We stood in a motionless triangle, the geriatric creak of the open window the only sound in the room.

No one made a move. There was a tension in the air that hinted at the potential for sudden, lethal violence, and not all of that tension was coming from me.

The Kara-Turan woman had both of her arms outstretched, a knife at my throat and a handaxe at the little Bedine's.

Nadiya had the tip of her scimitar resting against the other woman's belly, hard enough to dent the leather but not enough to cut. Her hand was rock steady, but her doe's eyes were wide, and she was breathing hard.

I felt Ishiko's pulse beat against my fingers. It was altogether too calm for a woman who had a half-orc's hand wrapped around her neck. The fragile rings of cartilage that made up her windpipe lay just beneath my fingers. She had to know that as things stood I did not even need to turn to magic to kill her - all I had to do was squeeze. This knowledge, however, did not seem to distress her.

We stayed that way for several tense heartbeats. No one seemed inclined to move. Or breathe.

Gradually, I noticed an acrid smell in the air, one that burned my throat and made my eyes sting. It seemed to be coming from just below chin level. "Ah," I said distantly. "That dagger is poisoned, isn't it?"

Ishiko's eyes flicked to me and back to the Bedine woman again. "Yes," she said curtly.

"I see." Well, that in itself was not necessarily a problem. There was a ring of yellowed bone on the index finger of my right hand that gave me some measure of protection against most common poisons - another lucky find in the Blacksands bazaar. At the very least, the ring would slow the poison's progress through my bloodstream long enough for me to make it to a potion of antidote. The issue was that I did not know what poison was on that blade, and I did not particularly care to risk finding out the hard way that this particular poison was something rare and deadly that my ring could not counteract.

Then, of course, there was the issue that even if the poison did not kill me, a dagger in the carotid certainly would - and there was no guarantee that I would be able to kill her so quickly that she would not have the instant she needed to shove the blade in.

I calculated the odds. Could be better. "Brown," I said tightly.

"W-what?"

The boy's voice had a strange echo to it. "Where in the Hells are you, boy?"

"H-hiding."

The corner of the Kara-Turan's mouth turned up slightly. She did not take her eyes off of either of us. "He's under the bed," she said drily.

Under the… Whatever charitable thoughts I had had about the boy's nerve, I took them back. I took them all back. "Get out from under there, you dolt," I said from between gritted teeth.

A series of scrapes, rustles, and muffled "ouch"'s came from behind me. The boy's voice became less muffled. "S-sorry," he stammered sheepishly. "I got a little, um. S-scared. Sorry."

If he thought this was frightening, just wait until this was over. I would show him what real fear was. I would have him pissing his britches so hard that the Zhentarim would have to evacuate this city on a bloody boat. "Close the window," I growled.

The boy complied. "All right," he said nervously. "Now what?"

"Check the body."

"What for?"

Loose change and pocket lint, you nitwit. Constrained as I was by the dagger against my neck, however, I had to content myself with a stiff, "Is he dead?"

The boy's footsteps crossed the room. On the edge of my vision, I saw him stumble towards the door. He leaned over gingerly. "Um," he said uncertainly. "I…I think so. I…oh, dear." He covered his mouth. "He...he has no head," he added, sounding sick. "And, um. He's got a c-crossbow bolt in the chest."

Well, the crossbow bolt was inconclusive, but the missing head was fairly definitive as far as proof of death went. "Good," I said distantly. "Close the door. Quickly." It clicked shut. Moving only my eyes, I looked at Ishiko. "Is that bolt yours?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now, are you planning to kill me?"

Her eyebrow lifted. "If I did, I would have shot you before you saw me," she said coolly.

The pressure against my throat had eased slightly. I decided to risk slightly longer sentences. "Then we may conclude that this entire exercise is pointless," I said.

Her head tilted slightly in acknowledgement, insofar as it could with my hand around her neck. "Probably."

"So why don't you lower that thing so we can talk?"

