by Ed Greenwood
Elminster thought for a moment. “I won’t slay innocent folk … and I don’t like stealing from anyone except rich merchants who are grasping, unpleasant, or openly dishonest. Oh, and wizards of course.”
“You really hate them, don’t you?”
Elminster shrugged. “I—I’ve contempt for those who hide behind magic and lord it over the rest of us because someone taught them to read, or the gods gave them the power to wield magic, or something. They should be using the Art to help us all, not keep folk down and lord it over them.”
“If you were Belaur right now,” Farl said softly, “what in the name of the gods could you do but obey the wizards?”
El shrugged. “The king may be trapped, and he may not be. He never shows himself for us unwashed to get to know him—ye know, the subjects he’s supposed to be serving—so how can I tell?”
“You said once your parents were killed by a dragon-riding wizard,” Farl said.
Elminster looked at him sharply. “Did I?”
“You were drunk. I—not long after we met—I had to know if I could trust you, so I got you drunk. That night at the Ring of Blades, you wouldn’t say anything else except ‘outlaw’ and ‘kill magelords.’ You kept repeating that.”
Elminster stared steadily at the shattered crown of a nearby vault. “Every man needs an obsession,” he said. He turned his head. “What’s thine?”
Farl shrugged his shoulders. “Excitement. If I’m not in danger or doing high, hidden, and important deeds, I’m not alive.”
Elminster nodded, remembering.
It had been a cold, blustery day, muddy slush ankle-deep in the streets of Hastarl. Newly arrived and wandering wide-eyed, El turned down a blind alley only to find, when he spun about, that he was facing a line of hard-eyed, grinning men blocking his way. A balding, burly giant in worn leathers stood at their head, a padded stick in one hand and a canvas sack big enough to enclose Elminster’s head—for that was its purpose—in the other. They stalked down the alley toward him.
El backed away, fingering the Lion Sword and wondering if he could fight so many hardened men in such a confined space and hope to win.
He took a stand in a corner, blade out, but they didn’t slow their steady, menacing advance. The bald man raised his stick, obviously planning to strike aside the lad’s sword while the others wrestled him down, but before he could, a calm voice broke in from overhead.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Shildo. He’s Hawklyn’s meat already, marked and in use; see how bedazed he is?—and you know what Hawklyn does to blades who meddle.”
The bald man looked up, face ugly. “And who’s going to say we did it?”
The slim youth crouching on the windowsill, hand crossbow sliding gently back and forth to menace one bravo after another, smiled and said, “That’s already been done, bald-pate. Two breaths ago Antaerl flew off to report. He left me to dissuade you because he recalls an old debt he owes you—and what happened the last time a snatch band took the wrong man. Wasn’t pleasant, was it, Shildo? Recall what Undarl said he’d do to you if you made another unfortunate mistake? I remember.”
Snarling, the bald man spun around and stalked oft, breaking the line of bravos and waving at them to accompany him.
When the alley was empty, Elminster looked up and said, “Thankee for a rescue. My life is thine, Sir—?”
“Farl’s the name, an’ no ‘sir’ am I. I’m proud of that, mind.” Farl explained that ‘meat’ was the name given to bumpkins, slaves, and other unfortunates used by magelords for experiments that slew, twisted, transformed, or left them mind-slaves. The wandering, obviously bewildered Elminster had looked like a prime snatch candidate, or a mind-slave already in thrall. “That’s what I persuaded him you were,” he said warningly.
“Thankee, I think,” El replied wryly. “Why did that make a difference?”
“I intimated you were the property of the most powerful magelord. Shildo serves a rival whose power isn’t great enough for open challenges yet. Shildo’s under very strict orders not to provoke anything just now.” He shifted on the snowy ledge and added, “Want to put away that blade? We could go somewhere warmer I know of, where they’ll overcharge us for some hot turtle soup and burned toast … if you’ll pay.”
“Gladly,” Elminster said, “if ye’ll tell me where I can find a bed in this city, an’ tell me what not to do.”
