Noumea Cardellith grinned suddenly. "Certainly. Spires and turrets I can talk glibly and emptily about for half a day. Elmarr thought almost nothing else was a fit subject to share with a woman-even his woman."
"See me standing unsurprised," Lady Ambrur replied in dry tones and pulled a tassel hanging by the arm of her chair.
The double doors opened at once, and her servants bowed three men into the room: two merchants trailed by a lone figure.
One Marsemban was tall, thin, and hard-faced, the other stout, a little battered-looking, and clutching a grand hat as if shredding it would somehow carry him unscathed through the meeting now unfolding. The two parted to let the third man through: a young, darkly handsome man in black and silver shimmerweave, looking every inch a capable, quietly swaggering noble of Suzail or fullblood merchant prince of one of the foremost families of Sembia.
"Be welcome, sirs," the Lady Ambrur said warmly. "We stand in privacy, here, armed with the information you've been seeking."
"Ah," the wizard said, eyes darting from Noumea to Joysil and back again. "That is good. We are well met, Lady Ambrur and Lady-?"
"Cardellith, sir," the unfamiliar woman replied for herself. "Noumea Cardellith, now of Marsember."
"A student of architecture," the Lady Ambrur put in gently. "Here to see every last crenellation and carving of Haelithtorntowers."
The Thayan smiled. "Architecture?"
The Lady of Haelithtorntowers smiled an almost identical smile. "And other things."
"Ah," the wizard said, and sat down in a seat without waiting for an invitation, leaving the two merchants standing uncertainly behind him.
"The merchants Aumun Tholant Bezrar and Malakar Surth," Lady Ambrur introduced them, waving them toward seats as she did so. "This is Harnrim 'Darkspells' Starangh, one of the most diplomatic Red Wizards of Thay it has ever been my pleasure to entertain."
"And have you entertained many of us, Lady?" Starangh asked softly.
The Lady Ambrur smiled again. "Yes, indeed, Darkspells. Szass and I, in particular, are old friends. Very old friends."
The Thayan sat as if frozen for an instant then said even more softly, "You must tell me about that some time. Some other time."
"Of course. When the time is right, as you say," was the silken reply.
Noumea repressed a shiver. How soft and yet sharp with menace the words of both her hostess and the Thayan. She flicked a glance at the two Marsemban merchants and saw in their faces the same tightly masked fear as she knew her own held: not knowing all that was going on here but knowing enough to be certain everything hidden was bad. And dangerous.
Darkspells spread his hands. "Have you learned what I desire to know and offered twelve thousand in gold for?"
"Twelve thousand six hundred," the Lady Ambrur told her tall-glass demurely.
"Twelve thousand six hundred, as you say," the Red Wizard agreed.
"Yes. Precisely what Vangerdahast, the retired Mage Royal of Cormyr, is 'up to' in his retirement, precisely where he is, and precisely what his magical defenses are."
Starangh smiled softly, his eyes glittering bright and hard, and purred, "If you can give me half an answer to those things, Vangerdahast will stand far closer to his doom-the doom he has so richly earned and that I shall take such delight in visiting upon him. Soon."
* * * * *
This damp, fish-stinking city wasn't Waterdeep, but at least it had walls and rooftops, and she could feel just a bit more like home.
Narnra grinned without feeling the slightest bit amused. So here she was running for her life, pursued by some sort of law-agent bent on slaying or capturing her.
Oh, yes. Just like home.
* * * * *
The Queen of Aglarond wrinkled her nose. "Ah, Marsember! Always damp cold stone, colder people, and the everpresent reek of dead fish and human waste. For entertainment, storms rage ashore and intrigues rage behind closed doors." She smiled. "Well, it serves one good purpose: to firmly remind me what I must never let my capital Velprintalar come within the full length of a large kingdom of resembling!"
Elminster stroked her bare shoulder then kissed the smooth flesh his fingers had been tracing. "Sorry," he told her. " Tis not my favorite place in all Faerun either, but it happens to be where Caladnei bides at this moment."
The Simbul sighed. "Mystra's will be done," she murmured then turned suddenly, caught hold of his beard, and brought his lips to where she could kiss them fiercely.
As she always seemed to, she moved hungrily against him, melting into him . . .
"Take care of yourself," she whispered when they were both breathless and lack of air finally forced her to draw back. "I waited so long for you-don't leave me lonely now."
Elminster blinked at her. "Lass? Ye waited for me . . . ?"
"To notice and then to love me," she replied, eyes very dark. "For myself and not as one of Mystra's daughters."
She shaped a spell that called darkness, outlined by a sprinkling of tiny stars, out of the air in front of her. "I loved your mind for centuries before you knew who I was, Old Mage. Now I love your character, too." She made a face, and added, "Your body, however: that you could have taken better care of, to be sure. Old wreck."
Elminster lifted his eyebrows, held up his hands with an airy flourish, murmured a swift incantation-and melted into the shape of a tall, broad-shouldered young man of rugged good looks and raven-black hair. He gave her a sparkling grin.
She snorted, struck a breathlessly excited hands-to-mouth pose like a young lass about to swoon-and slid back out of it to wink at him. Stepping back into her darkness, the Queen of Aglarond murmured, "My old wreck," and was gone, taking her rift with her, stars and all.
The transformed Elminster smiled fondly at where she'd been for a moment, shaking his head, then made a face of his own. "In those centuries of loving my mind, did she watch where my wandering body went and with whom, I wonder?"
He chuckled, shrugged, and strode down the cold, dark, and cobwebbed passage.
The damp made the spiderwebs thick, jeweled-with-droplets curtains. Elminster pushed through them unconcernedly, acquiring a marbled pattern of silken filth on his robes, and when he reached the remembered crossway, he turned left.
Cold blue fire flared in the emptiness in front of his nose immediately, but he strolled right through that ward-spell-and the next one, too.
By then a sleepy-eyed War Wizard, barefoot in her robes, was confronting him furiously. A rod that winked and glowed from half a dozen attached side-wands was cradled in her arms and aimed right at his face.
"Halt or be destroyed!" she snapped, as her fingers triggered a magic that sent bells chiming in a dozen chambers, near and far. Whatever befell now, this obviously not-so-secret passage would be swarming with War Wizards in a few minutes. Until then, 'twas her duty to prevent this stranger from-
He stepped forward, and she snarled and triggered three of the wands at once.
Their flash and roar almost blinded War Wizard Belantra, and sent her staggering back as the passage flagstones rippled under her feet in a great Shockwave. In the distance, behind the broad-shouldered intruder, stones fell from the passage ceiling, amid much dust, and tumbled away.
He kept coming, as if the ravening magic hadn't touched him at all.
"Back, demon!" Belantra snapped, sudden fear rising inside her. No one should be able to withstand such a blast! Even if the handsome man before her was mere illusion, the magic that presented it should have been shredded, and-
One long-fingered hand grasped the tip of one of her wands, even as she furiously triggered it again. Calmly ignoring Belantra, the intruder lifted the wand so its emerald beam of flesh-melting fury was trained not at his chest, but directly into his eyes.