Realms of the Arcane a-5

by Brian M. Thomsen

  Murph saw my concern. He said carefully, "No need for that, Kitten. I think I can now trust this fellow."

  Kitten withdrew the dagger and relaxed. In accordance, I did the same with the star.

  Murph sighed, and then belched. A grin of satisfaction crossed his lips. "Does it want to know what I know?" he asked coyly.

  "What do you know?" I demanded, my stance of bravado resumed.

  "It is an exceptional fighter of uncommon training. Despite a certain hardness to its features and its bearing, its breeding and body show few signs of the devastations of poverty or abuse. Fast reflexes, keen senses, good instincts. If I was a bit more confident, I would say it was either a royal assassin or a master thief. Oddly, though, it avoids lethality in its moves. It doesn't kill unless it has to."

  "So?" I demanded.

  Murph looked to Kitten, smiled, and replied, "So, Murph might have use for it. Kitten can show you to a room I have on retainer. I'll deduct the rent from your first job."

  Kitten left his side, opened a previously indiscernible door, and gestured for me to follow. As I passed the tub of lard, who had obviously been entertained by the combat, he volunteered one more observation.

  "That mark on its hand. It's a brand, all right, but not of the slave variety. It wasn't burned in. It's of magical origin. Perhaps a marking of some secret society. I wouldn't worry about it if I was it."

  The door closed behind me, and I followed Kitten up stairs.

  "Quite the job interview," I mused aloud.

  "He only brokers the best," she replied noncommit-tally, and showed me to a room where a meal had been laid out. With nary a kiss or a good-bye, she left me to regain the strength I had not even realized I had taxed.

  After a few mouthfuls, I retreated to the bed and was soon fast asleep.

  For the first time in my short memory, I dreamt.

  I was in a subterranean chamber. My hands were manacled and my eyes downcast. The weight of some unpardonable crime pressed down upon my very being. I tried to raise my head to look around, but succeeded only in seeing numerous robed figures surrounding me. They were talking to each other, but I could not hear any of their words.

  The sharp rap of knuckles on a door brought a curtain of darkness to the dream, and myself back to consciousness.

  Sitting up, my legs already over the bedside, I answered, "Come in."

  I looked up at my visitor and was quietly disappointed. It was not Kitten, but a young lad not quite in his teens.

  "Kitten said I should bring this to you," the lad instructed. "She said I should wake you up so you could start earning your keep."

  I nodded absently, not quite awake, took the note from the lad's hand, broke the seal, and read the missive.

  It,

  A client of mine desires a certain manuscript that is currently sitting on a desk at the offices of Tyme Waterdeep, Ltd. It is in a traveling folder in the top office overlooking the street, and the publisher returns this evening. Fetch it discreetly. An emissary of mine will take it off your hands later.

  You will be ivell compensated should you succeed.

  Murph

  P.S. The traveling folder should have the monogram VG on it. Let me reiterate, discretion is desired.

  I looked up, and the lad was still standing there.

  "Kitten said I should lend you any assistance I could, provided I don't have to break the law or anything," he offered.

  "Of course," I replied, then thought, I guess that's my job.

  Dawn was still an hour or two away, and with no time like the present, I set off for the offices of Tyme Water-deep, Ltd. The lad showed me the way, and scurried home once I was firmly ensconced in the shadows of Faerun's most powerful publishing firm.

  Not wishing to overlook the easiest and most obvious course of action, I tried the door. It was bolted from within. I would have to find another way.

  My eyes were accustomed to the predawn light, and I scanned both sides of the street for another entry.

  The buildings here were high and overhanging, as if to create a sheltered promenade on each side of the street. The top offices had huge, multipaned windows with sumptuous views, letting executives look down on their inferiors both metaphorically and physically. Every other building shared an external wall.

  Walking up and down the street a few times, I noticed an occasional alley between buildings, some narrowed by sagging structures. One such alley was barely a body width.

  Perhaps a point of access could be afforded from above. I scurried upward, left hand on one building and right hand on the other. It was hand and foot to brick and crack, upward, until I had reached the roof.

