The speaker did not wait to finish his threat, but dealt the door a heavy blow. It shuddered sufficiently that neither occupant of the chamber beyond the door needed to see the bright edge of the axe blade breaking through on the second blow to know that the door would not withstand a third strike.

The fat, red-faced man in the room broke off his muttered negotiations and stood hastily back to give his business a.s.sociate the room she needed.

Serpentine coils slithered around his feet as she drew herself up, swaying slightly, and frowned in concentration.

Transtra's flame-red hair and beautiful, unclad upper body remained unchanged; the string of rubies she wore still winked between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Below her slim waist, however, the scales melted away, and her tail shrank into long human legs. Mirt stepped firmly forward between them, the magic that protected him from her touch flaring into life, and swept her into an amorous embrace just as a splintering crash heralded the collapse of the door.

The shrieks and cart-rumbles of bustling Skullport flooded into the room. A minotaur's long-horned head ducked through the wreckage of the door, warily following the huge broadaxe. Its nostrils flared as it roared, "Transtra?"

Mirt lifted his head from yielding, cherry-flavored lips and rumbled in testy tones, "Ye've got the wrong room, hornhead . .. and I've paid for this one."

The minotaur bellowed its anger and lurched forward-but came to an abrupt halt as a slim blade rose smoothly from between the floorboards in front of it, rising up with deadly stealth. "The next one'll rise between your legs," the fat moneylender growled, "unless they walk on out of here right swiftly. Hear me?"

The minotaur glared at him, stared hard at the woman Mirt held, muttered, "Sorry," and withdrew.

The stout moneylender held up a hand and let the second ring on it do its work, enshrouding the open doorway and the walls all around them in a cloaking mist. The sounds of Skullport died away abruptly as the ward took effect, and in the sudden stillness a steely voice close by his throat said firmly, "My thanks for your quick-witted courtesy, Mirt. You can let go of me now and step well clear, grinning-faced codpiece and all."

"Anything to avoid unpleasantness-and gore," the moneylender quipped, complying. "Ye make a fine la.s.s, Transtra."

"Not for you, I don't," the lamia n.o.ble replied sharply as scales began to reappear on her lengthening legs. "Let us keep to matters of trade-bars and importation, shall we? I believe we'd gotten to six score casks of belaerd and ten strongchests of heavy chain."

"Ye don't want to throw in a ruby or two?" Mirt rumbled in reply, raising an eyebrow.The lamia regarded him coldly. "No," she said shortly, "I don't."

"Ah," Mirt said airily, "then I've something of thine to return, it seems." He held out a string of rubies in one stubby-fingered hand.

Transtra frowned at it, and then looked down to where her unbound hair cascaded over her bosom. The bottom three stones on her string were missing.

She snarled in anger as she raised blazing eyes to his.

Mirt bowed gravely to her as she s.n.a.t.c.hed her rubies back, and with his chin close to the floor, he looked up and flashed her a momentary, rolling-eyed idiot's grin.

Transtra's tail lashed the floor for a perilous moment or two thereafter before the lamia's hiss of fury slowly relaxed into a rueful, head-shaking chuckle.

"You've never played me false yet," she said in quiet surprise, watching the s.h.a.ggy-haired man straighten up with a grunt and wheeze. "How is it, then, that you make any coins at all?"

"My boundless charm," Mirt explained nonchalantly, "leaves rich women swooning in my arms, anxious to make gifts of their baubles to one so attentive and-er, gifted-as I. 'Tis what has brought me all this grand way, to where I am today."

"A rented upstairs escort's chamber in the worst brothel in Skullport?"

Transtra asked sardonically, gliding toward him.

Mirt stuck hairy thumbs in his belt and harrumphed. "Well, la.s.s, 'tis no secret that my discretion-"

"Has slipped indeed if you dare to call me 'la.s.s,' " was the acidic reply. The lamia n.o.ble folded her arms and drew herself up, tapping the floor with the tip of her tail in irritation.

Mirt waved a dismissive hand. "If ye think a little a.s.sumed pique will make me remorseful and somehow beholden when we talk more trade, think awhile again, little scaled one."

"Little scaled one?" the lamia n.o.ble hissed, truly angry now, bending toward him with blazing eyes. "Why, I've a-"

She reared back, startled, and hastily raised her hands to hurl a spell as a pinwheel of tiny lights suddenly appeared in midair in front of her.

