"But that"s all you get, vagabond!" Carthax, the gnome, said sourly. "Be on your way!"

Stoutkeg broke into a song: "We"re richer than we ever thought/ Just reward for battles fought."

But, suddenly, the voice of Indio the Black answered with its own song: "But don"t expect to keep that treasure/ For taking it shall be our pleasure."

Indio"s band, who slightly outnumbered their opponents, attacked the Buckleswashers. In minutes, all were locked in combat. For a brief moment, Indio stood free of opposition, and Llewellyn approached him.

"Don"t forget. Twenty percent."

Indio stared at him coldly. "You"ve served your purpose, scavenger. Get out of my sight before I cut off twenty percent of your head!"

Llewellyn backed into the brush, away from Indio and the rest. Carefully, he removed the three jade stones from the key and put it in his leather sack.

"There are a few things Zalathorn told me that I have kept to myself. Vagabond, am I? Scavenger, you call me?

No! Try victor!"

Pairs and trios of battling halflings (and a gnome) spread out into the woods, up the mountain, and far into the cave. Here and there, a body lay stunned, unconscious, or worse. But more importantly to Llewellyn, the treasure was left unguarded.

Llewellyn ran to the chest, depleted it of as much of its contents as his improvised sack would hold-which was almost all-and, seeing that the way east toward the Halar Hills was safe and free of otherwise occupied halflings (and a gnome), he ran as quickly as his feet would cany him.

Then, suddenly, he heard Talltankard"s voice. "The vagabond! He has cheated us all!"

Llewellyn"s heart beat faster, for he knew it would not be long before the halflings (and a gnome) would catch up to him. The sack was growing heavier, and it was slowing him down.

He took the jade stones and placed them in the three forged holes in the silver amulet he had acquired from Indio.

And the moment the third stone was secured in the amulet, he felt himself leaving the ground, elevating, ascending, flying. Flying!

No, Llewellyn realized, not flying, but moving, or, more precisely, being moved.

Then, just as suddenly as the sensation had begun, it ended.

Zalathorn"s amulet had proven to be as invaluable as Llewellyn knew it would. As the wizard had informed him, when the same person had possession of both the key and the amulet-with the jade stones in place in the latter- their bearer would be returned, together with his or her possessions, to his or her place of birth.

And, indeed, the Talkative One was home in the town of Klint, safe from both bands of adventurers and much richer than he had ever been. He looked around and sighed, relishing the safety and comfort he felt.

Llewellyn sensed that the wizard, too, must be amused. After all, it was Zalathorn himself who had helped him. It was Zalathorn who had "informed" him of the amulet that was originally part of the treasure. And it was he who revealed to him that one of the stones and the amulet were now in the possession of a band of halflings led by one who had the arrogance and presumption to call himself Indio the Black.

He doubted that Indio the Black or the Buckleswashers were amused, though, and vowed to steer clear of them for the rest of his days.

Indeed, he thought, a most excellent vow.

TOO FAMILIAR.

David Cook.

"It"s extraordinarily complicated, you see ... ?"

The winegla.s.ses clinked as the wisp-bearded enchanter rearranged the drinks on the cluttered table, all the while dragging out the "see" in his thick Ankhapurian accent. Like a swarm of midge flies, the a.s.sembled alchemists, prestidigitators, conjurers, thaumaturges, and wonderworkers-courtiers all-swarmed around him and listened. Their professional antennae quivered for the slightest hint of unfounded theorizing.

Well aware of it, the graybeard-such beard as he had-continued with the unfazed confidence of a high master educating coa.r.s.e apprentices. Fingers fluttering, he allowed five droplets of carmine wine into the honey-yellow mead before him. "A taste of aqua vitae-no more!-that"s been distilled by the flame of a silver burner and added to the flux. Once cooled, I stirred in"- and here he added three pinches from the salt cellar-"a measure of powdered dragonelle scale, and the whole solution precipitated-"

"Preposterous!" croaked a frog-faced Calims.h.i.te, alchemist to the recently arrived consular of Calimport. "Scale as a precipitate? Ludicrous! You might as well have used gravel for all of scale"s suitability as a precipitate. Your whole theory"s unsound!"

The blunt attack set the onlookers to buzzing, so much so that the proprietous and meekly disposed wizards of the swarm recoiled in pinch-faced distaste only to collide with those who surged forward at the first hint of the senior enchanter"s hypothesizing weakness.Only the challenger"s ba.s.so voice rose above the polite cacophony that filled the royal salon. Fully aware, he pressed his a.s.sault with apparent obliviousness. "Undoubtedly it was another reaction-perhaps some containment in the powder... ."