“I’ll do that,” the laughing youth replied, jumping lightly down. “You need to learn, and I like to talk. Better; you look like you need a friend, and I find myself in short supply of them right now too … hey?”
“Lead on,” Elminster said.
He’d learned much that day, and in the days since then—but not where Farl had come from. The merry thief seemed part of Hastarl, as if he’d always been there and the city echoed his moods and manner. The two had taken a liking to each other and stolen more than their own weights in gold and gems through a slow spring and much of a long, hot summer.
Musing about this damp city of the magelords around him, Elminster found himself back on the sloping stone of the tomb roof, in the ebbing heat of a long, lazy summer day. He turned to look into his friend’s face. “More than once, ye’ve said ye knew I came from Heldon.”
Farl nodded. “The way you speak: up-country, for sure, and east. More—the winter when Undarl joined the magelords, talk went around the city that he’d impressed the others into accepting him in by riding a dragon he could command. At Lord Hawklyn’s bidding he went to the village of Heldon to slay a man and wife there—and to show them what he could do, he had it tear the place stone from stone, an’ burn all, even dogs running away across the fields.”
“Undarl,” Elminster repeated softly.
Farl saw that his friend’s hands were clenched, white, and trembling. He nodded. “If it makes you feel better, El, I understand how you feel.”
The eyes that Elminster turned on him blazed like a fire of blue steel, but his voice came with terrible softness as he asked, “Oh? How?”
“The magelords killed my mother,” Farl said calmly.
Elminster looked at him, the fire dying. “What befell thy father then?”
Farl shrugged. “Oh, he’s very well indeed.”
Elminster looked a silent question, and Farl smiled a little sadly. “In fact, he’s probably up in that tower there right now—and if Tyche frowns on us, he’ll have magic up that enables him to hear us when I use his name.”
Elminster looked up at the tower and said, “Could he strike us with a spell from there?”
Farl shrugged. “Who knows what wizards have learned to do? But I doubt it, or certain men’d be falling on their faces all over Hastarl. Besides, the magelords I know could never resist taunting their foes before smiting them down, face-to-face.”
“Then use his name,” Elminster said deliberately, “and mayhap he’ll come down where I can reach him.”
“After I do,” Farl replied softly. “After I’m done tearing his tongue out by the roots and breaking all his fingers to stop his spells—then I’ll let you have some fun. He shouldn’t die in any great haste.”
“So who is he?”
Farl lifted one side of his mouth in a mirthless smile. “Lord Hawklyn, master magelord. Mage Royal of Athalantar, to you.” He turned his head to watch a fleetwing whirl from one broken pillar to another. “I was illegitimate. Hawklyn had my mother—a lady of the court, loved by many, they say—killed when he learned of my birth.”
“Why d’ye still live—outside yon tower?”
Farl stared into the past, not seeing the tombs ahead of him. “His men slaughtered a baby—but the wrong one; some other poor brat. I was stolen by a woman my mother had befriended … a lady of the evening.”
Elminster raised his brows. “Yet ye proposed stealing from those same night maids?”
Farl shrugged. “One of them strangled my foster mother for a few coins; I’ve never found out who, but almost certainly one of t
he girls in the Wench on”—his voice mockingly assumed the pedantic tones of a sage relating a tale of awesome importance—“the night when two magelords’ sons revealed their love to all Hastarl.”
“Oh, gods,” Elminster said quietly, “and I’ve felt sorry for meself a time or two. Farl, ye—”
“Can tell you to belt up and not say whatever tearful mush you were about to spout,” Farl said serenely “When the feebleness brought on by my advancing dotage requires sympathy from thee, Eladar Mage-Killer, I shall not keep thee unapprised of the fact.”
His grandiose tones brought forth a chuckle from Elminster, who asked, “What’s it to be now, then?”
