The Halls of Stormweather

THE MATRIARCH

As the first scene unfolded, Shamur Uskevren's head began to ache. The overture, with its unexpected discords and irregular, constantly shifting tempos, had been grating in its own right, but now that the vocalists in their chimerical costumes had commenced singing, the opera had become genuinely unpleasant. Neither the lyrics of the arias nor the action unfolding at the front of the open-air amphitheater made logical sense, and yet the willowy, ash-blonde matron with the lustrous gray eyes couldn't shake the vexing feeling that the story had meaning, like a nasty joke whose point she couldn't quite grasp.

Wonderful, Shamur thought sourly. She'd finally managed to drag her hellion of a daughter to an entertainment suitable for a young lady, and it was turning out to be an odious ordeal. She glanced to the left to determine just now blatantly Thazienne was grimacing and fidgeting on the smooth limestone slab of a bench.

A lovely young woman with striking green eyes, raven hair cropped short in the most unflattering coiffure imaginable, and an outlandish red Cormyrean bodice and gown, Tazi was indeed making no secret of her restlessness. She was disgracing herself and her family, and never mind the provocation. Shamur drew breath to whisper a rebuke, then noticed the stout, gray-headed widower seated behind her daughter.

Shamur knew Darvus Baerent, just as she knew all the members of all the best families in Selgaunt. Hitherto, she would have sworn that the aged merchant noble was as stolid and harmless as some old ox long accustomed to the yoke. Now, however, he was breathing heavily and staring fixedly at the nape of Tazi's neck. Despite the evening chill, sweat beaded his brow, and his pudgy fingers played nervously with the jeweled hilt of his dagger. Irked at being ignored, his companion, a buxom girl young enough to be his granddaughter, glowered at him.

Unlikely as it seemed, Shamur could tell something was wrong with Darvus. A fever-induced delirium, perhaps? Taking advantage of a momentary lull in the music, she spoke his name in a cool, dry tone that seldom failed to bring both her social inferiors and her peers up short, even if it had long ago stopped working on Tazi.

Darvus jumped and jerked around to meet her gaze. His eyes widened, and his mouth worked soundlessly, as if she'd surprised him committing some unspeakable crime. He leaped up and ran, trampling and tripping over the feet of the other spectators in his row. To Shamur's surprise, none of them reacted.

Shamur considered going after Darvus, but an instant later a scream shrilled across the amphitheater. Startled, she cast about, looking for the source. Several tiers below her, pretty, auburn-haired Kenna Toemalar sprang up on her seat and tore her clothing open. Eyes rolling wildly, spittle flying from her gnashing mouth, the young noblewoman scrabbled at her newly exposed flesh, which ripped away easily in semi-liquid chunks as if she were melting. Amazingly, none of her neighbors moved to restrain her, nor even recoiled or turned his head to gawk.

Indeed, Shamur now observed, most of the audience sat slack-jawed and staring, stuporous and inert. Some wept, whimpered, or twitched as if suffering the horrors of a nightmare from which they couldn't wake. Meanwhile the singers and musicians played on, seemingly as oblivious to the spectators' incapacity as they were to the pinpoints of violet light that began to flicker in the air around them.

Tazi touched her mother's arm. "Something's wrong," the young woman said. Predictably, she sounded less alarmed than intrigued.

"Obviously," Shamur said. She rose to call out a warning, then, to her ears at least, the music blared. A blaze of violet lightning dazzled her, and a force like a great wind snatched her up and tumbled her away.

Shamur allowed Harric, a grinning, gap-toothed footman clad in blue and gold Uskevren livery, to help her from the carriage. Tazi impatiently scrambled down on her own.

Before them rose a great hall whose essential lines were all but indistinguishable beneath encrustations of parapets, arches, cornices, friezes, entablatures, turrets, minarets, finials, balconies, gables, gargoyles, stained-glass windows, and the gods only knew what else. For a moment, the sight seemed wrong, as if Shamur shouldn't be here, or, shouldn't be here again. But the notion made no sense, and when Tazi spoke, it slipped from her head.

"Palace of Beauty, my rosy red arse," the younger woman said.

Privately, Shamur agreed. Andeth Ilchammar's newly constructed theater, concert hall, and art gallery was an architectural atrocity. But she had no intention of saying that and so encouraging her daughter in her disrespect. "You can scoff and jeer out here," she said, "but once we pass through that door, I expect you to be on your best behavior. The Hulorn himself has invited us to partake of a 'unique aesthetic experience'-"

"Oh, bollocks, you don't even know what it is!"

"I know that the invitation said it will be extraordinary, and if you lack the refinement to enjoy it, you will at least pretend to appreciate the honor."

Tazi rolled her eyes. "Oh, very well. Let's get it over with."

Recognizing the Uskevren ladies, the ceremonial guards in their black and silver surcoats stepped aside to allow them to pass. The high, arched doorway gaped before them like a mouth waiting to swallow them up, and as Shamur contemplated it, she felt a pang of weariness.

For a moment, it was as if her daughter's willfulness had infected her, and she didn't want to go inside either. Didn't want to spend another evening listening to dry, stately chamber music and chattering about charity work, culture, and whatever bits of dreary gossip the other merchants' wives had unearthed. She'd spent too many nights that way. She wanted Her mouth tightening, she pushed such useless thoughts away. It no longer mattered what she wanted, nor had it for a long time. All that counted now was the obligation to be a staid and proper burgher's wife and to prepare her children to perform their familial duties as well. Lliira knew, the latter wasn't easy.

Oh, Tamlin had turned out fine, whatever his father thought. But Tal, his younger brother, needed both encouragement and guidance. Indeed, she had to oversee every move he made, not that she begrudged him the attention. At least he made an effort from time to time. Tazi didn't. She had the wit to learn manners, music, embroidery, and the other womanly arts which would help her make an advantageous match, or the secrets of accounting and trade which would enable her to take a hand in the Uskevren's commercial ventures. But all she cared about was venery, carousing with riffraff far below her station, playing pranks, and generally getting into trouble.

Well, not tonight, Shamur thought, regarding her grimly. Tonight you'll comport yourself like a demure, refined young maiden, no matter how it galls you. Perhaps intuiting the tenor of her thoughts, Tazi stuck out her tongue.

Beyond the entry was a high-ceilinged foyer, lit by magic and lavishly decorated with a miscellany of paintings, tapestries, and sculptures, including a towering marble equestrian statue in the middle of the terrazzo floor. The piece depicted Rauthauvyr the Raven, founder of Sembia, slaying a gorgon, a feat that, to the best of Shamur's knowledge, the legendary warrior had never accomplished in the flesh. About the pedestal milled a prime selection of the city's aristocracy, the drone of their conversation, the swish of their trailing garments, and the jangling of their abundant jewelry mingling with the harmonies of the glaur, zulkoon, and thelarr players performing in the clerestory.

A lackey thumped the butt of his staff on the floor and announced Shamur and Tazi, whereupon Dolera Milna Foxmantle bustled over to greet them. Still in a glum humor, Shamur had to exert a bit of willpower to stretch her lips into a welcoming smile.

Dolera was a beautiful woman in her forties whose heart-shaped face was, as always, a mask of pigment.

She used alabaster powder to whiten her skin, fucus to redden her lips, kohl to emphasize her eyes, and tincture of belladonna to enlarge her pupils. Tonight she wore a low-cut orange mocado gown that reeked of rose water.

"Shamur," she cooed, "how wonderful to see you. And little Thazienne as well. You've extracted her from the taverns and barracks at last, and made her look so pretty, too! Of course, some people don't care for that… disheveled look. They say it makes a girl look cheap, or like some clodhopping slattern from a barbarian clime. But I find it refreshing."

Shamur didn't even have to glance at Tazi to sense her gathering herself for a furious outburst. She surreptitiously elbowed her daughter in the ribs.

"How kind of you to say so," she replied to Dolera. "How are you, dear? I assume you're still taking instruction in the dance from Maestro Rolando. I'm so looking forward to your first recital."

Dolera's malicious smirk wilted a bit. "Actually, I've taken a sabbatical from dancing to focus on my watercolors. Excuse me, won't you?" She moved away.

"As I understand it, Rolando terminated her lessons in disgust," Shamur murmured to Tazi. "He told her she had the grace of a three-legged sow."

"So you asked about the humiliation to vex her," Tazi said. "But why wouldn't you let me retort with what I wanted to say?"

"Because it would likely have been some crude insult, delivered at the top of your lungs, and that isn't how the game is played. If Dolera shakes your composure, she wins."

"It sounds like a stupid game to me," Tazi began. Then the chamber music stumbled to a halt. The glaur player blew a fanfare.

A lanky figure strode onto the landing at the top of a flight of stairs and swept up his arms in a histrionic gesture of welcome. He was veiled from head to foot in a voluminous hood and robe of green velvet and cloth of gold, but from the flamboyance of his entrance, he could only be Andeth Ilchammar, the Hulorn, a ruler considered eccentric even by his friends and entirely insane by his detractors.

