The Wyvern's Spur

18 Mother Lleddew’s Tale

From the Journal of Giogioni Wyvernspur:

Giogi laid his quill down on the desk and put his head in his hands. While he shared Olive Ruskettle’s thirst for justice and had no intention of backing down on his promise to do all he could to help her, he felt uncertain that he could really bring himself to use the spur.

There had to be something bad about the artifact if Aunt Dorath believed it to be cursed. Moreover, the fact that a wizard as evil as Flattery desired its power for his own did not bode well concerning the nature of that power. Hopefully Mother Lleddew could shed light on the mystery of the spur—perhaps on Flattery as well—as soon as she recovered from her wounds sufficiently to speak.

Olive sat all alone in the dining room of Giogi’s townhouse, wolfing down tea and crumpets. Giogi was in the parlor, scribbling in his journal. Cat was still changing into something clean. And Mother Lleddew, who had shaken off her bear shape before they’d arrived home, was still resting in the guest room.

The halfling leaned back and sighed with satisfaction. After helping Mother Lleddew to her room, Olive had managed to present Giogi with a brilliant explanation for having the spur and for giving it to Cat. It was an explanation that not only concealed her own ignorance of the spur’s appearance but convinced Giogi that her motives were completely noble. Cat hadn’t seemed too pleased with her story, but it had satisfied Giogi completely.

The door to the hallway opened, and Mother Lleddew stood on the threshold. With her massive frame, thick black hair, taut muscles, and shy eyes, her human appearance was still rather bearlike. She wore only her brown shift and leather sandals, but the dirt had been brushed from them, and as a further concession to society she’d tied her mane of hair back with a ribbon.

Few people could make Giogi’s house look small the way she does, Olive thought. The priestess walked stiffly into the room, though—not as spry as she’d been when engaged in combat. It was obvious that, despite the power her were-nature granted her, Mother Lleddew was a very old woman. Her face appeared all the more drawn and haggard for the wrinkles in it, and she twitched from aches and twinges in her muscles. She could heal the injuries she’d received in battle, but she would never recover from the ravages of time.

Alerted by the sound of the priestess’s tread, Thomas bustled into the dining room from the kitchen. “Master Giogioni asks that you not wait on his account, Your Grace,” the servant said as he pulled out a chair for the priestess.

Mother Lleddew sat and held her hands in her lap until Thomas finished pouring the tea. She dolloped honey into her drink and stirred it very carefully, sneaking a look at Olive, then back at her tea without speaking.

Finally, after a fourth furtive glance, she spoke. “I’m pleased to meet you at last, Olive Ruskettle,” she said. Her voice was almost too soft to hear. “Sudacar tells me you sing a song about Selûne.”

“Um, yes,” Olive answered with surprise. “The Tears of Selûne. A friend of mine wrote it.”

“The Shard said it’s been too long since it was sung in the Realms.”

“It’s sung other places than the Realms?” Olive asked.

“Other Shards sing it for Selûne.”

“Really?” Olive’s head swam. The Harpers ban all of Nameless’s music for centuries, and the gods listen to it anyway, she thought with amusement. Nameless would be pleased to hear that. Then again, that could be just a little too much for his ego to handle.

“My friend probably wrote that song here in Immersea,” the halfling told the priestess. “He was a Wyvernspur, you see.”

Mother Lleddew held her teacup with both hands and sipped slowly, keeping her eyes on the drink. She kept glancing at Olive without speaking.

At first, the halfling thought Lleddew just couldn’t think of anything to say and wondered if she shouldn’t try to carry the conversation herself. It dawned on Olive after a few minutes, though, that Lleddew was a little like Dragonbait, the Saurial paladin. He didn’t need words to communicate and could judge people by their silences, too. So Olive just smiled and bit into another biscuit the next time she caught the priestess looking at her.

