The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [58]
There came a soft rap upon his door. Craer took three swift steps to one side of it, drew two of his knives, and used the point of one to pluck up a spare boot from the table of belongings and toss it gently to the floor just inside the door.
There came no thrusting blade under the door or through the suspiciously wide gap down one of its sides, and no spell blasted through the doorway. After a moment Craer called softly, "Who is it?"
"Me, you dolt," came a familiar whisper.
Overduke Delnbone smiled in the darkness, sidled a few paces closer, and asked, "And whom might me be, this time?"
"You bastard," the soft whisper came back. "You know perfectly well 'tis me, Tshamarra."
"Oh? I know several Tshamarras," Craer whispered merrily back. "Where does this particular one wear a scar shaped rather like the mark of my bite?"
"On the underside of my left teat, where you bit me, Craer. Now open this damned door or I'll blast it down!"
"Are you alone, and acting freely?"
"Yes, bebolt you!"
Craer sheaDied his knives, and then plucked up a third: the blade he'd driven between two flagstones just inside the door as a doorstop. Drawing forth the two wedges he'd slipped into the doorframe, he lifted the small, ornamental brass bar Lord Stornbridge provided to his guests and swung the door wide, moving like a knife-wielding shadow to stay behind it as it opened.
Tshamarra Talasorn stood alone in the passage, fully dressed in dark leathers like those many thieves favored-Craer leered appreciatively-and bearing a small, shielded lantern. The two passage lamps flanking Craer's door seemed to have gone out, and the guards standing under them to have suffered some common misfortune that had left them sprawled on the floor. It must have been a silent mishap-but then, with the right magics, almost everything can become an "accident" of roughly the desired main effect.
"Pray excuse my caution, Lady Talasorn," Craer murmured, as Tshamarra stepped carefully into the darkened chamber. "One can never be too careful-a drinking you seem to share with me, given your garb and demeanor. To put it plainly, you must be expecting trouble as much as I do."
"Even more than that," she replied grimly, closing the door behind her and leaning against it for a moment in either weariness or nausea. "We must find Embra without delay. I feel less than well; the food, of course."
Craer bent to his boot, plucked something from within it, and held it out, deftly untwisting a stopper. "Would you like some? 'Tis half empty already, I'm afraid."
"And this hitherto-unrevealed drink would be-?"
"My 'timely flagon.' " Craer touched the metal to her palm. His fingers, cradling it, found her skin shockingly cold. "I bought it years ago in Sirl town," he added with an inviting smile, concealing his alarm at her chill, "from a crone who swore 'twould purge all taints and poisons."
Tshamarra lifted an eyebrow. "And you believed her? Are you in the habit, Lord Craer, of believing the claims of old crones who keep shops in Sirlptar?"
"Lady Talasorn," Craer replied with dignity, "she was of the Wise, and I'd just rendered her a service. Buying myself armor for the morrow, as it were. I drank the uppermost half not long ago, and-see?-still stand before you. Have all that remains. Please?
Tshamarra nodded-and a sudden shuddering shook her entire body and left her in an anxious crouch, halfway to her knees. "It can hardly make me feel worse," she muttered, putting her lantern on the floor and taking the flask. She sniffed it suspiciously, and then