The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [84]
Now the Court Mage of Galadorna was striding wearily bedward, looking forward to some solid hours of staring up into the darkness and getting some real thinking work done on the governance of a feud-festering little kingdom. Perhaps there'd be another assassination attempt in the wee hours. That would be jolly.
El's mood had a sword edge to it just now, an ache was already raging in his head from dealing with sharp-tongued merchants all day. Moreover, he couldn't seem to put an idea out of his mind…a rumor abroad in Nethrar courtesy of the two old bumbling mages from Moonshorn Tower, who seemed to have followed him here, that "Dasumia" was the name of the dread sorceress called the Lady of Shadows, could she and the queen somehow be related?
Hmmm. El sighed again, for perhaps the seven hundredth time this day, and out of habit glanced along the side corridor his passage had brought him to.
Then he came to a dead halt and peered long and hard. Someone very familiar was crossing the corridor farther down, using a passage parallel to his own. It was the queen, clad in blue silks and leather and chains like a tavern dancer…and she was leading two young men, warriors by their harness, whose hands and lips were hard at work upon her person as she led them along… out of view, and into a part of the House of the Unicorn Elminster had never yet visited. Cold fear stirred deep in his vitals as he recognized those two ardent men as his sometime tools against her, Delver and Ingrath.
His headache started to pound in earnest as he caught up his robes and sprinted as quietly but as swiftly as he could down the corridor toward the place where he'd seen Dasumia disappear. It was better not to use a concealment spell now, in case his Lady Master had a trailing spelltell active.
The queen was making no effort at stealth. The high, tinkling laugh she used as false flattery rang out as El reached the corner he thought was the right one and began hopping from pillar to pillar.
There followed the sounds of a slap, Delver's voice telling a jest he couldn't catch the words of, and more laughter. El abandoned stealth for haste as he saw the passage they'd used end at an archway. He was just in time to see the amorous trio leave the far end of that empty, echoing room through another arch.
One dark and disused chamber proved to lead into another, through a succession of open archways, and El took care to keep out of sight of anyone glancing back, and freeze whenever the sounds ahead ceased. He'd worked his way back to being a single chamber behind when some trick of eddying air currents made the voices of those he was following startlingly loud.
"Where by all the gods of battle are you taking us, woman?"
"Uh, Your Majesty, he meant to say… This does look suspiciously like a way down to the dungeons."
Dasumia laughed again, a deep, hearty sound of pleasure this time. "Keep that hand right where it is, bold warrior… and no, don't-be-gentle-sirs, we're heading nowhere near the dungeons. You have a royal promise on that!"
El crept to the next archway like a hunting cat and peered around its edge…in time to hear the rattle of a beaded curtain, unseen around a corner, parting. Light flared out from beyond it, El took a chance, danced across the room to that corner, and took another chance: across the open, lit way they'd taken was another curtain. He could hide behind it and see into the lit area, if he just darted across the open way at the right moment not to be seen.
Now? He darted, halted, and tried to bring his breathing back to soundlessness, all in a handful of instants. He used the next handful, and the next, to stare at where the queen had taken her catches.
The brightly lit area beyond the curtains was only an antechamber, an archway in its far wall opened into a place lit by a red, evil-looking radiance. Flanking that arch were two fully armored guardians, with their visors down and curving sabers raised in their gauntlets…warriors without feet, whose ankle stumps were