Cormyr c-1, page 34
part #1 of Cormyr Series
He lay there, smelling cold, damp stone and earth, and-just for an instant-wondered why he was doing this.
“Take this,” Emthrara said into his ear, seeming to know exactly where it was in the darkness, “and put it into your inside pouch-the one where you keep the gems and the letters of reference your father gave you.”
Dauneth froze. How had she known about that? He’d then he relaxed. Probably just about every man she meets visiting at court carries pretty much the same things. He felt something smooth brush his fingers: a tube of parchment… a scroll, tied with a ribbon.
“Don’t crush it,” the tavern dancer murmured. “If anyone challenges your presence, show it to them and say you’ve been hired by a master you dare not reveal-Alusair, if they force an answer out of you-to give this message to the Lord High Wizard Vangerdahast personally. If you crawl straight ahead in the darkness, you’ll find steps leading up. Stand up then, but not before, and walk up the steps. There’s a door two paces beyond that, it opens inward by a pull-ring and leads to a space behind the hangings in the Blue Banners Room. Try not to be seen emerging, after you’re out, walk along unhurriedly but purposefully, as if you know where you’re going and belong there. Don’t run if a guard challenges you-oh, and try not to burn the place down or kill too many people. Good luck, young hope of the realm.”
And then a pair of soft, warm lips found his mouth in the darkness, kissed him fondly but thoroughly, and she was gone. Dauneth heard a soft swish of a shoe edge on stone, another small sound, and then nothing. He was alone in the darkness, under the very wall of the palace. His place and manner of entrance was probably not what anyone in House Marliir had intended. Dauneth grinned at that, made sure the scroll was secured, and crawled ahead into the darkness. The realm needed him, adventure awaited, and all that. Who was Emthrara, anyway?
“Oh, just to see him smiling again,” the Crown Princess of Cormyr sobbed, “smiling for me!”
“The king your father lives yet,” Aunadar said smoothly, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Is that not proof enough of his strength?”
Tanalasta burst into tears-the deep, wracking weeping of a woman who makes no effort to cover her face or hold anything back-and went to her knees on the footstool in front of her. Aunadar circled around to embrace her from in front, and she buried her face in his chest and sobbed with such force that his whole body shook. Her fingers were like claws, and Aunadar bent swiftly to murmur in her ear as his encircling arm went around her shoulders. “Lady mine, all is not lost. Whatever befalls this fair realm and your ever valiant father, my hand and heart are yours. I shall serve you with all I have, never failing nor leaving you in need-especially now, when your need is greatest. Now, as the wolves circle Cormyr, waiting and watching for your weakness. Be strong, Tanalasta, queen of my heart! Be strong, queen of the realm!”
His voice rose in passion, and Tanalasta raised bright, desperate eyes to him, tears racing down her cheeks, and reached up to him, murmuring his name through ragged sobs.
Had the king died? A woman sounded in real grief, just ahead. Dauneth almost thrust the hanging aside and strode out to offer what comfort he could, but the word “Queen” once and then again stopped him. The hanging suddenly seemed a friendly but all too flimsy shield. He’d wandered through more rooms than he could keep track of and hidden behind a lot of hangings to reach this place. Surely he must now be in the royal wing.
He looked down to be sure that he didn’t stumble and make noise. The floor was bare and clear. They even dust behind the hangings here! he thought with amazement. Then a sudden, chilly addendum struck him: When was the last time they had dusted? And would they dust again soon?
But the voices came again, and he heard the name “Tanalasta.” The crown princess! Turning to… a suitor, it seemed, for comfort. A gap in the hangings was just ahead, with aching care, Dauneth crept forward, keeping well back against the wall, and peered out.
A woman in a severe gown of the finest make knelt on a footstool with her head against the breast of a man whose arms were around her, his head bent over hers as he murmured comforting words. Dauneth knew him slightly, it was Aunadar, of the Bleth clan. All the talk he’d heard, then, was true. Above her head, Aunadar seemed almost to smile for a moment, and Dauneth looked hard at him.
