When she stood before the door and used its knocker, Laeral had expected no reply. She was also unsurprised when her prudent step to one side did not cause her to evade a falling stone planter. Merchants crushed on one's doorstep was a little drastic for North Ward, but she was more than a little surprised to find the door unlocked. Ah, well. It wasn't as if traps had become a novelty these last few days.
"Labraster?" she called, gruffly. "Auvrarn Labraster?"
Her voice carried away through gloomy emptiness to distant, unseen corners. The house was dark, empty of life, and cold, but furnished and strewn with the odd shy;ments of everyday life. There was an ash-filled brass pipe bowl here, and an untidy pile of broadsheets there, as if everyone had just stepped out for a moment.
The fat merchant frowned, and ducked his head in through a few open doors, peering for signs of life or, perhaps, sprawled bodies.
"Labraster? Gods, man, I'm not a creditor or a tax collector! Where by the laughing fiends are you?"
The silence held, though somehow it sounded as if the house itself was awake; no longer empty, but alert and listening.. waiting for something to happen.
Trennan Beldrusk called Labraster's name up the stairs, and for the benefit of anyone who might be hiding behind a wall panel, added gruffly, "I'll have to leave him a note. Gods, I don't want to be clawing my way through another man's house seeking quills and parchment. I'll check below, first. No one leaves just as trade season's getting into full swing without at least leaving agents behind. . "
She was halfway down the cellar stairs, behind the kitchens, when she heard the very faint sound she'd been waiting for. In the house above her, a door had been carefully opened, then closed again with care, by someone trying to keep as quiet as possible. She smiled, and went on down into the dimness.
The smell of damp earth grew strong around her, but there was no scurrying of rats-or any other sound, for that matter.
"Labraster?" she called, making her voice sound quiet but exasperated. "Where by all the watching gods have you gotten to?"
The house she'd seen thus far seemed like a series of reception rooms and offices. It was a place to entertain business clients, not the rooms where anyone really lived. Everything seemed too clean, too simply furnished, too unused. Nowhere had she seen any clothes-not so much as a rain cloak hanging on a peg. If the much sought after Auvrarn Labraster dwelt here at all, he lived in rooms she hadn't found yet. Here before her, behind the last of a row of wine casks and past a potato bin, was a heavy, iron-strapped door. Beside it a lantern hung on a wall hook. The door was in just the right place to connect with that mansion beyond Labraster's stables.
Laeral smiled, stopped to listen for a moment, and fancied she heard a stealthy movement somewhere in the kitchens above her. She waited, remaining absolutely still, but there came no more sounds. After a time she shrugged, threw back the door bar, and pulled the door open. Earthy darkness yawned before her.
The first trap should be about. . here-where no client could have any honest reason for intrusion, and those "in the know" would have a way around it. Laeral made the way before her glow with gentle radiance, and saw a damp, dirt floored passage leading into a stone lined room that must underlie the stable yard. She took the lantern in her hand without bothering to light it, and stepped forward.
She was right about the trap.
At her third step the floor fell away, spilling her down into a musty cellar-a room where the air flashed amber at her arrival.
The radiance faded into a lazily curling yellow haze even before Laeral landed hard on bare stones, numb shy;ing her elbow, shattering the lantern, and driving the wind from her body. Struggling to breathe, she rolled over away from the spreading lamp oil, frowning. Her clothes were hanging from her arms like the folds of a fallen tent. Her magic should have lowered her gently into this cellar, preventing any fall.
Of course. Whatever enchantment she'd awakened-blundered into, fallen through-stripped away all magic. She was a mustachioed merchant named Trennan Beldrusk no longer, but herself, her garments now oversized and hanging loosely except at her wrists and ankles, where they ended a little too prematurely for the fashion conscious. She was but one tall, athletic woman with very little, now, to place between her and any subsequent traps … or guards.
Oh, she had knives in both boots, another strapped to one forearm-and visible, now-and a fourth under her hair at the back of her neck, the black ribbon she wore at her throat concealing its sheath strap. She had a strong feeling that little slivers of steel weren't going to avail her much against what lay ahead. She was the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, and she needed her spells.
Laeral sighed, sat up, and looked around. "I haven't time for this," she told herself aloud, not bothering to try sounding gruff any longer. "I've only time for brute force confrontations, remember?"
The yellow haze filled the cellar, but didn't seem to extend elsewhere. It wasn't swirling up into the pas shy;sage above, still a-glow with her last magic, nor was it leaking into the only way she could see out of the room. A missing stone in the wall. Seemed to be the mouth of a crawl-tunnel running on toward the mansion.
Crawl-tunnel? For merchants and valuables being smuggled? No, there had to be another way, a proper way. Laeral looked up at the hole in the ceiling well beyond her reach, and sighed again. Doubtless it was up there somewhere, along with the pipe ashes and any stray human hairs and other leavings she should have scooped up to use in later spellcasting. This was rapidly becoming far more than a brute force job.
There was a soft, stealthy sound above her. Laeral peered hard, moving in a quick half circle to see the widest possible area of the passage above. She thought she saw a dark, shadowy shoulder and head jerk back out of her field of view, but she couldn't be sure. Whoever it was never reappeared. If the haze hadn't still clung to her, tingling as it drank at the glow enchantments on her daggers, she'd have used her spider climb to crawl the walls up and out of here, but she dared not waste it.
Dangerous or not, that crawl-tunnel was beginning to look attractive. Laeral sighed again, took off Trennan Beldrusk's gaudy over tunic, and dipped it in the puddle of lamp oil. The cuff of her right boot carried a flint and striker, as did the boots of many a merchant who smoked. It was the work of a moment to give her shy;self fire, which she hastily threw down the tunnel.
Pure fire could not harm her when she stood where magic could work. Igniting the cloth had set alight a little of the spilled oil. Laeral held her hand in the lick shy;ing flames and felt the swift, sharp pain of burning. Pulling her hand back and rubbing scorched, frazzled hairs from her skin, the Lady Mage nodded. Fire could certainly harm her here.
Pulling her remaining clothes tightly around her and knotting them to keep them that way, she plunged hastily into the tunnel and crawled through the wisps of smoke to where her over tunic was blazing. With the same hand she took firm hold of it, watching the flames rage around her flesh and do it no harm.
Well and good. The magicslaying effect did not reach this far. Lying on her belly in the close darkness with her over tunic smoldering its last in front of her, Laeral cast an ironguard spell upon herself against falling spikes or jabbing guards' weapons. When its tingling passed through her, she got to her hands and knees and started to hurry. She really didn't have time for this.
On the other hand, if a trap caught her the right way or guardians overwhelmed her and snatched her life from her, she'd have all the slow, coldly unfolding time in Faerun for this little matter. In fact, it would con shy;sume her forever.