There came crashing sounds from overhead, as if huge wine bottles were bursting. The Old Wolf looked up and saw balls of lightning forming in midair and streaming in all directions. The leaping lightning struck two beholders and drove them into each other. They reeled apart, and Shandril cut one of them in half with a ragged, faltering bolt of spellfire. Mirt looked on anxiously. She staggered as she brought both hands together and pointed them at the last eye tyrant, and for the first time in his long life, Mirt the Moneylender heard a beholder scream.
Shandril stood alone in the courtyard, her hands smoking, as the last of the beholders crashed to the earth in flames.
“Magnificent, lass! I’ve never seen such power. Well done!” Like a joyful buffalo, Mirt galloped toward Shandril through the wreckage of beholder bits and fallen stones.
She turned and looked at him, and it was a moment before her dull eyes lit with recognition. Shandril smiled wanly, lifted a hand that trembled—and then her eyes went dark, and she fell to the ground in a limp and sudden heap.
Mirt’s old legs got him there a breath or two later. Shandril lay on her face on the stones. Mirt rolled her over; she was still breathing. Thank the gods!
Then he heard shouts, and the clank and clatter of metal. He looked up from Shandril’s crumpled form, then slowly all around.
The Old Wolf crouched at the center of a grim, closing circle of Zhentilar warriors. Their drawn blades flashed as they came, and Mirt saw teeth flash in smiles of relief as they realized they’d not have to fight the maid who brought down beholders.
Well, perhaps he shouldn’t have thanked the gods all that loudly. The Old Wolf snarled his defiance, beard bristling, and waved his saber at them. None of them turned and fled. Mirt sighed, straightened, and then just waited as they slowly closed in.
Narm paced back and forth under Storm’s watchful eye. “I wish I was with her, right now. I feel so helpless!” he burst out, hurling the words at Tessaril.
She sat at the far end of the chamber, staring at nothing. Her hands were in her lap, and they trembled.
“Lord Tessaril,” Narm said again, urgently, striding nearer.
Storm got up, a warning in her eyes, and blocked his path to the Lord of Eveningstar.
They both heard Tessaril say softly, “I know just how you feel, Narm. Go with Torm and get a good meal into you, whether you feel hungry now or not. Come back when you’re done—and I’ll have your teleport spell ready.”
Narm could hardly believe he’d heard her say the words. “Thank you! Thank you!”
“I can’t let one go, and then build a cage around its mate,” Tessaril said softly, “but you may not thank me so fervently in the end, Narm—nor may that end be far off.”
Narm bowed to her and said, “That’s a chance I’ll take, Lady—one all who live must take. My thanks for giving me the freedom to take it.”
As he and Torm went out, Storm and Tessaril watched the young mage go. Then they looked at each other; new respect for Narm Tamaraith shone in both their gazes.
Seventeen
Business Before Pleasure
Now in that grim, gray city are women called pleasure-queens, who keep house amid furs and silks and perfumes and have mastered the art of snaring a man in the street with one dark glance of promise. Disgusting enchantresses—they’re the only reason I ever ride north of Selgaunt, I tell you.
Mirt waved his saber; sunlight flashed and glimmered along its edge. More than one Zhentilar eyed that blade warily. The fat man obviously knew how to use it, and the bare fist that held it was as large as some men’s heads. Yet there were over sixty blades set against it, and nothing to protect the old one’s back. The outcome was certain; he and Shandril were doomed. A Zhentilar officer muttered, “Easy, now—strike all at once, and we’ll run him through from all sides like a pleasure-queen’s pincushion.”
There were scattered chuckles as the Zhentilar took the last few steps they’d need. Mirt stared around at them, wild-eyed, sword waving desperately. And then he smiled and flung himself backward, arching over Shandril’s body. He raised his arm as the warriors rushed in, and the plain brass ring on it flashed, once.
The air was suddenly full of whirling, deadly steel. As the blood spattered him and the screams sounded all around, Mirt drew back his arm and felt for the hilt of his saber. Only a short time passed before the blades vanished again, but the screams ended even sooner. The courtyard around him ran with blood; it looked like a butcher’s back-room floor.
Mirt grinned and clambered to his feet. “Handy things, blade barriers,” he said, surveying the carnage. His eyes searched the walls for archers or overenthusiastic mages. Tymora smiled on him, for once.
“Up, lass,” Mirt growled, and plucked Shandril’s limp form up from the flagstones. He draped her over his arms, his saber still held securely in one hand, and staggered across the courtyard, wheezing under his load.
The maid in his arms grew no lighter as he lumbered out through an archway, down a lane strewn with bodies of citizens the Zhents had slain, and turned left at the first cross street. Smoke rose from shattered towers here and there; fallen stone was everywhere, and priests and wizards rushed wildly in all directions, each accompanied by a trotting bodyguard. “The high priest is dead!” one mage shouted excitedly to another.
“Blasphemous nonsense!” another shrieked back, and the two men’s bodyguards surged into each other in a crash and skirl of viciously plied weapons.
Whether Fzoul was dead or not, the spell-battle had reduced the Zhents to a state of chaos.
Mirt was glad he saw no Zhentilar patrols as he made his way down the ruined streets, turning right then left. He trotted down avenues and up short rises, and still no soldiers blocked his way. A few folk gave him startled glances, and one warrior did step out of a tavern as he passed. But the soldier took one look at the blood-covered warrior with a drawn sword and a woman dangling in his arms—Mirt gave him a fierce grin—and his face paled. He hastily drew back out of sight.
“Tymora, I owe you one—or even two,” Mirt gasped, as he sighted the purple door he was looking for and crossed to it.
The door was closed, and the iron-caged lamps on either side of it had burned low. But Mirt kicked out hard, and the door boomed satisfyingly. Once, twice, and a third and fourth time his boot found its mark.
His toes were beginning to feel a little the worse for wear, but as he drew back his foot for another assault, the door swung open as far as its safe-chains would allow. A painted, pouting lady looked disapprovingly out. She surveyed Mirt up and down—blood, Shandril, and all—and her expression did not improve.
“We’ve had all the trade we can handle for the night, thank you—you’ll just have to come back morrow-even, and—”
Mirt handed her his sword. “Here—hold this.”
The lady hesitated, then took it, staggering for a moment under the weight of the old, massive saber. Mirt shifted Shandril more fully into his freed hand, and shoved his other hand under the pleasure-queen’s nose. The small silver harp winked at her, catching the light. Her eyes rose slowly from it to his blood-spattered face, and then she undid the chains hurriedly, whispering, “Come in!”
“Oh, Great Dark One, lord of the heights and depths, hear us!”
Elthaulin was in his element, intoning the ritual in the deepest, grandest voice he could manage, his words rolling into the farthest echoing corners of the Grand Chancel of the Black Altar.
“Lord Bane, hear us,” the thunderous murmur of half a hundred underpriests and postulants answered.