Shamur wondered why he'd chosen to appear in such a bizarre costume. For tendays, the gossips had been whispering that the merchant mayor, who was also a magician of sorts, aspired to transform himself into a titan or some other sort of superhuman creature. Perhaps his garments hid the stigmata of a failed or ongoing metamorphosis. Knowing Andeth, it was just as likely he'd simply succumbed to a childish urge to play dress-up.

"Good evening, my lords and ladies!" the Hulorn cried in his breathless tenor voice. "I hope you're ready to be astonished and exalted, because I have a wonderful surprise for you. As many of you know, I employ agents to seek out the lost artistic treasures of antiquity, and over the years, they've made any number of glorious discoveries." He waved his arm at an example, a carved ebony centaur rearing in an alcove. "But recently, they uncovered the most important find of all. Visions of Chaos, a lost opera penned by Guerren Bloodquill!"

Andeth's guests exclaimed and murmured to one another in surprise and genuine interest. Those with a sincere passion for serious music-and over the years, Shamur had affected this passion so doggedly that in the end, it had, to a modest degree, become sincere-were naturally intrigued to learn of a new work by the genius who, three centuries after his disappearance, was still regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. Those who merely feigned an interest in the arts to be fashionable recalled the sinister side of Guerren's reputation. According to legend, he'd also been a mystic much given to communing with the infernal powers. Some tales even held that he'd bartered his soul in exchange for his musical talent.

The Hulorn paused for a moment, basking in the sensation he'd created, then pressed on. "I have, of course, decided to stage Guerren's work for our delectation. The finest singers and musicians in Selgaunt have been rehearsing in secret for tendays-"

"No!" someone cried. "You mustn't do it!"

Like everyone else, Shamur turned in surprise, to see that a little man with a huge beak of a nose and a shaggy mane of graying hair had somehow slipped into the chamber. Bright scarlet puffing protruded from the slashes in his shabby fustian doublet, and gaudy paste jewelry adorned his chest. Shamur didn't know him, but she knew his type. He appeared to be a member of Selgaunt's sizable artistic community.

Two guards stationed in unobtrusive positions about the foyer sprang forward and grabbed the little man by the arms. "Sorry, Your Grace," one of the pair called to the Hulorn. "I don't know how he got in."

"Please," the small man said, squirming impotently in their grasp. "You have to listen-"

"Master Quyance," Andeth sighed, "we've already had this conversation." He waved to the soldiers. "Remove him." They did, and, when Quyance continued to rave, they silenced him with a blow to the head. Shamur winced in sympathy, and Tazi muttered an obscenity.

"Please excuse the interruption," Andeth said. "The wretch is unbalanced and has been following me about for days. I thought the guards had finally managed to discourage him, but evidently not. Well, enough about him. Come with me. Guerren's masterpiece awaits us."

The merchant mayor descended the stairs and led his guests deeper into the Palace of Beauty. As Shamur moved to follow, she realized she knew what was going to happen next. For the first time that night, her gaze would fall on Gundar, son of Dorin. Her old nemesis, for all that he didn't know it. The wealthy dwarf merchant would be wearing a russet taffeta doublet and a wide, opal-studded belt. He'd have golden chains dangling in his long, white beard.

She finished turning, and her premonition came true. Gundar was there, looking exactly as she'd imagined him. How could that be?

"I hate to admit it," said Tazi, "but this might be tolerable after all."

"What?" Shamur asked distractedly. She struggled to dismiss that disquieting sense of foreknowledge. No doubt it was simply her mind playing tricks on her.

"If a demon-worshiper wrote the opera, perhaps the story will have slaughter, torture, and monsters raping virgins."

"The important thing," Shamur said coldly, "will be to savor the beauty of the music, not to wallow in any moments of vulgar sensation the 'story' may happen to offer. There's Dolera. We'll go in and sit with her."

"Why?"

"Because she's my friend, of course."

"How can you say that? The way you snipe at each other…"

"What of it? It's simply the way gentlewomen of our circle behave. Someday you'll understand."

"I hope not."

To Shamur's surprise, Andeth led the company beyond the magnificent theater and into the backstage area with its cramped maze of corridors, rehearsal halls, storerooms, and dressing rooms. Ultimately they passed through a door into the cool night air.

Andeth had ordered that the Palace of Beauty be built into the wall surrounding the Hunting Garden, his private park. Glancing about, Shamur saw that she and her companions had emerged within the enclosure. Before them, ringed by oaks and elms in a natural bowl in the earth, was an ancient amphitheater that predated the city itself. Most people believed that elves had built it, though no one truly knew. Magical lights glowed inside hanging shells of colored paper, and an orchestra sat tuning up in front of the platform at the bottom.

"I wish I could have used Guerren's opus to inaugurate the new theater," the Hulorn remarked to one of the cronies walking beside him. "But the master left explicit instructions that the work was to be performed in a setting like this, and if we wish to appreciate it fully, we had best abide by his intent."

"Thanks be to the Frostmaiden that so far, we're having a mild winter," Tazi murmured. "You know how Mad Andy is when a scheme grabs hold of him. He would have dragged us out here to sit through this claptrap even in the middle of a blizzard."

"Do not refer to him as 'Mad Andy,' " Shamur gritted, "particularly when he's walking only a few feet ahead of us." Then she gasped as another premonition seized her.

This time, it had nothing vague or dubious about it. She was absolutely certain she'd lived through these minutes before and thus knew what would happen next. She started forward, intent on warning the Hulorn, and*****

Someone was shaking her by the shoulder. Startled, she pivoted, and saw that it was Tazi. "Mother?" the younger woman asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

"I'm all right," said Shamur, and that seemed to be essentially true despite her disorientation. She looked about and saw that she and Tazi were standing back in the foyer at the base of the Raven's statue. Dolera and her equally pretty but younger and more vapid sister Pelenza were present as well, though all the sentries and servants had wandered off. Both Foxmantles looked even more shaken and bewildered than Shamur felt.

"Good," Tazi said. "I was afraid you'd fallen into a trance, too. Do you remember, a second ago we were in the amphitheater. Something snatched us up and dumped us here."

"Yes," Shamur said. She suspected that the force had actually targeted her because she'd been about to shout, but since Tazi and the others had been sitting next to her, they'd gotten caught up in it too. "But… were we somewhere, or somewhen, else first? Didn't we relive a bit of the past hour?"

Tazi eyed her curiously. "I didn't."

"What are you babbling about?" Pelenza exploded. "What's going on?"

Forget it, Shamur told herself. Evidently her displacement in time had only been a sort of dream, and even if not, she had more pressing concerns-keeping the Foxmantle ladies from panicking, for a start. "I'm not altogether sure," she replied to Pelenza, "but good fortune has placed us in proximity to an exit, and our best option is to use it and send help back for the others."

Tazi snorted. "I'm not going anywhere. This is interesting!"

Shamur glared at her. "For once in your young life, don't be an idiot. This is not a game. The people in the amphitheater are in peril, and we have a responsibility to succor them." She had more to say, but at that moment, a deep voice bellowed.

As she pivoted toward the sound, a lackey in the Hulorn's livery plunged through a nearby doorway. A rack of gleaming black antlers had sprouted from raw, oozing sockets in his forehead, and his blue eyes burned with lunatic rage. He clutched a bloody long sword in an awkward, untutored two-handed grip. Shamur*****

Shamur crouched among Gundar's coffers, her signature red-striped mask on her face and a silver amulet set with a large, lustrous pearl-the first piece of loot she'd selected to carry away-dangling around her neck. She was smiling in triumph, but the expression felt wrong and unnatural. This time, for the moment at least, she fully understood she was reliving the past, and accordingly she knew what was about to happen.

Sure enough, the door to the treasure vault crashed open. On the other side stood Gundar-clad in a nightshirt and nightcap, his beard still black with only a sprinkling of white-a pair of his dwarven guards, and a human, his household mage.

There was no way out except through that same doorway. Shamur sprang to her feet and drew Albruin, her enchanted broadsword, from its scabbard. The weapon shone with an eerie blue light.

Swords in one hand, target shields in the other, the soldiers in their mail shirts spread out to flank her. Gundar, who had a reputation as a warrior himself, came straight at her. His battle-axe, whispering and crooning with some magic of its own, shifted deceptively to and fro.

Shamur was so intent on the men-at-arms that she missed seeing the sorcerer-a stunted wisp of a man scarcely taller and nowhere near as solidly built as his employer-point his ivory-tipped wand at her. Suddenly her left shoulder was burning, cooking, as if from the kiss of a white-hot iron, and her loose black silk shirt burst into flame. She dropped and rolled among the scattered coins and gems, knowing she had only seconds to extinguish the fire before the warriors would be on top of her.

Frantically she scrambled back to her feet. Her shoulder still throbbed, and the part of her that had lived these moments before knew she'd carry a peculiar star-shaped scar for the rest of her days. That didn't matter. What did was that as she'd thrashed about putting out the blaze, her mask had come untied.

Gundar stared at her naked face in amazement. No hope that he would fail to recognize Shamur Karn! She and her family had attended a banquet here in his mansion only a tenday before. That was when she'd determined the location of his hoard.