The Calims.h.i.te"s thrust was not lost on the Ankha-purian, but the older man guarded against the sting with the shield of dignity. "My powders were pure. I will gladly give you some if what you brought from Calimshan will not react." Wiping his damp fingers on a cloth, he coolly swatted back at this annoying fly.

"Good wit" and "Fine touch" hummed his supporters in the crowd.

"Scale never precipitates! Even apprentices know that," fumed the alchemist in his bubbling deep voice. He waggled a fat, pale finger across the table at the other, his stung pride, emboldened by drink, making him undiplomatically firm. He sputtered for words and finally blurted, "Why-ask your royal magister, if you doubt me!"

A chill swept the a.s.sembled collegium to a silence broken only by the tremolo t.i.tter of impudent apprentices from the back benches of the knot. The rest fingered their goblets and took great interest in their wine (forgotten till that point for the heat of the debate) while struggling to make their just-gay faces as bland as coal. In most cases, it only made them the more uncomfortably conspicuous, until they resembled no more than a line of hungry monkeys caught with the food.

Only the graybeard seemed unperturbed, arrogantly confident of his station. With a knowing smirk, he turned the baffled Calims.h.i.te"s gaze toward the adjacent table- an island from their company. A lone woman, overladen in finery ill-suited to her age or itself, stared numbly at the air-or perhaps at the half-empty bottle before her.

"Our royal magister," the enchanter sneered in an intentionally loud whisper. "An adventuress-nothing but a hedge wizard. Never properly schooled at all." The last he added with overemphasis. "And fond of her drink."

At her table, Brown Maeve-Magister to His Royal Highness King Janol I (aka, Pinch), the Lich-Slayer, the Morninglord Blessed-knew what was said even before it was finished . . . even now, in her cups. The collegium"s contempt was hardly a secret. She had heard the words and seen the smirks all before: hedge wizard, upstart, rogue"s wh.o.r.e-adventuress! Not a true wizard in any case-no scholarly talent, no proper training, wouldn"t even know an alembic from a crucible. Worse still, there was no denying most of it. A prestidigitous courtier she was not.

It didn"t make their words right, though. They were a pack of poxy charlatans to lay their airs upon her. She"d done more than the lot of them, including helping Pinch lay down the lich Manferic, and it weren"t their place to look down to her.

The smugness of their lot spoilt her wine, and so she figured they"d earned a little present of her own making. She could research too, as they"d soon remember. It was just a simple spell, nothing like their fine studies after the philosopher"s stone or any of that, but Maeve kept it handy for bestowing on arrogant a.s.ses.

With a wicked good cheer, the royal magister pushed aside her gla.s.s, rose majestically, and managed to trundle like an old cart toward the salon doors. As she lumbered past the wizard-thick table, that hypocritical lot fell into a hushed silence, as if they had been discussing the weather, Maeve nodded, smiled, with excessive politeness greeted them all by name, and serenely extended her hand to the worst offenders to her dignity. As each took up her hand, a faint warmth flowed from her fingers, and Maeve"s smile grew and grew until she was beaming with genuine satisfaction.

"Good morrow, and may the dawn bring you new dis- coveries," at last she said, disengaging herself from their group. Oh, they"d have discoveries, all right. She could scarce keep from hooting it out loud. There was no forgetting when you broke out with sores overnight-big ugly ones that were sure to put off wives and lovers. "Old drunk, am I?" She chuckled as she parted their company. Her gleeful echoes joined her as she wandered down the hall toward her own apartments.

Fiddlenose, sitting in the shade of the big fern that grew just in back of Goodman Uesto"s granary, yawned a yawn that for his wee size threatened to transform the whole of his face into a single pit of pink throat ringed by fine white teeth. He could veritably swallow another brownie half his size-as if brownies were inclined to go around swallowing up their own kind. He was bored, and the big yawn was just one way he had to show it. As if part of a flowing wave, the yawn descended into a sour pucker of pinched irritability.

Where was that baleful cat?

Fiddlenose the brownie was tired of wasting his morning like a dull huntsman squatting in his blind. This was supposed to be fun-a prank and revenge on old farmer Uesto"s calico torn. The twice-, no, thrice-cursed beast was the sp.a.w.n of night terrors, the very h.e.l.lion of farm cats, who managed to ruin all good, honest Fiddlenose"s peace.