She squinted at me warily. "Let go of me first," she countered.

The Bedine on the other end of the scimitar narrowed her eyes. "No," she said. She dug the point of her scimitar a little further in to the other woman's belly. "You let go of us first."

Ishiko's eyes slid over to her, cool as a snake's. "You know I can beat you, girl," she pointed out, just as if I did not have my hand poised to crush her windpipe.

The girl gave a slight nod of acknowledgement. "True," she said evenly. She sounded almost as calm as Ishiko, which was something coming from a woman who had almost fainted at the prospect of wearing trousers.

The Kara-Turan's eyebrows rose. "So why put up a fight?" she asked.

The other woman hesitated. A sad smile appeared on her face, briefly, and was gone almost as suddenly as it had appeared. "I am Bedine," she said. Her chin lifted. "We are at our best in the face of certain defeat."

I was tempted to laugh. I did smile. Never let it be said that the Bedine lack for bravery, I thought. Sense, yes. Bravery, no. "If this were certain defeat, we would be dead already," I said. "Which makes this entire conversation absurd." I looked at Ishiko. "Come now," I chided her. "Xanos is not standing here all night. What is it? Kill or truce? Time is wasting."

Ishiko hesitated. "How do I know I can trust you?"

My smile widened into a grin. "You cannot," I admitted blithely. "But I could have blown your head off ten times by now. The fact that I have not should count for something, eh?"

Ishiko considered that. "Fair enough," she conceded. "On the count of three, then?"

The other woman studied her thoughtfully. "Agreed," she said.

"Very well. One. Two-"

On 'three', we all lowered our various weapons and stepped back. Some of the tension ebbed from the room.

Ishiko was the first to relax, reversing her dagger and sliding it into a sheath at her hip. Her hand axe she hooked over her belt. "Sorry about that," she said laconically, folding her bony arms over her bony chest. She nodded at the corpse near the door. "Came here as soon as I figured out what he was doing. No time to warn you."

Nadiya had lost her blanket in the commotion. As I watched, she sheathed her sword, and the fabric of her shirt temporarily went taut across the muscles in her shoulder and upper arm. So did the laces holding the neck of her shirt closed, which were straining against other, more significant forces. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, the laces were losing. "Why did you not tell us you were here before?" she asked the other woman crossly. "We might have avoided all this…" She gestured, seeming at a loss for words. The movement threatened to burst her shirt in at least three places. "This mess."

I cleared my throat. Then I cleared it again. Bloody desert air was far too dry. What I needed was water. Preferably cold, and preferably a bucket of it. "You might have knocked," I agreed irritably. Crossing the room, I knelt beside the corpse, sweeping my robe back to avoid dredging the hem in blood. "Or shouted a warning. Or, Hells, you might have just slipped a note under the door."

Ishiko shrugged. "Like I said – no time to warn. Only saw him in time to shoot him." She eyed the corpse. "Looks like I needn't have bothered."

"Mmh. Yes, well, it would not be the first time someone has tried to shoot Xanos – and, as I am sure you will note, I am still alive." Resting my elbows on my knees, I studied the body curiously. It wore dark garb with no distinguishing insignia. Near its outstretched hand there was a small crossbow, the type that could easily be concealed beneath clothing, and there were some pouches at its belt. No armor to speak of. This one had depended on silence to protect him, though he had not counted on my ward.

Strange, I mused. One would expect that an assassin assigned to murder a mage or a sorcerer would be prepared for such an obstacle. Wands of dispelling may have been costly, but death was arguably more so.

Frowning, I continued my inspection. Above the corpse's neck, things became messier. There were some skull fragments, still smoking, and the carpet bore a significant smearing of what had been contained in the man's skull before I had blown it open. The air stank of burnt hair and cooked flesh. Smears of blood, blackened with ash and thickened with gray matter, decorated the wall behind him, still slowly dripping. Not much else was left of his head. Certainly not a face. I had obviously hit him a little too hard with that fireball. In my defense, I had been startled and he had been pointing a weapon at me, so I thought I could be forgiven for a somewhat extreme response.

