Elminster's Daughter

Rhauligan was barely out of the turret when Narnra cast a glance back over her shoulder and saw him.

She gave him a glare, ran on a few paces, stopped, peered off to the left where the balconies and turrets of Haelithtorntowers jutted closest to the wall-then took a few racing steps and launched herself between the leaf-cloaked boughs of the great trees of the mansion gardens, in a daring leap that . . .

. . . took her safely to a clinging landing on the head of a brooding gargoyle, chin in hand, holding up one corner of a balcony.

Rhauligan hoped it was rock-solid carved stone and not of one those stonelike monsters that would suddenly move to bite and claw-probably when she was safely gone, but he was trying to land in the same spot.

Keeping his eyes on her to make sure she set no traps behind, Rhauligan trotted along the wall, looking for the right place to make his running jump.

He sighed, once.

Caladnei and Narnra, I'm keeping a tally here. And if the gods grant me more luck than any man in the kingdom has enjoyed for the last century or so, I just might live to collect it.

Rhauligan took his last two running steps with the wind in his face and launched himself into the air. The balcony was enough lower than the top of the wall that he'd been able to clearly see through the windows of the room it opened into. No one was moving therein. He'd paced off the run calmly enough, and now he'd just have to hope he'd been . . .

. . . right. He landed hard, numbing his elbows on the lichen-splotched old gargoyle and losing a lot of breath-but his first surge of angry strength took him safely up and over the intricately carved stone rail onto a balcony that seemed far too spattered with bird dung to belong to a house that held caring servants. The Harper took but an instant to safely plant his feet ere he looked up.

The long legs and trim behind of Narnra Shalace were just vanishing through an open window, high above.

As Rhauligan leaned out to peer, she slipped inside the window, favored him with the briefest of glares, and closed it behind her. Through its dung-streaked, amber-tinted glass, the Harper saw her turn its catch, latching it firmly.

So. He could either climb the outside wall-and though he was the stronger of the two of them, he was also much the heavier-to break that window and force his way in or stand here on a nice level balcony and do the same to a window or door.

Out of habit Rhauligan ducked low and turned back to peer over the balcony rail. Its gargoyles were still gargoyles, and there was no sign of guards or anyone else in the mist-beaded shade-gloom of the lush garden below.

He spun again to the door, still in his crouch. Nothing moved in the room beyond the door-which was dark and seemed to hold a lot of large, draped things . . . furniture shrouded in dust-sheets. Rhauligan's eyes narrowed. Lady Ambrur was certainly still in Marsember-or had been, yester-morning-so this couldn't be the usual nobles' practice of shutting up one house and journeying to another . . . not that current local Harper wisdom knew of Lady Joysil Ambrur having any other abode. Of course, she could be invited to some Sembian hunting lodge or Cormyrean upcountry castle at any time, but. . .

Perhaps she merely found the house too large for her daily purposes and used this part for storing the furniture she liked the least. Yes, that'd probably be it.

The door had the simplest of latches but also featured an ornate inner bar and two floorspike bolts, so Rhauligan undid a catch on his boot-heel and slid the heel off, exposing it as the hilt of a razor-sharp scriber.

A moment later, he was neatly removing the first shaped pane of glass, cut along its putty-lines, and reaching in to undo a floorspike. He had to work swiftly or Narnra would have time to descend the three levels or so from the window she'd entered to this floor and get below and past him . . . leaving him the entire gods-kissed, servant-crowded mansion to search for her in. Yes, the score was still rising . . .

Out of habit he kept casting glances back over his shoulder to make sure no one was on the wall or flying past-Why not? Some of these nobles sponsored or gave house room to apprentice mages, gaining the protection of thiefly fear of such guardians-to see him and raise the alarm … or just practice their skills at putting handy crossbow quarrels through intruding Harpers.

No such hazards presented themselves before Rhauligan got the doors open. Once the floorspikes were drawn up, the doors could be made to part enough to thrust his prybar between them, lifting the latch and thrusting the inside bar up and out of its sockets.