Giogi came in with Cat on his arm. He was decked out in a tabard bearing his family coat of arms, a green wyvern on a field of yellow, and the small platinum headpiece around his forehead. Cat wore a green silk gown. The gown would not lace tight enough to fit her shapely form, so the mage had wrapped a yellow sash around her waist.

The couple’s color coordination did not bode well, to Olive’s way of thinking. Giogi was letting himself in for a lot of heartache. She thought of the nobleman’s ironic insistence that he would want to know if a woman he was involved with was “not so capital.”

The mage looked happy beside the nobleman, but anyone who could take one of Flattery’s blows calmly would have to be a superior actress. Olive wondered which had more to do with Cat’s returning the spur to Giogi, his kindness and generosity or fear of returning to Flattery.

Giogi bowed very deeply to Mother Lleddew.

“Giogioni, it is good to see you,” the priestess said. “I feared once that I might never see you again.”

Giogi rose and flushed. “I regret not having come to visit you before,” he stammered.

Mother Lleddew looked curiously at Cat, the priestess’s head tilted to one side in expectation.

“Allow me to present the mage Cat of Ordulin, Your Grace,” Giogi said.

Cat curtsied low and looked up at Mother Lleddew with wide-eyed awe. Olive couldn’t help but remember how Alias thought of all priests as fools. Did Cat think differently, or was this a display for Giogi’s sake?

The priestess motioned for both young people to be seated. “How is your Aunt Dorath?” Mother Lleddew asked.

“Um, fine,” Giogi answered with some surprise. He pulled a chair out for Cat to sit, then seated himself. When he looked up again at the priestess, she still had an expectant look in her eyes, so he continued. “She’s seems overjoyed to be a great-grandaunt. She likes taking care of the baby, apparently.”

The priestess nodded. “Poor Dorath,” she whispered, looking down at her teacup.

“I didn’t know you even knew my aunt.”

“We were very close once,” Mother Lleddew said. “Her mother and I adventured together.”

“Great-grandmother Eswip was an adventurer?” Giogi gasped.

“Oh, yes. Perhaps, Master Giogioni, I should start my tale in the middle. The beginning is very interesting, and just as sad, but it is the middle and the end of the tale that Flattery does not wish you to know. He has nearly exhausted his forces of undead trying to keep you from meeting with me. Now that we have overcome those obstacles, I should tell my tale without further delay.”

“You know about Flattery?” Giogi asked.

“Not just about him, Giogioni. I know him. I watched him kill your father.”

Giogi turned pale and clenched his fists. Cat looked numb.

Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me in the least, Olive thought, remembering the scorched portrait in the carriage house, and how Flattery had screamed, “Curse them all!” meaning all Wyvernspurs.

Since no one spoke, Mother Lleddew began the middle of her tale. “When your father first learned he could use the power of the spur,” she said, “he announced to me his intention to go adventuring to find a fortune that would finish the temple his grandmother and I had begun. I was too old by then to go tramping about the countryside bashing monsters, but Cole would go whether I joined him or not, and for the love I had for his grandmother, I agreed to accompany him. I thought I would be keeping him from harm.” Lleddew chuckled at the irony of her intentions.

“Your father didn’t want keeping from harm, though,” she said with a grin. “With the spur’s power, he was nearly indestructible. We spent a summer season in Gnoll Pass—that was long before His Majesty started building Castle Crag to station the Purple Dragoons. When we finally returned to Immersea, we were carrying enough wealth to embed diamonds in the ceiling of the House of Selûne.”

“But what was the spur’s power?” Giogi asked.

“Dorath would not let Drone tell you even this, would she?”

“Tell me what? Please, tell me,” Giogi asked.

“Each generation the guardian chooses a favorite,” Mother Lleddew explained. “The favorites can use the spur to shape-shift into the form of a wyvern. A very large wyvern.”

“A wyvern. My father could turn into a wyvern. You mean he fought as—as a wyvern?”

“Of course,” Cat said to herself. “Wyverns can fly. It’s a wyvern’s spur.”