Taking advantage of his surprise, she bolted past him, slammed the wizard out of her way, and raced toward the window which had granted her entry. For once she took no delight in the thrill of a narrow escape. How could she? Now that someone knew that Javis Karn's adolescent daughter and Selgaunt's most notorious robber were one and the same, she'd have to flee the city forever.

She was back in the foyer, back where a demented servant was about to attack her. She forced herself to think of that and that alone.

Her body reflexively began to assume a fighting stance, but she stopped herself. Her companions had no idea that she knew how to conduct herself in a melee, and it was imperative that it remain so. Fortunately, she shouldn't have to give herself away, not to handle this oaf.

The man with the antlers lifted his sword and charged her. She pretended to freeze, then, at the last possible instant, shifted aside. Trying to make it look as if she were stumbling over her own feet, she dropped, caught herself with her hands, and stretched out her leg. Her assailant tripped headlong over her ankle. The long sword clanged against the floor.

Tazi snatched up a near-priceless porcelain bust of Sune from its pedestal and smashed it over the lunatic's head. He sprawled motionless, scraps of the shattered sculpture caught in his antlers.

The Foxmantle sisters were clutching each other.

"Blessed Ilmater, blessed Ilmater, blessed Ilmater," Pelenza whimpered. Given their sheltered existences, it was unreasonable to expect any better of them, but Shamur felt a surge of contempt. Under the circumstances, their case of the vapors contrasted poorly with Tazi's composure as she appropriated the long sword, then brandished it to test its heft and balance.

Not, of course, that Shamur intended to say anything that would encourage her daughter's hoydenish ways or give her a chance to use her new toy.

"Stop blubbering," Shamur rapped at Dolera and Pelenza. "None of us was harmed, and now we're leaving. Follow me." The foursome proceeded to the exit, though Tazi trudged along sullenly, casting longing glances backward at the arena of enticing danger and mystery.

She was so intent on peering behind her that she missed seeing the venomous-looking saffron-yellow spider, its bulbous abdomen as big as a walnut, lurking in a detail of the ornate carving surrounding the door. Nor had the quivering, tearful Foxmantles spotted the creature. The arachnid crouched to spring.

Shamur slapped the spider before it could pounce at any of them and felt its body squish against her palm. Dolera and Pelenza jumped and yelped. Tazi whirled around. "What is it?" she demanded.

"Nothing," Shamur said. "I lost my balance and had to catch myself. I apologize for startling everyone." Wondering where the spider could have come from-she'd certainly never seen such a specimen before, and she'd wandered from Sembia to the southern shores of the Moonsea in her time-she surreptitiously wiped her hand on her dark blue skirt.

Tazi pulled open the door, and lesser puzzles such as the origin of the spider-or a servant who grew antlers and went insane, for that matter-flew straight out of Shamur's mind.

The door, of course, should have opened on the benighted, cobbled, torch-lit turnaround where the carriage had let them off. Beyond that they should have seen the lights and towers of Selgaunt, not tangles of underbrush, and towering trees festooned with lianas. Not shafts of sunlight piercing the canopy to fall through the muggy air.

Speechless for once, Tazi squatted, reached across the threshold, picked up the fallen, withered petal of an orchid, and examined it closely. Shamur supposed it was her way of convincing herself that the jungle was actually there.

"Everything's all… scrambled," the younger woman said at last. "Changing. People take on new shapes, or go crazy. You get whisked from one location to another in the blink of an eye. Places that used to be next to one another… aren't any more."

"Yes," said Shamur. To herself she silently added, it isn't just space that's out of joint. Time is a little disordered too, if only in my head. Perhaps, she thought, she was reliving moments from the past because she was no longer quite as firmly anchored in the present as most people.

"How can this be happening?" Dolera wailed.

"I don't know," Shamur replied, "but if we remain calm-"

"Hush, and listen!" Tazi said.

When Shamur did, she heard sobs, bestial roaring, and demented laughter echoing softly from elsewhere in the building. But the most ominous sound of all was the dissonant chords and staggering rhythms of Guerren Bloodquill's opera.

"Should we still be able to hear the music?" Tazi asked. "With so many walls between us and the amphitheater?"

"I wouldn't think so," Shamur replied. "That lends credence to the notion that it's the opera itself that is magical and producing the phenomena we're experiencing. That in turn suggests a solution. Since we can't leave the building, at least not through this particular exit, you three will take refuge in a suitable room. One with a door you can lock or barricade. Meanwhile, I'll return to the amphitheater and prevail on Andeth, or the singers and instrumentalists themselves, to halt the performance. One can only hope that when that occurs, our surroundings will revert to normal."

Tazi clicked her tongue in derision. "Have you gone crazy, too?"

"I trust not," Shamur said.

"I can see why you want to rid yourself of these two," Tazi continued, indicating the Foxmantle sisters with a casual jab of the long sword. "They're useless." Her tone was so scornful that, despite her terror, Dolera bridled. "But when it comes to you and me, I'm the one who knows how to fight. You need me for protection."

"Nonsense. I can manage for myself, and I'll do so more easily knowing you're safe."

"Nobody will be truly safe until the enchantment is broken," Tazi retorted. "Anyway, I'm not missing out on the excitement. I'm coming with you, and that's that."

Obviously no argument could dissuade her. Shamur would simply have to hope that no further dangers would present themselves. "Very well," she said, then turned to the Foxmantles. "My dears, if you'll accompany us, we'll find you some shelter."

The four noblewomen proceeded down a promising-looking corridor and soon found a small storeroom with a sturdy door. Blubbering, Pelenza clutched at Shamur when she tried to leave. The Uskevren matriarch extricated herself as gently as her impatience would allow; then she and Tazi made their exit.

"And that's what you want me to be like," said Tazi as she and her mother headed back up the hallway, "those two weepy, addle-pated geese."

"I concede, they're high-strung," Shamur replied, peering about, checking for potential threats. So far, she saw none, though strangely, the temperature in the corridor seemed to fluctuate with every stride, cold one instant and hot the next. "Even so, they've never brought discredit on their families by drinking to excess in the lowest, filthiest taverns on the waterfront or lifting their skirts for every likkerish dolt who happens along."

"What happened to turn you into such a dried-up prig?" Tazi retorted. "Is it because you're jealous of Father's dalliances? I can't imagine why. You certainly don't show any sign of wanting him in your own bed." They reentered the foyer, where the madman still lay unconscious on the floor.

"We are not going to discuss my relationship with your father," Shamur said icily.

A groaning, grinding sound arose from the center of the chamber.

Shamur pivoted toward the noise. Bands of color-gleaming, metallic blue and black-streamed through the creamy marble form of the gorgon half of Rauthauvyr's statue. In a matter of seconds, it became a living creature, a scaly bull-like horror that stepped off its pedestal almost daintily, its scarlet eyes glowing, its tail twitching, and greenish vapor puffing from its nostri*****

Suddenly Shamur was facing a different monstrosity, a huge, vaguely man-shaped thing seemingly made of darkness. Only its fangs and long, jagged claws reflected the light of the lanterns.

It had appeared out of nowhere shortly after the explorers entered the ancient crypt, but even so, everyone reacted quickly. The men-at-arms readied their weapons, and the priests and sorcerers cast spells.

The guardian spirit pounced in among the adventurers and started killing. Neither their blades nor their incantations seemed to hinder it in the slightest. But the magic did have an effect. Around the vault stood immense yet intricate constructions built of bronze rods and faceted crystal spheres. No one in the party, not even canny old Anax of Oghma, had had any idea of their purpose. Now, however, it became obvious that they were apparatuses of some sort, charged with arcane energies. The adventurers' sorceries had somehow roused them. Dazzling, crackling bolts of power flared from the orbs and arced about the chamber, adding to the general confusion.

A swipe of the demon's inky hand sent Sorn Notched-blade's head flying from his shoulders. Then the horror dropped to all fours, lunged, and caught Kavith the Blue in its teeth. It reared up, lashing its head back and forth, and the magician dropped from its jaws in pieces. Meanwhile the sizzling blazes of power leaped brighter and brighter, faster and faster. The crypt itself began to tremble.

Stalking on silent feet, wishing she hadn't needed to sell Albruin two months ago to extricate her comrades from a predicament almost as dire as this, Shamur circled to take the shadowy colossus from behind. The demon, however, rendered her efforts useless by abruptly plunging away from her and through the ranks of its nearest opponents to charge Eskander, who was piercing it with arrow after arrow. Shamur knew it wasn't cowardice that had prompted the thin, easygoing brigand-turned-treasure-hunter to hang back and use his longbow. He'd done it because his sword wasn't magical, but his silver-headed shafts were.

She also knew, as she abruptly recalled that she'd lived through this ordeal before, what would happen next. Perhaps she screamed even before it did.

Eskander tried to dodge the demon, but he was too slow. The spirit struck with its left hand and impaled the archer's torso on three of its claws. That had likely been enough to kill him instantly, but, perhaps enraged, its head and shoulders bristling with his arrows, the shadowy giant swung him up and down, up and down, battering the only man Shamur had ever truly loved-or ever would-against the heaving sandstone floor.

