Lesser Evils

CHAPTER FOUR

WATERDEEP

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

"Tannannath and Frynch,” Brin murmured to himself. “The Broken Marble safehold.” He took one last look at himself in the streaky glass beside the door. He’d freshened up his clothes as best he could, combed his ever-lightening hair and washed his face. He still looked like someone’s runaway apprentice.

He’d ignored the accounts Constancia had mentioned for days now, and he’d have liked to keep on ignoring them, but he was running short of his own coin. Tam’s acquaintance got him a bedroll on the floor of the rooms the priest kept, but Brin wasn’t about to ask Tam for board as well. All he had left to sell was his sword, his holy symbol of Torm, and his father’s flute.

“Tannannath and Frynch,” Brin murmured again, as he left the room. “The Broken Marble safehold.” He pulled the door shut behind him and glanced across the hallway. To the room the twins shared.

Coward, he thought.

It might easily be a curse or a blessing that he’d ended up in exactly the same place as the twins. He’d spotted Havilar the day before, arguing with the innkeeper about the futility of peace-binding her glaive, Devilslayer. He’d frozen, like a deer hearing a rustle in the underbrush, and been unable to do so much as say “well met,” as she turned and saw him. Her mouth had gone small, her back straight as the polearm, and she’d faltered against the innkeeper, agreeing that perhaps she should retire herself and her weapon to the room upstairs.

He could hear Havilar on the other side of the door, the thud and crack of her pretending to thrash someone with her glaive. On the road from Neverwinter, he’d watched her and even stepped in to spar with her a time or two. It left him with no doubt at all: this girl was lovely and funny, and she could kill him in the span of a few heartbeats.

And now she was angry at him.

Don’t flatter yourself, he thought. As surely, if he apologized to Havilar, she’d wrinkle her brow and ask what in the world he meant by that? Don’t even mention it, he told himself.

He hesitated another moment, listening to the rhythm of her feet striking the floor in a complex dance. Dancing, he could have handled, and bladework, well enough, even against Havilar. But no one had given him lessons in dealing with girls, and he felt rather sure it wasn’t supposed to be difficult. If you were fond of a girl, you simply told them so or made some grand gesture or gifted her with something-and then you were in love and everything went on as it was meant to. You never worried she was the wrong girl to head down that path with. You never worried she might laugh at you. You certainly never worried about her glaive.

Perhaps it was better to go on avoiding her.

Coward, he thought, and he made himself rap on the door.

Havilar opened it, glaive in hand. The tawny skin above her open collar was beaded with sweat and her breath came hard. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and he could hear the faint tap of her tail starting to flick against the floor. The sound made Brin’s nerves rattle.

“Oh. Brin.” She took a step back. “Did you want something?”

He shook his head-just say it, he thought. I’m glad you didn’t go. I would have felt like an utter plinth-head, and … She stared, just stared, at him-angry, surely angry. “How are you?” he said.

“Fine,” she said. “All right, anyway.” She folded her arms across her stomach. “Farideh’s not here.”

“I didn’t think so,” he said, then added hurriedly, “It didn’t sound as if she were. I’m impressed you can do any practicing in these little rooms.”

“Oh.” Havilar blinked at him. “Do you want to come in?”

Yes, yes he did. Constancia wasn’t right, but she wasn’t entirely wrong either. Havilar wasn’t the sort of girl, the sort of woman he was supposed to look twice at. She wasn’t human, she wasn’t ladylike, and she stood over him by a noticeable amount, even if you didn’t count her horns. She was wild and a little silly, and entirely too attached to her polearm.

And yet, despite-or perhaps because of all that-a part of him would be very pleased to be alone with her in a room, with all their weapons set aside.

“No, I just wanted to see you,” he said. “To say … to see how you were.”

Havilar frowned at him, as if she couldn’t tell if he was being serious. “I told you already. And you?”

Ye gods, could this go any worse? he thought. Sune’s bright face, he knew how to talk. He could be a little charming-charming enough for court. Why did it all fall apart when it was Havilar looking down at him? It had been so much easier on the road, when they weren’t just standing there, looking for things to talk about, when they had things to do to distract them …

“I have to go to a counting house,” he said, “to see about some coin. Would you … you could come along.”

Havilar blinked at him. “I haven’t got coin to count.”

“Oh.” Brin looked away. “No. I didn’t mean-”

“When did you get coin?” she asked, leaning against the door jamb. “I thought you were sleeping on Tam’s floor.”

Brin flushed. “Did he tell you that?”

“Well … I mean, I asked.” She looked down at the point of her glaive, worrying it into a knot in the floor. “You weren’t going to tell me.”

“You didn’t ask me,” he pointed out. Gods, what a mess. What a total mess. “I wasn’t asking if you needed to go as well. I was wondering … Look, I’m a little nervous about this and I’d just like some company. Would that be all right?”

“Oh.” She considered him a moment. “Do you think you might be robbed on the way back, is that it?”

He started to say that he didn’t think that, that he wasn’t planning to take much coin at all-if in fact he took any-and anyway, she didn’t need to worry about him. But he caught himself-that was worlds better than having her think he was asking her to see his accounts. “Yes,” he said. “Oh, that’s most definitely a worry.”

Her smile grew. “Let me change.”

If the previous shops Farideh had encountered had been shabby, Master Florren’s might better have been described as only recently crawling up from “midden heap” to “shop.” Light struggled through the torn curtains covering the windows, spearing the dusty air where it broke through. A lamp burned behind a cracked shade, casting the array of over-sharpened weapons laid out beside the counter in an oily light. She shut the door behind her gingerly, loath to close herself into the musty shop.

Her eyes adjusting to the shift of light, Farideh edged forward, toward the counting bench. She said a silent apology to Havilar, but Adolican Rhand had been right-no one was going to give her the price she needed. Two more days of furtive searching and she still had no ritual book. Lorcan was still trapped somewhere in the Hells, suffering gods knew what torments, and she still couldn’t do anything about it.

