Lesser Evils

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

WATERDEEP

1 ELEASIAS, THE YEAR OF THE DARK CIRCLE (1478 DR)

Traveling back through the wilds of the silver marches had been simpler than their first trek in some ways and far rougher in others, Farideh thought. They knew right away where to camp and where to ford the streams. They had little trouble finding food to supplement their trail rations, knowing where the likely sources were. Brin and Havilar weren’t fighting with each other, nor were Dahl and Tam. The Zhentarim had separated from the Harpers’ group as soon as possible, and so there were no more arguments about that.

But even though they skirted Rhand’s Shadovar forces, they traveled with an eye on the road behind them, and another on the skies overhead. Plus it was plain that Mira’s flight, expected or not, devastated Tam. Brin and Havilar were busy acting as if their time together was borrowed and about to be reclaimed. And the addition of Lorcan meant that no one was very happy with Farideh, even if his help had meant they had escaped the library after all.

Only Dahl had decided to make good on his promises finally, to teach her the last seven rituals from their bargain. He was still surly about it, and Lorcan still sniped at him given the chance, but for an hour or so each day, Farideh was grateful to have someone to talk to about something that wasn’t how she was doing everything wrong or whether or not Brin’s eyes were his best feature. Or worse.

“Are you planning to tell Havilar about what we talked about?” Lorcan asked, as they waited outside the coinlender’s for Brin and Havilar to return. He’d hidden his true form, changing his skin for the appearance of a strikingly handsome young man, and passersby who weren’t staring at Farideh’s horns and tail were staring at him. “About the Brimstone Angel?”

Judging by his tone, Farideh thought the answer should have been “no.” “She deserves to know.”

“But does she deserve what comes of such a revelation? Knowing leads to more questions, leads to searching for answers.” He gave her a wicked smile. “Leads to devils.”

All worries Farideh had already had.

“Why didn’t you take Havilar?” she asked. “She could have been your warlock.”

“Easy, darling. Your sister wants things well within her reach.” He turned that wicked smile to an older woman who was not-so-subtly assessing him. “She never needed help. Though,” he added, as Brin and Havilar reappeared, “that can always change.”

“Bad news,” Brin said. “I don’t have as much as I thought.”

Farideh frowned. “I thought you said you had a kraken’s load.”

“He did,” Havilar said. “Someone cleared it out.”

“I think what I have might be exactly enough to buy back Squall and pay for an inn and stabling for a few days and then passage by portal for Squall and myself,” Brin said with a scowl. “I might be off a little. I wish I’d never taken any of it.”

At least he’d taken what was left. They were desparately low. When they’d parted ways from the Harpers earlier in the day, Brin had offered the funds in the safehold as a temporary solution while they sorted out what had happened to Mehen.

Farideh had managed to increase the limits of the protection spell, with painful, careful practice-she could be ten steps from Lorcan now without the spell snapping back. But as they walked through Waterdeep and Havilar and Brin fell into step, arms intertwined and heads together, she found it easier to keep pace beside Lorcan.

“Darling,” he said, apropos of nothing, “you mentioned you were having nightmares. What did you see in them?”

“You,” she said, not looking at him. “The way they might have been torturing you. Devils. Things that might be in the Hells. Why?”

He hesitated, studying Havilar and Brin’s backs. “Curiosity,” he said finally. “What sorts of things that might be in the Hells?”

“Well, here you are,” the innkeeper said when they returned to the Blind Falcon. “All that asking and once you leave, not an hour passes before your message from ‘Mehen’ arrives.” He retrieved a thick envelope from under the bar. “And knowing how persistent you girls were, I held onto it.”

A weight lifted off Farideh’s shoulders. “Oh, thank the gods.” She took the envelope. “Do you have any rooms left? We need …” She looked back at Lorcan and Brin, his hand still intertwined with Havilar’s. “Three, I suppose.”

“Two will do,” Lorcan said.

“Two’s all I have, so that’s good to hear.” He squinted at Lorcan. “Well, well. Where’d they pick you up?”

Farideh slid the coin across the counter, trying not to blush at what the innkeeper was thinking. “Cousin,” she blurted. “On … our mother’s side.”

“Ah,” the innkeeper said, clearly disbelieving. “Well, the two at the end of the hall.”

Farideh thanked him and took the envelope. “I guess Tam wasn’t exaggerating about the fuss.”

