Elminster's Daughter

"That's more like it," she snarled into his ear, as both of her fists struck home, low in his ribs, driving the wind right out of him. Groaning and flailing out, he punched, clawed, and punched again—and somehow found himself staggering to his feet, under a welter of blows, tearing a fluffy nightrobe clean off the Crown Princess of the realm as he spun her off-balance so as to plant a solid blow to her breast that sent her over backward to the ground, doubled up and spitting curses.

Glowering, he strode toward her, fists balled. She launched herself up and into his gut, headfirst, hurling him backward.

He greeted the ground with a crash, a snapping of ferns and dry dead branches, and a Crown Princess of the realm on his pelvis, punching at him. Malask got in an uppercut that snapped Alusair's jaw up and back, and she collapsed onto him with a groan, rocking back and forth.

"Oh, my jaw aches," she muttered, as she crawled up the body of her battered guard, both of them wincing at their bruises, and kissed him.

"Gods above, Luse," he whispered, "is this one more way of hurting me? My nose . . ."

"I'll help you forget your nose," she said huskily, finding and tugging at his laces. Malask Huntinghorn groaned and shook his head. Oh, Alusair. Ah, fortunate Cormyr . . . and lucky me, too.

Ten

SCHEMES AS BLOOD-RED AS RUBIES

Beware all schemes, O king, for such beasts have a way of shedding blood on the floors of this kingdom like poured-out sacks of rubies.

The character Malarvalo the Minstrel

in Scene the Fourth

of the play Daggers In All Her Gowns

by Nesper Droun of Ordulin

first performed in the Year of the Morningstar

Rhauligan was barely out of the turret when Narnra cast a glance back over her shoulder and saw him.

She gave him a glare, ran on a few paces, stopped, peered off to the left where the balconies and turrets of Haelithtorntowers jutted closest to the wall—then took a few racing steps and launched herself between the leaf-cloaked boughs of the great trees of the mansion gardens, in a daring leap that . . .

. . . took her safely to a clinging landing on the head of a brooding gargoyle, chin in hand, holding up one corner of a balcony.

Rhauligan hoped it was rock-solid carved stone and not of one those stonelike monsters that would suddenly move to bite and claw—probably when she was safely gone, but he was trying to land in the same spot.

Keeping his eyes on her to make sure she set no traps behind, Rhauligan trotted along the wall, looking for the right place to make his ru

He sighed, once.

Caladnei and Narnra, I'm keeping a tally here. And if the gods grant me more luck than any man in the kingdom has enjoyed for the last century or so, I just might live to collect it.

Rhauligan took his last two ru

. . . right. He landed hard, numbing his elbows on the lichen-splotched old gargoyle and losing a lot of breath—but his first surge of angry strength took him safely up and over the intricately carved stone rail onto a balcony that seemed far too spattered with bird dung to belong to a house that held caring servants. The Harper took but an instant to safely plant his feet ere he looked up.

The long legs and trim behind of Narnra Shalace were just vanishing through an open window, high above.

As Rhauligan leaned out to peer, she slipped inside the window, favored him with the briefest of glares, and closed it behind her. Through its dung-streaked, amber-tinted glass, the Harper saw her turn its catch, latching it firmly.

So. He could either climb the outside wall—and though he was the stronger of the two of them, he was also much the heavier—to break that window and force his way in or stand here on a nice level balcony and do the same to a window or door.

Out of habit Rhauligan ducked low and turned back to peer over the balcony rail. Its gargoyles were still gargoyles, and there was no sign of guards or anyone else in the mist-beaded shade-gloom of the lush garden below.

He spun again to the door, still in his crouch. Nothing moved in the room beyond the door—which was dark and seemed to hold a lot of large, draped things . . . furniture shrouded in dust-sheets. Rhauligan's eyes narrowed. Lady Ambrur was certainly still in Marsember—or had been, yester-morning—so this couldn't be the usual nobles' practice of shutting up one house and journeying to another . . . not that current local Harper wisdom knew of Lady Joysil Ambrur having any other abode. Of course, she could be invited to some Sembian hunting lodge or Cormyrean upcountry castle at any time, but. . .

Perhaps she merely found the house too large for her daily purposes and used this part for storing the furniture she liked the least. Yes, that'd probably be it.

The door had the simplest of latches but also featured an ornate i

A moment later, he was neatly removing the first shaped pane of glass, cut along its putty-lines, and reaching in to undo a floorspike. He had to work swiftly or Narnra would have time to descend the three levels or so from the window she'd entered to this floor and get below and past him . . . leaving him the entire gods-kissed, servant-crowded mansion to search for her in. Yes, the score was still rising . . .

Out of habit he kept casting glances back over his shoulder to make sure no one was on the wall or flying past—Why not? Some of these nobles sponsored or gave house room to apprentice mages, gaining the protection of thiefly fear of such guardians—to see him and raise the alarm ... or just practice their skills at putting handy crossbow quarrels through intruding Harpers.

No such hazards presented themselves before Rhauligan got the doors open. Once the floorspikes were drawn up, the doors could be made to part enough to thrust his prybar between them, lifting the latch and thrusting the inside bar up and out of its sockets.

He had the door open swiftly enough to dart one hand out to deflect the falling bar from a crash down onto the floor—nice polished emeraldstone tiles, alternating in diamond-shapes with white marble—into a thudding impact with the nearest draped wardrobe or whatever it was and a fairly quiet tumble down the cloth to the floor.

The Harper restored the bar to its rightful place, sheathed his prybar, and advanced cautiously into the dark, quiet room. A mouse scurried from under one shrouded thing to under another, but otherwise . . . nothing moved but the dust. He was leaving a faint trail through it, he knew, and soon found the piled-up extra end of a too-large dust-sheet to wipe his boots on.

The room was large, and opened onto the next chamber of the mansion through a great tapestry-filled arch rather than doors. Rhauligan listened at the wall of cloth, hearing nothing, went to one end of it—rather than disturb it trying to find its center parting—and slipped his head around it.

He found himself looking at a large, dust-dancing stairwell, with a railed landing joining it to his room and others out of sight beyond the wall that cradled the stairs.

"Nothing," a voice called suddenly. "Something disturbed the doves, right enough—a gorcraw, mayhap—but none of 'em had any messages. I checked every blessed one."