Hand of Fire

The young mage's eyes flickered.

"Back with us. Narm?" Marlel asked loudly and jovially, throwing up a hand toward Shandril's face in a "be silent" gesture. "Ready to have a good look out at the lovely ladies of Hethbridle Street?"

Narm looked up at him dully, and the Harper waved airily at the window. "Hmm? Ready to buckle your swash, strut like a cockerel, and roar like a dragon?"

"Oh, gods," Narm muttered, "it's Torm's brother!"

Shandril exploded into giggles, a flood of mirth that dissolved into happy tears, and then her arms were around her man, shouldering Marlel aside.

The Harper drew back with a strange expression. His hand stole toward*the dagger at his belt-then fell away again, as he lifted his head and stared at the wall… in the direction of the two rooms full of wizards that Shandril had so swiftly blasted.

He swallowed and took a careful step back from the young couple. That movement was enough to bring Shandril whirling around to face him again, eyes sharp-and Marlel raised his eyebrows and his fingers in unison, waggling all of his fingertips to show that they were idle and that he meant no harm.

Shandril let her face show that she believed him not for a moment. "And now, Sir Harper?" she asked him softly.

Marlel gave her his quick, crooked smile. "Well, now. This room is yours for the night-I've paid for it, no need to thank me, all who carry the little badge you saw are paragons of flowering honor-and you'll have to give three silvers to Pharaulee by highsun tomorrow if you need it for another night, and so on. I should tell you a little trick we use: Take some of the soot from-back there-on a finger and run it around your eyes, and just here and here on your cheeks. Then wipe most of it away again, so it looks like shadow and not black face-paint, and gods above, but the shape of your face changes! Effective, if you don't want to be recognized straightaway, hmm? But I fear I must soon disappear on other business. Is there anything else you need me to do?"

"Yes," Shandril said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. "Tell us the truth."

Marlel raised his eyebrows, and refrained from smiling. "Ah. Well. That would be a grave mistake in style, here in Scornubel." He spread his hands, still unsmiling. "Anything else?"

Narm and Shandril exchanged glances. "Marlel," Narm said faintly, wincing at a hurt remaining in his head, "we're supposed to find and meet a man named Orthil Voldovan here."

The Harper nodded. "And join his next caravan to Water-deep? You're just in time and had best get down to the taproom and find him right now. He leaves on the morrow." He waved at the double-barred door.

Shandril looked at Narm, who winced again, then nodded. She turned her head and gave Marlel a commanding look.

That crooked smile touched his lips for a moment and went away again. "Leave nothing of value here," he said. "In Scornubel, without bars and bolts and guards whose loyalty you are certain of, locks are not to be trusted." He put a hand on the uppermost bar he'd so recently slammed down into place, and added, "Come with me now, and I'll point out Orthil to you."

Shandril nodded and came toward him. Narm followed, a little unsteadily.

In the darkness of the room next door, a watchful eye drew back cautiously from a spyhole nigh the floor, and its owner lay still on the soft fur he'd brought with him. When he heard the keys jingle in the lock and the soft, swift footfalls of the three moving along the passage to the front stair he stood up, stretched in the gloom, plucked up his fur, and cautiously opened his door. The passage was empty, and the man wrapped in the fur cloak slipped out into it and headed for the third stair. They were the two he'd been watching for, right enough, and he knew where they intended to go, now.

He hurried to deliver that news to those who'd promised to pay well for it. There'd be a slight delay while he picked up his own bodyguards-but without them, this was one meeting he probably wouldn't have survived. No messenger grows very old without knowing which clients are the dangerous ones.

These were the very worst, which was why his bodyguards included several mages and over a dozen other men he hoped these clients didn't yet know about. The alleys of Scornubel had seen all-out battles before.

The broad stair Marlel took them down this time opened onto a landing overlooking the deafening, smoky din of the taproom. The Harper put a hand on Shandril's arm to bring her to a stop-then snatched it away as if he feared she'd burn him, and pointed.

"That's your man," he murmured into her ear, making sure her finger was pointing at the same man his was, "and I'd rather he didn't see me or hear about me." He rose, and slipped back up the stair past them. "We have," he murmured as he went, raising his hand in a farewell salute, "painfully unfinished business between us."

Shandril returned his wave-then he was gone into the shadows. She traded looks with Narm. They sighed in soundless unison, gave each other rueful grins, got up, and went boldly down the stair.

Orthil Voldovan sat facing their stair in the corner seat of a booth with his back to one of the stout pillars that held up the taproom ceiling. Even seated, he was tall and straight-backed, as broad as many a door at his shoulders, and with forearms like hairy tree trunks, massive, gnarled, and seemingly more solid than the stout, weathered tavern table they rested on. His eyes were like two dark daggers beneath the largest shaggy white eyebrows Shandril had ever seen, and his square-jawed face was fringed all around with a short but ragged tufting of white beard. He was not young but looked as if he could assume mighty displeasure in a moment with anyone who dared to delve into his age, and speculate on its effects. He also seemed the sort of a man for whom "mighty displeasure" might mean something on a hastily founded battlefield or something far less formal in the nearest alley.

With Voldovan sat half a dozen men in worn, stained leather armor hung about with daggers and swords and throwing axes-caravan guards, battlefield veterans, or outlawed warriors, perhaps all three. There were two eyepatches among those six men and perhaps thrice that number of visible teeth. Scars could be seen-half-hidden among bristles and tattoos-everywhere. Many coldly calculating eyes were raised from a forest of empty and half-empty tankards as Narm and Shandril approached, and out of habit hands ' dropped to the hilts of favorite weapons.

"Well, well," Voldovan remarked, looking Shandril up and down with a frank eye that made her-despite i

"Orthil Voldovan?" she asked crisply. "I'd like to hire you- or rather, your protective professional company to Water-deep, on the caravan you're leading thither on the morrow. Tessaril Winter recommended you."

Mention of the Lady Lord's name made those bushy brows shoot right up to crown Voldovan's hard face, and several of the guards stopped glaring at Narm and Shandril every breath and exchanged swift, dark looks.

"Well, now," the caravan master said slowly, leaning forward to look narrowly but thoroughly at the young couple. "Well, now. How is Tess, anyway?"

Shandril kept silent. "Well enough when last we saw her," Narm hastily filled the silence. "With King Azoun riding hard up to her door."

"Aye, her back door, I'll be bound," Orthil said meaningfully. "As if all his kingdom doesn't know what he's up to. Bah-kings! Overfed rogues, the lot of them!"

"So you eat rather more lightly?" Shandril asked silkily. "What, then, is your fare to Waterdeep?"

"Ten gold pieces," the caravan master said gruffly. "Full coins, mind, like lions or highcrowns-not trade-tokens or those little gilded copper shards they use suth'rds."