Elminster's Daughter

by Ed Greenwood

  Ah, this was the place. Dark My Harp Yet Flaming. Gods, what a name!

  Narnra paused on a rooftop, peering down at the old, ramshackle club. It had once been a grand mansion, by the looks of it, before later owners had grown it wooden side-wings in all directions. Well, at least no din of bad minstrelry was clawing her ears from this distance, at least.

  With a shock she realized that no less than three sentinels were watching her—one from a tiny moon-window in the club roof and the others from different buildings on either side of her.

  To her relief, the one on the nearest building gave her a curt nod as their eyes met. She responded with a grave wave of her hand and proceeded down to the street to enter the club openly. If she’d been seen anyway, it’d be best not to risk any bowfire.

  The wig she’d “borrowed” through an open window a few frantic hours back was slipping again, but she needn’t have bothered with any attempt at stealth. Dark My Harp Yet Flaming was dimly lit, crowded, casually cozy, and—no music, thankfully—a-bubble with talk of nothing else but Vangerdahast’s plan.

  “Gods, man, we’ll be crotch-deep in slinking and grandly mysterious mages with fireballs up both their unwashed sleeves the moment word of Vangey’s grand plan gets about!” one man with a lute strapped across his back and daggers sheathed everywhere else all over his well-worn leathers growled, slamming down a tankard as big as Narnra’s head. “All sorts of mages’ll want his spells and kill to get them! Who controls the most dragons, and first, will be able to settle a lot of old scores before the rest of us can unite to try—and I say try—to rescue all the Realms from him!”

  “What if a dragon gets those spells and builds himself into a new Dragon King?” a shortish man with a wildly bristling mustache responded. “That’s what I want to know!”

  Narnra listened to this and similar loudly enthusiastic speculations as she drifted through the club, playing the old game of feigning looking for someone she knew.

  When she recognized two of the Harpers who’d been part of that grim line down in the cellars when Mystra herself had been awing the squitters out of everyone, she sidled in their direction. They headed grimly up a flight of stairs, listening to the chatter and exchanging sour glances about it as they went.

  Narnra walked away from the stair, around a corner, and raced up another staircase she’d spotted earlier. The floor above would have a linking passage, she was sure, and if not …

  The creature at the top of the stair was the largest, ugliest half-orc she’d ever seen—all pimples and open, weeping sores and yellow, roughly broken-off tusks. Steady eyes that held promises of both humor and casually swift death peered down at her as one claw-like hand drew aside a fold of cloak to reveal the first six-bolt-at-once handbow Narnra had ever gazed upon.

  The glittering-headed bolts looked very sharp, and they were all trained on her. Lips drew back from the great reeking mouth above them to mutter, “And on your deathbed, little rat, you will—?”

  Narnra swallowed, drew in a deep breath, and managed to say the word “Harp” confidently enough that it didn’t—quite—seem like a guess.

  The cloak drew back over the bow, the head nodded grudgingly, and with astonishing speed that mountain of flesh drew aside to let her reach the head of the stair and pass.

  She gave the—the thing—an expressionless nod as she did so and strode down the passage confronting her as if she knew quite well where she was going.

  A door was open halfway along it, and a voice from just inside was saying, “I care not. Let every sneak-thief and fat merchant in all Suzail hear us debate, Sareene! I want them all aware and alert and mindful of the danger we all face—because we all face it, no matter who or where we are!”

  “Naetheless, Brammagar, you’re proposing a very dangerous double game!”

  “What choice have we?”

  The backs of the two men standing just inside the door looked very familiar, so Narnra dared not ask what Brammagar’s proposal had been. Thankfully, someone else did it for her.

  “I dare not leave Dragondusk right at this moment,” said a strangely remote, echoing voice, “and my magic was not working in time to hear Brammagar speak. What proposal, please?”

  “That We Who Harp protect Vangerdahast by lying in wait for all mages, so as to have a chance at taking them down as they arrive to attack Vangey … then, when the time’s just right, we turn around and ruin the old wizard’s spell-work, to make sure he never manages to bind a dragon by any new, more powerful magical means.”

