Giogi liked a room full of people to serve as a buffer between Steele and himself. Of course, Steele's sister, Julia, would be with the ladies. She could be mean, too, but she wasn't so bad when she wasn't in Steele's company. Giogi decided that he might as well break in on the ladies. That way, Aunt Dorath couldn't accuse him of lapping up her brandy whenever her back was turned, Besides, Frefford's new wife, Gaylyn, would no doubt be with the ladies, and she was the cheeriest, most amusing woman Giogi had ever met.
The nobleman knocked timidly on the parlor door, just in case they were discussing petticoats or something equally personal, then he entered.
Redstone's parlor had not changed since Giogi's last visit, nearly a year ago. It was warmer and drier than the parlor in Giogi's townhouse, but it was quite a bit shabbier. Faded tapestries depicting ancient events covered the flaking stone walls. The once-rich carpets were stained. The furniture coverings were worn thin. Giogi's mother's money had refurbished his townhouse, but the Wyvernspur fortune was shrinking, and servants, horses, and clothing had a higher priority than Red-stone's fashionable appearance. Some generation soon, the family would need a new source of revenue, though the decision to find one was unlikely in Aunt Dorath's lifetime.
Aunt Dorath sat perfectly erect in her chair by the fire. She looked up from her knitting and squinted at Giogi. She was a tall, robust old woman with the classic Wyvernspur face, thin lips, hawklike nose, and all. Her black hair, which she wore in a severe bun, was streaked with steel-gray strands. More streaks had appeared since Giogi had last seen her, and her squint had grown more pronounced, but, otherwise, time had not touched her much. It wouldn't dare, Giogi thought.
Gaylyn and Julia were immersed in a game of backgammon and did not notice him until a gasp from Aunt Dorath alerted them.
"Giogioni! Sweet Selune! Just what are you doing in those ridiculous boots?" Aunt Dorath demanded. Her voice boomed like the thunder of a god's wrath. That part of Dorath had not changed in the least.
"These boots?" Giogi replied, his voice cracking slightly. "They're just something I threw on to walk over."
"You should consider throwing them away. Whatever did you walk for? What happened to your carriage?"
"Nothing. I just felt like walking."
"The idea! Sinister forces have dealt our family a tragic blow while you've been gadding about the Realms. I summon the family together, and you just stroll over here as if nothing's wrong. It's just like you. You are a fool," Aunt Dorath chided.
Giogi stood frozen, afraid that anything else he might say would only dig him deeper into his great-aunt's contempt.
"Well, don't just stand there," Dorath ordered. "Come take a seat."
Giogi bowed before Gaylyn and Julia and positioned himself in a chair where he could attend to Aunt Dorath as well as address the younger women, should they address him.
Giogi glanced at his Cousin Julia. Her tall, well-proportioned body was clad in the latest velvet fashions, jewels glistened in her silky black hair, and gold rings flashed from her long, slender fingers. She, too, had the aristocratic Wyvernspur tea tures, which were more striking on her youthful face than they were on Aunt Dorath's. In addition, she sported, from her mother's side of the family, a tiny mole to the right of her mouth. As far as Giogi was concerned, though, Julia was too haughty to be beautiful.
The nobleman preferred to gaze on Gaylyn. Her golden hair-lit up the room, and her pink, glowing complexion reminded him of a wild rose. Her gown and jewels were as remarkable as Julia's but Giogi didn't notice them. It was impossible, though, for him to miss her swollen abdomen. According to Thomas, Freffie and Gaylyn's firstborn was due any time now. So, Giogi thought, the family is going to continue another generation despite the loss of the wyvern's spur.
Gaylyn, unaware that the tradition of her new family was to generally ignore Giogi, turned her sweet smile on him and asked, "How was your journey home, Cousin?"
"Just marvelous. Very exciting," Giogi replied, grinning back at the young woman.
"Exciting," Aunt Dorath scoffed. "Traveling is never exciting. Only tedious. Waits, delays, ruffians, strangers, and highwaymen. Only someone as foolish as yourself would revel in it. You'll end up like your father," she added darkly.