“Well met, girly,” a voice called out. She startled. A halfling man-the shop owner-stood beside a rack of staffs, watching her, much as every shopkeeper had watched her, with a cautious, appraising eye. Only, Goodman Florren seemed assured that she posed no threat to him. He may have only come to Farideh’s hip, but the halfling held himself as if he knew exactly how to bring her down, should it come to that. “You lost?”

“I’m looking for a ritual book,” she said. “Someone told me you had them for a fair price.”

“ ‘Someone,’ eh?” Goodman Florren’s dark gaze swept over her. “Seems I do excellent business with Goodsir Someone.”

“I’m sorry,” Farideh said. “What I meant-”

“Ritual books are on that shelf,” he said, waving a hand at the far end of the shop. One of the staffs spit a jagged spark of purple energy. He cursed and turned back to arranging the implements.

The shelf was sagging and the options sorry. Three worn books slouched against each other: the first thick as her fist, but with a binding so worn it might not make it out of the shop; the second better, but full of faded, yellow inks and missing pages that left a hollow, fragile feel to the magic; and the third blooming with mildew and missing any sense of magic around it at all.

“How much are these?” she called.

Goodman Florren came to stand beside her. “Fifty. Forty-three. And … Hells, let’s call that one twenty-two.”

“Gold?” she said. “That one’s not even a ritual book.”

“I’ve got better in the back, if you don’t like the quality.”

“For double the price, I’m sure.”

He chuckled. “More like triple.”

“That’s robbery.”

He shrugged, unperturbed, and went back behind his counting table, climbing onto the high stool there. “I’ll take a trade. Weapons, scrolls, jewelry. Might make the price more palatable.” He gave her a wicked smile. “Mayhaps I can think of something.”

“You want me to steal for you?”

“Did I say that?” Goodman Florren said, all innocence. “It sounded to me like I was trying to make you a good deal by offering to take what you don’t need. For Someone’s sake.”

Farideh hesitated. The rod tucked into the sleeve of her blouse was probably worth purses-how much, she didn’t know. Lorcan had given it to her, called it “the Rod of the Traitor’s Reprisal.” Dead useful, and she might need it to cast the ritual. If she could find the ritual …

Instead, she undid her sword belt, said a silent apology to Mehen, and laid it on the counter. “How much for this?”

Goodman Florren reached down, lifted the weapon and shrugged. “Fifteen.”

Farideh bit back a curse. “It’s a good sword.”

“Girly, I can get a sword just as battered for fifteen anywhere in the city. You want easy coin, take yourself down to the dockside. Young thing like you might fetch a copper or two from the sort wanting to play at devil’s punishment.”

She flushed and he cackled. “Fine,” she said. Farideh reached inside her shirt and withdrew the amulet Tam had given her in the ruins of Neverwinter. It was, to the untrained eye, only a medallion of silver, etched on one side with the symbol of Selune-a pair of eyes in a circle of stars-and shaped on the other into a spiral made bright by the polish of too many worried thumbs. But the weak light reflected threefold off the metal and the halfling’s eyes widened. He beckoned her closer.

Better this than the rod. Perhaps. If she could get the book, get the ritual, cast it, and pull Lorcan from the Hells … surely she wouldn’t need the amulet, enchanted to bind fiends. Surely he’d be grateful. She hoped.

“Very fine,” the halfling said. “Let’s say … eighty.”

Farideh closed her hand over the amulet. “Do you think I’m a fool?”

Goodman Florren’s dark gaze met hers. “You have a source and a story, we’ll talk about …” He frowned and peered at her face a moment more. His expression closed. “Son of a barghest.”

“What?”

He slid off the stool. “Sun and moon eyes. Tluin and buggering Shar. Should have said something!” he called as he disappeared into a room at the rear of the shop.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Farideh shouted after him. “Hey!”

The bells over the door jangled, startling her. A blaze of sunlight sliced through the gloom.

“This is on your list, then?” a familiar voice said. Tam held the door open, blinking up at the cluttered rafters, the covered windows. Farideh sprinted back behind a shelf before his eyes could adjust to the gloom.

“The last before the showing.” She peered between a stack of scrolls and a collection of brass goblets. Trailing Tam was the pale, rude man from the tavern. His gray eyes darted all over the shop, as if he were searching for something. “It’s … not pleasant, but Goodman Florren has connections with adventuring companies, historians, and the like.”

“Hmm. I’ll bet.” Tam surveyed the rest of the shop with a skeptical eye. “Listen, Dahl, I know that Aron said this was important-”

Dahl’s expression tightened. “This isn’t important. I know that. This is just the only thing they’ll approve me to do. I can read up on antiquities. I can’t read up on running down threats. And so I cut my teeth again and again.”

Tam hesitated and tried once more. “Sounds as if Aron’s not using his resources all that well.”

Dahl shrugged, still avoiding Tam’s eye. “I’d be happy to take on something more challenging, certainly. But I do what’s asked of me.”

“Not one of these items has proven out.”

“But they might have,” Dahl said. “These are the items that had the highest likelihood, the best provenance. I already ruled out six times as many.”

Tam sighed and shut his eyes a moment. “What are we here for?”

“Goodman Florren!” Dahl called. “Are you in?”

“A moment, a moment!” the shopkeeper’s voice called back. “With a customer!” He came tromping back into the front room with a flat package, wrapped in brown paper. Farideh cursed to herself as he looked around for her.

“Where’s she gone?”

“Who?”

“That tiefling wench.”

Tam’s brow rose, and Farideh cursed to herself. There weren’t scads of tieflings in Waterdeep, but there were surely enough that he couldn’t assume it was Farideh.