Every night it howled, prowled, hissed, and spat till there wasn"t a hope of either rest or joy for a proper house brownie. Too many times, it had smelled him out just as he was creeping indoors for a taste of grog and jam, or scared him out of his haymount nest as it went springing after the barn rats. Poor, suffering Fiddlenose couldn"t stand it anymore. With the proper logic of an irate brownie, he had devised a revenge that was all out of proportion to the crime.

Only that cursed cat wasn"t cooperating. He"d waited all morning with his twisted vines and stink-plant bladder, and still that feline monster hadn"t showed. The shade under the fern was thick and stale, and Fiddlenose"s eyes were steadily drooping into nap time.

Elsewhere, in a dingy ordinary in the meanest ward of Ankhapur, Will o" Horse-Shank, brownie by blood, opportunist by breeding, was in a sulk.

Fate"s against me, he railed-venting in his own mind so no others could hear him. Two nights before, he was certain this morning he"d be in silk breeches and drinking firewine. It was sure he was a made man, and all by the wit ofMask.

This morning, though, he perched on a rickety old bench in Corlis"s wineshop, still wearing the tattered hose he"d stolen from a child"s laundry. Clutched like a great outlander drinking horn in his tiny hands was a battered pewter mug, half-filled with the cheapest sack old Corlis could pour-a pretty mean drink. Still, with no more than a ha" copper left in his purse, it was already more than Shank could afford. The brownie was not much heavier than a fat wharf-rat and barely up to a small man"s shin, and the drink was already making good progress on his wee wits in these morning hours.

For the twentieth time, or at least as many times as it took to drink half the mug, Shank bemoaned the vile spin of Tymora"s wheel that had reduced him to this treacherous state. For a week, he"d cozened an outlander merchant with a tale of dishonest captains, wreckers, smuggled goods, and a galley named Swiftoar, foxing the fool into letting Shank play the broker for the imaginary cargo. All it needed was another day, and the coney would have pa.s.sed all his coin into Shank"s hands and-heigh-ho!-that would have been the last of this little brownie!

But did the game play that way? No-the greedy fool had to talk around about his coming good fortune and that let out the truth. There was no captain, no Swiftoar, no cargo and, most of all, no coin for Shank to spirit off. Instead, Shank got curses and blows when he came to close the game-and all unjustly of course. It would have taught the outlander a proper lesson if Shank had made off with his cash.

He moaned it all again, even though there was no use in it, and swigged down another gulp of sour brew. The taste reminded him of the empty jingle in his purse. Corlis would be wanting coin for the drink, and Shank didn"t have any. What he needed right now was for a quick and wealthy mark to walk through the door, something not very likely at this squalid ordinary.

"Too much joy or too much drink? Or a little of both?" a chipper, thin voice probed with just a touch of peevishness at having missed the fun.

Maeve stopped in the marbled hall, caught unawares by the stealth of her interrogator. Stealth wasn"t that hard, considering the shadowed gloom between the pillars and the fact that the voice came up from somewhere around the height of her waist.

A halfling, fine-dressed in the gaudiest work the court tailor could tolerate, was suddenly beside the wizard, materializing seemingly out of nowhere. His garb was a garish mismatch-harlequin hose gartered with red silk and a rose and teal velvet damask doublet of intricate pattern, trimmed with more lace than a banquet table. It screamed of a soul utterly blind to taste . . . until one noticed that the blindness was actual. The little fellow"s eyes were covered by a thick band of black cloth, and he clutched a short cane Maeve was like to have leapt up in surprise before she realized it was only Sprite-Heels-or rather the Honorable Lord of the Watch Sir Sprite-Heels the Clever. (King Pinch"s reward for loyal service was to put his fellow rogue in command of the city guard.) The knave had crept up on her yet again. For the years that she"d known him, the wizard was still not accustomed to the halfling"s cat-footed ways. Blinded only twelve-months before, the half-ling still got himself about with surprising silence and ease.

Td say," Sprite drawled as he tipped his head to hear her echoes, "that"s your poxing laugh-the one you make after you"ve just shook hands with some popinjay. You wouldn"t be up to old tricks now, would you, Maeve? What would our King Pinch say if he heard his old gang was laying curses on his subjects?"

"He"d probably say I had my cause-and you would, too," Maeve sniffed back. "They got what they had coming."

"Don"t they all!" The tap of Sprite"s cane hurried to keep pace with her as the halfling fell in alongside. "Them wizards again?"

"Yes-them wizards." Maeve"s face flared up redder than her usual cheery drunk-red. She hustled down the hall, a tornado of indignation. "They had no right saying all those things-not after all I"ve done for Ankhapur. Not a one of them there was ready to fight Manferic or do any of those things. / did and they weren"t mocking me then. A pox is only the least of what that lot deserves."

