Qilue turned, crouching low as a few quarrels whistled past her, and dealt blindness all around the ring. As she came around to where she'd begun, leav shy;ing only a few crouching bowmen unscathed, the beholder cartwheeled into view, shrinking into black shy;ened wrinkles as it spun away down the street. It struck the side of a building and tore away most of a wooden balcony. Laeral rose unsteadily, the last burned remnants of the quarrels that had transfixed her falling away from her blackened body, and hurled a spell at it with both hands.
Fire burst forth in brilliance above the street, and the beholder fell into ashes amid its tumbling embers. Laeral wasted no time in watching its destruction, but turned with threads of silver sparks leaping between her fingers. "Have you left me any?" she asked her sister.
Qilue managed a smile, tongues of silver flame hiss shy;ing out to lick her nose, and gasped, "A few."
Laeral nodded, looked around at the stumbling bowmen, and decided no quarrels would be immedi shy;ately forthcoming. She looked back at Qilue, clucked and frowned at her sister's condition, and reached out to heal, with fire dancing from her fingertips.
The drow priestess hissed in relief and pressed against the Lady Mage's soothing touch. As Qilue let go the last of her pain with a groan, Laeral murmured wordless comfort, and glanced over one of her sister's ebony shoulders. Her gaze met the wondering eyes of a man not all that far away, and she gave him a glare that brought silver fire leaping into her eyes for just a moment.
Mirt, his hands under the arms of a groggy, Daunt shy;less, did not need a more pointed command. He nodded and started dragging the young Harper, hastily back into an alley. Mirt was not, Laeral noted, the only man seeking to hastily depart the street.
Laeral nodded her satisfaction at that, pressed her fingertips to one last wound of her own-high up, where her breast started to become her shoulder-and asked Qilue, "Were you thinking of sparing any of these oh-so-brave bowmen?"
"Two," the priestess replied, "sighted and whole. A hare to lead us, and a spare, should ill befall that hare. Brelma's long gone-and what good is a sprung trap if it leaves us no trail onward?"
"I'll need you to writhe and stagger, then," Laeral murmured, "at the same moment I do. They're firing one last volley." The radiance that leaked from her fin shy;gers then was blue-white, not silver, but threaded faintly through the wisps of smoke around them.
When the quarrels came again, Laeral twisted away and whistled a curse at how close one had come to her throat. She threw up her arms and cried out. As the other bolts clattered on the stones beyond the two falsely staggering Chosen, the air all around blazed with cold, eerie blue fire. Laeral stopped acting ago shy;nized in an instant, and stood tall to gaze in all direc shy;tions.
Her sister straightened more slowly, watching the Lady Mage with a smile of comprehension. They could see out, but no eye could pierce the roiling fire. When it faded, no doubt, Laeral's magic would have done its work on the eyes of both sisters. Unless Qilue was very much mistaken, they'd soon be plunging into real darkness.
"I see five still on their feet," the Lady Mage of Waterdeep said crisply, glowing spell bolts leaping from her fingertips. The blue-white missiles sped away, arcing high up into the gloom above the street. "Have I missed anyone?"
Qilue looked all around, seeing only the five bowmen who'd fired that last volley. They were now standing peering at the two sisters as if they couldn't see down the street properly. As Qilue watched, Laeral's missiles descended from above to smite down three of them in a deadly whirlwind. At the sight of those deaths the last two bowmen exchanged a glance-and in unspoken accord they turned and fled.
"Just those two," the drow priestess replied brightly.
Laeral gave her a sour look, then wrinkled her nose and said, "Thanks."
Qilue sketched a flowing bow some Waterdhavian noble had made to her at the revel, and asked, "Do we run after them, or have you a spell handy to whisk us to their boot heels?"
"I have three such," Laeral replied, and smiled. "Shall we run a little, first?"
"And leave the two Harpers breathless?" Qilue responded. "Why not?"
"You see?" The cold voice held no triumph, only calm comfort in knowing the true measure of powers abroad in the world. Tentacles lifted a goblet of wine that steamed and bubbled.
"Yes," someone else replied shortly, slithering away to affix a cloak over the cage where a pet barking snake had been roused to noisy alarm. "Not that the lesson was less than obvious. Chosen of Mystra are always best left alone."
"Well, some folk never learn that lesson," the cold voice pointed out, setting the goblet carefully down again. It was empty. Goblets were always too small, these days.
After the third turning, Laeral took Qilue's wrist and steered her off into an alcove that had once been some shy;one's cellar. They were both breathing heavily, but the bowmen ahead of them were panting and staggering.
"Time for a spell," the Lady Mage gasped.
"Invisibility?"
Laeral wrinkled her nose. "Ah, you guessed."
"Sister," Qilue said severely, "have we time? I don't want to lose them. They know their way; they go in haste, and the leader seldom flashes his glowstone."
Laeral nodded, murmured an invisibility spell in deft and elegant haste, touched Qilue, then tugged her back out into the passage.
"You run ahead," the Lady Mage gasped as they picked up speed again, "and I'll do myself when I get the chance. We'll still be able to see each other with this enchantment. I've a fair idea where they're headed, anyway, and they're winded. They'll have to stop soon, or collapse."
"They're not the only ones," Qilue gasped back, then squeezed her sister's arm affectionately and let go, sprinting ahead into the darkness.
"Holy Mystra forfend," Laeral puffed, watching the youngest of the Seven Sisters vanish into the gloom like a black arrow. "I'm getting too old for this."
She whirled around, half-expecting to hear Mirt's sarcastic rumble coming out of the darkness to tell her she wasn't the only one, but the darkness remained silent. The Lady Mage of Waterdeep looked down at the scorched remnants of her clothing, decided that was just as well, and started running. By the time she reached the first bend in the passage, she decided she wasn't too tardy an arrow herself.
The bowmen staggered to a halt, groaning, and swiped sweat from their eyes with their forearms. One held out a glowstone and felt for the chain at his throat as the other turned his back and drew a dagger, staring warily all around.
The darkness remained empty and still, filled with the rasp of their own hard breathing and the usual reek of the nearby sewers. With a sigh of relief the man with the glowstone thrust the long-barreled key on the end of his chain into a crack between two uneven wall stones, and turned it. There was a gentle grating sound, and the man pulled on the key. It brought a smallish stone block out of the wall with it, into his waiting palm. The bowman reached into the cavity the stone had filled, drew out the mummified husk of a spider, and let it drift down to the passage floor as he reached farther into the hole, turned something, then set his shoulder against the wall. It growled once, then with a low, reluctant grating sound, yielded inward, revealing itself to be a short, wide door.
The man with the dagger took the glowstone with a snarled, "Hurry!" The bowman with the key slipped through the opened door, struck alight a lantern hanging just inside, then shoved the door closed from within.
The remaining bowman replaced spider and block with barely concealed impatience then shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to another, his eyes on the passage from whence they'd come. "Hurry, damn you!" he growled, glaring up at the wall above the door. As if it had heard him, a row of stones there slid inward in unison, dropping away to reveal an opening along the ceiling of the passage that would admit a crawling man. A rope appeared through this gap and descended, the key on its neck chain tinkling at the end of it. The bowman sheathed his dagger, locked the stone block, then clambered up the wall in almost feverish haste, the glowstone in his teeth.