Tam seemed to make the same calculation. “There was no one in the shop when we arrived.”

“Godstlarning hrast it,” the halfling said. He spat. “ ’Tis what I get, agreeing to run errands for that …” He looked the two men up and down. “And who might you be?”

“Dahl Peredur,” the younger said. “And this is my associate, Tam Zawad.” Tam sighed and covered his face with one hand. Dahl didn’t seem to notice. “A friend of ours says you’ve got something powerfully valuable.”

“Everything I got,” the halfling said, “is valuable. So you’re going to have to be more specific, boy.”

Dahl, to his credit, didn’t flinch or fluster. “The Lantan artifact,” he said. “We’d like to consider adding it to our … collection.”

The shopkeeper considered him a moment. He set the package on the counter. “That’s no gewgaw. Don’t pull it out for sightseers.”

“We have coin,” Dahl said. “If it’s worth it.”

Goodman Florren grunted and disappeared into the back again.

“Better,” Tam said. “Though, again, don’t give them your name. No one knows you here. Keep it that way. And put that pin someplace he can’t see.”

That seemed to fluster the younger man, and Farideh felt a pang of sympathetic shame. Tam certainly had a way of knocking your heels loose.

“My apologies,” Dahl said stiffly, fidgeting with something on his cloak. “But I don’t see that my name matters in this case. He’s just a fence.”

“It might not,” Tam said. “But it might matter in the next case or the next after that. And the more people who know your name and your face-and those beside your ‘associate’s’ name and face-the faster danger finds you. Don’t think one mission at a time. Just put the damned pin in your pocket. Bloody things are more trouble than they’re worth.”

The shopkeeper came back, toting a heavy-looking bundle of oilcloth, which he heaved onto the counter. A few quick pulls and the bindings came loose, cloth falling aside like a blown flower’s petals.

“There you are,” he said. “Twelve hundred gold.”

Farideh peered between the shelves. On the open oilcloth, glinting in the murky light, lay an assemblage of gears, each leaping over the last as if the mass were alive and running. Its purpose might have been anything-arms and teeth snatched at missing connections-but whatever it was, Farideh thought it was beautiful.

“From the ruins of Lantan,” the halfling shopkeeper said. “Preserved from the seawater by the dying magic of its creator, a great and powerful dwarf, blessed by-”

“It’s a fake,” Dahl sighed. He turned the clockwork on its side and pointed to something on the bottom. “Neverwinter reproduction. From maybe forty or fifty years ago. Before the collapse.”

“Well, that’s still plenty old!” the shopkeeper protested.

“It’s not magical either,” Dahl countered.

“Is too! Has a clever little charm to repel dust, since it’s meant for display.”

Dahl ran a finger over the largest gear and wrinkled his nose. “You might want to have that verified elsewhere.”

“Thank you for your time,” Tam said. He hustled Dahl from the shop. The door closed, and Farideh sighed in relief.

“Knew you couldn’t have gone far,” the shopkeeper said. She eased out from behind the shelf, one eye on the door. “Hiding from Harpers, are you?”

“Not especially,” she said. “Just that one.”

Goodman Florren slapped the paper-wrapped package. “You should have said your Someone was Adolican Rhand,” he said, with some distaste. “Can’t expect me to remember everything. Could’ve saved us some time and avoided your Harper.”

“How much is that one?” she asked.

“For you? Price is already paid,” he said. “Master Rhand sent this over. Said it’s for the tiefling girl with the sun-and-moon eyes, ’course he didn’t bother explaining, never does, that one. You’re late though. He said two days ago. Stuck it in the back when I figured you weren’t showing-out of sight, out of mind.”

Farideh’s stomach tightened. “I think there’s a mistake. I didn’t buy anything from him.”

“No one’s asking how you earned it,” Goodman Florren said. “But you want to tell me there’s someone else he means?”

The package was the size of her haversack, square, and heavy. A ritual book, she thought. What else could it be? She untied the twine and pulled the wrappings aside.

The ritual book had been bound in deepnight blue silk, of all things, and gilded with a pattern of leaves and curling vines. Stunned, she ran careful fingers down its cover-she’d never felt anything so fine, except perhaps the crisp, cream-colored pages within. She leafed back through them-someone’s sharp, precise handwriting marked the first few pages, the instructions for at least three rituals. Adolican Rhand’s instructions. The book fell open to the frontispiece, an etching of the night sky, and an envelope tucked there. She broke the black wax seal.

I think you will find this to your liking, the note read in the same handwriting, the same dark ink. Consider it a welcome to Waterdeep. Should you need assistance filling it, I am ready and willing. Your presence is always welcome at my manor. Adolican Rhand.

Innocent enough words-provided they were turned the right way. But the memory of the man who wrote them made them, when resolutely read, distressing, and there was no place on the face of Toril she’d like to avoid so much as Adolican Rhand’s manor. Farideh dropped the note and wiped her hands on her breeches, staring at the package as if it might come to life.

“I don’t want it,” she said.

Goodman Florren gave her a withering look. “Then take it back to Master Rhand. Just make it clear I held up my end.” He wrapped his Lantan clockwork back up in its oilcloth. “Besides-it’s obvious you do want it if you’re coming down to Dust Alley to bargain.”

… the erinyes scream and shatter into a dozen enormous wasps; wasps with cunning eyes and swords for arms. The air is full of swords and monsters. Lorcan grabs her arm and shoves her back-Run, darling, run fast and run far-

She shuddered, and rubbed her arm where the brand was that marked her pact. If she threw the book out, she would go on dreaming and Lorcan would continue to be tortured and one day she would wake with no powers, no protections because he would be dead.

“No one made him give it to you, darling,” she could almost hear Lorcan say. “Let him come looking for favors-we’ll simply make certain he regrets it.”

She pointed two fingers at the note and drew the powers of the Hells into herself. “Assulam.” A crack and the parchment burst into a fine cloud of ash. The shopkeeper flinched in surprise.

