"Well met, lady," Durnan said. "What price are your secrets now?"
"Bensvelk Miirik Darastrix loex?"
The hiss was swift and angry.
"The Keeper?" a deeper, calmer voice rumbled. "Nay, nay, she lives. Were she to die, yon crystal would burst." A hand waved at a glowing orb of glass halfway across the cavern. "And you really should keep to Common, Orauth. Even in Waterdeep, Draconic attracts attention."
"Malval om aurm!"
"Of course your anger is great. So is mine. To lose her would be an aurm blow, yes, but the true korth is if humans learn what she does-and through her, of us. Which is why I watch the crystal. Anyone who captures, attacks, or hurls magic at her must die."
"Lay a hand on me," the woman said, "and I'll scream for the Watch."
As she spoke, more Watch officers trotted past, several Watchful Order mages striding among them.
"Ye mistake our natures, lady," Mirt protested.
"No, she doesn't," Durnan disagreed, before the Keeper could reply.
Whatever word she started to snap dissolved into a swift, short laugh.
She tugged her cowl free of Mirt's fingers, faced them both squarely, and asked, "What do you want?"
Mirt blinked at her then said, "Uh-er-to know thy name, an' who those men were, an' what ye did to them an' how, an'… an'…"
"Yelver's secrets," she finished calmly, shaking her head.
"Nicely listed, lady," Durnan agreed politely, and fell into waiting silence.
As it stretched, the three of them stood regarding each other, and the street around them filled with gawking Waterdhavians.
"Very well," the woman said at last. "You may call me Taunamorla."
"And?" Durnan asked politely.
"I am still," Taunamorla said with a smile, "the Keeper of Secrets."
"Your real name being one of them?"
Taunamorla's smile widened.
"Of course," she replied. "Now, neither of you are dullards-and so I believe you can guess how dangerous questioning me further will be."
Durnan touched Mirt's arm, and the stout moneylender nodded curtly. He'd already caught sight of a tall, cloaked man striding toward them among the gathering crowd of gawkers who were staring at the shouting Watch and the smoking, still stone-shedding ruin of the shop. At Durnan's caution, he saw two more cold-eyed men, bareheaded but in full armor, approaching from where the innkeeper was facing.
"You have friends," Durnan observed calmly.
"I keep secrets," Taunamorla replied. "Go now, and keep your lives."
Mirt bowed to her and started away down the street, leaving behind only the comment, "We'll meet again, Lady of Secrets."
Her reply was as calm as ever: "Of course."
They were halfway back to the Portal when fire mounted up into the night sky behind them with a roar that sent Mirt staggering.
"Keep going," Durnan said. "Whatever's happening, I'm sure the Keeper of Secrets is involved-and that we're better off draining tankards over our lancers and pondering what she is. Beyond a powerful spell hurler, that is."
"A powerful spell hurler with enemies," Mirt replied, as they hastened on together.
Another, larger blast followed, then far-off screams, splintering sounds, and what sounded like something very large-lunged roaring in pain-a protest that abruptly ended in yet another explosion.
Mirt glanced back, but could see nothing more than a lot of sparks and cinders, high above the roofs of Waterdeep. Then the horns of the Watch started-the full alarm-call that would summon the Guard, and mages, and-
"The Portal" Durnan reminded his friend.
Mirt lurched two steps more along the way back to the inn before the air in front of them flickered, and the Keeper of Secrets was suddenly standing in front of them, her eyes glittering with anger.
"Gentlesirs, I find I need you," she said.
"Us? Upstanding merchants of Waterdeep?" Mirt grunted.
Taunamorla smiled thinly and said, "Indeed. Upstanding merchants of the city are precisely what I'm in need of, just now."
"How so?"
"Your word will be accepted by the Watch-and I can bargain with you."
"You want us to lie about something," Durnan observed. "About what, and for what reward?"
"My thanks for your haste," the Keeper of Secrets said in a rush, giving him a smile that might warm most men's hearts. "I will trade you all of Yelver's secrets for a few words of false testimony."
"Say on," Mirt rumbled. "What testimony?"
"To defend his very life, a friend of mine was just forced to trade spells with several Watchful Order mages. Men died-a lot of men, some of those mages and officers of the Watch among them-and I need you to swear that this friend of mine was with you, since you left my office earlier this night."