“But why did Flattery go to so much trouble to keep me from meeting you and learning that?” Giogi asked.

“It is the rest of my story that Flattery did not wish you to hear,” Mother Lleddew explained.

“Oh, sorry. Please, continue,” Giogi said.

“The next spring, your father went out again, but, having seen him in action, I did not feel a need to accompany him. He could take care of himself. He built himself a reputation throughout Cormyr, though he kept his wyvern form a secret for the most part. He might have traveled further and grown more famous, but he met and married your mother at the end of his second summer season, and he did not like to leave her for long. He only left Immersea to accomplish such services in Cormyr as the crown requested of him.

“Then, one day, fourteen years ago, late in the fall, after your father had returned home from a summer journey, a small tribe of elves passed through Immersea. They were refugees from a settlement in the Border Forest. A terrible wizard had come out of Anauroch, the Great Desert, and stolen their riches, destroyed their city, and enslaved many of their people.

“When these elves saw your father, they went mad with hatred and attacked him. They mistook him for the wizard, you see. Of course, your father’s companions restrained them and convinced them after much arguing that he was not this evil mage.

“Cole realized, however, that the wizard must be a lost Wyvernspur. The family honor was at stake, so he thought, and he swore he would set things right, vanquish this wizard, and return what had been stolen to the elves. Two of the elves agreed to guide him back to their homeland and lead him to the wizard’s fortress.

“Your mother had many horrible premonitions. Just for him to be traveling in the fall and winter was dangerous enough. That he was planning to attack a powerful wizard drove her to distraction. When she could not talk him out of it, she begged me to accompany him.

“There were nine of us, including your father and the elves. We made good time to Shadow Gap and beat the snows. The people of Daggerdale were most inhospitable, so we pressed on quickly through that land as well. At length, we reached the Border Forest and the elven settlement.

“Our elven guides, and indeed all of us, wished we had never seen the remains of the elvish city. Flattery had turned all the enslaved elves into zombies and left them in the city to guard it as an outpost of his desert kingdom.

“The Wyvernspur family resemblance was our greatest asset. Mistaking Cole for their new master, the undead let us pass through the city unharmed. Thus we approached Flattery’s fortress unheralded.

“The fortress was only half the size of Immersea, but its walls were twice as high as Suzail’s. Only Flattery lived within, waited upon by undead. Cole deceived the zombies at the gate as easily as the ones in the elvish city, so we were able to enter Flattery’s stronghold and destroy many of his servants before he was even aware of our presence.

“We cornered the wizard alone, and Cole demanded to know Flattery’s father’s name. Flattery laughed and declared his father would remain nameless unless Cole agreed to single combat. Cole accepted, engaging the power of the spur to change his shape and taking to the air. The sun had not yet risen, but we could watch the battle in the early dawn light.”

When the priestess paused for a moment, Olive took the opportunity to interrupt with a question. “Excuse me, Mother Lleddew. Was that the exact phrase Flattery used—his father would remain nameless?”

Mother Lleddew nodded. “Yes. An odd choice of words, isn’t it?” she asked.

Quick on the uptake, Giogi asked, “Mistress Ruskettle, are you thinking of the Nameless Bard you mentioned in your tale about Alias?”

Olive nodded, but waved her hand to defer any more of Giogi’s questions. “Let Mother Lleddew continue her story. Sorry for the interruption, Mother Lleddew,” she said.

The priestess nodded and launched into a description of the battle between Flattery and Giogi’s father. “Flattery first cast a lightning bolt at Cole, but the shot went wide. Then Flattery cast a wall of fire in the air, but Cole easily evaded it. The mage attempted a third spell as Cole swooped down upon him, but it had no effect that any of us could discern. You see, in addition to transforming Cole into a wyvern, the spur made him immune to magic cast against him.

“Cole snatched the wizard from the ground and flew high, stinging and biting Flattery until the wizard ceased his struggling. It looked as if Cole had won, but then …”

Mother Lleddew closed her eyes as if she could shut out the sight of what she had already seen. “As Cole flew back toward us, a black cloud drifted toward him, moving against the wind. By the time we noticed its strange movements and shape, it was too late for Cole.

