A dark figure rose up from beneath the bed, crept across the room, and ducked behind a lounge onto which Peeryst had grandly tossed his boots, one after the other, not so long ago. The intruder was safely out of sight before the next two thieves in leathers burst in through the other two windows, raining fresh gla.s.s onto the thick fur rugs. Peeryst and Nanue clutched each other, naked but not noticing anymore, and howled in fear, clawing at each other's backs in a frantic attempt to get going elsewhere-anywhere!

The two fresh arrivals wore the same masks and tight leathers with breast-badges as the first one had. One was a woman, the other a man, and both were looking wildly about the room.

"Where's she gone, then?"

"Hush, Minter-you'll rouse the house."

"Don't use my name, G.o.ds d.a.m.n thy tongue!"

They drew daggers from their boots and approached the terrified couple on the bed-who screamed and tried to burrow under the fur-trimmed silk sheets.

"Hold, d.a.m.n ye!" Minter reached for a fleeing foot, missed, and got hold of an ankle. He pulled. A vainly struggling Peeryst clawed at the sheets and managed to drag them off his wife, who knelt on the bed and screamed again, piercingly. Across the room, a gla.s.s figurine shattered, causing the black-gloved hand that had been reaching up from behind the lounge for it to withdraw, with a hasty curse.

Peeryst Trumpettower was hauled from the bed to bounce and then sprawl on the carpet at Minter's feet, gibbering in fear.

Minter flipped him over, reflecting briefly on how ridiculous other naked men look, and snarled, "Where'd she go?" He waved his dagger under the man's nose for effect.

"Wh-Who?" Peeryst shrieked.

Minter pointed with his blade at the whirlwind that was his partner Isparla, who was plucking gem-coffers and silken underthings from the floor and tables around, and tossing them all onto one of the sheets on the floor. As they watched, she scooped up the stag, grunted in surprise under its weight, staggered off-balance, slipped on the carpet, and fell on both elbows atop the piled loot. She moaned in pain-and the stag in her grasp slipped free and thumped down sideways onto one of her hands. She grunted again, louder.

"Another like her, who came in before us!" Minter growled, indicating his partner.

"U-Under the wardrobe," Peeryst panted, pointing. "It fell on her."

Minter turned and saw a ribbon of dark blood running from under the wardrobe, which was as large-and probably as heavy-as a long-haul wagon. He shuddered. He kept on shuddering, all the way to the floor, as a figure rose from under the bed and brought a perfume-bottle down on his head.

Isparla clambered to her feet, saw the figure with the shards of the perfume bottle in his hand, obligingly spat, "Velvets! Again!" and threw her dagger. The figure obediently dived back behind the bed, and the dagger flashed harmlessly across the room. A t.i.tanic sneeze came from behind the bed.

Nanue screamed again-and the woman in black leathers slapped her across the face, backhanded, as she leapt past, grabbing for the elusive sneezing figure. She tripped over the stag in her haste, hopped, and moaned in pain. The stag thumped over onto its other side, and a shard of diamond broke off it.

The mysterious person behind the bed was curled up and shaking in the throes of uncontrollable sneezing, but managed to drive the broken perfume bottle into the Moonclaws woman's face, which she had just stuck around behind the bed. Isparla recoiled, rearing up on the bed, and Nanue slapped her back, hard.

Her masked head whipped around. She snarled, leaned forward, and there was a meaty smack as her face met the bra.s.s chamberpot that Peeryst's shaking hands had just swept upward.

Isparla collapsed silently across the bed. Nanue, kneeling beside her, saw blood flowing from the masked woman's mouth onto the silken sheets, and helpfully screamed again.

Peeryst saw what he'd done, threw the chamberpot down in horror-there was a sharp crack as it struck the stag and then a hollow metallic gonging when it skipped across the room and rolled to a stop-and fled across the room, howling. A dark figure burst up from behind the lounge and sprinted to intercept him.

Peeryst was two running paces from the safety of the bedchamber door when the figure caught up with him. They crashed into the door together; it boomed, burst open from the impact, and was instantly smashed shut again by their falling bodies.

Downstairs, the befurred and bejeweled elders of both families heard the crash, raised their eyebrows at each other, and poured another toast.

"Well," Janatha Glarmeir said brightly, staring around as color rose prettily into her cheeks, "they certainly seem to be ... hitting it off, don't they?"

