"Careful, Taya," the spellmaster told her. "I own the place." He mirrored her nod. "The person waiting to see me right now will make the perfect guide, Taya. He will do it for me."
Two people sat in Strick's waiting area below. One, muffled in her costly shawl, was a mildly attractive noblewoman with a ghastly hairy wart erupting from her nose. Yes, Strick could and would deal with that, and be well paid for making her presentable again. The other, from whom she kept herself well clear, was an oldster with a voice out of a gravel pit. It was he that Strick's young assistant, Avenestra, beckoned to rise and follow, and he did, banging his staff as he walked. He was surprised to find someone else in Strick's office, and peered closely at her. Unusually keen of eye-especially at night-he recognized the softly weeping girl there with the white mage. She, meanwhile, glanced up at him and shrank at sight of wrinkled brown hands emerging from an old tan-once-brown robe with its hood all crumpled on his back and around his shoulders. His face was darkly shadowed by a funny feathered hat from some far place, doubtless to hide features ravaged by time and disease and even worse-if anything could be worse than time and disease to a very attractive young woman who had been concubine to the prince-governor from Imperial Ranke. Once-Imperial Ranke.
"Skarth," Strick said, "this is someone who needs to vanish in the Maze for a while."
The big hat nodded and its big bright yellow feather waggled tiredly. "She also resembles someone I once was so rude as to bind and gag in a certain bed in a certain large building!"