The Adversary

Chapter Two

In the frozen woods beneath a crashing earthmote, Farideh remembered. Sairché smiled-the same sort of smile Sairché had given her as the blackness surrounded them-and horror bloomed in Farideh.

“What have you done?” she breathed. “ Karshoji tiamash, what have you done?”

“I gave you what you wanted,” Sairché said.

“When did I want to wake up in a forest?” Farideh demanded. “When did I ask you to lose my friends? Where’s Lorcan? Where’s Brin?”

Sairché pursed her lips briefly. “The forest,” she said, “is immaterial. Lorcan is on his own. Whoever Brin is, I assume he’s handling himself. I’ve held up my end. I’ve made you safe.”

“You’ve made us lost,” Farideh said. The powers of the Hells scaled Farideh’s frame, wrapping around her nerves and pulling her bones down with heavy magic. “Where are we?” She looked around the chilly grove, the fog snaking eerily over the ground. “This isn’t the Hells is it?”

“Please. You’d know it if you woke up in the Nine Hells.” Sairché looked up at the earthmote and glared at it a moment, before taking a scroll from one of the cases on her hips. She opened it wide to display a map of Faerûn, shivering with faint magic. She muttered something vicious sounding under her breath, then sighed, as if it couldn’t be helped.

“Here,” she said, laying the map on the ground and pointing to a block of forest just outside of Waterdeep where a silver mote pulsed. “That’s where we stand.”

Farideh’s blood stilled as she studied the twining lines of roads and rivers, the dots of cities, the swell of mountains. The distance between the little cluster of towers marked Waterdeep and the little cluster marked Proskur.

Havilar’s arm threaded through hers, as she leaned over the map. “That’s not right. That spot is leagues from Proskur.”

Sairché gave her a cold look. “Clearly,” she drawled, “there is a problem with my portal, many thanks for pointing it out. Yes, you are quite a ways from where you started.” She rolled the map back up and stood, giving them both a wicked smile. “It’s not as if you can’t walk back there again. It hasn’t moved.”

“A portal?” Farideh said. “You weren’t supposed to take us through any portal.”

Even as she said it, Farideh realized while Sairché had not said anything about a portal, she hadn’t said anything about not using a portal.

Sairché narrowed her eyes at Farideh. “Perhaps Lorcan was in the habit of explaining the finer details of his spells to you. I will not. You’ll have to trust me.”

Farideh swallowed. “ ‘Was’?”

That made Sairché’s wicked smile return. “Do you really think you’re still his warlock now?”

“You said. .” Farideh’s voice failed her. “You said you’d protect him, too.” But there was no sign of Lorcan, no pull on the spell of protection they’d shared.

“I did,” Sairché agreed. “And I have. But if you think he’s pleased you came looking for my help. . well, I would prefer a clever warlock, but it’s not a necessity.”

“I didn’t pact with you.”

“Not yet.” She took one of the rings strung along a chain around her neck and slipped it onto her finger. Sairché rubbed the sapphire in the center with her thumb until a patch of the ground shimmered and a pile of gear appeared beside one of the leaning trees. Sairché gathered up a sword and belt, a glaive with an enameled haft, and a small case.

“Rod,” she said handing it to Farideh. “Sword. And glaive.” She pulled out a pair of daggers next and new haversacks, new cloaks, new rations.

The sword was not Farideh’s-it was far newer, far lighter, and the blade was sharp and freshly oiled. She opened the case and found a similarly unfamiliar rod: ivory shaft carved over in Infernal runes, rubies at the tips instead of the cracked and cloudy amethysts her last implement had borne. She took hold of it, and her powers surged forth as if the rod had cleared some impediment. It made her dizzy.

“The weight’s wrong,” Havilar said, pushing the unfamiliar glaive back at Sairché. “And the length.”

“You’ll adjust,” Sairché assured her.

Havilar shoved the glaive into the ferns. “Give me back my glaive.”

Sairché looked as if she were reconsidering the deal they’d made. As if she were deciding if it were worth the trouble to call up her erinyes and have them both killed. “You can certainly see about replacing them in Waterdeep but take these for the moment. It’s several hours’ walk to the city, and heavens know what you might find. I’m sure you’re well acquainted with the sort of things one encounters in the wood.”