"Hitting sounds like it would be about right," Darrigo Trumpettower agreed with a guffaw, leering at her. "I remember my second wife was like that...."

Elminster rose from atop Peeryst's unconscious form, made sure the door was bolted this time, and hurried to where Farl, eyes still streaming from the perfume, was staggering away from the bed.

"We've got to get out of here," he muttered, shaking Farl.

"d.a.m.ned Moonclaws," his partner snarled. "Grab something to make all this worthwhile."

"I have," El said, "now let's begone!"

His words rose into an excited shout as a new pair of leather-clad figures swung in the window, using yet more silken lines.

They landed running, blades out. Elminster swept up a small gla.s.s-topped table, spilling figurines in all directions, and hurled it hard.

His target ducked, and the table sailed harmlessly out the window-just as one of the figurines landed, hard, on his foot.

Elminster hopped in pain, roaring. The grinning Moonclaws man closed in on him, raising a gleaming blade, as the other one dived to grab the nude, shrieking woman on the bed.

The table fell through the night to explode in shards of gla.s.s and twisted spars of bra.s.s on the cobbles far below. Some of them clattered on the windows of the feasting-hall and the parlor. The befurred and bejeweled elders of both families turned at the sound, and more eyebrows were raised.

"They wouldn't be fighting, would they?" Janatha Glarmeir said anxiously, fanning herself to conceal her burning cheeks. "It certainly seems lively."

"Nay," Darrigo Trumpettower roared, "that's just. . . what d'they ca-oh, aye, 'foreplay;' y'know, the fun 'n' games beforehand . . . great big room up there to chase each other around in . . ." He sighed, looking up at the ceiling. Obligingly, it shook under another sharp, booming crash, and a cloud of dust drifted down. "Wish I were younger and Peeryst was calling for help...."

Promptly there came a faint, quavering cry. "Help!"

"Well," Darrigo said in delight, "if the lad ain't the very shinin' image of his old uncle, indeed! Where're those stairs? Hope I can remember how to do the deed, after all these years...."

Elminster danced backward, wincing. The Moonclaws man lunged at him, blade flashing, and then grunted in surprise as Farl reached out and wrapped himself around the man's leg. The Moonclaws thief toppled like a felled tree, and Farl stabbed him in the throat before he'd even stopped bouncing. The stag statue, cracked and somewhat smaller now, spun away from under the man's sprawled body.

Elminster saw what Farl had done, turned his head away, and promptly emptied his dinner all over a blue-dyed fur rug from Calimshan.

"Well, that's one rug we won't be taking back with us," Farl called merrily as he sprinted across the room to where the last Moonclaws woman was struggling with the sobbing bride. Just as he got there, the thief managed to get her hands on Nanue's face and throat, and looked up.

Farl didn't slow. He planted a firm fist in her mask as he ran past.

She hadn't even hit the carpet when he leapt out the window, one of the swing-lines hissing through his gloved hands as he slid down in haste.

Elminster s.n.a.t.c.hed up a hand-sized jewel-coffer to add to the hairpins he'd stowed in his boots, thrust it down the front of his shirt to free his hands for climbing, and ran after Farl. Screaming, Nanue ran the other way, toward the door where her husband lay senseless.

Elminster tripped over the stag, cursed, and ended his flight to the windows in a helpless roll. The statue slid away across slick tiles exposed when rugs were rucked up in the battle, and caromed off a wall, spitting pieces of itself in all directions.

El fetched up against the windowsill in an untidy heap-unseen by the Moonclaws man who swung grandly in the window at that moment and stepped right over the thieving prince. His eyes fixed on the statue, gliding to a gleaming stop in the moonlight.

"Aha! A king's ransom-mine!" the thief bellowed, hurling a dagger out of habit at the nude woman fleeing across the chamber. The flashing fang struck an upright mirror, which pivoted on its pintles, overbalanced, and came crashing down at Nanue. She shrieked and leapt desperately backward, skidding helplessly on the rugs. The mirror crashed down beside it and shattered, shards bouncing on the tiles; Nanue rolled away blindly to escape them, and overturned an ornamental table crowded with scent-bottles. The reek that arose was incredible; it even made the thief, gloved hand about to close on what was left of the stag, recoil.

