The Foremothers' Hymns 4:20 Business as unusual.

The tavern room was small, but its position, next to the chimney, gave it a healthy warmth.  Since taking up residence, Moondew and Marrowfire had taken to hanging damp or wet cloth things over the backs of chairs near it, so that the stone portrusion into their space was hemmed about by various skirts, sheets, and napkins.  Just inside the doorway lay a bright red and yellow woven rug given to them by a clan mate- in addition to making the room seem more homey, it alerted most patrons to the fact that the two were just as much members of the Firebird clan as those who had thrown up similarly dyed squatters tents in other places around the city.  Their most recent customer, unfortunately, commented sharply on what he perceived as their "strange ways", and seemed desirous to take some sort of advantage of the foreign "painted women" almost as soon as he disentangled himself from their arms.

"Twenty fivestars for you," he said offhandedly as he began to hunt around the room for his clothes and belongings.

Marrowfire produced a basket from underneath the bed that held everything the man was looking for.  "Twenty lions, we said.  You want to use fivestars, add six more for the translation of them," she answered calmly.  "Your purse is over here."

"Is that so, little girl?" the man quipped, slowly moving from Moondew's side of the bed to where Marrowfire was standing.  "You going to tell your mama on me, that some brute man stiffed you six fivestars?"

Moondew sighed and sat up, her mouse brown hair flowing behind her like a river of warm caramel as she did.  "Speak respectfully to my wife, or you'll regret it.  I'm less Human than she is."

"Moon," Marrowfire began uneasily, shifting the basket from in front of her to her right hip.  "You're plenty Human."

"What?" the man laughed, turning to look at Moondew.

"I am a creature of the swamp, and only appear pleasing to you because I so wish it," Moondew pronounced gravely.  She'd closed her eyes momentarily, but when she opened them again, the normally brown orbs glowed eerily with bright blue bio-luminescence.  The man trembled visibly in response.  "If you don't respect my consort, and pay her what you promised, you'll see with your own eyes the terrible form of a green hag."

"Here, here's all your things," Marrowfire chuckled, watching tremors spread throughout the man's body.  "Mind the basket; if you damage it, you have to replace it."

The man scrambled over and pulled his clothes onto his body so quickly that he fell gracelessly to the floor.  His purse clattered away from him, and with trembling fingers, he undid the knot and counted out three platinum pieces and five gold ones.  Moondew noticed, as she watched him with some degree of pity, that there was a great deal of hollering going on below the room.  While she wondered what might have been going on, she knew she had to maintain her focus on the jittery customer before sparing any attention to anything else.

"I'll- I'll warn others!" the man panted, backing away from Marrowfire as soon as he'd dropped the coins into her hand.  "I'll make sure no one else falls into your wicked clutches!"

Neither woman answered the threat, but allowed the man to back all the way out of the room.  His harried steps down the stairs brought another weary sigh from Moondew's lips, and she let the blue glow fade from her eyes.

"Well, that's a third," she worried, tossing the covers aside and standing up to stretch.

"Three threats in a week is fair dealing," Marrowfire shrugged, picking the basket up and checking it for damage.  "Besides, if he hadn't tried to short us, you wouldn't have had to threaten him.  I wish you wouldn't say you're a creature, but you're getting good at scaring the coin out of deadbeats."

Moondew smiled shyly, a single brown ringlet falling into her face as she tucked her chin down to her chest.  "I learned from the best."

"You take compliments like they were vinegar," Marrowfire purred.  "Anybody knows that a hammer or a sword is bad news- you had that fool stumbling and fumbling from a little glow in your eyes.  Here, count it."

Moondew tucked her escaped hair up over her ear and padded over to receive the indicated currency.  Walking back over to the dresser, she opened the middle drawer and pulled a purse out from under the undergarments neatly folded within.  In the silence that her counting left, Marrowfire noticed that the tavern below them was much louder than usual, but being too well used to the noise Firebirds made everywhere they went, paid no mind to it.

"Hmm- well, we can re-up on the room, and if you'd like, we can get a good wine to go with our meal tonight."

"You get yourself a wine; I'll take a tea, if they still have heated water," Marrowfire replied, putting the basket down and hopping onto the bed.  She crawled across it and reached over to check whether or not a skirt that was hanging close to the chimney were dry or not.  Finding that it wasn't, she flopped over onto her back.  "Or maybe just some soup- those beans from yesterday were awful, and I feel them chewing through my insides."