Thoughtfully, I leaned forward, and – being sure to keep the Kara-Turan in my line of sight - began to go through the corpse's pockets.

Ishiko watched me. "He came to kill one of you," she said blandly. She shrugged. "Don't know which. Sorry."

I half-looked up. "Really?" I drawled. "And here Xanos thought the man might have been here to deliver a complimentary fruit basket and a bottle of wine. My dreams have been crushed."

The Kara-Turan looked at me, expressionless. "You're funny," she said, in a flat tone of voice which implied the exact opposite.

I rolled my eyess. "Well, someone around here has to have a sense of humor, and you ladies most definitely are not it," I retorted, still searching the corpse's pockets for clues. I found a brace of crossbow bolts, poison-tipped, which I helped myself to. He had a few potion vials – some of antidote, some of healing, one which looked like poison – along with sundries like a length of twine, lockpicks, and a small pot of grease. I left the rest, but took the potions. They could be identified later, and may turn out to be useful.

The pouches thus catalogued, I ran my fingers along the dead man's jerkin until I felt something – the crinkle of paper. Untying it, I found an interior pocket sewn into the breast. There was a folded-up slip of paper tucked into the pocket. I tugged it free and unfolded it. "Interesting," I murmured. I held the note up between my middle and forefinger. "This note is signed."

Nadiya frowned. "By whom?"

I glanced at her briefly, then stood, nodding at Ishiko. "Watch her," I told the Bedine woman, my voice curt. I looked at Brown. "Both of you. And if he hides again, princess, you have my permis…no, my encouragement to gut him." Turning to the door, I ran my finger through the bloody ash that was splattered across the wall. Carefully, I re-traced the ward, in blood this time, letting a bare trickle of power flow into it. It glowed briefly, then dulled. That done, I turned to face the others again. No knife in my back – that was already a positive sign. "The note is signed by Aglast Thimm," I said, stepping away from the threshold and adding, "Which most likely means that Thimm had nothing to do with this."

The little Bedine's frown deepened, adding a deep furrow between her eyebrows. "Why?"

"Because," I replied, "-when you send an assassin to kill your enemy, you do not leave him with a note in his pocket with your signature on it. Not unless you happen to be a complete idiot."

Ishiko shrugged. "Why not?" she asked indifferently. "If the target's dead he won't be reading much."

"And yet here I am, very much alive. A wise man plans for contingencies like these. Are you saying that Xanos is being targeted by a moron?"

She spread her hands in the universal gesture for, 'Damned if I know.' "Could be."

I laughed. "Gods, I hope not," I said. "What an insult! Surely a nuisance of Xanos's caliber deserves a better class of enemy, don't you think?" I waved a hand. "No, no, don't answer that. Gods only know what kind of an answer you might come up with." I began to pace again. "Besides, even if he had somehow succeeded in killing me, he still might have been captured," I added. "Or perhaps he was addicted to black lotus, and might have allowed the note to slip from his pocket in a narcotic fugue. There are many ways for such things to fall into the wrong hands." I turned and wagged the note at her. "That is why only a fool consigns his plans to paper." And I did not think this Thimm was a fool.

The men in Hlaunga had called him The Poisoner. They had been afraid of him. They had been merchants, men of little power and even less influence, but where dread had run so deep, a wise man did not go digging blindly. A wise man watched, and waited, and held his strength in reserve until he had enough information to know precisely when, where, and how to strike.

Unless he was cornered, of course. In that case it was time for the wise man to go down in a blaze of glory and take everything for a few miles in every direction with him.

In any case, I saw no reason why this Thimm should send an assassin after me. I have not moved against him, either openly or overtly. All I had done was ask a few oblique questions - though it seemed far too strange a coincidence to find his name on an assassin sent to kill me. Could it be that I had not been as subtle as I had hoped, or that someone here was aware of my trip to Hlaunga and had added the two facts together to reach…what? What conclusion might be reached? That I was up to something might have been clear, but it would have taken a significant leap of intuition to connect me to Thimm. There was very little which I had actually done on which one might base such suspicions.

