When another quarter-hour must have gone by, Emriana realized she was growing genuinely worried. Several times, she half rose from the seat with the intention of hunting her aunt down, just to make certain the woman was fine, but each time, she stopped herself, not wishing to interrupt whatever delicate negotiations might have been taking place.
Suddenly, Emriana remembered her pendant. Fool! she silently snapped at herself. It's been hanging around your neck the whole time.
The girl snatched up the opal dangling on the chain and withdrew it from inside her shirt. Clutching it, she closed her eyes and envisioned her aunt, dressed in her telltale red shirt and cloak. Emriana began to speak.
"Aunt Xaphira, are you well? It's been quite a while since you left, and I'm worried about you. Do you need help?"
She paused and waited for a response. There was nothing but silence.
Growing more concerned, Emriana looked at the pendant, wondering if it was functioning properly. She had no way of knowing whether the enchantment had ceased to work or if Aunt Xaphira could not respond at the moment. Either way, she was going to have to find out the old-fashioned way.
Rising to her feet, Emriana slid out of the booth and to the balcony, wondering which direction Quill had taken Xaphira. She was just about to start down the row of alcoves, intent on poking her head inside each one, when a flash of red caught her eye down below, in the common area.
"Aunt Xaphira!" Emriana called out, but her aunt had her back turned and vanished beneath the stairs, never turning around.
Emriana darted down the balcony toward the stairs, rushing to catch up to her aunt.
What's she up to? the girl thought, reaching the bottom of the stairs and pushing past the people milling about. Why did she leave without me?
Emriana was so focused on catching the older woman that she no longer noticed the leering stares or the crude comments uttered in her direction by the other patrons. Just beyond the base of the staircase, a narrow hallway ran toward the back of the establishment, leading to a set of private rooms, including a kitchen or pantry of some sort. Emriana had to dodge and weave to make her way through the passage, for it was crowded with serving folk both coming and going. One skinny fellow with grease stains on an apron covering his front shouted an obscenity at her and told her to get out, but Emriana ignored the man and slipped to the far end of the hall, where it ended in a doorway leading out into the night.
Once through the doorway, Emriana had to stop and let her eyes adjust to the dimness of the evening. The alley in which she stood was dirt, and it stank of rotting vegetables and raw sewage. It couldn't have been more than three paces across, and all the buildings on either side were at least two stories tall, most even higher than that. But there was no sign of the other woman.
"Aunt Xaphira!" Emriana called, taking a few steps away from the doorway and the noise issuing forth from it. She then stood very still and listened. At first, she could hear nothing except for the din of conversation from inside the rathrur and the trickle of some fluids running down the alley, but a moment later, she caught wind of a faint scuffling noise off to her left.
Growing suspicious, the girl turned in that direction, slipping into the shadows and padding silently along the alley, peering into every dark cranny she came upon, listening still for further sounds of movement. At the juncture of The Silver Fish and the next building over, she found what she had been looking for. There was a gap between the two structures, not really wide enough for a man, but certainly spacious enough for a more diminutive woman or girl to squeeze into.
Emriana peered cautiously into the gap, but she did not see anyone moving through it. Then a thought occurred to her and she gazed up just in time to catch the silhouette of someone climbing up the gap, using both walls as support. It was too dark to make the person out clearly, but from Emriana's vantage point, it certainly looked like a woman in a cloak.
Convinced that she was not following her aunt, but rather someone who intended to look like her, Emriana hesitated. She was wary of a trap, but her growing fear for Xaphira's well-being pushed her onward. As silently as she could, she began feeling for hand- and footholds, following the mysterious figure above her. She found the going fairly easy, and she had pulled herself halfway up the building when the figure she was pursuing reached the top and disappeared over the side of the roof.
Damn it all, Emriana silently fumed as she continued her ascent. She'll be long gone before I can get up there. She hastened her pace, hoping against hope that perhaps she could make up some ground and keep her quarry in sight.
As Emriana grabbed at the next handhold and began to haul herself up, there was a bright flash of light overhead and a gout of flame roared down from above, directly at her.
CHAPTER 9
Pilos hurried along a dimly lit and rather uninteresting corridor toward the narrow door at the far end. Though the chances of the Abreeant encountering another priest in that particular section of the temple-a seldom-used wing devoted primarily to storage-at that time of the night was unlikely, he did not wish to be seen. Even the suggestion of impropriety on his part would make the young priest lose his nerve and return to his quarters. And his quarters were the last place in which he wished to spend any more time.
True to his expectations, none of the high priests of Waukeen had sent any kind of word to Pilos on the Grand Syndar's condition in well over a day. As the Abreeant had suspected, Grand Trabbar Lavant had had no intention of keeping Mikolo's attendant informed of the old man's health or potential for recovery. Though he had tried to remain obedient, Pilos could not stand to await news any longer.
Of course, the Abreeant could not approach the Grand Syndar's chambers and demand an explanation. At the very least, the high priests would order him back to his chambers with an admonition to perform some penance for his indiscipline. At worst, they might permanently remove him from his duties and assign him to baser tasks as punishment.
If they didn't just decide I was unfit to serve Waukeen altogether, he silently lamented.
With that thought, Pilos nearly halted his progress and spun around to return to his rooms as fast as he could. The very idea of being denied the opportunity to bathe in the glory that was the Merchant's Friend was abhorrent, and part of Pilos dared not even consider the consequences of what he was preparing to do in place of a frontal confrontation.
When the priest reached the end of the small hallway, where the narrow door faced him, he paused, taking a deep breath and peering back over his shoulder one last time to make certain there was no one there to witness his transgression. Satisfied that he was alone, Pilos slipped a key into the lock of the wooden door, twisted it, and half smiled at the sound and feel of the faint click. Nervously, he pushed the door open, slipped inside, and hurriedly shut it again.
In the dark Pilos could see nothing, so he clutched at his holy coin, which hung from a chain around his neck, and muttered a quick prayer to Waukeen. Instantly a tiny ball of illumination appeared, conjured onto the coin. The light was sufficient for him to see the entirety of the small room, the same as if he had lit a torch, though the glow of his coin was of a more pearly hue, like moonlight. He let the symbol settle back against his breast and peered about.
It was nothing more than a storage closet, a small room lined with shelves on the walls holding linens that were not in use during the summer season. In the fall, when the weather cooled once more, the inhabitants of the temple would very likely retrieve the warmer bedclothes, but for the moment, no one would venture into the closet for any reason…