One of Xuzoun's eyes flashed. A stone the size of a gauntleted fist rose from the rubble and flashed toward the old moneylender, flying as hard and straight as any arrow. These humans might have shields to foil magic, but what if the stone were flying fast enough, and aimed true, when the magic that flung it was stripped away? Turning slowly end over end, the stone shot on.

"Old Wolf-down!" Asper screamed, seeing it. Mirt had heard that tone from her a time or two before in his life, and flopped to his belly without delay. The stone whistled past close overhead and shattered with a sharp crack against a wall beyond.

The beholder was descending, and at the same time a slab of stone the size of a small cart was rising above Durnan. He ducked away, but it followed, lowering itself with care, chasing him. The Master of the Yawning Portal spat out a curse and started a sprinting scramble across the rocks of the ruin. The beholder smiled as it drifted after him.

If the great weight of the stone pinned the running lord without having to strike him down and do harm, he'd be trapped and helpless-a prisoner until Xuzoun was ready to steal his mind and take over his body. If it worked with the one, why then there were stones aplenty here, and only two humans more.

Wheezing to his feet and regarding the stone pursuing Durnan with horror, Mirt was startled by a loud rattling of rock behind him. He wheeled around with a snarl-was one of those watching gamblers trying to change the odds?-and found himself staring at a scaly blue monster that looked like a huge and sinuous crocodile. Its head reared up to regard him as it raced over the broken rubble on a small forest of fast-churning legs.

It was a behir, a man-eating lizard-thing that could spit lightning bolts!

"Ah, just what we need!" Mirt snarled despairingly, raising his belt dagger and knowing what a useless little fang it was against such onrushing death.

"Some right b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a mage must be toying with us!"Setting himself the same way a weary bull lowers its head to face a fast-scudding storm, the fat old Lord of Waterdeep prepared to fight this new foe. The behir opened its jaws impossibly wide as it came, so that Mirt was staring into a maw as large as a s.p.a.cious doorway. A forked tongue wriggled in its depths in a fascinating dance that plunged at him more swiftly than any man could run.

Asper screamed out Mirt's name and sprinted toward him, a small knife from her boot flashing in her hand- but she was too far off to do more than watch. The reptile snapped its jaws once, tilted its head toward Mirt to deliver what he could only describe as a wink, and surged past the astonished moneylender to spit lighting into the open mouth of the beholder.

Xuzoun screamed-a high, sobbing wail like too many cries Mirt had heard human women make-and spun away over the ruins, lightning playing about its body. Its eyestalks jerked and coiled spasmodically, and it was trailing smoke when it struck a leaning pillar and crashed heavily to the ground. The rushing behir was upon it in a breath, coiling over its foe as it snapped its jaws and tore away eyestalks in eager, merciless haste. The three humans watched, a little awed, and then in unspoken accord came together in the center of the stony devastation to watch the beholder die.

"Is there any hole here small enough that we can get into it and hold off that thing?" Asper asked softly, watching the scaly blue head toss as it tore away beholder flesh. A last bubbling wail from the thing beneath its claws died away.

None of them saw a crystal sphere materialize silently beside the riven eye tyrant, flicker with the last vestiges of a spell glow . . . and then crumble to dust, which drifted away.

"A few, no doubt," Durnan replied grimly, watching the carnage, "but none of them would shield us in the slightest from its lightning."

Asper sighed, a long, shuddering sound, and tossed her head. Her eyes were very bright as she said softly, "I thought so," and raised her little knife as if it was some great magical long sword.

When the crocodilelike head turned from its feasting, it saw the little knife, Mirt's belt dagger beside it, and the similar dagger Durnan held ready, and its eyes flashed golden with amus.e.m.e.nt. The great jaws opened, and a hissing roar came out. The jaws worked and rippled with effort, and for a moment, Asper thought it was trying to speak. Then it tossed its head in disgust, drew in a deep breath, and tried again, turning its eyes on Mirt. They all heard its rattling roar quite distinctly: "Thank Transtraaaa . .."

