Crown of Fire

Eighteen Sewers, Swords, and Spells

By the time he caught up with Shandril, three streets away, Mirt was puffing like an old and irritated walrus. He came around a corner to find her surrounded by wary Zhentilar warriors. A patrol, by the black backside of Bane! Well, he reflected sourly, the best thief that ever lived couldn’t wander the streets of the citadel and avoid them forever.

The soldiers must have stepped out of doorways and side alleys; they’d managed to form a ring around Shandril. She was walking unhurriedly on, toward two anxious-looking Zhentilar whose blades were raised. The others were drawing in around her as she walked, their swords ready.

Finally one of the warriors in her path said uncertainly, “We have you, woman. Kneel and surrender, in the name of the Raven!”

Shandril raised a hand and burned him like a torch. The other soldiers backed away, blanching. Oily smoke rose up from the huddled form in the street—and then Zhentish boots echoed on the cobblestones as they broke and fled. As they went, they tugged horns from their belts, and ragged calls went up, echoing off the grim towers around.

“By my halidom!” Mirt snarled. “Now ye’ve roused the whole place.” He laid a hand on Shandril’s shoulder.

She whirled. Spellfire blazed before his eyes, and he danced away with a startled cry. Shandril looked stricken. “Sorry, Mirt—I didn’t mean to …”

“But you almost did, anyway,” he growled. “Come on, lass—we’ve got to get out of here before all the Zhentarim in Faerûn come down on us.”

Shandril shook her head, her face white to the lips. “I’m not running anymore. Go if you wish—I’ll stay and fight, as long as there’re fools to challenge me.”

Mirt rolled his eyes. “Ye’ll find no shortage of battle, then.” He looked over his shoulder at the two Harper women and moved his fingers in a certain sign.

The pleasure-queens traded glances. Belarla swallowed, looked at Oelaerone with an unspoken prayer in her eyes, and glided forward with silent speed. From behind she slid one slim, skilled hand over Shandril’s nose and mouth, and her other arm around Shandril’s throat.

Shandril stiffened. Spellfire flashed, and Belarla hissed in pain as it cooked her arm and fingers. She was sobbing by the time Shandril’s eyes dimmed and she went limp. The Harper made sure she was senseless, and then lowered her gently to the street.

The Old Wolf bent over Belarla. Tears of pain ran down her cheeks as she knelt on the cobbles, Shandril across her lap. Mirt handed two steel vials to Oelaerone, gesturing for her to pour it down Belarla’s throat. “Healing potions,” he said gruffly. “See that she drinks them both—every drop.”

Then he scooped up Shandril, grunted as he heaved her onto his shoulders, and said gruffly, “Thanks, Belarla. Myrintara should be able to set things right for you again, if we can reach her.”

Belarla swallowed, shuddered as the potions took effect, and said faintly, “I—I can manage.” Then her gaze rose from an empty vial to fix Mirt with a different pained expression. “ ‘By my halidom’?”

Mirt spread his hands. “Eh … heroes say it in all the best bardic tales,” he said sheepishly.

Belarla made a rude sound. Oelaerone pointed silently.

Mirt glanced along her arm and saw perhaps twenty—no, more—Zhentilar warriors approaching warily down the street. He eyed them and asked quietly, “Know you any hiding-holes? They’d come in mighty helpful, about now.”

“Isn’t it a bit late to be thinking about that?” Belarla asked him, but Oelaerone pointed again—this time, at the stones under their feet.

“The sewers,” she said simply, then turned. “This way.”

They hurried after her shapely form. She led through a short alley and then across a broad street. Another alley led them out onto a long, winding lane. Oelaerone turned down it, ducked into a warehouse, and slipped through a dim maze of high-stacked crates and curious men, to yet another street.

Mirt shifted Shandril over one shoulder, drew his sword, and trotted after her.

Belarla watched behind.

As Oelaerone crept into another alley, Belarla said in satisfaction, “We must have lost them by now—nicely done, Oelae.”

They were all startled when a tall, burly Zhentarim mage appeared in their path on the next street. In addition to robes rolled up at the sleeve, the wizard wore a single metal gauntlet that winked with spell lights. For a moment, Mirt and the pleasure queens blinked abruptly at him. The street had been empty moments before.

The mage took one huge step and viciously swung his studded gauntlet backhanded at Oelaerone. She dived headlong to avoid being struck. He ignored her, striding on toward the Old Wolf and his burden.

Mirt raised the tip of his sword, but the wizard darted to the Old Wolf’s burdened side, keeping Shandril between himself and Mirt’s blade.