Brin peered at the seal, a blazon of dragon with a crown muzzling its jaws. His eyes widened. “Oh no. Crownsilvers.”

“Maybe they just lent him their paper,” Havilar said nervously.

Farideh cracked the glossy yellow wax and withdrew the thick parchment letter from its envelope. The fluid script of a practiced hand flowed across the page, dense with the detailed language of courts and officials and the sorts of people who set bounties, not earned them. Farideh squinted at the text, trying to sort the meaning out from the nonsense. Therefore the man identified as Mehen, being as he has entered Cormyrean soil …

“They wouldn’t,” Brin said urgently.

… the Crownsilvers’ claim being paramount against the established bounty …

“Well, maybe they’re telling you he’s on his way back,” Havilar said. “Maybe they’re saying thanks for returning Constancia.”

… and the complicating factors under consideration in the case of discreetness …

“Maybe it’s an invitation to join the dragonborn in their vacation home in the Feywild,” Lorcan said, caustically.

… until such time as reparations are made. Farideh’s stomach dropped. “Oh gods.”

“What,” Brin demanded, “does it say?”

“Mehen’s in prison,” Farideh said. “They think he kidnapped Brin.”

As much as Tam Zawad had disliked the spy they called the Fisher, he entered the Harper stronghold with a heavy heart. Dahl and several more Harpers out of Everlund whose names he would have to learn followed him through the tavern on the ground floor, up through the narrow, sooty hallways to Aron Vishter’s secret office.

In his arms, Tam carried a sullen bundle, wrapped in layers and layers of wool, and as they came to the door, he wondered if he’d made the right choice in bringing it. He would wonder over a lot of choices, he felt certain, in the years to come.

But not this one, he thought.

“Draw swords,” he ordered and pushed in.

The Fisher sat at his desk, his golden rings in a pile and a measure of whiskey before him. He looked up at Tam with a somber expression. “Well met, Shepherd. Too afraid to do this, just the two of us?”

“You owe them as much as you do me,” Tam said. “If not more.” A little digging had turned up a dozen missions turned sour, all run out of Waterdeep. All crossed with the Zhentarim. More than a few ending with dead Harpers. “Watching Gods, Fisher. Was this all for coin?”

“Coin,” the other spy said. “And the thrill of it.” The Fisher drained his whiskey. “I think you might have let me run for it, for old times’ sake. That’s why you brought these bravos. I think you knew you couldn’t trust yourself not to get soft for memory’s sake.”

Tam thought of Viridi, of the spymaster’s willingness to bend her rules for him when it came to Mira. And of what Viridi would have done-to Tam, to any of them-if their actions had ended with agents dead. “Viridi would have made certain she had every one of your secrets before you died,” he said, “whatever it took. So be glad I haven’t dwelt too long in memories of the past.

“Aron Vishter, you have betrayed your oaths and disgraced the cause of the Harpers. You are sentenced to death by hanging.” He signaled two of the Everlund Harpers-a half-elf man and a broad-shouldered Shou-to take hold of the spymaster. “But for the love of mercy, I hope you give us the names of your conspirators.”

The Fisher gave Tam a wry smile as the Harpers seized his arms and hauled him up out of the chair. “You won’t last long at this. Already told me you won’t make me talk.”

Tam shook his head. “I said be glad I’m not Viridi.” He handed the bundle containing the Book to the third Harper, a brunette woman. “Don’t touch it yourself,” he cautioned. “And lock it up tight in the vaults when he’s through.”

You will regret this, the Book’s voice said, as the armored Harper took hold of it.

“That I may.” He looked at the gaudy silver pin perched on his shoulder, a harp and a moon on a round shield. Another thing to get on Everlund about. There had to be a less obvious way to mark themselves to each other. They led the Fisher away into the more secret parts of the stronghold. Tam watched him go, mourning the loss of a comrade, the loss of the last connection to a life he still missed.

“Where will you start?” Dahl asked. The younger man stood over the Fisher’s desk, looking at the mess of documents.

“By purging the Fisher’s traitors,” Tam said. “Let us hope he is forthcoming. I don’t want a changeling hunt.” He looked over the cluttered office-he could clear it out while he waited for results. “And then … we need to start recruiting. Proper recruiting.” He looked over at the younger man. “I hope you’ll stay.”

Dahl gave a bitter laugh. “I have nowhere else to go.” He flipped through the papers on the Fisher’s former desk. “And I think I’d prefer the Harpers anyway. Especially if I’m not going to be sent rifling through antiquaries.”

