Читать «Rising Tide (зксм-1)» онлайн - страница 189

Iakhovas led the way up the stairs to the main house, showing an easy familiarity with the place. Having no choice, Laaqueel followed, feeling out of her depth. She had no business there and felt the wizard should have left her at the palace where she could have gone about the preparations she needed to make for the upcoming battle.

"Alaric, join us over here, if you please."

Turning on the verandah, Laaqueel spotted the speaker. He was a wide man with hard lines and a life of luxury that had let him go to fat, but the way he moved to stand from the small table where he'd been sitting let Laaqueel know he was still quick on his feet. His hair had been soft brown but was now going to gray in streaks, cut squared off at his jawline. Hazel eyes swept over the malenti daring enough to almost make her blush, something she hadn't experienced in decades.

She thought perhaps it might be because she was aware of the illusion Iakhovas had wrapped around her with his glamour, knowing how her clothes revealed her upper body.

"Laaqueel," Iakhovas said in the politest tone the malenti had ever heard him use, "may I introduce you to Portmaster Burlor Maliceprow, our host and the controlling power behind Skaug."

Maliceprow smiled at the introduction and took Laaqueel's hands in one of his. The other hand, the malenti noted, had been replaced by a mithral hook that gleamed with a razor's edge.

"Such a charming lady you have with you, Alaric." Maliceprow kissed the back of Laaqueel's hand then released it.

"Thank you," Laaqueel said, but she'd not prompted her voice. Such courtly manners didn't come naturally to her. She realized her behavior had to have been caused by Iakhovas's glamour.

"I have someone for you to meet as well," Maliceprow announced. "Please sit and I'll be back with him, then we can get to our meeting."

Iakhovas sat at the table all laid out with meats and cheese and wines. Laaqueel followed his lead, sitting next to the verandah railing so she couldn't be trapped against the house. She looked at the sea, judging it to be close enough to, run to.

"Relax, little malenti," Iakhovas said quietly. "You'll come to no harm here."

"What are we doing with these people?" she asked. "I didn't know you were going to be affiliating with surface dwellers."

He gazed at her with both his eyes, but she could occasionally see behind the missing one into the hollow where it had been. "Little malenti, I'll deal with anyone who can help me reach my goals. For now, that happens to be, in part, these pirates." He picked up a bit of meat and ate it. "In four tendays, I'm going to take Baldur's Gate, and these men are going to help me. When we leave that city, it will not be as Waterdeep. I will destroy everything in that city that touches the river, and a message will be sent that no one is safe. At no time, at no place."

Laaqueel heard the chill of menace in his words but she was still concerned. She didn't see how he planned on mixing the sahuagin and the pirates. Before she could ask any of the questions that were on her mind, Malice-prow returned with another man in tow.