Out of the litterfall, she picked up the last two items: a bottle and a small velvet bag.

Sairché handed the bottle to Havilar. “A restorative. The spell tends to sap your strength a bit. And I know you need it.”

Havilar pried out the lead stopper and knocked back the amber liquid. “Havi, don’t!” Farideh cried.

Havilar gagged. “Pah!” She swallowed and a shudder went through her. “It tastes,” she said, “like old burnt meat and spoiled cream.” She wiped her mouth. “And cinnamon. As if that would help.”

“There is a reason one does not source cordials from the Hells,” Sairché said. “Nevertheless, it works.” She pushed the bag at Farideh. “This is for you-from Lorcan.”

The velvet was thick and dark as night. Whatever was in it was surprisingly heavy.

“I thought you said he was done with me.”

“Perhaps it’s a parting gift? Perhaps it’s something he felt he still owed you?” She pressed a finger to her lips. “Perhaps,” she said. “It’s a trap.”

Farideh nudged the velvet open. At its heart lay a coiled necklace of rubies. The largest gem was the size of her eye, and it seemed to glow even in the pale light. Farideh stared at it, too stunned to say anything.

Havilar leaned over her shoulder, her breath still smelling of the foul potion. “Karshoj. How come you get that?”

Sairché frowned. “Excellent question.” She held out her hand. “Let me see it.”

Farideh folded the velvet over the gems. “No.” Lorcan’s gifts had always been spells or items for casting-the necklace was something different. Did it mean Sairché was right and he’d put her pact in Sairché’s hands-a parting gift then? Or was it a reassurance, a promise?

“It might be a trap,” Sairché said again.

Whatever it was, whatever it meant, if Sairché wanted it, Farideh wasn’t about to give it to her. “You had plenty of time to look at it before.” She slipped the bag into her pocket.

“Well,” Sairché said, dropping her hand. “If you’re going to be difficult.” She pointed away from the falling earthmote. “Waterdeep is that way. Do try and make it alive.”

With that she selected one of the rings she wore on a chain around her neck, held it up, and blew through the center. A whirlwind seemed to spin out of the silver circle, then gusted back and enveloped Sairché. The cambion blurred as the wind threw her through the fog and out of the plane of entirely.

“Brin will be wondering what happened to us.” Havilar blew out a breath full of nervous energy. “Do you think he’s still waiting at the inn?”

Farideh shook her head. “I don’t know.” Why had a portal been necessary? Why had it dropped them in the middle of nowhere?

And Lorcan-gods, Lorcan. Her deal with Sairché looked terrible, on the face of it. Especially when they’d been fighting. If he’d just give her a chance to explain, that there hadn’t been time. .

“We might never find him again,” Havilar said, of Brin. “He might just go on to Suzail without us, and then what?”

Farideh looked at the bag in her hand. Lorcan gone, and Brin lost. And Havi-she didn’t understand. She wouldn’t understand until they’d figured out what to do about Brin, Farideh knew that much.

“We’ll go to Waterdeep,” she said. “Find Tam. Or Dahl. They can do that sending ritual and find out where Brin is. We can use the portal Mehen took. I’ll sell the necklace to pay for it. We’ll find him.”

Havilar wrapped her arms around her chest. “I cannot believe you made a deal with another devil. What karshoji demon possessed you?”

A very good question, a part of Farideh thought. They were miles from where they’d started, missing gear, missing allies. And her breath kept freezing on the air-how high up the mountains were they?

“I did it to protect you,” Farideh said. “Protect us.”

“From what?” Havilar demanded. She picked up her own cloak and haversack, fastening the garment shut with shaking fingers. “Proskur? Brin?”

“Devils,” Farideh said. She picked up the strange rod-the ivory that wasn’t ivory-and her nausea surged again. “They wanted my pact.”

“Well if you hadn’t made a karshoji pact,” Havilar said, “neither of us would need protecting and neither of us would be waking up on the other end of the karshoji continent!”

“No, it would have been worse!” Farideh drew a deep breath, trying to quell the sense of unease that she couldn’t seem to push past. “I didn’t tell you,” she admitted. “I should have. But there’s a reason Lorcan wanted me for a warlock.”

