The Duke of Hartender greeted Raomar by placing a sword at his throat, and the kevarag elf froze. Had the coachman betrayed him? he wondered as the duke growled out a demand.

  “Who are you and what are you doing on the road so late?” he demanded.

  Raomar sent a hasty prayer to Enshul, and cast a hasty glamor.

  “You don’t recognize me?” he asked, relieved when the duke stared at him, squinting as though not quite believing his eyes.

  If the magic had worked, the duke would be seeing a slim dark-haired man with hazel eyes. A human about whom he’d feel a faint sense of familiarity.

  “It’s Ramon of Wildejun,” Raomar explained, quickly building on the impression. “We met on your last visit there. Don’t you remember?”

  He watched as the duke’s eyes narrowed, holding himself still as he watched the man’s mind work. It was a relief when the man lifted his sword away and sheathed it.

  “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing meeting us this far out of the city,” he stated, settling back into his seat, and rapping on the ceiling to signal the driver to continue.

  “You don’t remember?” Raomar managed to inject a little hurt into his voice, but the duke wasn’t falling for it.

  He shook his head, his expression speculative.

  “You told me that if ever my journeys took me close to your estate, I was to look you up. I was on my way there, when I saw your carriage and flagged it down.” He watched the man’s face, then added, “Your driver recognized me…”

  The duke’s lips twitched.

  “He has an eye for faces,” the duke remarked. “I’m glad he saw you.”

  Raomar almost breathed a sigh of relief, but hid the emotion with a brisk nod. “Since you haven’t thrown me back into the night,” he added, “I’m guessing you’re agreeable to letting me accompany you to the city?”

  “Yes,” the duke admitted, warily.

  Raomar didn’t hide his relief at the answer.

  “Then I won’t impose on you beyond that,” he told the man. “I have business to attend, and must return to Wildejun post-haste after. I have an inn I usually stay at.”

  “Will it be open?” the duke asked. “It is late.”

  “It’ll be open for me,” Raomar told him. “I pay well enough.”

  The duke gave him a deprecating smile. “I can imagine.”

  He glanced out the window, seeming disinclined to talk. Raomar didn’t push him. The glamor would only hold so far. They settled into an easy silence, with the duke directing his driver to drop Raomar off at the inn.

  “Thank you.”

  The duke waved him away.

  “It’s a small matter between old friends.”

  Raomar managed a small smile, but there was something about the way the duke said ‘old friends’ that worried him. Was the glamor wearing off? Had it worked at all? He made a note to look into the duke and why he might be resistant to magic.

  The inn wasn’t too far from his next destination. Raomar turned into a non-descript side street, before walking the half mile he needed to cover in order to reach a small supply store—and it was a simple matter to pick the lock on the front door.

  Once inside, Raomar closed and locked the door behind him, before traversing the shop interior and exiting through the back door. The alley behind the store was called Stinking Alley because of the offal rotting behind the butchery at one end and the fish scraps behind the fishmongers at the other.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  In between them, however, plant life festooned the alley walls, and flowers bloomed from unlikely spaces between the buildings. Flashes of blue and red and orange revealed the presence of tropical birds and an unseasonal warmth drove away the crisp cold air of early autumn.

  The sorceress responsible for this transformation ran a store for rare herbs. She was also responsible for the glamor at each end of the alley that added to its name, just as it was she who ensured both butchery and fishmongers stayed at either end. Their rubbish and offcuts strengthened her illusion of dark, foul-smelling shadows shrouding the narrow laneway.

  Most people avoided the alley like a plague.

  Ducking under a particularly virulently colored hanging fern, Raomar tapped a quiet rhythm on the stones of the wall beyond, murmuring ‘Enshul’ as he did. Pausing long enough to take a breath, he stepped through the illusory stones that filled the newly formed opening where he’d tapped them.

  Most of his guild members used another entrance three alleys over. This one was a secret held between himself and the small group of priests who served the goddess of night.

