by Ed Greenwood
Narnra glared at him, then, curious, did so. Her tumble in the refuse had scratched the back of her hand, and she was bleeding freely. She reached her hand toward her mouth to suck the blood away, but the wizard snapped, "Be still!"
His voice was like thunder, the air around her suddenly afire. Magic again, freezing her limbs utterly! She-he was going to-she couldn't-
Her eyes could yet move, and she could still breathe. Something was burning close before her, a flame rising where there'd been none. The blood on her hand was blazing with cold, silent fire.
Narnra stared at it helplessly. It burned nothing but yet burned. She could see her dirt-smeared hand and her glistening blood through that flame, and there was no pain.
The wizard stood before her now, staring at the same thing she was. Slowly, under their shared scrutiny, the flickering flame faded away.
Helplessly Narnra lifted her gaze to his. He was smiling. "Well," he said, in a rich, whimsical voice. "Well, well."
She stared at him, spell-frozen, unable to speak. The mage shook a small purse out of his sleeve-it looked like a palm-sized pea-pod but was made of some sort of dark and scaly hide and hung at the end of its own intricate lace-link chain-thrust it open with his thumb, and spilled seven gold coins into his palm. As deftly as any tavern juggler he flicked them into a neat stack and placed it delicately atop her bleeding hand.
"Fare ye well, lady," he said gently, gave her a kindly smile, and turned away-and walked through the wall.
Narnra Shalace stared at where he'd vanished, blinking unbelievingly at the solid, unbroken stones. All she could hear was her own racing breath, all she could feel was the cold weight of coins, the faintly tickling trickle of blood beneath them, and the solid feel of her own knife, still in her hand.
It had all been so sudden, so unbelievable, so …
That flame, whatever it had been, had surprised him. It had come from his spell but from her, too. He'd given her coins instead of death. Coins, as if she were a beggar or a pleasure-lass … or a successful thief. A stack of more gold than she could have dared hope to gain from one old man. And in a wink of an eye he was- gone, right through that wall, and she was . . .
She was able to move again, a little, and the walls of the alley seemed to move, around her, straightening and shifting.
Desperately, Narnra stared at where the wizard had vanished through the wall, marking just which heap of refuse was at that spot. She could move her other hand now, as slowly as a feather falling on a windless day. She reached up, took the coins, and was almost surprised to find them every bit as solid and heavy as they'd seemed. She put them into a pouch, her movements still slow but quickening with every breath, and saw that the alley around was once more long and narrow, coming to a blind end here and curving slightly as it stretched back out to the street there.
She went to the place where the wizard had vanished and cautiously extended her knife at the wall. It plunged into the stone as if through empty air. Wonderingly she leaned forward, her arm following it.
This could be the worst sort of death if the stone closed around her. Suspicious, insulted-who was this old wizard to lecture her and pity her and give her a beggar-offering of coins?-and yet, yes, fascinated, Narnra Shalace stepped forward into darkness.
Two
A FINE NIGHT FOR REVELRY
Those who hope to survive adventures are advised to pick their own forays, rather than striding blindly into someone else's schemes-and another someone's trouble. For trouble thus found has an almost inevitable way of being freely shared.
Seldreene Ammath of Suzail , Married to a Merchant Year of the Serpent
It was dark, and smelled of damp stone, old earth, and the faint reek of garbage receding behind her. The Silken Shadow went forward cautiously, keeping low, as careful of her balance in this unseen footing as if she'd been on a crumbling roof.
There was a singing in the air in front of her, a singing that built swiftly into a shrieking as she advanced-a tumult she somehow knew she heard more than the world around her would. A sickening, shuddering feeling was growing inside her, too. It faltered when she drew back but surged anew when she stepped forward again.
Narnra kept the knife ready in her hand, wondering what sort of fool she was being, and peered ahead, seeking any glimmer of light.
Obligingly, radiance suddenly flowered before her, quite close, blossoming as swiftly as the flaring of any new-lit torch. It was a deep, rich blue light, a glow of magic mightier than anything she'd ever seen before. As she watched, it raced along in straight paths, outlining an archway where the white-bearded wizard stood.