“It’s past time for you to lie down and die, old man,” the Zhentarim snarled contemptuously, leaning in to smash Mirt across the face with the gauntlet. The enchanted weapon was hard, and its magic numbed and froze the victim for an instant so that the full force of its blow struck home. Mirt staggered.

Belarla’s blade sang in at the wizard. The sudden sparks of a protective spell spat and shimmered where the blade touched the wizard, then the knife tumbled away. The Zhentarim stiffened, hissed a word, and a web of radiant bolts flared out. Belarla reeled back, clutching her breast in pain, and fell heavily to her knees, her sword clattering on the cobbles.

Then the Zhent turned and ran after Mirt, grabbing at Shandril’s dangling throat with the gauntlet. Mirt snarled and thrust with his blade, but Shandril’s body hampered his weapon; he could not get a good strike at the mage without carving her, too. He lowered her to the ground so that he could battle this wizard—but the Zhentarim already had his gauntlet locked around her throat in a strangling grip, and had begun to mouth the words of another spell.

Mirt dropped both Shandril and his sword. His fist crashed into the man’s mouth—and the wizard’s head snapped back, spun, and slumped. Sightless, fading eyes swung past him as the man dropped to the street.

“Getting old, am I?” Mirt growled as he hoisted Shandril onto his shoulders again. With great satisfaction, he kicked the Zhent’s body, hard.

Oelaerone was helping Belarla up.

“How much farther is this way to the sewers?” Mirt snarled, looking around for other Zhents. He saw none—only curious citizens glancing up from their daily business. Thank Tymora for that Oelaerone was pointing again, and Mirt anxiously lumbered in the indicated direction.

“I’ve run down more streets in the Realms ….” he muttered as they turned another corner. This street was narrower, and it smelled; strewn garbage and pools of water were frequent, and Mirt’s boots skidded more than once.

“Not far now, Old Wolf,” Belarla said from somewhere near his elbow.

Mirt looked around at the squalid street and replied, “You know this area? I just hope he was worth it, Belarla—whoever he was.”

“If you weren’t carrying the most important being in Faerûn right now,” Belarla replied calmly, “I’d trip you into that next pool.”

Mirt grunted, swayed, and managed to get through it upright. “I always wondered what pleasure-queens did for entertainment.”

“Go down sewers, of course,” Oelaerone said sweetly, from just ahead. “After all, folk say our morals belong in the sewer—why shouldn’t our bodies keep them company?” She led the way into a short, stinking alley and, with a grand flourish, indicated a pile of dung.

Mirt set Shandril gently down in the crook of his arm, and stared at it. “I was picturing something a little closer to a door,” he rumbled.

Belarla sighed and dug into the pile with both hands. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder. “We’ll have plenty of chances to wash all this off, down below.”

“I was afraid of that,” Mirt growled, handing Shandril’s limp form to Oelaerone.

Water dripped, echoing somewhere in the dim distance. The archways overhead were old and cracked and covered with slimy growths. Here and there, the ends of pipes dripped filth down into the thick, oily brown waters they toiled through. The muck was chest high.

Mirt ducked under a sagging pipe and muttered, “No sneezing, now.”

Belarla struggled along at his elbow, helping to keep Shandril’s face out of the grime. “Could this be the world-famous Mirt the Moneylender I see? Lord of Waterdeep? Harper Lord? Scourge of the Sea of Swords? Mirt the Merciless, Old Wolf of the North? This same old man, plastered with excrement?”

“I’m in disguise,” Mirt growled, squeezing under another pipe. The smell was indescribable; as far as he could tell, the sewers here never drained out except during snowmelt. This would be a great place for a gulguthra lair … and as soon as that thought occurred to him, he wished it hadn’t.

He peered around in the gloom; light drifted down from street-gratings high overhead—sometimes accompanied by brief deluges as citadel folk dumped chamber pots or washtubs.

“Are we heading anywhere in particular—” he asked “—besides toward our graves, I mean?”

“You mentioned Myrintara, earlier,” Belarla answered carefully, keeping her chin up as she walked over an uneven spot and the filth rose to her lower lip. Bubbles broke on the dark brown surface all around her, and she gagged.

“Not in my direction, thank you,” Oelaerone told her, edging away. “Ah, we’re getting into the older part.”

Ahead, a noisome waterfall carried the waters they were sloshing through down a short cascade to plunge into the blacker waters of a larger channel. A mist hung in the air. As they went down the falls Mirt exclaimed; the darker water, at the bottom, was noticeably colder. Much colder, in fact.