"A warm bath might soothe you," Moondew counseled, putting the money away entirely.  She turned around and climbed into the bed from its foot.  "It's gratis, anyway, and we may as well take advantage."

"It's only 'graw-tees', or whatever, because the tavern owner wants us as clean as he can get us," Marrowfire scoffed, rolling up onto her knees.  "Had we been a pair of gods-fearing native sluts, it'd have been a gold piece per bath, like everybody else."

Moondew laughed freely, the sound Marrowfire had been craving all night.  With a smile, the Halfling scooted closer and and kissed Moondew's bare thighs.

"Oh, don't tempt me," Moondew protested, turning her upper body away and tucking her chin again.  "It's been so hard to pay proper attention to our clients while I'm throbbing for your touch- for your lips- oh, stop it!  If we play around up here, the owner will be away to bed, and we won't get dinner, or our room paid for tomorrow night!"

"There's a half-plate of food here, and the party's still going on down there," Marrowfire said huskily.  "You think you're the only one burning for a real tumble?  These pathetic peasants complain about my size, but don't wear me out.  Give me something to really pant about, won't you?  Hmm?  Won't you?"

Moondew drew her thighs as tightly together as she could get them, but still twisted and hugged herself as Marrowfire took hold of her hips and began nuzzling in her lap.

"Mmm!" she squealed, shaking her head with ferocity.  "Wait, wait, I'll pay now and come back!  Oooh, stop; let me go!  Oh, if you go on too much longer, I'll burst!  Oh please, oh, ooh!  I mean it; let me go!  I'll go right away!  Oh, let me get my clothes- oooh!"

"I can't hear you," Marrowfire purred directly into Moondew's lap.  "All I hear is your heart thudding like a drum.  You're close already, just let me-"

"Oh, Marrow, ooh!  Dear love- oh!  My love, my love, oh my, ooohhhh!"

"Sounds like I should keep at it..."

"My love- my wife!  Oooh, dear wife, good wife, sweet wife, oooh, please!  Please!  Oh, I'm bursting!  I feel it!  Oh, my center's going to burst; oh, I'm aching!  Stop!"

Marrowfire chuckled thickly, teasing the center of Moondew's inner thighs with her tongue.  "I can't help it... I want you.  We made good coin tonight... but now, I just can't hold back.  It's so hard... mmmnnn... to resist your wild witch's charms...."

"Ooh, no, no, no!" Moondew cried pitifully as she threw herself backward and covered her face with her hands.  "Oh, you little demon!  Oh- ooohhhh!  Oh, go on, keep going, ooooh, wicked thing!  Ooohhh, yes, yes, yes, yes... ooohhh, goddess, yes.  Oooh, here, turn around so I can- ooooohhhh, yes.  Your hips are so warm... oh, you're close to bursting... mnnnnnn..."


About an hour later, much sweatier and more satisfied than any of their customers had left them, the two lay in each others arms.  The quiet was wonderful- and then, both women noticed that it was quiet.

"Guess the party's over," Marrowfire commented briefly.  "Sounded like a real riot."

"I bet everyone's passed out right at their tables," Moondew sighed.  She closed her eyes for a moment as though she would sleep, then opened them again with a short hum, and began stirring as if to get out of the bed.  "I'll slide a note with the payment under the tavern owner's door."

"Pay him first thing tomorrow," Marrowfire answered with a soft chuckle, laying her small, warm hand on Moondew's creamy bare belly.  "A few hours' wait won't kill him, and he probably deserves the rest, after dealing with folks tonight.  If you're hungry, there should be enough left in that plate to do for you."

Moondew scooted herself snugly against Marrowfire again and pulled her hand over her head to get all the stray strands of hair out of her face.  "I'll split it with you- and bless than man who left it for us.  If it weren't for foreign mercenaries and soldiers like him, all used to having their needs met by women like us, who knows how we'd make any coin in this city.  I mean, have you seen a single native to this place come up here?"

"The natives are probably grateful, even if their 'morals'- fancy term for their fear of the different- keep them from actually saying so.  The Firebirds in general had brought them some small bit of extra business, and we personally are bringing this dingy place more clientele than it could draw on its own, especially with that awful minstrel," Marrowfire replied.  "If the Firebirds were going to stay a long while, I'd try to administrate some sort of rate cut."