  The wall closed behind him as soon as he stepped across the threshold, his weight sufficient to trigger the mechanism that controlled it. A narrow staircase opened up before him, blue-flamed torches springing to life as he descended.

  Raomar didn’t stop in the small temple at the foot of the stairs, but turned down the side hall leading to the thieves’ guild. Once again, murmuring Enshul’s name, he passed through the door, then took himself to his quarters.

  He passed his bodyguard’s quarters and saw the note he’d left had been opened. Seeing it, he relaxed, knowing the man believed him safely inside the temple, which meant Grunwol had left on the task Raomar had set him.

  Crossing the hall, he slipped quietly into his quarters. As the door closed behind him, he caught a glimpse of himself in the lamp-lit mirror beside the entrance.

  His passing caused the lamp to flicker and, for a moment, his amber eyes gleamed gold. Turning to face the glass, Raomar flipped back his hood and bent to inspect his image.

  He wasn’t particularly tall, standing a shade under six feet, and was lightly built, like all his race. The face staring back at him was crowned by a mane of straw-blond hair touched by two streaks of blue which marked the goddess’s favor.

  The mottled green and brown patterning his skin was reminiscent of the fur of his clan’s totem, as were his amber eyes, and when he smiled his teeth were the teeth of a predator. It was no wonder he wore a hood.

  Satisfied with his appearance, Raomar stalked down the corridor to his room. There, he’d employed the sorceress to make his quarters more like his homeland. The air was warm, just as it was in his homelands, and the walls were festooned with the plants of home, lending his chambers a slightly earthy scent.

  If it hadn’t been for the stone walls surrounding him, he’d have thought he was once more in the forests where he’d grown up. That thought caused the smile to fade.

  He’d fought against his kin and knew that, despite the bargain he’d struck, there was no home in the kevaragan lands behind him. Even if he could return, he’d find only death.

  No…he didn’t yearn to go back. He had all he wanted here, including the freedom he’d craved badly enough to risk his life for, but even so…

  Shaking himself free of the melancholy that accompanied such thoughts, Raomar pushed the memories away. He moved through his personal chamber via a vine-shrouded doorway that led to a bare stone room.

  In it stood a low ebon-wood table with a low ebon-wood stool. In the center of the table stood a large water-filled bowl of smoky crystal. The room was the only chamber in his suite that was devoid of plant life, and it was cloaked with a silence so intense it almost made his ears ache.

  That was a good sign. It meant his quarters had been undisturbed.

  Whispering softly in his native tongue, Raomar broke the spell giving the room its silence. His words made the lanterns in the wall sconces flare to life.

  Blue light from blue flame banished the black shadows in the corners, softening the harshness of the bare walls. Raomar noticed the color of the flame and felt a part of himself relax.

  The goddess was with him still.

  With a soft breath of relief, he raised a hand to lift the mottled green soapstone hanging around his neck clear of his tunic. It was carved in the shape of a winged weaver, one of Enshul’s chosen forms. The warm stone felt almost alive in his hand as he raised it so he could see the gemstones set down the weaver’s center.

  “Filameth,” he whispered to the goddess. “My name is Raomar Filameth…and I am both guildmaster and your faithful servant.”

  The gemstones flared once in acknowledgement and Raomar smiled. Seating himself behind the table, he tucked the weaver back inside his tunic and laid his hands on either side of the bowl. His hands looked like mottled green and brown smoke through the crystal.

  His reflected eyes stared back at him from the watery depths that lay, becalmed, before him. Their tawny amber gleam shone attentively back, challenging him to begin. Raomar answered that challenge by blowing softly across the bowl’s surface.

  Waiting until the ripples subsided, he focused his mind, preparing the spell he needed. When the water was once again still, he spoke, imagining he could see the words settle to its surface. Once the last syllable lay drifting between the bowl’s crystal walls, the water shimmered, and an image obscured the sides of the bowl.

  Raomar froze, hardly daring to breathe.

  He had found the spymaster’s apprentice.