She watched the ashes float down, and said, “You can tell him I did that.” She folded the paper back around the book and scooped it up, all her attention on the churn of Hellish powers seething beneath her skin as she left the shop. She looked both ways down Dust Alley-no sign of Tam, no sign of anyone much, other than some coinlasses loitering in front of another shop several doors down, and a woman hanging wash out her window. Farideh slipped out of the safety of the door way and hurried up the narrow street.

“What happened,” she heard Tam call out from behind her, “to staying out of trouble?”

Farideh cursed to herself, stopped, and turned. Tam stepped out of a narrow alleyway. “It’s not trouble,” she said. “It’s … shopping.”

“At a fence?” He dropped his voice as he reached her side. “What in all the broken planes did you buy from a fence?”

“A ritual book,” she said. “And I didn’t know he was a fence. I was only told he would be inexpensive.”

“Inexpensive is just another way of saying ‘illicit,’ ” Tam said. “You ought to know that.”

“With my vast experience bartering for goods?” she said, acidly. “Be fair.”

“We need to get going,” Dahl said. The younger man watched Farideh and Tam from the shade of the smaller alley. “We’ll be late for the viewing.”

Farideh glanced from Dahl to Tam. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Not necessary,” Tam said. “And we can stroll and speak.”

“Is that wise?” Dahl murmured. “She’s not …”

Tam sighed. “Goodman Peredur,” he said smoothly, “have you met Farideh? I assure you she isn’t going to rush off with the secrets of where Waterdeep’s most plausible fake artifacts lie and sell them to Shade. Although if she would, I think we’d be a little grateful for giving them the distraction. Come along,” he said, and he started toward the market, Farideh and the now-scowling Dahl Peredur following behind.

“I suppose,” Tam said, when she fell into step beside him again, “you’d prefer I not tell Mehen about this?”

“What’s there to tell? I went into a shop. I bought a perfectly respectable item. He should be pleased, really,” she added, although he would be no such thing.

“Farideh, this city is no mountain village. There are places a young lady really shouldn’t be wandering.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said.

“Oh, believe me,” Tam replied, “I’ve forgotten nothing of Neverwinter. Not even the parts where you did need help.” Farideh locked her eyes on the cobblestones. “But I also seem to recall that if you were to come into a bad way, it’s me that your father will blame.”

She pursed her lips. “You haven’t heard from Mehen, have you?”

“No,” Tam said. “But having been to Suzail, I can tell you that getting paid for a bounty was never going to take less than a tenday. I’m certain he’s fine.”

And Farideh felt certain that Mehen would have sent a message if it turned out to take more than a day, let alone the three days that had passed since he’d left.

“You don’t need a fence for a ritual book. What were you really doing?”

“They’re expensive,” she protested. “I tried plenty of … normal sellers, and it was always three and four times what I could spare.” She thrust the package at him. “Do you want to check it?” Tam waved her away.

“What is it you want a ritual book for?”

Gods, Farideh thought, for all Tam’s insistence that he wouldn’t be a nursemaid, he could certainly play the part. She glanced over at Dahl. If he weren’t there, she might tell Tam the truth-she’d told him a great deal of it already, of Lorcan and the security and danger of the pact. But not in front of Dahl, not after the way he’d acted in the taproom. She wasn’t ashamed of being what she was, but she wasn’t about to open the gates and let his revulsion wash over her.

“Is it so unlikely I want to learn rituals?” she said. “You made that temple in Neverwinter from a ritual. That was impressive. And helpful.” The temporary shrine to Selune had provided a safe place to hide from the fiends infesting Neverwinter.

Including Lorcan.

Tam looked unconvinced. “That ritual’s no trifle. Are you planning something that might require a temple again?”

“Not if I can help it,” she said. “What is it you two were doing at a fence?”

Tam smiled that thin smile she’d come to expect when the priest wasn’t telling the whole truth. “Scouting artifacts for a buyer, you could say. What are we up for next?” he asked Dahl.

“A pair of artifacts,” Dahl said, holding out a leaflet to Tam. “The main one’s a page torn from an ancient book. A magic book. Draconic writing. Same writing on the granite facing that accompanies it.”

“Oh, stlarning Hells,” Tam said. “The dragon’s secret page?”

“So you know it?”

“The streets of Waterdeep have been fairly buzzing with talk of it-claiming it’s everything from a treasure map to the cursed testament of a plaguechanged wizard.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Gods above, this will be a sty’s pile. Did anyone approach the seller ahead of time? Try to get him to give it up?”

Dahl lowered the paper. “I tried. He wouldn’t see me without a serious bid in hand. Master Vishter told me to stand back. That we’d sort it out once we see what we’re in for. That he had an eye and a hand ready for that.”

“So you haven’t got any idea of what you have to bid with?”

“This is just a viewing for potential buyers.” He folded up the paper with exaggerated neatness. “We still have time.”

Tam sighed. “Well, shall we see what the city is fussing about?”

It didn’t take long before they hit the crowds. Hungry-eyed merchants and adventurers in scarred armor rubbed elbows with urchins and Watchmen. Waterdhavians trying to finish up their market day struggled past with baskets, or just gave in and followed the eyes of the crowd up to the covered dais where the merchant had set up his treasure.

Faded ink skipped and shifted over the yellowed surface, changing from lines of text to detailed drawings, always ebbing away from the torn, jagged edge. Held up by the invisible strings of a spell, the page seemed to shiver with the changes, as if it were alive. Something about it made the air hum, and Farideh’s brand started to itch. The hum broke into a low string of whispered words, a language Farideh couldn’t place.

The page was speaking.

“This,” Dahl murmured, “is more promising.”

