glance to ward the third floor above revealed that the speakers were farther up on the fifth floor –for she could see feet and robes on the stairwell there .
The se cond thing that she heard was singing. Somewhere nearby, a deep baritone voice was singing a solemn song in a tone of regret. It sounded to her like it was coming from the same floor that she was on .
She reached the door past the western stair quickly.
She heard a nother door open with a creaking sound below her and then she heard the familiar sounds of shuffling mechanical footsteps , and the accompanying whir of many gears and cogs.
That must be Number Two , she thought to herself with some alarm.
She hoped that th e door she had reached wouldn’t be a problem to open because she might easily be detected by Number Two if she had to linger at this door any longer than a few seconds .
Adding to her discomfort, she sensed a flicker above and realized t hat the small Imp which had been cranking the l amp above her right shoulder had stopped and was gazing at her intently.
Ignoring the Imp, she noted that t his door had a keyhole on it. Gingerly , she tried the handle.
Locked.
With a sharp snap of her elbow , a lock pick set that she kept in her sleeve fell into her hand. Using a practiced motion , she extended the pick that she usually tried first for high grade locks. She inserted it into the keyhole and after a few dexterous manipulations of the pick she heard the satisfying sound of the lock click ing. S he opened the door and slipped inside , having no time to be more cautious .
The singing was now close– too close –it was coming from a source that was in the same room with her . Composing herself , she turned with resignation toward the voice and beheld a sculpted stone bust sitting on an oaken table. The bust was fashioned in the image of a scholarly looking man of middle age and it was singing in the same warm, baritone human voice that she had heard from the hallway .
Relief swept over her .
The room in which she now stood was a fancy parlor with a fireplace, a small table for cards and an ornate bar with many bottles, glass tumblers and wooden kegs of various shapes and sizes. There was a musky scent in the air of perspiration mixed with liquor.
The magical singing was convenient because it masked any sound she that might have made , if others were nearby .
She darted over to the bar , went around it and crouched behind it. She paused for a moment, and then raised her head to peer over the bar at the room once more.
There were two exits from the room, each opening into a plain stone hallway without an intervening door. T he relative finery of this room did not extend into the hallways , which were composed of rough cut stone blocks .
Perhaps this was a break room of a sort for tired wizards, she speculated . The wizards must enjoy similar forms of leisure as people in the Warrens did . Admittedly, the singing bust was an exotic form of entertainment , but local mages in the Warrens had grown bold enough in recent years , before the waning of magical energy, to cast crude versions of this sort of enchantment to entertain pub goers. She was impressed by the enchantment, but not astonished by it .
Then the singing stopped.
She turned toward the bust and was confronted with the unmistakable fact that the bust was looking at her with a wry, almost roguish grin on its animated face.
"Well, hello there. I figured I’d keep singing for a while until you got comfortable. I didn’t want to startle you out of your … skin," said the B ust in a flamboyant voice with an unmistakably suggestive tone .
Composing herself, H emlock stood to her full height–still behind the bar– and instinctively stared down the B ust like she would a drunken warrior on a two day bender.
She moved quickly, and stood within a few feet of the Bust, which regarded her with what she thought was an expression of
The se cond thing that she heard was singing. Somewhere nearby, a deep baritone voice was singing a solemn song in a tone of regret. It sounded to her like it was coming from the same floor that she was on .
She reached the door past the western stair quickly.
She heard a nother door open with a creaking sound below her and then she heard the familiar sounds of shuffling mechanical footsteps , and the accompanying whir of many gears and cogs.
That must be Number Two , she thought to herself with some alarm.
She hoped that th e door she had reached wouldn’t be a problem to open because she might easily be detected by Number Two if she had to linger at this door any longer than a few seconds .
Adding to her discomfort, she sensed a flicker above and realized t hat the small Imp which had been cranking the l amp above her right shoulder had stopped and was gazing at her intently.
Ignoring the Imp, she noted that t his door had a keyhole on it. Gingerly , she tried the handle.
Locked.
With a sharp snap of her elbow , a lock pick set that she kept in her sleeve fell into her hand. Using a practiced motion , she extended the pick that she usually tried first for high grade locks. She inserted it into the keyhole and after a few dexterous manipulations of the pick she heard the satisfying sound of the lock click ing. S he opened the door and slipped inside , having no time to be more cautious .
The singing was now close– too close –it was coming from a source that was in the same room with her . Composing herself , she turned with resignation toward the voice and beheld a sculpted stone bust sitting on an oaken table. The bust was fashioned in the image of a scholarly looking man of middle age and it was singing in the same warm, baritone human voice that she had heard from the hallway .
Relief swept over her .
The room in which she now stood was a fancy parlor with a fireplace, a small table for cards and an ornate bar with many bottles, glass tumblers and wooden kegs of various shapes and sizes. There was a musky scent in the air of perspiration mixed with liquor.
The magical singing was convenient because it masked any sound she that might have made , if others were nearby .
She darted over to the bar , went around it and crouched behind it. She paused for a moment, and then raised her head to peer over the bar at the room once more.
There were two exits from the room, each opening into a plain stone hallway without an intervening door. T he relative finery of this room did not extend into the hallways , which were composed of rough cut stone blocks .
Perhaps this was a break room of a sort for tired wizards, she speculated . The wizards must enjoy similar forms of leisure as people in the Warrens did . Admittedly, the singing bust was an exotic form of entertainment , but local mages in the Warrens had grown bold enough in recent years , before the waning of magical energy, to cast crude versions of this sort of enchantment to entertain pub goers. She was impressed by the enchantment, but not astonished by it .
Then the singing stopped.
She turned toward the bust and was confronted with the unmistakable fact that the bust was looking at her with a wry, almost roguish grin on its animated face.
"Well, hello there. I figured I’d keep singing for a while until you got comfortable. I didn’t want to startle you out of your … skin," said the B ust in a flamboyant voice with an unmistakably suggestive tone .
Composing herself, H emlock stood to her full height–still behind the bar– and instinctively stared down the B ust like she would a drunken warrior on a two day bender.
She moved quickly, and stood within a few feet of the Bust, which regarded her with what she thought was an expression of
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