Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,100

as he set the magical grapnel on the passageway’s entrance high above the room. Luthien took the rope in hand and verily ran up the wall, then hoisted Oliver behind him.

“Morkney might only suspect that she has knowledge of the Crimson Shadow,” Oliver went on when he got into the hidden passage. “If we are caught here this day, it could weigh badly on the one you love.” To say nothing of how it would weigh on the two of them! Oliver reasoned, keeping the thought private. The flustered halfling pushed the long black hair of his wig out of his face and roughly rearranged his printed dress, which had gotten all twisted up in the climb.

“I have to know,” Luthien answered.

“I have seen many traps baited like this before,” Oliver said.

“And have you ever left a love behind?” Luthien asked.

Oliver didn’t answer and made no further remarks. The question had stung, for Oliver had indeed left a lover behind—a halfling girl of eighteen years. Oliver was very young, living in a rural village and just beginning his career as a thief. The local landowner (the only one in town worth stealing from) could not catch up to Oliver, but he did find out about the halfling’s romance. Oliver’s lover was taken and Oliver had run off, justifying his actions as in his lover’s best interest.

He never found out what happened to her, and many times, in hindsight, he wondered if his “tactical evacuation” had been wrought of pure cowardice.

So now he followed Luthien up to the higher levels, as they had gone on their first excursion into the great cathedral. Oliver noticed that there seemed to be more cyclopians about this day than on that previous occasion, and many more villagers, as well. Morkney was planning a show, the halfling mused, and so the wicked duke wanted an audience.

Oliver grabbed Luthien by the shoulder and bade the man to put on the crimson cape—and Oliver wrapped his own purple cape over the print dress, and plopped his hat, which had gotten more than a little rumpled, atop his head—before they crept out onto the gargoyle-lined triforium fifty feet up from the floor.

They went out quietly and without interruption, ending at the corner of the south transept, where Luthien crouched behind a gargoyle, Oliver behind him.

The scene was much the same as the first time the friends had ventured into the majestic building. Red-robed Duke Morkney sat in a chair behind the great altar at the cathedral’s eastern end, appearing quite bored as his lackeys called the tax rolls and counted the pitiful offerings of the poor wretches.

Luthien watched the spectacle for only a moment, then focused his attention on the front pews of the cathedral. Several people were sitting in line, wearing the gray hooded robes of prisoners and guarded by a group of cyclopians. Only one was a dwarf, yellow haired, and Luthien sighed in relief that it was not Shuglin. Three others were obviously men, but the remaining three appeared to be either younger boys or women.

“Where are you?” the young Bedwyr whispered, continuing his scan through long minutes. One of the forms in the prisoner line shifted then, and Luthien noted the end of long wheat-colored hair slipping out from under her hood. Instinctively, the young man edged forward as if he would leap off of the ledge.

Oliver took a tight hold on Luthien’s arm and did not blink when the young man turned to him. The halfling’s expression reminded Luthien that there was little they could do.

“It is just as it was with the dwarf,” Oliver whispered. “I do not know why we are here.”

“I have to know,” Luthien protested.

Oliver sighed, but he understood.

The tax rolls went on for another half hour, everything seeming perfectly normal. Still, Oliver could not shake the nagging feeling that this was not an average day at the Ministry. Siobhan had been taken for a reason, and spreading the news about the arrest had been done deliberately, the halfling believed. If Shuglin had been arrested to send a clear message to the Crimson Shadow, then Siobhan had been taken to lure the Crimson Shadow in.

Oliver looked disdainfully at Luthien, thinking how much the young man resembled a netted trout.

The man calling the roll at the lectern gathered up his parchments and moved aside, and a second man took his place, motioning for the Praetorian Guards to prepare the prisoners. The seven gray-robed defendants were forced to stand and the man