“The cloud was a pack of wraiths, fifteen or twenty in number. They may have been acting on their own, but I believe Flattery summoned them, and in doing so broke the rules of single combat. Whichever is the truth, the wraiths fell upon Cole as a single body. Your father shrieked from their icy, life-draining touch and dropped the wizard.

“I invoked Selûne to turn the undead away from your father. The wraiths fled, though possibly it was the swift sunrise that sent them away and not I.

“Cole was very weak when he landed, but he began to search for Flattery’s body at once. None of us had seen the wizard land.

“Then Cole was challenged from above by a sky-blue dragon. Since his magic could not directly harm Cole, Flattery had taken a shape that could. Cole took to the sky again.

“With all the wounds the wizard had taken in the first combat, and from the awkward way Flattery fought, we did not think he would win. But the wraiths had drained more of Cole’s energy than we’d realized. Still, the battle seemed evenly matched, until another set of Flattery’s minions interfered.

“Ju-ju zombies, more powerful than most, fired upon Cole with crossbows. Our party’s mage cast a fireball at the undead, obliterating them before they could get off a second round.

“It was hard to see the blue dragon against the sky. He dove on Cole, and they fell earthward, tearing one another apart. At the last moment, they parted. Flattery soared off, badly wounded, but Cole crashed to the ground.”

Mother Lleddew brushed tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. Giogi tried to swallow the lump in his throat. The priestess finished her tale.

“Flattery did not return to his city, nor did we find his body. We were sure, though, that if he was not dead, he was so grievously wounded that he had fled for his life.

“Cole was dead. I would have carried his body home myself, on my own back, but he did not change back to human form at death, as a lycanthrope would. We did not know how to change him back and had no way to transport a wyvern’s corpse. We had to send for Drone. We waited ten days and nights for him to arrive.”

“What did Uncle Drone do?” Giogi asked.

“It was so simple, I was a fool not to have thought of it,” Mother Lleddew said, shaking her head, “but it was also ghastly.”

“What?” Giogi repeated.

“He sliced off the wyvern’s right spur. It transformed back into the mummified spur, and Cole returned to his human form.”

Giogi felt a little nauseated. Poor Uncle Drone—having to do such a gruesome thing. Of course, only Uncle Drone could have thought of that.

“I’m not sure that I want to know, but I suppose I ought to,” the nobleman said with a glance at Olive. “How did my father make the spur work?”

“I’m not sure. He kept it in his boot, and whenever he needed to change, he would concentrate on it.”

“Pardon me, sir,” Thomas interrupted, “but you don’t have the spur in your boot, do you?”

“Why, yes,” Giogi said, patting his right calf, “it’s right here beside the finder’s stone. Why do you ask?”

“I might recommend that you avoid thinking about wyverns until you step outside. Perhaps, just to be on the safe side, you might want to leave the spur on the table for the duration of the discussion. A transformation in the house might be a trifle uncomfortable.”

Giogi slid the spur from his boot and laid it beside his plate. “Good thinking, Thomas,” he said. “I’d be the proverbial wyvern in an alchemist shop, eh?”

“Precisely, sir.”

Giogi covered the spur with his napkin. The very idea of transforming into something else, even out-of-doors, where there was plenty of room, frightened him. It would be awful, he thought, having wings instead of arms and a horrible stinging tail, loaded with poison, and scales all over one’s body. How could Cole have done it?

“Pardon me, Mother Lleddew,” Olive asked. “But you said you traveled with Giogi’s great-grandmother. She didn’t happen to use the spur as well?”

“Yes, she did. That’s the beginning of the tale. Lady Eswip’s father was Lord Gould the Third. He’d used the spur himself, but he had no son and Lady Eswip proved to be the guardian’s favorite. She married her Cousin Bender Wyvernspur, who inherited the family title from his Uncle Gould. They had two sons, Grever and Fortney, and a daughter, Dorath. The guardian didn’t care for the boys. She chose Dorath as her favorite.”