“It would be a waste of your skills,” Tam agreed.

Dahl nodded absently, in the way Tam had come to realize meant he was saying thanks, but embarrassed to do so. “Did you consider,” Dahl asked, “recruiting … I mean, they’re young but … Farideh seems like she’d be a decent ally. Absent the devil.”

The girl was clever and quick, solving problems in the middle of everything falling apart as well as if she’d been put through the first years as the Red Knight’s own. Havilar’s glaive was, as they said, as good as her right hand and he would never need to ease Clanless Mehen’s true heir into the bloodier aspects of protecting the balance of Faerun. Even Brin, who was not cut out for the battlefield but was halfway to being able to lie to Cyric himself.

“I don’t think they’re ready,” Tam said. “Nor do I think the Harpers are truly ready for them.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Dahl looked down at the desk. “I suppose if she had been a Harper, we would both be facing a fair amount of trouble for what happened. Around the door. And such. It was awfully close to oath-breaking.”

Tam sighed. There are rules you bend, he thought, and rules to which you hold firm. “You both survived and came out better for it, I’d say. No need for tribunal. But I wouldn’t send you out together again, no.” He regarded the younger man more seriously. “And I hope to the gods you are never that self-indulgent again.”

“No.” Dahl pursed his lips. “Do you mind? I have an errand or two …”

“Of course,” Tam said. He followed him to the door. “When you get back I want a list from every available Harper of potential recruits. Anyone you know-from your past, from your present-who might make a proper agent. Think on it.”

“I will.” He stopped outside the door. “Have you any idea where Mira went?”

“No,” Tam said, and it was the truth. They’d no more than skirted the Shadovar before she and Maspero vanished in the night-not a note, not a word, not a fond farewell. She’d taken the spellbooks she’d rescued and left Tam the Book of Tarchamus. That, he supposed sadly, was her fond farewell.

“She’ll be all right,” Dahl offered.

“Go,” Tam said. “I need you back here soon.”

Dahl left, and at last Tam was alone, in the secret offices of the spymaster of Waterdeep’s Harpers. He’d been hiding from this for a long time, he thought. Running across Faerun as if the best and surest way to protect things were to be the one who brought the threats down, tangled in his chain. As if he could avoid ever being the one who handed down the orders that didn’t always turn out, that didn’t always save the day. That didn’t always bring Harpers home to their loved ones.

He looked up at the portraits the Fisher had hung along the ceiling’s edge-Harpers of old, men and women, bards and assassins and casters and more. All exuding the shrewdness and determination it took to maintain the balance of Faerun.

Less a balance these days, he thought, and turned to the window, looking out at the City of Splendors. More a dike against the tide of evil.

Someone must, he thought, and it reminded him so much of something Viridi might have said-the truth, said plain so that she could get to the business of doing something about it. Someone must, and the best someone is you. For all he wished his life had run a different course, it had not, and now the Harpers needed him and all the wisdom he’d gathered traveling the way he had. He hoped it would be enough. He hoped he would find himself suited to the spymaster’s role.

Tam hoped it might help him keep Mira from harm’s way.

He sighed and looked down at the sill, at the weather-damaged wood beneath his hands.

At the small, tightly rolled scrap of paper that had been wedged under the pane into the largest crack.

Dahl left Goodman Florren’s shop, having gotten a better deal than he would have elsewhere, yet feeling very much like he’d been robbed by the roadside. He carried the paper-wrapped package under one arm and wended his way through Waterdeep’s streets toward the Trade Ward. He hoped this was the right thing to do.

He wouldn’t be alone, would he? Dahl had racked his thoughts trying to come up with what he might have said or done that made Farideh put him in the same category as a Netherese wizard who didn’t think elves or gnomes were worth as much as humans. Who wouldn’t have thought a tiefling merited much concern at all.

And there hadn’t been anything, he was fairly sure, that was worth such a declaration. Not any one thing …

But maybe, he had come to admit, maybe, he hadn’t been the easiest body to deal with. Maybe he had said some things, here and there, that could have built up. Maybe he had managed to give her the impression that he thought less of her.

Be honest, he told himself, passing out of the Dock Ward, you did think less of her. Right from the very start. And even if he was right in one respect-she was allied with that devil-he was very wrong in a great many ways more.

You think that you know everything, she’d said, you think no one can possibly be as godsbedamned smart as you, but every other word out of your karshoji mouth is you jumping to another conclusion that isn’t fair.