This sudden movement sent him skidding on a fragment broken off the statue, and he sat down hard, jarring a portrait down off the wall. Roaruld Trumpettower, Scourge of Stirges-depicted holding a gla.s.s of blood aloft in one hand and a wrung-out, limp-winged stirge in the other-landed with a crash that shook the room, hopped forward as the frame shivered, and smashed down atop the thief. The stag spun away again, still growing smaller.

Nanue sobbed at the overpowering smell as she wallowed in gla.s.s shards and spilled perfume; she was drenched with half a hundred secret oils and glowing daubs, and the tiles were so slippery she couldn't find footing. At length, weeping with frustration-and at the smell-she started to crawl toward the nearest rug. It was the one Elminster had recently decorated. Nanue recoiled from it, selected another as her goal, and crawled in that direction, weeping with fresh energy.

Elminster shook his head in disbelief at the scene of devastation in the room, caught hold of the rope, and was gone into the night. Behind him there was a sharp tearing sound as a gloved hand holding a dagger punched up through the heart of Roaruld Trumpettower, cutting a hole in the ma.s.sive portrait so that its masked Moonclaws owner could emerge and look wildly around the room for-there!

The stag lay in a serene pool of moonlight near the bed, starred now with many cracks. The thief hastened to scoop it up. "Mine at last!"

"Nay," responded a cold voice from the window. " 'Tis mine!"

A dagger was flung, but missed, coming to quivering rest in a wooden wall-carving with a solid thunk.

The first thief sneered as he scooped up the stag-then, realizing the other Moonclaws man couldn't see his expression through the mask, made a rude gesture with the statue. The second thief snarled in rage and threw another dagger. It flashed across the room and pa.s.sed just in front of Nanue's nose. The crawling bride hastily changed course again, scuttling back across the tiles toward safety behind the lounge.

The thief with the statue strode toward the window. "Keep back!" he warned, waving his dagger.

The second thief scooped up one of the fallen gem-coffers and calmly flung it at the head of the first thief. It hit home and burst open, spilling a glistening rain of gems to the floor. The first thief joined them in the general cascade, the stag flying up from his hand.

End over end it spun through the air-toward the window.

"No!" The second thief lunged desperately after it, slipping and sliding on the bouncing gems. His gloved hands stretched, reaching, reaching-and into the very tips of his straining fingers the proud stag fell.

He clung to it in gloating triumph, skidding across the floor with the momentum of his desperate run. "Hah! I have it! My precious! Oh, my precious stag!"

And then the gems under his boots slid him hard into the low windowsill, and he kicked helplessly, toppled, and with a shriek fell out into the night, wailing, and was gone.

Nanue saw the thief disappear, shivered, and came carefully to her feet, turning again toward the door. She must get out- Another pair of thieves in black leathers swung in through the windows. "Oh, dungheaps!" Nanue wailed, and started yet another desperate dash for the door.

The thieves looked around at the wreckage and carnage and swore horribly. One bounded forward into the room, swept up the masked woman from the bed, threw her over his shoulder, and made straight for the window again. The other sprinted down the room after Nanue to s.n.a.t.c.h her for a ransom.

She screamed, and was slipping on rugs, trying not to crash into the door in her haste and fall on the crumpled Peeryst, when something heavy hit the door from the other side. The bolt twisted and jammed, and Nanue slid helplessly into the wall. Snarled curses echoed through the door from the pa.s.sage beyond, and then it shook under another thunderous blow. Nanue scrambled aside, shrieking at the thief who grabbed for her kicking legs.

The door splintered then and flew inward, hurling the thief a good distance away across the furs. He rolled to his feet, and two daggers gleamed as he drew them. The Moonclaws thief saluted the nude woman with them, and advanced menacingly. Nanue screamed again.

Darrigo Trumpettower looked around the ruined bedchamber in bewilderment. At his feet lay his nephew and right beside him, his terrified bride on her knees, shrieking as she crawled toward Darrigo.

Darrigo looked up again, mustache bristling. An intruder in black leathers was coming at him in a run, daggers gleaming in both hands. There wasn't even time to leer down at Nanue- who, he couldn't help noticing, looked like a fine wife indeed. He looked up at the onrushing thief again and drew a deep breath. 'Twas time to uphold the honor of the Trumpettowers!

With a roar, Darrigo Trumpettower charged across the room. The thief swept his daggers up to stab-but the old man took one in the arm without flinching, and smashed home a bone-shattering blow to the thief's jaw. Still roaring, he s.n.a.t.c.hed at the reeling man's throat before he could fall, picked the thief up by the neck the same way he carried turkeys in to be cooked at home, and strode across the room, streaming blood.