Shamur charged the guardian, in her anguish scarcely noticing that the vault was now shaking so hard that it was no longer possible to run in a straight line. The silver amulet she'd stolen from Gundar's hoard bounced against her breasts. Suspecting it to be magical, she'd paid a sage to examine it shortly after her hasty flight years before. He hadn't been able to determine its precise purpose but opined that it might be some manner of protective device, and so she'd elected to hold on to it.

The demon whirled to face her, its agility uncanny in so hulking a creature. Its dark hand lashed out. She dived forward, trying to dodge the blow and get inside the giant's reach. She did avoid the spirit's claws, but its palm smashed into her, flung her off her feet, and tumbled her across the quaking floor.

For a moment she lay stunned, watching stupidly as jagged cracks spread across the rib vault of the ceiling, and the tortured stonework groaned like a god in agony. The demon loomed above her, claws poised to seize her, rend her, and she remembered that she had to keep fighting. When she tried to raise her sword, though, she found it was gone and her limbs were sluggish from shock and pain.

The guardian reached for her, and chunks of stone began to rain down from the ceiling. One of the flares of power from the sorcerous mechanisms struck the pearl in the center of the amulet, and abruptly everything was different.

The demon was gone, and the cave-in was over, though it had buried much of the chamber before it ran its course, demolishing the bronze-and-crystal constructs in the process. Evidently it had also opened some fissures from the crypt to the surface, because a bit of wan gray light was leaking in from somewhere to replace the illumination of the lanterns, none of which were burning anymore.

Dazed and bewildered, Shamur struggled to her feet and cast about for her companions. And she found them, those who weren't buried beneath piles of rubble, anyway.

They were all dead. That in itself grieved but failed to surprise her. The enigma, the grim marvel that made her blink and wonder if she was dreaming, was that they all looked as if they'd been dead for decades. Their remaining flesh was withered and leathery, their eye sockets empty, their garments rotten, their weapons and armor rusty and corroded. Dust covered all.

Numb with shock and sorrow, she couldn't even guess what the condition of the corpses might portend. She walked to the heap of stone that presumably covered Eskander's remains and stood there with her head bowed for a time. Then she made her way out into the daylight.

"Get back!" Tazi said.

Shamur did back slowly away from the gorgon, meanwhile giving her head a shake to clear it. It had been excruciating to relive the slaughter of Eskander and her friends, but she was back in the present now, facing a beast that might well prove as formidable as the guardian of the crypt had been, and this time, her daughter's life was at stake.

The scaly, taurine creature, a third again as tall as a man, turned about, eyeing its surroundings dubiously. Perhaps, Shamur thought, it was feeling so perplexed that it would let a pair of human women withdraw unchallenged. But then, cautiously, stealthily as they were moving, they somehow attracted the gorgon's attention. It glared directly at them, its blank crimson eyes flaring brighter. It bared its mouthful of fangs and stamped its hoof, cracking the terrazzo.

Grinning fiercely, the long sword in one hand and the throwing knife she habitually carried about her person in the other, Tazi interposed herself between the blue bull and her mother. Of course. The girl believed that of the two of them, she was the only trained combatant, and it was unquestionable that she was the only one armed.

Shamur peered about the chamber, seeking a weapon. There was an abundance of art objects that might serve to bludgeon another crazed lackey but nothing that could possibly harm a towering predator with a hide of natural scale armor.

The gorgon bellowed, lowered its head, and charged. Tazi poised herself to meet it. Hard as it was to abandon the girl to fight alone, Shamur forced herself to turn and dash down the corridor that led to the theater.

There had been guards in the Palace of Beauty before the opera commenced. Surely they-and their swords-must be somewhere on the premises still. She prayed Tazi could hold out long enough for her to find one.

Shamur peered into one chamber and alcove after another, to no avail. Until an orc emerged from a doorway immediately ahead of her.

The squat, pig-faced creature in the garish leather rags of orange and purple no more belonged in Selgaunt than had the yellow spider. Perhaps it too was a work of art come alive, or conceivably some other door or window in the Palace of Beauty now opened on one of the wilderness areas such semihuman marauders normally inhabited. In any case, Shamur didn't care where it had come from, only that it had a broadsword in its dirty-nailed, greenish hand.

Not giving it time to come on guard, Shamur sprang in close and kicked it in the crotch. She grabbed it by the front of its filthy tunic and butted it in the face. The impact hurt her own head a little, but the orc's legs buckled beneath it, its bloody snout flattened and skewed to one side, its red eyes crossed. Shamur jerked the broadsword from its grasp, then allowed the orc to drop to the floor.

As she raced back to the foyer, she couldn't help wondering if she was up to the task before her. It had been child's play to trip the befuddled fellow with the antlers, and she'd been lucky enough to catch the orc by surprise. But only a highly skilled warrior could hope to best an adversary as fearsome as a gorgon, and until this moment, she hadn't touched a sword in twenty-six years.

Yes, damn it, rusty or not, she would win! She could tell from the sounds issuing from the archway up ahead-the grunting and snorting, the clatter of hoofs, the clank of steel against the bull's armor-that Tazi was still fighting, still alive, and with the girl's welfare at hazard, failure was unthinkable.

Her skirt flapping around her legs and the slick soles of her gray dress slippers skidding on the polished floor, Shamur plunged back into the chamber. At some point during the struggle, the gorgon had knocked over the remainder of the sculpture that had given it birth-Shamur was fleetingly surprised that she hadn't heard the crash-and now the creature and Tazi were fighting amid the pieces. The girl's bodice was torn, displaying a long, bloody graze across her ribs, while the gorgon bore a pair of shallow cuts, one atop its nose and the other on its flank.

Hearing Shamur's arrival, Tazi glanced around. "No, Mother!" she panted. "Stay out of-"

The gorgon took advantage of the girl's distraction, stepped in, and tossed its head, sweeping its horns in a murderous arc. "Tazi!" Shamur screamed.

Tazi barely jerked back around in time to parry. But the impact of horn on blade sent her staggering, and the gorgon trotted after her, head held low for a thrust at her belly.

Shamur plunged forward, yelling at the top of her lungs to draw the beast's attention. Thanks be to the gods, it spun in her direction, and now all she had to worry about was preserving her own life.

The giant bull loomed over her like a mountain. She dodged its first stroke clumsily, but after that it was all right. Something woke inside her; she could feel the tempo of the gorgon's movements and anticipate what it would do next. Her hand remembered how to cut, thrust, feint, and parry, and her feet fell into the deceptive dance of advance, sidestep, and retreat. She actually managed to nick the behemoth's neck, and when it finally attempted an all-out charge to smash her down and trample her, she spun lightly out of the way and cut it again.

Tazi attacked the gorgon from the other flank. The two women worked as a team, one distracting the bull while the other slipped in an attack or retreated out of danger. Confused, grunting, its sweat and blood suffusing the air with a vile fetor, the gigantic bull pivoted back and forth. Finally it whirled, ran across the room, then turned to face its human foes once more.

"Ha!" Tazi cried. "We scared it!" The gorgon's chest swelled as it drew in a deep breath.

At the last possible instant, Shamur, who had never before encountered a gorgon, remembered the stories she'd heard about them. She dived at her daughter, tackled her, and carried her to the side.

The gorgon blew a cone of green, streaming vapor from its mouth and nostrils. The roiling fumes missed Shamur and Tazi by inches, but the unconscious man on the floor was less fortunate. When the monster's breath washed over him, his flesh turned dull gray, petrifying. In seconds, he became a lifeless figure of stone.

The gorgon bellowed and charged. The Uskevren women scrambled out of its path, leaped to their feet, and resumed fighting.

After another minute, Shamur's heart was pounding, and the breath rasped in her throat. She was tiring, beginning to slow, and no doubt, her youth notwithstanding, the same was true of Tazi. Their immense foe seemed as strong and quick as ever. They needed to dispatch it quickly, before the tide of battle turned against them.

The problem was those cursed scales, which blunted the force of every sword stroke. The creature's only vulnerable spot seemed to be its eyes, but it guarded those so well that despite repeated efforts, neither woman had managed to strike them.

Where else then? Shamur wondered as she sprang backward, narrowly evading a strike that would have plunged a horn completely through her torso. Where else can I hit it and make the blow count? Her memory conjured up the sculpture as it had looked at the beginning of the evening.

The sculptor had depicted the mounted Rauthauvyr laying his long sword across the gorgon's back. If the spot hadn't spontaneously healed over when the beast came to life, there might be a sort of groove up there, free of scales.

"Keep it busy!" she cried. Tazi did just that, assailing it so furiously that she left herself not the slightest margin for error. One slip and the gorgon would surely bury its horns in her vitals.

Shamur clamped her sword between her teeth, ran at the creature's flank, and leaped high, grabbing for the ridge of its spine as, in happier days, she'd grabbed for windowsills or dangling strands of ivy that would help her climb a wall.

She found her handhold and heaved herself up, straddling the gorgon as she would a horse. The bull gave an almost comical grunt of surprise and turned its head to peer at her.

She looked for a notch free of scales and couldn't find it. Unable to reach her with its horns, the gorgon sucked in air. In another second, it was going to breathe on her, but having gotten this far, she had no intention of abandoning her perch. She doubted the brute would permit her to vault up on its back a second time.

