The kid hung there, poking his fists at the air and snarling. "You ain"t getting . . . grrrrh . . . past Filson Cry-bot. ..

Mister Dandy-Thief. Like to feel... my shiv . . . ?"

"You mean this?" I asked, holding up my other hand to show him his crude little knife, dwarfed on my meaty fingers. "Or this-" I rolled my fingers to show a white rabbit"s foot "-or this-" a slingshot "-or this-" a bent black feather "-or this-" a pair of marbles, and so on. The kid was on the verge of tears, and even I wouldn"t reduce a proud street scamp to tears."Give "em back! Give "em back!"

"All right." I gently lowered the kid to his feet and shoved his stuff at him.

No sooner had he touched ground than his heel stomped my foot. Ahhh! The walls around me swam, went dim, seeming for a moment to blink out from smooth-polished pearl to filthy cave stone. I let out a gasp and took a step back, only to strike my head against something brutally hard. The kid had already snagged his stuff and backed toward the iron door of the vault, his little shiv thrust out before him. I reeled, almost dropped to my haunches, and my head was filled with the keen of a whistle. It was going to take a while to recover from this one.

Especially now. Olivia was there. She"d appeared suddenly, as though magically summoned: only then did I see the whistle drop from Filson"s lips to dangle on a chain around his scrawny neck. Already he was babbling to the lady about the intruder (me) who"d tried to strangle him.

Olivia, in typical aplomb, laughed. "Filson, meet your new boss. This is Mr. Bolton Quaid." With that introduction, she gestured to me, and I might have bowed had I not been busy rubbing my head and looking into empty air to see what had hit me.

The ruddy scamp face turned as white as the walls around us, though the color looked less fetching on Filson.

"Er . . . sorry, boss."

I waved off the apology, wishing I could find a lump on the wall at least as large as the one on my head. "Part of the job. I"m glad to know you can handle yourself in a fight."

That brought some color back to those cheeks. "Just trying to do my job."

"Speaking of which," said Olivia, her tone hardening as she turned to me, "you"d best get at least some provisional protection on the Dragon"s Pearl. We"ve had a couple magic lapses this morning."

My brow beetled. "Magic lapses?"

"The storms play havoc with magic," volunteered Filson, clearly wanting to redeem himself. "Spells fail sometimes."

"These lapses aren"t caused by any storm," Olivia said, never turning from me. She let the implications sink in before she spoke them. "One of the guests is trying to dispel the magical protections around the pearl."

Now it was my turn to go white. "I"ll get on it right away."

"Once you get the pearl secured nonmagically, I want you to hunt down the cause of these ... interruptions."

"What shall I do when I find the culprit?"

"Kill him."

Within a few hours, the pearl was secured seven ways to Summertide. I"d locked it in three concentric boxes, chained the outer box to five different spots on the walls, set seventy-three poisoned darts into projectors along the perimeter, lined ceiling and floors with drider web, strung up three hair triggers on the threshold to the chamber, and b.o.o.by-trapped the vault door so that the slightest disturbance would trigger a circular deadfall. The rock was as safe as I knew how to make it, short of hanging it around my own neck.

The whole time I worked, Filson watched and gabbed. He told me a lot I already knew about Olivia: that she was powerful and ruthless and all-knowing in the Tern. He also hinted in whispers that she used magic to look younger.

That didn"t surprise me, but I nervously wondered how much younger.

Most interesting of all, though, he spilled his own theory about why the lady kept a gemstone she feared to remove from its vault within a vault. He said the Dragon"s Pearl magically powered the whole palace. He said the rock had absorbed Xantrithicus"s power and Olivia was now drawing on it. He said the stone couldn"t be magically guarded because any spells that kept intruders out would keep the magic in.

Out of the mouths of kids. The Dock Ward had taught me to listen to babbling kids and old fools. A worm too soft and juicy is a worm that hides a hook. Hmm. Where was Olivia"s hook, and what fish was she trying to lure, and why?

