I turned to see Caspar amble down out of the window. He was already loading another shot into his own drow crossbow.
I was mildly peeved, and said so. "How long were you going to wait until you made yourself known?" I started, but the halfling raised the crossbow to my face, in much the same way Demarest had done earlier. This was apparently a theme for the evening.
"Step by the woman, fool," snapped the halfling in a very unhalflinglike voice. The voice was sharp, like dried twigs breaking, and apparently used to being listened to.
I took two steps toward the woman, still seated on the bed, her breathing ragged and gasping. Her eyes were turning glassy.
"Poison," said the halfling, keeping the crossbow leveled on me as he moved sideways toward the table. "Not the fastest, but fast enough. Soon you will feel it too."
As he moved, the halfling began to melt like a wax candle and elongate. I know that wax candles don't elongate, but that's what Caspar was doing. The fatty folds of halfling flesh peeled away. The dark cloak turned pale, the head narrowed, and the eyes turned white and pupilless. By the time the halfling reached the table, he was no more a halfling. He was the native form of a doppleganger.
"Raven, I presume," I said, fighting to keep the quivering out of my voice.
"Right for the first and last time," said the creature, keeping the crossbow on me while digging into the bag with his free hand. He pulled forth a large crystalline globe. Within it floated a second globe of crystal, and within that a third globe. The three globes twinkled in the moonlight of the room.
"You've been very helpful, Tertius Wands," said the doppleganger, smiling with even rows of ivory-colored teeth. "You drew away my former partner's attention so I could get the drop on her. And now you'll serve me again. When they find both your bodies here, the guard will assume that the lady was surprised by a robber and both killed each other, leaving no witnesses to the Tripartite Orb's new owner."
I started to say something about how I could offer a very good price for the orb, but I was drowned out by a low growling. The woman on the bed was fast, faster than I would be in a similar situation-dead of night, bedroom, poisonous bolt in one shoulder. As the Raven and I talked, she had pulled herself into a crouch and now sprang at the doppleganger.
The shapechanger hadn't thought his former partner could shrug off the poison, and had the crossbow leveled at me. He jerked his hand toward the new target as he fired, and his shot was wide. The poisonous bolt buried itself in the woodwork as the woman slammed into him. The globe flew from his hand like a live thing, dancing and spinning in the moonlight.
I dived for it as if it was the last roll at the Highhar-vestide feast. My mind told me that after all the aeons, a simple drop would not harm the device, but my heart held the image of Uncle Maskar. My heart drove me to spread forward on the floor, snaring the orb before it touched the carpet.
I caught it with inches to spare, and both I and artifact rolled sideways, away from the sounds of battle. As I rose to my feet, I heard shouts in the distance and felt doors slamming open elsewhere in the inn. Apparently the fight was attracting other attention.
The two thieves, human and doppleganger, brawled in the midst of the room. The doppleganger had already taken Demarest's form in the struggle, so that it looked as if two blonde twins were rolling about on the carpet, clawing at each other. I looked at them, at the triple orb in my hands, and back at them, and wondered if I could negotiate my way around them and out the door. I really did not want to go back out the window and along the ledge.
That was when the door burst open to reveal at least three, and perhaps a dozen, copper-headed watchmen. Each bore a heavy two-handed crossbow, the type that could punch its way through the wall of a stable. Some carried torches and lanterns, and behind them was the giant Sunset in his crimson robes.
The two battling Demarests detangled and slowly rose, regarding the newcomers. I took another step backward. The window started looking like a better option all the time.
Sunset reached up and pulled his cowl back, revealing a very familiar, calm face.
Ampratines. Of course. I felt my heart start beating again.
The guards were not as sure as I was, and kept moving their aim from one twin to the next, unsure which was the true danger. Both thieves stood up uneasily, trying to put a few feet of distance between them.
I piped up. "The wounded one is real. The un-wounded one is the doppleganger."
The unwounded twin, Caspar/Raven/Doppleganger, wheeled in place and hissed at me, its fangs growing elongated and huge wings sprouting from its back as it did so. It leapt at me, intent on grabbing me as hostage and the globe as a prize.
Two things happened simultaneously. I threw the globe upward, toward the door and Ampi. And there were three or a dozen sharp twangs and the doppleganger collapsed on the floor.
The artifact floated like a soap-bubble across the room, and into the hands of Ampi.
Ampi looked at me, gave a short quarter bow, then dropped the globe.
It hit the ground with a resounding smash, and bits of colored glass spattered in all direction.
It was followed by me, I am afraid, hitting the ground in a dead faint.
Back on the balcony of the Nauseous Otyugh, I had recovered sufficiently to watch the sun rise over the ramshackle buildings of Scornubel.
"You could have warned me," I said, pouting over an ale. The djinni produced one more cold compress and placed it over my fevered brow. "You did not wish any warning," said Ampi. "I pursued matters as I thought I was best able. I have informed the local gendarmes that you realized the doppleganger was a halfling at the start, and played along to discover the location of the missing artifact. Therefore you are held blameless in this matter. The doppleganger is dead, and the thief Demarest, his former partner, has been cleansed of the poison and is ready to accept the town's justice."
"How did you know?"
"I did not know, exactly, though I thought the fact that you received fortuitous aid quite interesting. A word with the wait staff at the Otyugh ascertained that your help was the halfling, and it was not difficult to find a red-headed hauling wearing a straw hat in Scornubel. I noticed he was watching a particular inn, and let it be known at the inn that I was a wizard searching for a particular artifact. Demarest, hoping to unload the item before her partner caught up with her, contacted me for the meeting at the bar, where you saw us. That was when she tried to sell me the fake artifact."
My mind, battered and worn and threatened, skipped a beat, and I said, "Fake artifact?"
"Of course," said the genie. "As I explained to the watch, and took the liberty of putting these thoughts in your name, if the device was truly the described artifact, then I would be unable to get close to it, being a summoned creature myself. The fact that I could sit at the same table with it was sufficient proof that it was a phony, strung up with thin crystals and gases of various densities, such that one sphere would float within the next. At that meeting I purposefully failed to bring the money she wanted for it. From there it was easy to alert the watch of a possible break-in at Demarest's room. We arrived in time to hear the battle."
I shook my head, "Fake artifact? Then the dopple-ganger had the real Tripartite Orb hidden elsewhere?"
"The Raven was probably unaware of the fake as well, since he went to such efforts to recruit you as his pawn. And Demarest, if she had the true globes, would have let the Raven take the fake, convincing him it was the real one. Neither had time to build a replica."
"Then who built the replica?" I said. "Not Uncle Maskar."
"Your granduncle's concern was legitimate as well, I suspect," said the djinni.
"Then if not the thieves, and not Maskar…" I took a long sip on my ale bottle. "Uncle Maskar never had the real Tripartite Orb, did he?"