Elminster's Daughter - Ed Greenwood [97]
"Of course," Laspeera said softly.
Breathing heavily, Narnra stared at the toes of her boots and thought hard. How did she feel?
Did she trust these folk? Laspeera seemed motherly, Rhauligan was-Rhauligan, dedicated to his task… and Caladnei had beaten her like a backstreet bully with magic-but not killed her when the slaying would have been easy and Narnra had been stupid enough to goad her. Repeatedly.
So how did she feel? Truth, now…
I'm more terrified than eager. And I'm angry. Angry at myself for being afraid, angrier still at Caladnei and Rhauligan for bringing me by force into this choice. I'm burn-the-gods furious with Elminster for siring me, just walking away, and luring me here from the streets I know.
"Truth," Laspeera said gently from behind Narnra. "Every word utter truth."
Gods, yes, she's been reading my every thought…
Narnra spun around with a frightened snarl, expecting to find all three Cormyreans closing in around her-but everyone was just where they'd been before, Caladnei still kneeling.
"If I agree to this… this madness," Narnra asked in a voice that was far from calm and steady, "when will this mind-ream take place?"
The Mage Royal of Cormyr rose slowly to her feet, smiling a little wryly. "In such matters, there's never any better time for boldly reckless action than… right now."
Fifteen
WHEN MARSEMBAN MERCHANTS GO
WALKING
My son, it's not the standing merchants you need fear. It's when they get to walking somewhere that you'd best beware. It takes a heap of coming trouble for someone to get a merchant to walk anywhere.
The character Farmer Crommor
in Scene the First
of the play Troubles In The Cellar
by Shanra Mereld of Murann
first performed in the Year of the Griffon
The outermost of the ward-spells that cloaked the far corners of the room in roiling mists flared into coppery flames of warning, and a telltale chimed.
The darkly handsome young man clad all in black-open-fronted, flaring-sleeved shirt, tight leather breeches, and gleaming
black boots-took his crossed feet down from the footstool, laid aside his book and his goblet, and rose from his chair.
He passed his hand over a dark sphere of crystal that shared its own upswept, teardrop-shaped duskwood plinth with an outer ring of smaller spheres. Another ring of roiling mists obediently wavered into emerald radiance and displayed an upright image in the air: a white-faced man in brown robes that matched his thinning hair was standing uncertainly in the midst of the emerald mists.
The man in black smiled and touched two of the smaller spheres. Two rings of mist fell away into nothingness, and the third took on that emerald hue. The Red Wizard then passed his hand over the largest sphere, and the scene of Huldyl Rauthur vanished.
"Enter the archway and proceed," he told the air calmly. "The way before you is quite safe."
The emerald mists at his feet flowed away to one wall in a purposeful flood and climbed it to outline an archway on the unbroken stone-which promptly split to reveal a long, rough tunnel through rock. A hesitant figure was advancing along it.
"Be welcome," the Red Wizard said quietly. "Importance brings you, I trust?"
"Y-yes," Huldyl Rauthur made reply, as he entered the chamber. "I believe 'tis time." The War Wizard was chalk-white with worry, and his face glistened with so much sweat that it dripped from his chin.
A weak reed, Master Rauthur, Darkspells thought. And weak reeds break.
"Good," Harnrim Starangh told the man he'd bought. "Return to the chamber you came from, and I'll follow in a matter of moments."
As soon as the fearful Rauthur started back down the passage, Starangh passed a hand over a crystal and sent mists billowing up between them once more. He drained his goblet in a long, unhurried quaff, plucked one of the crystals from the plinth and slipped it into his codpiece, and said words to the empty air.