Elminster's Daughter - Ed Greenwood [9]
Her eyes could yet move, and she could still breathe. Something was burning close before her, a flame rising where there'd been none. The blood on her hand was blazing with cold, silent fire.
Narnra stared at it helplessly. It burned nothing but yet burned. She could see her dirt-smeared hand and her glistening blood through that flame, and there was no pain.
The wizard stood before her now, staring at the same thing she was. Slowly, under their shared scrutiny, the flickering flame faded away.
Helplessly Narnra lifted her gaze to his. He was smiling. "Well," he said, in a rich, whimsical voice. "Well, well."
She stared at him, spell-frozen, unable to speak. The mage shook a small purse out of his sleeve-it looked like a palm-sized pea-pod but was made of some sort of dark and scaly hide and hung at the end of its own intricate lace-link chain-thrust it open with his thumb, and spilled seven gold coins into his palm. As deftly as any tavern juggler he flicked them into a neat stack and placed it delicately atop her bleeding hand.
"Fare ye well, lady," he said gently, gave her a kindly smile, and turned away-and walked through the wall.
Narnra Shalace stared at where he'd vanished, blinking unbelievingly at the solid, unbroken stones. All she could hear was her own racing breath, all she could feel was the cold weight of coins, the faintly tickling trickle of blood beneath them, and the solid feel of her own knife, still in her hand.
It had all been so sudden, so unbelievable, so…
That flame, whatever it had been, had surprised him. It had come from his spell but from her, too. He'd given her coins instead of death. Coins, as if she were a beggar or a pleasure-lass… or a successful thief. A stack of more gold than she could have dared hope to gain from one old man. And in a wink of an eye he was- gone, right through that wall, and she was…
She was able to move again, a little, and the walls of the alley seemed to move, around her, straightening and shifting.
Desperately, Narnra stared at where the wizard had vanished through the wall, marking just which heap of refuse was at that spot. She could move her other hand now, as slowly as a feather falling on a windless day. She reached up, took the coins, and was almost surprised to find them every bit as solid and heavy as they'd seemed. She put them into a pouch, her movements still slow but quickening with every breath, and saw that the alley around was once more long and narrow, coming to a blind end here and curving slightly as it stretched back out to the street there.
She went to the place where the wizard had vanished and cautiously extended her knife at the wall. It plunged into the stone as if through empty air. Wonderingly she leaned forward, her arm following it.
This could be the worst sort of death if the stone closed around her. Suspicious, insulted-who was this old wizard to lecture her and pity her and give her a beggar-offering of coins?-and yet, yes, fascinated, Narnra Shalace stepped forward into darkness.
Two
A FINE NIGHT FOR REVELRY
Those who hope to survive adventures are advised to pick their own forays, rather than striding blindly into someone else's schemes-and another someone's trouble. For trouble thus found has an almost inevitable way of being freely shared.
Seldreene Ammath of Suzail
Married to a Merchant
Year of the Serpent
It was dark, and smelled of damp stone, old earth, and the faint reek of garbage receding behind her. The Silken Shadow went forward cautiously, keeping low, as careful of her balance in this unseen footing as if she'd been on a crumbling roof.
There was a singing in the air in front of her, a singing that built swiftly into a shrieking as she advanced-a tumult she somehow knew she heard more than the world around her would. A sickening, shuddering feeling was growing inside her, too. It faltered when she drew back but surged anew when she stepped forward again.
Narnra kept