She twisted around and found the groove behind her. Gripping the broadsword with both hands, she drove it down.

The bull screamed and tossed its head, the green vapor fountaining harmlessly up against the ceiling, then collapsed. Shamur frantically dived clear, rolling when she hit the floor.

She wrenched herself around to scrutinize the gorgon. It lay motionless, and after a few seconds, she concluded it was dead.

A smile crept over her face. It was good to know she could still wield a sword. Over the years, she had wondered if her old skills had deserted her for want of practice. Evidently not.

"Mother!" Tazi said. She was so winded, she was wheezing, but even so, there was no mistaking the astonishment in her voice. "How… where, when did you learn to fight like that?"

Shamur's satisfaction withered into dismay. Obviously, there had been no help for it-though one could squash a spider and feign clumsiness at the same time, slaying a gorgon was a different matter-but still, here was precisely the question she'd wished to avoid.

"I don't know how to fight, of course. I simply did the best I could in an emergency. I suppose I'm fortunate that my dancing and riding lessons have kept me limber."

'That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Tazi said, picking up her throwing knife from the floor. "Nobody handles a weapon the way you did without training and experience."

"Well, I've watched your father and brothers fence," Shamur said. She took hold of the broadsword's leather-wrapped hilt and, with considerable effort, dragged it from the gorgon's corpse. "I tried to copy what they do."

"And I still say that's a load of pig manure." Abruptly Shamur noticed something had changed. Changed for the worse, almost undoubtedly, though at that moment she welcomed anything that might serve to divert Tazi's attention. "The music is louder," she said.

Tazi frowned and cocked her head, listening for herself. "You're right. I suppose it means the magic's getting stronger."

"Yes. Which makes it even more desirable that we stop the opera without further delay, and certainly before it reaches its conclusion. If my suspicions are right, and it's weaving a kind of spell, then chances are excellent that all the oddities we've encountered thus far are merely preliminaries. The truly potent effects will occur at the end."

As they headed for the rear of the building and the amphitheater beyond, they encountered a series of disquieting marvels. The orc Shamur had beaten unconscious was gone but had left a tarry, malodorous stain on the floor, as if it had simply melted away. A tantan floated jingling down a passageway. Small pine trees grew from the molded ceiling of one chamber, and a troop of piebald imps played kickball with a severed head in another. Andeth's theater had become a realm of coral formations and green water in which countless iridescent fish swam to and fro. Tazi gingerly poked her forefinger into the doorway, and the digit came away wet.

The women also encountered more of the Hulorn's retainers, though never in any condition to aid them. Most had fallen victim to the same trance that had overtaken the majority of the people in the amphitheater and proved resistant to any effort to rouse them. Others lay dismembered, slain by some beast now roaming the building. One fellow-or woman, it was hard to tell-looked as if something had reached down his throat and turned him inside out. Several more had changed into inert figures of gnarled wood, red clay, glass, or, in one instance, a patchwork of all three.

Tazi studied the carnage with ghoulish fascination. "This is not a spectacle being staged for your amusement," Shamur told her in disgust. "These were innocent people, senselessly slaughtered."

"If I sniffle and dab at my eyes, will it bring them back to life?" Tazi replied. "Besides, if it's all so tragic, why are you looking so bright-eyed and chipper?"

"I'm not," Shamur said, yet, now that Tazi had prompted her to consider herself, she couldn't help wondering if the girl was right. Oh, she felt all the emotions that any ordinary woman would if trapped in the same ghastly situation. Pity for the victims of Bloodquill's magic. Anxiety for Tazi's life and her own. But along with the fear came a delicious sharpening of the senses. The addictive intensity in pursuit of which a lass from one of the wealthiest families in Selgaunt had embraced the perilous life of a thief.

She was still trying to banish or at least conceal her exhilaration when she and Tazi passed a mirror. The reflections inside the glass lay at right angles to their sources, as if the two women were walking straight up a wal*****

No. Shamur wasn't looking at her own recumbent reflection, not anymore. She was standing beside the ornately carved canopy bed of a young woman who looked exactly like her and had even borne her name. Her grand-niece, of whom she'd grown fond in the tendays since she'd slipped back into Selgaunt, and who had mysteriously and quite unexpectedly died in the night.

Hook-nosed, curly bearded Lindrian, Shamur's nephew and the dead girl's father, hammered his temple with the palm of his hand. "Why?" he sobbed. "Why, why, why?"

"To destroy us," Fendo growled. He was Shamur's brother, now hideously aged to a bloated, gouty old man and head of the Karn family. Despite his physical decline, his wits remained as keen as ever, and Shamur didn't doubt that his inference was correct. Somehow, his granddaughter had been murdered.

Once Shamur had come to terms with the fact that the interplay of magical forces in the crypt had somehow exiled her in the future, she'd decided to return home and discover what had become of her family. It ought to be safe enough if she was careful. Even after half a century, it was unlikely that the other merchant noble families had forgotten or forgiven her thefts, but they no doubt assumed her dead, or at least withered into a doddering crone.

When she'd revealed herself to Fendo, he'd welcomed her with open arms. Still, all was far from well. The Karns had recently experienced a succession of disastrous business reversals, and now stood on the brink of bankruptcy. Fendo firmly believed some hidden enemy had engineered the family's ruin, but had had no success in discovering the culprit's identity.

Shamur contemplated a new series of robberies, but the Karns' debts were so enormous that even she couldn't steal enough to keep them afloat. The only hope was an alliance by marriage with another merchant noble house willing to provide a massive infusion of cash.

Happily, Thamalon Uskevren then sued for the hand of Lindrian's daughter, the only marriageable child in the family. The Uskevren were rich, but many of their peers still scorned them for once trafficking with pirates. Perhaps Thamalon was willing to pay dearly for a Karn bride because he hoped the union would help his own house regain respectability. Or conceivably, as he professed, he truly loved the girl. Either way, it didn't matter. What did matter was that deliverance was at hand.

Or it had been. Until the Karns' unknown foe had employed poison or black magic to snatch it away. Now…

Fendo gripped Shamur's arm with his dry, feeble, liver-spotted hand. Surprised, she turned to face him, and was taken aback by the feverish glitter in his rheumy eyes.

"You look exactly like her," he said, "and no one outside the household knows you've returned."

"Mother?" Tazi said.

"Yes," Shamur said, wrenching her gaze away from the mirror. "I'm all right. Let's keep moving." As they stalked on down the corridor, she wondered grimly why the magic was forcing her to relive all the bad times, the moments when life took a calamitous turn for the worse.

Well, no point brooding about it. Better to stay alert and savor the pleasantly edgy feeling that came from knowing danger was all around. That and the gladsome weight of a broadsword in her hand.

The hallway took a turn that hadn't existed before the start of the opera, then came to a dead end. The obstruction at its terminus resembled a plug of raw, fatty mutton. The Uskevren women backtracked and ultimately found another route that led to the exit they'd used before.

"Let's hope this still goes to the Hunting Garden, and not to the Great Glacier or someplace," Tazi said wryly. She opened the door.

The music swelled, and Shamur's head spun. The dizziness passed in an instant, and she saw that the door did indeed still provide access to the amphitheater, not that the look of the place was especially inviting.

The bowl in the earth seethed with violet sparks, as if millions of fireflies were swarming there. The luminous cloud was so thick that it was difficult to make out the forms inside it, but Shamur could tell that most of the audience still sat entranced. One figure, however, its arms vanished and its legs fused together, was laboriously worming its way up one of the aisles, while on one of the benches farthest from the stage, a man and a woman were feasting on the brains of a corpse with a shattered skull.

A few pinpoints of light scintillated beyond the confines of the open-air theater as well, and here and there, the landscape rippled with miragelike images-a snowy mountaintop, a city of spindly pastel towers floating on clouds, a subterranean flow of glowing lava-as Guerren's magic evidently labored to open gates between the Hunting Garden and elsewhere.

"Come on," Tazi said. The two women strode forward.

"We may have to use force to stop the musicians," Shamur said, "but don't kill them. They don't know what they're doing."

"What kind of bloodthirsty jackass do you think I am?" Tazi replied. Pinwheels of red and yellow light spun in the air before them.

The colors streamed and arranged themselves into shapes, becoming a pair of creatures half human and half leopard, with gorgeous gold rosettes on their crimson pelts. Each held a short, curved, single-edged sword in either hand, and roaring, they attacked.

When Shamur retreated a step, the slick sole of her shoe slipped on the path, nearly costing Shamur her balance. Even so, she succeeded in parrying her adversary's first stroke, then split its skull before it could attempt a second. She pivoted just in time to see Tazi execute the risky but frequently effective maneuver known as the Boar's Thrust, simultaneous squatting to duck the remaining leopard man's cut and driving her point into its belly. The creature made a choking sound and collapsed.

"Nicely done," Shamur said. Tazi stared at her as if her mother's praise was the weirdest prodigy she'd encountered yet.

