The thief caught in her cords shivered again, and started to walk very slowly and carefully across Scornubel.
Seeing Folk Who Are Hard To Get To See
When dealing with trade-rivals or slaughtering ruling dynasties, start at the top. "Tis more dangerous, but a lot more entertaining for bystanders-and will earn you an enviable reputation. Remember: Men stand back to gaze at those they admire but leap forward to aid those they respect (or, to use a more blunt word, those they fear.
"S-she wants to see the Master," Besmer quavered to the man who'd stepped suddenly into their path with a drawn sword in his hand, in this narrowest of dark and dripping passages. Most of Scornubel was dusty and dry, above and below ground, but this underway ran very deep, doubtless skirting an underground spring. Sharantyr had begun to think her unwilling guide just might be leading her on a needlessly extended tour of Scornubel's darker ways-but the smell of fear was strong on him, and he seemed almost as terrified of the man now standing in front of him as of the lady behind who could strangle him in a moment or on a whim.
The sentinel said nothing and evidently needed no light to see. His response to Besmer's words was to thrust his blade, lightning-swift, under the thief's arm-straight into the woman standing behind him, who presumably held the other end of the strangling-cord that was around Besmer's throat.
Into and through her it went, as if she was made of smoke. The sentinel uttered a startled grunt and slashed about in her with his steel, just to make sure, but he might have been cleaving empty air.
"When you're finished," Sharantyr told him pleasantly, "I'd like to see Belgon. Perhaps I'll have time to play at blades with you later."
The man with the sword frowned at her over Besmer's shoulder, then asked, in a voice rough with disuse, "You know him?"
"For an answer to that, why don't you give him my name and see his reaction?"
"And what," that rough voice asked heavily, "might that name be?"
The cord twitched around Besmer's neck, and he squeaked hastily, "Winter! The Lady Tessaril Winter!"
The man gave the thief a hard look and the woman behind him an even harder one. Then he stepped back into the side-passage he'd erupted from. Behind he left the flat words, "Wait here-or die."
"Well, Besmer," Sharantyr said brightly, "we've been left with a choice. Would you prefer to tarry? Or choose death?"
"Arauntar," Shandril murmured as a familiar form stalked past her wagon, "where's Narm?" The much-scarred veteran guard cast a look at Sarlor, Tarth, and Mulgar- who'd turned suspiciously to watch and listen, their hands going to their swordhilts-then looked back at Shandril and said, "He hit his head. Narbuth's tending him."
"No," the maid from Highmoon said flatly, lifting one of the coffers with flasks painted on it. "I'm tending him. Take me to him now or bring him to me."
The three guards stepped menacingly nearer, and she turned her fierce look on them and asked, "Well? What are you waiting for? Bring me my husband!"
"We don't take orders from you, fire-witch," Sarlor snapped, drawing his sword slowly and holding it up so she could see the torchlight glimmer along its edge. "You do as Orthil told you to, or-"
He was suddenly gazing into two eyes that blazed with tiny flames. "Or you'll do what, sir?" Shandril asked softly. "The man who stands between me and my Narm can expect to be ashes in a very short time. If none of you swaggering blades will bring me my Narm, go and get Orthil Voldovan, and I'll see if I can make him more reasonable. Or I could just go do a little wagon-searching of my own, gentle sirs- and any man who tried to stop me wouldn't have to worry about brigands on the morrow… or ever again."
"Keep back, witch!" Mulgar snarled. The three guards hastily retreated, swords flashing up to menace her, and glanced this way and that for shields-or any handy cover.
"Sit you here, lass," Arauntar growled. "I'll go fetch Narm or Orthil for you. There's no need for flames or anyone hurt."
Shandril sighed and sat down on her wagon-perch, seeming suddenly small, young, and very close to tears. "Arauntar, you've no idea how many times I've said that these past few months-and how many folk have refused to listen to me and died." She waved a hand at Sarlor, Tarth, and Mulgar and added, "Don't make me add these three fools to my bone-reckoning. Please."
Strangely, no one laughed or scoffed. Arauntar merely nodded and strode hastily off into the night. The three guards lowered their swords and stared expressionlessly at Shandril, who sighed again and idly shaped a sword of flame from her fingertips.
Sarlor eyed it and started to curse softly, but Tarth slapped him to silence. Mulgar deliberately sheathed his own sword, made the downward, spreading gesture of flat, open hands that means "Enough. Let there be peace here between us," and slowly turned around to watch the night again. After a moment, Tarth also turned to take up that watch, but it was a long and wary time ere Sarlor reluctantly took his eyes off the fire-witch.
He looked swiftly back over his shoulder at her twice, thereafter, but she never moved from where she sat on the wagon-perch, head resting morosely on arms clasped around her knees… like many a young girl he'd seen brooding by firelight.
"Well?"
Besmer emitted a little moan and whispered, "Please, Lady, don't… don't toy with me. We must wait here."
"Besmer," the soft voice in his ear asked calmly, "what did you intend to do to me, when we first met? Rob me… or something more?"
The thief started to shake. "Uh-I-just rob you, Lady! Truly!"
"Besmer, you're a terrible liar. What if I'd been ugly, and a man, armored so heavily that your blade couldn't touch me but so trammeled that you could snatch my purse at will? Is stealing coins how you eat?"
"M-mostly, Lady. That and… jobs for the Master."
"How much does such work win you, in a tenday?"
"Sometimes much." She waited, and reluctantly he added, "Sometimes little: a few coppers, a silver falcon."
A slender hand came around in front of his face. Between its fingers were four gold coins. "I pay well for good guides," his captor said calmly, "if they give me no trouble and offer me no treachery. Remember that." The hand vanished again.
Besmer swallowed, and-his mind a-whirl-saw many possible treacheries. He also saw vividly the perils the Master of the Shadows could visit upon him for his guiding this night, or being bested by this mysterious woman, or just on a whim…
"You're thinking of whether you'll survive to spend any coins I give you, after bringing me here," the Lady's soft voice said from behind him. "You're wondering if you can hide those coins and somehow live to spend them-if you can flee Scornubel at all. You're wondering what you can do to me if this damned cord is ever not around your neck. All of these things are as plain as the light of highsun. What I don't know is whether you want to leave Scornubel… or if it's just too much a part of Besmer for you to dare."
Her words hung in the silence between them.
He licked his lips, swallowed-so much sweat was pouring down his face that it was dripping off his nose and chin-and whispered, "I don't want to, but now I'll have to or die. I can see that."
After another silence, he added, in a voice so low she had to almost rest her chin on the back of his neck to hear him, "Will you-take me with you, Lady? I'll do anything…"
"I don't doubt that," she whispered back. "Think on this before you ask again, Besmer: We're almost certainly being listened to, right now-and where I'm going, death will be well-nigh inevitable. In truth, it might be safer for you to throw yourself onto Bradraskor's mercies."