It cut the air with that sinuous might he loved so well… but seemed a lot heavier than it once had- gods, had he run around waving this all day and all night? Durnan brought it down to set its tip to the floor, and leaned on it as he thought of where Nythyx might be… lost somewhere in the dark and dangerous ways beyond the walls of his cellars.

For a breath or two, the tavernmaster fingered the sword's familiar pommel and grip, and then shrugged and did something to the plain ring on the middle finger of his left hand. A tiny pinwheel of silver motes arose to silently circle the ring, he bent over the swiftly fading, rushing radiances and whispered, "Gone into Undermountain to rescue Nythyx Thunderstaff, old friend, I may need help."

The last motes of magelight died. Durnan looked at the ring, sighed, and hefted the sword again. His second sigh was louder. He shook his head grimly at his failing strength, hung the sword back in the pillar, and went down the room to where a shorter, lighter blade hung on the wall. This one had felt good in his hand, too.

It slid out of its sheath in swift, eager silence. He tossed it in the air, caught it, and instantly lunged at an imaginary opponent, springing up without pause to whirl around and slash empty air just a hair or two above the bottles in the basket floating behind him. It seemed to shrink away from his leaping steel, but Durnan didn't notice as he bounded through an archway that his wards would let only him pass through, and down the steep dark steps beyond. For the first time in long, dusty years, he was off to war!

The floating basket of bottles, forgotten behind him, tried to dart through the wards in his wake. There was a flash of aroused magic and a reeling rebound.

The basket seemed to sigh for just an instant before it crashed to the floor, shattering at least one bottle of belaerd. Dark whiskey gurgled out to run across the floor… but no one was there to hear it.

"Transtra? I know you're in there! Come out and fight, all the gods damn you, or I'll…"

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

The fat, red-faced man in the room broke off his muttered negotiations and stood hastily back to give his business associate the room she needed. Serpentine coils slithered around his feet as she drew herself up, swaying slightly, and frowned in concentration.

Transtra's flame-red hair and beautiful, unclad upper body remained unchanged, the string of rubies she wore still winked between her breasts. Below her slim waist, however, the scales melted away, and her tail shrank into long human legs. Mirt stepped firmly forward between them, the magic that protected him from her touch flaring into life, and swept her into an amorous embrace just as a splintering crash heralded the collapse of the door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ye don't want to throw in a ruby or two?" Mirt rumbled in reply, raising an eyebrow.

The lamia regarded him coldly. "No," she said shortly, "I don't."

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

Transtra frowned at it, and then looked down to where her unbound hair cascaded over her bosom. The bottom three stones on her string were missing. She snarled in anger as she raised blazing eyes to his.

Mirt bowed gravely to her as she snatched her rubies back, and with his chin close to the floor, he looked up and flashed her a momentary, rolling-eyed idiot's grin.

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

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

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

"A rented upstairs escort's chamber in the worst brothel in Skullport?" Transtra asked sardonically, gliding toward him.

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

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

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

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

She reared back, startled, and hastily raised her hands to hurl a spell as a pinwheel of tiny lights suddenly appeared in midair in front of her. Transtra's angry gaze went to the merchant, but saw that this apparition was no doing of his, Mirt was as surprised as she. The lamia backed silently away, hands raised in readiness.

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

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

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