Unless they know about her. Perhaps alone my inquiries had not been not enough to attract attention, but in the company of a Bedine woman, and in the light of Thimm's recent purchases, perhaps…

Ishiko spoke, breaking into my thoughts. "Who sent him, then?" she asked.

I stopped, turn, and arched an eyebrow at her. "You?" I suggested bluntly.

She returned my look with a flat one of her own. "If I wanted you dead, I'd have let him kill you," she said. "Or killed you myself." She shrugged again. "Besides, why would I want to?" she added. "You've done nothing to me."

"Xanos might hasten to point out that personal motivations are not necessary for an assassin. One might even call them a hindrance."

Her eyes narrowed. Anger glinted in them. "I don't kill people for money," she said quietly.

That had been the first sign of real emotion I had seen from her. It did not bode well that it had been a hostile one. "Then why are you here?"

The Kara-Turan's anger faded. She shrugged yet again. "Ghufran wanted you watched," she said. "You and the boy. When I realized you were gone, I followed." She glanced at the corpse and raised her eyebrows. It was the only change in her expression. "Lucky for you I did," she added drily.

Luck, I suspected, had had nothing to do with it. "And you entered Orofin alone and undetected?"

My question did not seem to faze her. "Not hard." Her voice was calm. "Just find a big caravan. If there're people enough, no one notices one more."

Trying to pin this woman down was like trying to catch a bar of soap in a bathtub the size of the Sea of Stars. "These people seem very interested in recording each person who enters," I observed. Thoughtfully, I began pacing again, throwing words over my shoulder rapid-fire. "Has no one questioned you? Asked your name? Tried to throw you out for trespassing?"

A faint smirk appeared on her face. "Can't throw me out if they can't find me."

"I see." I reached one end of the room and turned, leveling a hard stare at the Kara-Turan. "Very well. And now that you have successfully bamboozled our hosts, what do you intend to do?"

"Now?" she echoed. "Now I stay with you." A thin smile flickered onto her thin lips. "Orders. Besides, you're planning something." She looked around the room idly. "In Zhent territory, too," she added, and clucked her tongue. "Risky. You'll probably need help. Oh, I'm not worried about you. Orc bloods are hard to kill. Cut 'em and they just get angry. You might survive a work crew. Maybe even the pits." She gestured towards Nadiya. "She won't, though. Neither will he."

I stopped again, regarding her thoughtfully. "You sound quite certain of that," I observed.

She returned my regard with a bland stare of her own. "They put me there," she said, and touched her axe briefly. "I know."

"Impressive," I said. I would have paid my weight in platinum to know exactly how many more weapons she was hiding about her person. "And so you escaped? Just like that?"

"Won my way out," she corrected me. Another glint appeared in her dark eyes. Pride, perhaps. "Not escaped."

I looked her up and down. Her leather was sun-faded and worn smooth by long use, as was the handle of her axe. "Only the most cunning, skilled, and vicious of fighters ever win their way free of the Zhentarim's gladiator pits," I mused.

The Kara-Turan woman clasped her hands in front of her chest and gave me a slight bow. Her expression did not change, but I thought the gesture had an ironic air to it.

"Ah," I murmured. "Well done." She would need to be watched. Carefully. Very, very carefully. I crossed the room again, my own hands clasped behind my back – making sure to keep her always at the corners of my vision. "And so they granted you your freedom, just like that?"

"Freedom was the prize. Most of us died for it." She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I didn't.

"And now, here you are, volunteering – out of the goodness of your cunning, vicious black heart – to help us."

"Not volunteering," she repeated. "Orders." She glanced at Nadiya. "Besides, I like the girl," she added. As far as declarations of affection went, it was the coldest-sounding one I had heard in my life - not that I had heard many. "She's got potential," the Kara-Turan went on. "Hate to see it lost in the pits.