"The bard isn't awful," Moondew snickered as she turned her head to look at Marrowfire.  "He's trying his best.  And he's handy with a flute."

"Moon, people pay him to keep quiet," Marrowfire scoffed.  "I've seen them do it."

Moondew lost all humor immediately, and turned her head straight again.  "That's unfair.  He sings with gusto and true feeling... it's just... unfortunate that he's perhaps just slightly tone deaf.  Those at the Pots might jeer him as he sang, but they'd never pay a bard to shut up; that's cruel."

"That man is not a bard," Marrowfire disagreed, shaking her head.  "Who knows what he is, or what he should be, but a bard is not it.  Remember last night, how Pitchspit came in and handed him his purse back?  Well two nights ago, some other of us tried to rob him, but discovered that Pitchspit had made twice as much as that man had, and went back joking about it to Pitchspit.  Now he- same as you- thought it was madly unfair, and cut the man's purse in order to put more coin in it and give it back, claiming he'd innocently found it.  It was noble of him, to be sure, but my question is, how did an obvious stranger to this place make better coin playing pipe to passersby and market goers than the established indoor wailer did with a drunk and sedentary audience?"

"Some fear the different and the strange, but others are drawn to it- they either respect it properly, try to own it, or treat it like a circus side show," Moondew said quietly.  "Despite the well-known fact that my grandmother was just as likely to kill a supplicant as entertain them, many rejected the wisdom of the city soothsayers and palmists and brought her offerings to beg for her guidance."

"What did she kill them for?  Short changing her?" Marrowfire asked, turning onto her side to look at Moondew.

"Oh no," Moondew laughed, turning her head to the side to look at Marrowfire.  "She never understood money.  Sent me away with every coin she'd ever had, when the time came- some of the pieces were very old.  Most of the time, she killed people for soiling sacred ground.  Outsiders would walk into a holy grove by accident, and she'd strike them down in cold blood.  Sometimes it was for hunting on land that was in danger of losing its natural wildlife.  No trapper or skinner she ever saw ever escaped her spells or claws.  But sometimes she killed people just for sport- or she said she did.  Said it was Human privilege to hunt without need, and the only thing to do about it was to do as animals would not think to do- repay their own murderous thoughtlessness to them."

"Humans aren't the only ones that do that," Marrowfire commented, playing with the ends of Moondew's hair.

"Probably every race does it, but my grandmother, I think, only ever saw Humans.  I don't know if she was born and raised in the swamps, by a coven even older than the one she led, or if she went out on her own to found her coven.  Anyway, I don't fully believe that it was just for sport, as she always 'made use' for every single part soon afterward.  It's not like the Bone College, where it's said that there are whole halls full of Human bits."

"It's the little details, like a temple that might have 'Human bits' casually stashed somewhere, that make me not miss Urmlaspyr one bit," Marrowfire said, shuddering.  She turned back over so that she laid on her back, but took the lock of Moondew's hair with which she'd been playing with her, so that it laid over her chest.  "That Halfling is nuts; how he hasn't been stoned or burned at the stake, I don't know.  I was raised by a Strongheart who willingly joined a Ghostwise clan, so I know crazy when I see it."

A strong-handed knock came at the door, and Moondew, more out of habit than anything else, called out, "Pray, a moment!"  The two scrambled up nearly comically, with Moondew momentarily forgetting that the hair Marrowfire had twirled in her fingers was still firmly spun there.  After a few seconds of disentanglement, Moondew snatched two dresses out of the third and lowest drawers and threw the one that belonged to Marrowfire at her.  "A moment to flip the pillow, my lord!"

"What?" the tavern owner laughed on the other side of the door.  "Not for me- my wife would pour hot oil on me, if she found me untrue to her.  As it is, she was worried that you hadn't come down to dinner, and sent me to check on you.  Drew nearly fell down the stairs trying to get out- warned us that an awful evil was here, and that we'd better call for a priest.  I didn't mind it, but my wife- well.  There was a bit of a happening down here, and when it was over, she said I'd damn well better get up here and check if there were evil."

Moondew adjusted the ties on her simple dress, closed the bottom drawer, then looked behind her to see if Marrowfire had gotten her dress all the way on.  Seeing that she had, she walked over to the door and opened it, coins in hand.  The tavern owner, a salt-and-pepper haired man whose sinewy body showed every second of his fifty-odd years, stood somewhat sheepishly on the other side.