No trace of the smile-if it had indeed been a smile and not a mere twitch of tired lips-came again, but the eyes of the man whose arms were around the princess were cold and somehow triumphant.
If I were deeply in love and feeling grief for my lover, would I look like that? Dauneth drew back, troubled, but not knowing what to say or do. His discovery, if anyone found him here, could very well mean his death. So he held still, hardly daring to breathe, and listened.
“If you weren’t here, Aunadar, I don’t know what I’d do…”
“Yet I am here, most royal lady, here… and your servant, forever, if you’ll grant it so! Let me be the strong shield at your back, the faithful hound who walks at your side in the shadows… and together we shall win through to bright mornings ahead!”
Dauneth winced. Where did the man find such words? The best-perfumed chapbooks of Sembian love poems?
“Oh, Aunadar, I must go to him! He may be stronger, and if he should wake again, I must be there!”
“Come then, Lady Highness!” Aunadar said grandly, throwing wide a door.
“Oh, Aunadar!” The crown princess said in loving adoration.
“Tana!” he replied, in a voice deep with passion. “My Tana!”
“Yes,” she breathed fervently, and they swept out shoulder to shoulder, fingers laced together.
Dauneth watched them go in thoughtful silence. There was definitely something amiss in this royal house, but he was too ignorant of the everyday feel of things here to put his finger on it. He had to talk to someone. Of course! Rhauligan! The merchant would know what to do now. Dauneth drew in a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped boldly out into the open, as if he had every right to be there and was hurrying on his way, in the conduct of business crucial to the realm.
After all, wasn’t he?
“Glarasteer Rhauligan, sir, dealer in turret tops and spires, stone and wood both-you order ‘em, and we’ll build ‘em, fast and cheap an’ they won’t fall down!” the merchant introduced himself grandly as the newcomer tried to sit down next to him and Dauneth.
The newcomer peered at him suspiciously, snorted, and turned away from the table. “I was seeking someone else,” he said curtly over his shoulder, leaving the young man and the merchant in peace. Rhauligan gave him a cheery wave of farewell that somehow became an impolite gesture and then-as chuckles from other tables made the man whirl around again-a signal for more service.
A waitress with the longest, smoothest legs Dauneth had ever seen on a human drifted over. “My lord?”
“A flask of firedrake,” the merchant told her, “and two tallglasses-one for my friend here.”
The waitress started to turn, and Dauneth gave her a smile that bought him a frank and admiring one to match before she bustled away to see to warm firedrake wine and cold, salt-rimmed glasses.
“Well, lad?” Rhauligan asked in a low voice as the scion of House Marliir shifted to a more comfortable position in his chair.
Dauneth shot a dark look across the table. “No bodies falling out of doors or knife-wielding clusters of masked nobility,” he muttered, “but I did hear Aunadar Bleth comforting the crown princess.”
“And?”
“Something didn’t seem quite right,” Dauneth murmured. “He seemed just a little too happy about the king dying.”
Rhauligan shrugged. “And why not? If he’s Tanalasta’s favorite and she becomes queen, he can run Cormyr without any of the perils of ruling it. He wouldn’t be the first noble to be more in love with a woman’s position than with the lass herself, now, would he?”
“That’s true,” Dauneth agreed reluctantly and sat back with a sigh-in time to look up with a hasty smile as the waitress bent over him and set their drinks on the table, gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze, and was gone again. Despite himself, he turned his head to watch her go.
Rhauligan grinned, shook his head, and poured them both firedrake wine, watching the glasses steam and fog as the warmed liquid met chilled glass. Ah, to be young again…
“On me, lad,” he said as the young noble turned his head back to the table. Dauneth hadn’t even managed to open his mouth to protest that it was his turn, even past his turn, to pay for things, when the merchant asked, “Did anyone see you? Should I expect Purple Dragons to come in here hunting young Marliirs?”
Dauneth shook his head.
“Did you have to show your scroll to anyone?”
Dauneth shook his head again, then frowned, set down his glass, and reached into the open front of his shirt, and fumbled with the wooden toggle that held his safe pouch closed. When he drew it forth, the scroll was only a little crumpled at one end. He stared at it curiously, turning it a little in his fingers. “I wonder what it says,” he said slowly under his breath.