  “And who among us gets to decide which mages we slay and which we let live? You’re tossing maggots into all our soup, I say!”

  “Kill as many as we can, regardless, and give some shred of power in Faerûn back to all of us who aren’t spellslingers!” someone else grunted, and a burst of argumentative voices began.

  Narnra went on down the passage to the other stair as swiftly as she quietly could. Traitor-wizards would have to wait. She had to get to Caladnei in all haste. This must be reported to the Mage Royal without delay!

  Harnrim Starangh smiled down at the lithe figure in leathers as his careful casting came to an end—and the building looming beside the rooftop she’d just landed on started to topple.

  No matter how swiftly she leaped, she couldn’t hope to avoid its thundering, crushing flood of stones. They’d bury the entire roof and probably smash flat the building beneath it …

  The rolling crash shook his own perch, here atop one of newer and loftier buildings in Suzail. The dust rolled up … and with a groan like a dying dragon, the building the thief had been trotting across collapsed under its load of fallen stone, to the accompaniment of a few fresh screams.

  Yes. Exit Narnra Shalace, and enter—her impostor.

  Trying to bargain for the life of his daughter with Elminster and all the Chosen the Old Mage could call on was sheer foolishness … to say nothing of what such an … ah, active captive might do on her own, whilst he was busy bargaining … but being Elminster’s daughter himself, now—yes! Even if the Old Mage caught up to him, the old goat could be warned away from mind-thrusts and meddlings by claiming Mystra’s protection.

  Yes. Risky, but everything to do with magic held risk. And if a certain Darkspells could stay ahead of the Old Mage of Shadowdale and snatch War Wizard magic by being Caladnei’s little agent on the one hand and Elminster’s daughter on the other, he could gain much ere it became necessary for Narnra to forever disappear.

  The Red Wizard smiled thinly and waved his hand. The air beside him obediently wavered into an image of the Waterdhavian thief he’d just slain.

  He studied it carefully, peering and crouching to do so, before beginning the spell that would give him Narnra’s likeness.

  Across a forest of rooftops, Glarasteer Rhauligan stared at the rising dust in horror, his last glimpse of the frantically leaping Narnra as the stones came down etched into his mind.

  “Narnra!” he shouted, knowing that his cry was in vain. Nothing could have survived that smashing blow from above, even if …

  A movement caught his eye on another rooftop, and he found himself gazing at a robed man who was just gaining a companion—as Narnra’s image appeared out of thin air before him. The man studied it, frowning and ducking about to peer intently, and started to work a spell. His shape rippled and started to change—even as the conjured Narnra rippled and started to fade.

  Rhauligan burst into a run, leaping and racing across rooftops, jerking out daggers to hurl and spitting furious curses non-stop, trying to get close enough to …

  Harnrim Starangh struck a pose and looked down at the hand-mirror he’d propped against the husk of a long-dead pigeon earlier. Yes, he now looked like that pouty, hawk-nosed lass.

  He retrieved his mirror, stowed it in an unfamiliar pocket, and gave Suzail a farewell smile. It was time to see Shadowdale again, cozy up to the oh-so-great Elminster, and learn a few of his secrets at last.

  The figure atop the r
oof vanished abruptly, and Rhauligan’s first dagger flashed through empty air to clink and rattle to a tumbling stop at the far end of an empty roof. The Harper’s roar of rage followed it.

  * * * * *

  The street full of rubble and running, shouting men suddenly gained another occupant. This one was tall, gaunt, and dressed in shabby robes that vied with their wearer’s long white beard in looking old and the worse for wear.

  Elminster raised one bristling brow and peered around, humming thoughtfully as War Wizards and Purple Dragons came pelting up from all directions.

  Barring spell barriers, his tracing spell should deliver him to a spot mere feet away from Narnra, and that could only mean she was …

  Oh, Mystra. Oh, bleeding merciful Mystra.