Brown spoke up. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his bony arms wrapped around his gangly knees. "She does work for Ghufran," he offered. "I know that. I've seen them talking."

"Have you?" One of these days, I would have to figure out how to grow eyes in the back of my head. It would probably lengthen my lifespan immeasurably. "And what does Ghufran want?" I inquired.

Brown opened his mouth, but Ishiko answered. "Told you. She wants you watched." She jerked a finger at Brown. "And him kept alive."

I grunted. "Does she, now?" I looked over at Brown. He still had his mouth hanging open. Either he had something to say or he was trying for his best impression of a dead fish. "Well, let the boy answer. I am curious to hear what he thinks." He was still staring. I snapped my fingers at him. He blinked and started violently. "Focus, boy. I am asking you a question. What does Ghufran want with you?"

His face turned sullen. He looked down, picking at a loose thread on his pants leg. "I have a name, you know," he mumbled.

"No doubt you do, boy. It might even be your real name, for all Xanos knows. But that is not what I asked. What makes you so important that that corpulent slug should want you kept in one piece?"

Brown seemed to be trying his best to unravel the fabric of his breeches in-situ. "I don't know why she thinks I'm important," he mumbled to his knees. He looked up. "I'm a good guide. That could be it, I guess."

Doubt was written all over his voice, and weighed down his tongue. "But you do not think so," I finished for him.

After a moment, he shook his head and looked down again. "I…I don't know what I think." I saw him frown. "I don't think she has any other reason. I can't imagine…"

Ishiko watched him. Whatever she thought, it did not show on her face. "A good guide's hard to find," she offered blandly.

I rolled my eyes. "Excellent," I said acidly. "Then take him to her, why don't you?" I flapped my hand. "Go on. Shoo."

Ishiko shook her head. "Can't," she said, almost apologetically.

"Why not?"

"Orders."

"You keep saying this."

"Yes."

"Just so you know, Xanos is finding it incredibly annoying that you keep saying this."

Brown looked up again. His face brightened. "Maybe she can help us find the person who bought Nadiya's family," he suggested.

I would have bitten him, but it would have taken forever to wash the taste of stupidity out of my mouth. "Say it a little louder next time, boy," I growled. "They cannot have heard you in Luskan."

Ishiko raised a thin eyebrow. "Slaves, are they?"

I gritted my teeth, but did not deny it. What use? She had seen enough at this point to reach her own conclusions. "So it appears."

"And you want them freed." It was not a question.

I shot a glare over my shoulder. "What Xanos wants matters little," I said sourly. I reached the wall. Turned. Paced back. "The princess wants them back, and so the princess shall have them."

Ishiko tilted her head, looking me up and down. "Strange," she said blandly. "You didn't strike me as the type."

I stopped in mid-step. "Type?" I repeated. "What type?"

The Bedine woman stared at the Kara-Turan, narrow-eyed. "And you?" she asked Ishiko bluntly. "Will you still follow your orders?"

"Excuse me. Xanos is still speaking. What type?"

"Orders are orders. And Zhents are Zhents." Ishiko's face emptied of its tiny, amused smirk. Her hand caressed her axe handle. "I'm not going back to those pits."

"Xanos is not a type. Why do you think I am a type?"

Brown perked up. "So does this mean you're with us?"

The woman glanced at me, and spread her hands. "Guess I am," she said.

I stopped, and stared at them despairingly. My hand went to my forehead. I thought it might have been the only thing keeping my head from exploding. "Nine Hells," I swore.

Brown peered at me curiously. "What does that mean?"

Nadiya looked at me. Her hand whipped out. The back of it struck my arm - surprisingly hard. "You are being rude, Xanos," she said shortly.

