He was still rolling through the gap in the ceiling when something invisible came sprinting out of the gloom. Unseen hands drew a dagger whose blade was as slender as a needle and as dull and black as tar, set it on the floor pointing to the wall exactly under one end of the open gap, then-as the stones grated hastily back into place-hurried back the way it had come.
Once she'd gone far enough to regain her breath without her panting being heard from the opening she'd found, Qilue sat down against the wall and waited until the Lady Mage of Waterdeep came up to her in the darkness.
"Your favorite stretch of wall?"
"The same," the drow priestess replied with a grin, and slapped Laeral's behind affectionately as she rose. Ah, but it'd felt good to be a freebooting adventurer for a few days, she thought. I am going to miss this.
"Was that a victory pat and you're going to show me two bodies," Laeral asked, "or-?"
"I'm going to show you my dagger in a moment," Qilue said tersely. "Now find and keep silence-for once-and come. Bring a wraithform spell, if you've got one … or one of those blast-everything-to-the-gods spells if you don't."
"I can provide either," Laeral murmured into her younger sister's ear as Qilue took hold of her wrist and led her forward.
With catlike stealth the two Chosen went to where Qilue's dagger lay. The priestess indicated the size and edges of the ceiling opening with her hands, then touched the Lady Mage to send the silent thought;
Stone blocks receded into a space behind that wall, up there, and have now returned to their places. Both men went through, after some complications. How many wraithforms have you?
Laeral sighed soundlessly. Just one. . for you?
No. You know the city better-and if 'twould be best to slay them or leave them be. If there's no gap through down here, I've magic enough to hold you aloft, up there.
Laeral nodded, cast the spell on herself, then seemed to flow into the wall.
Qilue listened intently for a long time, then let out her own long, soundless sigh, leaned back against the cold, rough stones of the passage wall, and let herself sag wearily.
Steeling herself against the stench of the sewers, she settled herself into another silent wait. This one was less patient than the last. She found herself hoping that handsome young Harper would turn up again. Yes, she was going to miss this very much.
The cellar was large, damp, and equipped with bells on the wall that could send signals up metal rods to places above. Laeral kept to its darkest corner as the two bowmen looked gloomily at those bells then at the adjacent stone door. The two agreed grimly that they'd wait until morning to give a report that was going to be received with rage. They went on a quick search for rats among the pile of empty crates that filled one end of the cellar. Finding none, the bowmen set their lantern on the floor to burn itself out, and took two of the rough rope mattresses slung along one wall. Once they'd settled uneasily off to sleep, Laeral drifted silently around the cellar, inspecting the other things it held. Among the items there were a long coffle bar with manacles, rows of body irons hung on a wall, and two casks that-if several small, dried puddles could be trusted-held the rich, dark, drugged wine known as "slavesleep."
Well, it wasn't exactly trumpet blaring news that the owner of this particular cellar was slave-dealing. Laeral wondered briefly just how many cellars, in the labyrinth of underways beneath the streets and houses of Waterdeep, held similar incriminating items. Or worse, like the one that had been found knee-deep in bodies drowned in brandy to keep down the smell, or the monster-fighting pit under Cat Alley, or …
Why drow, though? And why Mrilla Malsander? The reach was too needlessly broad and bold for just kid shy;napping and slaving. This was something bigger …
Not that these two would know anything of use, even if she'd been carrying the right magic to get it out of them.
One of the men muttered something unintelligible but fearful in his slumber. The Lady Mage of Waterdeep drifted over to stand above him, frowning thoughtfully down. She blew him a kiss and slipped back to the passage wall like a silent shadow, vanish shy;ing through it a scant instant before the other bowman sat bolt upright, quivering in fear, and tried to tell himself that there'd been no gliding ghost in the cellar beyond the phantoms conjured by his imag shy;ination. It took him longer than usual to convince himself that everything was all right.
Laeral melted back out of the wall, murmured a word that made her solid again, and touched a dark, bare drow arm. Through the contact she said silently into Qilue's mind, I know whose cellar this is. Auvrarn Labraster, recently risen to become one of Waterdeep's most ''prominent" merchants.
He would be, of course, Qilue replied in the same silent, intimate way. Sister, I simply must get back to my own work. Serving two goddesses must be the hard shy;est trail in all Faerun, I often think.
I don't doubt that. I'll take over from here, Laeral replied, and kissed her sister with a tenderness that surprised them both. As they clung to each other in an embrace that neither of them wanted to end, taking simple pleasure in merely holding each other tight, the Lady Mage added, with a cold resolve that Qilue could feel through the places where their bare skin touched, and I know just where to start.
"My lady," her seneschal said with a grave flourish of his silver-handled rod of office, "you have a visitor."
Mrilla Malsander looked up from the latest installment of The Silk Mask Saga with barely concealed exaspera shy;tion. Her servants seemed determined to interrupt her, time after time, in her one sacred, daily indulgence-reading a certain series of cheap, street corner chapbooks. The endless adventures of the amorous Lady Elradra, recently a slave and from birth (secretly) the Lost Princess of Cormyr, struggles in the salons and palaces of rich and sinister Sembian merchants to gain allies and the gold she needs to one day reclaim her kingdom. These melodramas were accompanied, in Mrilla's case, by warm sugared milk and pieces of expensive Shou ginger dipped in even more expensive Maztican chocolate.
She gave the seneschal her best glare, but his eyes were fixed firmly on the eagle Malsander crest that adorned the crown of her high-backed chair, and his stance and bearing were beyond reproach.
Gods blast the man down! She was theirs the rest of every day, until dusk took her out to the revels, but this one hour or so of every morning, as she raced through Elradra's latest exploits, sighed, then read the spiciest bits aloud to herself, savoring them with delicious shudders and thrills, was hers, and hers alone. It was too much, by all the gods! It was just too much!
She would not hurry. No.
Mrilla set down the chapbook, discreetly purchased on a corner only hours before, and carefully concealed it beneath a grand copy of the Malsander family genealogy that was as thick as her thigh, and took all of her strength to lift. She sat back to study its appear shy;ance, nodded her satisfaction, then took up her milk and drained it in one long swallow, not caring if stable shy;men did such things in taverns she would never deign to visit. Wiping the mustache she knew was beginning to take firm hold of her upper lip, Mrilla set the plate of ginger pieces on the table that nestled half seen beneath the spreading arm of her chair. She slid it as far out of sight as possible, and snapped, "Well, Jalarn? This visitor is important enough to interrupt me at my reading, but not important enough to have a name?"