Transtra's angry gaze went to the merchant, but saw that this apparition was no doing of his; Mirt was as surprised as she. The lamia backed silently away, hands raised in readiness.

From those circling lights arose a whisper familiar to Mirt. "Gone into Undermountain to rescue Nythyx Thunderstaff, old friend; I may need help," it said. The first ring on his hand quivered in response, silently tugging Mirt in the direction of the Yawning Portal, Durnan's distant inn.

Mirt followed that urging, striding in his battered, flopping old boots across the floor and toward the shattered door. Transtra drew smoothly aside to let him pa.s.s; he seemed to have forgotten she was in the room. The wards parted soundlessly at the frowning old merchant's approach, and he stepped out into the pa.s.sage, finding it unenc.u.mbered by minotaurs. A few steps took him to the nearest window.

The fat merchant looked out and down over the walled, warded courtyard of Bindle's Blade, the newest tankard house in dark and dangerous Skullport. On his arrival, he'd glanced at the tables there and had seen .. . aye, he had. .

A recent venture in Skullport were guide torches, which could be hired for an evening and were carried about wherever one willed by floating, disembodied skeletal hands. Many of these flickering innovations were bobbing and glimmering among the carefully s.p.a.ced tables of the Blade right now, and one of them shone quite clearly on the face of Nythyx Thunderstaff. She sat calmly with several slave-dealing women. A long, tall flagon of amberjack was in her hand, and a slim long sword at her hip. As he watched, she laughed at someone's jest, slid back in her chair, planted one delicately booted foot atop the table, and raised her flagon in salute to the slaver who'd amused her.If that was a woman in distress, Mirt thought he'd hate to see a confident and contented one.

Mirt watched the young woman stretch in her chair, catlike, and glance around.

He drew back before she might happen to look up at the window, and shook his s.h.a.ggy head. "Well," he said slowly, "Well, well."

"This . . . thing that has befallen," the lamia n.o.ble said from close behind him. "It has put an end to our trade talk for now, has it not?"

Mirt turned to look into eyes the color of flame, and noticed-not for the first time-just how beautiful Transtra was. "It has," he said almost sadly, and his business a.s.sociate gave him a little smile ... as the flickering fire of a ready spell faded from one slim, long-nailed hand.

"There'll be ... other evenings," she said, and slithered past so closely that her leathery scales brushed along his arm. Mirt watched her go down the stairs into the darkness before he stirred, harrumphed, and shook his head. It was a pity he was so stout, and that lamias ate human flesh. He'd started to want that little smile to mean the other thing.

He stepped back into his room and did something to the first ring. A tiny pinwheel of silver motes obediently arose to silently circle it. He bent over them and whispered, "Gone out into Skullport to answer Durnan's call for aid in rescuing Nythyx Thunderstaff; I've seen her safe here, so suspect a ruse."

The magelight faded. The fat, aging Harper and Lord of Waterdeep muttered something over his other ring, drawing the tatters of his ward in around him so he'd be cloaked against flying death on his walk through Skullport. Shops and faces in the undercity changed with brutal rapidity, but the place grew no more tolerant of the weak and unwary. Mirt looked all around and took something small from his belt pouch to hold ready in his hand as he trudged along the pa.s.sage, toward a hidden stair out of the House of the Long Slow Kiss. He left the door of his room open behind him so that Hlardas would know he was gone and could turn off the foot-treadle blades. He'd best shout a reminder as he pa.s.sed the kitchens. One could lose good chambermaids that way.

Asper hurled herself into a somersault over the startled guard's head and spun around as her bare feet bounced to a landing on the cold flagstones. The city guardsman turned with smooth speed, magnificent in his splendid armor-in time to see the gleaming pommel of the young lady's poniard a finger's width from his eyes, where its wicked point should have been. He'd barely begun to gape at it when he felt the pommel of her reversed long sword nudge his ribs, in just the place where it would have driven all the breath out of him had this fight been in earnest.

He stared into the sweat-slick face of the grinning ash-blonde girl and shook his head in surrender, drops of his own sweat flying from the end of his nose.

"I see ye do it," he growled, "but I still don't believe it."

"Consider yourself slain, Herle," said the guardcaptain from behind him, "and next time, try not to turn like some sort of sleeping elephant. She could have put her blade through your neck and been gone out the door before you were well into your pivot!"