Narnra promptly went to fingertips and knees on the stones then slid forward onto her belly as quietly as she could-and was barely down and motionless when the mage turned and peered in her direction.
Nodding as if satisfied-had he seen her or not?-he turned and stepped through the glowing arch-and the singing and shuddering within her ceased, as sharply as if severed by an axe-blow.
Narnra lifted her head, listening intently, but all was dark and silent except for the archway. As she stared at it, the radiance pulsed, flickered, and started to fade.
In a trice she was on her feet and running to it, swerving aside at the last moment to keep out of sight of anyone looking out of the arch. Its center was dark, and the Silken Shadow crawled the last few feet like a lizard in a purposeful hurry and peered around its edge, chin almost brushing the floor-to find herself looking at more dark nothingness.
The light was definitely dimmer than before. Narnra bit her lip then rose and stepped forward through the archway. If the wizard had a hidden lair right under Trades Ward, she had to know about it. All about it.
Another step into silent darkness, then another. At her third stride, the darkness vanished, and she was standing in more deep blue radiance, blueness swirling like mist on all sides and falling endlessly past. Narnra fell with it, yet stood upright and unmoving on an unseen floor, pausing uncertainly. Whirling around, she could see no hint of whence she'd come, only a blue void that. . . that. . .
She was suddenly drenched with sweat, more afraid than she'd ever been in her life. Where was she? Which way was forward? With great care she pivoted back until she was facing, she hoped, in exactly the direction she'd been facing while advancing . . . and went on.
Two steps later, darkness returned, and the damp. Yet the smell was different, somehow. The tang of the sea was strong, but there was also old rotting, like a swamp-a smell her nose had known in Waterdeep only when the harbor was being dragged. She stood in another narrow stone passage, and there were distant echoes ahead. Someone-no, a lot of someones- were talking. Chattering and laughing, like a merchants' revel. She was somewhere large, with unseen stone chambers opening out from her passage.
Under the City of the Dead? Deep beneath the drovers' streets nigh the River Gate? Or-somewhere else entirely, far from Waterdeep?
Another step brought her into blue light once more-a faint, fading glow. Narnra spun around and beheld an archway like the one she'd stepped through to get here. She stepped back into it, walked freely for a few strides then shrugged, turned around, and went back to the arch.
This time its glow was almost gone. She peered at the radiance narrowly and positioned herself exactly in the center of the arch. When the glow failed utterly, Narnra stepped forward-slamming her knee hard into what was now a solid stone wall.
She was trapped here, wherever here was, and suddenly enraged at herself for being so easily lured. She slapped the unseen wall in front of her, beat her fist on it with a snarl, drew a deep, tremulous breath, and spun again. She had no choice now but to go on.
Towards the revelry. In the wake of the wizard who'd so casually defeated her.
He knew how to make this magic of archways work, so she'd either have to find her own way out or find him and . . . and what? Beg?
Growling soundlessly, Narnra hefted her knife in her hand and prowled forward. Old, wo
rn stone blocks were under her soft boots, sea-breezes ghosted around her ankles, and the first glimmers of light could be seen ahead.
This was looking less and less like Waterdeep.
Oh Mask and Tymora, aid me now.
* * * * *
Elminster cast three illusory disguises, one atop the next, saving his shapechange in case it became necessary to fly or swim out of this gathering in haste. The company he'd be keeping in a moment would be neither savory nor safe.
He was taller, now, in his outermost seeming, and scarred, with the jet-black hair of the older branch of the Cormaerils. He selected a tiny token from a belt-pouch, murmured a word over it-and was suddenly holding a scabbarded sword in his hands. A needle-slender blade of the sort favored by many at court in Suzail, mirror-bright, its ornately swept and curved basket hilt studded with small, glossy-smooth sapphires like so many ever-curious eyes.
