The spirit was crouching behind the alabaster statue of a trio of weeping maidens that some householder graced with more money than taste had seen fit to place at the arched entrance to his property. The lachrymose damsels currently dripped icicles, as if their tears had frozen. Abandoning this hiding place, Bile-worm crept stealthily along on his toes and fingertips, his belly a scant inch above the cobblestones. He wanted to see how close he could approach before the spaniel noticed him.
As it turned out, not very, even though he'd moved silently and was downwind of his quarry. Beasts could sometimes sense the presence of beings of his ilk, and the dog abruptly wheeled in his direction. The animal growled and bared its fangs.
Bileworm hissed, exposing his own black, needle-like teeth, and pounced six feet closer. The spaniel turned and fled.
When he gave chase, Bileworm discovered that a dog can run faster than a man. Or himself in his present shape, for that matter. He sprang upright and his legs stretched until he looked as if he were pacing along on the longest stilts ever fashioned.
Now a single stride carried him over the dog and set him down in front of it. Its nails clicking on the cobbles, the animal scrambled about and ran in the opposite direction. Bileworm stepped over it again and again, blocking its escape no matter which way it tried to run.
The trapped dog whimpered and piddled, tingeing the air with the sharp stink of urine. To further heighten the spaniel's terror, Bileworm stretched his arms long enough to reach the ground and pretended to try to snatch the animal up. His ethereal hands were incapable of trapping a creature composed of such coarse matter, but happily, the spaniel didn't know that, and in any case it would find his touch abominably unpleasant.
Suddenly, agony blazed up Bileworm's leg. Toppling, he lost control of his form, whereupon his limbs shrank to their normal length. When he slammed down on the pavement, his shadowy flesh splashing, the spaniel bolted.
The pain faded sufficiently for Bileworm to pull his body back together into something approximating its normal shape, roll over, and see what had happened to him. As he'd suspected, his master had stalked up behind him and thrust the iron ferule of his long black staff into his familiar's ankle. Wisps of violet light still crawled on the magical weapon.
Master was a compactly built man of average height. In this world, he'd opted to dress plainly and unremarkably in a deep blue fustian cloak and buckram robe, as if he were nothing more than an itinerant spell-caster of no extraordinary talent. His hands were white and delicate, almost the hands of a lady, and he wore an iron ring on the thumb of each. He'd concealed his face behind a crescent-shaped papier-mache mask of the Man in the Moon, such as revelers often wore at festival time, or when embarked on a night of mischief. Within the shadowed sockets of the false face shone his most unusual feature, deep-set eyes with irises so pearly gray they were virtually white.
Master prided himself on his self-control, and though he was manifestly angry now, it wasn't reflected in his tone. "I asked you to remain in hiding while I scouted ahead," he said in his soft, prim tenor voice. "What if someone had seen you?"
"No one did," said Bileworm. "It's very late. The humans are all sleeping."
"You don't know that," said the wizard. "You might have spoiled everything." The spirit flinched in anticipation of another burst of pain, but the wizard merely sighed and lifted the staff away. "Sometimes I don't know why I put up with you."
"Because I found you when you were naught but a writhing grub in a hole," said Bileworm, drawing himself | to his feet. "Because it was I who saw your potential, restored you to human form, and helped you prove your usefulness to the archduke." Afterward, of course, when Master had begun to rise in the service of his new liege, he had enslaved his benefactor with his magic, but Bile-worm had long since stopped resenting that. It was the way of the universe for the strong to subjugate the weak. "Come," said Master curtly, "we have work to do. He turned and led his minion back up the street. They halted in the shadow of an elm to regard the house called Argent Hall.
Argent Hall, Master had explained, was the residence of the Karn family and also one of the oldest merchant-noble homes in this peculiar human city of Selgaunt. The builders of many of the newer mansions had opted to encircle them with relatively low walls, a joke to an invading army but sufficient to inconvenience thieves and rioters. Argent Hall, on the other hand, was a true castle, albeit not a huge one. Its twenty-foot ramparts all but concealed the keep at their center. There were modest turrets at the four corners and wall-walks behind the crenels.
Master murmured words of power and turned widder-shins in a circle, sweeping his staff in a mystic pass. The air grew warmer. Blue and silver sparks flickered along the granite battlements.
"I just dispelled the wards set to bar intruders like you," the pale-eyed wizard explained. "Now, there's only one sentry patrolling the wall, and he doesn't go round very often. I imagine he's spending most of his watch in one of turrets to avoid the cold." Bileworm snorted in contempt. In his world, a lord so poorly guarded could not have survived an hour. "As soon as he passes, we'll go over the wall."
"Why don't we just kill him?" asked the familiar, leering.
Master sighed. "Because I want to slip in and out without anyone being any the wiser. As you know very well, so stop trying to annoy me."
After a few minutes, a spearman tramped quickly along the alure, making his circuit as rapidly as possible. When he disappeared from view, the wizard and his minion trotted up the street to the foot of the wall.
Bileworm simply lengthened his legs to reach the embattlement. Master reached into one of the many pockets sewn into his robe, brought out a small leather loop, flourished it, and muttered under his breath. Power sighed and crackled around him, and he floated straight upward.
The wizard and his minion crouched on the parapet and studied the bailey below, which the latter-day Karns had turned into a garden. Paths of crushed white stone traced ghostly patterns in the gloom, winding among beds of silvery roses in full flower despite the season. At the center of a turnaround stood a dry fountain, whose creator had fashioned it to look as if the water, when flowing, were a spring bursting forth from a natural rock formation. A bronze archer knelt atop the boulders. One hand shielding its eyes, the statue peered intently into the distance.
Behind the turnaround rose the donjon. Broad stairs ascended to tall, carved double doors, while a green banner emblazoned with a silver cockatrice hung above them. The structure had begun as a fortress, and in its essence still displayed the stark, utilitarian lines of a stronghold designed first and foremost to withstand a siege. More recently, however, the occupants had attempted to transform it into a stylish, luxurious home to rival that of other merchant-noble families, widening the meutrieres into windows bright with stained glass and affixing decorative molding to the facade.
"Do you see anyone?" Master whispered.
"No," Bileworm replied.
"Nor do I. Come on." Master simply stepped into space, and, his spell of levitation still operative, dropped slowly and gently to the ground. Lengthening then contracting his right leg, the spirit nimbly stepped down beside him.
Gleaming softly in the moonlight, the silver roses looked as if an artisan had cast them from metal, but evidently they truly were alive, for they exuded a sweet, heady perfume even in the depths of a winter night. Clearly a master enchanter had created them. They were uncommonly beautiful, and Bileworm wished he had the leisure to linger and cup one in his ghostly fingers. After several minutes the petals would wither and die.