"Aye, Captain," Herle said heavily. "Just once, I'd like to see y-"

He fell silent, gaping at a pinwheel of tiny lights that were silently appearing in midair in front of his leather-clad sword-foe, one by one. In wary silence, Asper watched them spin into bright solidity. She held up a hand to bid the guardsmen keep still.

A hoa.r.s.e whisper she knew well arose from those circling lights. "Gone out into Skullport to answer Durnan's call for aid in rescuing Nythyx Thunderstaff; I've seen her safe here, so suspect a ruse."

The motes of light then faded until only Asper could see them, thanks to Mirt's magic. They drifted into a line leading north-and sharply downward.

Into Undermountain, below even this deep, dank cellar of the castle.

Asper frowned at those tiny points of light. She knew her man had sent her the message in case Durnan's call had been false-a ruse to lure Mirt himself into danger. And, ruse or not, unless either of the old Lords of Waterdeep had changed a goodly amount in the last few days, they'd sorely need her aid insome way, ere long. She turned and bowed to the watching guardsmen.

"It's been a pleasure breaking blades with you, as always, gentlesirs," she told them, wiping the sweat from her brow with one leather-clad forearm as she stepped into her boots. "I must go; I am needed."

"Is it something we should know about?" the guard-captain asked, frowning.

Asper shook her head. "Lords' business," she said, and ran lightly out of the room, leaving all the arms-men staring after her.

"How can one woman's blade--even that woman's- matter to the Lords of Waterdeep?" one guard asked in tones of wonder. "What is she, that they need her to aid them so often?"

"Friend," Herle replied, "you try to best her at blade-work next time, and then come and ask me that again." He casually cast the blade in his hand end over end down the length of that vast chamber, into the glory-hole in the far corner-an opening no larger than his fist. The blade settled home to its hilt with a rattling clang, and all his fellows of the guard turned to look at him with whistles of awe. Herle spread his hands, without a trace of pride on his face, and added, "You all saw what she did to me. However good one is, there's always someone better."

Another guard shivered. "I'd not like to meet whoever is better than she."

"And now for the other working," the eye tyrant breathed, turning an eyestalk toward a certain shadowed cavity high in the cavern wall. Obediently, something small and glossy rose into view and drifted smoothly out into the greater emptiness of the main cavern: a shining sphere of polished crystal, the size of a large human head. It winked and sparkled as it glided toward the beholder, and then suddenly grew brighter, a pale greenish glowing awakening within it.

"Yessss," Xuzoun gloated as an image became apparent in the depths of the globe. A scene of woodlands, wrapped about a young, slim human female who was turning smoothly in her saddle to laugh, unbound blonde hair swirling about her shoulders. Her mirth and unheard words were directed to a young man riding into the scene, humor dancing in his own eyes. The watching beholder's mouth twisted in what might just have been a sneer.

"Shandril Shessair within my power, and knowing it not," the eye tyrant purred. "Only a few enchantments more, and then . . . ah, yes, then spellfire will be drawn forth from her at my desire, to be hurled at any who defy me!

Many shall pay the debts they owe me, very shortly thereafter."

A stalact.i.te elsewhere in the cavern yawned, and then muttered, " 'Only a few enchantments more' before I rule the world? How many times have I heard that before, I wonder?"

A black bat, hanging upside down from a nearby stalact.i.te, turned its head and blinked. "Elminster?" it asked. "It is you ... is it not? You felt the weaving too?" "Of course, and of course," the rocky fang replied. "I can feel all bindings laid on the la.s.s. If Halaster did more in his domain than just watch the free entertainment, I'd not be here, but. . ."

"Watching is almost always best," the stalact.i.te beneath the clinging bat's claws said coldly, and quivered slightly. "You always did act too swiftly, and change Faerun too much, Elminster."

The bat took startled wing, beating a hasty flight across to the rock that was the Old Mage. "Halaster?" it asked cautiously as it alighted and turned to look back. "The same, Laeral," replied the dagger of rock where it had first clung. "Are we agreed that this Xuzoun should never wield spellfire?" The other two murmured, "Aye," together. "Then trust me to foil this magic, in a way that will leave Shandril and the beholder both unknowing," Halaster replied. "I keep my house ordered as I see fit . . . though you, Lady Mage of Waterdeep, are welcome to dabble; your touch is more deft than most."