“So open it,” the merchant urged, sipping warm wine.
“Oh, but Emthrara-” he started to protest.
“Gave it to you to let every hairy-nosed guard who might ask your business have a read,” the merchant put in. “So…?”
Dauneth looked at him doubtfully for a moment, and then, as if of their own accord, his fingers went to the ribbon that bound it, slid it along without untying Emthrara’s knot, and let the parchment loosen of itself. Then, in sudden impatience at himself, the young noble spread the scroll out on a dry area of tabletop and read it.
There were only a few lines, in a fine, flowing hand:
“The bearer of this note is Dauneth Marliir, of noble blood and on a mission of the greatest importance to the crown. If he would see Cormyr’s future as bright as winter stars above the Stonelands, he will meet the azure-masked one in the Snout Room of the Roving Dragon at the lighting of the evening candles. Let him pass, in the name of Alusair.” Underneath that was a little mark, or personal rune, that looked like a three-petaled red flower, or perhaps a stylized crown.
Dauneth looked up at Rhauligan. “Here! Read!” He thrust the parchment across the table. The merchant read it, let his brows rise for a moment and then fall again, rolled it up carefully, replaced its ribbon, then handed it back. “Well, now, that’s handy, lad… ‘twon’t be all that long now till they light ‘em.”
The young noble sputtered. “Yes, but-but Emthrara gave me this! How did she know I’d be here? And now?” His eyes narrowed. “You told her!”
“By the gods, lad,” the merchant protested, “you’re beginning to see conspiracies behind every pillar in Suzail! Drink up and think awhile, things always go better when your thoughts go ahead of your tongue… if you take my meaning.”
Dauneth frowned. “But who does she work for? Is this truly from Princess Alusair?”
The merchant poured himself more wine. “Lad, living high is the art of finding out answers to questions like that without ever asking anyone else… d’you see?”
Dauneth sighed. “That’s right,” he said, picking up his own glass, “go all wise and graybearded on me.”
The merchant shrugged. “You had to have a woman show you how to get into the palace. I know of more than a dozen secret ways into that place, and I’m no war wizard nor courtier, O young wet-nosed conspiracy sniffer!”
Dauneth glared at Rhauligan for a moment, then slowly grinned. “All right, sir merchant. Your sword finds the gap.” He sipped firedrake wine and then frowned again. “More than a dozen?”
Whatever answer the merchant might have made was lost forever in the sudden appearance of the waitress, who leaned over their table-making Dauneth swallow, and try not to stare-to light the candles that were descending on fine chain from the ceiling. She shook her taper to extinguish it and turned to smile at the young nobleman.
Just for an instant, an azure mask seemed to cover her apple-cheeked features, and she said, in a voice not her own, “The corner back booth at Urgan’s Best Boots, as soon as you can get there.” Then her face seemed to waver and was bare again, and she gave Dauneth a wink and glided away.
Dauneth blinked. “Did you hear?”
“Spellcraft for sure,” the merchant said, draining his glass and pointing at Dauneth’s own. “You’ll be needing a guide there. Come on!”
Evening was when most shops in Suzail rolled down their shutters, set their door bars, and blew out their lamps, but down this short and apparently nameless side street, Urgan’s Best Boots still showed a light over its door. Rhauligan clapped Dauneth on the shoulder and said, “I’m off, lad. Try not to get into too much trouble.”
Dauneth nodded, replied, “You, too!” and, taking a deep breath, put one hand on his sword hilt and the other on the door handle.
He cast a last look around before entering. Rhauligan had already vanished, as if swallowed up by magic. The street was deserted. The young noble frowned, shrugged, and went in.
Urgan seemed to have vanished, too. The shop was lit but deserted. Dauneth looked around suspiciously, spotted the curtained changing booths, and headed for them, almost trembling with excitement.
He parted the curtain of the corner booth cautiously, using the hilt of his scabbarded sword. Inside stood a woman in a blue gown, her back to him. One of her legs was planted on a stool, and she seemed to be in the process of disrobing.