After an awkward instant of silence, the two women marched on toward the amphitheater, their weapons at the ready. Shamur's blood was up. Conjure up some more servants, she thought savagely. We can kill anything you can throw at us. But, having failed with that tactic once, Bloodquill's magic fell back on its most effective defense. Once again, the music seemed to blare, and the shining haze in the bowl blazed dazzlingly bright. Something scooped her up*****

Shamur sat beside her grandniece's dressing table suffering a maid to paint her face. Once she might have preferred to apply the cosmetics herself, but she was afraid she'd lost the knack. She hadn't bothered with such fripperies since she'd fled the city.

Ilmater's bleeding wounds, how she wished she could run away again!

Lindrian hovered over her to ensure that the servant made her look precisely as his poor dead daughter would have chosen to look. And to assail her with advice.

"You must always remember," he said, restlessly prowling about her chair, "the girl looked like you, but inside, she was your opposite."

"I know," Shamur sighed. "I was acquainted with her too, if you recall."

"She was refined," the bearded man continued as if he hadn't heard. "Sensitive. Gentle. Timid, even. She would no more have used vulgar language, or spoken an unkind word-"

"Than she would have robbed Vilden Talendar at sword point," Shamur gritted. "I understand."

"I hope so," Lindrian fretted. "If Thamalon ever suspected we foisted an impostor on him! And not just any impostor, but the most infamous outlaw in recent memory! He'd likely have the marriage annulled and demand his gold back. He might even launch a feud against our house. And you, Aunt, he'd hand over to the city guard."

Shamur threw a bottle of hand lotion and hit him in the center of his chest. "I said, I understand! Just get out of here, will you? Get out and let me prepare in peace!"

Lindrian stared at her for a moment, then nodded and withdrew.

Afterwards, as she headed downstairs, she felt faint, and seized the banister to keep herself from falling. Gods above, how could she, who hitherto had always followed her heart, go through with this masquerade? How could she entomb her own nature inside the persona of a woman who'd shared none of her tastes and inclinations? How could she, who had known true love, marry a stranger?

Yet how could she not, when the alternative was to stand idly by and watch her family ruined. Now that Eskander and his comrades were gone, her kin were the only people she cared about or even knew. Moreover, she had a fey sense that it was her destiny to sacrifice herself in this manner. Why else had such a bizarre combination of circumstances landed her in the future? Why else had fate decreed that she and her grandniece would look exactly alike?

The dizziness passed. She arranged her features into a smile that felt like an insipid simper, and, her skirts swishing, her hair scented with lavender, minced on down the steps to greet her betrothed.

Abruptly Shamur and Tazi were back in the foyer. The passage of time had done nothing to sweeten the smell of the gorgon's carcass.

"Damn it!" Tazi spat, kicking viciously as Rauthauvyr's head. The chiseled marble orb rolled clattering across the floor.

"My sentiments precisely," Shamur said. "Our first removal from the Garden could have been happenstance, but this time, there isn't any doubt. Guerren's magic was aware of us somehow, aware we intended to stop it, and it distanced us from the musicians to forestall our efforts."

"That's the way it looks to me, too," Tazi said. She strode to the door and opened it. The jungle was gone, and the turnaround and Selgaunt had returned. "Here's one bit of good luck, anyway. You could still go seek help, if you want to."

"Bugger that," said Shamur. "We can beat this thing by ourselv-" She realized Tazi was staring at her, and caught herself up short. "What I mean is, we might not have enough time left before the opera reaches the finale. Moreover, the way space is twisting and tearing, any rescuers might be unable to find their way into the Palace, and they might fall into a stupor or turn into snails if they did."

"All right, then," Tazi said, closing the door with a thump. "If we can't reach the floor of the amphitheater, what do we do?"

"Remember Quyance, the man who interrupted the Hulorn? He knew dire things would happen if the opera was performed. If we find him, perhaps he can tell us something useful."

Tazi frowned dubiously. "Don't you think the guards dragged him off to jail?"

"It's possible, but he seemed harmless. With Andeth and half the aristocracy to watch over, perhaps they simply locked him up somewhere on the premises for the time being. Let's take a look around."

They started toward a corridor, and Shamur once again felt the minimal traction between the slick soles of her slippers and the surface beneath. She hesitated for a second, then impatiently decided, to hell with it. "Bide a moment," she said. She pulled off the shoes, then used the edge of her broadsword to saw away her cumbersome skirt above the knees and slit the remainder of the garment up the sides.

Tazi watched for a moment, shaking her head, then proceeded to treat her own gown in similar fashion, though she held on to her shoes, which evidently had rougher bottoms. "Not that I'm complaining, but someday you'll have to tell me who you are and what you did with my real mother."

Shamur grinned. "I ate her."

As the two searched, the discordant music swelled louder, and they saw an occasional violet spark glittering here inside the building. Strange odors hung in the passages, and a torrent of water poured from midair, vanishing again before it could strike the floor. Armies of shadows battled on the walls of one of the sculpture galleries, and the conflict bathed the floor in real blood. Most disquietingly of all, Shamur periodically fancied she glimpsed another version of herself and another Tazi prowling along ahead of them, but the pair always slipped around a corner or through a doorway before she could be sure.

Trying not to let the phantasmagoria unsettle her, she kept an eye out for the unobtrusive service passages leading away from the viewing rooms and performance halls. For it was hardly likely that the soldiers had imprisoned an alleged lunatic in a chamber containing valuable works of art, or in any other place the Hulorn's guests were likely to visit.

Eventually the search led her and Tazi downstairs to the cellars. Here, mercifully, the wonders and anomalies seemed less abundant, though the music sounded as loudly as before.

Tazi tested the handle of a stout door reinforced with iron bands, found it locked, and rapped on it. On the other side, someone gave a wordless, gurgling cry.

The two women exchanged a glance, then kicked the door in unison. It banged in the frame, but held firm, and Shamur could tell that they could batter it for hours without effect.

Tazi gave her mother a sidelong, uncharacteristically diffident look. "I… may be able to do something here," she said. From the small, beaded pouch on her belt she removed a supple roll of chamois. When she opened it, it proved to contain a shining assortment of steel picks and probes, tucked through a series of loops to hold them in place.

Now it was Shamur's turn to stare at her companion in astonishment. She knew something of her daughter's wild and contrary ways, but still, was it possible? Tazi a thief, just as she herself had been? She supposed she ought to feel outrage, but the emotion wouldn't come, and she surprised both the girl and herself by bursting out laughing instead.

"Yes, get us in," she said. "And may Mask kiss your fingers."

Shamur saw with a wistful twinge of pride that Tazi's touch was as deft as her own had been. The lock, though relatively sophisticated, clicked and yielded in a trice. The older woman gave her daughter time to rise and ready her knife and long sword, then threw open the door.

Inside was a low-ceilinged cell, with shackles intended to secure a brace of prisoners to the far wall. Unfortunately, the power of Guerren Bloodquill's music had altered the nature of the chains. They started out from their mountings as lengths of metal links, but after a few inches turned into thick, lush-smelling green vines, grown and twisted together to become some sort of plant. In the center of the intricate tangle dangled the helplessly writhing form of Quyance, with pairs of serrated, fleshy leaves clamped around his limbs like jaws. Judging from the little man's raw skin and blisters, the leaves secreted a juice that was slowly digesting him alive.

Tazi exclaimed in disgust and hacked at the plant.

Three gaping, traplike sets of leaves shot out at her like striking adders. Shamur swung her sword and severed one of them, and the younger woman accounted for the other two.

Killing the plant proved to be far from easy. It had countless mouths with which to strike at its attackers and no obvious vital areas at which the women could aim their blows. Still, Shamur felt confident that she and Tazi would defeat it in time, because she assumed it couldn't pursue them when they found it expedient to retreat. It was, after all, rooted to the back wall, and probably to the floor as well.

Then it made a fool of her by lunging, its roots either stretching or ripping free of their moorings. Shamur pivoted toward the doorway but couldn't reach it in time. A wave of creaking, rattling foliage slammed into her and Tazi, shoving them against the wall.

The mass of the plant pressed all around Shamur, blinding, smothering. Pairs of leaves closed on her, soft but powerful, relentlessly stinging her with their acids and striving to immobilize her. Snarling, she cut at the thing over and over again.

Finally, it stopped moving.

"Mother?" Tazi gasped. "Are you all right?" From the sound of her voice, she was still only a yard of two away, but completely invisible inside the jumble of vines. These were already turning brown, and, from the stink of them, beginning to rot.

"I'm fine," Shamur said. "You?"

"The same, but that was close."

"Close calls are good for you," Shamur said. It was a remark she'd often made to other thieves and adventurers. "They get your blood pumping."

"Sometimes right out of your body," Tazi replied, "but I take your point."

With considerable effort, the women struggled clear of the plant, then turned their attention to Quyance, stripping away the leaves and coils of liana that bound him. To Shamur's relief, the little man wasn't burned as badly as she'd initially feared.

"Thank you," he whispered.

"You're welcome," Shamur said. "I wish we could take you directly to a healer as well, but we haven't time. We have to stop the opera, and we need your help. Exactly who are you, Master Quyance, and what do you know about what's going on?"

"I play the glaur," said Quyance, "and when the Hulorn was assembling his orchestra, he hired me. I was delighted to have the chance to participate in such a historic performance, even though I frankly couldn't understand why a master like Guerren Bloodquill had chosen to spend his talent on such a work. His genius was manifest in every phrase, but the effect was so unpleasant."