On his arm, Shandril stirred. “Not now, lass,” Mirt growled at her. “If you make us fall in this filth, I swear I’ll take my hand to your bottom.”

“Uhmm?” her sleepy voice responded. “Is that you, dear?”

The Harper ladies giggled; Mirt snorted, and shook the weight in his arms. A moment later, Shandril’s eyes fluttered, opened—and met his. Then she looked around.

“Where are we?” she asked and frowned. “And what happened?” Then—the Old Wolf could tell by her face—the smell hit her.

“We’re with friends,” Mirt said, “in the sewers of the citadel.”

“I’d worked that much out already,” Shandril replied, wrinkling her nose.

“We’re trying to get to the house of Myrintara of the Masks.”

“Who’s she?”

“A noted perfumer,” Mirt panted, as they turned through an arch and into an unexpectedly strong flow of effluent, heading in the other direction. “And an old friend.”

“A perfumer would come in very handy about now,” Shandril observed faintly. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Over my shoulder, lass,” Mirt grunted, as they struggled on. “Just keep it over my shoulder.”

After a moment, Shandril said in a small voice, “I burned one of you ladies; I’m sorry.”

Belarla flashed a smile at Shandril and held up one hand to wiggle dung-covered fingers cheerfully at her. “All better, lass—no lasting harm done.”

“If we can ever scrub this stuff off us, that is,” Oelaerone said ruefully. “The last time we traveled the sewers, we had a boat.”

Mirt looked around. “Folk have boats down here?”

“Yes—and rafts, and mushroom beds, and lots of little caches where they hide things, too.”

“Treasure?”

“Aye, and the bodies of rivals or rich older relatives, and suchlike.”

A sudden outflow from above drenched them all. They gasped and sputtered and swore; the Harper ladies proved they knew expressions every bit as colorful as Mirt did.

“If we ever get out of here, Shandril-my-lass,” Mirt said through clenched teeth, “I’m going to give ye a few choice words about what it means to be a Harper—notably, of considering consequences before ye act.”

Shandril leaned against the comforting bulk of his shoulder as he forged on through the stinking muck, and she said in a small voice, “I guess you mean I shouldn’t have come here at all.”

Mirt shrugged. “Well, not so fast, lass—’twas high time someone gave the Zhentarim something to think about. And ye’ve certainly found the knack of giving everyone around a wild time, indeed.”

Shandril grinned, a little lopsidedly—and then Delg’s agonized, dying face swam into her mind, and she burst into sudden tears.

Mirt rolled his eyes and wrapped his excrement-smeared arms more tightly around her, murmuring soothingly.

Oelaerone turned and reproved him mildly. “You’ve certainly cultivated an expert boudoir manner, Mirt of Waterdeep.”

“Only a little way, now,” Belarla added, turning into a side channel. It was shallower; as she went along it, her body rose out of the water as far as her waist. Her robes, plastered to her, glistened brown and yellow.

Shandril looked at Belarla, down at her own body hidden under the roiling brown sludge, and involuntarily glanced back at the pleasure-queen’s robes. She gagged.

Mirt threw her expertly over his shoulder, but she struggled free and glared at him. “I’m not a little girl!”

“Aye,” he said dryly. “I’d noticed. Little girls are never this much trouble.”

Belarla came to a stop, waters swirling around her, and looked up at the vaulted stone ceiling just above her. “This is the one,” she announced, pointing at a rune burned into a dark wooden hatch overhead.

Dripping, she and Oelaerone reached up and hauled on its heavy bolt together, their hair plastered down their backs and matted with filth. The door fell open, suddenly, and they splashed and staggered in the water, struggling for balance.

Mirt blinked sewer water from his eyes, thanked the two Harpers gravely, and then heaved himself like an angry whale up out of the water and through the hatch. Grunting, he caught hold of the lowest rung of an old, massive iron ladder. “This must have been used as a well, long ago,” his voice echoed back to them.

“No wonder they all died of fevers back then,” Oelaerone said disgustedly to Belarla.

“No doubt folk an age from now will wonder at all the barbaric things we do, too,” Belarla replied.

“Going through the sewers ranks right up there,” Oelaerone agreed, as they boosted Shandril up the ladder.

“Hmmm,” Belarla responded, “ ‘rank’ is the right word, yes.”

After a short, unpleasant climb, the three ladies found themselves facing a closed door in a small, round room crowded with old buckets. Mirt’s arrival had evidently awakened some magic here: a faint, yellow-white glow was emanating from the door and growing steadily brighter.