"There was a man who commissioned some food on our behalf, some of which is still here, so we're alright for dinner," she said shyly.  "We didn't personally experience any evil, but we did rest for a while after... um... Drew.  After that, I thought you might be abed, and didn't want to disturb you, but since you're up, here's tomorrow night's coin."

"My wife and I will both be up for a while yet- while you were... eh... attending to business, some overly merry pack of idiots got into a brawl.  Made a bit of a mess," the tavern owner admitted as he opened his hand to receive Moondew's payment.

"I can clean, and my wife is as talented as she is lovely," Moondew suggested, her hand suspended over that of the tavern owner.  "If you tell us what the damage is-"

"Oh no," the owner said quickly.  "We work around here; my wife and I know our way around a repair or two."

"I don't mean to suggest you don't," Moondew smiled, putting the coin directly into the man's hand instead of dropping it there.  "I'm saying that we can make ourselves useful, and help."

"I'll go down and have a look," Marrowfire nodded immediately.  Grabbing one of her oldest hammers down from the top of the dresser, which was at her eye level, she strode right past both people at the door and began making her way down the hallway to the stairs.

"It's best for her to just wear that, if she's going to put hammer to nail down there, but I'll put a wrap on before I see about helping you clean up," Moondew said, turning away from the doorway.  She opened the top drawer and began rustling purposefully through it.  "I know you are modest and simple, as the Bright Lord would have us all.  I hope you aren't afraid of what people will say to your receiving a little assistance from painted women."

"Lathander bless you, girl," the tavern owner frowned, somehow disappointed in both of them at the same time.  "Come and help, since your spirit is moved to do so, and if someone wants to comment on your... trade... I won't fear it."

"Moon," Marrowfire hissed up the hallway, conscious that others in the inn may already be at least in a light sleep.  "Bring me down the hammer with the tree carved onto it and my nail purse.  And wrap your feet well- this place is upside down.  I've already had to pull two splinters out of my ankle."

The man turned and watched Moondew, who had covered her head and bare shoulders with a plain, but soft looking grey cloth, stop to pull some long strips of fabric from the bottom drawer.  She carefully wrapped each foot up to the ankle, then pulled out two similar cloth strips and loosely wrapped them around her right forearm.  She picked up the desired hammer and opened the second drawer, and there, under petticoats and half corsets, lay a thick leather purse.  Moondew pulled it out, tossed the strap of it over her right shoulder, and came through the door, pulling it shut behind her.  The tavern owner, who had moved back in order to allow her passage, watched her gracefully move toward the stairs ahead of him with a measure of sadness that he disliked himself for feeling.  He gripped the coin in his hand tightly, then with a sigh, headed toward the stairs himself.

4:19 The call before the firestorm.

The multilevel fort that served as the Merchant Council's Manse was, at first, just another garrison for Sembian troops.  Pohatkon's prison, once just a three cell brig, had been massively expanded, and two of the three original council members agreed that the man who had quietly directed and orchestrated a good part of the expansion was worthy to maintain the place in any way he saw fit.  The fort itself was unremarkable, and stood, silent and grey, against terrain whose gentle slope upward only seemed imposing if one turned around and looked back down the street behind themselves.  Most Urmlaspyr residents assumed that the Council simply hadn't had time enough to make the place appear any more worthy of its purpose, but the honest truth was that none of the original members shared a vision of the place as anything but what it was.  Their imaginations had been limited to turning the soldiers' bedding room into a reception hall, and the various weapon rooms into living spaces, studies, or small libraries.  Master Ranclyffe's rooms were the most successfully repurposed, which made sense when one realized that she had ceded her house to her son, his wife, and an assorted collection of rogue mages.  Mimsa's allotted spaces were little more than fancy drawing rooms or tea parlors, and Jindranae had been so averse to the re-purposing of a place of battle at all that her Sylvan husband, Kayinu, was responsible for making her single allotted room a warm and welcoming space in which enchantments could be successfully woven into clothing or jewelry.  Arnsvold, predictably, collected all the armor and weapons from the other spaces into his own, and anointed himself the city's foremost smithy.  Perhaps not as predictably, he ensured that Kayinue had a space adjacent to his, but far from Jindranae's, where weapons and armor could be safely enchanted.  While the two weren't friends, they were both war veterans, and could be depended upon to at least salute each other as such twice each day.  There were many such stalemated relationships, where true camaraderie could not be achieved, but disrespect was refused any root- Jindranae and Faera both lamented them.  Arnsvold and Master Ranclyffe accepted them as a viable alternative to stronger, deeper ties.  Mimsa scoffed at the pretense that anyone was a true friend or ally to anyone, having been converted long ago to the belief that jealousy and envy powered the world.

