Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [146]
He turned back to the cutting-board. "I daresay you would hear much the same advice from those who travel, if you could trust one to ask." Narm and Shandril traded glances in silence. Then Narm spoke.
"We have heard such directions before, yes," he agreed, "almost word for word. If the best way is so obvious as all that, will your enemies not be looking for us to take it, and be waiting?"
"Aye, most probably they will," Lhaeo agreed, with the ghost of a smile. "So you must take care not to get caught."
They both stared at him for a moment in frustration, and then Shandril laughed. "Well enough," she said.
"We shall try to follow your advice, good Lhaeo.
Know you any ways of avoiding those who search?"
"You both work with art and walk with those who are mighty in art, and you ask me?" Lhaeo replied, eyebrows raised. "If you would learn the ways of stealth and disguise without art, ask Torm. I have escaped thus far, true, but in my case I was cloaked in the Lady's Luck." He turned to Narm. "If you must pace about like a great cat in a cage," he added,
"could you slice potatoes while doing it?"
Elsewhere, things were not so peaceful. In Zhentil Keep, two men faced each other across a table.
"Lord Marsh," said the mage Sememmon carefully,
"does it seem to you that the priests of The Black Altar, through some unfortunate internal dispute or other, have fallen into confusion and disarray too great for us to leave the city with it unaddressed? I know my fellow mages feel that eye tyrants cannot be trusted and should not be given more authority than the minimum one is obliged to accord them to win their support. All reports indicate that the beholder Manxam presently holds sway in the temple, and the corpses of many hundred clergy, great and lesser, that lie there have begun to stink."
"I have heard those same reports," Lord Marsh Belwintle agreed smoothly. "1 am forced to the same conclusions… as, I hold, any reasonable man would be. This matter of one girl who can create fire will simply have to wait, unless or until she shows up at your gates to do us harm. Whereupon I am fully confident that the power and skill of the gathered mages of the city would defeat her, so long as they have not all been destroyed or weakened in the interim by being sent off here and there on missions by one who had rather transparent reasons for wishing them out of the city."
"Exactly," Sememmon agreed. "I had thought to discuss with you the advisability of setting just one of your mages of power- Sarhthor, perhaps-to observing this maiden's doings, so that her seizure by any of your foes or other concerns could be noted or countered by us. Were she to reveal any power or method whereby she gained spellfire, we could benefit merely from such a watch, with no blood lost to us and no art or coin wasted. Prudence would seem to indicate some sort of vigilance on your part."
"An excellent plan, indeed," Lord Marsh agreed, reaching for a glass of blood-red wine before him.
"The fighting arm of the Zhentarim would certainly concur with-and even expect-such a tactic. An eye must serve us where a claw might be cut off, if we are not to be taken unaware by some creeping enemy and ultimately overwhelmed. More wine?"
"Ah, thank you," replied Sememmon, "but no. It is excellent, indeed, but its taste lingers on the tongue and makes the sampling of potions when concocting them a chancy business, at best. Such onerous duties call, I fear"
"Quite so, quite so," Marsh agreed, rising. "Well then, we are agreed. I shall not keep you longer. We may have to speak with each other later, and speedily, should the beholders prove troublesome. But for now, olore to you and your fellows-in-art."
"Olore to you," Sememmon agreed. He walked away.
An eye that neither of them saw floating under the table watched Sememmon go and then winked out.
"The Wearers of the Purple are met. For the glory of the dead