Money, certainly, but she had enough of that. More money, of course, but also . . . what-power, station . . .

companionship?

No time for such thoughts. I had a would-be jewel thief to catch.

It would not be easy. I doubted Olivia wanted me to rough up her patrons, as I routinely did to the smugglers and black marketeers on the docks. No, this would take subtlety and stealth.

Filson would prove to be a problem.

"Reconnoiter? What"s that mean?" he asked suspiciously. "Are you trying to brush me off?"

"Not at all," I responded, pushing him toward the crowded dining hall. "You know the patrons. Watch them. See if any of them look suspicious."

"What"re you gonna do?" the boy asked defensively.

"My job," I responded. One more shove did the trick, and the kid was off into the whirling cloud of mink and satin and hoity-toity laughter.

My job, in this case, involved grilling the servants. You listen to kids and old fools and servants. They"ve been in every crack and cranny, seen everything doing and everybody being done, and because of their station, had been ignored all the while. While Filson was giving diners the eye, I"d be giving cooks the ear.

I watched the double doors to see which swung which way, then made my entry. The kitchen-a long, low-ceilinged gallery-was as decked as any other room. Tables and butcher"s blocks lined the marble floor, shiny-scrubbed pots and pans hung from the plaster-bossed ceiling, rolling steam stood above bubbling kettles, and chefs bustled about it all, their white smocks and mushroom hats flitting like sc.r.a.p paper in wind.I walked up to one of the chefs, who worked a b.l.o.o.d.y set of knives on five long tenderloins. "Excuse me," said I.

The man didn"t look up. His hands moved expertly on meat and knife. "You"re excused."

By his faint Sembian accent, I knew this was a connoisseur sn.o.b. Well, to me, a cook"s a cook. "I was wondering if you"ve noticed any . . . magical lapses."

Again, no attention was spared me. He was busy sliding the steaks he"d cut from a tenderloin onto a platter, which was immediately whisked away by another cook. He reached for the second hunk of meat as he spoke. "I haven"t time to notice-"

The words stopped dead. He must have seen it. I certainly couldn"t have missed it. The long red wet slab of meat had turned to a great greasy cow pie, and the scoriated butcher"s block into an uneven boulder. Worse still, though, the keen-edged knife had disappeared, an a.s.s"s jawbone in its place, and the cook"s supple, well-trained hand had become a warty, clawed, three-fingered talon. Gone was the white smock and mushroom hat, replaced by a pessimistic clump of matted chest-hair on a bare, greenish, scaly chest ... and an oily spit curl above a goblin pate.

Goblin pate!

Those dark, squalid goblin eyes lifted and met mine in that stunned moment, and two protruding lower fangs rose up and out to threaten those gray-green nostrils. But the next moment it was all gone, and the Sembian chef was staring impatiently, baldly, at me.

"Did you see that?" I asked, aghast.

"See what?"

Before our bland talk could go further, we were interrupted by a shout of outrage. I looked toward the doors in time to see a server in the last foot of his fall to the polished marble floor. A platter of steaming turkey and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs preceded him. It and he hit ground, and the turkey"s featherless wings flapped stupidly as it arced upward, vomited its stuffing onto the server, and flopped onto the marble floor.

The cause of this small catastrophe followed hard on the fall-my doubtable a.s.sistant, Filson. He leapt past the open-out door and vaulted the server to run in gleeful pride toward me.

"Look, Quaid! Look what I found in Mr. Stavel"s pockets!"

Too stunned to do anything else, I did look at the rich golden treasures spread out on the waifs grubby hands-a clockwork timepiece in gold, a money clip fat with Cormyr-ian notes, a pair of rings with rubies the size of cat"s-eyes, and a strand of enormous pearls, any one of which would have equalled my typical take in a given year.

"You . . . you . . ." The bald bullocks of this "a.s.sistant"- not only to knock over a server and ruin a turkey after picking pockets in my name, but also to come brag to me and the kitchen staff about it-beggared me. "You stole from the guests!"