All told, the fort remained more ready for battle than for council, and like most of Urmlaspyr itself, it was a place with more going on underground than above it.

In the early, slightly sea-chilled morning, Imaraide Perth's shrieking soprano split the hallowed air.

"Come back here and face me like a woman, you little selfish prat!"

"Name calling won't help your case," Mimsa replied, continuing to flounce her way up the stone stairs to the Merchant Council Manse.

"Right!" Imaraide grunted.  Taking her skirts firmly in her fists, she charged up the stairs and grabbed Mimsa's shoulder at the top, just in front of the large iron doors to the ruling chamber.  "Now, I publicly denounce your purposeful obstruction of education!"

"Publicly?  Before the sixth hour?  Please," Mimsa said haughtily, snatching her shoulder back from Imaraide's grasp and dusting it off as if Imaraide's hands had been dirty.  "Complain to your husband.  Or perhaps Sakoda's wife- he may actually lift a finger, if Makela were to say something useful."

"Please- Sakoda does more in one hour than you do all day," Imaraide rumbled, annoyed.  "The only reason he ignores your research and refuses to listen to your edicts is because they're all prejudiced and thus, not able to be fairly enacted.  If he could call for a no-confidence vote against your seat, you'd have been put out already."

Mimsa's eyes flashed with fury.  "If the Mage's Quarter residents felt that I was doing them a disservice, they would certainly lodge a proper complaint, as the law dictates," she stated flatly, not allowing her feelings to seep into her voice.  "But this... gross disrespect ... I'm no fool, Imaraide.  This is jealousy made sharp.  Now, you're understandably upset about the outlawing of barbarian magic, but your inadequacy is simply not my fault.  Recant your gods and apply yourself, and you could at least become a fine warlock, I'm sure."

Imaraide pegged Mimsa's flat, pale cheek with a slap so solid that the mark of it puffed up blazing red immediately.  With her mouth popped open in shock and her eyes watering, Mimsa at first could only puff in disbelief.  Some few seconds later, she found her voice.

"Guards- guards, arrest this foul witch!  She's struck me!"

The two politely disinterested guards, posted on either side of the doorway, moved not one inch.

"Let my lords and masters come," Imaraide hissed, her hands on her ample hips.  "I invite the challenge!  My oak wand is just as well-used as your little yew branch, and no law's going to stop me from defending myself!"

"What you two here do, Lady Perth, I shall consider part of a mage's duel," the guard on the right side of the door replied.  "You called the Lady Sevignon to combat; I have no magics, and have never imagined such a duel before, but I know a challenge when I see one."

"I'll have you dismissed," Mimsa whispered fiercely, her eyes narrowed.  "Lord Erantun will hear of your unwillingness to defend your lady!"

On the eastern side of the tower, Jindranae stood in the center of the large divination circle, apparently not paying any attention to the altercation some ways away.  In her hands, she held an oval-shaped mirror with no handle, gazing into it as though her image were the most beautiful thing she could gaze upon.  However, her vanity wasn't quite that acute.

"Oh, Triz, did you have to go there?  Anyway, I suppose you see me as well?"

Master Ranclyffe, standing with her arms crossed in one of Arnsvold's locked weapon storage rooms, nodded.  "Yes.  Step forward and turn."

So, Jindranae re-positioned and turned herself around so that the front steps to the Merchant Council's tower, and the street, were reflected over her right shoulder.

"How's that?" she asked quietly, not wanting to give herself away.

"Adequate," Master Ranclyffe nodded, pulling a note pad and a sharpened piece of charcoal out of the pouches at her waist.

"All proper apprenticeships have to be sanctioned- by you," Imaraide said angrily.  "And you're exacting your revenge for the equality edicts by delaying or denying whatever apprenticeships you don't like, calling it 'protecting the interests of the Mage's Quarter instructors'.  Don't you realize that gives the Phoenix a chance to lure them toward their clearly insurrectionist agenda?  You're breeding terrorists- sewing seeds of revolt with your own hands!"