Giogi debated asking his aunt exactly what she meant by that, trying to work in some reference to what he'd just learned from Sudacar, but just then the parlor door swun^ open and the gentlemen entered. Frefford made a beeline to Gaylyn's side and took her hand in his own, looking down on her with solicitous devotion. Uncle Drone scuffled over to a tomcat in the window seat and began feeding it drippy tidbits of venison from his cupped hand. Steele remained in the doorway, leaning against the jamb and sizing up Giogi with an evil grin.
Like his sister, Julia, Steele had the Wyvernspur face with a mole to the right of his mouth. Many people would have called him tall, dark, and handsome, but his grin reminded Giogi of the red dragon Mist—an impression heightened by the way the firelight caught Steele's blue eyes and made them glint red. As he had in Mist's presence, Giogi winced when Steele spoke.
"So the exiled family jester has returned. Everyone in Suzail was talking about your remarkable impersonation at the wedding last season. And, of course, about the "duel" that followed. I trust you have fresh entertainment lined up for us this year. Maybe you can debut at Gaylyn's baby's blessing ceremony."
Giogi winced again. It didn't look as though the family was going to forget the wedding incident any time soon. Wondering if Gaylyn could ever forgive him, Giogi shot her a guilty glance. The bride had the most right to be angry.
Gaylyn laughed, though. "I thought I would just die when that tent collapsed on all of us," she said. "Remember what fun we had crawling out from under it? It was such a relief to have an excuse to leave that stuffy old canvas and just revel in the garden."
Steele squinted with annoyance at Gaylyn, and Aunt Dorath raised an eyebrow at the woman's frivolous attitude, but Lord Frefford smiled at his wife's high spirits.
A stranger might have guessed Frefford and Steele were brothers and not just second cousins, because Frefford, too, sported most of the Wyvernspur features. Frefford's face was always softened by a friendly smile, though, and his eyes were more hazel than blue. He whispered something in his wife's ear, and she giggled.
Giogi smiled at the couple with gratitude.
Aunt Dorath sniffed. "Now that we're all here, it's time to get down to business," she announced imperiously. "Drone, leave that infernal cat and join your family."
It was hard to believe, watching Uncle Drone shuffle across the room, that Aunt Dorath's wizard cousin was eight years her junior. If time had avoided Dorath, it made up its loss by visiting Drone twice over. His black hair and beard, besides being shaggy and unkempt, was splotched with gray and white, much more so than Aunt Dorath's hair. His blue eyes were rheumy, and his Wyvernspur features were lost in the cracks and wrinkles that lined his face. Magic had taken its toll on him.
Years of puttering in his lab, brewing magic potions, had also left Drone a little careless of his appearance. Forgetting he did not wear a lab apron, he wiped his hand on his chest, leaving a venison blood stain across his yellow silk robe. He offered his hand to Giogi, saying, "Welcome back, boy. Heard you've been jousting with red dragons."
Giogi held out his own hand nervously, afraid he was about to be censured again. A cloud of Tymora's blackest luck seemed to hang over him this evening. It hadn't been his fault that he'd been kidnapped by the red dragon Mist. Giogi then saw that his uncle's eyes twinkled with amusement. The young man relaxed and jokingly replied, "Uh, actually, it's a little difficult jousting with them, don't you know, because they tend to eat your horse first."
Dorath, Steele, and Julia glared frostily at Giogi for treating the incident so lightly, but Drone wheezed out a cackle and plopped down beside Dorath.
Giogi used his handkerchief to wipe the blood from the hand Uncle Drone had shaken.
"Did you really joust with a dragon?" Gaylyn asked, her eyes shining with excitement.
"Well, actually I—"
"Of course he didn't," Aunt Dorath snapped. "Giogi could no more joust with a dragon than he could match his own stockings. Enough of this nonsense. Drone, it's time you explained to all of us what happened to the spur."
Uncle Drone sighed a deep sigh, like a bellows letting out all its air. When he spoke, it was in a measured, professorial voice, his tone as dry as the ancient paper scrolls he kept in his lab. "Last night," he began, "an hour before dawn, someone got into the family crypt, where the wyvern's spur has been stored for years. Awakened by a magical alarm, I immediately attempted to scry into the crypt, but a powerful darkness obscured my vision. I teleported to the graveyard and found both the mausoleum door and the crypt door within locked. There was no sign that anyone had broken in or out. All the magical wards I had placed to keep spell-casters from by-passing the locks were intact. However, both the spur and its thief were gone."
