The Wyvern's Spur - Kate Novak [135]
Olive began climbing to the roof's peak. The wizard hung out the window and shouted up to her, "Come back here this instant before you get yourself killed!"
Olive looked up in the sky. A red wyvern circled the house. Wyverns are supposed to be brown and gray, Olive thought. Leave it to Giogi to turn into a red one. The halfling stood and waved in the beast's direction. "Giogi! Help! Flattery's trapped me up here!" she shouted in the chill air.
"Would you stop shouting that!" the wizard in the window hollered. "I am not Flattery!"
Olive looked down at the window. There couldn't possibly be any more Wyvernspurs I don't know about, could there? "If you're not Flattery," she shouted back, "who are you?"
"I'm Drone."
"Drone is dead."
"If I were dead, wouldn't I be buried in the crypt?" the wizard insisted.
"They're holding the memorial service tonight," Olive said.
"They are. Did Dorath fork out a big spread for it?" he asked with interest.
"Giogi!" Olive shouted again, waving more frantically. The wizard was not going to fool her with any more lies.
"See here, Ruskettle," the wizard called out, "I am Drone. You just don't recognize me because I shaved yesterday."
"Aha. I've never met you," Olive said. "You didn't know that. Giogi! Giogi! Help!" she screamed again, waving her dagger.
"You haven't? No, I suppose you haven't. I forgot. I felt like I knew you. Jade talked so much about you."
Olive looked down at the wizard so quickly that she lost her footing and slid three feet down the roof. "What do you mean Jade talked about me?" she demanded.
"She told me all about you. When she was staying here last week. I like to know about my daughter's friends."
"Your-" Olive regained her balance and stomped her foot angrily. "That's a lie. Jade hasn't got any parents."
"I know. That's why I adopted her," the wizard said.
"You what?"
"I adopted her. We had a little ceremony with a cleric of Mystra. I gave her a silver spoon, a pearl necklace, a yard of lace, all that symbolic rot, and she gave me a pipe, even though I don't smoke-Dorath would never allow it."
"Why?" Olive asked.
"She doesn't like the way it smells. Don't suppose I do, either, but Elminster does it. Don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to, too."
"Not that," Olive snapped, coming down a few more feet toward the wizard. "Why did you adopt Jade?"
"Oh, that. Well, she seemed like a nice girl, and I needed a daughter to steal the spur from the crypt before Steele stole it."
Olive glared at the wizard in confusion. Come to think about it, he looks awfully old to be Flattery. He looks even older than Nameless, for that matter. His hair is all splotched with gray, and his face is awfully wrinkled. His appearance could be an illusion, though.
"That's the same reason Flattery made Cat marry him," Olive noted aloud.
"Cat married Flattery? Oh, that's not good. He's not a nice person. Won't make her an adequate husband at all."
Olive shivered in the cold and watched Giogi soar on an up-draft. She didn't really believe Flattery could imitate a doddering old man so well, but she couldn't risk falling into his clutches unless she was absolutely positive. "I've got it!" she cried. She pulled out the letter with the royal seal, which she'd swiped from Drone's lab that morning. "I'll believe you're Drone if you can tell me what this letter says."
"What letter?"
"This letter I got from Drone's lab this morning. It's dated midsummer, thirteen-oh-six. Year of the Temples."
"That's almost thirty years ago," the wizard whined. "How am I supposed to remember a letter that old?"
"Only twenty-seven years," Olive said, "and it's a very important letter. It's from King Rhigaerd."
"Rhigaerd, Azoun's father?"
"That's the one."
"What would Rhigaerd want back then?" the wizard muttered