Elminster's Daughter

One such challenged Narnra with a shout, gliding to intercept her with his blade held ready, but she snarled, "Caladnei sent me! Out of my way!" and he put up his steel to let her run past.

There was little dock left to her, and several Harpers watching. She had to enter one of the darkened archways. These must lead into cargo-rooms, and what urgent business could she have there? No, it must be back to the cellars she headed. Not only did she not like the look of the stinking harbor-water at all, but with so many crossbows and hurlers-of-lightning about, that way would be almost sure death. That stair to the cellars was directly in line with the bridge that was no more, so despite the fact that no water seemed to have splashed hereabouts, this archway would be the right one. . . .

"Hah! Another rat scurrying back to the bolt-hole!"

More than a dozen men were crowded around the stair-head, conferring—and two of them already had blades almost into her.

Narnra spun aside rather than slowing. "Caladnei's orders!" she snapped, trying for her Waterdhavian matriarch's voice. "Out of my way!"

"Armeld?" one of the men moving smoothly to bar her path called, over his shoulder.

"She was talking with the Mage Royal. Let her past, and go with her—just you two. See where she goes, what she does." Armeld turned back to the men who'd been reporting to him, and as she hurried down the stairs with her unwelcome escort hard on her heels, their voices resumed. "Dozens of nasty little stabbings and drownings—scores settled, I'd judge—a lot of sex and drunke

"Any more wizards now that Lightning-Dolt's dead?"

"There should be, but. . ."

Someone cursed in the darkness below—lamps were noticeably fewer, now—and the rushing Narnra was out of earshot of the stair-head by the time those oaths—and the skirl of steel and choked-off groan that swiftly followed—had died away.

"—got clean away!" someone said suddenly, almost in Narnra's ear, as she skidded around a corner and raced toward the next flight of descending steps. "Ho!"

"Stop her!" another voice snapped. There was a heavy crash as someone stepped into the path of the two Harpers racing after her. Men bounced and rolled down the steps in a heavily thudding, cursing, and ultimately groaning bundle in her wake. Narnra dared not look to see what had befallen, but as she turned at the next landing she got a momentary glimpse of what looked like the lamplit silhouette of a man leaping over tumbling bodies on the stairs to keep after her.

She slipped in something sticky—probably blood—and almost went into a tumble herself. Slamming into the wall instead with force enough to drive away her breath, she skidded painfully along it to a gasping halt and felt for the stone rail she could not see. All was in darkness, here, though she could see the glimmer of torches bobbing somewhere far below.

"Well," a man's voice came nastily out of the nearby darkness just below her, "if they got aboard that skiff, they're at the bottom of one of Marsember's fabled fetid canals right now. That was the one—"

"Hold!" another man snapped. "I thought that was a corpse rolling down the stairs, but someone's panting—and so, yet lives."

"Touch left," the first voice muttered, and—as she crouched low, mastering her balance for a desperate spring—Narnra heard stealthy movements.

Light flared, below her: a soft blue magical glow arising from the pommel of a dagger held out over the center of the steps at full arm's-length by someone in dark leathers who was crowded against the wall to Narnra's left. Someone else was crouched right ahead of her against the right wall.

"A lass!" the one on the left said, sounding startled.

"In a mask" the other responded, in tones that made it sound like mask-wearing was the most dire crime possible in Cormyr.

"We're on the same side," Narnra snapped, sounding very much like an irritated Waterdhavian noble matriarch. "I was hurrying down here on Caladnei's orders when I slipped on these damned stairs."

"Why the mask?"

"My face is no longer very attractive, sir," she said, making her voice sound bitter. "One price of my loyal service."

"Oh. I see. Ah . . . sorry. Have you no lamp?"

"None, nor permission to use it. My orders are otherwise."

"Armeld, that'd be," the other man said disgustedly. "Always fancies himself battle-lord riding into doom-glory." He moved aside. "Pass, lady—but use the rail; it runs right through the next landing, at least. Damned luxurious warehouses these Marsemban nobles built themselves, I must say. Makes you wonder what sort of goods they stored here, eh?"

"Yes, it does. My thanks, sirs," the Silken Shadow replied cautiously and hastened past, using the rail.

* * * * *

"No, Thauvas, that's not the way," Nameless Cormaeril said pleasantly, the tip of his sword already—but only just—through the skin that had until now covered the place where the Red Wizard's throat joined the back of his jaw. "Why must you Thay-ans always make things so complicated? Business, all business, remember? Let me put it again, simply: I ask a few questions, and you give me a few honest answers—something you're unaccustomed to, I know, but it doesn't hurt much once you get into the habit. A little truth spills, I let you go free, and you'll have plenty of time thereafter to plot my doom . . . simple, no?"

"Idiot noble," the Red Wizard hissed, his sweating face as pale as a bleached skull. "Do you know what risk you place upon fair Cormyr by this overbold action? Or how terribly you doom yourself?"

The tall, scarred man at the other end of the grand rapier smiled. "Yes," he told Thauvas sweetly.

Behind his back, the Red Wizard finally completed the intricate gesture he'd been tracing. "Sssardamar!" he said triumphantly— and twisted away from the sharp swordpoint, shouting, "Die, fool! To dare to threaten a mage of Thay so! Down-country dog!"

Magic flared up around the man who'd called himself Khorna-dar of Westgate with a roar, hungry flames that thrust out at the raven-haired noble.

Who did not scream and shrivel and die but instead lost sword and dark hair and clean-shaven chin to stand smiling through the flames as a hawk-nosed, white-bearded man with busy brows, stained old robes—and even brighter fire in his hands.

"Ah, but it seems fools dare just about anything, these days, doesn't it?" he asked merrily. "Do ye know me now, Thauvas Zlorn? Do they still, in Thay—amidst all their swaggering and gleeful counting of as-yet-unhatched chickens, as they scheme to rule all Toril a dozen times over—mention the name 'Elminster' from time to time? Just to warn young wizards of the natural perils of this world?"

Blood trickled down Zlorn's throat as magic that sliced through his own as if it were mere false conjurer's fancy-feathers lifted him into the air and held him dangling there. He swallowed, managed the nigh impossible feat of growing even more pale, and fainted.

"Mystra mine," Elminster murmured disgustedly, "but they let just about anything swagger out of Thay these days, don't they?"

* * * * *

It was dark at the bottom of the stairs. The only lights were lanterns and torches moving to and fro with grim bands of searchers—humans all, men and women who bore either blades, handbows, and silver harp pins, or wands and the vacant expressions of folk listening to conversations only they could hear, raging in their heads.

Narnra paused, not sure at first which way to go. She knew roughly what direction led to the archway—but without that wizard it was closed, and she'd probably not be able to even find its exact location. Moreover, with all the corpses and spilled blood down here, it would be a horrible thing to have all the searchers depart and leave her groping in utter darkness with the rats. Her best chance lay in somehow joining a band of searchers, being accepted as one of them, reaching the city beyond the broken bridge with them . . . and, she supposed, starting a new life. With nearly nothing in a strange realm where she'd already been marked as a possible traitor by a royal wizard.