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There came no thrusting blade under the door or through the suspiciously wide gap down one of its sides, and no spell blasted through the doorway. After a moment Craer called softly, "Who is it?"
"Me, you dolt," came a familiar whisper.
Overduke Delnbone smiled in the darkness, sidled a few paces closer, and asked, "And whom might me be, this time?"
"You bastard," the soft whisper came back. "You know perfectly well 'tis me, Tshamarra."
"Oh? I know several Tshamarras," Craer whispered merrily back. "Where does this particular one wear a scar shaped rather like the mark of my bite?"
"On the underside of my left teat, where you bit me, Craer. Now open this damned door or I'll blast it down!"
"Are you alone, and acting freely?"
"Yes, bebolt you!"
Craer sheaDied his knives, and then plucked up a third: the blade he'd driven between two flagstones just inside the door as a doorstop. Drawing forth the two wedges he'd slipped into the doorframe, he lifted the small, ornamental brass bar Lord Stornbridge provided to his guests and swung the door wide, moving like a knife-wielding shadow to stay behind it as it opened.
Tshamarra Talasorn stood alone in the passage, fully dressed in dark leathers like those many thieves favored-Craer leered appreciatively-and bearing a small, shielded lantern. The two passage lamps flanking Craer's door seemed to have gone out, and the guards standing under them to have suffered some common misfortune that had left them sprawled on the floor. It must have been a silent mishap-but then, with the right magics, almost everything can become an "accident" of roughly the desired main effect.
"Pray excuse my caution, Lady Talasorn," Craer murmured, as Tshamarra stepped carefully into the darkened chamber. "One can never be too careful-a drinking you seem to share with me, given your garb and demeanor. To put it plainly, you must be expecting trouble as much as I do."
"Even more than that," she replied grimly, closing the door behind her and leaning against it for a moment in either weariness or nausea. "We must find Embra without delay. I feel less than well; the food, of course."
Craer bent to his boot, plucked something from within it, and held it out, deftly untwisting a stopper. "Would you like some? 'Tis half empty already, I'm afraid."
"And this hitherto-unrevealed drink would be-?"
"My 'timely flagon.' " Craer touched the metal to her palm. His fingers, cradling it, found her skin shockingly cold. "I bought it years ago in Sirl town," he added with an inviting smile, concealing his alarm at her chill, "from a crone who swore 'twould purge all taints and poisons."
Tshamarra lifted an eyebrow. "And you believed her? Are you in the habit, Lord Craer, of believing the claims of old crones who keep shops in Sirlptar?"
"Lady Talasorn," Craer replied with dignity, "she was of the Wise, and I'd just rendered her a service. Buying myself armor for the morrow, as it were. I drank the uppermost half not long ago, and-see?-still stand before you. Have all that remains. Please?
Tshamarra nodded-and a sudden shuddering shook her entire body and left her in an anxious crouch, halfway to her knees. "It can hardly make me feel worse," she muttered, putting her lantern on the floor and taking the flask. She sniffed it suspiciously, and then drank.
The shuddering that seized her this time was much worse. Tshamarra gasped, reeled, and put out a hand to clutch the wall, shaking her head and wincing.
"Ah," Craer said sympathetically, "forgive me. I forgot; 'tis strong stuff."
"Tell me no tales I know not already." She fixed him with tear-starred eyes that were both baleful and amused. "Let's find Embra before this night brings any more fiery little surprises."
Craer nodded, stepped to the carved wall panels where he'd traced a line with his fingers earlier, and did something to a carved stag-head. The wall split soundlessly and sagged open, to reveal utter darkness behind.
As Tshamarra lifted her lantern, the procurer gestured grandly at the hitherto-hidden passage its faint light revealed. Then he made a gesture that indicated that Tshamarra should move herself to one side, and then another that bade her hood her lantern.
As the Talasorn sorceress swiftly did both of those things, she saw Craer draw a dagger from one sleeve and glide to the opening, stepping to one side-and then the flash and gleam of the procurer hurling his blade sidelong, into and down the passage.
There followed a soft thud and a hiss of pain.
Then, softly and from very close by, a whisper of movement came to Tshamarra's ears. She reared back from it but did nothing else… and almost immethately saw a flare of light as Craer lifted the hood of her little lantern just enough to get the wick from another lantern under it. He drew it forth flaming, and softly let the hood back down again, Tshamarra watched the wick bob across the room in silken silence. As Craer settled the wick back into place and his lamp caught alight, they exchanged silent glances over its dancing radiance. The procurer winked solemnly, swept up his lit lamp, and strode back to the passage.
The moment he showed himself in the entrance, there came the snap and clack of bowguns-the hand-sized crossbows so favored in Teln and the cities of the South-from down the passage.
Craer sprang back, wielding the lantern like a buckler to strike aside the darts that came hissing at him, and gri
And making its usual mocking laughter. Flaming oil dripped between the procurer's fingers, now; a dart had shattered the cauldron of the lamp.
Overduke Delnbone snatched one hand free of his blazing burden-which must have been blistering the other-shook it to be sure it was free of flame and oil, snatched something from his belt, and hissed at Tshamarra, "My chamberpot, under the bed! Fetch quick!
She spun and fetched, and he shook what he'd snatched into it. "Flash powder," she breaDied, comprehending.
Craer gri
They heard it shatter against the passage ceiling-and Craer set his teeth and flung the flaming wreckage of the oil lamp around the corner to join it.
Tshamarra hurled herself flat to the floor.
Darsar exploded right on schedule.
The blast flung the last of the Talasorns against the wall, bruising her shoulder, but the room soon stopped rocking.
Tshamarra found her little lantern on its side, the floor already hot beneath it. She righted it and unhooded it just enough to make sure it was still lit and unbroken.
Craer gestured furiously to her to quench even that tiny flash of light, and she did so, watching the dark shape of Craer crouching in the glowing smoke.
The passage spewed that silently drifting smoke in profusion, and the procurer kept very low as he stepped into it, moving with the eerie silence that so awed Tshamarra. Oh, she knew a spell that could quell noise, but she could still hear her own swift breathing, the dying echoes of the blast still rolling and rebounding in distant, unseen passages, and even the faint roiling of the air around her… but not Craer.
She waited one long, drawn-out moment, realized she was holding her breath, and carefully let it out in a gently measured sigh, still waiting for-
The passage exploded in a sudden bright inferno, and raging flames burst back into the room. Magical, they had to be!
Tshamarra ran frantically to meet them.
"Craer!" she screamed-and the roiling flames spat a blackened, struggling figure at her, spi