“Dorath, I take it, did not reciprocate her affection,” Olive guessed.

“No,” the priestess said, shaking her head. “Eswip died in combat when Dorath was still a young girl. Dorath resented the loss of her mother. Years later, the season Dorath was introduced at court, some haughty fools snubbed her. They called her the beast’s daughter. When His Majesty heard about it, he had the idiots banned—Rhigaerd was always sensitive to a pretty girl’s tears—but the damage had already been done. No matter that twelve generations of Wyvernspurs before her had won the crown’s gratitude protecting Cormyr as wyverns. Dorath perceived the spur’s powers as something vulgar and depraved and, of course, the reason her mother had died.”

“That’s why she didn’t want anyone to know about them,” Giogi said. “Why the story of the spur passed out of the Wyvernspur family.”

“Worse than that,” the priestess said, “that’s why she never married. She struggled for years to resist the guardian’s call to use the spur. It was not easy. She believed the “curse,” as she called it, would be passed down to one of her children, like lycanthropy, so she swore to have no children. I could not convince her of her folly. We argued, and she stopped visiting the House of the Lady. She said my advice was tainted because of my were-nature. It must have come as a tremendous blow to her when she learned that the guardian took her Nephew Cole as the next favorite. She blamed the guardian for Cole’s death, and Drone for helping the guardian.”

Mother Lleddew rose from the table. “I’ve told you all I know. I must be getting back to the temple.”

“Alone? But won’t it be dangerous?” Giogi objected.

“The Shard should have finished clearing away all the undead by now,” the priestess said.

“Flattery could return and drop some more from that cloud,” Giogi pointed out.

The priestess shook her head. “Flattery will waste no more energy on me. It is you he fears. You have the spur, you can wield its power, and now I have told you that he murdered your father. Now you know that your father would have destroyed Flattery with the spur if the wizard had not cheated in combat.”

“So Giogi stands a chance, too,” Olive said.

Mother Lleddew nodded. “Remember, though, that Cole was a tried and experienced fighter in the wyvern shape. I would not suggest issuing a challenge without practice.”

Giogioni had no comment about fighting Flattery as a wyvern. The idea left him numb.

“I must leave now, Giogioni,” Mother Lleddew insisted. “I have a memorial service to prepare for your uncle. Selûne smile upon you.”

Giogi snapped out of his daze and rose to his feet. He scooped up the spur and escorted the priestess from the room. Thomas followed.

“Well, well,” Olive said when the dining room door had closed behind them.

“Mistress Ruskettle,” Cat said, with a challenging tone to her voice, “there are still some things I don’t quite understand.”

“I’ll do my best to explain them to you” Olive offered helpfully, secretly praying to Tymora that she could.

“I knew you would,” Cat said with just a hint of sassiness. “Well, first, if your partner Jade had the spur, why did she go to the trouble of picking Flattery’s pocket to see if he had it?”

“Obviously so I wouldn’t suspect she had it,” Olive replied. “She had hinted that she had something to tell me, but that someone else had sworn her to secrecy until it was all over. I presume the someone was Drone. I wish she had trusted me with her little family secret. She might still be alive.”

Cat drummed her fingers impatiently on the table. She couldn’t help feeling that there was something this halfling was keeping from her. Anxious to catch her in some falsehood, Cat launched into her next question. “If I can’t be detected magically or scried, how come the divination Steele had done led him straight to my pocket?”

“Oh, but it didn’t,” Olive explained. “Steele had the divination done yesterday. It told him the spur was in the little ass’s pocket. I know, because I was keeping tabs on Steele as well as Flattery. You didn’t have the spur yesterday.”

“You did,” Cat recalled. She remained suspicious of whatever excuse the halfling would make.