He had the door open swiftly enough to dart one hand out to deflect the falling bar from a crash down onto the floor-nice polished emeraldstone tiles, alternating in diamond-shapes with white marble-into a thudding impact with the nearest draped wardrobe or whatever it was and a fairly quiet tumble down the cloth to the floor.

The Harper restored the bar to its rightful place, sheathed his prybar, and advanced cautiously into the dark, quiet room. A mouse scurried from under one shrouded thing to under another, but otherwise . . . nothing moved but the dust. He was leaving a faint trail through it, he knew, and soon found the piled-up extra end of a too-large dust-sheet to wipe his boots on.

The room was large, and opened onto the next chamber of the mansion through a great tapestry-filled arch rather than doors. Rhauligan listened at the wall of cloth, hearing nothing, went to one end of it-rather than disturb it trying to find its center parting-and slipped his head around it.

He found himself looking at a large, dust-dancing stairwell, with a railed landing joining it to his room and others out of sight beyond the wall that cradled the stairs.

"Nothing," a voice called suddenly. "Something disturbed the doves, right enough-a gorcraw, mayhap-but none of 'em had any messages. I checked every blessed one."

Rhauligan hastily drew back a breath or two before a bored servant-woman whose bosom resembled a large sack of potatoes trudged down the nearest stair and went along the landing.

"Well, that's all right, then," another, sharper voice said from somewhere under Rhauligan's boots, presumably the next landing down. "So long as we miss nothing and catch no Lady-fury . . ."

"Huh," the large woman agreed, as she started down the next flight of steps and passed out of Rhauligan's view. "Can't be thieves, unless they can fl-" She stopped, stock-still and said in a different voice, "Hold, now! That was it-the window was shut! Shut and latched! One of them birds 'prolly came flying to get in and smacked right into the glass! Send Norn down to check for one lying in the gardens, and get the lantern-oh, and fire-pokers for the both of us! I'm not going back up there alone!"

"Aye," Sharp Voice agreed, her voice fading as she descended unseen stairs, "but what sort of thief shuts a window behind his-self?"

"An idiot thief, that's what sort!" Lumpy Bosom replied sourly, almost driving Rhauligan to chuckle.

You have that right, goodwoman, you do indeed . . . and I'm assigned to be her keeper, more's the pity. . . .

No, that was unfair. The Waterdhavian's only mistakes had been to blunder after a wizard to get here-and to run from half the gathered War Wizards and Harpers in the realm.

Well, she'd ended up with only one following her, hadn't she? So perhaps her lone hunter was the idiot. . . .

Rhauligan put away that wry thought and turned back to the task at hand. So the window had been left open to let doves in and out of their cote. Well, that explained the handy open window and the bird-dung . . . and if Lumpy there had gone up the stairs to answer whatever alarm Narnra had triggered in any sort of haste, the thief from Waterdeep had to still be somewhere above him.

Of course, he now had to keep watch over the stairs so she couldn't slip down past him and at the same time manage not to be seen by two wary she-servants when they came back up here-and walked right past his staring face-with pokers in their hands.

Perhaps the rooms on the far side of the stair . . .

Rhauligan was out along the landing and around the stair-head like a hurrying ghost, and into . . . more dark, shrouded rooms given over to dust. Smaller than the one he'd been in, one giving into another through archways, again. Must be hard to heat in winter, with no doors to close, and that was probably why this tower of the mansion had been the one chosen to languish as storage. Cold storage, ha ha.

Well, he'd best turn and find the best vantage p-hold! What was . . . another stair!

Rhauligan was across the room like a storm wind, already fearing he was too late. This stair was narrower and steeper-a servants' route, no doubt-and deserted. He peered at it then went chin-down to the dusty floor and squinted up at the steps. Aye, there! And there! She'd been down it, right enough, and not long ago.