Durnan lifted a disbelieving eyebrow and replied, "Our word against many of the Watch? Lady, you overestimate our reputations. If they know they saw him, the protests of an innkeeper and a moneylender aren't going to-"
"When fighting the Watch, my friend wore a magical disguise. He looked like a dragon, not like himself."
Durnan cast a swift, questioning glance at Mirt-who looked straight at Taunamorla and shook his head.
"Nay," Mirt grunted. "Yelver's secrets were worth seventeen dragons to me-if they could lead to the recovery of all my loaned coins. Knowing just who an' what ye truly are-for peace of mind alone-could be worth much more, in the years ahead. So that would be my price. Full and honest answers to these: What manner of creature are ye, lady? When came ye to Waterdeep, an' why? The answer that stands behind keeping secrets for worms like Yelver, mind ye."
"Do you know what you're asking?" the Keeper of Secrets asked.
"Aye, lady, I believe I do."
Torches flickered behind them, and there were shouts. Cries of discovery from the Watch, and hastening feet. The woman in the green cloak glanced over Mirt and Durnan's shoulders, her mouth drawing down into a tight line.
"I'm out of time," she snapped. "I, Taunamorla, agree to this bargain. Do you, Durnan of Waterdeep? And do you, Mirt of Waterdeep?"
"Lady, I do," Durnan said. "By blood and my last coin I bind myself."
"Lady, I do," Mirt echoed, hard after his friend's words. "By blood an' my last coin I bind myself." And he added less formally, "Though 'twould help if we at least knew thy friend's name."
"Raumorth, he's called," the Keeper of Secrets said swiftly, as the Watch thundered down upon them in a thunder of running boots, clanging blades, and angry shouts. "I accept your bindings."
"And where is Raumorth?" Durnan asked urgently.
"Right behind you," Taunamorla hissed.
The two friends whirled around-to meet the cold smile of a man they'd seen before: the tall, cloaked man who'd been walking toward them as they'd questioned the Keeper near the ruins of her shop. His hands were raised-as if he'd been ready to blast Mirt and Durnan down. Not far beyond him was a running pack of armored men: a great mustering of the Watch.
"I'm a mage from Tethyr." Raumorth's voice was deep and rich. "You don't know me well, but you've befriended me-a trader and traveling investor who's visited Waterdeep once a season or so, for years."
"Of course," Durnan agreed, smiling at the man and stepping casually past him so that the foremost Watch officer's sword no longer had a clear path to Raumorth's back.
"Way! Make way! Stand aside, man!" that onrushing Watchman bellowed.
Mirt and Raumorth winked at each other-and obediently stepped back, Durnan with them, the three men parting like windblown leaves to leave the Watch a clear path to charge at… the Keeper of Secrets.
Who suddenly looked bewildered and flustered, as she squeaked, "Ohh! The Watch! The Watch!"
"Stand! Stand all, in silence! Down all arms!" a deeper, grander voice commanded.
"My arms don't come off," Mirt explained innocently, "but I am standing."
By then the Watch had surrounded the four, and tense silence was
falling. The officer who'd spoken glared coldly at the fat moneylender.
"I know you, Mirt."
"Yes," Mirt agreed with a broad smile. "As I recall, ye owe me eleven dragons, four shards-unless ye're late paying me by highsun tomorrow, whereupon-"
"Enough" barked the Watch commander. "Now keep silence for a moment or so." He turned his head deliberately to gaze at Durnan. "You're also known to me, Durnan of the Yawning Portal, in Castle Ward."
"At your service."
"Undoubtedly. However, these two with you….Good lady, you were seen outside a certain shop this night, and stand under the suspicion of the Watch. Your name, citizenry, and trade."
The answer was a tremulous, "Taunamorla Esmurla, a scribe, formerly of Amn but now of Waterdeep. I–I've done nothing wrong!"
"And I," said Raumorth firmly, "am a trader from Tethyr, arrived in Waterdeep just this day, who stopped to talk with Mirt and Durnan, whom I've done business with in earlier visits down the years, and regard as friends. I've no intention of doing anything that merits pointing so many loaded crossbows at me, Watchmen, and I'd appreciate it if you'd lower them "
The crossbows wavered not a fingerbreadth, and the Watch commander scowled.