I rubbed my arm. "Rude?" I scoffed. "Of course I am being rude! If you are fool enough to trust this hatchet-faced old-" I saw the second blow coming this time, and tried to block it. Unfortunately, I could not take my eyes off of Ishiko, which meant that I was forced to block using the forearm that my nemesis had already sliced open. Her fist landed directly on the half-healed cut. I let out a pained roar. "Hellfire, woman!" I erupted. "Would you kindly stop hitting me?"

She glared at me. "Will you be reasonable?" she snapped back.

"I am being reasonable. You are the sadistic little beast who will not listen to reason!"

Ishiko stirred. "Children," she interrupted mildly. "No bickering." A smile flickered briefly across her face. "Or wait until later. Business now, eh?"

And now it was taking a murderer to call me back to something resembling rationality. Excellent. Why had Drogan saved my life again? "She started it," I muttered, after a long and uncomfortable pause.

Nadiya cleared her throat. She was not looking at me. Her face was flushed. "We need a thing the overseer has in his possession," she said gruffly.

The Kara-Turan looked at us thoughtfully. "Tricky," she said. "At least at first. He's in the pyramid. Guards at all the entrances. Have to find a way past them. Then…not so bad." A faint, grim smile curved her lips. "Zhents guard walls. Gates. Not people. You work for them, you guard yourself. You live, you get promoted. You die…well, you probably didn't deserve the job, anyway."

Brown spoke up. "What if he catches us?" he fretted.

Ishiko's voice was dry. "Try not to let him."

"Um. All right. But what if he does?"

Nadiya was chewing on her lower lip again. "Well, we will need a plan of escape, obviously," she said.

I was beginning to feel irrelevant. It was not a pleasant feeling. Snarling soundlessly, I yanked my mantle straight and stepped between them. "Fine," I said sourly. Not sulkily. Xanos did not sulk. I brooded. Majestically. "If this is the game, let us play it the right way." I looked at Ishiko. "Do you know a way out of the city?"

She inclined her head. "A few. Got a map?"

"Yes, I-"

"I have a map," Brown piped up.

I turned to stare at him. "You have a map of Orofin?"

He nodded and hopped off of the edge of the bed. "I do."

I watched him as he went to fetch his pack. "You do," I echoed flatly.

The boy dug through his meager belongings and pulled out a rolled-up cylinder of parchment. He stood, waving it in the air above his head as he fought a moment for his balance. "I do, I do. A good one, too," he babbled. Crossing the room, he deposited it triumphantly into my hands. "It took forever, let me tell you. Especially getting all the cobblestones right."

I gave him a last, bemused look before leaning over the fireside table. I unrolled the map and spread it out, smoothing the creases with my hands. "This is good," I said slowly, surprised. The map showed a near-perfect bird's eye view of Orofin, in places captured in such minute detail that even the patterns of the roof tiles on the tower in the center of the city had been sketched in. The roads were marked clearly, though they did not seem to be named. Even alleyways were shown, and the ruins had been drawn with surprisingly artistic precision, even outside the walls of the Zhentarim quarter, where the city was too wild and monster-infected for a thorough mapping. I studied it, my eyebrows shooting up. "This is very, very good," I breathed in admiration. I paused, leaning my knuckles on either side of the unrolled map, and looked at the boy from beneath half-lowered lids. "Whom did you steal it from?"

Hurt flickered across his face. "I didn't steal them," he insisted. He crossed his arms over his chest and drew himself up almost haughtily. "I drew them myself."

"You did?"

He nodded stoutly. "I did."

"You."

"Yes."

"The nitwit who just walked into the same wall twice earlier today because he, and I quote, "Didn't see that there.""

Uncertainty started to overtake his indignation. "Um. Yes."

I persisted. "And you drew a map."

"Yes."

"A legible one."

His head reared back. "Legible?" he huffed, indignant once more. "Oh, now that's not fair! You just said that it was very good!"

"Yes, well, that was before I knew that it had been drawn by a moron." I scanned the map, paying no mind to the boy's offended spluttering. "I thought you said you had never been anywhere near here," I remarked to Brown absent-mindedly, as if most of my attention was on the map.