Farl grinned and, in one smooth movement, rolled to his feet. “Rest time’s over. Back to the wars. So you won’t let me take advantage of ladies of the evening or innocent folk—well, that’s not a hard bind. There can’t be more than two or three of the latter in all Hastarl—an’ we’ve hit the wizards and the high-and-mighty families overmuch. If we roost too often on the same perch, ’tis traps we’ll find waiting, not piles of coins ready for the taking. This leaves us with two targets: temples—”
“Nay,” Elminster said firmly. “No meddling with the affairs of gods. I’d rather not spend the rest of a short and unhappy life with most of Those Who Hear All furious with me—to say nothing of their priesthoods.”
Farl grinned. “I expected that. Well, then, there’s but one field we’ve not touched: rich merchants.”
He held up a hand to forestall Elminster’s coming protest about plundering hardworking shopkeepers and said quickly, “I mean those who lend coins and invest in back rooms and behind secure doors, working secretly in groups to keep prices high and arrange accidents for competitors … ever notice how few companies own the barges that actually land here? And the warehouses? Hmmm? We’ve got to learn how these folk operate, because if we’re ever to retire from plucking things out of the pockets of lesser folk—and no one’s fingers stay nimble forever, you know—we’ll have to join the folk who sit idle and let their coins work for them.”
Elminster was frowning thoughtfully. “A hidden world, masked by what most see in the streets.”
“Just as our world—the realm of thieves—is hidden,” Farl added.
“Right,” El said with enthusiasm. “That’s our battlefield, then. What now? How to begin?”
“This night,” Farl said, “by handsomely bribing a man who owes me an old favor, I plan to attend a dinner I’d never be allowed in to. He’d be serving wine there, but I’ll be doing it in his place, and listening to what I should not hear. If I’m right, I’ll hear plans and agreements for quite a bit of quiet trade into and out of the city for the rest of the season.” He frowned. “There’s one problem. You can’t come. There’s no way you can get close enough to hear anything without being caught; these folk have guards everywhere. I’ve no excuse for getting you into the place, either.”
Elminster nodded. “So I go elsewhere. An evening of idleness, or have ye any suggestions?”
Farl nodded slowly. “Aye, but there’s great danger. There’s a certain house I’ve had my eye on for four summers now; ’tis home to three free-spending merchants who deal in exchanging goods and lending coins but never seem to lift a finger to do any real work. They’re probably part of this chain of investors. Can you skulk about the place without being seen? We need to know where doors, and approaches, and important rooms and the like are—and if you can overhear anything interesting while they dine.…”
El nodded. “Lead me to the place. Just so long as ye don’t expect any great tales when we meet on the morrow. I think it’s only in minstrels’ tales that folk sit around explaining things they already know for eavesdroppers to understand.”
Farl nodded. “Just slip in, see where things are, try to find out if there’s anything of import befalling—and get you gone again, as quietly as the thing can be done. I want no dead heroes in this partnership; it’s too hard to find trustworthy partners.”
“Ye prefer live cowards, eh?” Elminster asked as they dropped lightly down from the roof of the tomb and set off through the rubble and tangled plants toward the bough they’d come in by.
Farl stopped him. “Seriously, El—I’ve never found such fearlessness and honesty in anyone. To find it in one who also has endurance and dexterity … I’ve only one regret.”
“Which is?” Elminster was blushing furiously.
“You’re not a pretty lass.”
Elminster replied with a rude noise, and they both chuckled and clambered up the tree that would afford them exit.
“I see only one worry ahead,” Farl added. “Hastarl grows rich under the wizards, and thieves are coming in. Gangs. As they grow larger, you and I will have to join or start one of our own to survive. Besides, we’ll need more hands than these four if we’re to tackle these back room investors.”
“And thy worry?”
“Betrayal.”
That word hung in somber silence between them as they leaped down from the crumbling wall into a garbage-choked alley, and watched the rats run. Elminster said softly, “I’ve found something precious in thee, too, Farl.”
“A friend prettier than yourself?”
“A friend, aye. Loyalty, and trust, too—more precious by far than all the gold we’ve taken together.”
“Pretty speech. I’ve remembered another regret too,” Farl added gravely. “I couldn’t be there in the room to see Shandathe and old Hannibur waking up and seeing each other!”
