by Ed Greenwood
Shandril spoke. "What are the Harpers? Not who, but what? What do they work toward?"
Florin answered her. "My wife is a Harper, lady, yet even to me, they remain mysterious. They are secretive about their membership and their precise aims, but they do work for causes that we deem 'good.' The air of mystery they deliberately foster seems to be their defense against foes who are stronger at arms or art.
"When you see the device of a silver moon and a silver harp, you face a Harper. Storm Silverhand is one, you know, as is the High Lady of Silverymoon. Storm can tell you others, where it is not my place to do so. Many bards, rangers, and half-elven mages are Harpers. The Harpers oppose the Zhentarim, and those who cut trade routes into wilderness to mine and fell timber with no thought for those who live there-the merchants of Amn, for instance. We respect the Harpers, and aid them."
"Well enough, then," Narm said, sitting back. "Where should we wander, Harpers or no?"
"Somewhere where you can get filthy rich," Torm said with a grin. "And hide among the masses of people, and find any work you fancy-Waterdeep, for instance." Mourngrym, whose family was of noble Waterdhavian stock, shook his head ruefully.
"Have you no honor?" Jhessail inquired wearily of Torm.
"Aye, indeed. I keep it at the bottom of my pack and take it out to shine it up and look at it on windy nights in the wilderness, by the fire. It looks grand, I tell you. But it is poor company, and doesn't keep one warm."
"Ignore him," Rathan said. "His ratlike city instincts lead his lips astray. Waterdeep is a good place to hide, aye, but it would probably prove more dangerous to thee than Shadowdale. It is full of prying eyes from half the lands in Faerun, and not a few who will take from thee what they can and leave the rest in a gutter."
"Aye," Lanseril agreed. "It is better to travel the wilds of the Sword Coast North, the high forests and the fair city of Silverymoon. The Unicorn Run is a place breathtaking in its beauty, with great trees that have stood there clad in moss since the world was young and man a fledgling southern race. It is worth the trip, I tell you."
"Aye, go where few tread, and where ye can see what few have seen and ye will always remember," Rathan agreed. "I shall envy thee thy journey, bring what perils it may-"
"Is every lord and lady among you going to philosophize pompously the whole tenday through?" Elminster asked in exasperation.
"Why not? It is our turn, indeed, after years of listening to your fulminations," Torm returned wickedly. A hush fell as all waited to see if he would forthwith become a frog.
Elminster merely chuckled and said, "True enough. My turn to listen and be entertained, then."
Florin and Lanseril were visibly disappointed that Torm was going to escape a transformation, at least this time, and rose and turned away to stroll about the chamber.
"Is this discussion not the way to do it, then?" Shandril asked.
"Well," Lanseril's voice floated back to her. "Let us say that few have sense enough to do it beforehand. Most rush into battle without thinking enough, and talk about it only to themselves."
"Do not think, though, that jaw-wagging is not good or necessary," Rathan said. "It is one of the most important things a priest does for lay worshippers who come to him."
"Aye, well said," Torm agreed. "Such talk is as necessary as the sword in an ordered life, and in the doings of kings and statesmen across the Realms. It was the sage Mroon who defined-almost a thousand winters ago, mind you-the famous 'circle of diplomacy': 'Why talk but to end the fighting? Why fight but to end the talking?' It is as true today as then… Well, old mage? Did I remember, or did I not?"
"Ye did… perhaps the first thing I've told thee that ye have recalled, that I can tell," Elminster said severely. "But enough banter-it does not help these good people to make their decision, only hastens them to bed with weariness and lost time."
"Aye," Florin agreed. "Perhaps we should tell you of the Realms about so you can better decide your route. Would that help?"
"Indeed," Shandril and Narm answered together.
"Danger, you will find, lies on every hand. You want to wander freely, and hide yourselves, so places where few dwell that are near to us here are out, as are warlike and inhospitable lands. That bars you from anything north of the Moonsea, and from the Stonelands, Daggerdale, and Myth Drannor, all presently lawless places where much strife rages.
"Mulmaster, too, is an unfriendly place," Florin noted. "So, of course, are Zhentil Keep and the cities under its sway. Cormyr is friendly, but still too close to the cult's strength and spies for your comfort."
