But the duration of my levitation spell was running out. I could mentally shut the spell's power down, but I'd fall like a stone. I'd never been this high before, nor had I even heard of anyone who had been this high.
"Okay," I said to myself, "I have one more levitation spell, so if I dispense with this one, I can cast the other one before I hit the ground, and everything will be fine. I just have to keep my head and hold on to the little leather bootstrap, and I can't forget any of the words or get the gesturing wrong or be too slow. It's been a grand night in Waterdeep, but I want to go home."
I went on like that to myself as I reached into my pocket and felt for the material component. I had one tiny leather strap left and pulled it out.
And dropped it.
I grabbed for it but missed. I twisted around and stared down into the moonlit cloud tops, seeing no trace of it now.
After I got my breathing under control again, I carefully pulled the leather cuff tie out of my left sleeve. I fashioned it into a loop, gripped it in my fingers until a bull could not have pulled it loose, and hoped the improvisation would not hurt the spell. I closed my eyes and dismissed the old levitation spell.
I went into free-fall again, the wind whipping around my body into every part of my clothes. I managed to turn facedown, into the rush toward the clouds. My eyes ran with tears from the wind as I watched the cloud tops grow steadily larger. Then I panicked and tried to start the spell. The wind made speaking impossible.
I tried to turn so that I fell on my back, faceup, but couldn't get it right and started to spin in the air. Nearly mad with fear, I shut my eyes and began the spell again. I must finish this spell, I thought, growing dizzy and nauseated from spinning. I made the gestures, uttered the words in a shout, and tossed the loop into the air. I opened my eyes at the same moment.
I saw clouds above me-clouds with the moon looking through them. Instantly my body began slowing down. I'd done it!
Then I rolled and saw a forest come up to hit me. I had been just a couple of seconds too slow.
As I heard it later, I lived because a bride ran off on her wedding night. The groom and his family and the bride's family were combing the woods by their farm, searching for the bride (who was hiding in the hayloft with her old boyfriend instead) when I fell through a large pine tree and crashed practically at their feet. Half of those present ran off, thinking I was a monster, and the rest wanted to kill me for the same reason. Fight or flight, the ancient question.
The one who approached me with a knife saw that I looked human enough and was very badly banged up, so they relented and merely tied me up to bring me back into Waterdeep, to deliver me to the watch in case there was a reward.
I came to in my own house, two days later. Every part of my body ached abominably. Someone dabbed at my face with a wet cloth.
"Excellent," said a familiar voice. "Bounces back like a professional. Once a watchman, always a watchman. Priestess, would you please wait outside for a moment?"
"You," I said through bruised lips. It hurt to even think about speaking.
The soothing wet cloth went away. Someone left the room as a pair of boots walked across a wooden floor, and Civilar Ardrum appeared in my vision. His face bore a number of pale scars across it, one of them crossing his right eye. "You'll be fine in a few days. The watch picked up the tab for the beetling spells. We found that little boat about two miles outside of town, to the east. Kindling. You wouldn't even recognize it. I didn't recognize the scattered remains of the guy in it, though he did have the most remarkable coded papers on him, which your associates in the order translated for us."
"How is it," I managed, "that you are here? Alive?" Ardrum held up his right hand and carefully pulled off the glove. A bright silver ring shone out from his third finger. His entire hand and visible arm were covered with healed-over scars, like his face.
"The Priceless Circlet of Healthful Regeneration," he said. "Found it in Turmish when I was younger. And your ring is…?"
I licked my lips. "Unfailing Missile Deflector." "Ah, so that was why the trap gunne did nothing to you. We are lucky that we are careful shoppers." "What about the papers? From the flying ship?" "From the spelljammer, you mean. You know about spelljammers? No? We'll chat sometime when you're well. The half-ore priest in the ship-yes, a half-ore, with lots of disguising bits to look as human as possible-was the ringleader of a smuggling group. They were bringing gunnes and smoke powder into Waterdeep and selling them to unsavory groups. They were also trafficking disguised gunnes from Lantan to the Savage North, apparently to humanoid armies there. The Yellow Mage was about to stumble across their whole operation. Then he got the wrong delivery, one of the special gunnes being delivered from wildspace. The new guns fire several shots in rapid sequence using clever springs and mechanisms. You could call them 'machine gunnes,' I suppose. The half-ore's had been enchanted for absolute silence. He was the Yellow Mage's killer. We burned his body so no one can bring him back."
I just stared at the halfling. "You're not serious."
"Ah, but I am," Ardrum said. "You and I broke the back of the operation and nearly died in the process." He frowned. "Of course, we haven't found the exact source of their supply in wildspace, but we have contacted the
Lords of Waterdeep, and one suggested that elements of a scro fleet left over from the Second Unhuman War might be in orbit around Toril. Sounds like a mission for someone else to handle, some burly heroic sorts but not us, the lowly foot soldiers against crime."
Scro, unhumans, wildspace-I hadn't a clue as to what he was talking about. "I need to rest," I finally said.
"But of course, and so you shall, good Formathio. So you shall. But do not be long about it. We will need your help in finding out how the gunne smugglers were disguising their shipments, and no one could tell us better than you, the expert in illusions. I'll be round tomorrow at noon. See you then."
He started to go. "Oh." He came back and carefully placed a bottle on the small table beside my bed, looking at it with a faraway gaze. "And when I return, we shall finish off your bottle of Dryad's Promise, which you left behind elsewhere, and drink a quiet toast in memory of fallen comrades and deeds long ago."
Civilar Ardrum looked back at me and actually smiled. "And a toast to those who have fallen-and survived." He patted the bedpost, then turned and quickly left me to the ministrations of the priestess and her fellows.
I had a million questions, but I was very tired. It had been anything but a grand night in Waterdeep. I closed my eyes, and dreamed of nothing at all.
THE DIRECT APPROACH
Skullport, an underground city hidden far below the streets and docks of the more respectable port of Water-deep, was one of the few places on the Sword Coast that offered wary welcome to the drow. Elsewhere, the dark elves' fearsome reputation earned them the sort of reception otherwise reserved for hordes of ravening ores; in Skullport, a drow's night-black skin merely guaranteed that she could walk into the tavern of her choice and not have to wait for a table.
Dangerous and sordid though it was, Skullport appealed to Liriel Baenre. A few short months before, she'd been forced from her home in Menzoberranzan, that fabled city of the drow. She'd just finished a dangerous trek across the northlands and led a successful raid on the stronghold of a rival drow faction. The next part of her journey would soon begin, but Liriel had a few days' respite to relax and enjoy life. In her opinion, Skullport was a fine place to do just that. It boasted all the chaos of her hometown but lacked the inhibiting customs and the ever-vigilant eyes of its priestess rulers. Uriel's stay in the underground port had been brief, but long enough for her to learn that anything could happen in Skullport. And usually did.