Lady Greenmantle gave a little cry, like a dismayed bird, one hand going to her mouth. Her eyes darted to the bell that would bring servants on the run, then to the two doors out of the room… and all her rage seemed to drain away from her, leaving only fear, when she realized the house wizard-who suddenly seemed an above-himself servant no longer, but something far more menacing-had deftly placed her so that he stood between her and both the bell and the doors.
There was a wand in his hand, and it was pointed at her.
“Lady Greenmantle,” he said, the snap of command in his voice, “sit down. In the chair just behind you. Now. ”
Amdranna Greenmantle sat.
Eyes never leaving hers, Ohmalghar cast another spell and spoke softly to the empty air. “Treth Ohmalghar for Ghoruld Applethorn. Urgent.”
The noblewoman sat staring at him, trembling, her white face gone almost yellow.
“Yes, Treth?” The voice spoke from nothingness.
“Greenmantle Hall, Twohelm Chamber. I’m with Lady Amdranna Greenmantle, and from her mind have just learned that she murdered Wizard of War Bleys Delaeyn. As her part in a plot to murder senior war wizards, unfolded to her by the Lady Jalassa Crownsilver, and also involving the noble ladies Muscalian and Yellander! We must inform Lord Vangerdahast at once!”
“Indeed. Knows she any other intended victims?”
“I… think not. I lack the spells to truly probe.”
“I’m coming through.”
Lady Greenmantle whimpered, the air between her and the house wizard shimmered, and then there was a tall, impressive-looking man in rich robes standing on her dapple-dyed ghost-rothe rug.
Wizard of War Ghoruld Applethorn’s hair was white at the temples and he had a face as handsome as it was commanding. There were rings on his hands-one of them adorned with a large, strikingly carved unicorn head finer than anything in her own coffers. He gave her a hard look, turned slowly on his heel to look all around the room, nodding to Ohmalghar, and ended up with his back to the house wizard. Amdranna Greenmantle saw him cup one hand against his chest as if holding an invisible bowl, murmur something into it, then turn. Smiling at the house wizard, he stepped forward-and slapped that hand against Ohmalghar’s face.
The house wizard staggered, gasping, and fell to the rug, tiny wisps of smoke streaming from his eyes.
“Dedication, Ohmalghar,” Applethorn said almost jovially, “gets you only one thing: killed. Who’d have known Delaeyn was such a devious traitor that he’d cast a backlash on Lady Greenmantle to mindblast anyone probing her, burning out his brain and leaving him forever a drooling idiot?”
Giving Amdranna Greenmantle a soft smile, Applethorn cast another spell.
The air shimmered again, and a creature that Lady Greenmantle had only seen depicted in one of her husband’s hidden books appeared beside the war wizard. It was a gray-skinned, gaunt echo of a man, with huge eyes set in a larger head, and had long, spidery talon-fingers but no nose, mouth, nor privates.
“Your time has come at last,” Applethorn told the doppelganger-and pointed at Lady Greenmantle.
“Much thanksss,” it hissed, with lips that swam into being and gained shape even as it spoke. It was looking straight at her… and becoming shapely and feminine, its eyes going emerald green, an ample bosom form Great Gods Above! ’Twas becoming her! Herself, the Lady Greenmantle she gazed at in her dressing-glass of mornings!
As Amdranna Greenmantle stared at it in horror, her own voice issued from its lips: “Applethorn, try not to destroy the garments this time. I’d rather not stalk naked around this house trying to find the right wardrobes and upsetting the maids.”
As the wizard nodded and started to murmur a spell, the-the thing wearing her shape started purposefully toward her.
Amdranna Greenmantle opened her mouth to scream, rising to flee she knew not where, dashing wildly across the room.
Calmly, Ghoruld Applethorn blasted her down.
Dauntless swung open the battered door of the ready room-and stiffened, frowning.
Lionar Almarr Toliphur was sitting in his chair. A lionar sitting in his chair!
“What’s this?” he barked.
Rather than leaping upright and stammering excuses and apologies, Toliphur favored his superior with an easy grin, and held out the duty scroll. “I have to sit here and growl at the stalwarts as if I were you, because you have to report in to the She-Dragon herself.”
Dauntless sighed, smote his forehead, and growled, “I clean forgot. These ‘Swords of Eveningstar,’ right?”
“Right,” the lionar confirmed happily.
Dauntless plucked the scroll from Toliphur’s grasp, turned on his heel, and marched out. The scroll rattled in his hand as it trailed behind him in the wind of his haste.
He rolled it up without slowing, striding hard and fast toward the She-Dragon’s lair.
The Lady Lord of Arabel knew very well what the watch called her, just as well as the folk of Arabel knew it.
And just as Arabellans chose to overlook the slight on their loyalty represented by the Crown making every officer of the watch a Purple Dragon of experience and standing, Myrmeen Lhal chose to ignore the fact that those men-and most of the city, echoing them-called her “the She-Dragon.”
She’d even been heard, when someone bellowed it at her in an unfriendly fashion across a busy street, to remark that it was a rather more catchy name than “King’s Lady Lord of Arabel.”
Yet Myrmeen was called the She-Dragon for good reason. She slept less, worked longer, ran harder, fenced better, and thought faster than almost all who served under her. She was the only woman in all Arabel that Dauntless feared.
That was why his “Acting Captain Dahauntul, to see the Lady Lord of Arabel on official duty” was respectful as well as gruff, and the first two gateguards stepped aside with alacrity.
The second pair demanded the password. Dauntless, who’d chosen it and given it to them himself, along with their orders, just after dawn, said it to them now rather coldly. They kept their faces expressionless as they handed him on to the third set of guards-four, this time, bolstered by a war wizard young in years and Art, who watched him stop and stand on the glyph that would show them his true shape and likeness, then the glyph that would cause any magic at work on him to blaze forth like pink fire.
Neither showed them anything suspicious, of course, and they escorted him into a room where a woman in worn and plain battle-leathers, with a sword scabbarded at her hip, was leaning on her long arms over a table spread with maps, conferring with several scared-looking city courtiers.
“ I haven’t forgotten giving orders that these sewers were to be checked by a patrol every sixth day, Bluthskas-why have you?” she was saying sharply, tapping two many-branched lines on the largest map.
“Lady, I-”
“Lady Lord, I-” Another courtier corrected, before Myrmeen could.
She nodded, let them both see her rolling eyes, and said, “Get out of here, both of you, to think up whatever excuse you want to offer me. Make it good; I’m in need of entertainment.” She turned her head. “Dauntless! Good to see you. More cheery news?”
Ornrion Dahauntul saluted. “Lady Lord, I’ve not judged its cheeriness, one way or another. It has one virtue I have noted: ’tis short.”
Myrmeen gave him both a nod and a snort of appreciation, and gestured for him to deliver his report.
Dauntless plunged right in. “Two tendays ago, or a few days less, a band of adventurers arrived in the city. Interestingly, they do not appear in any of the gateguard reports. They took rooms at the Falcon’s Rest, but moved on to Rhalseer’s rooming house after only two nights. They have been guests of Rhalseer’s ever since, and do most of their drinking at the Black Barrel. Despite staying at one of the lesser rooming houses of the city, they seem to have plenty of coin to invest, and some shrewd idea of where to place it. They have avoided weapons-outs and brawls, but are suspected of having been involved in a double slaying: that of the professional slayer Indar Crauldreth, late of Marsember, and an accomplice.”