"Westgate is where Torm was reared-and look at him!" Torm grinned at Lanseril's comment. "It is a den of thieves and warring merchant houses, a city built on intrigue. Keep clear of it."
The druid paused to wet his throat from his flagon of spring water, and Merith spoke.
"You then have little choice as to what direction to travel. West you must go, overland to the Sword Coast cities. Silverymoon would be good, although you must be wary of the fell forces of Hellgate Keep and the orcs of the mountains. You must be alert for the long reach of the Zhentarim and of the cult-for if you do join the Harpers, and the cult hears of it, they will expect you to show up in Silverymoon sooner or later.
"The Moonshaes and Neverwinter are good, if you can remain unknown as the hurler of spellfire and her spellcasting companion. Everlund also, but Loudwater and Nesme and other places too favored by overland trade bring too great a risk of discovery. Loudwater lies between the Zhentarim, in Llorkh, and Hellgate Keep, and is isolated by wilderness and deep forest. Such places you must avoid, for they become traps all too easily. Have I left aught unsaid?"
"No," Illistyl said simply, and Jhessail laughed.
"If your heads are not spinning with that whirlwind tour of near Faerun," she added, "they should be!"
"Better they spin now than later, lost off the road somewhere in the wilderness of Faerun," Elminster said darkly. "We'll make thee a map on soft hide-Florin, ye and Lanseril can do it this night, if ye will. Remember the three Merith has told thee of, for I would avoid Everlund also. Seek ye Silverymoon, or Neverwinter, or the Moonshae Isles.
"Ye must, I think, leave the Inner Sea lands, at least for a while, and the South is no hiding place for thee. Go west, and find fortune."
Jhessail nodded. "Whatever you choose," she added, face serious, "do it quickly and quietly. Those who can slay you will be looking for you."
"Lord Marsh." The voice was cold. Its red-haired owner turned from a many-paned window inset with rubies. Fzoul Chembryl, high priest of Bane, master of The Black Altar and its priests and underpriests, laid cold eyes upon him and extended a hand that bore a black, burning banestone.
Lord Marsh Belwintle knelt and kissed it and rose with haste, carefully keeping his face impassive. The slave trade was too profitable to jeopardize it or his own standing with a quarrel. Marsh did not love the high priest, and one day there would a reckoning. Fzoul would then serve Bane far more directly than he did now, if Tymora smiled.
"I have called you here to discuss the matter of spellfire, in light of the continued absence of the Lord Manshoon. Sememmon, Ashemmi, Yarkul, and Sarhthor, as well as the priests Casildar and Zhessae, are here already."
"Almost everyone," Marsh said noncommittally, as he followed Fzoul down a short flight of stairs and along one of the drafty bridges that The Black Altar seemed to specialize in-railless spans of stone where one misstep would mean a killing fall to a stone floor twenty man-heights below. They climbed another stair, into a high chamber Marsh had not seen before. The assembled Zhentarim nodded coldly to him as he entered. He half-bowed to them all and took the sole empty seat.
The chairs of Sashen, Kadorr, and Ilthond had been removed; so had Fzoul's own, for he now sat in Manshoon's high, curving black seat. Marsh wondered what had happened to the others, but decided it would be safer not to inquire. He liked The Black Altar very little, with its priests and traps and guardian crea
tures, and liked this chamber, with its air of a prepared trap, even less. The last seat indeed!
"We are all here, now, save for our many-eyed friends and the High Lord Manshoon," said the red-haired high priest. "I will waste no time on pleasantries. Manshoon is yet absent from his tower and the city. Our best scrying spells cannot find him, nor can we contact him by other means. He can, of course, block or lead astray most magics, but we have no reason to believe he has done so. I fear, fellow lords, that Manshoon is dead.
"This may not be so, but too long we have waited for his return. We must act on one matter without further delay. If Manshoon likes our actions not upon his return, I shall bear the responsibility.
"The matter I refer to is that of spellfire, and the legendary and very rare power of wielding it. You all know, I think, what it is. Its precise limitations have never been determined, but you know what its presence means. I wish to know your minds on this matter." For a moment, no one spoke. Then Sememmon leaned forward.
"The last being who could wield spellfire that I know of previous to this Shandril was the incantatrix Dammasae, who dwelt in her youth in Thunderstone. Is it mere coincidence that two bearers of spellfire have been reared in the southern Dragonreach near the Thunder Peaks, or are they related by blood?"