Then it lowered its head, folded its legs against its body, and slithered away. They watched it wind its snakelike way out of the ruins into the street beyond. The audience of surviving gamblers shrank back to make way for it. It vanished around a corner-Spider-silk Lane, Durnan thought-and left them alone with a torn-open, quite dead beholder.

"I wonder what she'll ask you in payment?" Durnan asked the Old Wolf.

Mirt growled a wordless reply, shrugged, and then turned to his lady as if seeing her for the first time. "h.e.l.lo, Little Fruitbasket," he leered, extending his lips in a chimplike pout to be kissed.

Slowly, Asper stuck her tongue out in eloquent reply, and made the spitting-to-the-side mime that young Waterdhavian ladies use to signal disgust or emphatic disapproval.

And then she winked and grinned.

Mirt started to grin back, but it faded quickly as he saw the danger signal of Asper's eyebrows rising, and the accompanying glitter in the dark eyes boring into him. A moment later she asked softly, "Just who is this 'Transtraaaa'

woman, anyway?"

Mirt gave her a sour look. "Pull in the claws, little one: she's no woman, but a lamia."

It was the turn for Durnan's eyebrows to rise. "Slave-trading, Mirt?"

The fat moneylender gave him a disgusted look, and turned to start the long trudge back up the alley. "Ye know me better than that," he rumbled."Slaving's work for those who've no scruples, less sense, and too much wealth.

n.o.bles, for instance."

Durnan groaned. "Let's not start that one again. We rooted out all we could find, and Khel set spy spells . . . there'll always be a few dabblers, no doubt, but nothing we can't handle-"

Lightning roared across the ruins to split the stones at his feet.

"Oh? Care to try to handle me, tavernmaster?" The voice echoed and rolled around them, made louder by magic: the taunting voice of an arrogant young woman of culture and breeding.

The three lords looked up whence the lightning had come and saw a lone figure standing on the catwalk where Asper had inspected a line of washing not so long ago: a slim, haughty figure in a dark green cloak whose folds showed the shape of a long sword beneath it. The uppermost part of the figure was all flashing eyes and curling auburn hair, piled high around graceful shoulders.

"Young Nythyx," Mirt roared, "Come down from there!"

In reply, two gloved hands parted the cloak from within to reveal the glowing, deadly things they bore: Netherese blast scepters, crackling with simmering lightning. "Come up and get me, 'fat man," Nythyx Thunderstaff sneered. "I don't take orders from drunken old commoners."

Durnan looked up at her, eyes narrowed. "You're a slaver, then?" He strode calmly toward the mouth of the alley, and after a moment Mirt and Asper followed.

The scepters were leveled at them, and the young woman who held them shrugged and said almost defiantly, "Yes."

Durnan kept on walking, but shook his head in smiling disbelief. "You've never shackled men, or dragged ores out of carry cages. If you tried, they'd toss you around like a child's ball!"

Lighting stabbed at him, in wordless, deadly reply.

An unclad woman whose hair and eyes shared the color of leaping flame leaned out of a window at the mouth of the alley and stiffened. "Blast scepters!" she hissed.

As her eyes blazed even brighter, she flowed forward out of the window. Her lower body was human to the hips, but from there down it was the scaled, sinuous bulk of a serpent. She slithered along the wall, drawing herself upright, and raised her hands to weave a spell.

A dark, chill hand caught at her shoulder.

She spun about, hands growing talons with lightning speed. "Who-?"

"I am sometimes called Halaster Blackcloak," the wall told her. A cowled face melted out of its stones to join the arm that held her. Flame-red eyes met dark ones, and after a moment Transtra shivered and looked away. The hand released its hold on her, and Halaster's voice was almost kindly as he added, "They'll be fine. Watch. Just watch."

Lightning spat down at the tavernmaster, slashing aside lanterns and washing.

Durnan calmly leapt aside, rolled to his feet, and resumed his steady walk a dozen paces ahead and to the left of where he'd been walking.

He looked up through smoking rags and swaying ropes and remarked, "Ah. You cook every slave who says something you don't like, eh? This may be one reason why we've never heard of your stellar slaving career."