“Ah, I’m sorry,” Dauneth muttered. The woman turned her head as swiftly as a striking snake. Emerald eyes gleamed out at him, her other features obscured by an azure mask.
“What for? Your swiftness is commendable,” was the calm reply as the woman turned to face him and let fall her gown, to reveal breeches and a tunic of the same sea-blue hue. “If you are Dauneth Marliir, I am very interested in working with you.”
“I-have the good fortune to be Dauneth Marliir, good lady,” Dauneth said, bowing low. He cast a look behind him as he rose, but the shop was still bare of Purple Dragons or anyone else. “And you are-?”
“A friend of the crown,” the masked woman replied smoothly. Her voice was not Emthrara’s, but it had a similar husky tone. The masked woman plucked up her gown from the floor and hung it on a wall hook. “I know you went to the palace earlier today. Will you accompany me there again?”
“Lady, I will,” Dauneth said without hesitation. This didn’t look like Princess Alusair, either, but then he had never seen her all that closely.
The woman seemed to know his thoughts. “I am not of royal blood,” she said, “but I am loyal to the crown. Are you?”
Dauneth met those green eyes steadily and replied, “Lady, I am. I am prepared to swear by whatever you choose, if you will it so.”
“I want nothing so dramatic. A man’s word is enough if it is the right man.”
Her words made the scion of House Marliir feel good indeed. He grasped the hilt of his sword hard, smiling in pride that lasted only for an instant. The masked woman moved a table aside as if it were made of paper, rolled back the edge of a rug with her foot, and put two fingers into a hole in the floor. She pulled, and a square of wooden flooring rose. A trapdoor common to such shops, usually used for storage.
“Follow me,” she directed simply and slid into the dark opening. Dauneth did so, finding stone steps leading down into a small room that smelled of old leather. He had a brief glimpse of shelves and shelves of boots in the radiance that suddenly bloomed into life in the palm of the woman’s hand. She was a mage!
Emerald eyes met his, and then, without a word, the woman strode away into the darkness. Dauneth followed hastily along a narrow, stone-floored tunnel. Such a tunnel was not usually common for such shops, and this one smelled of earth and nearby cesspits. The tunnel went on for a long, long time before it met with a second passage. Dauneth and the masked woman turned left, took a few paces, and then turned right again and went on. The walk was even longer this time, ending in a few worn steps that led up before they emerged in a room full of dusty cobwebs and boxes.
The masked mage turned to Dauneth, her radiance dimmed by the simple method of pressing her palm against the base of her neck. “Keep close to me and be very quiet,” she murmured. “We’re in the under-court cellars, beneath the Noble Court.”
The noble nodded, keeping a hand on his blade to prevent it from swinging and scraping against or knocking anything over. They passed through a succession of dark and dusty rooms, seeing glimmering lanterns in the distance twice, and then the woman in blue held up a hand to halt him and peered around a corner. Satisfied, she waved him on, and together they stepped past the sprawled forms of two guards, dice and cards strewn around them. “They won’t sleep all that long,” she murmured. “We must move briskly.” Beyond the guards were steps, leading to an iron-banded door, barred on their side. Dauneth and the woman lifted the bar down together, and the masked woman touched the lock with one finger. The door clicked once and shifted open a little.
Beyond was another tunnel. “I could come to master these tunnels were there not so many of them,” Dauneth muttered. The emerald eyes of the masked woman seemed to smile in answer as her head turned briefly. They went on along a dusty passage that seemed to hold a statue or something ahead.
As they drew nearer, Dauneth saw that it was a stone block, almost as large as a man, that had fallen from the roof above. He glanced up. The cavity it had come from fitted it perfectly, and a dust-covered chain descended from the darkness of the cavity to the block itself. This had been no crumbling misfortune, but a deathtrap. He looked down and saw yellow-brown bones protruding from under the stone and a skeletal arm, reaching vainly for somewhere safer. Somewhere forever beyond its reach.
He looked up to find the masked face watching his. “Don’t walk this way without me,” she said in a low voice. “There are two more of these ahead.”