“Yes. The divination told Steele the spur was in my pocket.” Olive worked her brain overtime. Cat must not suspect she was Birdie. She had to explain why the divination had called her a little ass. “You see, I was—I am,” Olive said it more firmly, “Little Ass. It’s my code name among the Harpers. Fortunately, Steele doesn’t know me or my code name. I presume Waukeen chose not to reveal to him where the spur was, so the divination was as obtuse as possible.”

“And what was your partner Jade’s code name?” Cat asked disbelievingly. “The Gold Dragon?”

“Silver Spoon,” Olive snapped, looking up from the tea set. She reached again into Jade’s magic pouch and pulled out the silver spoon she’d noticed that morning. She laid the spoon on the table. “Her trademark,” Olive said.

Cat picked up the spoon. “J.W. Jade what?” she asked.

“Wyvernspur, of course. As I told you, she was a Wyvernspur like you, though she went more commonly as Jade More. She liked to keep her true identity a secret.” Olive spoke with confidence, but to herself she wondered, What was Jade doing with a silver spoon with her initials on it—was it a gift from Drone?

Cat looked down at the table, a little less certain that the halfling had been lying to her. “Mistress Ruskettle, about that crystal you saw Jade steal from Flattery—the one as dark as a new moon? Are you sure it was destroyed? You didn’t tell me that just to be sure I wouldn’t go back to Flattery, did you?”

Olive searched Cat’s eager face. The mage wanted that crystal badly. She’d asked Flattery about it—called it a memory crystal. “The crystal. That’s what Flattery promised you if you helped him, isn’t it?” Olive asked.

Cat nodded.

“Let me guess. I’ll bet he told you it would restore your memory,” Olive said.

Cat gasped. “How did you know that? There was no way you could know that,” she insisted angrily.

Olive wondered if she should just tell Cat the truth—that the mage had no past to remember, that she was only created last year. That would certainly loosen her dependence on Flattery—providing she believed me, Olive thought. No, she decided, this is not a good time to start telling the truth—it’s just too unbelievable.

“Answer me, damn it!” Cat demanded.

Olive looked up wearily at the mage. “Jade lost her memory, too. So did Alias. You see, it’s something that runs in your side of the family,” she explained. “It’s the only thing I could think of that would make you desperate enough to take up with someone like Flattery.”

“Was the crystal really destroyed?” Cat asked.

“Yes.”

Cat looked down at her lap, obviously shaken.

“I know you’re not going to like this advice,” Olive said, “but maybe you’d be happier if you gave up dredging your past and concentrated on your future.”

Cat rose angrily to her feet. There were tears in her eyes. “What makes you think my future is worth concentrating on?” she cried.

Before Olive could answer, the mage had fled the dining room, slamming the door behind her. The halfling sighed. There really wasn’t anything more she could do about Cat.

Olive reached for another crumpet, but the crumpet plate was empty. That was too much for her to bear. After all the stress she had been through the past few days, she really needed one more crumpet. She hopped down from her chair and peeked into the kitchen.

Thomas stood at the table with his back to her. Just as she was about to ask if there wasn’t maybe another batch of tea cakes baking in the oven, she noticed what it was the servant was doing.

Preparing a tray of tea things. Like the tray of breakfast things. For whom? Olive asked herself. Is there a sick servant in the attic? No, in a household this small, we would have heard about it. Could Thomas have a fugitive relative? the halfling wondered. In Olive’s family, fugitive relatives were not uncommon.

Why don’t we have a look-see? she decided, creeping behind Giogi’s gentleman’s gentleman as he left the kitchen and headed upstairs.

Giogi stood in the back garden, watching Mother Lleddew drive off in his rented carriage back to the House of the Lady. She seemed very nice. She’d been a good friend of his parents. Still, it was a little shocking to learn she was a were-bear.

Not as shocking as the story about his father, though.

He pulled the spur from his boot and turned it over in his hands a few times. Aunt Dorath must be tearing her hair out right now, afraid that I’ll use this. Or tearing Frefford’s hair out for letting Cat take it to me.