"But look! It"s-" Now it was his turn to look flabber- gasted as he gazed at the trove in his hands. Unlike me, however, he found too many words to express his consternation. "But wait. I was going to return them after I checked for any clues or any evidence that might link them to attempts to shut down the lady"s magic, only when I"d gotten the take they weren"t in my hands more than a second or two before they turned into-"

He didn"t have to finish, for I saw it with my own eyes: the clockwork timepiece had become a smooth-edged river stone, the money clip and Cormyrian notes had turned into a bunch of leaves caught in a splinter of bark, the rings were a couple of large ladybug sh.e.l.ls, and the pearls were a shriveled strand of grapes.

The reconst.i.tution of all those things happened so quickly that I hadn"t had time to be surprised at these revelations before I was being surprised at the reappearance of the gold and pearls and jewels.

.../so worm that hides a hook.

There"s a point in every case gone sour when the finder knows he"s being had. I"d reached that point. A pearl with the magical might of an ancient wyrm ... a woman known to use magic to make her look younger ... to use magic to make an impossible lagoon in the heart of a blizzard .. . cow pies for tenderloin and goblins for chefs ... Oh, yes, it was all coming far too clear now. In a flash, I saw through the whole charade, saw why a woman would use a dragon-enchanted emerald to create a magical pleasure dome atop the most forbidding of mountains.

"C"mon, Filson," I said, gesturing him to follow me. "This is the point when we go grille the boss."

The urchin"s hands closed over the jewels, and they disappeared into his pockets. I didn"t care. Not about his petty larcenyrnor about our explosive emergence out the in-door, which startled back a crew of servers who"d come to check out the commotion. My young charge and I shoved past them, bold and self-righteous, and strode out into the wide dining hall. All around us, patrons chattered nervously, trying to cover a mult.i.tude of social blunders caused by the lapse of their magical enhancements. It was no use: they were all about to be embarra.s.sed all over again.

Another lapse. Suddenly, the huge, elegant room was gone, replaced in a flash by a cold, breezy barn backed up against a yawning cave mouth. The tables had become long troughs; the delicacies straw and dung and dirt clods; the guests scabby old hags, grotesquely fat men with rashes around their mouths, acne-pocked wretches, greasy-haired baboons, toad-people covered in oozy boils, haggard and hairy and naked cavemen, filthy-jowled pigs. . . . The menagerie-the best of which belonged in a barn and the worst of which belonged in a priest-sealed grave-chattered on with its same squawking gossip. Now, though, the salacious words and chuckles and winks were animalistic yawps and grunts and scratchings.

It was over, again. I reeled, feeling as delirious as before, though knowing now it was not I but the Stranded Tern that was deluded. I only hoped that the pleasant illusory surroundings would remain in "place until I found Olivia. I had no desire to stumble through breezy barns and black cave mouths and cold snow and ramshackle shacks. Yes,shacks-I now understood what I was dealing with.

I didn"t have to look long for Olivia; I literally ran into her on a blind corner of the soaring great room. Apparently, she had been looking for me. Her lovely face was red, whether with exertion or anger.

"There you are!" she shouted. "What am I paying you for? Find the culprit!"

I had reached a pique myself, and it felt delicious to indulge it. "I have. You are the first among many culprits."

"What?" she barked, enraged.

"Yes, madam. You are serving those guests of yours cow droppings instead of tenderloin, algae instead of caviar, worms instead of noodles. Your hammer-beamed dining hall is a drafty, stinky barn, and your pearlescent great room is a filthy, awful cavern."

"And whose fault is that?" shrieked Olivia. I"d not expected that tack, and the shock of it shut me up. "I have promised them the finest accommodations, and that is what I have magically provided. Yes, magically. And cow pies transformed by the pearl are tenderloins. These temporary shortfalls are your problem. The feces laid before my guests are your responsibility."

I was surprised, yes, but guilty? No. "So you thought that one magic rock could transform an isolated mountain village of goblins into an opulent spa for the wealthy and powerful... ?"