The boy jumped. "No, but…I got copies," he said nervously. He licked his lips. "Of other maps. Ghufran…she let me look at them. And I managed to figure out what they had in common and put it all together." He paused, then added, "From the copies," as if that had not been clear.

He was lying through his teeth. Badly, too. Amazingly badly. He might have gotten away with it had he stopped himself a little earlier, but as with any bad liar, he could not help but embellish, and the more he embellished the weaker his lie became.

Well, no matter. Let it be for now. My observation had put him on his guard, and it would be a trial to get anything else out of him until his guard was back down. I was almost certain that he meant me no direct harm, in any case. Either that or he was the best actor I had ever met. No, he wanted something – protection, information, scapegoats, something – but he was no killer.

From the corner of my eye, I observed Ishiko, who was standing silently by.

Ah. Speaking of killers. I would be insane to trust Ishiko. She was a killer. I would be better off if she were dead. The princess would be better off, too. Ishiko knew too much and spoke too little.

Of course, that was why I could not kill her. If I killed her now, I would never know what she knew, and what she knew might just end up being useful to me, especially if she had spent enough time among the Zhentarim to know how their tricks.

Besides, I bloody hated to give up perfectly good information. It would torture me if I killed her now, I knew. I would be up nights wondering what secrets had died with her.

A memory of Drogan's voice spoke up, dry as the dust he no doubt was by now. Curiosity killed the cat, boy, the memory murmured.

I gave a mental shrug. And satisfaction brought it back, I countered. Besides, I have already died once. How bad can a second time be?

As if on cue, my imagination presented me with a series of horrific scenarios.

Thank you, brain, I thought sourly. Thank you so much for that.

Smothering my imagination in its cradle, I turned to Ishiko. "How familiar are you with the guard movements?" I asked.

She thought for a moment. "Somewhat," she said, after a brief pause. "I've watched them. Enough to avoid them, anyway."

"Excellent. Do they coordinate with each other?"

She mulled over that, too. "Don't seem to," she concluded. "Seems like they get their orders from headquarters. Never seen 'em talking, anyway."

Well, that at least fit in with what I had seen so far. "I see," I said. My finger traced a path along the streets of Orofin, shrunken into miniature and sketched in ink. "Are there any patrols scheduled tonight that will not soon be missed?"

"Maybe. Why?"

I nodded, and reached into one of the inner pockets of my mantle. Metal, warm after several hours spent nestled close to my skin, met my fingers. I pulled it out, turned, and extended a hand to Nadiya. "Do not lose this," I ordered coolly. "You may need it."

Small, calloused fingers hesitantly grazed my palm as she took the object. "What is it?" she asked.

I frowned at the map. "A Zhentarim badge of rank," I replied absently. "I stole it from a guardsman earlier."

The girl's brown eyes narrowed in confusion. "How did you do it?"

I shrugged. "I overwhelmed him with my charm," I said blandly.

Ishiko's eyebrows shot up. "Funny," she said. "Didn't notice you had any."

My grin was dark and quick. "That is only because I have had no occasion to use it on you," I said smoothly. Looking up, I gestured at the map. "This building here. Where is it guarded?"

The Kara-Turan leaned forward. "The pyramid?" she asked. She scratched the side of her neck thoughtfully. "Who's there?"

"Scribes. Record-keepers. Mid- to high-level officials. Possibly mages, though I did not feel much power in there. If they were mages, they were not significant."

Ishiko nodded, a spare gesture that was little more than a slight dip of her chin. "If it's officials and small-time wizards, guards'll be outside," she said. "Not in. Zhents trust their own traps. They don't trust guards. Too easy to bribe." Ishiko looked up at me thoughtfully. "Why?"

I smirked, and turned again to the little Bedine, who watched me with an equal mix of wariness and curiosity, the guardsman's badge still nestled in the palm of her open hand. "Tell me, princess," I said. "How good are you at climbing?"