Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [123]
When he was done, the vials, guarded against rust by their own magic, were entirely hidden in fresh, wet dung.
El sighed, wiped his hands on random nearby walls until matters had been reduced to what might delicately be termed “smeared,” then trudged back up the alley until he could find space enough to set the vials down on bare stone, spit on his hands so as to clean them enough to thrust them under his robe to reach his clout, and arrange himself so as to let fly all over the vials, washing them … well, not clean, but a lot cleaner.
So he could twist the uppermost open—an enchanted cap rather than a cork; well, the Art advanced in little things as well as large—and drink its contents down.
It tasted like cold, clear, mint sugar water, soothing all the way down … and brought in its wake that surging, warming thrill of healing, the banishment of the fire in his ribs, the stiffnesses, and all the small aches and pains he’d acquired since the last time he’d had to crawl down that alley.
When all of that was gone, El stood up straight, squared his shoulders, then thrust both vials—the lower one was reassuringly heavy with good Cormyrean coins he’d soon be needing—into his under-robe pouch and started for the street again. He felt whole and strong. Not to mention wealthier.
“See?” Arclath told her as triumphantly as if he were personally responsible. “I told you! Behold, dawn!”
Amarune nodded wearily, stumbling. Only his arm through hers was holding her up. For what seemed like hours they’d been walking the streets of Suzail together, a Purple Dragon plodding along behind tailing them as Amarune led her inanely chattering escort on a random meander across the city, waiting for his anger to rise.
Dreading the moment when Arclath stopped, refusing to go along with her obvious deception any longer and protesting that she was leading him astray. A protest that would reveal that he already knew where she dwelt.
A moment that hadn’t yet come, though there was a gleam in his eye that she was beginning to think meant he was grinning inwardly at her tactic and happily going along with it.
The noble had kept up a constant, never-flagging stream of light, inane—and one-sided—converse.
“Dawn,” she gasped, feeling she had to say something. “I’m … enchanted.”
“And so am I!” Arclath agreed with enthusiasm. “Charmed, even! I find you the most beautiful woman to ever adorn my arm, and await that moment of full glory when you reveal to me the full sparkle of your wit, the bright edge of your tongue—in the conversational sense of course, lady fair, for I would not want even the slightest misunderstanding to lead you to take offense at a slander that was not meant, no, no, not at all!—the full grandeur, as I was saying, of your happily attentive company! At a time when you are not tired, not shocked by the horrible events of earlier this night, and not grieving the loss of your longtime and staunchly loyal employer! In short, when you can be your full and engaging self! When you can—”
“Somehow shut you up,” Amarune snarled, in spite of herself. “Gods above, do all nobles carry themselves through their every waking moment of life on rivers of babbling drivel?”
“In a word, Lady: yes.” Arclath’s grin told her he wasn’t abashed in the slightest. “So, how would you contemplate shutting me up? No violence, please, you know how I abhor viol—”
“Yes, I noticed you abhorring it right skillfully, earlier,” Amarune sighed. “Though I probably owe you my life a time or six. So have my thanks, Lord Delcastle, and I’m done trying to deceive you. I no longer care if you learn where I live.”
“My lady! Has that been your concern, all this time? That I might discover the whereabouts of your abode? Has preventing that dark secret—though how it can truly be dark, I fail to conceive—been the pursuit that now has you nigh staggering with weariness?”
“It has,