The bat looked from one stalact.i.te to the other, aware of a certain tension in the air that felt like the two ancient archwizards had locked gazes and were staring steadfastly into the depths of each other's souls. Silence stretched and sang between them. And then, because of who she was, Laeral dared to ask, "And what of Elminster? Is he also welcome in Undermountain?""What little sanity I have I owe to him," Halaster replied, "and I respect him for his mastery of magic- and his compa.s.sion-more than any other living mage.

Yet, for what he did to me . . . what he had to do to me ... I bear him no great love."

Two dark, hawklike eyes were fading into view in the rock, and they flickered as the Master of Undermountain added quietly, "This is my home, and a man may shut the gates of his home to anyone he desires to be free of."

The stalact.i.te that was Elminster said as gently, "I have no quarrel with that. Know that my gate is always open to you."

"I appreciate that," the dark-eyed stalact.i.te told him grudgingly before it faded silently away.

He hadn't used this pa.s.sage for years, and had almost forgotten the trip step and the ankle-break holes beyond. The battered old coffer was still on the high ledge where it should have been, though. Durnan lifted out the string of potions and gratefully slid them onto his belt, tapping the metal vials to be sure they were still full. Then he took out the wisp of gauzy black cloth that had lain beneath them, and bound it over his eyes.

All at once, the clinging darkness receded, and he could see as clearly in the gloom as any creature that dwelt in the World Below. After a moment of thought, he took the gorget out of its clip on the inside coffer lid and slid the second night mask into its sleeve before he buckled it around his throat.

After all, it just might be needed.

The tavernmaster caught himself wondering what else he should bring along, and sighed, banishing an image of himself staggering along under the weight of a generously pot-and-flask-girdled pack larger than he was. It had been a long time since he'd leapt into battle with only a sword in his hand and fire in his eyes. It had been even longer since he'd felt that invulnerable.

Durnan drew a deep breath, shrugged his shoulders once or twice to break the tension that had been building there, clapped a hand to the hilt of his sword to be sure it rode loosely in its scabbard, and set off down the narrow pa.s.sage. Two secret doors ground open under his hand to let him pa.s.s, and he closed them carefully behind him. Beyond the second was a room in Undermountain that he knew well.

Standing just inside it, Durnan peered around to make sure nothing had changed since he'd last seen it, then stepped carefully around the falling-block trap and across the chamber. It was thick with dust, cobwebs, and the crumbling skeletons of several unfortunate adventurers, still stuck to the tattered webs of a long-slain spider. Shoving these husks aside with his blade, Durnan strode softly out into the vast dungeon where so many creatures had died.

Undermountain was the abode of the mad wizard Halaster, and the graveyard of thousands of fearsome monsters and foolhardy men alike. Once it had been Durnan's playground, a place to stay limber after a long day standing behind the bar listening to young n.o.bles and would-be adventurers from afar boast of what they'd do and win, down in the lightless depths. All too often, he'd come across their bodies too late to save them from traps they should have been antic.i.p.ating, and predators they should have been ready for.

Thinking of which .. . He drew his blade and stabbed upward as he leaned through an open doorway. The sword slid into something solid and yet yielding, and Durnan drew back to avoid the falling body. The thing that had awaited him above the door crashed heavily to the flagstones. It was a kobold, with a strangle wire still clutched in its convulsing hands.

Durnan put his sword tip through its throat, just to be sure, as he kicked the heavy stone door hard, sending it smashing back against the wall of the chamber. There were some wet cracking sounds and a bubbling gasp from behind it, and something fell to the floor. Something koboldish.

A third of the sly, yammering little beasts moved into view at the far end of the room, and Durnan brought his sword up to strike aside the javelin it hurled. The bracers he wore protected him against missiles that bore no enchantments, but 'twould be a little late, for instance, to discover that this particular javelin was magical, once it was in his throat.The throw was wide, and a smooth sidestep took him completely out of the whirling weapon's path. Even before the javelin crashed off stone somewhere behind him, the old warrior was moving.

