"Easier said than done," Abdel growled. He turned to Jaheira and said, "We wasted too much time."
"I know a way out," Yoshimo said, "but it will take a while to get there from here."
"We have a cart," Jaheira said. She noticed Abdel's perturbed look and told him, "We need to get out of here. If he can get us to the dragon, I honestly don't care why he's doing it."
"He's working for Irenicus," Abdel said. "I should gut him now."
"Oh, my good friend, I have no idea what you're talking about," Yoshimo said weakly. "I have come to help—that is my one desire."
Solausein grumbled, still unconscious, and rolled slightly to one side.
"He's waking up," Jaheira warned. "We need to get out of here."
"I can get you straight to the surface through a most impressive magical gate."
"We're not going to the surface," Abdel said, glancing at Jaheira with a look of resignation.
"We have to give a dragon back its eggs first," Jaheira said.
"After we find Imoen," Abdel corrected.
"Imoen?" Yoshimo asked.
"We came with another woman—a human disguised as a dark elf," said Abdel.
"Ah.. "Yoshimo said. "She's with Phaere."
"Still?" Jaheira asked, though she didn't expect an answer.
"And the gate will take you to the dragon," the Kozakuran proffered.
"How's that?" asked Abdel, already pushing Yoshimo to the door.
"It was explained to me that you but think of the destination in your mind, and away you go."
"I can't think of anything better, Abdel," Jaheira said quickly, "and we need to get out of here right now."
Abdel smiled, looked at Yoshimo, and said, "Lead the way."
Chapter Seventeen
Phaere was more than a little unhappy. The young woman Jaenra had disappeared at some point during the night, and Phaere found that disrespectful. She had opened herself and her home more quickly and more completely to Jaenra than she'd ever done before, and though Phaere had a rather thick skin, she just couldn't help but take it personally… and take it out on someone.
She slapped the mage across the face with a hard, practiced backhand that sent the drow man reeling. The sorcerer hit the marble tiles of the plaza, and a pouch of spell components he wore on his belt burst open, scattering bits of string, crystals, feathers, and live spiders all over the tiles. He looked up at Phaere in horror, fully expecting to be killed.
"Ready!" Phaere shouted at the man. "Complete! Prepared! These words mean nothing to you?"
"The gate is ready, mistress," the mage said quickly, his voice quivering, "You have my word. I—"
She kicked him hard between the legs, and the man doubled over in pain.
"I didn't ask for your word you little—"
She was interrupted by the roar of a pack lizard rumbling across the plaza floor. She turned and saw something that made her blink several times before she could believe it.
The pack lizard was pulling an open cart onto which the silver dragon eggs were lashed. The cart was being driven by humans, their pale skin positively glowing in the ambient light of the plaza gate. One of them looked familiar—the big one, but how could he? There was a half-elf woman—Phaere had never seen a real half-elf before. She was underwhelmed.
This was Bodhi's crew, though Phaere thought there was supposed to be three of them. She counted two, plus the round-faced human Bodhi called out of the gate to … well, to apparently do what he was doing at this moment. The cart was headed for the gate.
Phaere waved a hand signal in the air that made the guards step back from the gate. Crossbows and hand crossbows were leveled at the cart, but the guards were all obedient enough to follow orders and not fire.
Phaere smiled though she was still disappointed. It had begun.
Abdel had stopped trying to keep a count of the obvious set-ups that had been perpetrated on him lately, they were coming so quickly and so regularly now. He saw the drow mistress Phaere standing over some cowering male drow at the edge of the plaza in the center of Ust Natha. She held a hand up in the air and made some gesture. Abdel couldn't understand drow sign language—didn't even know there was such a thing as drow sign language—but he could see the guards lining the plaza withdraw. They all glanced at Phaere, and though they raised their crossbows to fire, they held back. Abdel was running the cart fast and hard through the narrow streets, and the open construction of their vehicle gave them no cover. He'd been relying on dumb luck to get them through the gate, but thanks to Phaere he wouldn't need it. It was as if she was expecting them—and that couldn't be good at all. He said as much to Jaheira and Yoshimo.
"We have no choice!" Yoshimo yelled over the clatter of the cart's wheels on the marble tiles. "It's the only way out!"
"It's a trap!" Abdel repeated.
"What isn't?" was Yoshimo's cryptic reply. "Trust me one time."
Abdel opened his mouth, intending to regale Yoshimo with the full list of reasons why he'd never trust the Kozakuran when a lithe, pale body leaped into the cart behind him.
"Imoen!" Jaheira gasped.
"Don't go through that gate!" Imoen shouted to Abdel, clutching his shoulder to steady herself on the bouncing cart.
That was all Abdel had to hear. He pulled hard on the reins, and the lizard pulled up short. Everything and everyone on the cart slid rapidly forward, and Abdel nearly fell sprawling onto the giant lizard's back. Imoen and Jaheira collided with Abdel from behind, and both of them grunted at the same time. Yoshimo fell against the back of Abdel's seat, bloodying his nose.
"Destroy it!" Imoen panted even as the cart fish-tailed to a stop. "We have to destroy that thing—they mean to march an army through it."
"That's great," Abdel said as he pulled the reins to the left, forcing the giant pack lizard around. In the plaza the drow guards stepped forward but still held their fire. Abdel knew it would take nothing but a wave of Phaere's hand to make pincushions out of them all.
"How do we destroy the thing?" Jaheira asked Imoen. "It's not like you can just—"
"With this!" Imoen exclaimed, producing a crystalline wand out of her shimmering spidersilk robe.
"Don't do this," Yoshimo said, his voice ragged and desperate. "In the names of all our ancestors, I beg of you. It is our only way out of here. You have to—"
Abdel shot one elbow back and connected hard with Yoshimo's temple. The Kozakuran fell into one of the eggs, shifting but not cracking it. He tried to get up for a second, then fell unconscious, sprawled across the silver dragon's eggs.
"Do it," Abdel said to Imoen. "It's as good a day to die as any."
Phaere's heart sank, and she cursed herself silently when she saw the third human run across the roof of a granary at the edge of the gate plaza and jump into the speeding cart. It was Jaenra, and she was as pale as a human. She was human.
Phaere's mother had a list of criticisms of her. At the top of it was her weakness for a certain type of woman, a physical weakness that made her make fast, rash decisions based more on passion than cunning. Phaere had always liked to think that passion was as good a motivator as cunning. She'd made some of her best decisions based on it, but…
. . but this was not one of them. Phaere grimaced realizing everything she'd said to the woman in the bath, in bed, whispered into her ears, into the gentle soft curve of her neck … by Lolth's malignant teeth, she'd told the human everything.