Behind the spell’s shimmer and to one side of the page, there was a piece of granite leaning against a small chest. The size of a charger, it had been polished once, but years and weather and gods knew what else had dulled its surface and softened the edges of the runes that spattered the blue-gray surface. The edges were broken and jagged, all but on the right side, which ended in a smooth, straight lip, as if it had once fitted against something else.

On either side of the dais were two guards-a lean half-orc man and a human woman with dark eyes and darker hair bundled up on top of her head. She looked down at the crowd, at Tam and Farideh and Dahl, and her mouth went small. She whispered to the half-orc and slipped away. Farideh frowned and glanced at the crowd around her-not a few people were eyeing her the same way.

“Henish,” she muttered. What did they think Farideh would do? Steal the page from thirty feet away in a thick crowd?

“Mother of the moon,” Tam swore looking around at the crowd. “No. It’s too many people. The price is going to get too expensive too fast.”

“If there’s anything in this city that the Harpers ought to protect,” Dahl said, “any artifact worth watching over, it’s this.”

Dahl pressed the sheet of paper against the wall of a nearby stall and tapped the line of runes reprinted there. Draconic letters scratched their way across the paper like a line of claw marks, each dripping tails and serifs. Farideh peered at the runes.

“So the page keeps changing,” he said. “Faster, the more people that get near it. The same Draconic letters as the stone, but more, too-Dethek, Elvish, all sorts of things in bits and pieces. The merchant’s not repeating any of that. This replica is of the text on the stone.”

“What does it say?” Tam asked.

Farideh frowned. “It-”

“I haven’t translated it yet,” Dahl said over her. “But the style is old. Absolutely pre-Spellplague.” He traced the curve of a rune, a hard glottal sound, with the tip of his smallest finger. “Modern Draconic doesn’t make this line curve so much. The serifs are shortened too. It’s a strong indicator that whatever it came from is older than they’re saying. Considering how slowly Draconic changes, it could be as old as Waterdeep. Even if it’s just some dragon’s laundry bill, if it’s that old, it has to have value.”

“But it’s not Draconic,” Farideh said.

Dahl startled, as if he hadn’t expected her to know how to speak. “Of course it’s Draconic,” he said sharply. “I know what Draconic looks like, and I’m sure the merchant does too.”

“And I can read Draconic,” she countered. “It’s not Draconic.”

“What is it if it’s not Draconic?” Tam asked her.

“The letters are,” Farideh said. “But they just make gibberish. It doesn’t say a thing. Here”-Farideh reached over and drew a finger beneath the cluster of runes recreated on the leaflet. “Ah-nuh-jach nuh-thay-rell,” she read. “Even if you suppose the merchant got some letters wrong in the copy-”

“What did you say?” Tam demanded, his eyes suddenly wide.

Farideh blinked at him. “It’s … gibberish?”

“The runes, Fari, what does it say?”

“Ah … ah-nuh-jach,” she repeated, carefully rechecking the letters. “Nuh-thay-rell. The vowels … it might be a little different, that’s mostly where things change. The ‘ch’ is harder in true Draconic. But not much.”

“Nuh-thay-rell,” he repeated. Tam ran his hands through his hair and cursed. “Loross.”

“Netherese?” Dahl said. He looked back at the letters and cursed.

“Is that what it’s speaking?” she asked. “It doesn’t sound like Draconic spoken.”

“Speaking?” Dahl said. “What speaking?”

Farideh narrowed her eyes. “The mumbling noise. It sounds like speech. Like an old man muttering.”

“What’s it saying?” Tam asked, urgently. Farideh shrugged.

“Gibberish,” she said. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the fine, whispery syllables. “Ashenath … enjareen … nether pendarthis …” She shook her head and opened her eyes. “You can’t hear it?”

“Only a hum.” Tam pursed his lips, staring at the page. “Right,” he said after a moment. “Dahl, I’m assuming you can cast a language ritual?”

“Not here,” Dahl said. “I need-”

“Of course not here,” Tam said. “You have the components?”

Dahl bit off whatever he’d been saying. “Yes.”

“Good.” Tam steered Farideh toward the dais and pressed her through the crowd, close enough that she had to force people aside. “Study that stone,” he implored, low and in her ear, “and remember as much as you can. Every letter you can manage. I’m going to need you to redraw it for Dahl.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because,” he said, “you’re right and he’s right: it’s older than the mountains, and it’s not Draconic. It’s from ancient Netheril.”

At least, Dahl thought, something useful came of all that antiquary hunting. Even if it wasn’t entirely clear what it was.

Dahl laid out the components for the ritual that would let him understand the ancient language on one side of a square table. On the opposite side, the tiefling woman drew the remembered runes onto the back of Dahl’s list of artifacts with ponderous care, a strand of purplish-black hair trailing in the ink.

Gods, he’d like to have died then and there when she’d shown him up. There were dozens of languages that used Draconic letters-he knew that. Why had he just gone along and assumed they spelled out true Draconic?

This is why Oghma has no need of you, he thought. Because you’re stupider than some tiefling girl out of the mountains.

Tam paced between his bed and the fireplace, his expression drawn and distant. When Dahl had asked what his plan was, Tam had merely shaken his head and said nothing. Dahl set down the last of the components, an ink imbued with salts of copper. No room for error, now-if he miscast the ritual, the Harpers would never have him doing anything more than scouring the markets for goods.

“That should do it,” he said. He hefted his ritual book onto the table, a thick volume bound in crimson leather and embossed with the golden harp of Oghma in the center of the cover. Once upon a time, ritual magic had been a specialty of his, a focus among many dazzling and precious forms of the Art and the magic of the divine. The tome was nearly filled now, most of its pages inscribed with magic obtained after Oghma had left Dahl and Dahl had left Procampur.

Farideh stared at the heavy tome as he flipped to the proper page. “That’s … quite a lot of spells. Did it take you long to learn them all?”

