“Where’s he heading now?” Storm murmured, as the last of Stormserpent’s men vanished around that distant corner. “Not the Dragonskull, after all.”
The ghostly princess lifted shapely shoulders in a shrug. “He certainly knows where he’s going. Which is more than I do. Elminster?”
“Why do folk always think I know everything? Hey?”
“Perhaps because you’ve spent more centuries than I’d care to count very loudly pretending that you do,” Storm said sharply, before Alusair could say something worse.
The grin Elminster gave them both then was one Storm Silverhand had been seeing all her life. It had probably looked very much the same riding his possibly then-beardless face when he’d been about six summers old, back in long-vanished Athalantar.
“Well,” the Sage of Shadowdale said mildly, “he’s obviously going to wherever the treasure he’s seeking is really hidden. Somewhere nearby; near enough that he could use the Dragonskull Chamber as a navigational landmark to reach it.”
“A pirate, sailing my palace in search of buried treasure.” Alusair’s smile was bitter.
Elminster’s impish grin brightened. “That’s a very good way to think of Cormyr’s nobility. Rapacious pirates, all of them.”
“A wizard would know,” Alusair said over her shoulder as she departed the balcony through the nearest wall.
Storm and Elminster hastened to follow her. After all, they had to use the door.
Amarune danced at the very edge of the stage, tossing her head to let her unbound hair swirl as she crawled along the polished rim like a panther, growling and purring playfully at the men-and a few women, too-gazing longingly at her from the nearby tables.
Though not a hint of it showed on her face or in her manner-she was good at that-she was slightly irritated and almightily interested in what was going on at just one of the tables.
The one right in front of her.
Whereas the Lord Delcastle and his two companions seemed not to think she had ears at all, the way they freely discussed the council so close to her.
Oh, they knew she was there, all right.
The other two couldn’t keep their eyes off her, and Lord Fancybritches Delcastle, wearing his usual easy smile, was idly tossing coins to her in a steady stream, to keep her posing right in front of them.
His aim was as unerringly teasing as ever, too.
Yes, by the Dragon, the three genuinely seemed unaware she could hear all they were saying-and she was listening to them intently.
Such a gathering of nobles, after all, would mean the richest business of this season coming right into her arms, if she was able to spread word of her charms just right. Exclusive, that’s what they’d want; something they can have that others won’t be able to taste … something thrillingly dangerous and dirty …
She’d seen the chamberjack just once, when visiting the royal court to pay her taxes. He was quiet, perhaps the politest courtier she’d ever encountered, and darned handsome to boot. That’s why she’d remembered him … Tarandar, that was his name.
The other one was a war wizard, but that was all she knew about him. Except that if he was a spy and a veteran hurler-of-spells, he was also the greatest actor in all the Realms. If he wasn’t an inexperienced, thoroughly embarrassed youngling, she’d eat her mask-right then, in his lap, and without sauce.
She decided she’d much rather decorate Tarandar’s lap, instead.
As for the loudly effeminate fop across the table from them, well, he was good winking fun, but there was a reason he was mockingly known among his fellow nobles as the Fragrant Flower of House Delcastle. Not that he preferred men in his bed, but because he was all overblown fripperies and dwelt in a Delcastle Manor that was legendary for florid, beribboned, rose-hued decor.
Tossing her hair as she caught Tarandar’s eye, she parted her lips longingly, ran her tongue around them-and watched him blush. Delcastle chuckled, of course, and the chamberjack looked so overwhelmed by her displayed self that she almost burst into laughter. His tongue was actually hanging out.
She wondered what his face would look like if she told him who and what she truly was: Amarune Lyone Amalra Whitewave, an orphan from Marsember, who for some very hard-bitten years had earned her meals with her body-and thievery. A string of bold thefts every wizard of war had been publicly ordered to stop, if they could, by any and all means.
Not that anyone knew she was the Silent Shadow.
So hearing who she really was would make his face change, to be sure.
Yes, mageling, behold my bared charms. I’m your very own Silent Shadow-mask dancer, sometime forger, and busy prostitute.
The daughter of a much-respected and trusted war wizard, too, though Beltar Whitewave had been slain decades earlier in a frontier battle by hire-spells working for Sembian smugglers. Those same smugglers had later knifed her mother and her brother, leaving Amarune kinless in the world. She’d fled Marsember across its rain-slick rooftops that very night, never to return. If she’d waited until morning, she was sure she’d have suffered the same fate.
So, drooling young war wizard, you think I’m for you? Well, if you’ve coins enough in your purse, certainly.
Yet will you ever dare take them out and proffer them? I think not.
Wormling.
As they trotted along a dark passageway, a great crashing clangor of steel striking stone arose, ahead and below, and echoed off vaulted ceilings above them.
“Stormserpent’s snakes meeting with more guards?” Storm asked, turning her shoulders and ducking to crash open a door stuck in its frame from long disuse.
It yielded, sending her staggering.
Alusair was waiting for them, glowing like a coldly amused flame.
“You could say that. They blundered into some suits of empty armor set upon pedestals as adornment, and got buried in old cracked plate for their troubles.”
“Cracked?” the Bard of Shadowdale asked, as the ghost led them out onto another balcony.
“We don’t waste still-serviceable armor in Cormyr,” Alusair replied. “Or didn’t. Things are different in the palace, these days.”
“A lot of things are different, these days,” Elminster muttered. “Is yon lordling going to be allowed to wander these halls all night, without challenge? There are still wizards of war, aren’t there? And Purple Dragons, too? Cormyr still has a few of those?”
“They seldom pay much heed to what goes on in the haunted wing, Old Mage,” the ghostly princess replied.
“So who does guard it?”
Alusair turned to face him, striking a pose that mocked the gestures preferred by flamboyantly foppish nobles. “Me.”
They had been easy coins, but Arclath’s deft rain of them was coming to an end; all three men were visibly weary. They’d downed about half a decanter each, followed by bowls of mulled broth, then sweet iced buns; even Arclath was yawning. The other two were sagging in their seats.
Abruptly they all seemed to realize they were more than half asleep and thrust themselves to their feet, clasping arms and parting. Arclath tossed a generous handful of golden lions onto the table-enough to pay for six men to enjoy five such nights, at first glance-and they were heading for the door. The lordling no doubt for his soft silk mansion bed, and the other two, by their murmured converse, back to the palace to write down some of the concerns and ideas they’d thought of across the table regarding this precious council.
Ignored, Amarune stared thoughtfully after them, holding her last pose. Saers, behold, your very own nude statue. Forgotten and discarded, like all statues, which sooner or later only incontinent birds remem-