Lighting cracked again. In its wake the young n.o.blewoman shrieked, "Don't you dare mock me, tavern-master! My master would have killed you, all of you, if it hadn't been for that-that snake-thing! You're very lucky to be alive to toss smart words my way right now!"

"Ye really should practice with that toy," Mirt growled, waggling one large and hairy finger her way, "if ye harbor any fond hopes of ever hitting someone with it."

At his shoulder, Asper frowned. "You served . . . the beholder?" she asked the woman aloft.

They were close enough now to clearly see Nythyx Thunderstaff's slim lips draw into a tight line. The young n.o.blewoman stared down at them, pale and trembling with rage, and said, "Yes. With Xuzoun, I wielded power andinfluence. Great lords poured me their best wines in hopes of gaining just the slaves they desired. You've ended that, you three, and will pay for doing so.

This I swear."

"I've heard of consorts that fathers disapprove of," Mirt rumbled, "but la.s.s, la.s.s, how could ye be so foolish?"

"Foolish?" Nythyx shrieked, thrusting forth the scepters she held to point almost straight down at their upturned faces. "Foolish? Who's the fool here, Old Wolf?" She triggered both blast scepters.

Asper had been muttering something under her breath-and at that moment the catwalk bucked and broke apart as the blast star she'd left behind on it obediently exploded.

"Ye are, if ye know no better than to let us walk right up when ye had the power to torch us all," Mirt told Nythyx as the young n.o.blewoman tumbled helplessly down, down to the cobbles at their feet. Futile lightnings sputtered forth to scorch the buildings on either side, but found no way to slow her killing fall.

Or-nearly killing fall. A scant few feet above the stones, Durnan rushed forward, leapt high to meet her, and cradled her deftly in his arms, crashing down into a crouch that took the force of her descent.

Nythyx stared at him for one astonished moment. Her face twisted, and she raised the one scepter she'd managed to hang on to, aiming at his face. The tavernmaster, however, brought one expert fist down across her chin in a swipe that left her slack-jawed and senseless.

Durnan watched the winking and sputtering scepter fall slowly from her hand.

When it clattered on the cobbles, he kicked it to Asper, looked for a moment at the now-empty face of the woman in his arms, then swung her onto his shoulder for the long carry back to her father's arms in Waterdeep. Just what, he wondered, was he going to tell Lord Thunderstaff. .. ?

Rubies caught his eyes as her long, ostentatious earrings dangled down beside his chest. Durnan stared at them, shook his head, and said wearily, "I'm getting too old for this. What a day!"

Mirt shrugged as one of his arms found its way around Asper's shoulders. "Eh?

What say ye? 'Twas a bit of a slow day in Skullport, I'd say!"

The words had scarce left his mouth when the front of a nearby building burst with a flash and roar out into the alley, shattering shutters across the way and sending another catwalk into dancing collapse. Flashing fingers of blue-white fire spat from the curling smoke of the riven building even before the flung stones of its walls had finished falling. On those fiery fingers were borne two writhing bodies.

The three Lords of Waterdeep watched the pair struggling vainly against the magic. They were women of greater age and much more lush beauty than either Asper or Nythyx-beauty revealed through the tatters of their smouldering robes. They shrieked past the three lords, pulled in a sharp curve along the front of a butcher shop, and continued on down the alley, propelled by the raging magic that held them captive.

The lords turned to watch, in time to see a black flame rise suddenly into being along one wall, partway down the alley. It was a dancing shadow without fuel or heat, which seemed neither to die nor rise higher, but merely to continue.

From behind its concealing veil, Transtra watched a shadowy hand rise from the cobbles behind Mirt's boot, deftly close on the forgotten blast scepter-which lay fallen and still sparking feebly on the cobbles-and draw it down through the solid stone. A moment later, the hand reappeared beside her and offered her the scepter.

"You see? Patience does bring rewards," Halaster murmured. The lamia n.o.ble looked at him in wonderment, then at the scepter, and slowly stretched forth her hand for it. The wizard smiled thinly. "There's no trap; take it."