Knowledge is not to be hidden, the doctrine of Oghma said, not from the world and not from the self. And assuming you knew something, not even seeking out the answers … that was near enough to hiding from the truth.

Was this how he fell? he wondered. Was it something he took for granted that way? The realization hadn’t brought his powers back-maybe nothing would. And he couldn’t be the only one who let such assumptions lead him from time to time …

Maybe Oghma expects better of you, he thought, as he came to the Blind Falcon Inn. Maybe you expect better.

He climbed the stairs with absolutely no notion of what he was going to say to her. “I’m sorry”? “I thought you could use this”? “I feel like an ass and I just want you to know that”?

“You don’t have to be friends with me,” he muttered to himself, “but I promise I’ll always be an ally.”

The devil was sitting on a stool outside the door at the end of the hall, still wearing the skin of a human and flipping through a dogeared chapbook. Dahl bit back a curse as he looked up.

“Well, well,” the devil said. “The paladin come to call.” He went back to the chapbook. “She’s sleeping.”

Dahl ignored him and went to knock on the door.

Lorcan turned swiftly and planted one booted foot on the opposite side of the door frame, barring the way. “I said, she’s sleeping. So you can deal with me, or you can go lose yourself in the alleys.” He nodded at the package. “What have you got there?”

Dahl considered for the briefest moment drawing his sword and running the devil through. The devil smiled as if daring him to do it.

But then he’d be the one having murdered what looked like a man in the middle of an inn for no apparent reason. And if Farideh seems to trust him, he thought, maybe you’re missing something.

“Where are Brin and Havilar?” he asked.

“Buying a horse, apparently,” the devil said. He held out a hand.

“You can leave it with me. I’ll make sure she gets it.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe that.”

“Normally? Yes.” Lorcan chuckled. “But what would I do with it? This is as far as the spell lets me go. I could throw it halfway down the hallway, but what would be the point? Besides,” he said, and Dahl could see why people made agreements with devils like him, “surely you expect to see her again. Next time she comes through Waterdeep? She’ll seek out the priest, anyway. Maybe you. You can ask after your little trinket then.”

“They’re leaving that soon?”

“On the morrow,” Lorcan said. “Pressing issues. So I’d recommend leaving it now.” He held out a hand. “Unless you have the time to spare, sitting here and talking to me?”

Dahl thought back to Tam and the mountains of tasks waiting to be completed in the Fisher’s absence. Agents to track and contact, missions to review, replacements to recruit. Traitors to uncover. And he owed his mother a letter still.

“Make sure she gets it,” he said, handing over the package. “And tell her, please …” The devil smirked at him, and there was no way Dahl was going to say what he’d meant to. “Tell her I hope I see her again.”

“Duly noted,” Lorcan said. “And farewell, paladin.”

Lorcan watched Dahl leave, turning the package over in his hands. There couldn’t be a next time, he thought. You will have to keep her far from Waterdeep from now on. Between the priest trying to convince her to undo her pact and the paladin who seemed a little too keen on gaining her good opinion, there was more trouble in the City of Splendors than Lorcan cared to manage. Especially given Sairche and her damnable secrets. Someplace quiet was certainly in order.

Lords look us over, he thought, picking at the knot of the twine wrapped around the package, and let her stay away from the Sword Coast from here on. Cormyr would make a good start.

The door beside him opened and Farideh looked down at him, bleary eyed. She glanced around the hallway. “Who were you talking to?”

“Delivery boy,” Lorcan said, holding up the package. “I chased him off.”

Her expression was stony. “What did you say?”

“I told him you were sleeping and not to wake you, of course. Here.” He handed her the package. “A gift.”

She regarded it warily a moment before peeling off the paper wrappings. Inside lay a rod, solid black and chased with inlaid gold leaf. The tips were cracked and cloudy amethysts. Lorcan held back a sneer-hardly better than kindling beside the Rod of the Traitor’s Reprisal.

But Farideh smiled. “It’s lovely. Thank you.”

“It’s not that lovely,” he said reflexively. Then, “I mean, it’s rather common. It shouldn’t draw as much notice.”

“That’s …” She shook her head. “That’s really thoughtful of you, Lorcan. How did you find it?”

He shrugged. “You ask the right people the right questions and all manner of things come to you.” Lorcan studied her face, the easy delight in this smile. “Did you have any more nightmares, darling?”