* * * * *

Mask aid me, how big was this house? A grand pile indeed, from outside, yes-but to leave so much of it to the dark and dust! Was its owner a half-witted hermit, clinging to a few rooms and shuffling about mumbling about past glories? Or shut up in a sick-bed, with dwindling coins keeping fewer and fewer servants?

Or were there newer, grander wings and towers and entire rambling mansions beyond this, that she hadn't seen yet?

Somehow Narnra suspected the latter.

"Just go on being the Silken Shadow," she breathed to herself, hoping the Harper hound on her trail had given up or been caught . . . and knowing, somehow, that she was just dream-wishing.

Yet she felt-good. When her prowls were going well, she seemed almost to float along in the silence and the gloom, silence wrapped around her like a cloak.

She felt like that now.

Narnra gave the darkness a fierce grin and went on, wondering what lay ahead. Perhaps the stables, with a hay loft to hide in. And coaches. All nobles had coaches, and coaches betimes went out through city gates. . . .

* * * * *

Rhauligan followed the stair down as quietly as he could, which was quiet indeed. This was old, solid stonework and thick boards pegged into place, none of your slapdash modern gaudy work.

As he went down, the noises of work-servants, of course- began to be audible: people chattering, laughing, hurrying back and forth laden with things, someone chopping food on a wooden board or table, someone else making banging and scraping sounds.

"Where're them brooms, then?" The rough male voice was accompanied by a striding entry too sudden for Rhauligan to draw back. He froze on the stairs as sudden light spilled across a landing below, as a man with a long-ago broken nose and wheezing lungs snatched up a long-handled pushbroom from where it leaned against a wall, spun around without sparing a glance up the dark and dusty stairs where the Harper stood, and banged his door closed behind him again.

Rhauligan hurried, in case the habit was to return the broom the moment its job was done. He was past that door and on down the next flight ere the door opened again, but by then the growing hubbub and light around him, through various ill-fitting hatches in the stairwell walls-it seemed he was passing a large, multilevel kitchen where a small legion of servants were keeping quite busy-was considerable.

One hatch afforded him a gap large enough to peer through, and he put his eye to it. Shiny copper vats or tanks greeted his view, with men in aprons squatting at the taps filling great tankards as large as their torsos. Below them, several steps down on another level in the same vast room, stood a great table covered with flour and dough, with women swarming busily around it. Steam from cauldrons was rising from a lower level yet, down out of sight to his left. Rhauligan cast a glance right across the chamber and froze again.

There, just visible through a forest of hanging pans and pots and ladles, was another, open stair-and peering through that kitch-enmongery was Narnra Shalace, just for a moment ere she melted back and away and went on down those dark steps.

She must have passed through the rooms of the floor above and found that matching servants' stair. So she was below him, now, and he'd have to move like a man trying to catch the morrow.

Rhauligan raced down steps with more haste than quiet. Given all the racket in the kitchen, he'd probably have to shout or bang one of those pans with a sword-hilt to be noticed, anyway, and-

There was a door at the next landing, facing neither into the kitchen nor away from it but north into the "blind end" of the landing turn, and he plucked it open cautiously-in time to see the heel of Narnra's boot flick past. He was out into the cross-passage she'd been traversing as fast as he could move, but she'd already stepped into a great room or gallery beyond and darted to the right.

Rhauligan ran after her and froze, just before the archway where the passage opened out into this larger chamber ahead.

It was a very large room, and lofty. This was almost certainly the central hall of Haelithtorntowers, and he'd probably be stepping out onto a promenade balcony part way up its walls.

Torchlight flickered below, all along the front of the balcony. Across a vast ring of empty space he could see the far sweep of them, beneath an archway that matched the one he was standing in. They gave light enough to show the Harper the walls of this huge room rising up out of sight and curving inward, probably to a vaulted spire far overhead.

