Nuthland of the Zhentarim met her eyes almost pleadingly, and managed to firmly shake his head. “N-no,” he managed to gasp. “At least I can speak truth to you… Lady. Let it be quick, if you can find any mercy.”
“That much,” Storm Silverhand said softly, “and more.” She flung the blade of Shar high into the air and watched it dissolve in a flurry of blue stars and flames as the waiting spirits of Mystra and Azuth savaged it together. “No steel shall shed your blood.”
Her fingers tightened and his neck broke with a wet crunch. His head lolled, eyes going dark.
Wearily the lady bard embraced the body, calling up the sacred silver fire to sear away any contingencies or death-magics that might have been cast on the Zhent slayer to endanger her or Shadowdale around her.
Her blood snarled and scorched up into sickening blue fire as those flames did their work. Storm clenched her teeth against brief agony, then flung her head back and gasped in relief as it slowly died, leaving her clutching a cooked, smoking, claw-fingered corpse.
Someone cleared their throat behind her, nervously.
Storm whirled around, her smock ashes upon her and the Zhentarim literally crumbling in her grasp. She gazed into the face of Sorele, the egg-seller from Thorm Arthauvin’s farm up the road, with a full basket of great brown freshlaid.
The plump little maid was trembling in… fear? Awe?
Sorele stared wide-eyed at the skull-like, flopping face of the Zhent, then backed up at Storm’s frown, and grinned weakly.
“Is this not a good time, Lady? Should I come back later?”
* * * * *
At the sound of their voices, Tantaraze froze, or tried to. Her shudderings, however, refused to stop.
The Master had done no more to her but dismiss her curtly, but his magic had left her numb and tingling, trembling uncontrollably on the verge of a helpless flood of tears.
She’d fled through the tower like the wild wind she was, seeking one of her best hiding places. She was sweating so hard on that run that her bare feet kept slipping and she’d nearly tumbled to her death getting out a particular window and up onto the roof above.
Nearly.
Now she was wedged comfortably in the largest roof downspout, its smooth, shaded stone close and reassuring around her. Bone dry of course, after days of drought. Tace huddled in it, trembling and shuddering. It was that spell. It was doing something to her… still doing something to her, long after the Master had ended it, taken his scroll, and started talking to Varlbit.
Varlbit was talking now, not with the Master, but with the Master’s oldest apprentice, Rauksoun.
Tace hated them both, but where Varlbit was merely vicious, the not-yet-Red-Wizard Rauksoun was … a cold, patient blade awaiting a chance to slay his Master and take all Ironwind for himself.
The Master knew it, of course, and his smile was especially soft when he talked with Rauksoun, but—
What had he done to her? Oh, she belonged to Maelarkh Throon, and he could cook and eat her on a whim if he wanted to. Twasn’t that. She liked him, knew he liked her and also knew from slave-talk that most others in Thay had it far worse, but… this magic had awakened something that Tace was sure the Master hadn’t noticed or intended.
Something she’d best keep hidden from him and from his apprentices, too.
They must be in the chamber just beside her, the buzzard-cote at the very top of this westernmost side-spire. But what would those two highnoses be doing in such a cramped, dung-stinking place?
“He’ll be at least another bell working that spell! We have that long.”
Varlbit’s voice held anger, and he was panting almost as hard as Tace was. She threw her head back and fought to slow her breathing, trying hard to be quieter.
“So talk,” Rauksoun murmured calmly.
“That little klareen Tantaraze! She was in the library with Throon just now, and had somehow convinced him to mind-bond with her! She’s trying to ensorcel him!”
“Calm yourself, Varl.” Tace could hear the superior smile in Rauksoun’s voice. “I know better —and you should.”
The tingling in Tace became a momentary jab of pain— someone had worked a spell, very close by—then died away almost to nothing. There came a flash of radiance through a chink in the downspout stonework, a glow that did not fade.
Tace peered through the tiny hole and found herself staring at—herself. Or rather, a glowing image of herself, floating in the empty air outside the low arched windows of the cote. Standing upright, looking just as she did in the Tower mirrors—and revolving slowly to show both back and front.
Bare, of course, as she always was. Dusky skin, bony slim, with all her ribs showing and her hip bones sticking out like wings. Long, long legs; large red-brown eyes; copper hued hair cut short to show the Master’s brand on her forehead, the same brand as she wore on the right cheek of her behind … aye, there. And when she grew older and her head was shaved, would also wear it on her back and face—the right cheek, again…
” ‘Swiftfalcon,’ he calls her, or ‘Imp,’ or ‘Little Dancing Spider.’ Worry not, Varclass="underline" she’s his plaything, not his lover. Fleet of foot, full of too much mischief and even more curiosity… could turn into a good sneak-thief, yes. And you know as well as I do that she has too smart a tongue in her head for any slave.”
“Exactly! What’s so special about her? That’s what I want t—”’
“And you shall. Varl, Throon purchased this Tantaraze when she was a pewling babe. He bought her because his spells showed him she had a natural aptitude for magic.”
“A sorceress! But of course! Don’t you see? She’ll be his lover, his bride, inherit his Art instead of us—”
“Varl, be still. Look at her! She’s no particular prize right now, and could have grown up to be the ugliest sow this side of far Calimshan! Throon could have his pick of sevenscore spell-witches at any MageFair, right? Yes?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“But nothing. Listen and learn. Now, this little Tace has been trained to be a ‘fetch this, hold this, keep quiet about this’ servant, and told this sort of service will continue if she doesn’t misbehave enough to be slain, maimed, turned into an experiment, tossed out of Ironwind to fend for herself, or just sold.”
“Yes,” Varlbit said, a little sullenly. “And so?” “And so everything changes when her moonbleeds begin. It always does.” “Yes, but—”
“Yes but Throon has had a fate in mind for this one since he bought her! She’s going to be ‘bloodhound’ to him.”
“And taught magic as his apprentice, hrast it!”
“True, but not as we’re taught magic. Varl, don’t you know what bloodbinding is? She’ll be an utter mind-slave. Throon will be able to ‘ride her mind,’ sharing her thoughts and controlling her body at will, whenever he desires.”
Tace stiffened, suddenly as cold as the winter winds. So that was why Sameera had been watching her so closely, and sniffing at her.
Oh, gods! She had to get out of here, away from Ironwind! She had to take herself to where the Master could never find her!
But where? By all the Watching Gods, where?
She clawed her way up out of the downspout in silent haste, so frantically that her fingertips left bloody smudges on the stones. She was trembling again, shaking like a banner snatched by a rising wind.
Across many roofs rose another side-spire of Ironwind, and Little Trapped Tantaraze raced toward it, scrambling up and around and over, going to where she could perch and think.
Or try to think of what she could not see just now: a way out. A way out.
* * * * *
“But enough of that scrawny little doomed one,” Rauksoun said dismissively, spell-floating on his belly above the dung. “She’s nothing, but there are some important things you should know.”