"Until this morning, it had."

"And thought it powerful enough to warp goblins and cavemen into comely human servants and chefs and maitre d"s-?"

"You were convinced it was a hot bath and a silken bed rather than a pus pocket and a rotting slab of meat."

"Just so that you could lure the most influential creatures of Faerun here. But why? That"s the question. What hook does this juicy worm hide? Gold, of course! You"ve gathered them here to get their real riches in exchange for your false luxuries. Perhaps you"re even performing a few casual a.s.sa.s.sinations for whomever you are leagued with!"

"Are you accusing me of murd-"

"But look who got the last laugh!" I shouted, latching onto her hot little hand and dragging her unceremoniously after me toward the bustling dining hall. "You didn"t lure the rich and powerful folk of Faerun, but only more magical charlatans such as yourself. You"ve traded grubs and garbage for ore flesh and feces!"

I couldn"t have timed it better. As though on cue, the magic failed again, and before my outflung hand, we both saw the filthy, debased, rank, and horrible creatures that sat around troughs and mangers in that barn. Scrofulous magic-users all, whose gold coins were nothing more than trans.m.u.ted river stones, whose paper notes were merely mildewed leaves, whose august n.o.bility was only a beautiful mask cast over their true tired, warty, awful flesh. Their powerful magics had temporarily made real what was false, and the lie of their lives had shriveled their true selves as full-plate armor shrivels the body inside into white, wrinkled nothing.

"And how dare you act as though the great finder, Bolton Quaid, has not solved this mystery of yours? The reason your illusion magic is failing is that it is surrounded by more illusion magic. One illusion piled atop another piled atop another makes for a swaying emptiness that must and will fall. It"s your worthless guests and their worthless bark and twigs, all dressed up in magic to look like creatures of import, that has made your worthless barns and hovels and caves show for what they truly are-no great pleasure dome of the Thunder Peaks.

"How dare you hire me-me!-thinking a nonmagical dolt from the docks would be too stupid to see through your schemes?"

I was so pleased with having solved the mystery that I"d missed the biggest illusion of all. Literally, the biggest.

She lurked just behind me now. -From the green whiffs of caustic breath, I knew even before I turned what I would see, but still the sight shocked me into trembling numbness.

A great green wyrm. She towered over me in the toothy cavern of her lair. Not Xantrithicus, for this was a she-lizard-but perhaps his mate, Tarith the Green. Her ver-million scales gleamed like ceramic plates across her bunched haunch, which rose easily the height of my head. Above that was the lizard"s mighty rib cage, expanding now in an in-drawn breath in preparation to poison me and all the critters cl.u.s.tered fearfully in the barn behind me. Atop that bulging set of ribs were two long and wicked arms, clawing eagerly at the air, and then a mange-scruffed neck, and then a huge red-fleshed set of jowls. The eyes that sat atop that smoldering snout were the same green eyes with which Olivia had so enticed me when I arrived-the same, except for their size, like twin turkey platters.

This time, it was the hook that hid the wyrm.

I knew I was dead. My feet were rooted to the smooth, chill floor of the cavern, and my once-so-proud tongue lay like a dead thing between my clattering teeth. I would not escape. I could not escape. Oh, if I were a lucky man, the magic would return now, so that she would shrink to her human form ... but good luck was too much to hope for.

She reared back, lungs full, and the reptilian muscles along her rib cage slid obscenely beneath her scales. I felt the gagging green gas billow, sudden and fierce, over me, burning eyes I"d instinctively shut, and nose and lips, though I held my breath.

No, a guy from the Dock Ward of Waterdeep can"t count on good luck. Thankfully, though, he can count on a wily scamp of a partner.