Mirt rapped on the glowing door with his fist, snatched his hand back, and shook his fingers to clear away the tingling pain. “Strong wards,” he commented, eyeing it and wondering if he’d have to knock again.

A breath or two later, the center of the door began to glow brightly, and then something swam out of that radiance, spun together, thickened like rising smoke, and suddenly coalesced into a floating, glowing eye.

The orb regarded them all, bobbing slightly as it turned. Mirt held up his Harper pendant in front of it. The eye blinked, peered at it for a moment, and then drew back to look around at them all again. Then it abruptly swooped back to the door, vanishing into the radiance once more.

Almost immediately, they heard bars fall and chains rattle, and then the door grated open. A young lady in a dark court dress with full skirts, a low bodice, and high shoulders stood looking at them. A wand was held ready in her hand, and her eyes were dark with fear. “Who are you, and why have you come here?” she asked.

Mirt was dripping sewage only a pace away from her. He bent in a low bow and said gravely, “It grieves us deeply to trouble you at this hour and in this manner, great lady, but we are in desperate straits, and beg immediate audience with thy lady master.”

The apprentice stared at him in disbelief for a moment, and then stifled a sudden giggle. “Lady!” she called over her shoulder, and a moment later, another face appeared.

It belonged to a tall, very beautiful lady with huge dark green eyes and glossy black hair.

“Ladies,” Mirt said to Shandril and the Harpers, as he went to one knee, “may I present to you—Myrintara of the Masks.”

Those beautiful eyes looked at the bedraggled old merchant and blinked in sudden recognition. She groaned, “Not you again!”

Mirt grinned wolfishly and replied, “Just get us out of here.”

“To do so speedily will be my distinct pleasure,” Myrintara replied, ushering the filthy foursome up narrow stone steps. Her apprentice, eyes still wide with wonder, stood at the far end of the cellar they emerged into and held a lamp to light their way.

As they ascended from the cellar to the floor above, a richly decorated dwelling opened around them. A floor higher up, Shandril amended that first judgment to ‘palatial.’ She tried not to look back at the interesting trail they were leaving in their wake, all over the carpets.

“You’re sure you don’t want to bathe?” Myrintara asked as she ushered them up another broad, gilded flight of stairs.

Mirt shook his head. “Not unless you feel like fighting off all the Zhentarim in the citadel.”

Myrintara leaned her head to one side as if considering his suggestion rather longingly, and then shook her head with regret. “We’d never get the place cleaned up again before business hours.”

On the upper landing, several men were cleaning and polishing the marble and carved, gilded railings. They broke off their work to stare at the four filthy guests.

Shandril’s eyes widened. So far, she’d counted sixteen servants in their brief climb through the house.

“You must be very rich,” she said.

Myrintara laughed. “My girls often say that, too—usually just before asking for money.”

“She’s generally thought to be the most successful pleasure-queen in all the Moonsea North,” Oelaerone told Shandril.

Myrintara looked pleased. “I’m also a Harper and a sorceress, though I’d prefer if both those things were kept from the ears of the Zhentarim.”

“How do the masks come into it—in your name, I mean?” Shandril asked curiously.

“She’s an expert at cloaking magic; such spells used to be called ‘masks’ in the Old Empires,” Mirt said.

Shandril looked at him. “How is it you know all about her?”

Myrintara laughed again. “We were lovers, girl. Years ago.” She looked fondly at Mirt, and added, “Before he got fat.”

Mirt looked injured; Shandril giggled at his expression. Myrintara glanced teasingly at him and sang a snatch of an old song: “Go upstairs, take off your armor ….”

“No time now,” Mirt growled at her. “But if there were, Myrin, ye’d have to watch sharp—or I’d slide ye down the stair rail again.”

Shandril looked back down the long, gleaming bannister of the stairs in wonder. At her expression, both Mirt and Myrintara exploded in laughter.

They were still laughing when Myrintara ushered them through an arched doorway into a small room that was bare except for what looked like a massive stone coffin filled with water. Then she turned, face suddenly serious, and asked, “My dear, will you submit to one of my masking spells?”

“Will it make me subject to someone else’s will?” Shandril asked quietly.

“No,” Myrintara assured her, and Shandril nodded. “Step into the tub,” Myrintara directed, “and lie down.”

Belarla and Oelaerone looked down at their soiled clothes and peered longingly at the water but said nothing.

Shandril looked up at Myrintara. “Like this?”

Myrintara nodded. “I’ll cast the spell on the water and then push you under the surface. Hold your breath and don’t be alarmed; I’ll let you rise very soon.”

