Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [58]
Then he turned, hefting the chalice lovingly in his hand, and started the long walk through Stormserpent Towers to get the Flying Blade.
Through one of the many tall windows that he passed, the first glimmerings of dawn were lightening the last failing gloom of the night.
A new day was coming, and it was high time for the fun to begin.
“Ambition has felled so many, young Stormserpent,” Manshoon purred. “It has even humbled Fzoul of the Too Many Gods and the strutting, preening Chosen of Mystra, Elminster of Shadowdale not least among them. I’ve tripped over my own ambitions a time or two, myself. Have a care now, King Marlin, Secret Lord of Westgate or whatever you strive to first become, that ambition not cause your swift and premature fall. Oh, no. I need you to last until I deem you expendable.”
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
NOTHING TO LAUGH AT, AT ALL
Amarune came awake quickly, her mind singing with alarm. There it was again, and definitely not in her dreams. Another stealthy sound. Nearby.
She’d fallen asleep at her scribbling, head down on the litter of papers on her desk. No ink all over her cheek this time; that was one good thing. All was dark. Her little candle lamp—only a stub to begin with—had guttered out.
So where—?
Ah, there it was yet again. That time, despite the pitch darkness all around, she knew where it was coming from and what it was.
Someone was using the blade of a knife to try to force open her shutters.
Very quietly.
“That won’t work,” she announced calmly, moving as soundlessly as she could from where she’d spoken to stand at one side of the closed shutters, the spear from under her bed ready in her hand.
“Got you awake, didn’t it?” a rough and familiar voice replied calmly from the night outside the window. “I’ve work for you, Rune. It’s Ruthgul, if you haven’t marked my dulcet tones yet. I’m alone.”
“What sort of work?”
Thieves in the city who weren’t careful didn’t live long enough to accumulate hard-bitten pasts.
Not that thievery didn’t run in her blood, if skill at thievery could run in the blood. Most tales insisted she’d been the daughter of the legendary Old Mage of Shadowdale, Elminster.
“Need a false contract signed,” Ruthgul growled, breaking into her thoughts—and just why had she been thinking about that, anyway? Ye gods, what nex—
“Copy a signing I’ve brought, onto it,” he added. “Match the ink close, if you can.”
Amarune made a sound that was half a sigh and half a chuckle, undid the catches on her shutters, and unhooded the faint, cracked glowstone fragment that lived on the table beside the window. Its light was barely brighter than the darkness, and no wonder; it had been broken when she’d stolen it, and that had been long, long before.
In the days when she’d had far more coins than she did at the moment, but cared nothing for how many days more she might live to spend them in.
She shook that thought aside and lifted the iron bars that held the shutters closed.
“In,” she commanded, the pull cords of her two ready crossbows in her hand. Ruthgul had always been honest with her, but his first lie might well be her last surprise, as the saying went.
The scarred and grizzled old man outside handed her his knife, hilt first, then held out empty hands for her inspection. She caught hold of one and hauled him half into the room, then stopped, pinning him across the sill, to make sure he was alone and not readying some hidden weapon.
The knotted cord he’d climbed swung freely in the night air outside; she could see there was no other weight on it. Nor, so far as she could see, was anyone lurking above—and Ruthgul always worked alone. Nearby rooftops seemed empty of lurking figures, and every window she could see was dark and tightly shuttered, as was both prudent and usual.
Under her firm hand, Ruthgul kept still. There was a satchel covered with short planks strapped to his back, to protect the documents he’d told her about, and though he almost certainly had a blade in either boot and probably a strangling cord somewhere, she