Myrmeen’s eyebrows lofted. “They must have really upset someone-or upset someone truly wealthy. And they took him down, too! What else have they been up to?”
Dauntless shrugged. “Much thievery, we suspect, but can prove nothing. None of their victims have seen fit to talk to us.” He and Myrmeen shared wry knowing grins.
“There are two holy men amongst these adventurers, and probably two minor wizards. They show no signs of preparing for travel to elsewhere.”
“Are they chartered?” the Lady Lord of Arabel asked.
Dauntless spread his hands. “I know not, Lady Lord.”
Myrmeen’s lips thinned. “Bring their leader, if they have one, here to me,” she commanded, “and we’ll put a little scare into them.”
Azimander Godal was very tall. His beard was long, thin, pointed, and gray-white with age, and his brown-mottled head was bald for the same reason. Yet his eyes were bright with alert wisdom, his manner impeccably dignified, and his robes splendid and cut to echo the latest fashion.
Just now, he was giving the Lady Rharaundra Yellander a very direct look. “Forgive me, Lady Yell-”
“Rhar,” she purred, reaching out one long-nailed hand to stroke his cheek. “Call me Rhar. Please.”
“Very well, Lady Rhar. I cannot help but observe-and I pray you forgive the bluntness of this-that you have hithero spoken to me as if I were a barely tolerated annoyance, and called me to my face a lowborn simpleton unfit to share air with you, at that.”
He had to admit that the Lady Rharaundra Yellander looked sleekly elegant at all times, and breathtakingly beautiful, to boot-and just now, with her long jet hair loosed to tumble around her shoulders, and her strikingly cut shimmerweave gown, she looked stunning.
She’d have looked stunning even if she weren’t thrusting herself at him, lips parted and tongue licking them hungrily, eyes fixed on his with longing.
“I said much to goad you to anger,” she whispered, “so you’d remember me and think of me. And I would have good reason to apologize to you and… submit to you. I–I need to be humbled, by a man who awes me-as you do, more than any other I’ve met.”
“Me, Lady?”
“Rhar, please, Azimander. I desire not to be a ‘lady’ with you, but… a woman who deserves to be called something considerably more wanton.”
The elderly war wizard blinked at her. “You must admit this is sudden, Rhar.”
“My husband and our everpresent spy, the house wizard, haven’t both been apart from me for more than two seasons, Az. This is my chance.” She crossed her wrists, one over the other, and held them out to him.
“I beg you, Azimander,” she whispered. “Take me.”
Wizard of War Azimander Godal got up from the bench unhurriedly, straightening to his full looming height. The Lady Rharaundra was a tall woman, but even if she’d gone up on tiptoes, she could not have matched his stature. He looked down at her, face expressionless.
Rharaundra looked back up at him, rolling over onto her back, wrists still held crossed, and wriggled forward onto the part of the bench where he’d just been sitting. Her movements dragged her gown down, baring skin.
Godal took two swift steps back from her, waved at her to stay where she was, and half-closed his eyes. She heard him muttering a spell and lifting one hand to make an intricate gesture and point at the air. He kept on pointing as he turned himself, slowly, all around-then let his hand fall, nodded, and said, “We are truly alone. I must admit I feared some treachery on your part, La-Rhar.”
Rharaundra gave him a reproachful look as she crawled languidly off the bench. Standing, she shook out her hair with her fingers so he could see nothing was concealed in it, turned slowly around under his gaze, and murmured, “Treachery how, Az? This is all I have, and am. I would prefer to be more moonlit, mysterious, and teasing, but I am mindful of how careful war wizards must be. Behold this bench, yonder.”
She went to it. “Bare. Simple. Nothing beneath or behind, here against the railing. Nothing on it but”-she gave him a wink and smile, and sat herself upon it provocatively-“me. Safe enough?”
Slowly-very slowly-Azimander Godal smiled. And nodded.
He walked forward unhurriedly, undoing his sash. It fell away and took his overrobe with it, revealing a belted underrobe with its open seam down one leg rather than centered as the overrobe had been.
“May I?” Rharaundra breathed, reaching for the underrobe. Godal shrugged and spread his hands wide in invitation.
She took it.
“Leave your boots on,” she whispered, as the bench creaked under their weight.
It was some time later that she turned around, giggling and slapping, beneath him, and Godal found himself on his knees over her, his back to the railing-and it was then that she rose up under him, with a catlike growl of triumph, to drive him upright, chest to chest.
“Farewell, Az,” she whispered, a flash of triumph in her eyes-and plucked something up from behind him even as she shoved hard on his stomach, pushing herself back onto the bench And hurling him the other way.
Over backward, the railing she’d just unspiked falling away as his back struck it, leaving him to plunge head first, down into the dark and shadowed great hall beneath the balcony they’d been dallying on.
Azimander Godal bit his lip in sadness as the ring on his finger winked into life, slowing his fall to the gentlest of downward driftings.
“Just for a moment,” he said softly, “I believed you, Rharaundra. I let myself hope.”
Then his boots touched the tiles, and he cast another spell.
Up above him, on the balcony, the softly cursing Lady Yellander started to scream in terror. “Wizard! What’re you doing? Get out of my mind! ”
“Az,” he told her. “Call me ‘Az.’ And I’m not going to turn you into a bat or a frog or a mewling idiot: I’m just reading what I can of your thoughts and memories.”
Rharaundra sprang from the bench and fled into the darkness, a door banging in her wake.
The elderly war wizard stood motionless, eyes half-closed, walking among the dark-with-rage murk of her thoughts.
Then he broke off his spell and cast another in haste, to snap, “Vangerdahast! Hear me!”
Godal saw as well as felt Vangerdahast stop in mid-word in a conference, and turn his head. Their eyes met, across miles of intervening Cormyr, and in flashing thoughts the two conversed-a few breaths of lightning-swift, silent speech that ended when Vangerdahast snarled, “Tsantress-find the Lady Jalassa Crownsilver! Mindshroud her and bring her here to me at once. ’Ware her magic; she’s been collecting baubles! Luthdal! To Greenmantle Hall, to serve Lady Amdranna Greenmantle in the same way. Murtrym! Do the same to Lady Imruae Muscalian, who may have all sorts of tricks to welcome you with. All of you, take any Wizards of War you deem needful with you; none of you are to go alone. Accept no delay nor authority to delay or gainsay you. Have those women here as fast as you can do it. You, too, Azimander!”
The link was severed so abruptly it left the elderly Godal reeling. He smiled, shook his head, and started up the stair, spinning a swift spell to find Rharaundra’s mind.
She hadn’t gone far.
The door was locked, and had furniture heaped against it, and some sort of magic waiting to sting him beyond that, too-so Azimander walked several rooms away, found the panel he was looking for, slid it open, and stole through the secret passages Rharaundra thought she alone knew about.
When he emerged in her bedchamber behind her and spoke her name, she whirled around, real fear in her face, and whispered, “What are you going to do to me?”
“Take you to Lord Vangerdahast. What he sees in your mind will determine your fate.”
Rharaundra trembled, her fists clenched so tight that blood dripped down along her knuckles from her own nails piercing her flesh. “Kill me, Azimander,” she pleaded. “Kill me now, that I need not face him.”