Havilar bent to grab the inferior glaive. “I don’t care how special he says you-”

“You and I are descended from one of the first Hellish warlocks,” Farideh went on. “The worst of them, I think. She helped Asmodeus become a god. She. . she did horrible things to make tieflings what they are. There aren’t many people descended from her-just three, and me. And you.”

Farideh had held the secret for so many months, but now it was no good to hide it. “You have the same spell of protection as me. They can’t scry us, but then Sairché found you anyway. Found us. There are devils out there who would do almost anything to have an heir of Bryseis Kakistos. Sairché’s going to protect us-it was that or let her have you. She said she would protect us until we turn twenty-seven, and I thought maybe. . maybe I could find some way-”

“Stop,” Havilar said, looking angrier than Farideh had ever seen. “You knew all that and you didn’t tell me?”

Farideh looked away. “I was scared.”

“Scared of what? Scared I’d do the same stupid thing and take a pact? Because you’re the only one who can handle it? Because you think I’m scared of some bugaboo old tiefling? Karshoj and tiamash, who cares who our greatwhatever-grandmother was? I’m not scared of nightmares!”

Farideh shook her head. “You should be. You need to be. Trust me, Havi, Lorcan is good for a devil. If you don’t-”

“I’m not going to make a pact!” she snapped. “Besides, how safe is it if now we have her chasing us around?”

“She can’t hurt us,” Farideh said. “That was the deal; that was the most important part.” She reached for her sister, but Havilar moved away. “She would have killed Lorcan back there. She would have taken you. I traded with her so she has to protect us instead. It was the only way I could stop her, I promise.”

Havilar brushed her hair back behind one ear. “I just want to get out of this pothac forest, figure out where we are, and find Brin.” She started tramping in the direction Sairché had indicated. “I cannot believe you got a necklace out of this, and I only got a disgusting potion.”

Dahl Peredur lingered over the last swallow of ale in his flagon, dreading returning to the offices above the Harper-run tavern. He had been sitting scribe for status meetings since daybreak, bent over a scroll and keeping his thoughts to himself. He would be there until sunset, no doubt, the Harper spymaster Tam Zawad asking him periodically if he had anything to add, the other Harpers giving him the sort of looks that clearly said “You’d better not” or “Go ahead, try-you’ll be wrong again” or “What are you even doing here?” Looks he didn’t dare point out to Tam.

A petite Tuigan woman with a shock of short black hair and large eyes dropped into the chair across from him. “I have been sitting over there,” she said, “well within sight, for the last three-quarters of a bell, and I know you noticed. So why are you sulking over here?”

Dahl swallowed a sigh. “Well met, Khochen. You had company.” He nodded at the woman sitting at the table, wearing a carefully unremarkable dress, her blonde hair caught up in a scarf. Lady Hedare, the agent who carried messages for the Masked Lords of Waterdeep these days.

“Yes, I know. That’s half the reason you should join us.”

Dahl glanced at the noblewoman, who was very deliberately not looking at Khochen or him, and made a face. “I’m fine here.”

“She hasn’t got a brightbird,” Khochen sang.

“One,” he said, “I’m not interested in Lady Hedare, and I don’t know why you’d think I was. Two, she does so have a brightbird. That bodyguard is doing more than guarding her body-you’re the one who told me that.”

“Did I?” Khochen looked back at Lady Hedare and waved her over. “Well you have to assume if it’s secret, it can’t be that serious.” The noblewoman smiled at Khochen, but took one look at Dahl and declined with a polite gesture.

“Three,” Dahl said, “she doesn’t like me.”

Khochen glared at him. “Well, if you’re going to be sour at her.”

Dahl tilted his glass, considering the dregs. “I’ve never been sour at her.”

“Liar. She said something you didn’t like, I’ll wager. What was it?”

Dahl hesitated. “After Lord Nantar died and she came up. . there was a misunderstanding. She thought I was Tam’s secretary, for Oghma’s sake.” He folded his arms. “I may have snapped at her. Now she acts as though I need to be coddled.”

“You are his secretary.”

“Only because someone has to be. I’m still-” He let the protest fall. It was arguable that he really counted as a Harper any longer, and that wasn’t an argument he felt like having. “Fine,” he said. “I’m his secretary.”