Durnan caught hold of the door frame as he charged through, and swung himself around hard to the right. As he'd expected, a line of three kobolds was waiting along the wall there, their spiked clubs and wicked blades raised. The tavernmaster had a glimpse of their startled faces before his blade found the face of the foremost. He kept rushing, driving the dying creature back into its fellows, tumbling them all to the floor. He kicked, stomped, and thrust ruthlessly with his blade, knowing how vicious kobolds could be, and spun from the last fallen victim to face the one who'd hurled the javelin.

It was snarling at him and backing away, fear in its eyes as it saw all of its fellows dead or dying. Durnan advanced a step. It spat in his direction and suddenly turned and fled through the archway at the far end of the room.

Durnan knelt, plucked up a kobold blade, and flung it as hard as he could.

There was a heavy crash, clang, and moan down the pa.s.sage beyond the arch, but Durnan was already running after the kobold he'd felled. The wise man leaves no foes alive behind him in Undermountain.

A thrust ended the kobold's feeble crawl, and Durnan picked up its bleeding body and hurled it into the next room. As he'd expected, something greenish-yellow flowed swiftly down the wall toward the corpse. Durnan peered into the room-paying particular attention to the ceiling. Satisfied that it held only one carrion crawler, he sprinted across the chamber and through the right-hand door at its far end, pulling the heavy stone barrier closed behind him. Something far off and in agony screamed in the dark distance ahead.

The pa.s.sage in front of him formed the only link between the warren of rooms around his cellars and the rest of Undermountain. It was always a place to watch warily for oozes, slimes, and other silent, hard-to-see creeping things.

Scorch marks and unpleasant twisted and bubbling remnants on the stones around told him that the kobolds had recently cleared this way of at least one such peril. Durnan stalked cautiously on, wondering how Mirt was faring, and how soon they'd meet. It felt good to be in action again, though the glory days of the Four were long gone.

Once the brazen, impudent band of adventurers he and Mirt had led together had been the toast of Waterdeep, and a common headache of honest merchants up and down the Sword Coast-the heroes of impudent tales that men roared at in half a hundred taverns. The years had pa.s.sed, though, and such things had faded ...

as, he supposed, they always did. All that was left of those times were some happy memories, the deep trust they yet shared, and the linked message rings all of the Four still wore.

Durnan saw Mirt and Asper often, but Randal Morn was off fighting in the distant hold of Daggerdale, to keep his rightful rule over that fair land. And the ranger, Florin Falconhand, who'd stood in for Asper on a foray or three, was a Knight of Myth Drannor these days, and seldom seen on the Sword Coast.

There were even whispers that he'd spent time in Evermeet recently.

Durnan was still recalling splendid victories the Four had shared when sudden motes of magelight welled up all around him in the empty pa.s.sage. He'd just time to feel disgusted-taken by sorcery again?- when his world was overwhelmed with whirling lights, and there was nothing under his boots anymore . . .

"Beshaba's kiss!" he swore disgustedly. The tavern-master knew a teleport was whisking him away to somewhere worse.

They always took you somewhere worse. .. .

Transtra stood in a room that few in Skullport knew was her own, eyes narrow and face frowning. Old Mirt's ring had spoken, and that meant one of the Four had called on him for aid. And when the Four called, it always meant trouble for someone-and sooner or later, if that fat old merchant didn't lose some weight and gain some prudence in trade for it, the recipient of the trouble was going to be him. Perhaps on an occasion sooner than he expected . . . such as this one.

The lamia stirred into sudden life, tossing her flame-red hair so that itcascaded down her back like languid fire, and glided across the tiles like a gigantic, upright snake. The soft, ever-shifting spell lights she loved dappled her gleaming flesh in a pattern that made her slave-a thin and dirty human male cowering on his knees in a corner of the room-swallow and turn his eyes swiftly away. Transtra was apt to be cruel when his more l.u.s.ty thoughts became apparent. . . and her cruelty often reached its climax in enthusiastic floggings with well-salted whips. The slave shivered involuntarily at the memories of his last one.

The dry slithering of her scales on the tiles drew closer, and then stopped.

The man kept his gaze on the corner, trying not to tremble as cold fear rose in his throat, and he wondered just what she might do this time. "Torthan,"

she said, almost gently, "get up and go do a thing for me."

Torthan reluctantly raised his eyes to meet hers. "Great lady?"

"Open the gate that brings Ulisss, and then go to your room," Transtra told him.

As he hastened obediently away, Torthan could hear her muttering the first words of one of the web of spells she used to lay unshakable commands on the behir.