"Why was the spur kept in the family crypt?" Gaylyn asked. "Wouldn't it have been easier to guard it in the castle?"
"The guardian lives in the crypt," Frefford explained softly to his wife.
"What's 'the guardian?" she asked.
"The spirit of a powerful monster, which will slay any being in the crypt that is not a Wyvernspur by blood or marriage," Aunt Dorath said.
"So it had to be a Wyvernspur who stole the spur," Gaylyn reasoned.
"One of us," agreed Uncle Drone, pausing for a moment to let the thought sink in. Then he added, "But probably a long-lost relative. We've never been able to discover any before, but that doesn't mean there aren't any."
"Why steal the spur? What good is it to anyone?" Giogi asked.
"It's said to have powers beyond that of ensuring the continuance of the family line," replied the wizard.
"I never heard about that," Giogi protested. "What sort of powers?"
Uncle Drone shrugged. "It isn't in any of the family history books."
"What makes you think it was a long-lost relative?" Julia asked. "Why not one of us?"
"Well, firstly," Drone explained, "I was able to ascertain through magical means that none of the keys entrusted to the keeping of Frefford, Steele, and Giogioni—" Uncle Drone waved an arm at each of the men in turn— "were used to open the crypt."
"What about your own key?" Aunt Dorath interrupted. "Are you certain you haven't mislaid it somewhere?" Her emphasis suggested the unspoken word "again."
In reply, Uncle Drone held up a large silver key hanging from a chain about his neck. "As everyone here but Gaylyn already knows," the wizard continued, "besides the mausoleum entrance, the only other entrance to the crypt is from the catacombs below, and the only other way into the catacombs is from a secret magical door outside the graveyard."
"But you told us that that secret door only opens every fifty years," Steele snapped peevishly, "on the first of Tarsakh. That's still more than a ride away."
"Twelve days. That's a ride and two days to spare," Gaylyn corrected.
Steele scowled at the woman's exactness.
"Well, I seem to have miscalculated," Drone said. "Apparently the door opens after three hundred sixty-five days multiplied by fifty. In other words every eighteen thousand two hundred fiftieth day. The family records weren't so precise and rounded the interval off to a half-century."
"What's the difference?" Steele growled.
"Shieldmeet," Gaylyn cried excitedly, like a woman playing charades.
"Exactly," Uncle Drone said. "Shieldmeet, every four years, adds an extra day. After fifty years, the extra days add up, so the door opened earlier than I had expected."
"By twelve days," Gaylyn added.
Gaylyn, Giogi guessed, was one of those women who were good with figures.
"Fortunately," Drone continued, "I had the notion to check out that door within minutes of the theft. Sure enough, it stood open. I sealed it with a wall of stone and left magical guards to tell me if anyone tries to break out by that door or the door from the crypt to the mausoleum. No one has. The would-be thief is still stuck in the catacombs. So, you see, none of us can be the thief, since none of us are missing."
Giogi wondered idly, if he hadn't managed to return to Immersea before that evening, whether his family would be sitting around suspecting him of the crime.
"Since only a member of our family can enter the crypt, it's up to us to deal with this thieving rogue Wyvernspur," Aunt Dorath said. "No one else need know about this notorious incident. All we need to do is search the catacombs," she announced. "First thing in the morning."
"And will you be leading us, Aunt Dorath?" Steele asked with a smirk.
"Don't be absurd. This is a job for healthy young men like yourself and Frefford."
"And Giogioni," Uncle Drone said. "Can't leave him out."
"That's all right, Uncle Drone," Giogi insisted. "I can guard the crypt door or something, in case the thief gets past Steele and Freffie."
"Nonsense," Steele said. "We need you, Giogi. Besides, don't you want to renew your acquaintance with the guardian?"
"Actually, no," Giogi retorted sharply, glaring at his cousin. If looks could kill, the rest of the family would have to have summoned a cleric for Steele.
Aunt Dorath gave Giogi a cold look. "Giogioni, I won't have you shirking your family responsibilities. You can help by carrying the water flasks or something."