“Years,” he said tersely. He paused-calm down, he thought, she’s not picking at you. “It’s … an interest of mine.”

Thankfully, she was quiet after that, as was Tam, and Dahl could put the both of them, the Harpers and the Oghmanytes, Netheril and dragons and the wheat waving in the sea breeze, well out of mind as began the quiet chant of the ritual.

He poured a thin line of ground silver into a rectangle around the ink bottle, added the cross-line of powdered bluefoot mushrooms, and dipped the end of a bone-white feather into the prepared ink. He brushed the mixture over his eyes. The liquid turned icy and he flinched.

“Give me the paper,” he told Farideh.

Dahl felt the magic of the Weave settle over him, broken strands of magic knitting themselves around his eyes. He opened them and looked down at the sheet she slid across the table. The tapered strokes of the runes seemed to shiver and reset themselves, forming letters and then words and then phrases his eyes recognized, and his thoughts parsed out. His mind began to move more quickly, skimming along like a fleet skiff on a calm sea.

“ ‘… the final secrets of … Tarchamus,” he read. “Whose name is the Unyielding, whose strength is mighty. Who tears out the ssheratith”-some organ, he thought, drawing a line to mark it-“of the volcano. The heart of the world faljar anaresh”-misremembered, he thought, or some damned ancient turn of phrase? — “against the light of day …”

A gap there where she’d forgotten the letters. “Look upon halaris enjar despair of unminded fellows. Such comes peril to Netheril,” he finished. “And peril to the Weave. All contained within.’ That’s all of it.”

Dahl frowned at the transcription. “That’s enough to be interesting. Parts of it don’t really translate. But it’s angry and it’s definitely talking about a wizard.”

“Arcanist,” Tam said mildly, his eyes on the transcription. “So it’s Tarchamus the Unyielding, not Attarchammiux, the Terror of the Silver Marches.”

Dahl shook his head. “Draconic implies some vowels. Loross doesn’t.”

“So that’s the author of the page? Heard of him?”

“Never,” Dahl said. “But then Shade’s not exactly sharing all its historical documents.” He pointed at the last untranslatable bit, which was coming clearer by the moment. “This means something like ‘his works of power.’ Spells, maybe. Or enchanted items.”

“Or weapons?” Tam said. “Is that what the page shows?”

Dahl shook his head. “No way to know. Not without watching the changes.”

“Ashenath,” Farideh said, and Dahl startled. “Enjareen nether pendarthis. That’s what it’s saying. What’s that mean?”

Dahl bit back a curse. He should have remembered that. “Say it again.” She repeated the string of Loross. “ ‘Brought through rock and flood …’ and something like ‘and this is what we get.’ Maybe ‘Brought through rock and flood to this?’ Are you sure you’re remembering it properly?” Farideh shrugged, but didn’t answer.

“The runes were broken,” Tam said. “It’s a piece of something larger. Something that’s sealed away a peril to Netheril. And there’s a fair chance half the people in that square read it too.”

“They’d have to speak Loross,” Dahl pointed out.

“Many Netherese do,” Tam said dryly. “And the page is just a part, a piece of some larger text.” He cursed again and straightened.

“Stay here,” he told Dahl. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He scooped up his cloak and the chain that hung on the chair. Farideh looked up at him.

“Where are you going?”

“If I wanted you to know,” Tam said, pulling open the door, “I’d have told you. Stay here. Don’t follow. Either of you.”

The Fisher’s not the only one who doesn’t use his resources well, Dahl thought.

Whatever he’d hoped would be true of the Harper priest, they weren’t partners. Dahl might have found the fragment, might have done the hard work of translating, but he wasn’t even on Tam’s mind when it came to sorting out the looming threat associated with it.

After all, why else would the priest have taken the chain?

He glanced over at Farideh, still sitting in the opposite chair, staring at the door. At least Tam hadn’t taken her along instead.

It isn’t her fault she speaks Draconic, he reminded himself. But she could have been a little less rude about it. How was he supposed to know, anyway?

She turned and eyed him for a moment, before she raised her face … and he realized she’d been staring at his ritual book with those odd, focusless eyes and not at him.

“Have you been casting rituals for long?” she asked.

“Some years,” he said. Seven to be exact-when Dahl had sworn himself to Oghma in Procampur, they’d started him on rituals almost immediately, seeing as he had a knack for magic. Had is the important word, he thought glumly.

“Where did you learn them?” she asked.

“In another life.”

“Have … have you ever taught anyone? How to do them?”

“No.” He wished she’d leave, stop asking these questions. Bad enough Tam had left him behind, he didn’t need to be reminded of Procampur. “I have to write a letter, if you don’t mind …”

“Sorry,” she said. “Yes. But … could you? Would it be too hard?”

Dahl scowled. She probably didn’t even know what it took to cast rituals. What was involved. It was serious magic, whatever she or others might think. “It’s not simple,” he said.

“I need someone to teach me,” she went on. She pulled the loosely wrapped package she’d carried out from under her chair, and took out an expensive-looking ritual book. “I’ve got this. Someone … That is, it came with some spells already in it. But I don’t know-”

“You should ask Master Zawad,” Dahl said.

“Master Zawad doesn’t have any more time for me than he does for you.” She fell quiet a moment. “Besides, it seems as if you’re better at this than he is.”

Dahl shut his ritual book and ran a thumb over the worn bottom edge of the cover. “You said you had a few already? What are they?”

She handed over the silk-bound tome. Gods’ books, it was a good quality-heavy pages, tight binding, crisp printing on the frontispiece. He frowned at the depiction of a moonless sky over bucolic hills. He leafed forward to the rituals, and skimmed what was written there. Oghma, Mystra, and lost Deneir, he swore.

“Where,” he asked after a moment, “did you get this?”

She didn’t answer right away, but pursed her lips, and try as he might, he couldn’t divine if she was annoyed or embarrassed or worried.

