"My kind!" Qilue described their quarry, her eyes never idle as she peered all around in ceaseless scrutiny. "Shorter, of course, above her right temple a lock of smoke-hued hair among the usual white … all of it worn long. Eyes that snap, temper to match, but not a fool. Graceful, answers to the name of Brelma."
"How long will your tracer last?"
"Until she or another deliberately dispels it. Of course, the longer it remains the more likely it is to be discovered."
Laeral sighed and tossed her head, her flowing silver hair dancing around her shoulders. "We really should meet like this more often, just to chat about the passing parade of anything and everything, not just matters at hand as we save Faerun one more time."
"We should," Qilue agreed, as they came to a stretch of street relatively free of inky puddles, creeping fungi, and lights. "Yet who in Faerun beyond prisoners in chains ever has enough time to do all they'd like to?"
The drow priestess reached several tresses of her unbound, living hair forward to precede her softly padding boots as she strode on into the deep gloom. From inside the waves of hair came a razor sharp thief's fingerblade. The illicit tool, wielded by one prob shy;ing tendril of hair, sliced through a tripwire.
A crossbow quarrel thrummed out of the darkness, struck stone chips off the wall beside Laeral's head, and rebounded into the endless night that shrouded so much of this end of Skullport. Somewhere not all that far away, a raw, throat-stripping scream arose. From another direction there came the sudden, ground shak shy;ing thud of an explosion.
The two sisters ignored both the attack and the sounds as they walked unconcernedly on, talking of the newest plays mounted in the city. A suitably disguised Laeral often attended performances, but for Qilue, an expedition into Waterdeep entailed seeing to so many details beforehand that she didn't want to waste an evening on poorer mummeries. Drama critics she trusted were in short supply among the faithful of Eilistraee.
Their unseen assailant, obviously either dumb shy;founded or impressed by their complete lack of concern for his efforts, mounted no additional attacks.
"Lord Alurmal's Double-Edged Revenge? A farce; some clever lines, but most of it's the usual swapping-beds-with-servants-eavesdropping-in-the-closet show," the Lady Mage of Waterdeep said, dismissing the most recent theatrical offering. "The city's all a-clack because two of the dandy-prats talk only in words that certain of our stuffier noble lords have been heard to use. . and those two lords are, to put it mildly, black in the face with ongoing rage."
"I almost fear to ask what 'dandy-prats' might be," Qilue said lightly, watching another tripwire snap, its severed ends recoiling into the deepest shadows. She waved cheerfully at a cowled form emerging hastily from a lightless doorway. It came to an abrupt, uncertain halt, failing to follow as they turned down a side-stair into a lower way. There mobile, refuse-eating fluttercap mush shy;rooms stood like a quivering, ankle-deep carpet.
"Loudly idiotic, empty-headed parodies of the most brainless of our young nobility," Laeral explained. " 'Prat' because they're there to make all the stupidest pratfalls, and 'dandy' because of their lampooning-all-overblown-fashions appearances."
"Dare I ask about a play that bears the title The Elf Queen's Peculiar Pleasure?" the drow priestess asked mildly, stepping around a hobgoblin who stood like a small mountain in the center of the street. His eyes were narrow with menace, and his axe was dripping fresh gore, but he did no more than rumble half-heard profanities at the sisters as they slipped past.
Laeral winced. "You may, of course, dare anything you desire, sister, but be aware that a fat, hairy male actor made up to look like a half-orc plays the Elf Queen, and that … er … 'her' peculiar pleasure is to steal and devour sweets from Waterdhavian noble matrons … all of whom are portrayed by heavily stubbled male actors interested in the very coarsest form of heavy handed, simpering, 'ooh and ah' clowning. The title may suggest illicit, steamy matters, but the play delivers the oldest groaning jests with a leering enthusiasm."
Qilue looked at her sister with some amusement. "Borrowing opinions, Lady Mage? That last sentence came straight from One-Eyed Jack's review in the last Waterdeep Watch broadsheet."
"And whom did you think One-Eyed Jack was, hmm?" Laeral replied sweetly. "One of my favorite guises. After all, some of our worst playwrights have openly offered blood bounties to anyone who can bring them Jack's head on a platter."
"A Chosen has to take pride in something," the drow priestess agreed, wrinkling her nose. Her eyes danced, and she added, "Perhaps I'll take up acting-or writing plays. Yes. Ho, now. . Death And The Wanton Wizard. That has a ring to it."
"Qilue," her sister said warningly, "don't start."
One eyebrow crooked in reply. "Start? I never stop." Her face changed and she purred, "Have some fire ready, sister."
A moment later, the tangleweb net settled down softly over them. Laeral's magic sent it melting away amid plumes of thick green and purple smoke. Some shy;where out of its roiling the severed end of a catwalk plunged down like a giant's mace, smashed the Lady Mage of Waterdeep off her feet and solidly against the nearest wall, and withdrew in splintered disarray.
Laeral peeled herself off the bloody stone with her own gore streaming out of her nose and down one side of her face, and a stormy glint in her eyes. Another tangleweb net was drifting down onto their heads, and a mauve skinned, glistening figure in purple robes had appeared behind Qilue. One of its tentacles wrapped around her throat, and the other began questing its way up into her face.
The tiny sparkling of a defensive magical field was already gathering around the grotesquely linked couple as Laeral snarled in anger and lifted her hands to rend herself some mind flayer. Then someone opened a shuttered window high above her and emptied a coal scuttle full of old cobblestones onto her head.
When she came reeling dazedly to her feet again, she was in time to see the illithid standing in triumph over a sagging Seventh Sister.
"Qilue," Laeral cried, calling down lightning out of the air to dance ready on both of her palms, "shield yourself!"
"There's no need," the drow priestess replied, twist shy;ing around to face her. Laeral gasped in horror.
A mottled, slime-glistening tentacle had plunged into where Qilue's left eye had been, and was surging inward and upward, pulsing with a horrible hunger.
"Sister?" Laeral hissed, a fire kindling in her eyes to match the dancing dazzlements in her hands. "Shall I?"
Obsidian lips gasped as their owner winced, shook her head, then said, "Well, you might deal with the other two. They're heading for you before and behind. This one's linked to them. I can feel the three trading thoughts like hungry little wolves."
Lightning split the gloom of the subterranean city of Skullport with a sound like a rolling, booming clap of thunder. Two skeletons danced briefly in the dying afterglow before collapsing into ash. The crumbling tendrils of yet another tangleweb net slumped and dangled down on all sides, melting away into smoke, as Laeral turned and snarled, "Is your hungry little wolf still so eager?"
"I feel like gagging," Qilue remarked calmly. "It numbs, and yet it burns. A moment or two more and it'll touch my brain, and-ahhh! Here we go. . "
The drow priestess threw her shoulders back down onto the trodden stones of the street and arched her back, her body quivering with effort. . but its strain shy;ing was nothing compared to the stiffening then frantic squalling spasms of the illithid above her. A glistening mauve hand clawed ineffectually at the air, the stifled echo of a bubbling scream arose, and the mind flayer reeled away, sightless eyes smoking, dead on its feet.