They convulsed in shared laughter. “I have noted,” Elminster added a few helpless breaths later as they went on down the street, “word of that meeting has not spread across Hastarl.”
“A pity, indeed,” Farl replied. They threw their arms around each other’s shoulders and strode down the slippery cobbles, the conquest of all Hastarl bright ahead of them.
FIVE
TO CHAIN A MAGE
To chain a mage? Why, the promise of power and knowing secrets (‘magic,’ if you will), greed, and love—the things that chain all men …
and some of the more foolish women too.
ATHAEAL OF EVERMEET
MUSINGS OF A WITCH-QUEEN IN EXILE
YEAR OF THE BLACK FLAM
The smell wafting up through the high windows was wonderful. In spite of himself, Elminster’s stomach growled. He clung to the stone sill, frozen in an awkward head-down pose, and hoped no one would hear.
The feast below was a merry one; glass tinkled and men laughed, short barks of merriment punctuating the general murmur of jests and earnest talk. He was still too distant to hear what was being said. El finished the knot and tugged on it; firm. Aye, then, into the hands of the gods …
He waited for a burst of laughter and, when it came, slid down the thin cord to the balcony below. For the entire journey he was clearly visible to anyone at the board below who bothered to look up; he was sweating hard as his boots touched the balcony floor, and he could sink thankfully down into a sitting position behind the parapet, completely concealed from those at table. No outcry came. After a moment, he relaxed enough to peer carefully around. The balcony was dark and disused; he tried not to stir up dust that might force a sneeze or leave betraying marks behind.
Elminster then bent his attention to the chatter below—and within a few words was sitting frozen in fear and rising excitement. His hand went unbidden to his breast, where the Lion Sword was hidden.
“I’ve heard some sly whispers, Havilyn, that you doubt our powers,” a cold and proud voice said, words falling into a sudden, tense silence, “that we are meant to scare the common folk into obedience to the Stag Throne and are not real wizards, daring to set foot outside our realm … that our spells may be showy but would avail little against thieves and the night-work of competitors, leaving our shared investments unprotected.”
“I’ve said no such thing.”
“Perhaps not, but your tone now tells me that you believe it. Nay, put your blade
away. I intend no harm to you this night. ’Twould be churlish to strike down a man in his own house—and the act of a fool to destroy a good ally and wealthy supporter. All I’d like you to do is watch a little demonstration.”
“What sort of magic do you plan to spin, Hawklyn?” Havilyn’s tone was wary. “I warn you that some here are not as protected by amulets and shields as I am—and have less reason to love you than I do. It would not be wise to make a man reach for a weapon at this table.”
“I have no great violence in mind. I merely wish to reveal the efficacy of my magic by casting for you a spell I’ve recently perfected, which can compel any mortal whose name and likeness I know into my presence.”
“Any mortal?”
“Any living mortal. Yet before you name some old foe you’d like to get your hands on, I want to show you the true power of the magic we wield here in Hastarl … the magic you’ve belittled as mere tricks and flame-balls to cow the common folk.”
There was a strange, high ringing and clanking sound. “Behold this chain,” came the cold voice of Neldryn Hawklyn, Mage Royal of Athalantar. “Set it down and withdraw; my thanks.” There was a glassy shifting sound and then the receding tread of soft and hasty feet.
The clink of moving glass came again, and reflections of flame suddenly danced on the wall above Elminster. He peered at them narrowly and saw that a transparent chain was rising by itself from the floor, rising and coiling upward to hang in the air and turn slowly in a great spiral.
The cold voice of Hawklyn spoke again. “This is the Crystal Chain of Binding, wrought in Netheril long ages ago. Elves, dwarves, and men all searched for it and failed and thought it lost forever. I found it; behold the chain that can imprison any mage—and prevent his use of any magic. Beautiful, is it not?”
There were murmurs of response, and then the mightiest of the magelords continued. “Who is the mightiest mage in all Faerûn, Havilyn?”
“You want me to say you, I suppose … in truth, I know not—you’re the expert in matters magical, not me … this Mad Mage we hear about, I guess.…”