“I don’t know why that bothers you. It doesn’t mean you don’t count,” Khochen said, and not for the first time, Dahl wondered if the Westgate spymaster could pick through his thoughts. “You still have your itchy little tattoo to prove it. And while I’m sure it comes in terribly handy while you gather reports and make Tam’s schedule, it seems to mean you’re dedicated.”

Dahl scowled. “You’re going to have to have it done eventually.”

“And ruin this flawless skin?”

“You can’t see it once it’s done,” Dahl said, “unless you trigger it. And it only itches for a tenday.”

“I’ll hold out. I can hide a pin.” Khochen took his flagon from him and finished the ale.

“You owe me another ale for that.”

“For a sip? Hardly. Shall we go up?”

Dahl scowled at her again. “What do you mean ‘we’? You’re not due until this afternoon.”

She shrugged. “Vescaras and I tied our missions together. We’re to debrief as a team-didn’t you know that, Goodman Secretary? Come on.” Khochen stood, and though Dahl would much rather have stayed behind, he wasn’t about to make Lord Vescaras Ammakyl comment on the time.

“By the way,” Khochen said, as they slipped through the door that led to the more secretive areas of the Harper hall. “I found out why Vescaras dislikes you so.”

“I don’t care,” Dahl said. “What mission did you help him on? You’ve been in Westgate.”

“Shipping issues. And you care. Otherwise he wouldn’t bother you.”

“He bothers me because he’s a self-important prig who can’t see when he’s turned the wrong direction.” They headed up a flight of stairs, down a long hallway lined with rooms, and into an unassuming guest room that held another stairway. “His last reports were insisting that six earthmotes crashing on or in sight of the Trade Way means a conspiracy of wizards.”

“He’s cautious.”

“He’s idiotic,” Dahl said. “The rituals needed to take down one earthmote would have to mean that a cadre of archwizards the likes of which Vescaras of all people would have noticed is running around Faerûn wasting their powers on making caravans detour.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“No, and I wasn’t intending to. Tam will give him some other mission, and it won’t matter. Arguing will just set Vescaras against me more.”

“Maybe Tam thinks he could be right. There are worse uses of magic.”

“Yes, well, if you find Karsus, the Srinshee, and bloody Elminster gloating over a caravan they’ve just tipped, then I’ll concede. Until then. .” He opened the door to Tam Zawad’s study and waved Khochen in. Vescaras was already there. Of course he was.

Vescaras hardly looked at Dahl, which was probably for the best. There was not another Harper in all of Faerûn who pushed Dahl so close to snapping. The black-skinned half-elf looked like nothing more than the wealthy, hardworking second son of a noble family-crisp linen and spotless silk, each row of his braided hair threaded decadently with gold. Posh and polished and like he’d never dirtied a finger in his life. If the mix of Turami ancestry and elven blood made him stand out among Waterdeep’s old blood, Vescaras’s impeccably cool manners reminded his peers of where they stood. Not even the Ammakyls suspected that their son’s interest in the family wine trade masked the fact that he ran a network of Harper spies working along the merchant caravan routes. He was very good at what he did.

And-for a time-Dahl had been very good at finding where he could do better.

“Let’s begin with your joint efforts,” Tam said settling behind his scarred desk. “Then Lord Ammakyl-I know you have family business to attend to. And Khochen, you can sew things up.” The older Calishite man still wore the plain gray garments of an itinerant priest of Selûne, despite having been made a High Harper five or six years prior. In any other setting, a person might have assumed he was petitioning Lord Ammakyl for tithes.

“Many thanks,” Vescaras said, inclining his head. “I had word, you’ll recall, from one of my agents of potential smuggling through Westgate. Additional smuggling,” he added, as Khochen started to speak. “We crossed networks and uncovered quite an operation.”

“Gems out of Vaasa,” Khochen said. “But also a great deal of weapons, some rarer ritual components. And people.”

“Headed toward Sembia,” Vescaras went on.

“Not all of it,” Khochen said. “I asked around. Some of it’s gone straight to Shade. Some of it-not the gems, obviously-were headed back north. Fortunately there are reputable shippers thereabouts as well. We found a serious mining operation in place. They’re fully routed and all but one of the mines are in working order.”

“There are four shafts in place,” Vescaras said. “All still finding gems. We pointed the prospectors from Thentia over to them.”