  None the worse for wear, I crept forward until I was situated over the publisher's offices. My efforts were rewarded with a skylight.

  Though it was obviously latched from within, I was quickly able to remove the pins from its hinges and shift it forward on the latch.

  Silently I lowered myself inside, and came to rest on the publisher's desk itself. My steps were cushioned by various mounds of paper, one of which was crowned by a traveling folder bearing the monogram VG.

  Securing the object of my quest beneath my belt and behind my cloak, I regained the roof. I quickly closed the skylight and replaced its errant pins. Creeping to the eaves, I descended a drainpipe that led to an alley at the end of the street.

  Confident I was still unobserved, I returned to the furnished room from which I had begun my quest, scant hours ago, and waited to be contacted.

  I nodded to sleep, my back still cushioned by the traveling folder.

  Once again I dreamt. I found myself at the mercy of the cloaked men. The room was heavy with magic, and I could feel all eyes bearing down on me. I was undeniably guilty and remained passive, willing to accept my fate.

  The circle closed in on me as the dream came to an end.

  A few hours later, I awoke of my own accord (a pleasant surprise) and removed the parcel from its hiding place on my person. Undoing the drawstring, I looked inside and read the cover sheet, which bore the seemingly innocuous tile, Volo's Guide to the Moonsea, the Land of Political Intrigue and Conspiracy.

  I recalled the name Volo-a best-selling hack writer. Perhaps Murph's client was a rival publisher. Still, it seemed a silly thing to risk life and limb over.

  I was about to read the first page when I sensed I wasn't alone. I looked up.

  Kitten had arrived as silently as her namesake.

  "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she instructed. "You're being paid to get it, not read it."

  I placed the manuscript in its folder, rebound it, and handed it over.

  "Good," Kitten said, placing it firmly in the crook of her arm. "Follow me."

  "Where?" I inquired.

  'To the place where you will be paid," she said curtly.

  I followed her outside, pausing for a moment to close the door. I couldn't help noticing three burly bodies lying in unmoving heaps by the roadside. I tried to recall if they had been there earlier, and decided they hadn't. Kitten seemed to be waiting for me.

  I asked, "Friends of yours?"

  "No," she replied, "of yours. They, too, desired the manuscript you so eloquently retrieved. It would appear I arrived in the nick of time."

  I looked at her, and at them. Had this sweet young Kitten dispatched these rivals with her own bare hands?

  "Don't worry about them," she replied. "The city watch is used to cleaning up detritus in this neighborhood."

  I was dumbstruck.

  Kitten couldn't help noticing. She giggled, and answered my unasked question. "I had a little help. Lothar decided not to stick around."

  Kitten once again led me through the shadowed byways of the Dock Ward, darting from shadow to shadow, with occasional stops in doorways and alcoves, until we returned to an area I recognized. It was near my place of convalescence. She saw the look of recognition in my eye, and nodded.

  "No place like home," she volunteered. "A new furn
ished room has been secured for you, one of a more permanent nature than last night's accommodations."

  We entered a tavern, passed behind the bar, and up a staircase to a set of furnished rooms. Kitten put a key to one of the locks and opened the door to my new residence.

  The furnishings were modest, but adequate-a comfortable bed with a warm quilt and firm pillows, a chest, a lantern, and a table with two chairs. Upon the table were two small purses and an envelope.

  "I see our payment has already arrived," Kitten announced, hastening to the table to snatch the purses, the larger of which she pocketed, the smaller of which she tossed to me.

  "Here," she volunteered, "your accounts of the past few days have been settled, Murph's cut deducted, and your rent paid for the next two weeks. That wasn't too hard now, was it?"

  At this point I noticed her arms were empty. The package bearing the manuscript was nowhere to be seen.

  "The package," I sputtered, "where did it go?"

  "I delivered it along the way," she answered coyly. "Maybe you're not as observant as I thought you were." With a toss of the head, she danced past me to the doorway, pausing only briefly to kiss my cheek. "I have to go now," she said, "but I'll be in touch."