Transtra regarded him, eyes unreadable. "Why have you given me this?"

Eyes as black as a starless night looked back into hers. "I have few friends, Lady, and I'd like to gain another-as you gained yonder moneylender."Transtra looked at the two sorceresses clawing and sobbing against the unknown magic that was carrying them inexorably down the alley, drew in a deep breath, looked back at Halaster, and stretched forth her other hand.

"I'm willing to gain one, too," she said steadily, and the smile that answered her was like a wave of warm spiced wine that carried her along unresisting.

The wizard replied, "Then trust me, and come."

Cool black fingers closed on hers, and drew her toward the wall, into the chill embrace of the stones. Transtra swallowed, closed her eyes, and kept firm hold of the fingers that took her on, into silence, away from the alley.

The black flame along one side of the alley was suddenly gone as if it had never been, revealing a dirty stone wall broken by one dark, open window. As the two struggling sorceresses flew past that spot, their splendid bodies wriggled, lengthened-and turned warty and green.

"Trolls?" Asper asked, frowning.

Her two companions nodded.

The forcibly transformed women plunged across the ruins into darkness, tumbling in the grip of the magic that propelled them.

A moment later, on the far side of the great cavern whence they'd gone, two gigantic orbs blazed open, and a thunderous voice rumbled, "Who dares-?"

There followed rumblings that shook even so large a cavern as this, which marked the stirring of a huge, long-quiescent body. Something larger than several buildings rose up on the far side of the ruins.

As the black dragon raised its scaly bulk higher than the roofs of Skullport, to glare down the alley, Asper whispered something over the Netherese scepter.

A nimbus of blue-and-gold fire surrounded her hand. "Touch me, both of you,"

she said, "and bring the not-so-n.o.ble lady's hand against mine."

Durnan touched Nythyx's limp hand to Asper's, and she whispered something. The scepter began to whine and pulse, brighter at each flare.

"What have ye done, las"?" Mirt rumbled.

"Used this thing to power the little carry-stone you gave me, so as to whisk us all back to Mirt's Mansion," she replied. As she spoke, the familiar blue mists of teleportation began to rise and swirl all around them. Asper smiled and turned her head to face Durnan. "I must agree with my lord," she said sweetly to the tavernmaster. "A slow day, in truth."

"May there be many more of them," Durnan said, breathing his heartfelt wish.

The dragon's charge made the stony pave of the alley buckle and heave under their boots.

The mists rushed up to claim them, spinning them back to a place where there'd be a fire and a warm bathing pool, ready wine . . . and no dragons. What more could a retired adventurer ask for?

Those who like to know their players, and have searched in vain for a program, take heart-and hearken! The bold players featured in the preceding escapade are as follows: ALDON: The strongest and most slow-witted of a trio of human thieves who style themselves the Masked Mayhem, Aldon and his comrades hold absolute rule [ over about six yards' worth of two alleys in Skullport.

ASPER: The onetime ward of Mirt the Moneylender, I who rescued her as a young child from the ruins of a burning city, Asper has become his ladylove, sword companion, and (all too often) rescuer. A deadly, acrobatic swordswoman, she was the real brains of the stalwart adventuring band known as the Four-and is now I one of the real brains among the Lords of Waterdeep. I Mirt loves her more than life itself-and several score I of city guardsmen dream of her kisses ... in vain, of J course (sigh).

DURNAN: This laconic, unruffled, weather-beaten I man is well known in Waterdeep as the master of the Yawning Portal, that famous tavern whose taproom holds the entrance to the vast and deep dungeon of Undermountain.

Durnan's thews, fearless manner, and cool handling of belligerent adventurers have won him admiring glances from young ladies. Few, however, know that this burly philosopher was once an adventurer, whose blade let sunlight into the innards of more monsters of Faerun than several dozen chartered adventuringcompanies combined. A onetime member of the Four, Durnan is now one of the most practical and widely-respected father figures in the city-and in secret (oops), one of the most capable Lords of Waterdeep.