A few breaths later, it was done, and a dripping Shandril rose from the tub. Its once-clear water was now a muddy brown; Myrintara looked at it and sighed as she helped Shandril out. “Immersing you ensures you’re completely covered,” she said, “cloaked from all detecting magics. When you use spellfire again, my mask will be destroyed, but until then—no magic can find you, or see you if it is bent on someone or something known to be with you.”

She led them down a passage and through an ornate archway into a chamber that took Shandril’s breath away. Under her dripping feet were white fur rugs—whole pelts of northern snow bears. Each one stretched a good six paces in length; they formed a path toward a shallow stairway. The steps led to a raised area where a circular bed floated in midair. Polished, curved mirrors floated around it and spells made stars seem to glimmer in a night sky.

Belarla whistled, looking up. “That’s nice.”

Myrintara smiled. “The moon rises to match the real Selûne in the sky outside—Tears and all.”

Oelaerone made an acquisitive, purring sound in her throat, and turned on her heel to survey the rest of the room—a gleaming, luxurious array of smooth-finished chairs, dangling chains, restraining rings, and statues that were astonishingly lifelike, exquisitely beautiful, and breathtakingly explicit. Mirt was looking around with a sly smile and a raised eyebrow.

“See something you like, Old Wolf?” Myrintara asked him challengingly, an eyebrow raised.

“I should have stayed,” Mirt said regretfully.

Myrintara laughed again and led them to a screen at the back of her huge boudoir. Behind it, another archway led into her wardrobe. Shandril had never seen so many clothes in one place before—racks and racks of them, some hanging on wooden forms that dangled from the ceiling on chains. She stared around as Myrintara took them briskly through the corridor of clothes into dimness at the back of the room. There, for the first time, they found dust—and a few discarded chairs, with folded draperies piled atop them. Beyond was a small, plain door. Myrintara swung it open; it led into a small, dusty, empty closet.

“My quick way out,” she said with a smile. “Touch the back wall and you’ll be taken to my favorite inn, where I go to rest from time to time. I fear the trip, for you, works only in one direction.”

“We can force ourselves to be content with that,” Mirt assured her sagely. “I’d kiss ye farewell, Myrin, but ye might catch something.” He waved at her, and stepped into the closet. The others followed.

The world seemed to blink for a moment, then Shandril found herself standing on a grassy bank with trees all around her. The sun was high and warm; it was just before highsun.

“Where are we?” Belarla asked before Shandril could.

Mirt waved an expansive hand. “Step around those trees, ladies, and cross the road. Ye’ll see.”

They all went together. Shandril found herself looking at the village of Eveningstar, at the spot where the overland roads met, by the bridge over the River Starwater. Across the way rose the friendly, ramshackle bulk of The Lonesome Tankard, its signboard creaking slightly in the breeze.

“Ah, the Tankard,” Belarla said with pleasure. “Well, Myrintara certainly knows the good places to stay.”

“Hot bath,” was all Oelaerone said, fishing around for her purse in the bodice of her soaked, stained, ruined gown.

Mirt chuckled. “We’ve business with Tessaril, ladies,” he said. “My thanks—perhaps we’ll talk, this even or on the morrow.”

The Harper pleasure-queens rolled their eyes. “Just don’t knock on our doors and demand aid or a rescue,” Belarla said. “We’ve done our share for a tenday or so.”

“Or so, indeed,” Oelaerone echoed. “Gods smile, you two.” They waved farewell, crossed the road, and went into the Tankard.

As they went up the road together, Shandril tried not to smell the reek coming off them both. She looked at Mirt curiously and asked, “Why didn’t you stay with Myrintara, Old Wolf?”

Mirt looked at her sidelong. “I was young and restless, lass. Besides,” he added, “did ye not notice—she never stops laughing! In bed, at table, in the bath—my ears grew sore, in the end.”

Shandril stared at him—and then started to laugh helplessly.

Mirt looked hurt. “I don’t look that funny,” he complained. She was still laughing as they came to the porch of Tessaril’s Tower.

One of the guards looked at them, peered a second time, and then turned and called, “They’re back! And—”

He staggered hastily out of the way as a white-faced Narm and a broadly smiling Storm charged out of the tower to embrace the two, heedless of the stench and dirt.

Narm kissed Shandril repeatedly. “Gods, I was scared, Shan. Are you all right?”

Shandril found herself suddenly crying into his chest. “I—I don’t know,” she managed to say, between happy sobs.

“Well, come in, and we’ll find out,” Tessaril said from the doorway, and wrinkled her nose. “And you can both have a bath—or three.”