Before his eyes she grew taller, her hair stirring rest shy;lessly around curving shoulders as she grew both more slender and more shapely. Long, long legs, a flat belly, and. . Labraster swallowed and bunked, hardly believing the beauty he saw. A spicy scent wafted from Meira as she strode forward. Labraster searched her with his eyes, feeling lust stirring within him, a rising warmth that checked for only a moment when his gaze rose far enough to find her green eyes unchanged in their knowing, and anger.
Meira glided up to him and wove slender fingers through his hair, guiding his head to her, "Such a little thing Meira demands," she murmured. "Do you still know how to be tender, man? Show me …"
Slender fingers momentarily brushed against a tiny chip of stone amid curling hair, and as if through rippling water, Sylune saw the face of Auvrarn Labraster, tight with apprehension, shifting and sliding into the face he now wore, brighter somehow than it had seemed in the mirror. A cold, dark sentience was sliding over her, con shy;sidering that face, then Labraster's own again. . then seeming to place another face over it, so that one showed through the other. She knew this new face, and tried to keep herself calm and still as the dark sentience that could only be Meira quested past, comparing it with Labraster as he really was, and doubting that the Waterdhavian merchant was suitable to masquerade as the other man.
That other man was King Azoun IV of Cormyr.
The morning was cold, the pit-privy was filthy and swirling with biting flies, and the bowl of wash water both gray and icy. The priestess, moving naked around her smoking cooking fire, was her old, wrinkled self again. Auvrarn Labraster smelled her unwashed stink on his own limbs, and wrinkled his nose in distaste. Even his own transformed clothes itched and felt… wrong.
Without looking up she handed him a steaming, rather battered tankard as he approached. It smelled wonder shy;ful, but Labraster cradled it in his hands and sniffed sus shy;piciously. "What might this be?"
"Soup," she said sweetly.
"I can tell that," he growled. "What's in it?"
"Dead things," she growled back, turning green eyes on him. They held a certain sparkle that made the merchant want to glance down at himself to make sure that noth shy;ing was missing. He hesitated, then, involuntarily, did so.
She snickered. "Ah, the great Auvrarn Labraster, scourge of the masked revels of Waterdeep." She tossed her head and laughed again, lightly. "Waterdhavians have such high standards, don't you think?"
Labraster shuddered, and brought the warm comfort of the tankard to his lips. "If you're done mocking me, woman," he growled, "perhaps you'll find time enough to tell me just whose shape I now wear, eh?"
"Blandras Nuin," Meira told her own tankard promptly, scratching herself and reaching for the pile of rags that evidently served her every wardrobe need.
Labraster watched her with fresh disgust, and asked unwillingly, "Who's 'Blandras Nuin'?"
"A man I sacrificed on the Altar of Night a few days back," the priestess said, bending to a nearby stool to kiss the oily lashes of a black, many-tailed whip reverently.
The merchant grunted, and shifted a little away. Any shy;thing dedicated to Shar was best avoided. "After you served him as you served me?"
Meira's head snapped around. She looked more shocked than angry, but her voice was as sharp as a thrusting sword as she said, "He was for Holy Shar, and Shar alone." Her thin lips drooped into a catlike smile, and she added, "He looked quite-ah, striking as he died."
"And the body?" Labraster asked, looking around as if he expected to find severed hands serving as cloak hooks, and hairy, bloodless legs bound together to hold up a table.
"Once a ritual is done, and it is properly blackened or doused in purple sauces, any suitable sacrifice to the god shy;dess may be devoured by her worshipers," Meira said primly, then glanced sidelong at her unwilling guest as he gagged, and added slyly, "I did keep certain pieces for dessert." The merchant's shaking hands spilled soup on the cave floor.
She knelt and slithered forward between his legs to lap it up. Labraster hastily backed away, seeking another place to sit. His shoulders came up against the rotting, blackened hides that served her as doors, and in an instant he spun around and shouldered himself out into the light and the fresh, frigid air.
"Gods," he growled, blinking at the brightness and cradling his hands around the battered tankard. His stomach lurched anew at the thought of the wrinkled priestess stirring a man's hairy leg into her soup caldron.
Soup caldron … he looked down in horror, and hurled the tankard as far and as hard as he could, found his knees in scrabbling haste, and vomited everything in him onto the ground so furiously that his spew splashed his eyebrows. Hot tears of rage and revulsion blurred his eyes as he coughed and spat.
"Such a waste," that sharp voice he was beginning to hate so much said coolly from behind him. "There's none of him left in that. 'Tis all bustard and black voles and rockscuttler lizards. Oh, and a snake; a rock viper, but a little one, too young for his fangs to be deadly."
Her words failed to reassure Labraster. The merchant turned his white, trembling face away from her as he rose and stumbled over to one of the standing stones. He leaned against it weakly and drew in deep, shuddering breaths of air. A hand like a wart-studded claw patted his behind, the fingers lingering to caress.
"More, valiant merchant?" Meira cooed, clear mockery in her biting tones.
Auvrarn Labraster sprang forward and away, whirling around and slapping at his sword hilt. "Away, witch!"
The wrinkled, toadlike creature in front of him looked almost comical as it pouted, but one look into those green eyes quelled any mirth that might have been rising in Auvrarn Labraster now and for perhaps the next month or so. They held a cold and waiting promise that told the merchant he'd been judged expendable. One wrong step would be his last, or worse he'd be violently unmanned and teleported, maimed and still screaming, into the hands of Alustriel of Silverymoon, only to be hauled back again like a hooked fish, if Alustriel should show him any mercy. Back to the cooking pot, no doubt strapped to that bloodstained worktable and cut up alive, piece by piece, while Meira the Dark discussed seasonings with him, and-no, no more!
Labraster shook his head, his eyes closed, and he heard himself gasp, "For pity's sake, priestess! I’ve a heavy load, and mean no offense, but, truly, I-"
“You find Meira not to your taste," the priestess said, her voice more sad than angry. "Well, you're not the first, nor the last." She glanced up at him with the suddenness of a snake, eyes bright. "You'll find your way back here, though, when next your needs outstrip that ambition of yours, and Meira will be waiting. Oh, yes, perhaps to play the man, then, to your woman, hmm? We'll see. Oh, aye, well see."
Labraster shivered. She meant every word, and a small part of him was even excited. What sneaking spells had she worked on him, to make him think so? How much of a leash did Auvrarn Labraster now wear?
He had to get out of there. He had to get away from this woman and her foul cave. Fleeing all the roused Spellguard through the High Palace of Silverymoon was starting to seem preferable to this. Labraster drew in a deep breath, lifted his head, and forced himself to open his eyes and to smile.
"A part of me looks forward to that," he admitted, and saw Meira's green eyes flash. "You can use spells if you want, to confirm that I speak truth."
The priestess shook her head. "Nay, lad, I can see. I can also see that you want very much to be off and about your scheming, tarrying here no longer. Hear then my advice. Go nowhere that Auvrarn Labraster would, and reveal your disguise to no one. Let your affairs be run by your agents, even if they begin to subvert and swindle. The ring will keep you out of even the cycle's summons. You know how to contact those of us who matter, if need be. Don't go wandering back to claim treasures Labraster hid and finish deals he left hanging. The Chosen-and the Harpers, now-will be waiting and watching for that."