He held the spur out in front of him. Wyvern, he thought, I want to be a wyvern.

He felt no different. He was not shape-shifting.

It’s not working. The spur must know I don’t really want to be a wyvern. Wyverns are beasts. I don’t want to be a beast.

Listen to me, I’m no different than Aunt Dorath. I’ll never be an adventurer like Cole. It’s just not in me.

He headed toward the kitchen door to go inside, but the thought of going back into the stuffy house was unbearable. The fear of having to face Cat and Mistress Ruskettle and explain that he didn’t want to be a wyvern was worse.

I need to groom Daisyeye, he thought.

Whenever he felt really depressed or uncertain, grooming a horse usually helped bring him out of it. He strode to the carriage house and slipped inside.

There was enough light coming through the window to see without lighting the lantern. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, though, from the bright outdoor sunshine. He checked on his buggy first. The rear axle was propped up on a sawhorse so that the broken wheel could be taken out for repairs. The painting that had so startled Birdie was leaning against Daisyeye’s stall. Giogi had asked Thomas to leave it there until he decided whether he wanted to restore and reuse the frame.

The nobleman was reaching for the bucket of Daisyeye’s brushes when he heard a muffled sob from somewhere overhead.

Hello? he thought. Who’s crying in my loft?

As Giogi climbed the ladder, something rustled in the straw. As he reached the top he could see a figure moving into the shadows. He caught a glimpse of yellow silk and gleaming copper and knew who it was immediately. “Cat?” he whispered.

There was a sniff, but the figure did not move out of the shadows. Giogi swung himself into the loft and moved toward the mage. “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

“Nothing,” Cat answered, keeping her face turned away.

Giogi sat beside her in the hay and turned her gently by the shoulders so that she faced him. Her face was wet and her eyes were red and puffy. “Please, tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” the mage insisted. “Nothing worth crying over. I was just being stupid. Wanting stupid things. I’ve stopped now. See. I didn’t mean to. I don’t know what got into me. I never cry.”

“Yes, you do. You cried last night, when you were frightened,” Giogi reminded her.

“Oh.” Cat looked down at her hands. “I’d forgotten that. You must think I’m stupid to cry.”

“No, I don’t. What a thing to say. Everyone cries. It’s like that poem: Soldiers have their fears, something, something, something, ladies are entitled to their tears.”

Cat burst into fresh sobs. Giogi pulled her to his chest and hugged her gently, whispering, “There, there, my little kitty-cat.” Cat grew calmer.

“What’s made you so sad?” Giogi asked.

“You’re so nice,” Cat said, sniffling.

“I could try to be meaner if it would make you happy,” Giogi teased.

“No, you couldn’t,” Cat argued, looking up at him. “You wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Maybe not,” Giogi agreed. “Would it make you cry more if I did something else nice?” he asked.

“Like what?” Cat asked.

Giogi lowered his lips over the mage’s and kissed her slowly. Since she didn’t start crying again, he kissed her again, longer.

“There. That didn’t depress you too badly, now did it?”

“No,” the mage admitted. “It wasn’t stupid, either.”

“Not if you liked it,” Giogi said.

“And I can cry if I like, can’t I?”

“Of course, but I’d rather see you smile.” He began kissing her again, but she turned away and started to cry. “Cat, what is wrong? You have to tell me, darling.”

Through her sobs Cat stammered, “Flattery told me crying was stupid, and kissing was stupid, and, and, other things I wanted were stupid. For the longest time, I believed everything he said, but he was lying, wasn’t he?”

“Flattery is a vile monster,” Giogi said hotly, “and the sooner you forget about him, the better. You won’t ever have to see him again.”

“You don’t understand. He’s my master—”

“Rubbish. You don’t need a master. I can protect you.”

