Rauntlavon hopped, quite thankfully, but kept his attention more on what two of The Four Lords of the Castle were saying. They'd all been debonair and successful adventurers, less than a decade ago, and one never knew what wild and exciting things they might say.
Well, nothing about mating dragons this time.
"So tell me, Iyrik," the Ladylord was saying in her I-really-shouldn't-have-to-be-this-patient voice, "just why your farscrying spell blew up. Is it one of those magics you'd just be better off not trying? Or were you distracted by some nubile elf maid seen in your spying, perhaps?"
"Nessa," the elf growled…Rauntlavon had always admired the way he could look so agile and elegant and youthful, and yet be more gruff than any dwarf…as he rose and fixed her with one glaring that's- quite-enough eye, "this is serious. For us all, everywhere in Faerun.
Stop playing the swaggering warrior bitch for just a moment and listen. For once."
Rauntlavon froze, his head sunk between his shoulders, wondering if folk really survived the full fury of Great Lady Nuressa a-storming…and just how swiftly and brutally she'd notice him and have him removed from the room.
Very and with iron calm, it seemed.
"Master Rauntlavon," she said calmly, "you may leave us now. Close the door on your way out."
"Apprentice Rauntlavon," his master said, just as calmly, "it is my will that you abide with us. Send Master Rauntlavon out, and close the door behind him, remaining here with us."
Rauntlavon swallowed, drew in a deep breath, and turned around to face them, hardly daring to raise his eyes. "I–I've found nothing amiss at this end of the chamber," he announced, his voice higher and rather more unsteady than he wished it would be. "Shall I examine the other half of it now … or later?"
"Now will be fine, Rauntlavon," the ladylord said in a voice of velvet menace. "Pray proceed."
The apprentice actually shivered ere he bowed and mumbled, "As my Great Lady wishes."
"It's a wonderful thing to make men and boys fear you, Nessa, but does it really make up for your years under the lash? The escaped slave gets even by enslaving others?" His master's voice was biting, Rauntlavon tried not to let his momentary hesitation show. The ladylord had been a slave? Kneeling naked under a slaver's lash, in the dust and the heat? Gods, but he'd never have…
"Do you think we can leave my past careers in my own bedchamber closet, Iyrik?" the ladylord said almost gently. Her next sentence, however, was almost a battlefield shout. "Or is there some pressing need to tell all the world?
"I won't tell anyone, I won't…I swear I won't!" Rauntlavon babbled, going to his knees on the rug.
He heard the Great Lady sigh and felt ironlike fingers on his shoulder, hauling him back to his feet. Other fingers took hold of his chin and turned his head as sharply as a whip is flicked. The apprentice found himself staring into the Lady Nuressa's smoky eyes from a distance of perhaps the length of his longest finger.
"Rauntlan," she said, addressing him as he liked his handful of friends to…a short name he'd had no idea any of the lords even knew about, "you know that one of the most essential skills any wizard can have is to keep the right secrets, and keep them well. So I shall test you now, to see if you're good enough to remain in the castle as a mage-in-training … or a wizard in your own right, in time to come. Keep my secret, and stay. Let it out…and be yourself shut out of our lands, chased to our borders with the flat of my blade finding your backside as often as I can land it."
Rauntlavon heard his master start to say something, but the ladylord made some sort of gesture he couldn't see behind her back, and Iyriklaunavan fell silent again.
"Do you understand, Rauntlan?"
Her voice was as calm and as gentle as if she'd been discussing haying a field, Rauntlavon swallowed, nodded, squirmed under the hard points of her gaze, and managed to say, "Great Lady, I swear to keep your secret. I shall abide by your testing.. and if ever I let it slip, I shall come to you myself to admit the doing, so the chase can begin at your convenience."
Her dark brows rose. "Well said, Master Apprentice. Agreed, then."
She took a quick step back from him and lifted her gown unhurriedly to display a tanned, muscular leg so long and shapely that he swallowed twice, unable to tear his eyes from it. Somewhere far, far away, his master chuckled, but Rauntlavon was lost in the slow but continuing rise of fine fabric, up, up to her hip…he was swallowing hard, now, and knew his face must be as bright as a lamp…where his eyes locked on a purplish-white brand. The cruel design was burned deep into her flesh, just below the edge of the bone that made her hip jut out. She traced a circle around it with one long finger and asked in a dry voice, "Seen enough, Rauntlan?"
He almost choked, trying to swallow and nod fervently at the same time, and somewhere in the midst of his distress the gown went to her ankles again, her hand clapped his shoulders like a club crashing down, and her deep voice said in his ear, "So we have a secret to share now, you and I. Something to remember." She shoved him away gently and added, "I believe this end of the room hasn't been fully inspected yet, Master Apprentice."
Her voice was a brisk goad once more, but somehow Rauntlavon found himself almost grinning as he strode away to the end of the room and announced, "Inspection resumes, Great Lady…and sharing begins!"
His master laughed aloud, and after a moment Rauntlavon heard a low, thrilling murmur that must have been the ladylord chuckling.
She used the lash of her voice on Iyriklaunavan next, breaking off in mid-chuckle to snap, "Enough time wasted, mage. You frighten me up from my table with a map half drawn and my soup growing cold, then go all coy about why. What's so 'serious' that your apprentice must hear about it alongside me? Do you think you can get around to telling me about this oh-so-serious matter before, say, nightfall!"
"I meant it when I said this was serious, Nessa," Rauntlavon's master said quietly. "Put the edge of your tongue away for a moment and listen. Please."
He paused then, and…wonders! Rauntlavon even turned around to see, earning him an almost amused glance from the Great Lady…the Ladylord Nuressa gave him silence, waiting to hear him speak.
Iyriklaunavan blinked, seeming himself surprised, then said swiftly, "You know that magic…all magic not bolstered by draining a few sorts of enchanted items… is going wrong. Spells twisting to all sorts of results, untrustworthy and dangerous. Some mages are hiding in their towers, unable to defend themselves against anyone who might try to settle grudges. Magic has gone wild. If fewer folk knew about it, I'd say that this should be our secret…Rauntlavon's and mine own…for you to keep, or else. It will come as no surprise to you that many mages have been trying to find out why this darkness has befallen. I am one of them."
"And that's even less of a surprise," the Lady Nuressa said quietly. Rauntlavon's head snapped around to regard her somber face. He'd never heard her speak so gently before. She sounded almost … tender.
"I have no items to waste in bolstering my spells," Iyriklaunavan continued, "so the boy…Rauntlavon…has been my bulwark, using his spells to steady mine. Word has even come to us that some wizards…and even priests of the faiths of the Weave…believe divine Mystra and Azuth themselves have been corrupting magic deliberately, for some purpose mortals cannot even hazard."
"You worship our gods of magecraft?"
"Nessa," Iyriklaunavan said calmly, "I don't even have a bedchamber closet to keep my secrets in. I'm trying to hurry this, really I am just listen."
Nuressa leaned back against one of the lamp-girt pillars that held up the ceiling of the spell chamber, and gestured for the elf mage to continue. She didn't even look irritated.