Fzoul leaned forward in his seat in interest. "A most intriguing question! Does anyone have any knowledge on this matter?"
Sarhthor shrugged. "They could be mother and daughter. The years allow of it. But, with respect, what does it matter? Dammasae is long dead, as is her husband. This gives us no hilt with which to wield Shandril."
"Aye," Casildar agreed. "Her lover, Narm, is our means to move Shandril to our bidding. What I would know is the strength of his art. How easy a hilt to grasp is he?"
Sememmon shrugged. "He has been in Shadowdale, now, days enough for Elminster to teach him much. Whether that has occurred, I cannot say. I doubt that this art is terrifying whatever Elminster has done. Marimmar the Mage Most Magnificent was his tutor until recently."
There were dry chuckles from the mages at the table. The priest Zhessae frowned and asked, "Is ability or mastery of art a necessity to wield spellfire?"
There were shrugs. Fzoul spoke. "We do not know. I would tend to think not. This maid had no known skill or use of art before using spellfire openly against the dracolich Rauglothgor. Interestingly, the keep above the lair she destroyed was the Tower Tranquil-once the home of the sorcerer Gartliond, husband of the incantatrix Dammasae."
"Does that mean," the mage Yarkul asked, excited, "spellfire may be contained in an item, or process, that was left in the tower by Dammasae? Which, in turn, argues that other wielders of spellfire could be created!"
"There have been several wielders of spellfire active at the same time before. It is not an ability the gods give to only one being at a time. An item or ritual is quite possible. Against that, one must place the strong likelihood that Dammasae never visited the Tower Tranquil," Fzoul said, and sat back again. The Zhentarim looked at one another around the table.
"That still," Casildar said carefully, "leaves open the question of what actions, if any, we should now take."
"We must gain control over the maid, or destroy her. Her spellfire threatens us all," Ashemmi said. The curly-bearded mage's dangling earring chimed as he turned his head sharply to look at Fzoul. "We cannot afford to sit idle. What if Mulmaster or Maalthiir of Hillsfar gains the power to wield spellfire? Even if those of Shadowdale use it only to aid their friends in Daggerdale, it will set our plans back. If someone sets out deliberately to destroy us with it, we could fare far worse."
"Aye, well said," Casildar agreed. "We must move. But how? Our armies?"
"I do not care to launch the armies of Zhentil Keep in Manshoon's absence," Fzoul said. "Shadowdale need merely spread the rumor that we have mastered spellfire, and Cormyr, Sembia, Hillsfar, and all will strike together to forestall the destruction they will expect at our hands. No, we must move more quietly than that, my lords. Yet as Casildar says, we must move. What say you?"
"What of our assassins?" Yarkul suggested.
"The replacements are young and poorly trained, yet."
Zhessae said. "Even strengthened by our lesser brothers and the magelings, I fear they would anger Shadowdale more than harm it."
"Aye," Sarhthor agreed in his deep voice. "We have gone that way before. Always we must run, or die."
"Yes," Sememmon put in. "We have all seen what happens when we send the magelings. Everyone wants to be the hero, to make his name among us. Reckless and foolish, they overreach themselves and fall. Elminster is no foe to be mastered by a mageling."
"Are you suggesting that we go in force, ourselves?" Ashemmi asked. "Leaving aside our personal peril, does that not leave Zhentil Keep undefended? Surely the High Imperceptor of Bane has heard of Manshoon's absence by now. Will he not strike against you, Fzoul, and all of us?" His words fell into a deepening silence around the table.
"No doubt," Fzoul agreed coldly, "he will try. But The Black Altar, and Zhentil Keep about it, are not undefended, my friends." He waved a hand, and out from behind a curtain far down the large chamber floated Manxam.
The beholder was old and vast and terrible. Lichen grew upon its nether plates, and its eyestalks were scarred by old wounds and wrinkled with age. Its single great central eye turned slowly to survey them all as it drifted closer. In the depths of that dark-pupilled, bloodshot orb each man at the table saw his own death and worse. A deep, burbling hiss came from its closed, many-toothed maw; its ten smaller eyestalks moved restlessly as Manxam the Merciless came to the table.