“Does it matter?” she finally said.

“A great deal.” He turned the book around. “This first spell is fairly minor. Puts all the lights out.”

She wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t seem like much use. Why not blow out the candles?”

“You can set it to finish at a later point. If you’re preoccupied,” he said dryly, and she flushed at the implication. “It’s used more often by people calling creatures that can pass through the shadows,” Dahl said. “It’s not difficult, but it takes some … uncommon components. Unpleasant components.

“The other two,” he said, “aren’t better. This one makes phantom restraints. The other …” Despite himself, he blushed as well. “I don’t know you well enough to tell you what it does,” he said stiffly.

“Oh.”

“And they are all rituals sourced from casters I don’t want to associate with.”

She wrapped her arms around her chest and made a noise under her breath that might have been a curse. “The book’s ruined then?”

“No. Of course not. That isn’t the point. Who gave it to you?”

“A man,” she said after a moment. “I met him in a shop and”-she rolled her shoulder as if trying to shake something loose-“he’s just … he decided to help me.”

Dahl shut the silk-covered tome. “Does he have a name?”

“Adolican Rhand.”

Dahl studied her face for some sign of what in the world she could possibly be thinking. “Adolican Rhand,” he repeated. “Are you mad?”

“No,” she said sharply. “I told you, he’s the one sending me books. I haven’t had much choice in all this. Who is he?”

Dahl pushed the book back across the table, shaking his head. “You got it off a Netherese informer, and you ask for my help, not Master Zawad. Gods. What are you trying to hide from him?”

“Nothing.” Farideh leaned back away from the table. “Are you really going to tell me it’s better to be lectured by Tam?”

Dahl bit his tongue. What did she know, anyhow? “Maybe he needs to lecture you if you’re flirting with shady merchants and collecting their love tokens.”

She turned absolutely scarlet. “What would you have had me do?” she asked. “Take it back to his manor to say ‘no thank you,’ and be caught there? I might not know his business, but I’m not a rabbit tumbling into a snare.” She snatched the book off the table. “If you’re going to say no, just say it and stop dragging me through the mud behind you. I’ll manage fine on my own.”

Dahl scowled. “Of course. You don’t need a master or years of study or dedication or any of that.” He had, and what good had it done him? “You probably think you’ll just smile sweetly at the first person you see with a ritual book in hand, and he’ll be a bloody warlock ready to train you to be his heir. Is that how it happened with Master Rhand?”

Farideh whirled on him, still flushing like a maid, but with fire in her eyes and shadows-yes, shadows, he was sure-seething from her skin. “Karshoj ardahlominak,” she hissed, and suddenly the shadows surged around her as she stepped toward the door. There was a burst of light, a gust of air hot enough make Dahl turn aside, and a crack as a vent tore in the skin of the plane, and Farideh vanished.

Dahl sat, blinking back tears for a moment as the scorching air cooled. Ah, Hells and farther realms, he realized. He ought to have seen it. He ought to have known. She didn’t need a warlock to swoop in with ritual lessons. She was a warlock herself.

Her hair combed and her armor wiped clean, Havilar did sort of look like she might be Brin’s bodyguard. Particularly, he thought, since she’d insisted on bringing along her glaive.

“If you are robbed,” she’d said, “this will put a stop to it much quicker than if I have to fight hand to hand.”

“You do know I can defend myself?”

She regarded him as if he’d made a half-hearted joke. “Of course. But if you’re robbed, you’ll have to get the coin and run off somewhere safe. One of us has to.”

“You could.”

Havilar had wrinkled her nose. “Well, yes. But I think you’d be better. You’re clever.”

As they made their way through the streets of Waterdeep, he still wasn’t sure what she’d said was a compliment. He felt fairly sure that girls preferred the kind of fellows that didn’t need rescuing.

And he was fairly sure that he’d prefer a girl who didn’t always have the upper hand.

It hadn’t ever mattered what he preferred. Helindra would choose a bride for him, and he was meant to be grateful for the opportunity to further the family’s influence. But if he didn’t go home …

He gave Havilar a sideways glance. When he’d first met her, he thought she might be a little simple, or maybe a little cruel. The sort of person who could tear into a battle and come out with a slew of kills to her credit, and only worry if she’d looked good doing so.

But it hadn’t taken long to realize Havilar wasn’t angry and she wasn’t cruel. Competitive, to be certain; vain, a little. But never cruel. And not as simple as she seemed on first flush, just … light.

A good person to be friends with, he thought. I’m making everything too complicated.

Tannannath and Frynch was exactly as stern and fussy an edifice as Brin had been expecting. It only took a moment for him and Havilar-and Havilar’s glaive-standing at the enormous doors and looking up at the elaborate stonework before a guard appeared.

“May I help you?” he said, in a tone of voice that made it clear he did not expect to do any such thing. Brin narrowed his eyes.

“I’m here to see about the Broken Marble safehold,” he said. “Do be quick about it.” The guard’s brows went up, but he opened the doors, took Havilar’s weapon, and escorted the two of them down a long, dimly lit corridor, ringing with the phantom sounds of a flute and a lyre. The guard held one of the half-dozen doors lining the hall, and waved them in.

Within, a half-elf woman wearing an emerald lens over one eye waited. “Sit, please,” she said, and she pulled out a tray of sand. “In or out?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Do you wish to put coin in,” she asked, “or take it out?”

“Oh. Out, I suppose.”

“Your mark, then.”

Brin took up the stylus and traced the runes as Constancia had ordered. The coinlender pulled out an enormous codex and started flipping through the pages. “Broken Marble?” she said. “Rhiiman.”

Brin frowned. “I’m sorry?”

The woman looked at him through the emerald lens. “Rhiiman,” she said, enunciating.