Painted coats of arms-wooden plaques as large as a stable door, each of them, and these were the old, fully-gilded sort with real helms and crossed spears affixed to them, not the simply carved false adornments more in favor, for some inexplicable reason, these days-adorned the walls above the balcony, and there were many tall, dark, closed doors between them. If Narnra didn't want to stay on display in this hall, she'd probably creep to one of them and try to open it.

For his part-he ducked low again, so as to be close to the floor when he thrust his head out to peer along the balcony in both directions, seeking guards-Rhauligan hoped she'd find them all locked. All but one that opened into a dead-end chamber where he could pounce on her, truss her up, and go and announce himself to the Lady Ambrur and request that he be allowed to remove his captive into the keeping of the Mage Royal. Enough of this chasing about through laundries and cookshops.

Even before the Harper had finished making sure there were no guards or servants within sight on this balcony, nor any signs that anyone often came up here, he caught sight of Narnra. Keeping low and out of sight below the balcony rail, she'd worked her way around the balcony to the far side, obviously intending to depart through that matching archway-but had now stopped to listen to the voices floating up from below.

And leaned daringly forward to hear everything.

Rhauligan frowned. He could hear only a few people engaged in private converse-with no link of cutlery nor bustle of servants. Out of long habit he cocked his head to listen, too.

A sentence or two later, he'd put aside all thoughts of trying to capture Narnra Shalace.

"You're in no pressing hurry, my Lord Starangh?" "Not as yet, though I reserve the full disclosure of my desired pace through the rest of this unfolding day until I learn the reason you ask such a thing," the Red Wizard replied calmly, inspecting the fingers of his own right hand as if he'd never quite noticed them before.

"Well, if we've the time and you've no objections on the grounds of, say, prudence considering our present company," the Lady Am -brur responded, "I'd prefer to unfold the information you seek in an ordered, chronological fashion-to tell it as a story, to use plain words. A brief tale, not deep history."

The Thayan raised his eyes to hers. "Why don't you begin that way? If things become overlong or drift far from what most interests us all, we can always cry warning and agree upon another manner of discourse, can we not?"

"Indeed, sir," his hostess agreed smoothly. "Let us begin, then, with the recent retirement of the Royal Magician."

Malakar Surth had been displaying some signs of irritation throughout the preceding discussion-his mouth drawing into a thin, disgusted line, his gaze beginning to wander around the hall, beginning with a glance at what her gown displayed to the watching world of the Lady Noumea Cardellith's bosom-and so had his partner Bezrar, who'd slumped in his chair into a more sullen pose of boredom. Both leaned forward with renewed interest when the Lady Ambrur looked down into her empty tallglass for a moment then spoke to it gently.

"Vangerdahast ruled this kingdom for years. Azoun reigned, yes, dispensed justice, and rode to war when the need arose .. . but by his control of the Court, through manipulations of almost all of its officials, the Obarskyrs themselves, and many of the nobles who had dealings at Court, the Mage Royal held the day-to-day rule of this realm. Cormyr was ordered very much as he wanted it to be- until the coming of what most folk call 'the Devil Dragon.' We all know what befell Azoun and Tanalasta, but I also happen to know that Vangerdahast had some very trying adventures-alone-and almost met his death, too."

The Lady of Haelithtorntowers looked up from the depths of her tallglass to find the eyes of Harnrim Starangh dark and intent upon her. She looked into them and added, "Not a few folk at Court remarked that the Royal Magician looked more old and exhausted at Azoun's funeral than they'd ever seen him before. Most put it down to grief-for the friendship between the Mage Royal and the Purple Dragon was legendary-and the stresses of battle, but among the most senior Wizards of War there were murmurs of … deeper failings."

"Say more, Lady," the Red Wizard purred, leaning forward with his nonchalance forgotten.

"I believe it's safe to say that the death of Azoun forcibly reminded Vangerdahast that no man lives forever and that he hadn't much time left, He was growing steadily more frail. Yet we've all seen men enfeebled with age cling to what little they have left like a withering vine, hanging on grimly past all reason-until the hanging on prolongs existence past all enjoyment or a natural end. Faerun knows legions of liches because of wizards who fiercely desire not to let go of life."

