Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [11]
Ignoring him, Sharantyr gave Lhaeo a gracious smile, and asked, "Yes?"
The scribe squinted up at that smile, sighed, and put something into her hand. Closing her fingers around it with his own, he said severely, "Don't drop that.
Don't even look at it yet."
He dragged his robe over his head, revealing a hairy, amulet-behung chest and quite fetching silken undershorts, and said, "Here. Dry yourself. I'd tell you to wear it, but it won't come down much past your waist, and then – " he jerked his head back toward the snarling figure lurching up out of the pond " – well have him to deal with again."
"Why, Lhaeo," Sharantyr said, looking down at him,
"there's no need – "
"Oh, but there is. Get yourself dry. I bear an urgent spell-message from Tessaril Winter in Cormyr."
Wordlessly Rathan steered a goblet into Sharantyr's hand and turned to firmly lead the wetly cursing Torm a good distance away.
Sharantyr frowned, drained her goblet in one long toss, and started toweling herself vigorously, darting an involuntary glance at her closed fist. "Tess? What -?"
Lhaeo smiled, took the empty goblet from her, and handed her Rathan's untouched one. "She says – " his voice changed, assuming perfect mimicry of the Lady Lord's light but commanding tones, and continued: "Shar, I need your help. The King has chosen this fair day to visit me. I can't slip away for more than a quick stroll to the garderobe or two, for he comes riding with more swaggering knights each time. To go missing would upset him, look ill in the eyes of those who ride with him, spread worry about my stewardship, and set the gossips to talking about a breach between us. So I'm stuck here – and Shandril and Narm have just set out through the Tombgate and in need of all the aid they can get.
Saying the right word over this token will take only the person holding it to the far end of the Tombgate, the spot from which Narm and Shandril so recently set forth, wearing the spell-spun guises of two fat priestesses of Chauntea."
Sharantyr shook wet hair back over her shoulder, opened her fist, and looked down at what lay in her palm: a tiny piece of smooth ivory, carved into the likeness of a human skull.
She looked up from it with her eyes very large and dark, and asked softly, "And that 'right word' was… ?"
*******
The tapestries were already drawn across the windows, and a fire was crackling in the hearth.
Highknight guards were well away, at the bottom of the stairs, and keeping everyone else even more distant, for the King of Cormyr was in private council with his Lady Lord of Eveningstar – and if he preferred to receive her reports while she lay unclad on her back upon the fur rugs covering the floor of her own bedchamber, that was his royal pleasure.
"Ah, Tess, Tess," the Dragon of Cormyr said fondly, leaning down to gently kiss – and then bite – the bared curves beneath him. "I've missed you, as always. How fares the little trouble with Manshoon and suchlike?"
"Unlike you, my Dragon," Tessaril gasped, writhing on the furs beneath him, "I believe that matter is now almost under control."
*******
It befell so suddenly that Narm could scarcely believe it was happening. One moment they were walking along the banks of the boulder-studded brook, the bright sun shining hot upon their shoulders and the road not far away in front of them – and the next moment three figures rose in slow, menacing unison from behind one of the largest stones, swords and knives in their hands, and Faerun seemed suddenly dark and dangerous around them.
"Be still, Sisters of the Soil," one of them said grimly. "Don't move your hands at all – unless you want to lose them."
"Or you