  She saw the look of disappointment in my eyes, and added, "There's plenty more where that came from. You are no doubt a man of great potential."

  "A man without a past," I reminded her.

  "Whatever," she replied, then added, "I'll drop by later to show you around town. Our relationship doesn't always have to be just professional."

  Before I could blink, she had left the room, and I was alone in my new home.

  I felt the bag of coins and instinctively knew there was more than enough to fill my needs for a while-and provide a few amenities that were lacking. I could do some shopping later.

  All that remained was the question of my identity, the shadows of my past. I remembered the envelope on the table before me. Perhaps an answer was within?

  Picking up the missive, I saw that it was unad-dressed. I tore it open. Surprisingly, it was not a letter, but rather a page that had been extracted from some arcane volume. The paper was old and brittle, and featured text in several different languages or codes. My eyes were immediately drawn to an illustration that showed a circle of cowled figures around a prisoner in a set of stocks. The caption below it read:

  In rare instances of mercy, the Lords ofWaterdeep would accept indenturement in exchange for clemency for someone accused of crimes against the lords or the City of Splendors. The accused would have his identity wiped clean, returning him to a state of innocence prior to his commission of said crimes. In exchange for various services provided to the lords, the accused would be granted clues to his past. These services always were of a sensitive nature, for which the lords desired plausible denia-bility, and often resulted in the death of the accused, upon which time the accused would be pardoned of all crimes and receive a proper burial. Such men are known as Lord's Men.

  A different ink bore the message First Payment.

  As I finished reading the page, it and the envelope burst into flames, leaving nary a whiff of smoke.

  Strangely enough, I was not troubled by this recent revelation, as if I had already accepted this fate at some earlier time.

  The mysterious Kitten, my protector, and nurse Lothar, and the silly business of retrieving a manuscript by some hack writer didn't seem as important as living from day to day, and paying off the terms of my inden-turement.

  I was eager to accept my next assignment-to earn another clue to my identity.

  Tertius And The Artifact

  Jeff Grubb

  As I sat on the balcony of the Nauseous Otyugh in Scornubel, suspended between the hangover of the previous evening and the one that was yet to come, I meditated on the phrase "should have stayed in bed." Sound advice, probably postulated first by some spell-flinger after a particularly bad morning of fireballing and lightning bolting and whatnot.

  Of course, it did me little good since I was in bed the night before when everything went south. Except me, of course.

  Let me explain. It was a little before three bells, and Tertius Wands, yours truly, was blissfully asleep in my quarters at the Otyugh, third floor stateroom with an odorous view of the stables. The Otyugh is one of the new establishments that have popped up after the last Volo's Guide. As a result of Volo's work in popularizing certain locations to travelers, those locations have ceased to be popular to natives, necessitating new inns, dives, and hangouts for adventurers to hang out in. Ampi had at one time suggested that it would be advantageous to follow Volo around, opening new inns in his wake, as the ones he talks about are soon filled to the bursting with warriors and wizards carrying his dratted little tomes.

  But I digress. I was setting the scene, dressing the stage, laying the groundwork. Three bells. Bedroom. Otyugh. Then the ceiling exploded.

  Well, it did not exactly explode, but the thunderous boom from above was akin to a roof collapsing. I sat bolt upright, and noticed that the bed itself, a stout four-poster of ironwood, was shimmying and jumping like a nervous carrion crawler. Every loose article in the room, from the chamber pot to the steel mirror, joined in this vibrating dance of doom.

  I did what any rational man would do-I hid beneath the covers and promised whatever gods would listen that I would never touch Dragon's Breath Beer and death cheese again.

  'Tertius Wands!" thundered a frighteningly familiar voice from the direction of the ceiling.

  I popped an eye over the edge of the blanket and saw Granduncle Maskar's fiery head. I did not doubt that his head was still attached to his body back in Water-deep, and he was sending an astral whatsit or a phantasmal thingamabob to address me. At the moment, I was too frightened to care.

