Read Online Condemnation by Richard Baker - Free Book Online Page B

sign that he had been detected, then he glided toward the hall’s juncture with the castle proper, his steps as silent as death.
    The dark elves of Faen Tlabbar were not unaware of their vulnerability to assault from above, and vigilant sentries manned battlements and cupolas atop the palace, watching for intruders. Nimor avoided them carefully. Those who were able to see invisible foes—and there were more than a few—were not in the habit of watching for an invisible foe who also glided from shadow to shadow with the stealth of a master assassin. Nimor was more concerned with the various magical barriers shielding the house. He habitually protected himself with spells designed to counter and confuse various forms of magical detection, but they were not foolproof.
    Green and gold radiance glimmered around him as he crept along the steep, tiled roof of a square tower. The Faen Tlabbar, like many other Houses, used magic to illuminate and decorate the baroque spires and balconies of their home. Nimor lowered himself to his belly and edged down even farther, headfirst, listening carefully. Below him he expected to find a guard post, and an entrance leading into the manor itself. Over the decades the Jaezred Chaulssin had used magic to scry what they could of the layout and defenses of many great Houses in more than one drow city, and the slender assassin had carefully studied his brotherhood’s notes and drawings on House Tlabbar. The information was, of course, incomplete and out of date, as parts of the castle were blocked from all scrying, and the Jaezred Chaulssin had not studied the Houses of Menzoberranzan in a very long time. Nimor would have preferred to update his information through the bribery or capture of a Tlabbar guard, but he simply did not have the time to arrange such a thing and keep the rest of his timetable intact.
    He heard the soft sounds of movement on the balcony below the eave of the roof he lay on. Two, he guessed, at least one wearing chain mail. He would have to be swift—a single outcry could spell the end of his single-handed assault on the castle. With calculating patience, Nimor edged out even more and found himself looking down on a curving gallery beneath the overhanging eave. To his left, the walkway became a walled stair leading down to the lower battlements, while to his right it simply ended at a black doorway. The door itself stood open. Directly beneath him stood a drow male in armor, gazing out over a lower courtyard.
    Nimor studied the fellow for a full thirty heartbeats, planning his strike as he quietly slipped his dagger from its sheath. It was a blade of green-black enchanted steel that glistened wetly in the glimmering faerielight. Then, still invisible, he rolled himself off the roof and dropped down behind the Tlabbar guard.
    The assassin’s feet thudded softly to the flagstones. The guard started to turn and opened his mouth to cry out, but with one remorseless movement, Nimor clapped a hand over the fellow’s face and punched his dagger deep into the base of the skull. The blade grated on bone, and the Tlabbar guard simply sagged into Nimor’s arms, dead on his feet.
    Nimor let the nerveless body slump to the floor and looked up at the other sentry in the guard post, a fellow in the black robes of a wizard. The Tlabbar mage glanced over at the rustle of sound, just in time to see his watch mate fold up and collapse for no apparent cause—for Nimor was still invisible.
    “Zilzmaer?” he said sharply. “What is it?”
    Nimor bounded forward and rammed his bloody knife up under the wizard’s chin, nailing his jaws closed and transfixing the Tlabbar’s brain. The mage jerked two or three times, violently, then shuddered and died.
    “Shh,” the assassin hissed. “It’s nothing. Go to sleep.”
    He laid the wizard alongside his companion, and turned to the dark archway leading into the castle proper.
    Knife in hand, he stalked through—only to be halted by an invisible,