A firewine-filled flagon makes an excellent mirror if the light is right, so El had no difficulty at all in seeing Downdagger emerge from the booth again, or of identifying the noble who emerged with him. Kindly old Lord Traevyn Illance. Well, well.
Illance and Downdagger strolled along the line of booths to the line of garderobes at the end of the room, Illance’s two bodyguards a careful three paces behind them. Carrying his drink, Elminster strolled languidly toward the same destination.
When the lord stepped into a garderobe, Downdagger hesitated, shrugged, then entered an adjacent one. Elminster worked a silent spell.
The veil of darkness he’d conjured was wide enough to wall off this end of the room from all eyes, thick enough to surround the bodyguards’ heads and blind them, and moved in accordance with his will, so he could keep it around them… if they didn’t move too far in opposite directions.
Elminster finished his firewine, set the empty flagon down on a table he was passing, and strode right up to Rorn and Brabras-whose wildly waving arms and swiftly drawn swords betrayed their consternation at being plunged into utter darkness. They were going to start to shout, so El raced around behind them, touched both of them on the backs of their necks to enspell them into unconsciousness, caught their swords to prevent any loud clangs, laid the blades atop their bodies, and stepped over those bodies-into the garderobe where the wizard had gone.
The staff of the Ravens had noticed something amiss, but all they heard was a brief, wordless exclamation of astonishment from behind an area of obviously conjured darkness.
The senior flagonjack rolled his eyes. These younger nobles! Couldn’t wait to rut until they got home, but didn’t want anyone seeing their faces as they rode some coinlass-or a noble lass of a rival family. So, a little conjured darkness… they’d be using magic to disguise themselves while here in the Ravens, next!
On the other side of the veil, Downdagger emerged from the garderobe, dragged Rorn into it and dumped him and his sword in on top of the unconscious Morligul Downdagger, and shut the garderobe door on them both and checked that it would stay shut. It did. The second Downdagger then sat down at an adjacent table and bent his attention in another direction… as his veil of darkness moved smoothly into the garderobe he’d just filled up with bodies.
The flagonjacks, staring down the room, saw the darkness vanish, and beheld nothing amiss except a man sprawled on the floor with a sword atop him.
The senior flagonjack started down the room to see what had happened, but he was still a good twelve hurrying strides away when a garderobe door opened and Lord Illance emerged, to find his hired wizard sitting at a table-and one of his two bodyguards sprawled senseless on the floor.
He could see the man’s own blade-clean of all gore-was lying atop his body, and there was no blood or visible wounds.
“A wench did that,” Morligul explained before he could ask, pointing down at the body. “Rorn’s chasing her right now.”
Illance looked down at the unconscious Brabras, shook his head, sighed in exasperation, and grunted, “Can’t even get good bullyblades these days! Come!”
He stalked off, heading for the front door of the Ravens. Elminster hastened to follow.
The third hard, ringing slap brought Mirt awake.
By the burning sensation down that side of his face, previous slaps had been administered with powerful enthusiasm, yet had failed to rouse him.
“I hope ye’re a pretty lass,” he growled, “because those are the sort of folk I like to be slapped by.”
He tried to turn his head, which was when he discovered he was bound-by quite a lot of rope, knotted very tightly-to a chair in a cavernous warehouse.
Standing in front of him was Lord Traevyn Illance, wearing an unpleasant smile as he stared at Mirt. The old lord was flanked by five bullyblades in matching surcoats, and another man who looked more like a mage than any sort of warrior. As Mirt looked at all of them, Illance nodded to his five bodyguards, and they disappeared through a door in the wall behind him, seeming rather eager to be gone.
“I think we both know why you’re here, Rauligus,” Illance said coldly.
“Ye’re smitten with me and seek to enjoy my charms in private?” Mirt asked hopefully.
Illance’s eyes narrowed. He looked at the mage, then back at Mirt. “Your voice is different, the words you use, too… you are Lord Rauligus Helderstone, are you not?”
“Have been these too many seasons,” Mirt replied cheerfully. “Getting good at being Lord Helderstone, I am.”
Illance nodded. “Then you will recall that you owe me a quite considerable sum. Seven hundred thousand golden lions, to be precise. Not to mention ten thousand more on the year-day mark, every year since you borrowed it. Twenty-nine summers ago.”
“Aye?”
“You dispute this?”
“Nay.”
“Good. Then you should also recall that the entire sum was due if ever you returned to Cormyr. Which you have obviously now done. Probably because you had to depart Sembia in a hurry, thanks to some new foe-and considered me the lesser peril.”
“Aye.”
“I’ve heard you’ve been here in Suzail for almost a tenday, now. Yet, I had to hear it from others, because I heard nothing from you. You failed to contact me promptly upon reaching the city to offer me the repayment of my loan, despite such action on your part being a clear part of our agreement. I am hurt, Rauligus. Hurt. Almost as deeply hurt as I’ve been all these years, living in near penury without my gold. It’s been calling to me, Rauligus, as I scrimped and saved and did without… but I took what scant consolation I could from the knowledge that my gold was at least in the hands of a fair man, an honest man. A rival, some might even say a foe, but an honest man.”
Illance was pacing now, drawling airily, the wizard in the background smiling and enjoying the performance.
“I am that,” Mirt agreed happily.
Illance stopped. “Oh? You claim so? How is it then that you shatter our agreement, returning to fair Suzail to live like a decadent king, drinking kegs upon kegs and rolling in perfumed bedlinens with playpretties night after night, without even a word to me? For in that, I do not see the conduct of an honest man. I see the brazen behavior of a swindler.”
“Nay, nay!” Mirt protested, trying to strain against his bonds without appearing to do so. Gods below, but they were tight. He was trussed like a roast, and every whit as doomed. “ ’Twas nothing of the sort!”
“Lies are no more attractive when retold,” Illance replied coldly and waved his hand dismissively. “Enough of this. I was hoping for pleading, for desperate bargaining for your life-or at least the retention of some of your limbs-but you seem to have become some sort of happy half-wit. So, hear now your fate-my five bodyguards are going to torture you into yielding up the whereabouts not just of what you owe me, but all your properties and wealth. Everything. If you’re still alive, we’ll put you on a boat to Westgate to be unloaded, naked and broken, onto the docks, to see how long you survive in that pleasant den of vipers.”
“B-but you sent them away,” Mirt pointed out brightly.
Illance smiled. “Oh, they’ll be back. Just as soon as they finish enjoying your maid, in yonder room.” He leered. “She’s really your wife, isn’t she? Wearing quite a few sapphires, wasn’t she? Oh, yes, I’m expecting them back soon. Yet, we mustn’t rush my loyal blades… and there are five of them.”
Mirt let himself look downcast for the first time. He was done. The ironguard ring Storm had given him protected against metal weapons-until, of course, they took it from him-but there were many other ways a man could be hurt. Roasting alive, or breaking most of his bones, one after another, for instance.
“And how d’ye know I won’t lie to ye?” he asked. “Send ye headlong into trap after trap?”
Illance smiled thinly. “This handy hirespells mage here will tell me when you’re lying. And keep you alive and awake through the pain, so you can enjoy every last moment of it.”