"That's preposterous!" Mimsa growled, rubbing gently at the reddened flesh on her face.  "Accusing the Phoenix of terrorism is slander, first of all, and secondly, I pride myself on taking great interest in the abilities of each potential apprentice.  If I didn't, you'd see diviners trying to teach healers, evokers yoked to abjurers- and what about necromancers and conjurers, who should neither receive apprentices nor be apprenticed themselves?"

"Why not?" Imaraide shrieked with dark eyes flashing.  "Do you realize how dangerous an untrained necromancer is?  That man who had to be registered to Semnemac some months ago was hardly in his right mind- that's what abandoning a necromancer to the winds will do!"

"Ah, I remember him," Jindranae commented.  "So very tender-hearted, for a necromancer; I hope he's feeling better, these days."

"I can't be responsible for every mad mage that runs into this city," Mimsa declared.  "If the borders were properly secured, perhaps I may have a chance at knowing who and what is coming in and out of this place."

"Seyashen," Master Ranclyffe confirmed, scribbling away at her notebook.  "His mental sanctity has improved.  His self-esteem, not so much."

"That's your job," Imaraide hollered, incredulous.  "Your job is to be responsible for the mages that come in and out of this city- did you just blindly hope that between the former High Captain, Ranclyffe, Aric, and Semnemac, someone would do something about him, before you had to?"

"Precisely correct," Master Ranclyffe huffed, looking up briefly from her notes.  "Mimsa owes both the Raven Queen's coven and the Bone College a weighty debt of gratitude."

"Oh dear," Jindranae breathed.

Mimsa finally left her face alone and crossed her arms over her chest.  "Lady Perth, there are many responsibilities that demand my attention, and-"

"And one of them is to properly track mages, and cults, and other practitioners of magic- this is how slavers slip in and out of the Eastern Quarter, unseen and unannounced, to make off with people," Imaraide countered.  "If we had proper accountability-"

"The safety of the borders is Sakoda's job, not mine!" Mimsa objected.

"But how can Sakoda possibly guard against offending mages without defending mages?" Imaraide exclaimed.  "The man is artless!  And with all the effort he's put in to posting sufficient guards on all sides, most of those people are just as artless as he, and you've not answered one of his summons for a defending mage force.  He refuses to comply with the Phoenix on their terms, so your silence leaves us magically defenseless, and you know that the Semmites have Shade mages to back them!  You are knowingly giving us to Thultanthar, worse to us than any Semmite!"

"We're not entirely defenseless, I hope," Jindranae said pointedly, peeking into the mirror to watch Master Ranclyffe.

"Lord Hawke is not, mentally and emotionally speaking, much different than her pet," Mimsa stated, a touch of pride returning to her voice.  "Sakoda must put a collar on him and force the Phoenix to work lawfully, as Lady Jindranae did to Lord Hawke herself."

"The handful of wards that Gimago tirelessly maintains while dodging Mimsa and completing his own studies are being taken apart by well-trained counterspelling mages," Master Ranclyffe answered.  She turned to her right, cast a spell whose glow disappeared into the stone wall, then returned to her note taking.  "They dispel them almost as fast as I can write new warding spells; it's been quite the challenge to stay ahead of them while attending to other duties."

"So instead of having a fully legal mage force, organized by the person who is supposedly keeping track of who would best be fitted to the necessary work, Sakoda, who may I remind you again is artless, and has no social currency with gifted folk, is supposed to resort to 'collaring' hostile magically empowered terrorists?" Imaraide asked, genuinely amazed at Mimsa's line of thinking.  "Are you listening to yourself?"

"Oh dear," Jindranae repeated, with greater alarm.  "Hawke was no easy conquest; I won her compliance with months of artfully constructed blackmail.  People suffered in scores at her hand as I worked, and-"

"Dresan's 'compliance' can be similarly won," Master Ranclyffe answered, briefly looking up from her notes.  "Patience."

"I refuse to continue this conversation," Mimsa pronounced regally, turning her back on Imaraide and moving purposefully toward the door.  Neither of the posted guards moved to open it for her.

"Then grant me audience," Imaraide repeated.

"You don't need an audience; I've listened to all your complaints, and answered them," Mimsa huffed.