It was the name of the man who had founded the Crownsilver family, a younger brother of the first king of Cormyr, if he was remembering right, who married a daughter of the Silver line-whose name was escaping him … Constancia would box your ears, he thought.

“Oh,” he said. “Made the right choice.”

The woman dipped her head to consider the codex once more. “Welcome, goodsir. The account is equivalent to two hundred eighty thousand, nine hundred and seventy-four Waterdhavian dragons.” She looked up. “If you’d like to withdraw the full amount, I’m afraid you’ll have to accept trade bars and give us a day to collect them.”

Brin very deliberately closed his mouth. “No, no, that’s all right.” He was glad for the chair she’d offered him. “May I ask if anyone else is accessing the coin? I’d … I’d hate to take funds some cousin was relying on.” Or to find out Helindra was keeping a close eye on the account’s activities.

The coinlender’s eyes flicked over his head to where Havilar stood, before returning to consider him carefully. He passed whatever threshold she’d decided on for frauds and thieves, but by her tight expression, only just.

“The last business with the account was … three tendays ago. A withdrawal of one hundred dragons. Before that it’s only been maintenance, so far as my records stand.”

“You have that much coin just sitting?” Havilar hissed at him after he’d withdrawn a small sum, enough to cover a room of his own, board, and a little extra. “What does your family do?”

“Meddle,” Brin said, frowning at the bag of coins. “And it’s not my coin. It’s theirs. I’ve certainly never seen that kind of coin.”

It would be enough, he thought. Enough to buy passage to any city in Faerun. Enough to buy a new name, a new life. Enough to get far, far ahead of the Crownsilvers before they did something rash.

The temptation of the coin on the ledger was bad enough. But there, too, was the reminder that the Crownsilvers commanded vast resources. The coin in the bank was a pittance-a forgettable amount, likely, comparable to funds in cities like Athkatla and Baldur’s Gate and Westgate, where a family member might need easy access to coin. It was nothing compared to what Helindra commanded in Cormyr.

And no vault could contain all the Crownsilvers’ connections.

“Is that why you didn’t say?” Havilar said as they crossed the market. It was late and the stallkeepers were closing up. “About being His Grace and … what are you, anyway? A prince? A king? A … nentyarch?”

“Nentyarch?”

Havilar shrugged, her eyes on the cobbles. “It’s some sort of frozen war prince,” she said. “Read it in a book.” She looked up at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Brin sighed. “It’s complicated, and it would get far, far more complicated if I put any stock in it. Look, I didn’t tell you-but I didn’t tell anyone. I don’t want to be a prince or a king or a nentyarch.” He smiled at her. “I told you a lot more than anyone else. I told you about Constancia and Helindra.”

She nodded absently. “I would have understood.”

“I hardly understand it.” He opened the door to the inn. “I would have to draw charts.”

She didn’t laugh. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” he said. “Sorry. Let me buy you evenfeast. You and Farideh.”

They’d no more than reached the top of the stairs when Farideh stepped out of the air, forcing them both to leap back. Flushed and furious-looking and seething that strange, wispy shadowstuff that stung his eyes like burning brimstone-it was a stark reminder that Havilar wasn’t really the scary one. Usually, Brin amended.

“Hells, but you look terrible,” Havilar said. “What are you doing, jumping around corridors?”

“I’ve met Brother Tam’s new apprentice,” Farideh said sharply. “That fellow from the taproom.”

“The tall, good-looking one?” Havilar asked.

Brin had to admit it was a bit like being hit in the stomach by the shaft of her glaive. “When did you meet him?” he asked.

“The first day we were here.” Havilar smirked at her sister. “Did you get him to loosen up?”

Farideh shot her twin a dark look. “No. Though if you’d like to knock his jaw free to help him with that, I’d thank you for it. He’s very skilled at needling my last nerve.”

“Who isn’t?” Havilar said. “We’ve just been to see about Brin’s sudden fortune.”

“Not sudden,” Brin said. “It’s not mine, either.”

“Oh, just be pleased,” Havilar said, nudging him with her elbow. “Even if you let it all sit in that vault, you’ve got piles of sudden fortune. Anyway, now we’re going to have a drink and some food. Do you want to come?”

Farideh drew a long breath, the tendrils of smoke retreating. “No,” she said. “I’d rather just sleep.”

“Come on,” Havilar cajoled. “It will cheer you up.”

“And then I’ll see that henish and I’ll be unbearable for another day,” Farideh said too lightly. “No.” Her tail started flicking against the wooden floor. “Come up soon.”

“When we do,” Havilar said with a wave of her hand.

“What were you doing with Tam and his apprentice?” Brin asked.

Farideh shook her head. “There’s an artifact for sale. A page from a book of some kind and a piece of a door or something. I was helping them do the translation.” She hesitated. “It’s a Netherese language.”

A feeling like icy water poured down Brin’s back and drove every thought about his own petty problems out of his head. Constancia’s warnings about encroaching Shadovar armies echoed after them.

“Ye gods,” he said. “Where’s Tam?”

Farideh shook her head. “He ran off-but he didn’t say where to. He took his chain.”

“Well, that’s good,” Brin said with forced cheer. “He’s likely taking care of things.”

“There were guards around the treasure,” Farideh said. “Sharp-eyed ones.”

“He’s pretty sharp himself,” Havilar said. “And I thought silverstars could”-she waved a hand in the air-“you know, go all invisible and things?”

Farideh stared at her sister. “Where in the world did you hear that?”

“Everyone knows that. Why else would you worship the moon goddess?”

Brin took a deep breath-slain down to a soul-and calmed himself. Tam knew better than any of them what Netheril might do, and he was taking care of things. What was one moldy old page anyhow? “Did he have a guess as to what sort of book it was from?”

Farideh bit her lip, tenser and more uneasy. “It belonged to an arcanist, from the sound of things. A powerful one.”