Strapping it on, he strode across a dark, pillared hall, where rotten barrels moldered and rats scurried in the dimness, and up an old, worn flight of steps. The Marsemban harbor-stink grew stronger with the faint light ahead. Quite suddenly, he was in a better-lit yet still gloom-shadowed room where grim guards stood watching a throng of laughing, drinking, loudly talking people, who were sporting under lamplight in a much larger chamber beyond.
Elminster sighed inwardly. Revelry was the same everywhere, and he'd managed to enjoy it for the first thousand years or so … but no more. Too much noise, too much pretence and sneering and nasty rumors-and too many wonderstruck lovely young things, all hope and excitement and bright laughter, who lived now only in his memory, gone in their countless legions to graves. He'd even helped to put a few of them there.
Yet he strode on, not hesitating for a moment. Meddling and stepping into distasteful danger was, after all, what Elminsters did.
Threading his way through the guards with the purposeful stride of a man who has every right to be present and considers himself greater in rank than all others, he advanced-and was two long strides from the archway that opened into noise and full lamplight when the challenge came.
Blades suddenly slid out to bar his path and rise up behind him. "Down steel," he ordered curtly.
The swords menacing him moved not a fingerwidth.
"And who are you," an unpleasant voice hissed from the other end of one of them, "to be giving us orders? Or coming up from cellars we searched very thoroughly?"
The tall, scarred man with the jet-black hair and the grand rapier at his hip turned his head coldly. "My name is Cormaeril, my lineage noble, and my patience limited. Who are you to be stopping me?"
"You're older than the other Cormaerils," a different voice observed coldly from behind another sword.
"Easy, now! They said they hoped some of the older branches would make an appearance," a third voice said hastily. "Some Cormaerils were out of the realm long before the order of exile, with no chance to make claims nor set affairs in order. Let him pass-there's only the one of him."
"Have you any magic on you?" the first voice demanded.
"Of course," the scarred newcomer replied icily. "But no spells up my sleeves nor things I can hurl doom with, if that's what you fear."
Reluctantly, the blades drew back, and Elminster was aware of a lot of armed men drifting disappointedly away into the far corners of the room again. There wasn't going to be the fun of watching a little bloodletting after all.
The scarred Cormaeril glanced all around to make sure no covert blades were within reach, gave the grim bladesmen a wordless nod, and stepped out into the revelry.
* * * * *
The Silken Shadow reached into the bodice of her leathers and drew forth the black cloth hood she'd made several seasons ago but so rarely used. It made her look like some child playing at being hangman, with its eyeholes and ragged edge, but it covered the pale flash of her skin in dim light and might hide her femininity for a few moments from an inattentive observer. Which was most folk, really.
Narnra pulled it on, sheathed her knife, and flexed the too-long-clenched fingers that had held it. She stretched like a lazy cat and hunched down to the floor to smell and listen.
Yes, this smelled different than Waterdeep, somehow. More dead things in the water but fewer taints of spilled strange cargoes from afar.
Revels meant servants, or guards, or people peering in at the fun from around the edges-or all three. She'd have to be very careful as she went on from here.
Why, gods bless me, how unusual for a thief. . .
* * * * *
"So which noble family are you part of?" the masked merchant half-shouted through the chattering din, wine sloshing in the warhelm-sized metal goblet he clutched in both hands.
The cold-eyed warrior in worn and much-patched leather armor eyed him sourly and replied, "None of them. The benevolent Obarskyrs have exiled many more folk than our precious nobles. Most of us lowborn were hurled out by personal proclamation- because they couldn't get us with their blades or nooses before we scampered."
"Oh?" the tipsy merchant leaned forward to peer at the warrior more closely. "So what'd you do?"
"Wounded Duke Bhereu for dallying with my sister. Cut him good and proper and gave him a limp that lasted through two seasons of high-coin healers. Id've had his life, too, if he hadn't had a dozen bodyguards within shout. Cursed Obarskyrs can't even go out rutting without help!"
Elminster swayed around the warrior's elbow and edged past in the press of bodies.
"Ho for the conspiracy!" someone bellowed across the crowd- again. Several other someones took up the cry, as they had done on several previous occasions. "The Rightful Conspiracy!"
