, domed chamber. A leafy canopy floated above it, flanked by several platters carrying an array of fluted bottles and glasses, and a soft emerald glow was spreading across those leaves as the occupant of the bed sat bolt upright and stared at the intruder in her bedchamber.
She was slim and exquisitely beautiful, blue-black hair tumbling freely about her. She wore a night shift consisting of a collar and a thin strip of sheer, gauzy blue-green silk that fell from it down her front-and presumably down her back, too. Bare flanks and shoulders gleamed in the growing light as her large eyes changed from alarm to delight, and she somersaulted from the bed in a graceful sweep of bare