Which only made Dahl wonder. “And the fifth shaft?”

Khochen smiled, with a pause that lasted half-a-heartbeat. “Broke through to the Underdark,” she said. “We sealed it back up.”

“Shade did that?”

“No,” Khochen said. “We did. We took out the miners in one of the farther locations. Some well placed explosives and there were more drow than even the Shadovar can handle.” She smiled at Dahl. “Impressive?”

Impressive they’d pulled it off. “How did you keep the rest of the mining teams busy?” he asked.

Khochen’s smile flattened, and beside her Vescaras’s jaw tightened-ah gods, Dahl thought. His stomach dropped as Vescaras went on. “We had some help from the Dalelands Harpers. Slowed them down with stray sheep and other nonsense. Very minor.”

Tam’s eyes stayed on the scarred surface of his desk. “Were any killed?”

“Eight, by the drow,” Khochen admitted. “One of ours, seven of the Dales’.”

“Seven,” Tam repeated.

“Not ideal,” Vescaras agreed. “But they were willing and-”

“And that doesn’t matter,” Tam said sharply. He ran a hand through his silver hair. “They don’t know what they’re offering, shepherds and farmers and milkmaids.”

Dahl dropped his eyes to the parchment and finished scribbling notes on Vescaras’s reports. Even if the half-elf and he didn’t get along, even if Vescaras clearly thought Dahl should have been thrown out of the Harpers’ ranks, they agreed on this score: the Harpers not overseen by Tam were still a worthwhile resource, milkmaids, shepherds, and all.

Tam cursed under his breath for a moment. “What else?” he finally said. Khochen and Vescaras ran down the more mundane parts of the mission- coin spent, contacts made, resources lost. Dahl wrote every item down, all the while thinking it was not such a transgression to have let that question slip. Probably. He would have done the same thing in Vescaras and Khochen’s position. . which might well mean it was the wrong thing to do altogether.

Gods, he thought. You’re a mess today.

Vescaras then gave a detailed accounting of more than a dozen missions the agents who reported to him were running along the caravan routes. He paused and gave Dahl a sidelong look. Perhaps Khochen was right. It might help to know why Vescaras disliked him so.

Because you say all the wrong things, a part of him seemed to say. Make all the wrong decisions.

Vescaras looked back to Tam and cleared his throat. “I’ve lost a village. A farmstead, really. Roarke’s Crossing, east of Berdusk.”

Tam cursed. “To the Shadovar? When did they capture it?”

“I’m not convinced they did. I received reports two tendays ago that it had been deserted. There are signs of struggle throughout, but not a single body, beyond a few animals. No goods taken-they weren’t fleeing and they weren’t killed. But they’re gone.”

“It happens,” Tam said. “Maybe the raiders caught them at the right time.”

Dahl thought of the farmstead he’d grown up on, some miles outside New Velar in Harrowdale. Of what it would look like if everyone had just vanished-cow unmilked, butter half-churned, his mother’s bread burning in a dying fire. His brothers’ and their wives’ tools fallen. Only his father’s grave watching over the empty farm. .

The image brought with it the sick shadow of grief, and he glanced out the window. Well after highsun. And Khochen had drank half his ale-Nera couldn’t fault him for one more.

“Did you check the state of their stores?” he asked. Vescaras and Tam both looked at him, as if surprised he was speaking. Khochen smiled between them.

“Low,” Vescaras said. “And tidy. Exactly what you’d expect to find this time of year.”

Dahl shook his head. “Right.” He cleared his throat. “Anyone raiding a farmstead would have ransacked the stores. And if they fled, they would have taken supplies.”

Tam frowned. “Did you have a wizard search it?”

“They didn’t find much,” Vescaras said. “The two I brought down there said it would be a feat to kill as many people who lived there with magic that destroyed the body so completely and left no trace. If there were portals involved, they sealed closed. If it was some other planar passage, it had been too long to find evidence of it.

“There’s more,” Vescaras said. “Possibly. A connection, perhaps. I’ve lost two agents as well. One scouting along the High Road, one working out of Athkatla. Again, out of the blue, no word, no sign.”

“Still, not as odd as we’d like,” Tam said sadly.