  Heedless of shouts calling on him to surrender or identify himself and to lay aside all weapons, the Old Mage knelt by the great pile of shattered and tumbled stone that reached to the very toes of his worn old boots and muttered a very old spell. Some of the rocks right in front of him glowed, and he spat out a curse that made the Purple Dragon running up to him with drawn sword at the ready gape in surprise.

  The old man planted his feet, shook back his sleeves, and raised both hands to begin a casting—so the onrushing warrior did what he was trained to do: bellowed to try and disrupt the wizard’s concentration and reached out with his blade to try to strike aside one of those hands and so ruin any spellcasting.

  The old man promptly surprised the Purple Dragon again—by dropping into a crouch and whirling to face his attacker. The blade passed harmlessly over one robed shoulder. The old man turned, taking hold of the warrior’s swordarm by wrist and elbow, and flung him at the rockpile with a sudden shout of his own: “Start digging, you motherless dog!”

  “There’s the one who caused it!” a War Wizard howled, aiming his wand. Elminster flung himself aside without bothering to turn and see who his accuser was, and the wand-blast seared stones and sent the staggering Purple Dragon into a shouting scramble for cover.

  Elminster rolled behind a heap of tumbled rubble and snarled out a spell that lofted most of the stones around him—plus the lone and by now thoroughly astonished Purple Dragon—down the street in a bone-shattering hail that left the advancing Cormyreans strewn on their backs, cursing and groaning.

  Ignoring them, the Old Mage scrambled to his feet and peered at the front edge of the rockpile, now much reduced by the scouring of his spell. There! A bloody, leather-clad arm protruded from under two large, wedged rocks. Elminster dug his hands in under one of them, heaved with all his might—and succeeded only in making it wobble a few inches to one side.

  Gasping in defeat, he grimly cast another spell, this time plucking stones straight up so as to not to allow the slightest possibility of harming Narnra further.

  She lay sprawled and senseless beneath a thick coating of dust, one leg obviously broken, one arm a flopping and many-times-shattered thing, and …

  He winced, dragged that broken body as gently as he could out from under the stones hanging menacingly aloft, and called up Mystra’s silver fire.

  Wielding it slowly and gently was always hard, healing doubly so, and he persisted only long enough to discover that she was still alive and not faltering. To do this properly, he’d have to devote all of his concentration to the task, leaving himself defenseless and pressed against his daughter—not a wise thing when more angry defenders of Cormyr could arrive at any moment.

  So instead, he shifted his outward appearance to exactly match Narnra’s—farewell, bearded old lawbreaking wizard—and got down beside her to let out the silver fire slowly and carefully.

  When a company of Purple Dragons arrived in a thundering of boots, it was the work of but a moment to let the hanging stones fall with a crash among them, while he lay still alongside the obviously injured Narnra.

  Knitting and mending, drawing back blood here and teasing aside shattered ends of bone there … Slowly he worked his way through her broken body until he was satisfied she’d live. He could do the rest better at his tower, where he could nurse and coddle properly instead of fighting off War Wizards every few breaths.

  Someone who was whooping for breath and whose footfalls crashed down in hasty weariness burst onto the scene. Elminster turned his head and saw Glarasteer Rhauligan lurching toward him over the rubble-strewn street in as much haste as possible.

  With a sigh, the mage got to his feet, picked up Narnra—ignoring Rhauligan’s sudden shout—and whisked himself and his daughter away to Shadowdale.

  Rhauligan staggered to a halt, staring in dumbfounded rage at the spot where two Narnra Shalaces had just vanished, right under his nose.

  “Bloody brazen hinges!” he gasped wearily, staring around in wild frustration. “Blistering bloody … brazen … hinges!”

  * * * * *

  Florin Falconhand was whistling softly as he traversed the well-worn flagstones that led to Elminster’s tower. In his dripping left hand he held no less than nine large greenfins, fresh from the river. The Old Mage had a weakness for pan-fried greenfin.

  It was time and past time for one of the Knights to invite Elminster to dine, and—

  The ranger came to a sudden halt, hand flashing to the hilt of his blade.

  On the path ahead—right at the halfway bend, on a gentle slope that had been utterly empty a moment earlier—stood two figures.