"You were seen outside that same shop," he snarled, "and were observed to change into the shape of a great dragon-"
"A fang dragon, sir," one of the other Watch officers murmured.
"A fang dragon, indeed," the commander continued, "and in that form did spell-battle with officers of the Watch, including wizards acting in defense of this city and its peace and safe order. Wherefore I arres-"
"Hoy, hoy, hoy now!" Mirt protested. "Raumorth here's been with us for… well, since we all left Taunamorla's shop together. That was some time back, as we've not been walking all that swiftly, and-"
"Yes," Durnan said firmly, looking at the Watch commander. "I'd take it very poorly if my word was set aside, here on the street, before all the watching city. Raumorth here's been walking with us. If he can somehow be in two places at once, changing into dragons and hurling spells all over the place, then he's a mightier mage than any I've ever heard of! Why don't we all go to Blackstaff Tower, right now, and you can ask them if such a thing's even possible. Raumorth's been walking at my side, alive and solid-I know, because I clapped him on the arm more than once!"
"Ohhh," Taunamorla gasped, going pale, "do you mean … a dragon, lots of spells … is my shop all right?"
The Watch commander blinked and asked, "What shop is yours, lady? I don't recall seeing a quill signboard anywhere near the…"
"I," Taunamorla Esmurla said, "am better known in Waterdeep as the Keeper of Secrets."
"What? Don't move…"
Several Watchmen shouted at once, and a crossbow fired, its quarrel humming off into the night sky.
Quietly and without any fuss, six hulking dragons had faded into view behind Taunamorla. There wasn't quite enough room in the street for the two at either end of the sudden great mountain of scaled flesh. Signboards and balcony railings shattered and fell like tossed kindling.
Raumorth made a swift, intricate gesture, and Mirt and Durnan felt their skin tingling. Then the mage clapped his hands to their forearms and towed them toward the nearest alley mouth, scant moments before Watch halberds stabbed through-their own immobile images, that still stood in a cluster facing the raging Watch commander.
Who, like all the other Watchmen, didn't seem to notice the four as they fled into the alley together. That may have been because of Raumorth's spell-or it may have had something to do with six dragons lowering their great horned heads, opening their jaws, and reaching forward long-taloned claws like gigantic cats. Or it might just have been because most of the Watch were fleeing down the street as fast as their hobnailed boots could take them.
In a dark, stinking corner where two alleys met, Raumorth raised a hand that crackled with ready magic.
"This," he said quietly, "will be where we part, men of Waterdeep: It's best if-"
"No, Raumorth," Taunamorla said. "I made a formal pact with these two."
"Lady! We-"
"Are as bad as the humans we revile if we cleave to their habits, casting aside our promises like empty chatter," she said in a voice that was suddenly steel edged with ice.
Raumorth bowed and said, "Truth … yet this is a mistake. Pothoc ukris!"
"Perhaps. Yet consider this: once they know the truth about me, how will it profit them-save to force a little prudence on them? Who would believe them if they spread the tale?"
Raumorth's eyes glimmered like golden flames as he said, "There's something in that… yet it would take only one curious wizard deciding to seek the truth behind their words-"
"And when they know something of our numbers, they'll know that no mage could strike us all down at once. And it would only take one of us, knowing who must have told the wizard, to hunt them down and end their lives slowly and horribly, terrified beyond reason and with limbs torn from them at leisure."
Mirt shivered at the calmness in her voice, and the Keeper of Secrets smiled at him as tenderly as a doting aunt.
"Yet none of this unpleasantness need happen. Raumorth, a shielding against all prying?"
The man who was more than a mage from Tethyr cast a swift, deft spell, and announced-as something like smoke turned solid and fell around them in a sudden, unbroken cloud-"Done."
"This is for your ears alone, Mirt and Durnan," Taunamorla murmured, "and is not to reach your tongues. I am what humans like to call a song dragon, and I came to Waterdeep over twenty summers ago, summoned by elders of my kin, to … manage a problem here. I've been here ever since."
"A problem involving other dragons," Mirt rumbled, waving a hand at Raumorth. "Lots of other dragons."