Vescaras shook his head again. “It doesn’t feel right. They were good agents, careful agents. They weren’t heading into anything difficult. Athkatla was recovering from fieldwork, watching donations to Waukeen’s temple. She missed a report, I went to see her. No one knew where she’d gone. The scout was in Daranna’s territory, reporting to her as well. Nothing. She’s covering a lot of empty wilderness,” he admitted, “but it’s Daranna.”

That made eight lost agents in the last tenday. And a farmstead, Dahl thought, wiping his quill on a rag. And much as he thought Vescaras was over-cautious, he agreed: something felt wrong.

“What else?” Tam asked.

“There are Shadovar picking through the ruins of Sakkors,” Lord Vescaras Ammakyl was saying. “I can’t say what they were doing, precisely. I didn’t want my people getting too near, but I would wager they’re looking for artifacts.”

Tam nodded at the dark-skinned half-elf over his steepled fingers, staring intently at the surface of his desk. Dahl kept writing and waited for the older Calishite man to say something-what else would the Shadovar be doing with the ruins of their floating city? Looking for survivors a year after the collapse?

“I still have no count of those who might have fled by arcane means,” Vescaras went on. “One assumes there were some, but we haven’t ascertained what exactly brought the city down yet. There mightn’t have been time.” Dahl dutifully added this to Vescaras’s report as well.

“Why are you still looking?” Khochen interjected. “It’s been ages.”

“Clues,” Vescaras said. “Sakkors falls, then the earthmotes start. It could be connected.”

“You mean the Trade Way crashes?” Khochen asked. “Dahl thinks that’s idiotic. I think he makes a convincing argument.”

Dahl froze, his mind a swirl of doubt. Vescaras glared at him.

“Oh?” Tam said, turning to face his scribe.

Dahl laid his quill down, swallowed to wet his mouth, and gave Khochen a glare of his own. “Most likely.”

“Then how do you explain it?” Vescaras asked.

“Bad luck? Odds? I’m not trying to be difficult, all right? It makes more sense.”

“Six within sight of the Trade Way and that’s the odds?” Vescaras demanded. “I’ll not be dicing with you throwing anytime soon.”

“If they were dice, you’d be right, but they’re great hulking mountains of earth.” Dahl shook his head, too far to stop now. “Moving an earthmote isn’t as easy as people seem to think. They float, but they’re enormously heavy and especially if they’re moving, it takes an absurd amount of power to turn them. They’re falling all across Faerûn, you know; it’s not that odd to have six fall near a road that runs the entire length of the continent. Otherwise you’d find signs of the rituals long before you’d get up to six earthmotes.

“And,” he added, “if you’re going to poke around Sakkors, a much better question to be asking is where are they taking those artifacts, because there is absolutely nothing else to be looking for in those ruins, and who is looking for them, because it’s almost certainly someone who expects to find something, and is possibly hoping that their fellows don’t notice, since you didn’t see a great bunch of Netherese soldiers. So yes: it’s idiotic, there are better uses of your time.”

Deliberately ignoring Khochen’s smirk, Vescaras’s glare, and Tam’s raised brow, Dahl picked up his quill again and set his eyes on the parchment.

“Lord Ammakyl,” Tam said, “Khochen. Would you give us a moment?” Dahl didn’t dare look up as the other Harpers left, his face burning, and for a long moment, the older man said nothing.

“My apologies,” Dahl said. “It just came out.”

“To be honest, I’m glad it did,” Tam said. “You almost sounded like your old self.”

“My old self is not exactly in high demand.”

“Oh for the gods’ sakes.” Tam stood and came around the desk to stand opposite Dahl. “What else haven’t you been saying?”

“It’s nothing important.”

“Dahl.”

Dahl blew out a breath. “Daranna’s agents could cover the ground Everlund’s leaving open, and instead, she shouldn’t worry about the possible slavers crossing into Anauroch. Our Zhentarim agent requested ‘reinforcements’ be sent to help the Bedine near there, and they’re going to walk straight into a moot of Bedine tribes, and you know exactly what they think of slavers. It will probably help Mira’s case, really-get them all banded together against the slavers as a mass for once. Brin’s reports are over-detailed-they boil down to two important facts: Crown Prince Irvel has the nobles in line for the moment and all our intelligence about the Dales and Sembia is correct. You could tell him to stop wasting parchment.” He paused. “That’s all I can recall. I expected to re-read reports tomorrow. No, wait-Vescaras’s agents and farmstead. That comes to eight agents-plus the farmstead-reported missing, although I haven’t gotten a report from Sembia or Many-Arrows, so it could be ten.”