  Bravely, I faced the mightiest mage of Waterdeep. "It wasn't my fault!" I shouted, pulling the bed sheets back over my head and hoping I could be heard clearly. "I didn't know she was a priestess of Sune! No one told me about that festhall! I'm innocent!"

  "Never mind that!" boomed my granduncle. "I have something important for you to do!"

  I peeked over the edge of my covers and managed a kitten-weak, "Me?"

  "You," snarled my uncle, his displeasure registering fully on his face. "I had a magical artifact, a remnant of powerful Netheril, which has been stolen from me."

  "I didn't do it!" I quickly put in. "Have you checked with Cousin Marcus? He's always picking up things that don't belong to…"

  "Silencer bellowed the fiery, god-sized head floating over my bedpost. "I know who took it-a thief named the Raven, who is heading your way. I want you to get it back. The device looks like three glass spheres, one set floating within the next. Bring it back to me, and you can return to the City of Splendors!"

  "Well, thaf s just it, then," I ventured. "I was thinking about taking up a life on the open road, and…"

  "Find the Tripartite Orb of Hangrist!" said the phantasmal granduncle. "And find it now.1"

  And with that, Maskar's head exploded in a cascade of fireworks, which succeeded in leaving scorch marks along the wall and shattering the water pitcher. Grand-uncle Maskar was never one for quiet exits. In fact, in all the years I've known and avoided him, he's never used the door once.

  In my nightshirt, I rose unsteadily from my bed and picked up the shattered pitcher. Any thought that I could write this off to some cheese-induced delirium or nightmare was in as many shards as the pottery. Granduncle Maskar wanted something, and wanted me to get it.

  And one does not disappoint one's granduncle, particularly when that granduncle could turn one into a toad.

  So I whistled up my genie, Ampratines. Well, whistled is a bad word. I more rubbed him up, running my finger over the ring and calling him into being.

  Let me make this quite clear: I lack the least bit of magical ability, which makes me an exception in the Wands family, overladened by all manner of conjurers, sorcerers, prestidigitators, and other assorted
spell-casters. However, I get by with a genie, attached to a ring I found years ago in a Waterdhavian sewer. But that's a tale for another time.

  Ampratines wafted into view like a phantasmal castle suddenly appearing in the desert. The djinn by their nature are a clever race, and Ampi is the cleverest of the lot, with more brain cells per cubic inch than any other creature on Faerun.

  Ampi was dressed as normal, in long blue robes that set off his crimson skin. His black topknot of hair was immaculately greased and mannered, protruding through an azure skullcap like the tail of a championship horse. His solemn mouth was framed by an equally well-mannered beard and mustache.

  'What ho, Ampi?" said I. "You heard?"

  "Druids in the High Forest heard, I have no doubt," said Ampi calmly, his voice as deep as the crypts of Undermountain and as smooth as a halfling's promise. "It seems your granduncle has need of you."

  "Need for a pawn," I muttered, looking around for my pants. Ampi waved a hand, and the missing trousers manifested at the end of his large, well-manicured hand. Genies are wonderful that way, and I think everyone should have at least one. Regardless, I was in no mood to list my djinni's good points after being terrorized by my own flesh and blood. "Why does he need me?"

  "I can endeavor to find out," said Ampi smoothly. "It may take me a brief while." With this he wafted out of view. Butlers, menservants, and members of the guard would pay good money to learn how to waft as effortlessly as this genie could.

  I tried to get back to sleep, but once you've been threatened in bed by a magical projection of the family patriarch, the bliss of slumber is denied. Instead, I paced, worried, and sat up by the windowsill, watching the horses in their paddock and marveling at the simplicity of their lives.

  And with the arrival of morning, and the failure of Ampi to return, I chowed down a modest breakfast of snakes in gravy (at least that's what I assumed it was). Then I retired to the portico of the Nauseous Otyugh with orders for the wait staff to send another Dragon's Breath out every half hour, and keep doing so until I was no longer able to send the empties back. I sought to stave off the oncoming hangover from the previous night by launching directly into the next one.