None of them saw a crystal sphere materialize silently beside the riven eye tyrant, flicker with the last vestiges of a spell glow… and then crumble to dust, which drifted away.

"A few, no doubt," Durnan replied grimly, watching the carnage, "but none of them would shield us in the slightest from its lightning."

Asper sighed, a long, shuddering sound, and tossed her head. Her eyes were very bright as she said softly, "I thought so," and raised her little knife as if it was some great magical long sword.

When the crocodilelike head turned from its feasting, it saw the little knife, Mirt's belt dagger beside it, and the similar dagger Durnan held ready, and its eyes flashed golden with amusement. The great jaws opened, and a hissing roar came out. The jaws worked and rippled with effort, and for a moment, Asper thought it was trying to speak. Then it tossed its head in disgust, drew in a deep breath, and tried again, turning its eyes on Mirt. They all heard its rattling roar quite distinctly: "Thank Transtraaaa…"

Then it lowered its head, folded its legs against its body, and slithered away. They watched it wind its snakelike way out of the ruins into the street beyond. The audience of surviving gamblers shrank back to make way for it. It vanished around a corner-Spider-silk Lane, Durnan thought-and left them alone with a torn-open, quite dead beholder.

"I wonder what she'll ask you in payment?" Durnan asked the Old Wolf.

Mirt growled a wordless reply, shrugged, and then turned to his lady as if seeing her for the first time. "Hello, Little Fruitbasket," he leered, extending his lips in a chimplike pout to be kissed.

Slowly, Asper stuck her tongue out in eloquent reply, and made the spitting-to-the-side mime that young Waterdhavian ladies use to signal disgust or emphatic disapproval.

And then she winked and grinned.

Mirt started to grin back, but it faded quickly as he saw the danger signal of Asper's eyebrows rising, and the accompanying glitter in the dark eyes boring into him. A moment later she asked softly, "Just who is this 'Transtraaaa' woman, anyway?"

Mirt gave her a sour look. "Pull in the claws, little one: she's no woman, but a lamia."

It was the turn for Durnan's eyebrows to rise. "Slave-trading, Mirt?"

The fat moneylender gave him a disgusted look, and turned to start the long trudge back up the alley. "Ye know me better than that," he rumbled. "Slaving's work for those who've no scruples, less sense, and too much wealth. Nobles, for instance."

Durnan groaned. "Let's not start that one again. We rooted out all we could find, and Khel set spy spells… there'll always be a few dabblers, no doubt, but nothing we can't handle-"

Lightning roared across the ruins to split the stones at his feet.

"Oh? Care to try to handle me, tavernmaster?" The voice echoed and rolled around them, made louder by magic: the taunting voice of an arrogant young woman of culture and breeding.

The three lords looked up whence the lightning had come and saw a lone figure standing on the catwalk where Asper had inspected a line of washing not so long ago: a slim, haughty figure in a dark green cloak whose folds showed the shape of a long sword beneath it. The uppermost part of the figure was all flashing eyes and curling auburn hair, piled high around graceful shoulders.

"Young Nythyx," Mirt roared, "Come down from there!"

In reply, two gloved hands parted the cloak from within to reveal the glowing, deadly things they bore: Netherese blast scepters, crackling with simmering lightning. "Come up and get me, 'fat man," Nythyx Thunderstaff sneered. "I don't take orders from drunken old commoners."

Durnan looked up at her, eyes narrowed. "You're a slaver, then?" He strode calmly toward the mouth of the alley, and after a moment Mirt and Asper followed.

The scepters were leveled at them, and the young woman who held them shrugged and said almost defiantly, "Yes."

Durnan kept on walking, but shook his head in smiling disbelief. "You've never shackled men, or dragged ores out of carry cages. If you tried, they'd toss you around like a child's ball!"

Lighting stabbed at him, in wordless, deadly reply.

An unclad woman whose hair and eyes shared the color of leaping flame leaned out of a window at the mouth of the alley and stiffened. "Blast scepters!" she hissed.

As her eyes blazed even brighter, she flowed forward out of the window. Her lower body was human to the hips, but from there down it was the scaled, sinuous bulk of a serpent. She slithered along the wall, drawing herself upright, and raised her hands to weave a spell.

A dark, chill hand caught at her shoulder.

She spun about, hands growing talons with lightning speed. "Who-?"

"I am sometimes called Halaster Blackcloak," the wall told her. A cowled face melted out of its stones to join the arm that held her. Flame-red eyes met dark ones, and after a moment Transtra shivered and looked away. The hand released its hold on her, and Halaster's voice was almost kindly as he added, "They'll be fine. Watch. Just watch."

Lightning spat down at the tavernmaster, slashing aside lanterns and washing. Durnan calmly leapt aside, rolled to his feet, and resumed his steady walk a dozen paces ahead and to the left of where he'd been walking.

He looked up through smoking rags and swaying ropes and remarked, "Ah. You cook every slave who says something you don't like, eh? This may be one reason why we've never heard of your stellar slaving career."

Lighting cracked again. In its wake the young noblewoman shrieked, "Don't you dare mock me, tavern-master! My master would have killed you, all of you, if it hadn't been for that-that snake-thing! You're very lucky to be alive to toss smart words my way right now!"

"Ye really should practice with that toy," Mirt growled, waggling one large and hairy finger her way, "if ye harbor any fond hopes of ever hitting someone with it."

At his shoulder, Asper frowned. "You served… the beholder?" she asked the woman aloft.

They were close enough now to clearly see Nythyx Thunderstaff's slim lips draw into a tight line. The young noblewoman stared down at them, pale and trembling with rage, and said, "Yes. With Xuzoun, I wielded power and influence. Great lords poured me their best wines in hopes of gaining just the slaves they desired. You've ended that, you three, and will pay for doing so. This I swear."

"I've heard of consorts that fathers disapprove of," Mirt rumbled, "but lass, lass, how could ye be so foolish?"

"Foolish?" Nythyx shrieked, thrusting forth the scepters she held to point almost straight down at their upturned faces. "Foolish? Who's the fool here, Old Wolf?" She triggered both blast scepters.

Asper had been muttering something under her breath-and at that moment the catwalk bucked and broke apart as the blast star she'd left behind on it obediently exploded.

"Ye are, if ye know no better than to let us walk right up when ye had the power to torch us all," Mirt told Nythyx as the young noblewoman tumbled helplessly down, down to the cobbles at their feet. Futile lightnings sputtered forth to scorch the buildings on either side, but found no way to slow her killing fall.

Or-nearly killing fall. A scant few feet above the stones, Durnan rushed forward, leapt high to meet her, and cradled her deftly in his arms, crashing down into a crouch that took the force of her descent.

Nythyx stared at him for one astonished moment. Her face twisted, and she raised the one scepter she'd managed to hang on to, aiming at his face. The tavernmaster, however, brought one expert fist down across her chin in a swipe that left her slack-jawed and senseless.

Durnan watched the winking and sputtering scepter fall slowly from her hand. When it clattered on the cobbles, he kicked it to Asper, looked for a moment at the now-empty face of the woman in his arms, then swung her onto his shoulder for the long carry back to her father's arms in Waterdeep. Just what, he wondered, was he going to tell Lord Thunderstaff…?