Still standing in the same place, Vargussel took his hand away and whispered a quick spell that would protect him-at least a little-in the meantime. It was a minor casting, but wasting it and the clairvoyance was testing his patience. The fact that the Vecna-given light on the end of his staff would burn out half an hour after he cast it gave him a sense of irritated urgency. Still, Vargussel wasn't the type to let an opportunity pass.
"Come out," he said, his voice echoing in the tight space.
Somewhere, a flock of pigeons, startled by the sudden sound of a human voice in the dull silence, took wing. The thing in the darkness around the corner stirred as well but didn't reveal itself.
"I saw you there, my friend," Vargussel said. "A clever hiding place indeed, but you've been found out. Come down and speak with me, and perhaps we can avoid all this nastiness I'm sure you had planned for me-and that I've been planning for you as well."
There was a long silence during which Vargussel considered how to kill the thing if it didn't come down. As if sensing his line of thought, the thing in the corner came out.
It unfolded itself slowly, almost gracefully, like a worm coming out of an apple. It clung to the upper corner of the passage, holding onto a rafter beam with its left hand. Its webbed feet splayed out on the wall and seemed to hold it there like suction cups.
"That's it," Vargussel said, keeping his voice light, unthreatening. "Come down, and introduce yourself like a gentleman."
The thing slid off the wall, making a horrid, wet, sucking sound when its feet came loose. It splashed into a puddle of reeking muck without flinching from either the cold or the smell. Vargussel moved his staff in front of him a few inches and the light fell over the creature.
Its eyes closed against the light and its skin wrinkled around its small, deep-set black orbs but it didn't back away. It might have stood only four feet tall, if it stood erect, but it didn't. The slight creature crouched, not cowering, in front of Vargussel. Naked, its skin looked like burnished steel gone splotchy with rust. The flesh of its long legs and arms was smooth but elsewhere it was wrinkled and sagging, even where it hung from deeply-cut ribs. Its head was narrow, with a high forehead and pronounced jaws. As it stared at Vargussel, it's lipless mouth slid open to reveal two rows of vicious, yellow fangs, each as long as one of Vargussel's fingers.
"Well, then," Vargussel said, "there you are."
"No fear me, human?" the creature said, it's voice high but still menacing.
Vargussel smiled politely and said, "I do not fear a lone choker, but thank you for asking."
The choker, as Vargussel had identified it, was a wretched vermin that would lie in wait for unsuspecting passersby, then squeeze the life out of them. It opened its eyes a bit wider and tipped its head.
"Yes," Vargussel said, "I know what you are."
"How know?" the choker asked. "Why here?"
"I know a great many things," Vargussel replied. "As to why I'm here, that is none of your concern. Suffice it to say that I have laid claim to this dismal ruin for reasons of my own. It is you who is the trespasser."
"No understand," the choker hissed. "Who you?"
Vargussel was about to answer when the floor quivered under his feet. The choker twitched, startled, looking around, and Vargussel knew the creature had felt it too.
"Pay that no mind," Vargussel said. "A storm is coming…thunder and all that."
The choker tipped its head again and nodded.
"Who you?" it asked again.
"I am Vargussel, but you can call me Your Highness."
"Highness?"
"I intend to be duke," Vargussel replied. "By marriage, mind you, but duke just the same. Do you know what that is…a duke?"
The little humanoid shook its head, and its long, tentacle-like arms twitched.
"Well," Vargussel explained, "it is a title that identifies a man of great importance-a man it might do you well to serve."
"Serve you?" the choker surmised, its eyes narrowing again.
"Serve me," Vargussel said.
The choker's right arm shot out toward Vargussel's face like the snatching tongue of a tree frog. Grotesque, wormlike fingers splayed open, reaching for Vargussel's throat to grasp it in a palm lined with jagged spikes. It meant to strangle him, not serve him.
Vargussel didn't flinch, didn't move, and the hand stopped short, no more than an inch from his neck. The man lifted an eyebrow and looked into the darkness behind the choker, where something enormous loomed.
"Wrong answer," Vargussel said, and the choker was snatched backward.
The creature whimpered, then coughed out a sound that might have been a bark. Vargussel stepped forward and held his staff out and up. Light poured over a massive form of steel and wood and glinted off eyes of thumb-sized rubies. It revealed on the thing's chest a duplicate of Vargussel's amulet, and likewise illuminated the shocked, terrified face of the little choker.
The shield guardian-Vargussel's shield guardian-had a hold on the choker. The steel fingers of its left hand wrapped around the creature's slim torso. The choker's arms whipped back in a feeble attempt to ensnare the guardian, but the huge construct, sitting on its knees in the confines of the passage, paid it no mind.
Vargussel shrugged and stepped past, moving around the two creatures as best he could. He came close enough that the choker saw him. Its tentacle arms snapped back into place, then made to reach out again. The shield guardian drove the choker into the wall hard enough to dislodge a ceiling beam.
Vargussel stepped away from the falling dust and blood. The choker squealed, and the shield guardian drew back its right arm, pausing to let Vargussel pass. When its master was out of the way, it curled its metal fingers into a fist the size of a man's head and smashed it into the choker's skull. The creature's neck snapped and one of its black eyes careened into the air only to splash into a puddle of decades-old cow dung.
3
"So that was the whole reason you were summoned to the palace?" Naull asked over the shiny silver teacup.
Regdar sighed, shrugged, and didn't bother to answer. Naull shook her head, then sipped her tea, and Regdar looked away.
Absently, Regdar's hands fiddled with the collapsing bow he'd purchased early that morning. It was expensive, but when he saw it he knew he needed to have it. How much easier would it be to carry a bow that folded into a slim leather satchel than the long composite bow that had gotten in his way so many times while slung over his shoulder and dragging on the ground?
They sat at a small table on the huge, high terrace of the Thrush and the Jay-the inn that the duke himself had recommended to them-sipping tea from wildly expensive silver cups and taking in the cool, sunset air. Regdar had never stayed in a place so opulent before. Almost everything about the inn made him feel silly, like a fish out of water.
Naull, who grew up in a lonely wizard's tower on the eastern frontier, was oddly at ease. The beauty and elegance of the inn seemed to transform her, bringing out a grace that Regdar had always sensed in her but hadn't often been able to see. She was a gifted spellcaster with a quick mind and an easy wit. Surrounded by silver, silk, and servants, she became a lady.
Naull set down her teacup and met Regdar's eyes. He smiled when he realized he'd been caught staring at her when he'd meant to look away.
"She must be very beautiful," Naull said, a smile curling her lips.
Regdar shrugged and this time did look away, out to the east where the pale orange glow of the sunset held the city in its gentle embrace. From where they sat, high atop the columned inn, the Duke's Quarter stretched out beneath them with the eastern portion of the Merchant's Quarter behind it and the bustling Trade Quarter beyond.