A slender arm barred Taern's way. He rebounded from its surprisingly immobile strength with a blink and a swallow.
"Taern," Alustriel said into his astonished face, "you've served me well for all these years. I thank you for it too seldom, so I'm thanking you now. I'm also telling you far more politely than I feel like being that you can serve me even better by taking yourself back the other side of that door now. Close it, and await without, patient and with thoughts of whelming the Spellguard or rousing the palace to scurrying alarm very far from your mind. Stray nowhere; I shall need your counsel very soon."
She was shepherding him to the door by now, almost driving him before her despite his red and worried face and anxiously flapping hands. "Lady, is this wise? Think you: we know not what has savaged this man so thorou-"
"Taern," Alustriel said severely, "I need to think and to feel. . without you hovering."
Taern seemed to be on the verge of exploding. She wondered, for a flashing moment, if his oaths would impart any colorful expressions new to her. She hoped to keep from her face all trace of the mirth that thought awakened in her.
"I–I-lady, guard yourself!" her Master Mage almost roared, as her inexorable advance backed him to the door. "A hidden beast may be lurking, or a spelltrap left behind to strike at you. Danger can erupt from a gate or teleport focus in the space of but a passing breath."
He took a stand, as if he'd not be moved farther. With a serene smile she stepped into him, her bosom thrust shy;ing against his chest. Taern blinked, swallowed, backed hastily away, and lost the battle.
"Thunderspell, you're a dear," Alustriel told him with a sidelong smile, as she swung the door closed. "Please don't be angry. I'll only be a little while."
The door settled into its frame, and she reached out with a fingertip to set her own magical seal upon it, but no familiar, momentary fire enshrouded them. Her eyes narrowed, and she spun around, willing radiance to burst from her entire body. The familiar tingling began, but no light burst forth. Magic within beings, magic that affected them but nothing of their surroundings, still functioned, but nothing else.
Holding her will to the task of making light, Alustriel strode quickly around the room, feeling the extent of the unseen shadow. Neither the corpse nor anything else stirred, beyond her own dark gown swirling around her hurrying feet. Not only was the magic-dead area intact, it had expanded-had been expanded, that is-some time ago, by someone with the power to make a spell shadow grow to encompass the entire chamber. The walls showed no sign of forcible entry or secret ways in or out, and the hollow griffon, after she unscrewed it from its chair post, was uncharred inside. The little flaming coin hidden there remained cool and unblackened, its enchantment in abeyance as before. The spell shadow hadn't been banished then replaced. It had remained in effect at the heart of the room since there had been a room, and griffon-topped chairs in it. Alustriel looked at the door. It didn't look changed either, and certainly not as if something large and long-clawed had ever torn it open. She swung it wide again, meeting Taern's anxious gaze, and said gently, "Master Mage, please come in. I've need of your wits now."
Taern opened his mouth to say something, remem shy;bered who he was speaking to, and closed it again without uttering a sound. His face darkened with embarrassment at the thought of what he'd meant to say.
"Oh, gods above, Taern, get in here," Alustriel mur shy;mured, taking hold of him by the shoulder and half plucking, half dragging him back through the door. "I met Muirtree only twice, the first time years ago, and though I know why he was here in the Moon, I don't know why he was here, in the Griffon."
She closed the door again, firmly, and wondered why her mind had begun to stray to thoughts of food.
Taern licked his lips, carefully stepped around the carnage on the floor without looking down at it, and stopped behind a chair, resting the fingertips of his large hands lightly on its back. This was his lecturing pose. Ah, well, Alustriel thought, she needed what he knew, and his own way would be the best telling.
"Men who bear the title 'tradelord' are of course envoys for the city, or coster, or guild they represent," Taern began, as if explaining to a novice that what flowed in rivers was called "water." Alustriel kept her face patient, and even resisted a childish urge to mimic his voice and deliver the words she knew she could accurately predict along with him.
"In the case at hand," Taern continued, warming to his task, "Tradelord Muirtree, a far-traveled and well-liked man, was here in Silverymoon representing the interests of his native city of Neverwinter. We serve here as a meeting place and neutral safe trading haven for many in the North. Most official trade envoys do little more within our walls than meet, discuss trade to the point of drafting agreements, then depart, taking such treaties they've drafted, or ideas they've heard, back to their fellows or superiors. Goodman Garthin Muirtree was here to meet with many folk, but this was his first full day in our hospitality, and it seems he met, in this room, with five persons before being found. . ah, as you see him now."
"Why this room," Alustriel asked, seating herself calmly at the table as if the twisted meat that had once been a man was a day's ride distant, and not within reach of her soft, pointed shoes, "and not those lower down that most prefer, with couches and decanter-laden sideboards and windows?"
"One man has been in the city this past tenday, wait shy;ing to meet with Muirtree, or at least he requested a tenday ago that we inform him of the tradelord's arrival, and arrange a moot at Muirtree's earliest possible con shy;venience. That man asked that their encounter be in this chamber, and his request was brought to me. When I spoke with him-a man I've not seen in the Moon before, a Waterdhavian merchant, well spoken and prosperous, by the name of Auvrarn Labraster-he said he desired his meeting with Tradelord Muirtree to be in the 'magic-dead' room, for fear of 'a sneaking magic' he'd heard the tradelord was employing."
"You granted this request, installing the tradelord herein," Alustriel prompted, "then?"
"This Auvrarn was seen to meet with the tradelord, then depart. The tradelord remained in this room, as is usual given the papers and suchlike often involved in such meetings."
Alustriel looked pointedly around at the room, which was entirely empty of quills, parchments, ledgers, satchels, blotters, and such. Taern nodded ruefully, and continued, "Though none such documents have been found. In time, Muirtree met with envoys and a courtier before his ah, demise. All of them, by the way, came to this chamber alone, without scriveners or ser shy;vants."
"Suggesting that they proposed to discuss matters of exceeding delicacy," the High Lady responded patiently, before Taern could explain the obvious. "Suppose," she added, lifting her hand in an almost beckoning gesture,"you make these latter folk known to me in the order in which they entered this room."
Taern shifted his feet, cleared his throat, and began. "Following shortly upon Labraster's departure came Goodman Draevin Flarwood, representing the newly formed Braeder Merchant Collective of Silverymoon-ah, a trading coster, lady."
Alustriel nodded, repressing an urge to murmur that she had heard of such things before. Seemingly heart shy;ened by this signal of comprehension, her seneschal nodded and continued.
"After Flarwood's fairly brief audience, we know from the door page stationed across the corridor-whom none of the visitors summoned, by the way-that Muirtree's next visitor was an old foe of his: the Tradelord of Luskan, Dauphran Alskyte."
"Everyone's old foe," Alustriel murmured. "Did they get to shouting loudly enough for the page to hear?"
"Ah, no, lady, though it seems their time together was rather lengthy. The page could, of course, tell nothing of Alskyte's temper by his manner upon departure."