Running a hand over the apparently solid wall next to Narm, the Harper found something with his probing fingers. There was a click, and a section of the weathered paneling shrank back into the wall. Marlel gave it a push, and it receded reluctantly.
"Hurh!" Ulburt growled. "You're not supposed to know about that!"
"Well, you shouldn't be so careless, Ulburt," the Harper replied serenely. "You're the one who showed me this back stair, last month-taking a body through it after you had a little accident with your axe, as I recall." Giving the section of moving wall a last shove, he grabbed Narm's forearm and tugged him into the gloom.
"I never! I-"
"Come" Marlel murmured to Shandril with some urgency, "let's get up above before anyone decides we're interesting enough to follow."
Shandril rolled her eyes. "Oh, half Faerun already seems to have taken that view," she murmured. "You lead the way."
Marlel grinned. "You've done this before, haven't you?"
"I hesitate to agree until I know just what you mean by 'this,'" Shandril replied evenly, waving at him to precede her. "Increasingly, I find, I dislike disagreements-they tend to be so final."
"No doubt," Marlel said thoughtfully, giving her a look that was devoid of his usual smile for once. "No doubt."
He went up the narrow, foul-smelling stair in the darkness, Shandril followed warily and close behind him, and Narm watched the half-ore haul the section of wall closed and watched out behind them as best he could in the deep gloom that followed.
They were at the top of the stair, on a little landing where their way onward, up a few steps and along a passage of many closed doors, seemed to be blocked by two dark figures who were hissing curses at each other, when Shandril felt the first tinglings of a spell. It felt like cold tendrils, caressing her mind-without hesitation she drank the magic, her spellfire flickering in her eyes.
Each time it felt wilder. Each time she had the frightening feeling that it was going to overwhelm her thoughts and will and what inside of her was Shandril Shessair, and just burn its own willful way on in wild destruction. That feeling was growing stronger-but damn all these greedy, ruthless fools if they didn't keep on trying to snatch her, to take her spell-fire for their own.
What if they finally grew enough stone cold everyday wits and good sense to wait until she was exhausted and took her while she slept? What then?
Trembling, Shandril heard Narm make a queer sound behind her. She whirled. He was reeling, his face twisting as he looked at her wildly, nostrils flaring like a wolf smelling blood-gods! The spell had taken him-and as he reached for her, she caught the side of his head in her hand and slammed it into the stairway wall.
His eyes went dark, like two snuffed candles, and he slumped. Letting go of him, Shandril rode her rage around in a whirling turn that brought her nose to nose with Marlel- who leaned forward, frozen, with his hands out to grab at her.
Feeling fresh magic rolling at her, the kitchenmaid from Highmoon sent spellfire racing along the paths of those unfolding spells-stabbing out through the walls around her in three directions. There were brief screams as half-seen wizards staggered, in both directions-but Shandril ignored them to snarl at the Harper, "If you had any hand in this trap, Marlel, I'll make your death slow and terrible, believe you me!"
"Lady, I never!" Marlel protested. "I-let me past and I'll take up your man and carry him! We must get to your room-here: the keys! Third door on the left along yon passage!"
He certainly looked guilty-but then, he also looked afraid, and for men who carried secrets in plenty, there often wasn't much difference between the two looks. Moreover, there might not be a man who dwelt in all Scornubel who didn't have dark secrets enough not to look guilty, if you seared him with the candle that was fear.
"Do so!" Shandril snapped, snatching the keys. "If you do him harm, I'll make you regret it for days!"
Her eyes were like two flames, and the Harper flinched away as he slipped past her. Shandril made sure the wizards in the two rooms she'd gutted moved no more, and by then Marlel was on his way past her again, panting under Narm's limp weight.
It seemed like a very short time before Marlel had them both into the room he'd indicated. Shandril made no protest when he snatched the keys back from her and used them on the door with a deftness that told her his usual profession more clearly than anything else he'd done thus far. The Harper slammed the door behind them, laid Narm gently on the bed, and whirled back to the door to drop its two wooden bars into place.
"You didn't leave anything burning, back there?" he panted.
"Why?" Shandril snapped, still furious. "Were those wizards friends of yours?"
"Lady, if the Tankard catches fire…"
"A few floorboards were smoking. Most of what I seared, I took to ashes. I'll care about such things when my Narm is awake and-whole again."
Marlel gave her a worried look, and bent over the young mage. "Have you means of healing?" he asked quietly, after a moment..
“Why?" Shandril asked, keeping her voice hard.
He shook his head in silent dismissal or exasperation, tapped gently at Narm's cheek, and then said, "He's coming around. That water-!" He pointed at an ewer of wash-water standing in the sink of a battered washstand. Shandril fetched it, and Marlel dipped his fingertips in it, nodded at its icy temperature, and drew a line of it down Narm's cheek.
The young mage's eyes flickered.
"Back with us. Narm?" Marlel asked loudly and jovially, throwing up a hand toward Shandril's face in a "be silent" gesture. "Ready to have a good look out at the lovely ladies of Hethbridle Street?"
Narm looked up at him dully, and the Harper waved airily at the window. "Hmm? Ready to buckle your swash, strut like a cockerel, and roar like a dragon?"
"Oh, gods," Narm muttered, "it's Torm's brother!"
Shandril exploded into giggles, a flood of mirth that dissolved into happy tears, and then her arms were around her man, shouldering Marlel aside.
The Harper drew back with a strange expression. His hand stole toward*the dagger at his belt-then fell away again, as he lifted his head and stared at the wall… in the direction of the two rooms full of wizards that Shandril had so swiftly blasted.
He swallowed and took a careful step back from the young couple. That movement was enough to bring Shandril whirling around to face him again, eyes sharp-and Marlel raised his eyebrows and his fingers in unison, waggling all of his fingertips to show that they were idle and that he meant no harm.
Shandril let her face show that she believed him not for a moment. "And now, Sir Harper?" she asked him softly.
Marlel gave her his quick, crooked smile. "Well, now. This room is yours for the night-I've paid for it, no need to thank me, all who carry the little badge you saw are paragons of flowering honor-and you'll have to give three silvers to Pharaulee by highsun tomorrow if you need it for another night, and so on. I should tell you a little trick we use: Take some of the soot from-back there-on a finger and run it around your eyes, and just here and here on your cheeks. Then wipe most of it away again, so it looks like shadow and not black face-paint, and gods above, but the shape of your face changes! Effective, if you don't want to be recognized straightaway, hmm? But I fear I must soon disappear on other business. Is there anything else you need me to do?"
"Yes," Shandril said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. "Tell us the truth."
Marlel raised his eyebrows, and refrained from smiling. "Ah. Well. That would be a grave mistake in style, here in Scornubel." He spread his hands, still unsmiling. "Anything else?"
Narm and Shandril exchanged glances. "Marlel," Narm said faintly, wincing at a hurt remaining in his head, "we're supposed to find and meet a man named Orthil Voldovan here."