Swiveling slowly around to face him, the Lady Lord of Arabel wrinkled her nose. "Is this what you've been eating? No wonder your wits are so addled!"
Twelve
Come storms, great waves, earth-cleaving, god-smiting lightnings, and dragonflre, Faerun shall abide. Us smaller creatures on it? I'm not so sure.
The torches were guttering out now, one by one, leaving the great soaring hall of Haelithtorntowers noticeably darker. Two long-frozen figures in leather moved in sudden unison, both drawing back cautiously from the balcony rail-and lifting their heads to regard each other.
Narnra Shalace did not give her pursuer her usual angry glare.
Like Rhauligan, she knew unfolding treason and disaster when she heard it. This was the sort of softly menacing talk she was sure went on inside the spires of the wealthy and nobility of Waterdeep all the time-though she'd never been foolish enough to try to enter and lurk in such places, with their alarm-magics, wardings, and enthusiastic guards.
No wonder nobles didn't want anyone close enough to hear what they were saying. Caethur the moneylender would have had to double-deal for years to reach the point of openly plotting ambitions like these.
She stared almost thoughtfully across the ring of emptiness at Rhauligan, knowing that she'd just gained one more reason to elude the Harper without being seen by others in this house. A very good reason.
Keeping herself alive at least a few nights longer.
* * * * *
It was a bright and breezy morning in Candlekeep. The sea-breeze blowing ashore could better have been called a strong wind. In front of the Lady Noumea Cardellith, as she walked the last stretch of the Way of the Lion, the banners of a minor noble of Tethyr flapped and streamed in a constant fury. The rearguard of that personage-six riders in gleaming armor who rode with great spiked long-axes gripped in their gauntlets- were eyeing Noumea narrowly, at least two of them always crossing to opposing sides of the noble party so as to keep full watch on her.
And no wonder. Through the wonders of magic Noumea may have looked like a lone, bespectacled male merchant from Lantan, afoot and bearing only a leather carrysack slung over one shoulder-but she'd arrived out of nowhere, just suddenly there, in mid-step. And Tethyrian house guards who hadn't seen teleport spells in use before had certainly heard of them-and knew well enough to be wary in the presence of what must be an accomplished wizard or sorcerer.
Or something worse.
Wherefore they turned to present Noumea with a leveled row of glittering spike-points when the party reached Candlekeep proper and stopped to parley with the monks of the gate.
Noumea came to a halt, nodded to them politely, and waited calmly enough. When it was her turn at the tall gates-spell-shrouded vertical bars as thick as her forearm, bearing the castle-and-flames device of Candlekeep and a guard of five purple-robed priests-she gave the expressionless monk who approached her a book from her sack and waited while he carefully stripped away its wrappings.
"The Life of the Sembian Woodworm," he read aloud, his voice devoid of judgment. With gentle fingers he opened the tome, glanced at a few pages, stopped to peer at what were unmistakably the glyphs of spells-minor wardings effective also against paper-worms, he noted with an audible sigh of excitement-then looked up and said, "A notable, valuable gift. You are most welcome within our walls, seeker of wisdom. What's your name, your land, and your intent within?"
"I am Roablar of Lantan, come from trading up and down the Sword Coast and most recently Sembia to examine certain texts. I'm most interested in Thelgul's Do Metals Live? and Bracetar's Notes On Preservation of Foodstuffs and Oils!"
The monk smiled for the first time. It transformed his face, leaving Noumea with the impression that it was not an expression he assumed often. "Be welcome here, Roablar, so long as you treat books with the reverence they deserve, eschewing fire, damp, the torn page, and the removal of lore from the eyes of others. Cross the yard ahead of you to the green-hued door, and give your name to the Keeper of the Emerald Door. You'll be provided with food, a bath, quarters in which to sleep, and a moot with the monk who will escort you on your first visit to the rooms of the tomes."
"I thank you, sir," Roablar replied, bowing slightly and favoring all the monks with a beaming smile. He was waved in through the gap in the partly open gates and set off across the courtyard shifting his sack on his shoulder, as all travelers do.
"Well, Amanther?" the monk who'd dealt with him asked, glancing at the next supplicants-a large party of horsemen, still some way off down the Way of the Lion.
The oldest, tallest monk of the five smiled faintly. "A mage-human female, not old-wearing a very good spell-spun disguise. I daresay the books she mentioned are already familiar to her; I doubt she needs to peruse them again. Slyly learning spells is of course the aim of most who enter covertly, but she feels different to me, somehow. She'll bear close watching."
The other monks nodded. "Thaerabho already answers your signal," one of them said, pointing at a monk strolling across the courtyard to casually follow Roablar of Lantan up to the Emerald Door.
"Good," another grinned, rubbing his hands. "A new mystery to dissect at table this night. One can never have enough delving and prying. It keeps the soul young."
"A tongue more deft, Larth," Amanther admonished. "Say rather: Inquiry into all things keeps a mind bright."
"That too," Larth agreed with a chuckle, which was echoed by the other monks.
"Well, then, clever dissembler," Amanther said, waving at the approaching cloud of dust and sun-flashing armor. "Deal you with these next seekers!"
"With as much pleasure as humility," Larth replied cheerfully. "I'll wager they'll proffer a family history or perhaps a text on the genealogy or heraldry of their immediate region."
"Nay," said another monk, squinting at the banners. "I expect another copy of Navril's History of the Parsnip, with some obscure local collection of plays or minstrels' sayings to serve as their entrance-gift when we reject old Navril one more time."
The chorus of chuckles was hearty but brief, for it was not proper for monks of Candlekeep to be anything less than politely grave when first greeting supplicants.
Across the Court of Air, the monk Thaerabho gazed at the shoulders of the Lantanna talking to the doorkeeper and had to suppress an urge to stop, cross his arms, and rub his chin in eager anticipation.
This was going to be one of the interesting deceivers. He could feel it.
* * * * *
Lady Joysil Ambrur stood sipping wine and watching her servants reluctantly depart. Before ringing for them, she'd downed an entire bottle of potent vintage without any apparent effects at all and begun a second by the rather daintier means of filling (and refilling) her tallglass. Though she still stood by her high-backed seat behind the table, a new piece of furniture had made its appearance, in accordance with her orders, in the hall nearby: a broad, simple bed covered with luxurious linens, cozy-blankets, and pillows. Though it lacked a high headboard carved with her coat-of-arms, it was a bed for her.
Silence deepened in Haelithtorntowers around Lady Joysil as she sipped, regarding the rubies on the table-which lay undisturbed in their own little oval of light dust in the only part of the table that (again at her orders) had not been cleared and dusted.