Elminster's Daughter

Cormyrean hands clapped dagger-hilts, tightened, and . . . fell away u

Wondering, Caladnei closed her hand around the delicate chain. The Old Mage bent his head and bestowed a fatherly kiss on the top of hers.

Then her arms were empty and she was staggering forward off-balance across a turret room that held no Elminster of Shad-owdale. Caladnei looked around wildly and beheld only the four guards, staring at her.

She gave them a rueful half-smile like a child caught doing something naughty, and the guards drew themselves to attention and saluted. The eldest said politely, "Lady Mage, we've been requested to inform you that the Lady Laspeera, the High-knight Rhauligan, and a captive await you in the Dragonwing Chamber."

Caladnei drew herself up, suddenly every inch the brisk Mage Royal they knew so well, and snapped, "I thank you." She smiled like a young lass again, bent over and drew off her right boot, and clasped the chain around her ankle.

"Looks good," a guard said gruffly—then turned as swift as any whiplash to face away from her, at stiff attention. His fellows sprang to join him in the maneuver, so when Caladnei straightened, she'd have no idea which one of them had spoken.

She gri

The guards saluted her in silent unison and went back to guarding the open door.

* * * * *

Roablar of Lantan sat back and sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose where his glasses pinched—then rubbing the eyes behind them for good measure.

The everpresent hovering monk bent over the merchant. "Is there anything you're not finding, goodsir?"

"Ah," Thaerabho murmured, to the Keeper of that particular reading-room in Candlekeep. "It begins. Tis time for an unmasking."

Silent in his soft slippers, he started to move purposefully toward the seated Lanta

"You can see what I'm seeking," the disguised Lady Noumea Cardellith told her escort.

The tall, pockmarked monk ran a hand through his unruly, strawlike hair, bent closer, and replied in a low voice, "All you can about the Red Wizards of Thay, in particular recent writings. If you've come to Candlekeep in search of their spells, I fear you've wasted your journey. We keep those secure for very good reasons."

Without regarding them, Noumea was well aware that several monks were silently drawing in around her. She smiled thinly.

"No, Esmer. What would a merchant of Lantan want with spells? I live and die by trade, and 'tis this new policy of establishing Thayan trade enclaves and who in the Thayan hierarchy is behind it that I seek to learn all about."

"I realize this is overbold, and you must feel perfectly comfortable in refusing to answer," an unfamiliar monk murmured from her other side, "but why?"

Noumea looked up and gave him a smile.

"If we're being so blunt: I suspect this is but the first step in an elaborate plan to economically and then—covertly—politically dominate all realms of Faerun."

"Of course," two of the monks said together, and at least another three in the ring that had silently formed around her nodded.

"Wherefore my fascination with recent reports and writings," Noumea added, indicating the sheafs of parchment and stacked volumes on the slightly sloped reading-desk before her.

"I sense you're both well-traveled and worldly," a monk said from directly behind her. "Permit me, then, to mention something not to be found in these written records but only in the diaries we compile of the news and rumor that comes daily to our gates."

"Please do," Noumea said politely, shifting slightly and indicating the bench beside her. The monks smiled as if she'd passed some sort of test, and the monk who'd spoken from behind her stepped forward and sat down so close beside her that his robe almost brushed her hip. A white, puckered old sword-scar adorned one of his cheeks diagonally, and his hair was as gray as a sword in need of polishing.

"I'm Thaerabho," he said with a smile, "and my field is the doings of those who wield magic in Faerun outside temples and priesthoods. You've heard of the Chosen of Mystra?"

Noumea nodded eagerly, and Thaerabho's smile broadened.

"Then let me share this much: Some among them have been working against the Red Wizards in a lovely ma

"Sweet Mystra," Noumea whispered, genuinely awed.

Thaerabho nodded. "If the Thayans ever grow too strong in a particular place, if I may speak cynically, the portal in that spot—or all of them, along with, of course, whoever's using them at the time—could explode. Or perhaps a suggestion planted in the heads of all mages who've ever used one of the Thayan portals could be awakened, all at once, all over Faerun ... a suggestion, say, to rush to a particular Thayan city and attack Szass Tarn or some other zulkir there, before he accomplishes some dread goal that will sacrifice them."

Noumea shook her head and asked softly, "What if I am of Thay or of the Chosen and want no one in Faerun to suspect any of this?"

The monk whose nose was almost brushing her own replied, "No, Lady Noumea Cardellith, you are of neither—and are not a Harper, either. You're but a seeker after knowledge, and we arm all who come here with the weapons of fact and lore and reason-sorted rumor. What they do with such tools after they depart is not our affair. We but seek to arm those wise—or cu

"Who are you?" a shaken Noumea whispered.

The ring of monks smiled.

"Simple folk of Faerun who love old books, and learning, and reading the thoughts and hopes and records of beings now dust," Esmer replied.

Noumea looked around at them all and shook her head. "I think you're among the most powerful and dangerous forces on all Toril."

The monks stopped smiling.

"That, too," Thaerabho agreed lightly. "Knowing that, what will you do now, Lady Noumea Cardellith, sometime mage and unhappy wife?" More monks were in the reading-room now, drifting toward her from all sides.

Noumea stared at him for a long time, ignoring the silent assembly of monks and the rods some of them held ready then lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "I ... don't know."

The ring-wall of monks seemed to relax, and a few drifted away again. Thaerabho's smile returned.

"Ah, the truth. The right answer to give us, always."

Noumea stared into his hazel eyes for a long time then drew in a deep breath and asked, "What do you think I should do?"

"Ah," the sword-scarred monk responded eagerly, as several of the closest monks drew in around her again, reaching in under the great reading-desk to unclip folded wooden stools from its underside, and sitting down on them. "Now you've done the next right thing. We'll not tell you what to do next. We never do. We shall, however, tell you all we can to help you decide where to go from here in life."

Lady Noumea blinked at him. "Why didn't I come here years ago?"

"Why indeed?"

* * * * *

As the guards swung the great doors open for her, the Mage Royal of Cormyr looked in and up at the carved stone dragons frozen forever in the act of erupting from the ceiling of the room ahead of her. The scene was as magnificent as always, all scales, surging strength, and great sweeping curves of wings, catlike and serpentine both at once.