Cat pulled away. “No, Giogi, you can’t. You have to let me finish explaining. I have to tell you. He’s my master, and I was afraid not to do everything he told me.” Cat hesitated, obviously afraid to tell him what she thought he should know.

A cold fear seized Giogi. He swallowed. “Cat, what did you do?” he whispered.

“I married him.”

Giogi sat, stunned. Immense relief mingled with acute heartache. He couldn’t choose which to focus on first.

“I didn’t know about all the people he killed,” Cat said.

Giogi took a deep breath and asked, “Did you love him?”

“No.”

Giogi breathed out.

“It doesn’t matter, though. I consented.”

“Of course it matters, and a vow made under duress is not valid.”

“He didn’t threaten me, Giogi. I was just afraid of him.”

“What were you afraid of?”

Cat shrugged. “That he would sell me back as a slave to the Zhentil Keep army or turn me into one of his zombies or feed me to his ghouls.”

“Oh, is that all?” Giogi asked, astonished at the horror in which she must have lived under the wizard’s rule.

“Yes. I didn’t want to die. I’m not afraid of being hit, but I am afraid to die.”

“He hit you?” the nobleman shouted, rising to his feet.

Cat cringed, startled by Giogi’s anger.

Giogi slammed his fist into an overhead beam. The wizard’s villainy had no bounds. Someone had to stop him.

“I’m sorry,” Cat whispered.

Giogi looked down at the cowering woman and felt ashamed of having frightened her. He took her hands in his own and brought her to her feet. “Don’t be a little ass,” he whispered. He kissed her on her forehead. “Come back to the house with me,” he said.

Cat let Giogi lead her down the ladder and out of the carriage house. She walked alongside him through the garden, and he held the front door open for her as she entered the house. The couple hurried to the parlor, where it was warm. It was some time before they thought of Olive and wondered where she was.

This is such a nice house for sneaking around in, Olive thought as she crept down the upstairs hallway after Thomas. Ought to make it a law—every wealthy house should have thick carpeting. She wished Jade were with her so she could share that joke with her.

Olive stood behind the attic door, listening to Thomas tread up the stairs. Third and fifth steps are a might creaky, she noted.

She opened the attic door a crack. The stairs were clear. She slipped into the stairwell and padded up the first two steps, tested the third along the side where there was less stress, climbed it and the next and then froze to listen.

She could hear Thomas’s voice, quiet but clear.

“He’s found it.”

Olive didn’t hear a reply.

Thomas asked, “Is it time yet?”

Speak louder, Olive thought.

“But he might use the spur,” Thomas said with a touch of alarm.

Olive crept up the next two steps.

“Do you think that’s really wise, sir?” Thomas asked.

He is not talking to a relative of his, Olive realized.

Something soft brushed against the halfling’s legs and Olive nearly toppled down the stairs. A black-and-white spotted cat looked up at the halfling and meowed loudly. If it isn’t one cat, it’s another, Olive growled inwardly. She shooed the beast away, and it went scampering up the stairs.

Thomas did not say anything for at least thirty heartbeats, and Olive grew nervous. Some sixth sense warned her it was time to sneak off. She slipped down the stairs. Just as she reached for the door handle, she heard someone above who was not Thomas utter the word, “Secure.”

Olive twisted the doorknob, but the door did not open.

The sound of footfalls crossed the attic floor toward the staircase. Olive spun around and looked up the steep staircase. At the top stood a now-too-familiar figure wearing wizard’s robes. “Mistress Ruskettle, you can’t be thinking of leaving us so soon. I’ve been so wanting to meet you.”

Olive turned back to the door and pounded and kicked on it. “Giogi!” she screamed. “It’s Flattery! Help! Giogi!”

“Static,” the wizard whispered, pointing an iron nail at the halfling.

Olive felt all her muscles stiffen at once. She stood frozen with her face and clenched fists leaning against the wood.

“Fetch her up, Thomas,” the wizard ordered, “and I’ll see to her.” The wizard clucked once. “So clever but so much trouble. Just like the other woman in my life.”