"We noticed," Tazi said.

Despite the pain of his injuries, the horn player gave her a wry little smile. "Actually, we didn't have inanimate objects turning into man-eating plants during rehearsal. Still, odd things did happen. Stacks of boxes falling. A rack of costumes catching fire. A rat dancing on its hind legs. A layer of frost in a hallway. And Bors the drummer-strong, young, healthy-keeled over dead. His heart just stopped for no reason at all.

"Given Guerren's sinister reputation," Quyance continued, "I suspected that the music was responsible. I told the Hulorn of my concerns, but if anything, my report made him more eager than ever to have the work performed. I didn't entirely understand him, but he seemed to believe that the opera might contain an arcane message sent down the ages from Bloodquill specifically to himself. A communication that would lead him to some mysterious 'destiny.'"

"Ah, yes, Andeth's destiny," Shamur said. She and Tazi lifted Quyance clear of the dead plant and helped him to a bench in the corner. "He's been seeking it for years, with never a clue as to what it will involve. Though I think we can rule out wise decisions and responsible governance."

"Well, when I persisted in my objections, he discharged me," Quyance said, "and before I left the palace, I purloined a copy of the score. I'm not merely a performer, you see." He drew himself up a little straighten "I'm also an initiate of Milil and a scholar of music in both its exoteric and esoteric aspects. I hoped that if I studied the opera, consulting the texts I've collected over the years, I might find out exactly what was going on with it, and I felt I had a duty to attempt precisely that."

"What did you come up with?" Tazi asked.

"Something more terrible than I could have dreamed. Guerren wove a sort of ritual into the score, which, when it reached its conclusion, would create a permanent region of primal chaos here on the earthly plane."

As a rebellious scapegrace of a girl, Shamur had seldom cared to study, but, gifted with intelligence and a good memory, she'd often assimilated her lessons more or less despite herself. Now she recalled her philosophy tutor explaining that on those levels of reality where chaos, a fundamental force of the cosmos, reigned unchecked by the counterbalancing principle of law, all things were possible, and therefore, nothing was stable or permanent. Under such conditions, human life could not long endure.

"Why in the name of the Abyss would he want do that?" she asked.

Quyance dredged up another weary little smile. "Well, the tales do say that he was mad. But perhaps it was intended as a weapon. You make your enemy a gift of the opera, he has it staged, and it destroys him. In any case, it was only tonight that I finally discerned its purpose. I raced back here, slipped in through a side entrance… but you know the rest."

"How big a region of chaos are we talking about?" Tazi asked, restlessly toying with her knife.

"I can't be altogether certain," Quyance said, "but I think it might engulf the entire city."

A chill oozed up Shamur's spine, and the music jangling in the air seemed to laugh at her. She pushed horror to the back of her mind and forced herself to concentrate on practicalities. "There's one thing I still don't understand. During rehearsal, you people must have performed the opera from start to finish. Why didn't the ritual take effect then?"

"It draws power from starlight," the little musician said. "That's why Guerren specified that it be performed outdoors at night. We always rehearsed inside, to avoid the winter cold."

"The important question," Tazi said, "is how do we stop it? The difficulty is that it senses we're trying, and every time we approach the performers, the magic grabs us and flings us back here."

Quyance shook his head. "I'm afraid I have no idea."

"Perhaps I do," Shamur said. "Tazi, we saw the violet sparks filling the amphitheater, and spilling out across the grass, like a ground fog. And when we descended into the cellar, we didn't find as many oddities down here."

"The plant was a fairly impressive oddity," the black-haired girl replied, "but still, you're right."

"Doesn't all that suggest that the magic is most potent at ground level? Conceivably most aware at ground level? Perhaps it we came at it from above, we could sneak up on it."

Tazi frowned. "Maybe, but I can't imagine that buying us more than a second."

"What if we used that second to sap a measure of its power? Then it might not have the ability to displace us."

Shamur told the girl the specifics of her plan.

Tazi grinned. "It sounds completely harebrained to me. Let's do it."

They hastily made Quyance as comfortable as possible, then returned to the ground floor, where they discovered that in their absence the chambers and corridors had rearranged themselves into a veritable labyrinth. At last they found their way back to the foyer.

Here they yanked down one of the tapestries-a panorama of life in Selgaunt, with merchants trading, watermen ferrying passengers and cargo about the harbor, beggars begging, and the like-and cut it into manageable, blanket-sized pieces, which they then rolled and secured to their backs with strips of fabric. Shamur wondered fleetingly just how many hundreds or thousands of fivestars the hanging had been worth.

Considerably less than the entire city, one could be certain.

"I intended to find one of the staircases that would take us to the roof," she said, "but given the alterations to the interior of the building, that could take hours even if they still exist. It makes more sense to go up the outside." She smiled at Tazi. "Given your facility with a lockpick, I suspect you know how to climb."

The girl blinked. "Ah… yes. But do you?"

"I'll race you to the top."

The two women hastened out the door, then started up the wall beside it. Ridges in the stonework bit into Shamur's bare feet, but the discomfort was a small price to pay for the pleasure of conquering a vertical surface in the dead of night, and she almost wished the ascent could be more of a challenge. Thanks to the Hulorn's abominable taste and the excess of ornamentation it had produced, she found easy hand- and toeholds nearly every inch of the way.

"I've been thinking about what you said," Tazi remarked, climbing along beside her, just the slightest hint of exertion in her voice.

"What?"

"That we shouldn't go for help, because the music might just put any newcomers to sleep, or turn them into snails. How do we know it isn't going to turn us into snails before we're through?"

"We don't," Shamur said. "That's part of the fun." She grasped the black marble balustrade of a balcony. For a moment it felt like solid stone, but when she trusted her weight to it and started to pull herself up, it turned to mush in her fingers, and she fell.

Tazi cried out. Shamur glimpsed the ground four stories below, waiting to smash her plummeting body to pulp. She clutched desperately at the wall and grabbed a fragile bit of cinquefoil molding. It crumbled, and she dropped once more. Certain it was her last chance, she snatched for the narrow protuberance at the top of a cornice.

To her own surprise, she managed to catch and hold on to it. Her momentum dashed her against the wall, and there she clung, heart pounding, her fingers with their torn nails and her wrenched arms and shoulders throbbing.

Tazi peered down at her, then asked, "Was that part of the fun, too?"

Shamur grinned, made a lewd gesture at her, and, once she'd caught her breath, climbed upward again.

The Uskevren women reached the roof without further mishaps. An expanse of fish-scale tile studded with chimney stacks and spires, it rose and fell with a confusion of domes, gables, hips, and pitches.

Shamur rotated her shoulders and swung her arms, trying to work the soreness out. Tiles groaned and rattled. She turned, her hand dropping to the hilt of her broadsword, and a warrior whose immobile face, hauberk, and greatsword were all made of pale stone lumbered stiffly from the darkness. She drew her blade*****

The lantern in his upraised hand, Thamalon peered about the benighted forest clearing. Standing behind him, Shamur silently lifted her skirt and removed the broadsword she'd concealed beneath it. It would have been simplicity itself to drive the blade between her husband's broad shoulders, but that had never been her way. Besides, she wanted to watch his face as he breathed his last.

"All right," he said, puzzlement in his voice, "where is this marvel you insisted I must see?"

"In my hand," she replied.

He turned, and his brows-still black, unlike the snowy hair on his head-knit when he beheld the weapon. "Is this a joke?" he asked.

"Far from it," she replied. "I recommend you draw and do your level best to kill me, because I certainly intend to kill you."

"I know you haven't loved me for a long while," he said, "if indeed you ever did. But still, why would you wish me dead?"

"Because I know," she said.

He shook his head. "I don't understand, and I don't believe you truly do either, you're ill and confused. Consider what you're doing. You have no idea how to wield a sword. Even if we did fight-"

She deftly cut him on the cheek. "Draw, old serpent. Draw, or die like a sheep at the butcher's."

For an instant he stared in amazement at her manifest skill with her weapon. Then he stepped back and reached for the hilt of his long sword.

Something slammed into Shamur and knocked her staggering along the edge of the roof. One heel came down on empty air, and the weight of the rolled pieces of tapestry on her back tried its best to drag her over into space, but with a convulsive effort, she managed to throw herself forward onto the tiles.

She realized that, transfixed by her vision, she'd frozen, and Tazi had had to give her a push to keep her away from the stone warrior. She pivoted back toward the confrontation.

Smiling, Tazi advanced and retreated with such surefooted panache that one might almost have imagined she was fencing on the level floor of a training hall, not fighting on an incline where any loss of balance could result in a fatal fall. Her adversary crept after her clumsily. Guerren Bloodquill's music had granted it a sort of life, but here so high above the ground, not to the same degree as the gorgon. It hadn't transmuted the creature's substance into flesh.

Unfortunately, that very fact rendered Tazi's long sword all but useless. It rang and rebounded without leaving a scratch, or at least none large enough to see by moonlight. Meanwhile, other animate rainspouts and statues, some in the form of humans and others bestial, were converging on the scene. Once they surrounded the girl, her superior agility would no longer suffice to keep her safe from harm.