"You've minimized and hand waved them," Imaraide countered, straightening herself and dropping her hands into fists at her sides.  "You didn't resolve anything- and it's clear that you won't.  So, I demand audience with the entirety of the Merchant's Council- I'll wait right here."

"Good morning, Lady Perth- no need for that," Faera called brightly from the bottom of the stone steps.  Gathering her skirt in her hands, she began to climb them slowly one by one, a testament to the caution she still carried with her despite weeks of freedom from the Stingers.  "Come on in and have some heavy tea, won't you?  I don't see your purse about you, so don't worry about payment- I'll answer for whatever you wish.  I don't remember how many issues are on the docket, but Arnsvold will know.  Whatever the last one is, or if someone misses theirs, we can add you right-"

"How dare you invite anyone to 'heavy tea' on Council property; the mixing of tea with liquor is simply filthy," Mimsa thundered, whipping herself around again.  "And to interrupt a private audience-"

"What?" Faera laughed as she finished the last few steps up to the door and let go of her skirt.  "You can't hold a private anything on a set of stairs in broad open air.  It's too early in the morning to tell jokes; wait until after tea.  Here, Lady Perth- my hand, since your gentleman's not here to offer his."

With that, Faera and bowed at the hip, as though she were a male partner at a fine dance.  Imaraide, amused, first curtsied deeply, then arose to lay her left forearm upon Faera's outstretched right forearm.  "I thank you kindly, noble companion."

The guard on the right, closer to Imaraide and Faera, stepped forward as if recently relieved of a paralysis spell, and briskly opened the heavy iron door.  Just a moment after the two ladies entered that side, the guard on the left opened the door on his side.  Both guards uniformly stepped in front of the open doors and resumed their previous statue-like postures, and Mimsa glared at both of them before entering herself, with a quiet huff.

"I like Fae's style," Jindranae purred, amused by the goings-on.  "She's odd, at times, but I do like her.  It's been eye-opening to have such a strong Eastern Quarter voice."

"She's useful," Master Ranclyffe admitted.  A returning spell orb of some sort seeped through the stone wall and hovered, with a few strands of green glow circling its center of power, just off her right shoulder.

"Would you rather someone else had gotten the seat?" Jindranae asked as she watched the guards administrate others audience seekers.

"No," the older Human mage replied.  "She's unafraid of trouble, despite her experience with it.  That's useful."

"What will we do about Mimsa?" Jindranae mused, turning the mirror back squarely to her own face.   Once she did, she noticed the green orb and grew concerned.  "She quite obviously is not.  Useful, I mean."

"I heard you," Master Ranclyffe answered.  "And I've repaired, tuned, and tested Ntoru's mirror for more than one reason.  The orb is a reply from Gimago."

"Oh, I love you best when you're sneaky," Jindranae smiled, allowing herself to relax a bit.  "Shall we find some way of ensconcing this thing into a stone?"

"An apparently unowned mirror in the Mage Quarter, however well blended into its surroundings, will be the subject of high suspicion," Master Ranclyffe noted.

"Oh yes, that's true," the Eladrin said thoughtfully.  "We would just stop to gaze at it, but Humans... you're different."

Master Ranclyffe absorbed the racial comparison without remark.  "I did consider shard work."

"Oh my," Jindranae cooed.  Her tone was stranded between concern and admiration, which Master Ranclyffe felt was an appropriate reaction.  "I'm aware of it, but I dislike the idea of using any vestige of Shadovar innovation, however useful it may be.  I hate to say this, but we might see whether or not Lady Kaionne, or any of her students, have followed any similar lines of study, so that we may use their version instead."

"Kaionne is a naturalist," Master Ranclyffe said, her mind absorbing Jindranae's rejection and resorting to her work-around without pause.  "She will likely have alternative ideas about how to ask the stones, weeds, or puddles already in the area to help us."

"Oh my, that'd be a return to my roots, as it were," Jindranae smiled.  "I like that plan better; I shall pen a letter and send it with one of our children to Kaionne right away."

"Here it is," Master Ranclyffe replied, eyebrow arched.  "All that's left is to write the appropriate name and move the draft onto a paper fit to read from."

"Triz!" Jindranae laughed.  "You must let me read it before you put my name on it, at least!  And do please get out of Arnsvold's toy chest at once; I dislike looking at it."