"A new king, a new hope!" someone else bawled.
"Aye! Let Cormyr rise again!"
Elminster felt like rolling his eyes. How many centuries had he heard these same cries, now? 'Twas as if the Forest Kingdom had a set script all would-be rebels and traitors came and consulted, perhaps under the watchful eyes of the scribes and Master Scroll-keeper at the Royal Court.
"And why are you here?" the warrior asked. Elminster stiffened then turned slowly, his face cold and haughty-to discover that the question had been directed at the merchant and not the tall, scarred noble sidling past.
"Money," the red-faced merchant replied promptly, punctuating this emphatic declaration with a belch. "They want some of mine now to buy blades and hireswords in Westgate and such but promise me contracts and trade-hires enough to make it back ten times over, once their king's on the throne. Haven't said who that'll be yet, 'course"-he belched again-"but I don' really care." He waved a dismissive hand, his goblet spilling a line of wine drops floorward, and added, "All the same anyway, they are. 'S'just that we'll be on the take with the new one, 'stead of shut outside the gates, lookin' in at all the lovely coins and whisper-deals."
The warrior caught Elminster's eye and snapped, "What're you listening to, high'n'mighty?"
"Overloose tongues," Elminster grunted, "if the War Wizards are listening or there're any Highknights lurking amongst us. I'm a little uneasy that this-" He waved at the merriment all around. "-might be a way to gather us all together so we can be slaughtered without them having to take the trouble to chase us all down."
The warrior nodded grimly. "Such thoughts have crossed my mind, too. You're noble, right?"
"Noble by birth, nameless by nature," Elminster told him with a smile. "Call me: Nameless Cormaeril."
The warrior grinned. "Aha! Some of your kin are here." He waved his hand at the thickest part of the crowd. "Over yonder, somewhere."
The merchant swayed toward Elminster. "W-well met, grand sir. I'm Imbur Waendlar, I am, and am … am … delighted to make your acquaintance. Should you ever have need of-ahem-coffins, or strongchests, or splendid greatchests to grace the finest of chambers, I'm your man. Best work and best price in all Suzail, wares to fit the needs of one so noble as yourself! Why, let me-"
Elminster and the warrior exchanged winks and grins. "Dru
nk as a bear drowning in honey," the duke-whittling warrior muttered, "but still manages his pitch. Gods bless stubborn merchants."
Master Waendlar blinked at him. "I cry: 'stubborn'? I cannot help but know I heard you say 'stubborn,' sir. Know you that you are mistaken, for a stubborn merchant is one who cannot turn with the times, shift with the deals, and so keep his coins about him! Why-"
Elminster and the nameless warrior sidestepped in opposite directions, leaving the merchant turning to continue his converse rather unsteadily. His disagreement was with the warrior, so he clung to that path, leaving Elminster free to move on.
Or rather, as free as two excitedly squealing ladies in very low-cut and well-filled gowns would allow.
"Gods a-mighty," someone growled, from Elminster's left, "but if I had those, I'd be squealing in excitement too."
"Well, have them you can," another voice said slyly. "The price is steep, mind you, but. . ."
Elminster ducked past the luridly displayed flesh and out of hearing more of that particular converse. A knot of men beyond was heatedly discussing the wisdom or lack of same in various "what must be done next" stratagems. Their voices were low but swift and cutting, but their words faltered as Elminster stepped almost into their midst.
"Ho, sir! This talk's private!" one of them snapped.
Elminster shrugged. "Sounds very much like what I've heard in a hundred nobles' chambers across the realm when they thought they were alone. Which leads me to think: when we plotted, we trusted in our hired wizards to keep War Wizard scrying at bay. Is anyone doing the same here, tonight?" He pointed at the goblets most of the men were holding and added, "Or checking those for poisons or concoctions to make us babble?"
The circle of men gave him sharp looks. "Did you not hear the Knight of the Mask's assurances?" the shortest man asked suspiciously. "Where were you then?"