Shamur sprang up and rushed the stone warrior, who turned and swung his sword in a sweeping horizontal cut. She dived beneath the blow and rammed into him, wrestling him backward until he toppled over the edge of the drop.

She nearly went with him but caught herself in time. He shattered on the ground below with a satisfying crash.

"Don't bother to deny that you nodded off on me that last time," said Tazi, a little out of breath.

"Well, perhaps for a moment," said Shamur. "Our friend there advanced on me so slowly, I got bored."

The two women scrambled up the roof. Meanwhile, the stone noose around them tightened, the gaps between the living statues closing one by one until, Shamur observed, none remained.

"All right, then we'll break out," she said. "Help me pull down the fox." The statue in question was an anthropomorphic character from a fable, walking on two legs and clad in a foppish doublet and plumed hat. He carried a yarting in his hand, brandishing the stringed musical instrument like a war club.

The Uskevren women sprang at the fox, and, narrowly dodging both a swing of the yarting and the attacks of the figures on either side, grabbed him, dumped him on his upturned nose, and ran over him. Glancing back, Shamur saw the statues awkwardly turning to pursue. A couple lost their balance, toppled, and rolled rumbling down the roof.

Now that she was no longer in immediate peril, she wondered at her last vision. It certainly hadn't been an episode from her past. Was it possible it had been a glimpse of the future?

No, of course not, because the Thamalon in the glade had spoken the truth. She'd never loved him. Sometimes she'd felt that she despised him. But certainly never enough to kill him, the head of her house and the father of her children. Surely the experience had only been a meaningless phantasm.

Better to forget it, then, and concentrate on the task at hand. The mob of statuary was still hunting her and Tazi, and similar menaces shambled through the darkness ahead. Silently darting and freezing, availing themselves of the cover provided by the complex topography of the roof, mother and daughter managed to make their way toward the Hunting Garden unseen, even when they passed so near their foes that they could have reached out and touched them. Shamur grinned. She'd always enjoyed a good, perilous game of hide-and-seek.

Her pleasure shriveled when the music swelled. Bizarre as the chords and rhythms were, she, who had sat through hundreds of operas, could nonetheless discern that the performance was building toward a climax and she and Tazi were running out of time.

"Come on!" she whispered. "We have to hurry!" She strode forward. Something hissed, and the tiles gave way between her feet, creating a crater three yards across. She toppled helplessly forward until Tazi grabbed her, and, with a grunt, yanked her back to safety on the rim.

The hissing continued. Looking about, Shamur saw that holes were spontaneously opening all across the roof, with no discernible pattern and in such abundance that one could easily believe the whole surface might disintegrate in a matter of minutes.

"I never thought I'd say this," Tazi remarked, "but I may have had enough excitement for one evening. I'm ready for this chore to get easier."

If one of the holes opened directly beneath the women and dropped them down inside the Palace, they'd suffer broken bones at the very least. Before they resumed moving, they needed to discover some sort of warning sign that a given section of tiles was about to collapse. Finally, after several seconds of scrutiny, Shamur observed a subtle shimmering, nearly indistinguishable from the gleam of moonlight, which seemed to presage dissolution.

"Follow me!" she said.

Leaping, zigzagging, and backtracking as necessary, she and Tazi managed to avoid the yawning craters, but it was impossible to do that and keep away from the living statues at the same time. They had to rely on pure speed and agility to see them safely past their enemies. Sometimes these barely sufficed. An alabaster harpy with gilded wings clawed at Shamur, ripping her gown at the shoulder and lightly scoring the flesh beneath.

At last, when so much of the roof had already collapsed that the remainder resembled a spider's web, the Uskevren women reached the eastern edge. Without breaking stride, they leaped into space, grabbed branches of two of the nearest trees, and hauled themselves onto secure perches. A stone axeman clumping along in pursuit stared after them in seeming frustration, then dropped from sight when the tiles eroded beneath him.

Shamur looked down and gasped in dismay. The cloud of violet sparks was brighter than ever, and it was pulsing like a living thing, extruding arms of light and pulling them in again. She suspected that in another minute or so the tendrils would stop withdrawing. The mass would expand and expand until it drowned all Selgaunt in death and madness.

Recklessly, for there was no longer time for even a modicum of caution, she and Tazi scrambled through the treetops like squirrels, working their way to the limbs that overhung the front of the amphitheater. Once in position, they unslung the rolls of tapestry from their backs, spread them, and dropped them over certain of the singers and instrumentalists below. If the gods were kind, the squares of cloth, by cutting the performers off from the starlight, would so weaken the magic that it could no longer fling the interlopers away.

Tazi jumped down among the orchestra and started wresting the players' instruments from their grips. Shamur leaped onto the stage and moved to club the singers with the flat of her blade.

She silenced a tenor, then a mezzo-soprano, and still Bloodquill's sorcery hadn't displaced her. Tazi was right, she thought, grinning, it's a daft scheme, but by Mask, it's working!

Then a portion of the cloud spiraled high into the air, coalescing into a vaguely manlike form. The giant raised its huge, luminous fist, and she stood motionless, sneering, daring it to attack. Its hand plummeted, and she sprang aside. Despite the spark creature's insubstantial appearance, the blow shook the ground. She kept her feet, and, before the colossus could poise itself to attack again, she clubbed a member of the chorus who was just floundering clear of a section of tapestry.

Shamur repeated the same maneuver several times, until at last, when she and Tazi had silenced the majority of the performers, the giant's form dissolved. Though Shamur didn't feel any wind, the violet sparks whirled like dust caught in a cyclone, then guttered out. The few musicians who were still playing stumbled to a ragged halt. With the glowing cloud and the music gone, the night seemed profoundly dark and quiet.

"Yes!" Shamur crowed, swinging the broadsword over her head. "Yes, yes, yes!"

She saw the people in front of her blinking, shifting, shaking off their collective stupor. She saw Gundar in the front row and realized that her old scar was clearly visible through the tear in her sleeve. In a moment, the dwarf was bound to notice it, and he'd know she was the same woman who'd robbed him so many years ago.

It was imperative that she prevent such a discovery, and yet…

She'd denied her true nature for a quarter of a century. Wasn't that enough? If fate had chosen to release her from her dreary masquerade, then fine, let it end!

She stood paralyzed, suspended between duty and desire. Gundar gave his head a shake, rubbed his eyes, and began to turn his head in her direction. Then a layer of cloth settled on her shoulders.

Surprised, she looked about, and saw that Tazi had wrapped her in one of the sections of tapestry. "Somehow I could tell that you didn't want anyone to see your scar," the younger woman murmured.

Shamur drew a deep breath, steadying herself. "Actually, I didn't want people to see all the bare flesh showing through what remains of my clothing," she lied. "But thank you."

In the hours that followed, Shamur discovered that most of the aristocrats and lesser folk in the Palace and Garden had survived their ordeal with bodies and minds intact. Many of the changes wrought by the opera had reversed themselves when the music was interrupted. As she lingered in the foyer, which now served as a makeshift first-aid clinic, making sure that Quyance received proper care and credit for his help, Shamur realized how lucky she was that Tazi had covered her scar. Intoxicated with victory, she hadn't been thinking clearly, but now she knew she had no choice but to continue her imposture. Thamalon could still ruin the Karns. Moreover, if he disowned her, he could likewise have her children declared illegitimate, remarry, and start a new family. Sune knew, the old satyr was still capable of it, even in the winter of his life, and he'd made no secret of the fact that he was sorely disappointed in his heirs.

She was equally fortunate that her fellow aristocrats had sat stupefied while she and Tazi battled Guerren's magic. They recognized in a muddled way that the Uskevren ladies had disrupted the spell but had no idea that they'd needed the abilities of accomplished swordsmen and thieves to do so.

Oh, yes, she'd been lucky all the way around. Why, then, did she feel so empty and cold?

Tazi brought her an inlaid silver goblet of mulled wine. "All right," the black-haired woman said. "Things have settled down, and if we speak softly, no one will overhear us. Tell me."

Shamur arched an eyebrow. "I don't know what you mean."

Tazi gaped at her. "You aren't still going to pretend that no one ever taught you to fight, or climb, or-"

"I assure you, no one did. As I explained before, I simply did the best I could in a crisis."

"Mother, please don't do this. Don't go back to being that starched, frozen creature you were before. I can't believe you truly want to."

"I want to behave as befits my station in life. So should everyone. Indeed, I'd like you to forget all about my undignified behavior. Just as, I imagine, you'd prefer that I not inquire further into your facility with a lockpick. Nor mention it to your father."

Tazi looked as if she couldn't decide whether to laugh or fly into a rage. "That's blackmail."

"If you like."

"Very well," Tazi said, glowering. "I won't talk about tonight anymore. Not even to you, if that's what you want. But I won't forget. I liked you tonight, Mother. I liked you and I was proud of you."

Shamur felt the ice around her heart thaw a little. "I'm proud of you, too," she said, "even if I don't say so very often." She glanced across the chamber and saw Andeth's chamberlain handing the bandaged Quyance a purse. "Let's find the carriage and go home."