The Keeper nodded.
"What problem?"
"Many dragons like to dwell among humans-and not only because your kind can serve as ready food, or as a source of wealth for us to seize and hoard. Some wyrms come to love your energy, your restlessness, your clever strivings…"
"The free entertainment we provide," Mirt grunted. Taunamorla smiled wryly and said, "Bluntly said, but true."
"Waterdeep is a fine cauldron of such things," Durnan put in. "Yet a cauldron full of alert and wary wizards, sorcerers, and priests. Dragons need magic to hide among men. Magic that might well get noticed."
The Keeper turned to Raumorth and said, "You see? They knew, or suspected, already-and yet stood with us."
"Lady," Durnan said, "a few secrets are always preferable to the Watch and the Guard laying waste to several city blocks against some mighty foe."
"Nay, nay," Mirt said. "Let's discharge the bargain. Ye say it, Lady Taunamorla, plainly. Thy service in Waterdeep is-?"
"I am the guide and central contact for more than a few hidden-in-human-shape dragons dwelling in Waterdeep. We watch over things, manipulating and sometimes mind-whispering to the Lords of Waterdeep-"
"And mind-blasting those who'd overthrow them," Raumorth interrupted.
Mirt nodded and said, "And yet… the wards? The Watchful Order? Hath no one seen ye for what ye are?"
"Who do you think had a hand in crafting the wards?" Raumorth asked.
"And some Waterdhavians have seen our true natures," the Keeper of Secrets added, "but seen fit to leave us alone."
"They have?"
"Of course," she replied. "They saw our work, and judged us."
She turned and started to walk away along one alley, Raumorth's shielding parting into a dark tunnel before her.
Mirt blinked. Raumorth was gone! Nay … nay, he was the tunnel, stretching into a dark archway that arched up and around the Keeper, and moved away with her.
Taunamorla Esmurla turned to fix the two men with eyes that were suddenly larger and darker than before-and yet held many tiny stars.
"Why do you think," she asked Mirt and Durnan softly, "Waterdeep hasn't erupted into battle and ruin long ago? With Halaster and Skullport and
Under-mountain below, and half the greedy grasping humans in Faerun visiting or dwelling above?"
The two men stood for a long time in the dark and empty alley, as Watch patrols trudged past.
"Six dragons, I tell thee! Six!" One Watchman growled, turning into the alley to empty his bladder thoughtfully into a discarded cask. "And gone, like a mage's tricks! Yet they were real. They broke the balcony clear off Shandledorth's."
"Aye, I saw. A wizard playing at snatch-teleport, mayhap? Thrusting a lairful of dragons into our laps and whisking them away again?"
"Why play such games?"
"To impress nobles who hired him? To awe revel guests? To make a name for himself, or pass some test?"
"If he's a wizard, that's reason enough for all manner of lunacy," an older Watchman said.
There was a general grunt of agreement, and the patrol left the alley again, and moved on.
Mirt glanced up past dark shutters and rooftops, to where the stars glimmered, and growled, "There's … something magnificent about being a dragon. Something grander than we are. Something…"
"We don't understand," Durnan finished his friend's sentence. "Now let's be getting home. 'Tis late-or rather, early-and Luranla's probably thrashed all the sailors in the Portal senseless by now."
Mirt snorted, "Think she's a dragon, in disguise?"
Durnan shook his head. "No. Oh, no. You ask her, and I'll watch from a safe distance. Tethyr, perhaps."
THE TOPAZ DRAGON
Jess Lebow
The Year of the Turret (1360 DR)
Up ahead, Kraxx could see the sun's light reflecting from the shell of her one perfect, topaz egg. The egg that only moments before had been stolen from her lair.
She could catch the thieves if she were on open ground. She would dive on them from above, dismantling their mangy little bodies one at a time. She would bite their heads off and smash their bones into pulp. Then, just for the shear pleasure of it, she would smear their remains across the land, leaving the stain as a reminder for all those who would dare steal from her again.
But the thieves were smaller than her, more agile and able to maneuver through the jungle, and the island had little open ground. Only the short sandy beach and the open caldera of the island's active volcano escaped from the clawing jungle that covered everything else. The trees parted as the great topaz dragon forced her bulk through the brush.
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