“Were you planning to bring any of this up?”

“Of course,” Dahl said. Then added, “When I was sure.”

Tam sighed and covered his face with one hand. “How long is this going to go on?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Dahl you’re not the first person to have a mission go sour,” Tam said. “You aren’t the first Harper to let a target slip by. You aren’t the first one to find dead bodies that shouldn’t have been there.”

“Nor will I be the last,” Dahl finished.

Tam gave him a stern look. “If you believed me, I wouldn’t have to repeat myself. I pulled you off the field to give you time to collect yourself, to use your skills inside the house.”

“And I’ve done that,” Dahl protested.

“By deciding not to tell me things you don’t think I want to hear.”

“I just told you,” Dahl said. “Do you want more? I think you need to see a barber, you’re wrong about Storm Silverhand’s Harpers-in this case, anyway-and I’m pretty sure your daughter’s thinking about running off with that Bedine fellow or murdering him, maybe you should talk to her. Shall I keep going?”

Tam shook his head and chuckled softly. “You’re impossible.”

Dahl studied Vescaras’s report, the blot of ink marring the runes that spelled farmstead. “You can always dismiss me.”

“That would be easier wouldn’t it? A pity, I dislike easy answers. Mira can take care of herself-which she’d be quick to remind me if I delved into her love life-so until she murders him or asks for my opinion I’ll stay mum. I’m right about putting untrained bystanders with their heads full of myths and stories into harm’s way, and you certainly don’t put other people’s safety in their hands-we have protocols for a reason.”

“It’s how they did it in the olden days,” Dahl said.

“Yes, well how did that suit them once Shade returned? Storm Silverhand can certainly let her networks run how she wants, only I don’t want my spies leaning on brethren who lack good sense and training. We ought to-”

“Forgive me, if you suggest you’re going to track Storm Silverhand down and explain what a terrible idea-”

“That was once,” Tam said, and he had the grace to look embarrassed. “I may be too old to blame wine as if I don’t know what it does to a man’s senses, but I’ll do it anyway.”

Dahl smiled. “I’ll not hold it against you.”

Tam regarded him. “Nera tells me that you’ve stacked up quite a lot of receipts in the taproom.”

Dahl made himself still. “It’s all paid for.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. Anything troubling you?”

Dahl gave him an empty smile. “I’ve been a drunk, Tam. These days it’s just thirst.”

Tam nodded-as if he were waiting for Dahl to spill out everything he wasn’t saying. “War can make a man thirsty.”

Life can make a man thirsty, Dahl thought. “Yes,” he said. “Well.”

“How sure are you about the Dales?”

Not sure, he thought. Not sure enough. “Fairly,” Dahl said. “Brin seemed sure that Harrowdale was out of the worst of it at least. The elves won’t let Sembia break through, and Sembia seems to have better things to do. Their armies should keep well out of the northern countryside for awhile yet, and we should have fair warning before that changes.” He hoped. Gods above, he hoped.

He’d tried to get his mother to leave the farm. He’d tried to convince his brothers there were good reasons to come to Waterdeep before Sembia turned north. But without divulging his allegiances to the secretive Harpers, why would they believe him? Who was he but the runaway brother who had the gall to throw away the life he was offered for another, only to fail at it? Who was he but the son who’d left their father baffled and disappointed when he’d come home to admit he was just a secretary in Waterdeep? And then armies filled the heartlands, making Harrowdale an island of relative safety in a sea of war.

“I know you just took a break,” Tam said. “But I’m giving you another one. Let Khochen keep you company. She’s in town the rest of the tenday. We’ll come back to her reports when you’ve sorted yourself. Is Lady Hedare in?” Dahl nodded, too embarrassed at the dispensation to speak. “Send her up, get that done with.” Tam ran his fingers through his silvery hair. “You’re probably right about the barber. Find me some time, would you?”

“Of course,” Dahl said, like a good secretary would, and shut the door behind him.