"Of course, you"re right, Maeve," the halfling said with a cynicism that masked his genuine sympathy. "Still, now, you go poxing every one of them, and people are bound to start asking about it. You could get "em believing there"s a plague here." The click of the cane"s metal ferrule on the slippery-smooth stone of the floor set Sprite"s words to a lively cadence.

"Ill pox every wh.o.r.eson one of them."

"Maybe me and Pinch ought to go into the cure-all business." Not all that often did she latch on to an idea so fierce, but when Maeve did, Sprite knew there"d be sparks and smoke before it ended. "What"ll Pinch say, Maeve?"

"A pox on our King Pinch, too!"

"Might be interesting," Sprite smirked.

They walked a bit farther. Their conversation had run out, lingering on the image of their lord-as much as they"d admit he was-covered with foul sores. It was morbidly amusing, but they both knew neither could bring it to pa.s.s.

"Drink?" With uncanny sense, Sprite tapped down a side hall toward his rooms. "~- "Why not?" Maeve agreed, resolved to be d.a.m.ned and determined even if it was almost dawn. There was always time for another drink.

With barely a fumble, Sprite undid the latch to his apartment and ushered her into the darkness beyond.

It was a full bottle (or two, since neither was keeping count) later when the wizard and halfling had come back tothe question of respect "They got no right," Maeve moaned for the several hundredth time, perhaps more so to Sprite"s ears. She sloshed about her goblet, splattering drops over the antique table, a table that had been carved of fine bronzewood in some distant village of Chult and trekked the vast distance here no doubt on the back of some exotic beast. The morning sun, for the day was well up, glistened in the golden drops "Maeve, what you need is one of those-oh-rats, beasties," the halfling suggested weakly. He raised his sagging head from the table, where he"d only been "just resting" while the wizard poured more drinks. Though he couldn"t see it, the sloshing sound of yet another round of poured wine rendered him immensely pale.

"Rats?"

Sprite tried to nod, but that only made him feel greener. "Rats-you know, rats, owls, frogs-them little pets wizards get."

"Familursh," she slurred, and gulped down more wine.

"That"s right. All them high-ups got "em. You should have one too, Maeve."

"A familiar?" The wizard rolled the words around like a fine drink, considering the idea. "It"d have to be a right pretty one. No toads."

"No toads," the halfling mumbled.

"I got me a scroll somewhere." Maeve was now musing, working out the deed in her head as if she were planning a foist of her own. Sprite sat back with bleary satisfaction and proceeded to topple right out of his chair.

Pa.s.sed out drunk, the halfling was in no way able to hear (and certainly in no way able to see) Maeve trundle out of the palace and into the morning light. She blinked like an owly fish caught in the overbright shallows. It had been some considerable time since she"d seen a morning; an early hour, anything before noon, was an exceptional moment. Nonetheless, she was determined to endure this grotesque hardship to realize her goal.

Thus determined, Maeve set out for the comfort of Ankhapur"s grimy waterfront. It was the city"s lowest of the low quarters, despised by the honest folk who nonetheless crept there every night to savor its taverns, flops, and festhalls. The waterfront stews were gray and small and pretended not to exist, letting their customers imagine they had privacy and discretion, though in truth little transpired that wasn"t spread to someone"s ears. The naive found themselves compromised, the gullible blackmailed, and it took a native, not just to Ankhapur but to the waterfront itself, to have any hope of keeping one"s business to oneself. It was just the kind of place Maeve wanted, her true home.

Though she"d traveled here from far lands, she"d lived most her life in such surroundings. Every town that wanted to be of consequence had its version of the Ankha-purian waterfront. A town could never be a city without one, its character incomplete without this pocked and festering side of its urban body. More than any other monument, statue, palace, or memorial, such districts revealed the hidden souls of the city founders, the dark and secret selves of respected ancestors.

It was far better for her to work in such surroundings. The royal laboratories, territory hers by t.i.tle, were too public for this work. Nothing she might try there would pa.s.s unnoticed, and with the real chance that she might get it wrong, the woman did not want to risk such open humiliation. This task was better done in some forgotten room, among her own kind, where she could do her work in peace. Among the stews, she might raise a few curious eyebrows, but folks there had the sense to give a wizard wide berth for fear they"d wind up as frogs or worse.

As for the stench, the thugs, the blackmailers and loose women, Maeve didn"t mind. She was boozily confident she could slide back in, even though her street sense was somewhat out of practice after a year of palace life. Indeed, the doubt that she might not know Ankhapur"s cheats and black ways as well as she could never entered her mind.