Straight to the shattered windows he went, lifted the thief, and hurled him out into the empty darkness. He listened for the thud from the cobbles far below, nodded in satisfaction when it came, and went back for another thief.

Nanue decided it was safe to faint now. As the second thief sailed out into the night, the blushing bride sank gracefully down on Peeryst's chest, and knew no more....

Word was all over the city by midmorn how the old, bl.u.s.tering warrior Darrigo Trumpettower had fought a dozen thieves in the bridal bedchamber of his nephew while the unhearing lovers had calmly consummated their match, and how he (Darrigo) hurled every one of the Moonclaws in uniform out the high windows, to their deaths in the courtyard of Trumpettower House.

Farl and El raised eyebrows and tankards of strong ale to the news. "It sounds as though one of them rescued Isparla and got out again," Farl said, sipping.

"How many does that leave?" Elminster asked quietly.

Farl shrugged. "Who knows? The G.o.ds and the Moonclaws, alone. But they lost Waera, Minter, Annathe, Obaerig, for certain, and probably Irtil, too. Let's say we're a lot more even after last night-though they did blunder in on a perfectly good grab job and lose us all but the little stuff."

"One of the hairpins broke, too," Elminster reminded him.

"Aye, but we have both pieces; little loss there," Farl said. "Now, if we-"

He broke off, frowned, and bent his head to listen to an excited whisper at a table nearby, laying a hand on El's arm to bid for silence. Elminster, who'd been holding his peace, continued to do so.

"Aye, magic! Doubtless hidden away by King Uthgrael, years agone!" One man was saying, leaning forward almost into his friend's face to avoid being overheard. "In a secret chamber somewheres in the castle, they say!"

Farl and Elminster leaned forward to listen carefully. A moment later, the need to do so pa.s.sed: a minstrel came in, bounded up onto the nearest table, and cried the tale at the top of his young, excited voice.

In truth, it was a tale straight out of the legends minstrels kept shining: a chest of magical ioun stones had been found in the castle-hidden away years before, probably by (or on the orders of) King Uthgrael. The magelords are, and remain, in heated disagreement about who shall have them, and how they'll be used. By decree of King Belaur himself, the stones-glowing and floating about by themselves, giving off faint chimings and musical sounds like harp-chords from time to time-are on display, guarded by the officers and senior armsmen of Athalgard, in a certain audience chamber no wizards are allowed to approach, until a decision is made. As they left the tavern, the excited minstrel was declaiming in ringing tones that he'd seen the stones himself, and that this was all true!

Farl smiled. "You know we have to go for those stones."

Elminster shook his head. "Ye couldn't turn thy back on them and still be Farl, Master of the Velvet Hands," he said dryly.

Farl chuckled.

"This time," Elminster told him firmly, "ye should wait, let the Moonclaws spring the trap-and go in only if ye can see a safe, clear way to do so."

"Trap?"

"Don't ye smell the hands of calculating wizards in this wondrous tale? I do."

After a moment, Farl nodded. Their eyes met.

"Why did you say 'ye'?" Farl asked quietly.

"I am done with thieving," Elminster said slowly. "If ye go after these wonderful magical stones, ye must do it alone. I'll be leaving Hastarl after I do one thing more."

Farl stood frozen, eyes very dark. "Why?"

"Robbing and slaying hurts folk I have no quarrel with and brings revenge no closer to the magelords. You saw the stag statue; the grasping hands of thieving only take what's precious and make it battered and broken and worthless. I've learned as much as the street can teach and have had enough." Elminster stared into Farl's stunned eyes and added, "Seasons slip away- and the things I've not done eat at me. I must leave."

"I knew it was coming," Farl admitted, his face going very red. "It's the scruples that a.s.sured it. But this 'one thing more'- 'twouldn't be a betrayal, would it?"

Elminster shook his head and spoke slowly and deliberately. "I've never had a friend as close and as true as Farl, son of Hawklyn."

Suddenly their arms were around each other in a tight embrace. They stood in the alley and wept, pounding each other on backs and shoulders.

After a time, Farl said, "Ah, El-what'm I to do without you?"

"Take up with Ta.s.sabra," Elminster said, and added with a gleam in his eye, "Ye can show her appreciation in a more satisfying way than ye can with me."

They stepped back from each other-and then, slowly, both grinned.