In the parlor that marked the barrier between the inn’s public areas and the Harpers’ private floors, Khochen was waiting for him on a battered settee, tuning a lute. “If I apologize,” she said, “will you at least admit that did you a little good?”

“What good?” Dahl demanded. “I told Tam something he surely already knew and Vescaras something he refused to believe. Then I got singled out like an errant schoolboy and gods above only know what Vescaras is telling people about me now.”

“Nothing most likely,” Khochen said. “He’s not much of a gossip.”

But Vescaras was thinking about it. Adding it to the list of things that proved Dahl wasn’t cut out for the Harper life anymore, right below bad temper, can’t handle shock, and botched mission, let people die.

And possibly drunk now that Nera was telling everyone he ordered an ale too often, he thought grimly.

“Yet you got him to tell you why he hates me?” Dahl said. “He must be a little bit of a gossip.”

“No,” Khochen said, with a smile that was only for herself. “I’m just that good.”

Dahl sighed. “Are you going to tell me or not?”

Khochen set down the lute and leaned on her armrest. “It seems,” she said, all drama, “many months ago, someone may have gone to a revel, had a bit to drink, and snubbed a certain someone else’s sister.”

“What? Jadzia Ammakyl thinks I snubbed her? I hardly spoke to her.”

“That’s what ‘snubbed’ means,” Khochen said. “At least, she would have liked you to talk more, and she apparently made an invitation for you to come back the next day.”

“To look at her library. Which I wouldn’t bother with. It’s a pokey little-” He colored at Khochen’s smirk. “We only talked for a few minutes. About books.”

“Girl has to make an inroad where she can.”

And lovely Jadzia Ammakyl had absolutely no need to make inroads with a scruffy farmer’s son, Dahl felt sure. “You’re wrong. Vescaras is wrong.”

“Vescaras is right,” Khochen said, “although he’s mad as the wizard under the mountain to still be carrying that around. Jadzia’s forgiven and forgotten, so far as I can tell. Swarmed with suitors.”

“Of course she is,” Dahl said. “She’s rich as Waukeen’s handmaid.”

Khochen clucked her tongue and rose to stand beside him. “I have another guess,” she said. “I think you did notice. Why else would you pick the right sister-he’s got four, hasn’t he? You noticed and you choked because you are utterly convinced no one of quality is interested in you.”

“Why are you always picking at my love life like you can stir it up into something interesting?” Dahl demanded.

Khochen’s wicked grin fell away and she regarded Dahl with utter seriousness. “Because it’s the safest thing I can tease you about.”

Dahl pointedly turned toward the taproom, knowing Khochen would follow but knowing it would give him a minute to compose himself. Gods, he needed a drink. One drink.

Khochen caught up to him. “Where you got the idea that anyone in Waterdeep gives two cracked nibs about where you grew up or what god left you behind or how you’ve erred-”

“You’ve made your point.”

“My point,” she added, gentler now, which made it all worse, “is that you needn’t be so determined to make sure you’re right that everyone dislikes you as much as you believe. Whether that’s Jadzia or Lady Hedare or Vescaras.”

“Vescaras does dislike me,” he pointed out as they descended the stairs. “I don’t need your pity, all right?” He paused at the foot of the stairs and looked back at Khochen. “By the way,” he said more quietly, “are you missing any agents?”

“I lose some low-level recruits, street-eyes and such. Gangs pick them off, Zhentarim pick them up.”

Dahl shook his head. “No, I mean agents dropping off your map. No word, no sign, no bodies. Strange things.”

She frowned at him. “Not that I know of. But then that might be any of my lost ones.”

“It’s probably nothing,” he admitted.

“I’ll think about it. And,” she added, coming to stand beside him again, “might I note, if you talked to Vescaras the same way as you do me, instead of being an absolute prat, he might listen too.”

Dahl rolled his eyes and headed into the taproom. If he drank the ale quick, if he made it a small one, Nera might not notice, might not tell Tam. It wasn’t as if the High Harper could tell if he’d had just one.

“You already said he’s not a gossip,” he said. “So how am I supposed to talk to Vescaras like I do to you?”

“You could tell him your sad stories about your father.”

Dahl flushed. “Khochen, enough. I don’t need-”

But the words evaporated out of his mouth, stolen by the sight of a ghost, standing thirty feet before him, in the middle of the Harpers’ inn.