  Two identical figures, one of them carrying a limp, senseless third duplicate who was shrouded in dust and blood and whose clothes were much torn.

  Florin stared. Aye, all three were the same slender, muscled woman in tattered leathers and boots, with tousled, hacked-off-short black hair, dark eyes, and a strong nose like a gentler version of Elminster’s hawk-beak.

  Both of the upright women were staring at each other in obvious surprise—unwelcome surprise.

  Then the one carrying the third knelt quickly, snapped, “Stay back, Florin!” and set down her burden. She started casting a spell while still on her knees.

  The other one was casting a spell too, obviously intending to blast her double.

  Florin’s sword sang out as he broke into a trot, asking himself, What NOW?

  Twenty

  TO WAR

  So it comes down to what it always does, when men swagger and dragons fly: red war, and much death, and a lot of things ruined and cast down broken. Little decided, much lost, many left to weep. Yet for the rest of us, it seems to entertain.

  Amundreth, Sage of Secomber

  Thoughts on the Folly of Kings

  Year of the Highmantle

  Halfway along the passage, Ondreth stopped still.

  “By the Dragon Throne,” he gasped, putting out a hand to Telarantra’s arm, “what’s that?”

  His fellow duty-guard War Wizard followed his gaze down the longest passage in the sanctum to what was traversing a cross-passage in the distance and murmured in her usual deadpan manner, “Vangerdahast, the Lady Lord of Arabel, and a woman in the thrall of his magic, I’d say—how else would she end up floating along on her back in midair, with her eyes closed?”

  “No, no,” Ondreth said excitedly, “I saw her change, in the battle! That’s the dragon that did us so much damage!”

  “Is it indeed?” Telarantra asked softly.

  The spell that clutched Ondreth Malkrivyn in an icy grip was as sudden as it was unexpected. It was draining his life-force before he could speak or even lift a hand.

  The last thing he saw as the world dimmed for him was Telarantra’s triumphantly smiling face above him, as she gently lowered his withering body to the floor.

  “Farewell, fool,” she told him almost affectionately. “Know that the Rightful Conspiracy values your sacrifice. My next spell will break the stasis on yon song dragon—and we’ll see how old Lord Windy Royal Magician fares in battle without the risen defenses of the sanctum ready in his hands.”

  She turned and did something, but Ondreth Malkrivyn was too dead to see it—or fee
l the mighty blast that followed. It hurled the husk of his body at the ceiling as the entire passage rocked, ceiling-tiles fell like rain, and the sanctum tried to leap upward and join the sky.

  * * * * *

  Though he stood like a statue, Rhauligan was inwardly almost dancing in impatience, but one did not interrupt the Dowager Queen of Cormyr in mid-word … not when the Steel Regent was by her side, glaring pointedly at impatient Harpers. Alusair even put an imperious finger to her lips as Filfaeril bade Laspeera answer.

  “The evidence of Amnian and Sembian backing is now clear,” the most senior War Wizard began, “and the nobles of this ‘Rightful Conspiracy’ grow ever bolder. We would have seen swords out openly long ago, I think, were it not for the wits of the wisest along them. One of our Highknights died to inform us of this much: An elaborate scheme is building, to slay all Obarskyrs in an orchestrated manner that will allow the conspirators to win control of the realm while avoiding both a ruinous ground war or—much—civil war after all of the Blood Royal have been eliminated, by also slaughtering all other blood claimants to the throne but one: their chosen, mind-controlled puppet. We’re not sure just which of the Crownsilvers, Huntsilvers, or Truesilvers is their selected—and willing—dupe, but rest assured that—”

  “We’re doing all we can,” Caladnei took over smoothly. “Of course.” She sighed, spread her hands as if to clear an imaginary table—or her mind—and added, “One of the bolder moves Speera just referred to was a clever attempt to snatch the young Azoun—an attempt aided by hired wizards. It was foiled by some alert knights and by our most trusted mages, who constantly spell-scry the King from afar, ‘watching the watchers’ who protect the king, for signs of treachery.”