Balnshik was capable of civilized behavior, as I recall.”
Smith shivered pleasurably, remembering the kind of behavior of which Nurse Balnshik had been capable.
“She didn’t have tusks, of course,” he said irrelevantly.
At that moment Burnbright and Willowspear returned from the kitchen. She seemed to be leaning on his arm to a degree disproportionate to the tininess of the sticking plaster on her knee.
“I’ve never heard of using hot water and soap on a cut,” she was saying breathlessly. “It seems so simple! But then, you probably said some sort of spell over it too, didn’t you? Because there’s really no pain at all—”
“There you are, Willowspear,” said Lord Ermenwyr edgily, popping out of the bar. “I need you to check my pulse. Where’s Smith?”
“Just coming, lord,” said Smith, stepping from behind the counter. “And, Burnbright? You need to step up to Room 2.”
“Oh. All right,” she said, and climbed the stair unsteadily.
Smith and Willowspear followed Lord Ermenwyr into the bar, where he retreated to the farthest darkest booth and sat looking pointedly back and forth between Smith and the barman. Smith took the hint.
“Seven pints of Black Ship Stout, Rivet, then go mind the front desk for a bit,” he said. Rivet looked bewildered, but complied.
When they were settled in the booth (all but the bodyguards, who would never have fit in there anyway but made a solid wall in front of it) Lord Ermenwyr had a gulp of his pint, leaned forward in the gloom, and said, “I’m afraid I’m in certain difficulties, Smith.”
Smith groaned inwardly, but had a bracing quaff of his own pint, and said merely, “Difficulties, you say.”
“Yes, and it’s necessary I…hem… lie low for a while. That’s why I’m here.”
Smith thought to himself that his lordship could scarcely have chosen a more public place to go to ground than a resort hotel at Festival time, but he raised an eyebrow and said, “Really?”
“Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking, but I have my reasons!” Lord Ermenwyr snapped. “I’d better explain. I belong to certain, shall we say, professional organizations? Hereditary membership, thanks to Daddy. The AFA, the WWF, NPNS, BSS—”
“And those would be?”
“Ancient Fraternity of Archmagi,” Lord Ermenwyr explained impatiently. “World Warlocks’ Federation. Ninth Plane Necromancers’ Society. Brotherhood of Sages and Seers. To name but a few. And I, er, seem to have made an enemy.
“It all started when I attended this banquet and wore all my regalia from all the groups of which I’m a member. Well, apparently that wasn’t considered quite in good taste, as some of the societies aren’t on the best of terms, but I’m new at this so how was I supposed to know? And several people took offense that I was wearing the Order of the Bonestar on the same side of my chest as the Infernal Topaz Cross and carrying the Obsidian Rod in my left hand.
“Just a silly little misunderstanding, you see? But one gentleman was rather more vocal than the rest of them. He’d been drinking, and I’d been, mmm, self-medicating, and I might have been clever at his expense or something, because he seems to have developed a dislike for me quite out of all proportion to anything I may or may not have said.”
Smith drank the rest of his pint in a gulp. “Go on,” he said, feeling doomed already.
“And then we ran for the same guild office, and I won,” Lord Ermenwyr. “I even won fairly. Well, reasonably fairly. But evidently this gentleman had wanted all his life to be the Glorious Slave of Scharathrion, and that I of all people should have dashed his hopes was too much. Rather silly, considering that all the title amounts to is being treasurer to a fraternity of pompous idiots obsessed with power; but there it is, and he’s decided to kill me.”
“All right,” said Smith patiently. “And that’s not against the club rules?”
Lord Ermenwyr squirmed in his seat. “Not as such, because he’s filed a formal declaration of intent to challenge me to a duel. Out of all the interminable number of fraternal bylaws, he got hold of one that’ll permit him to take my office if he defeats me in formal combat.
“Of course, he’s got to find me to do that,” he added, snickering.
“And so you’re hiding out here?”
“Exactly,” Lord Ermenwyr replied. “Perfect place for it! Magi are an antisocial lot, because they think they’re cleverer than everyone else, so what better place for me to dodge him than in the midst of the mundane