ELMINSTER: Known as "the Old Mage" to a generation, and the Sage of Shadowdale to the overly-formal, this white-haired, impressively bearded old rogue should need no introduction to Faerunians. One of the Chosen of Mystra, he is an archmage mighty enough to make more than one world tremble-and he paid me handsomely to say this, too.

HALASTER BLACKCLOAK: A legendary villain in Waterdeep, "the Mad Mage" is a lurking figure used to frighten children into good behavior. Not a few of them down the decades have had nightmares about the sinister Lord of Undermountain, whose very gaze can kill, who skulks the cellars and dark dungeon pa.s.sages beneath the city, and hurls spells with crazed brilliance, slaughtering beholders, rending dragons . .. and sending bouquets of flowers walking up to startled young Waterdhavian ladies at their coming-out revels.

HERLE: "Best Blade" of the Black Falcon Patrol of the City Guard of Waterdeep, Herle is a tall, courteous man-deadly with a sword and with his flashing eyes and skillful tongue. Ask any n.o.ble Waterdhavian lady he's been a.s.signed to escort-when you're out of earshot of her husband.

ILBARTH: This quick-tongued leader is the master strategist of the Masked Mayhem thieving band of Skullport. Ilbarth is one of those lovable rogues who's almost as handsome as he thinks he is, knows folk almost as well as he thinks he does, and with much luck might avoid his grave for a season or two longer. Place no bets on this.

IRAEGHLEE: This illithid (mind flayer, of that mauve-skinned, mouth-tentacled race who like to suck; out the brains of humans who have any) might have had a longer career of manipulation and multifold intrigue if his arrogance had been a trifle weaker, and' his foresight a trifle stronger-flaws not unknown, I fear, to many human mages and adventurers.

LAERAL ARUNSUN SILVERHAND: The Lady Mage of Waterdeep is consort to the famous Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun (Lord Mage of Waterdeep), who rescued her from the fell artifact known as the Crown of Horns. Laeral is one of the Chosen of Mystra and one of the Seven Sisters watched over by Elminster. She serves as the understanding, worldly representative of the Lords of Waterdeep in Skullport (often in disguise), and was once the leader of an adventuring group known as the Nine. Her grace and beauty are outstripped only by her mastery of magic.

MIRT: It is untrue to say that Mirt the Moneylender outma.s.ses a horse. A pony, now .. . This shrewd, grasping, sarcastic old rogue is beloved by all who don't owe him money. He is sometimes called "the Wheezing Warrior" by those too young to remember his days as Mirt the Merciless, a mercenary general feared from the quays of Calimport to the stony gates of Mirabar. Later he was the Old Wolf, canniest of all the pirate captains to plunder the Sword Coast.

These days, he must content himself merely with being a senior Harper, a not-so-secret Lord of Waterdeep, and the city's busiest critic of newly opened taverns and houses of revelry.

NYTHYX THUNDERSTAFF: One of the young, pretty, and ruthless n.o.ble ladies with which Waterdeep abounds, Nythyx is a daughter of Anadul Thunder staff, an old friend of Durnan. While he lived, Anadul was brother to Baerom, head of the n.o.ble House of Thunderstaff. Nythyx has a taste for danger, feeling important, wielding power, and indulging in cruelties. She may well wind up ruling the city someday . . . if she doesn't get trampled in the rush of all the other young beauties of similar tastes and skills. Watch her; if you keep hidden, the entertainment's free.

SHANDRIL SHESSAIR: This young, heart-strong la.s.s is pursued by half of Faerun (the evil, magic-wielding half) because she happens to possess the rare and awesome power of spellfire, with which she may someday just reshape the world ... if she survives the almost daily attacks of those who want her spellfire, that is.

TORTHAN: A human male slave of the Lady Transtra, Torthan worships hismistress almost as much as he fears her. His tale is a sad one to date, but is a long way from ended. "Torthan's lineage will surprise some, when at last 'tis revealed" (or so Elminster has said, in what I believe was an unguarded moment).