The eye tyrant passed over them all to hang above the center of the table, and rolled slowly in awful majesty until its ten small eyes hung just above them, at least one looking at each man there. It said nothing, but merely hung in midair, watching.
"I feel we can all be persuaded," Fzoul said without a trace of a smile, "to come to some consensus now." The beholder did not blink.
Nervously Sememmon cleared his throat. "Aye, indeed… but what do you propose?"
"I believe," Fzoul said steadily, "that the most powerful mages among us here now should go to Shadowdale immediately and do whatever is necessary to capture or destroy this Shandril, Elminster or no Elminster. As we are not sending incompetent or weak magelings, as you have so correctly advised us against, brother Sememmon, I have every confidence that you shall return with spellfire, if you return at all."
The mages Sememmon, Ashemmi, and Yarkul went white and silent. Only the wizard Sarhthor looked unsurprised. He merely nodded. Sememmon looked up to find that Manxam had silently rolled over so that its central eye, the one that foiled magic, gazed at them all.
Now the reason for seating the mages together around one end of the table was all too apparent. Manxam and Fzoul were just too far away for them both to be caught in a timestop spell, and no other magic would allow Sememmon to ready an item of art to strike at Fzoul or Manxam. Certainly he could not strike at both-nor was there a great chance of besting Fzoul here, in his temple. Against Manxam, the mage knew he stood almost no chance at all.
Sememmon doubted he could even escape alive from The Black Altar if he merely tried to flee. Perhaps if he, Ashemi, Yarkul, and Sarhthor all worked together, with spells planned beforehand, they might have a chance to escape. If Casildar and Zhessae, as well as any number of loyal clerics hiding on all sides behind the tapestries, were ready to aid Fzoul in his trap, escape would be impossible. Sememmon kept his face expressionless with an effort, and turned to Fzoul directly.
"It certainly seems the right thing to do, brother Fzoul," he said, as if considering and approving. "However, I feel most uneasy in undertaking such a mission-or indeed, any major expedition outside the city-without even a single priest of Bane to pray for our success and aid us with the favor of the god's will. What say you, Lord Marsh, as one who neither serves Bane nor works art?"
Weaken them at least by one priest
, Sememmon thought, and cut that one down as a warning to Fzoul. And if we win the spellfire, we'll come back and try it on one of the beholders. Had Fzoul done something to Manshoon? Sememmon wondered with a sudden chill. Perhaps Manshoon was behind this, to be rid of all his most powerful rivals in art in the brotherhood. If not, and he did return, would Fzoul tell him that all the mages had denounced him and gone off to act as they pleased?
Lord Marsh rubbed his jaw, frowning at the tabletop, thereby avoiding both the calm scrutiny of the beholder and the icy stares of Fzoul, Casildar, and Zhessae. He then looked up. "I must concur with you on this, brother Sememmon. We have always won our greatest gains by careful use of all three of our strengths: the favor of great Bane; the versatile art of mages; and the might of the swords of our men-at-arms. It would go ill to deliberately neglect more than one of those strengths now.
"Our men-at-arms cannot reach the dale in time without use of art, or in numbers enough to be useful without alarming our foes. We must, therefore, forego our warriors. I believe that it would be foolish-as foolish as deliberately going into battle without shield and armor-to abandon also the strength of Bane in this matter. Moreover, I feel that the warriors under me, and probably many underclerics and magelings here and in Darkhold, would think the same-and seriously question our collective wisdom in doing so, whatever the outcome of the venture."
With that emphatic point. Marsh sat back and looked directly at Fzoul, fingers toying with a bauble at his throat which Sememmon, and no doubt most of the others at the table, knew to be an explosive globe from a magical necklace of missiles. Sememmon almost smiled. The hard-faced warrior was another who bore no love for the Master of The Black Altar.
The eye tyrant hung over them all this time, silent and terrible. Ignoring it, bearded Sarhthor rubbed his hands and said, "Well, I'm for such a strike, and the sooner the better. The spellfire must be ours."
Sememmon did not turn to look at his fellow mages, but nodded absently as he raged inwardly. Was the fool actually that simple and enthusiastic? Or was he working with Fzoul? Nay, listen to the way his words were spoken, the little soft twists at the end of the words that flashed like dagger blades turning over! Sarhthor was telling Fzoul, openly and cuttingly, that he knew Fzoul's game and thought very little of it.