"You're leaving?"
Lilly thrust the burlap sack behind her. "Just taking some things to the laundress, is all."
The woman studied her for a moment, then smiled. "A man and woman were inquiring for you downstairs."
Lilly's heart sank. Isabeau knew of the planned escape!
"Of course," the woman continued, "when I learned what they intended, I pretended to be you. I have reason to leave the city for a few days. You won't mind if I take your place, will you?"
Before Lilly could move, the woman swung her purse and dealt Lilly a painful, ringing blow to one ear. The room spun, and she suddenly felt the hard floorboards beneath her knees.
Isabeau hiked up her skirts and delivered a kick that landed just below Lilly's ribs. Too winded to draw breath, the thief could not fight as Isabeau stuffed a scented handkerchief in her mouth.
The woman knelt beside her. She held her palm up to her lips and blew, as if she were blowing a kiss. Red powder puffed toward Lilly's face.
Lilly drew in a startled breath. Instantly she realized her mistake. A languorous haze spread swiftly through her, obscuring the path between her will to act and her ability to move. It was like being in the throes of a dream sphere but without either the pleasure or the oblivion. Though Lilly could not command her body, she could definitely experience everything that happened to it. She registered the second stunning blow to the head, and she felt a cord tighten around her wrists. She smelled the dry scent of dust as the woman shoved her under the cot.
Through the immobilizing haze, Lilly heard the creak of the old wooden stairs announce the approach of her intended savior. She struggled without effect to find some way to make her presence known. Finally, she listened with growing despair as Isabeau fell into her role and took her place.
The Harper woman was as small and slight as Lilly, and although her red hair was not as thick and pale and lustrous, at least it was a reasonably good match. She donned the extra dress that Isabeau took from Lilly's bag and gave Isabeau the overtunic and trews she had worn to the tavern. Cynthia expressed puzzlement over Isabeau's dark hair, but she readily accepted Isabeau's story of a sudden impulse to disguise herself, abetted by a mage's apprentice and a five-copper spell. Lilly did not blame the Harper for her credulity. She knew, to her sorrow, how convincing the thief could be.
When the women had changed places, Isabeau slipped down the stairs to the alley, and the carriage waiting beyond.
The cot sank dangerously low as the young Harper sat on the edge. She hummed idly to herself to pass the time until the tavern closed and the streets grew dark enough for her to hold her guise as she slipped off.
Again the stairs creaked, this time with more protest. Cynthia rose and crept to the door. She stood with feet braced as the portal began to swing slowly open.
Lilly saw the creature first, and she knew it from the enormous clawed feet. She threw her will and strength into a futile effort at screaming a warning.
The silence was broken, not by her voice, but by the sudden scuttle of tren footsteps. The creature darted forward, pivoted, then grunted with the effort of a single, massive blow.
There was no time to scream, even if Lilly had been able to. The Harper hit the floor hard. Lilly's eyes widened in horror as Cynthia's lifeblood spilled out into a spreading pool. The red stain reached out toward her in wide rivulets. To the terrified girl, it looked like tattling fingers pointing the way to her hiding place.
Even so, she was startled when a large green hand thrust under the cot and seized a handful of her skirts. The creature dragged her out with a single tug, then jerked her onto her feet.
In some mist-veiled corner of her mind, Lilly realized that she could stand on her own. The poison Isabeau had administered was beginning to wear off. Her terrible fear, however, was nearly as immobilizing. She stood frozen like a mouse facing a raptor, staring with a wide, dry, unblinking gaze into the fanged smile of a tren.
"You have some very interesting dreams," observed the creature in a musical voice. "It is almost a shame to end them. However, it is necessary, you see. A step toward an end I highly desire. As is this."
The tren held up a bit of parchment. It was the note Isabeau had stolen from the bearded man. On it was written the details of the air caravan's route. A signature had been added to the page. The name was that of her secret love. "They will find you, and they will know what you did. Of course, they will blame your gallant lover. He will pay for every loss, every death. And your family, of course. Oh, yes, the Thann family will pay as well."
Lilly shook her head, a tiny movement of anguished denial. Her secret love had had nothing to do with this! She was the thief, not he! Never, never had she intended anyone to die!
Even as she tried to shape air into protest, the creature before her began to change. The thick body became longer and more slender, the features sharp.
Lilly remembered what she knew of Isabeau Thione, and she thought she understood what manner of foe the woman had fled. Isabeau had stolen her escape, though, and had left her to face this handsome monster.
The deadly visitor smiled, as if somehow pleased that she understood his true nature and his intention. Then his smile widened horribly and his face elongated into a reptilian snout. Scales erupted on his face, and an anticipatory string of drool dripped from the false tren's fangs. He lifted claws already stained with Cynthia's blood, and hooked them with slow, tantalizing deliberation. There was malicious pleasure in his eyes. He intended to feed on her terror as surely as a real tren would have fed upon her flesh.
Lilly would not close her eyes. A noble's life might have been denied her, but the manner of her death she could choose.
She fought the immobilizing poison with all the strength and heart and will she could muster. Her chin lifted with a mixture of pride and courage, and she regarded the creature with steady calm as the deadly claws slashed in.
Twelve
The next morning dawned fair and bright. To the west of Waterdeep, past the north gates, lay a fair expanse of gently rolling meadow and a pleasant wood beyond. It was a favorite playground of the city's privileged class, a fine place for riding and hunting. In the distance, the baying of hounds and the excited halloos of pursing riders spoke of a fox run to ground. The blue skies were dotted with the small, wheeling forms of hunting hawks. A dull, faint thumping spoke of beaters flailing the trees to startle game into the path of waiting hunters.
Despite the evidence of nearby sportsmen, no human parties marred the immediate landscape. There was a scent of autumn in the air: the tang of drying oak leaves, the elusive perfume of late-blooming flowers, the sweetness of apples and cider wafting from the carts that trundled toward the city markets on the hard-packed dirt road. Elaith Craulnober tried to concentrate on these pleasant things and forget his distaste for the woman who rode at his side.
This should have been an easy task on so fine a day. He had his best, silver horse beneath him and a peregrine falcon riding—unhooded and untethered—on a perch on his saddle's pommel.
The small "lady's hawk" that Myrna Cassalanter carried was confined according to human custom and rode on the leather bracer on her wrist. The elf refrained from comment. If he could endure this dreadful woman's company, if he could smile pleasantly as she gleefully slew the reputations of her peers, then surely he could overlook her treatment of her hunting birds. What was such a thing, anyway, to an elf whose inner darkness both surpassed and controlled that of the Mhaorkiira?