Leif, behind Megan, nudged her, indicating an empty table off to one side, not too close to the one being taken by the men they had followed in, not too far away to make their conversation inaudible. Fortunately, the men seemed to have no concern about inaudibility. They shouted for the tavernkeeper, ordered wine, settled down around their table, and picked up their conversation more or less where it had left off.
“—just go away like that.”
“He got bounced. Everybody knows that.”
“Yeah, well, are they sure it’s genuine?”
“Oh, come on, whoever heard of anyone faking a bounce? I don’t think it can be done. The Rules.”
“Don’t know that there’s anything in the Rules against it,” said the smallest man, a fellow with a hawklike face and small wise eyes. “Might be an interesting new tactic. Vanish…then come back where you’re not expected.”
Megan was distracted as a tall slender woman stopped by their table and said, “Whaddayawant?”
“Your best honeydraft, good woman,” Leif said. “And for my companion—”
“Gahfeh, please,” Megan said. “Morstofian roast, thick cream, double sweet.”
The tall, slender woman tossed her long dark hair back and said, “No cream. Double sweet’s extra.”
“Oh, well, no cream, single sweet,” Megan said, resigned. The woman went away, making a face that suggested Megan’s sanity was in question for asking for extras.
“…think that’s a tactic I’d care to try,” said one of the men. “And it doesn’t sound like Shel either.”
“Oh, you know him well, do you?”
“No, but I hear the stories the same as everybody. If he—”
They broke off as the serving-woman came to their table, and there was a long digression mostly involving hot and cold drinks. Megan wasn’t interested in that, but she was interested in the reaction of some of the other people, warriors and merchants both, who were sitting near enough to hear what was going on. Some of them were leaning in the men’s general direction while trying to look as if they weren’t. When the serving-woman went away, the men to whom Megan had been listening had dropped their voices considerably. She frowned a little and became interested in her gahfeh, which had just arrived.
“Nasty theory,” Leif said under his breath.
“Sometimes people can’t stand believing what’s really happened,” Megan said. “They start rationalizing. I wish they’d mention that name again, is all.”
Leif shook his head, a “what’s-the-use” gesture. One of the men’s voices was growing louder. “—why we should be slumming it down here when the rest of them are up in the great hall.”
Megan found herself wishing that this were not a game, but some more mundane form of entertainment that you could simply turn up so as to hear better. “No way they’ll let us in there,” said the man the first one had addressed.
There was another pause as their drinks arrived. The first man lifted the leather jack with the ale he had ordered, and took a long swift drink from it. “Not us maybe, but all the big Players, they’re all gettin’ in. They can’t afford to piss anyone off up there tonight. Who knows who might turn up, not get in, go away angry…and turn up next week with five thousand people that nobody here’ll dare turn away? The city’s picking up the bill for executive entertainment tonight, I’ll bet. In their best interests. Tomorrow, who knows, they might run out of food and have an excuse to throw everyone out. But nobody’s gonna throw the big guys outa there, not tonight. Too many deals brewing.”
“Aah, what would you know about deals?”
“Oh, I know, all right.”
“Yeah, you’re Argath’s best buddy, I know all about it. That’s why you’re down here with the rest of us, drinking this watered stuff.”
There was laughter, and a growl that suggested that it might turn nasty if the others kept teasing its owner. Leif looked over at Megan.
“You heard a name? What name?” he said.
She told him.
“Well,” he said, “I think we just heard another one. Sounds like it might be worth a visit.”
“Yeah, sure, if we can find a way to sneak in there without getting tossed out on our ears.”
Leif looked thoughtful. Megan sat quiet for a few seconds — the chat at the other table had dropped out of audibility again as a couple of the men tried to calm down the one who had sounded ruffled — and then said very softly to Leif, “How good a hedge-wizard are you?”
He looked at her with slightly affronted professional pride. “Pretty good.”
“Want to do another transit?”
“What, from here? Miss a decimal place and we’ll both wind up inside a wall, and there go a couple of perfectly good characters. And this whole mission. No, thanks!”
“Okay. Can you do invisibility?”
Leif looked at her, slightly surprised. “Of course.”
“For two?”
He thought about that. “Not for long.”
“It doesn’t have to be. Just long enough to get us into the main hall where the bigwigs are having their meeting. After that we can hide behind a tapestry or something.”
“This is going to cost me points,” Leif said.
“It’s in a good cause. Oh, come on, Leif. I’ll transfer you some points to cover what we use! I’m not short of score myself.”
“Okay,” Leif said. “Let’s get as close as we can, though. The great hall here is where?”
“In the central keep, I’m pretty sure.”
As casually as they could, they finished their drinks, paid their bill, and headed out into the tiny lane, chatting in a way they hoped would sound normal. It was quiet people moving through the dark who would attract attention on a night like this. “If they’re both in there,” said Leif, “we’re in business.”
“If they are,” Megan said. They headed for the keep, a tall square stone structure that towered over the rear of the central marketplace-square.
Around its open front door were gathered what looked like part of several companies of bodyguards, drinking out of good metal cups and talking quietly while looking around them with at least some semblance of alertness. Most of them wore colored surcoats over their armor, and almost all of them had someone’s badge embroidered on the surcoat-breast. They looked at Megan and Leif with only mild interest as they passed by, heading for the shadows off to the side of the keep, where a narrow road ran deeper into the city. As Megan passed, she got the briefest glance through the big door of what was going on inside: a whirl of color, voices muttering and echoing off the room’s high ceiling, huge tapestries at the back of the room moving slightly in breezes from the high slit-windows they concealed.
Leif picked a spot just around the front corner of the keep, where the torchlight didn’t fall, and felt around in one of his pockets. “Game interaction,” he whispered to the air.
Megan felt the slight vibration in the air that told her the games computer was speaking to Leif so as not to be heard by anyone else. “Points transfer,” he said. “Invisibility. Locus for two.” He paused, and his eyebrows went up. He looked at Megan. “Do you know how much this is going to—”