The Lady Ambrur rose and took an idle pace away from her seat. Out of habit all three of her male guests marked where she walked and laid hands to the hilts of daggers or wands, but their hostess took only one more idle step before turning about to face them again. "Vangerdahast feared one thing more than his failing body: his failing mind. Increasing forgetfulness is a deadly failure in any mage, the Mage Royal of Cormyr in particular, and his had become bad enough in matters large and small that War Wizards were noticing daily. The Mage Royal could no longer juggle dozens of intrigues and managed rumors and timings of events without dropping some of them-and could no longer deny this from himself. He hated it, but he feared for Cormyr with someone else at the helm-given the plentiful supply of traitor nobles, the headstrong Princess Alusair, and the defenseless babe that the fifth Azoun was and remains."

Lady Ambrur turned again to look at Lady Cardellith and said gravely to Noumea, "Finding his replacement could have been an impossible job. He could well have died still looking-but for the first time in his life, Vangerdahast was truly lucky, or Mystra smiled upon him: He found his Caladnei, and though she's no wise old Vangerdahast, she'll do. She has youth, vigor, and the ability to work as well with Alusair as Vangey did with Alusair's father. That left Vangerdahast free to retire before he mishandled something into a real disaster and let half the realm know that weakness now walked the Royal Court. So he hastened to do so, seizing on his long-held desire to be free of the petty, time-wasting intrigues and demands of Court etiquette and routine, and do something important ere he died."

Lady Joysil Ambrur spun around to face the wizard Darkspells and the two Marsemban merchants. "That is what drives Vangerdahast. gentlesirs. That is what has driven him for some years, ever since he judged himself successful in schooling and guiding the great Azoun. He saw himself as a successful guide, teacher, manipulator, and helmsman of the realm . . . but other Royal Wizards of Cormyr have been that. Vangerdahast wants more. He wants to leave his mark in lore, so that men in centuries to come will say, 'Baerauble was the founding High Wizard of the realm, aye, but Vangerdahast . . . Vangerdahast was probably the greatest of them all.' It's not a hunger rare among mages, I'm afraid."

Harnrim "Darkspells" Starangh did not smile at that observation, but Lady Ambrur was carefully looking now into the round and startled eyes of the importer Aumun Bezrar and no longer meeting the gaze of the Red Wizard.

"Vangerdahast is a builder of great ships of state and their helmsman," she added, "so 'great things' to him doesn't mean blasting cities flat or cracking open castles with their archwizards and kings still in them. By very difficult and expensive means I've been able to learn what two specific things he does hold important. One is personal: to sire a blood heir and enjoy romance and companionship, something he dared not allowed himself to do whilst serving as Mage Royal. One is his last gift to Cormyr, his legacy: to craft a great feat of magic, a webwork of spells that will defend and protect Cormyr after his death."

Abruptly Lady Ambrur sat down again and fell silent.

That silence stretched, almost echoing in the vast and largely empty hall, until at last the wizard Darkspells stirred and asked softly, "Have you any idea how this web of spells will defend the kingdom, Lady? Such a massive warding-if it is a warding- would drink deeply of the life of all things within it and could not help but be noticed. More than that: It could not help but change life in Cormyr, both through how magic works, and by what other properties it possesses. Such a thing would become a treasure to steal-or a barrier to test strength against-for many mages and could not last long. I doubt that even Vangerdahast could successfully create such a thing. So … a warding seems unlikely. Have your . . . sources . . . any hint as to what this great magic entails?"

The Lady of Haelithtorntowers nodded, unsmiling. "They believe it will involve binding heroes to defend the realm in place of the destroyed Lords Who Sleep."

"Heroes?" Starangh echoed, with a frown. "What great magic is needful in binding a few men, even against their will? Men can be compelled. Finding them need not take long-nor the crafting of magic to do the binding. The spells must be known to him as they are to me."