The cloud suddenly ceased, and some of the thin fumes traced backward toward the open maw of the dragon as she gasped for air. I cracked my eyes just enough to see Filson straddling the creature"s tail and yanking one plate-sized scale up against the grain. It had to be more surprise than pain that had made the wyrm gasp, but whatever it was, I had my opening.

s.n.a.t.c.hing a loose timber from the rotting side of the barn, I heaved the thing up toward that sucking gullet. Myaim was true, and the decaying wood lodged itself in the creature"s throat. Had there been people in the barn behind me instead of filthy, sorcerous subpeople, I might have taken a moment to shout for them to run. As it was, it didn"t matter. They were running anyway.

Instead, I repaid Filson by dashing around the struggling bulk of the beast and s.n.a.t.c.hing him from the tail. My feet had just touched ground on the other side of the huge appendage when the beam-bearing mouth of the dragon slammed down where we had just been. Filson was yammering something, but there was no time to listen, no time to think. He had his own legs, and I made him use them as the two of us bolted for the far end of the cavern.

We heard a huge hack and cough behind us, and the rotten timber shot out like a ballista round over our heads to strike the stone wall and obliterate itself there.

"Back to the rooms!" I shouted to Filson, thinking the caverns that held the suites would be too small for the dragon to navigate.

Filson nodded his agreement, and we shot out toward where the stairs should have been. They weren"t stairs, though, but the picked-clean skeleton of a coiling dragon neck. The head lay upside down where the desk had been, and from it curved yellowed vertebrae up to a ledge of stone, where the half-rotted corpse of the great wyrm lay.

The belly of the beast had been slit lengthwise, and the green scales flayed back from the midline to expose the layered rotting matrix of dragon organs.

Xantrithicus. She"d gutted her own husband to get the Dragon"s Pearl from his stomach, then turned his corpse into an inn for the wealthy and powerful. I could not have known it from where I stood, but something told me in that moment I had, indeed, slept last night in a dragon"s heart.

She"d done it all for the Dragon"s Pearl. The Dragon"s Pearl!

"Come on," I shouted, and motioned for Filson to follow.

Not a moment too soon. The profound thunder of the dragon"s clawed feet came upon the cave floor like cannon-shot against a wall. The kid and I pelted toward the descending cave that led to the vault and the pearl, though with the rumble and rattle beneath our feet, each step forward was shortened by a half jolt back.

*Tou can"t escape me, Bolton Quaid!" raged the dragon. I derived some small satisfaction from the raw sound of her voice. The log had more than done its work. "You can"t escape this place without magic."

I planned on getting myself a little magic-sooner rather than later. We"d reached the descending shaft and just started down it when that great coiling neck of the dragon shot forth, the mouth opening wide like another cavern of stalact.i.tes. Her muzzle smashed against the opening.

I dived down the sharp slope, but Filson wasn"t with me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that my stouthearted partner had glory instead of survival in mind. He leapt the other way, landing in the dragon"s mouth. Scrambling up the creature"s forked tongue, he brandished his little shiv as though it were a great sword. The tiny knife bit into the red roof of the dragon"s mouth, and though it sunk to its handle, the wyrm could not have felt more than the smallest pinp.r.i.c.k.

Surely, Filson would die for his courage.

And he would have, had the dragon bitten down on him instead of venting a great gust of poison gas from her lungs. The sneezelike blast blew Filson, shivless, off the creature"s tongue and out of its mouth, flinging him into me, where I had landed in a crouch and was preparing to rush for the vault door. Stuck together by the wind, we were hurled down the pa.s.sage to strike the very door I sought.

In the face of that gale, it was tough to grasp the lock. It was tougher to do so without gasping to inhale breath, which would have been instantly deadly. But I succeeded, spinning the thing, rushing through the combination I"d memorized when Olivia opened the lock.

The poison blast spent itself, and the combination was done. Still without breathing, I yanked the vault door open and dashed to the side.

There came a dragon scream from up the pa.s.sage, just as I had hoped, and a huge forearm thrust its way down toward the revealed pearl. My hundred traps went off beautifully, with a sound like a thousand mosquitoes taking flight. Even the circular deadfall block came down to crush the dragon"s claw, in the process cracking and peeling away my three iron boxes like layers of skin from an onion.