More than a few stares lingered pointedly on the sword she wore on her hip. She was the only person in the hall thus armed. To be sure, the moonblade was a priceless thing, worth more than the gems that bedecked a score of guests, but it was still a weapon. Most likely, a few of them had heard of her dark reputation and regarded an assassin's sword as not merely a faux pas but a threat.
Arilyn ignored the stares and went to Danilo. Her fingertips brushed his outstretched hand and the symbolic rose he held, then she fell back to observe the spell he clearly planned to cast in tribute.
He held the rose out before him at arm's length as he sang a few words to it. When he drew back his hand, the blue flower remained suspended in the air. Chanting now, he drew from the bag at his belt a pinch of dark powder with a distinctive, unmistakably barnyard aroma. He sprinkled this on the floor beneath the rose, quickly sweetening the burgeoning spell with another layer of powder that smelled of meadows and summer rain. A flurry of rapid, graceful gestures followed, accompanied by a song in the Elvish language.
Power, in the form of green and glowing light, began to gather around the spellcasting bard. Danilo's audience fell into expectant silence as the verdant aura reached out to envelop them, as well. Elsewhere in the room, laughter and conversation faded as the guests awaited the effects of the spell. Their faces showed varying degrees of curiosity, wonder, or—in the case of those who knew Danilo's reputation in such matters— apprehension.
His spell ended in a high, ringing note. Some of the spectators responded to the music with a smatter of applause, but most merely gaped at the transformation taking place before them.
The blue rose was growing—not as roses grew in the normal course of events but with the same eerie speed that a dismembered troll regenerated its limbs or a hydra sprouted two new heads to replace one lost to a warrior's axe. Unlike these regenerated monsters, however, the elven rose did not stop growing once it reached the size ordained by nature.
The rose's stem lengthened into a stalk, which in turn sent new shoots racing toward the ceiling and roots slithering along the smooth marble of the floor. Leaves murmured as they unfurled. Buds quite literally popped open, sounding like tiny bottles of sparkling wine decanted by unseen pixie folk. In moments dozens, scores, hundreds of rare blue roses covered the magical rosebush.
The monstrous rosebush.
Already the thing was halfway to the vaulted ceiling, and the limbs were beginning to droop down of their own weight. Its growth showed no sign of slowing. This, Arilyn surmised, could be a problem. She grimaced and dropped her hand to the hilt of her sword.
Gracefully soaring branches described a slow, lazy outward arc, then began a plunging descent toward the marble floor.
Murmurs of wonder fell abruptly silent, and a heartbeat later returned as cries of alarm. The rosebush's many branches lunged toward the revelers like the grasping, thorny talons of a hundred swooping falcons.
Cries went up for Khelben Arunsun, a relative of the Thann family and the most powerful wizard in all of Waterdeep, but the archmage was not presently in the hall. Frenzied chanting mingled with the growing clamor as a few lesser mages tried their hands at containing the runaway magic. The best that any of them could do was to change the hue of the flowers from their elven blue to a more mundane shade. Still the bush came on.
All of this took less time than the telling would take. In the first moments following his spell, Danilo stood in slack-jawed amazement at the very center of the verdant maelstrom, unscathed by the wild growth of thorn and branch. He saw at once that Arilyn might not be so fortunate. Too many times had she witnessed his "miscast" spells, and he feared she would not understand that this night, the danger was real. She stood at alert but did not flee the approaching thorns.
Danilo thought fast. "Elegard aquilar!" he called, praying that Arilyn could read the truth of the matter in the old Elvish battle cry.
As he'd hoped, the half-elf's sapphire eyes went flat and level, a warrior's ready stare. Her moonblade hissed free of its scabbard as the racing limbs closed in. She lifted the sword in time to bat aside the first leafy assault, then fell into a deft, practiced rhythm.
Some of the thorny limbs dove into the crowd of retreating guests, tearing at their bright clothing and tangling with flowing hair. Panic set in, and the nobles turned tail and made a frantic, collective dash for the exits. Graceful dancers tripped on their diaphanous skirts and sprawled. Courtly gentlemen leaped over their ladies' prone bodies in their race toward safety. The musicians abandoned their posts—all but for the waggish uilleann piper who struck up the first plaintive notes of "My Love, She is a Wandering Rose."
Through it all, Arilyn's elven blade danced and sliced. Severed limbs piled around her, hampering her attempts to wade forward and cut down the source of the spell.
The rosebush, that is, not the spellcaster.
So Danilo fondly hoped.
Still, he couldn't be completely certain. As Arilyn advanced on him, slashing her way through the persistent growth, the expression in her blue eyes was grim and furious.
Danilo couldn't fault her. He was renowned for his miscast spells, but never had he turned one of his pranks upon Arilyn. He winced as one of the limbs broke through her guard and snagged her skirt. The sapphire velvet gave way with a resounding rip, tearing her gown from thigh to ankle and leaving a thin, welling trail of blood on her exposed leg.
Instinctively Danilo's hand dropped to the place where his sword usually hung, and he started to move toward her before he remembered he was weaponless.
"Hold," she commanded. She lunged forward, her sword whistling in so high and close that Danilo felt the wind of it on his face.
He fell back a step, then began to turn in a circle, looking for some way to bridge the verdant barrier between himself and Arilyn. Suddenly the bush ceased its advance. The halted branches, poised as if for renewed flight, began to shimmer with green light. Severed limbs faded into mist. The bush disappeared—all but for the single, half-blown blue rose lying on the marble floor.
From the corner of his eye, Danilo noted that the guests were edging back into the hall, their faces bright with mingled wariness and curiosity. However, his attention was fixed upon the grim, disheveled woman before him, and his usually nimble tongue felt weighted down with stone as he sought for some word of explanation.
"What a remarkable performance. Again, I might add," observed a cultured, feminine, all-too-familiar voice at his elbow.
Without turning, without seeing the direction of the speaker's ice-blue stare, Danilo knew that his mother's ironic commentary included both his miscast spell and Arilyn's response.
So, apparently, did Arilyn. The half-elf's gaze flicked to Danilo's face in wry acknowledgment, then to the sword still in her hands. She thrust the weapon back into its sheath and turned to her hostess.
"My apologies for the disturbance. Again, I might add," Arilyn responded dryly. She gestured to her shredded skirt. "If you'll excuse me, Lady Thann, I think I'd better change."
Cassandra Thann eyed the half-elf with genteel distaste. "On that," she said, with a pause that silently shouted, if in nothing else, "we are in accord. Suzanne will show you to a guest room with an appropriate wardrobe. Choose whatever suits you."
It was a command thinly cloaked in courtesy. Arilyn acknowledged both with a curt nod, then turned to follow the maidservant who darted forward to do her mistress's bidding.