Joysil shook her head. "My information suggests that these are all new spells Vangerdahast is crafting-and having great difficulties doing so."

Starangh smiled. "So … he intends to bind more than mere heroes, then. And he's doing this where?"

"There's a forest village on the Starwater Road," Lady Joysil replied, "called Mouth o' Gargoyles. Magic goes wild when cast there. This curse has been known for centuries and is demon-strably real. Certain senior War Wizards, however, have been overheard telling particular Harpers that a hidehold cavern was long ago established in the forest near the village by a Royal Magician of the realm and used by succeeding Royal Magicians. The magics they work are concealed from those who might otherwise come looking for explanations; any radiances or blasts or strange magical effects get blamed on the curse."

Harnrim Starangh's eyes narrowed. "So dozens of War Wizards know about this cavern and what goes on there-and have truly managed to keep it secret, for all these years?"

"No. Only a very few know of it, because the various Royal Magicians normally go there alone."

"So who lurks in the woods, keeping outlaws and nosy Harpers and blundering foresters away?"

"That," the Lady Ambrur replied, leaning forward to fix Dark-spells with a very direct gaze, "is the most interesting thing about all of this. Folk who blunder too close without following exactly the right route-and no, I'm sorry, but I've not been able to learn the specifics of that trail-encounter creatures of Mystra: watchghosts and wizardly wraiths and the like, who turn them back with magic. Or they simply take one wrong step and are teleported halfway across Faerun-seemingly to a different place every time. Most War Wizards who patrol the area are under orders only to observe who approaches and report such intruders to Laspeera or her most trusted senior mages. Most of them know only that something precious is located near Mouth o' Gargoyles and that the very existence of this unknown valuable thing is a state secret."

"So presumably a select few senior War Wizards do know the correct route to this sanctum," Starangh said softly, bobbing his chin onto his steepled fingertips. He suddenly broke into a wide smile, blinked, and added, "You shall be well paid, Lady Ambrur."

He opened a belt pouch, placed twenty thumb-sized rubies on the table in front of him, and added, "Consider this but a first, trifling payment-a gift, if you will. The worth of these is not be included in our agreed-upon price, which shall be delivered to you on the morrow. For I deem that you-if you forget all you've said tonight and speak nothing of it to anyone else ever again or of the names and faces of any of us three-have more than earned payment in full."

He favored Noumea Cardellith with a long, silent, thoughtful look but said nothing to her.

Starangh rose in a single smooth motion, nodded politely to the Lady Ambrur, and asked, "Have you learned anything more of interest, pertaining to this matter?"

"Not as yet," she replied gravely.

"No matter. You have rendered me great service, Lady. I shall not intrude further upon your time."

He bowed, spun around, and made for the door. Wordlessly, the two merchants rose in his wake, sketched clumsy bows of their own, and hastened to follow.

When the doors had closed behind them, Lady Ambrur looked at her remaining guest with a smile. "Well? What think you?"

Noumea regarded her with large, dark eyes, shook her head ever so slightly, and said softly, "I do not trust that man."

"Nor should you," her hostess responded. "Are there spells upon the rubies?"

Noumea rose, went to stand over the stones, muttered something, and passed her hand over them without touching anything. "Yes," she said grimly, with no trace of surprise in her voice.

Lady Ambrur nodded. "Touch them not nor send any other magic at them. In fact, cast no more magic in this room. Were I you, I'd use spells to disguise myself this very night and lie low in some distant land for a month or so. Red Wizards tend to have very long arms and sharply honed senses of cruelty."

"But yourself?" Noumea asked, waving her other hand at the rubies. "What if he sends something deadly with his payment?"

"I can protect myself," the Lady of Haelithtorntowers said softly, acquiring a smile that was not at all dissimilar from that worn by the Red Wizard.

"Like Vangerdahast, I too have some important tasks I wish to accomplish before I die."