Tasmurand the Slayer gaped up at the most splendid sight of his life—and his last.
Filling the great height of the hall above him was a slim, lithe dragon—if something the size of a Marsemban tallhouse could be said to be slim. Most of that bulk was two great, batlike wings, spread in a great V-shape that raked sharply back to end in the curling tail they were rooted in, all down their lengths. Muscles akin to those of a great cat shifted under iridescent silver-blue scales as talons spread wide in the air, a long neck snaked down, and eyes of glowing turquoise gazed at Tasmurand the Slayer as if they could pierce his leathers and see him naked.
Above those deep, riveting eyes the dragon's head swept back in two great horns, and below them two cheek fins flared forth. Spiky, membranous "beards" beneath these fins quivered as the great jaws parted—and a great, glowing cloud of gas gushed forth, sweeping over Tasmurand with force enough to pluck him from his feet and hurl him back against the wall. He screamed, or thought he did, but the spicy, flickering gas was alive with darting, swirling bolts of lightning, so cold and yet so fiercely hot as they stabbed through and through him . . . the smell of his own cooked and blackening flesh like roast boar as darkness crowded in, his eyeballs sizzled, and he realized he could move nothing . . . had nothing left of his limbs to move anyway, as his fading, failing vision showed him crisped fingers crumbling away . . .
A blackened torso fell to the balcony, trailing thin plumes of smoke, and the cause of its owner's death towered over it.
"Tell the gods," a great hissing voice informed the ears that were no longer there to hear anything, "that you were slain by Amma-ratha Cyndusk, a foolish dragon—but one not nearly so foolish as the humans who thought to slay her."
Thirteen
BUSINESS MEETINGS, BATHS, AND SUBVERSIONS
Looking back over all the years, I can't decide just which memories are most important to me: the slayings, the midnight meetings of plotting treasons and rule over all the Realms, the few fumbling moments of lovemaking, or the even fewer really hot, uninterrupted, contented baths. I can still recall the little floating dragon bathtoy my aunt gifted me with, one spring... .
Thamdarl "the Wizard Unseen" From Tyrant's Throne to the Arms of a Goddess:
My Road To Mystra
Year of the Broken Blade
The carpet was as soft as tomb-moss under her boots. The tomb-moss of the City of the Dead... which was right where Narnra Shalace would end up, or at least in the Marsemban equivalent—one of the canals for all she knew!—if she didn't get clean away from here.
By Mask and Tymora, of all the deadly foolish mistakes . . . literally leaping into this unknown mansion, full of nobles plotting treason and lady mages who spoke so casually of shattering spells laid covertly by others who'd just left... or had they really left?
Flaming fury of Mask! She had to get away from here, had to ...
Narnra went down that dark and unfamiliar passage like a racing wind, as stealthily as she could at full run, trusting in its straight, uncluttered path to keep from crashing into anything. Statuettes and plants on marble pedestals occurred often on both sides, but the central rug stretched out clear and arrow-straight, on into the darkness, on to ... an ending.
The wall ahead was adorned with a huge statue, pale white and gleaming. An elf female standing amid sculpted ferns like a queen—if, that is, queens went outside wearing nothing but their crowns and haughty expressions—with various naked male elves entwined around her legs and torso, long whipswords in their hands. Their faces, like hers, stared endlessly down the passage in eternal challenge. To either side of this great carved group of elvenkind was a closed door. Narnra drew in a deep breath and without hesitation opened the one to her right as quietly as she could. It opened into—darkness, and steps leading down. Thank you, gods!
As she crept down the unseen steps in a crouch, fingertips brushing one wall, Narnra shook her head. A Red Wizard conspiring against the Crown of Cormyr with this Lady Ambrur! Oh, there must be folk in Suzail who'd pay well to learn about this! Why—
Something caught hold of Narnra's throat and slammed her back against the wall. It was a hand, reaching brutal and unseen out of the darkness below her—and a second hand dug brutal fingers into her elbows and slammed them against the wall too, one after the other, leaving her arms all fiery numbness.
She couldn't snatch at her daggers, couldn't. . . The hands were at her throat and the scruff of her neck, now, dragging her leathers up in a grip that left her whistling and struggling for air.
"You, my little hare with long teeth," the voice of Glarasteer Rhauligan muttered in her ear, "are coming with me."
Narnra's head swam, and she struggled weakly as deeper darkness crept in ... but the fingers never loosened.
* * * * *
The heavy, jarring fall woke her. She was hooded in something that smelled of sweaty man and jolted on Rhauligan's shoulders. The Harper grunted under Narnra's weight, stifled a curse then added in a curt whisper, "Sorry."
Apologizing? To me? A bit late, you bastard!
He broke into a run, hard and swift, bouncing and bruising her but somehow keeping his balance. His boots were on cobbles, now, with the sounds of Marsember all around. More echoes, the distant rumble of cartwheels, some chatter, and a growing din.
Rhauligan carried her into somewhere quieter that stank of dung, rotting fish, and other decaying things, turned a few corners, scraped her boots once against stone, and set Narnra down on what felt—and groaned—like a rickety wooden cart.
She sat still as he fastened something around her neck then set her on her feet and kicked away the cart. Its wheels set up a protesting squeal that ended in a crash of wood against stone. Narnra heard the familiar sound of a rat scuttling through refuse.
His hands were at a buckle, and . . . she was unhooded and blinking in the sudden light of day, gasping as none-too-fresh air was hers once more for the taking. Rhauligan shook out the hood, which proved to be a vest. His vest.
Narnra drew in deep breaths, looking around. She was in a garbage-strewn Marsemban alley, hobbled and with her thumbs and fingers wired together behind her back . . . and the cord around her waist and thighs led up to—she turned, lifting her head to look, and discovered she wore a choke-leash—the underside of a rusty iron outer staircase. The leash led there, too. It looked like the back stair of a warehouse that saw little use but presented an unfriendly, rotting fortress face to Faerun anyway.
Rhauligan, of course, stood not far away—but out of any possible reach, no matter how furiously she might try to strangle herself reaching him.
"Important folk seem very interested in you," he said thoughtfully as their eyes met. "I wonder why."
Narnra shrugged at him through her tangled hair. "I know not," she snapped, "but I do know that I'm not yours nor your Mage Royal's to take and confine like some sort of pet or bauble—just as I was not Elminster's to give!"
"I can scarce believe, she-thief, that you've not yet learned that if anyone can do a thing to you, they've the right to do it—if they stand for law, and you do not."
Rhauligan cast quick glances up and down the deserted, refuse-heaped alley and added, "Brutal, yes, but outlanders like you who deal with the Lady Ambrur are buyers and sellers of information . . . and the whereabouts and doings of Vangerdahast is information that could make you very rich and doom Cormyr at the same stroke. Had the Mage Royal not commanded your capture, I'd be slaying you now, not bandying words with you. I dislike slaying young lasses, but if I must choose between spilling the blood of just one of them and saving a bright realm full of them, my choice is clear."