The three lords looked up whence the lightning had come and saw a lone figure standing on the catwalk where Asper had inspected a line of washing not so long ago: a slim, haughty figure in a dark green cloak whose folds showed the shape of a long sword beneath it. The uppermost part of the figure was all flashing eyes and curling auburn hair, piled high around graceful shoulders.
"Young Nythyx," Mirt roared, "Come down from there!"
In reply, two gloved hands parted the cloak from within to reveal the glowing, deadly things they bore: Netherese blast scepters, crackling with simmering lightning. "Come up and get me, 'fat man," Nythyx Thunderstaff sneered. "I don't take orders from drunken old commoners."
Durnan looked up at her, eyes narrowed. "You're a slaver, then?" He strode calmly toward the mouth of the alley, and after a moment Mirt and Asper followed.
The scepters were leveled at them, and the young woman who held them shrugged and said almost defiantly, "Yes."
Durnan kept on walking, but shook his head in smiling disbelief. "You've never shackled men, or dragged ores out of carry cages. If you tried, they'd toss you around like a child's ball!"
Lighting stabbed at him, in wordless, deadly reply.
An unclad woman whose hair and eyes shared the color of leaping flame leaned out of a window at the mouth of the alley and stiffened. "Blast scepters!" she hissed.
As her eyes blazed even brighter, she flowed forward out of the window. Her lower body was human to the hips, but from there down it was the scaled, sinuous bulk of a serpent. She slithered along the wall, drawing herself upright, and raised her hands to weave a spell.
A dark, chill hand caught at her shoulder.
She spun about, hands growing talons with lightning speed. "Who-?"
"I am sometimes called Halaster Blackcloak," the wall told her. A cowled face melted out of its stones to join the arm that held her. Flame-red eyes met dark ones, and after a moment Transtra shivered and looked away. The hand released its hold on her, and Halaster's voice was almost kindly as he added, "They'll be fine. Watch. Just watch."
Lightning spat down at the tavernmaster, slashing aside lanterns and washing. Durnan calmly leapt aside, rolled to his feet, and resumed his steady walk a dozen paces ahead and to the left of where he'd been walking.
He looked up through smoking rags and swaying ropes and remarked, "Ah. You cook every slave who says something you don't like, eh? This may be one reason why we've never heard of your stellar slaving career."
Lighting cracked again. In its wake the young noblewoman shrieked, "Don't you dare mock me, tavern-master! My master would have killed you, all of you, if it hadn't been for that-that snake-thing! You're very lucky to be alive to toss smart words my way right now!"
"Ye really should practice with that toy," Mirt growled, waggling one large and hairy finger her way, "if ye harbor any fond hopes of ever hitting someone with it."
At his shoulder, Asper frowned. "You served… the beholder?" she asked the woman aloft.
They were close enough now to clearly see Nythyx Thunderstaff's slim lips draw into a tight line. The young noblewoman stared down at them, pale and trembling with rage, and said, "Yes. With Xuzoun, I wielded power and influence. Great lords poured me their best wines in hopes of gaining just the slaves they desired. You've ended that, you three, and will pay for doing so. This I swear."
"I've heard of consorts that fathers disapprove of," Mirt rumbled, "but lass, lass, how could ye be so foolish?"
"Foolish?" Nythyx shrieked, thrusting forth the scepters she held to point almost straight down at their upturned faces. "Foolish? Who's the fool here, Old Wolf?" She triggered both blast scepters.
Asper had been muttering something under her breath-and at that moment the catwalk bucked and broke apart as the blast star she'd left behind on it obediently exploded.
"Ye are, if ye know no better than to let us walk right up when ye had the power to torch us all," Mirt told Nythyx as the young noblewoman tumbled helplessly down, down to the cobbles at their feet. Futile lightnings sputtered forth to scorch the buildings on either side, but found no way to slow her killing fall.
Or-nearly killing fall. A scant few feet above the stones, Durnan rushed forward, leapt high to meet her, and cradled her deftly in his arms, crashing down into a crouch that took the force of her descent.
Nythyx stared at him for one astonished moment. Her face twisted, and she raised the one scepter she'd managed to hang on to, aiming at his face. The tavernmaster, however, brought one expert fist down across her chin in a swipe that left her slack-jawed and senseless.
Durnan watched the winking and sputtering scepter fall slowly from her hand. When it clattered on the cobbles, he kicked it to Asper, looked for a moment at the now-empty face of the woman in his arms, then swung her onto his shoulder for the long carry back to her father's arms in Waterdeep. Just what, he wondered, was he going to tell Lord Thunderstaff…?
Rubies caught his eyes as her long, ostentatious earrings dangled down beside his chest. Durnan stared at them, shook his head, and said wearily, "I'm getting too old for this. What a day!"
Mirt shrugged as one of his arms found its way around Asper's shoulders. "Eh? What say ye? 'Twas a bit of a slow day in Skullport, I'd say!"
The words had scarce left his mouth when the front of a nearby building burst with a flash and roar out into the alley, shattering shutters across the way and sending another catwalk into dancing collapse. Flashing fingers of blue-white fire spat from the curling smoke of the riven building even before the flung stones of its walls had finished falling. On those fiery fingers were borne two writhing bodies.
The three Lords of Waterdeep watched the pair struggling vainly against the magic. They were women of greater age and much more lush beauty than either Asper or Nythyx-beauty revealed through the tatters of their smouldering robes. They shrieked past the three lords, pulled in a sharp curve along the front of a butcher shop, and continued on down the alley, propelled by the raging magic that held them captive.
The lords turned to watch, in time to see a black flame rise suddenly into being along one wall, partway down the alley. It was a dancing shadow without fuel or heat, which seemed neither to die nor rise higher, but merely to continue.
From behind its concealing veil, Transtra watched a shadowy hand rise from the cobbles behind Mirt's boot, deftly close on the forgotten blast scepter-which lay fallen and still sparking feebly on the cobbles-and draw it down through the solid stone. A moment later, the hand reappeared beside her and offered her the scepter.
"You see? Patience does bring rewards," Halaster murmured. The lamia noble looked at him in wonderment, then at the scepter, and slowly stretched forth her hand for it. The wizard smiled thinly. "There's no trap, take it."
Transtra regarded him, eyes unreadable. "Why have you given me this?"
Eyes as black as a starless night looked back into hers. "I have few friends, Lady, and I'd like to gain another-as you gained yonder moneylender."
Transtra looked at the two sorceresses clawing and sobbing against the unknown magic that was carrying them inexorably down the alley, drew in a deep breath, looked back at Halaster, and stretched forth her other hand.
"I'm willing to gain one, too," she said steadily, and the smile that answered her was like a wave of warm spiced wine that carried her along unresisting.
The wizard replied, "Then trust me, and come."
Cool black fingers closed on hers, and drew her toward the wall, into the chill embrace of the stones. Transtra swallowed, closed her eyes, and kept firm hold of the fingers that took her on, into silence, away from the alley.
The black flame along one side of the alley was suddenly gone as if it had never been, revealing a dirty stone wall broken by one dark, open window. As the two struggling sorceresses flew past that spot, their splendid bodies wriggled, lengthened-and turned warty and green.