Clutching an ungainly bag of powders, devices, and bottles, she ignored the looks of the festhall girls going home in the dawn light, the hungry stares of hungover drunks as they staggered themselves out of the mud where they"d fallen, and the curious thronging of urchins who acted far more innocent than they ever had been. She wound her way through the alleys and lanes leading to a wineshop she knew, one where the owner, Corlis, would be discreet and the company few. Corlis had rooms and didn"t care what happened in them as long as it was quiet and the shiny n.o.bles were slid across the scarred counter in advance.

Shank, sitting on the edge of the cold hearth, his little legs dangling over the low drop of stone, held his oversized mug close to his face from the first moment the door creaked open. Customers at this morning hour were unusual and therefore naturally of interest. Peering over the rim of his stein, only his eyes visible, Shank watched as a woman, frowzy and old, tottered into the commons. She juggled a bulging bag that threatened to squirt its contents out with every shift of her ample body. As entrances went, the woman"s was unpromising, so Shank watched her with more curiosity than cunning.

It was the clink of coin on the landlord"s table that caught his full attention. His little ears wiggled their sharp points with the slap of each piece the woman handed over. One, two, three-it was all far too much for anything in this slopshop. There was a lot more than room and board being bought here, and whatever it was, Shank wanted to know.

As he gulped down one last hit of wine, he carefully sidled into the cool shadows of the cracked mantelpiece.

With a grumpy start, Fiddlenose woke to the screech of a cat yowl. He sprang to his feet, rustling the fronds of the shading fern. The beast was afoot, and he"d fallen asleep in the morning heat! Cursing furiously to himself with all his considerable store of colorful invective, he dived for the rapidly unspooling vines that had been coiled at his feet.The trap was sprung, and judging from the yowls, he"d snared the h.e.l.lcat beast!

He grabbed the vine and tried to dig in his heels as the mighty tomcat heaved against the noose. Scrambling, he barely kept balance against the pull, losing ground with every jerk. His feet grew nearer the edge of the shade, and within moments he"d be hauled into the open, where farmer Uesto would discover him-and all because of that cursed torn!

Fiddlenose twisted about, slipped the vine over his shoulder, and valiantly heaved forward, dragging-footstep by tiny footstep-the noosed tomcat closer to the sapling at the edge of the grove. Sweating and straining, he finally reached close enough to loop his little slack around the springy trunk. Quick went the knots, and then it was done.

Fiddlenose had triumphed! The h.e.l.lcat was his!

Exhausted and satisfied, he collapsed against the trunk and waited for Uesto"s calico torn to give up before he started the next step of his oh-so-cunning plan.

Three n.o.bles, Maeve mused to herself. It was all far too much, but she was feeling generous. Why not? It wasn"t her money. Thanks to Pinch, all her needs came from the royal treasury, which in turn came from the people. She didn"t feel like haggling with old Corlis, who would have gotten the best of her anyway, and so her three n.o.bles and a promise of two more a.s.sured her of the privacy she wanted. Thus, overconfidently oblivious to the effect her entrance had made, Maeve paraded up the rickety stairs to the room she"d bought.

As she reached the top of the stairs, a small figure behind her detached himself from the gloom of the mantel and slid along the edge of the commons. Quick and silent, Shank darted in front of the counter, just beneath the gaze of watchful Corlis. For his coins, the old landlord was doing his best to be watchful, to make sure no one disturbed his generous benefactor, but the old man"s eyes were no match for Shank"s cunning stealth. Quick as a dart, he was in the dusty gloom of the stairway, nimbly skipping over the squeaky treads. In the hall above, it was no hard matter to guess where his mark had gone. The brownie simply chose the biggest of all possible rooms.

Thus, he found the door that had to be Maeve"s (or so he guessed by the clanking and puttering from the other side). There was a transom open at the top, in a vain attempt to let some air flow through the building. Nimble, even with as much drink as he"d had, he had little trouble squirreling himself up the flimsy jamb. His tiny hands and feet found holds no human could ever have hoped to use, and in a mere moment, the brownie was carefully wedged in the gap between the door and the splintery boards of the ceiling.

Oblivious to the dark, bright eyes watching her, Maeve was already about her work. The old scroll she had was faded and grease-stained-she vaguely recollected wrapping a roasted hen in it one night-and she could only hope the instructions and the words were still legible. It wasn"t like the scrolls she was used to, where all that was needed was to utter the twisted words on the page. This one required procedures and processes to bring it to fruition.