Elminster's Daughter

Loneliness.

She'd been friendless and alone for far too long, Narnra against all the world ... a world that was to her an endless collection of dupes, unseen passing folk, the rich and powerful best avoided, a few sharks cruising as she was, and—authority. The Watch, the Guard, the Watchful Order, the Lords of Waterdeep: the folk who could slay and flog and imprison and maim with impunity.

Narnra hated, feared, and despised all authority. These three people all held it, Caladnei the most. How much of her fear and defiance was rooted in her own hatred of authority? How—

Never mind. My choices are rough, and I've taken the best one. Mystra even smiled at me. I hope. Let's get this over with.

"Well," she a

None of the Cormyreans laughed. The two women both took a step toward her—and the Mage Royal stopped, obviously surprised by Laspeera's advance.

Laspeera kept on coming.

"Narnra," she said gently, "this will go best if you lie down. Right here, on the floor."

Narnra blinked at Laspeera then doubled up and sat. The War Wizard sank down with her as if she was some sort of delicate invalid. When she was lying on her back on the floor—staring up at that splendid ceiling again—Laspeera turned and called Caladnei over. Then she stood up and calmly undid her robe, hauled it off—revealing a gown-like underrobe of red satin—and rolled it.

Silently, she pointed Caladnei to the floor beside Narnra then slid her rolled-up robe under the backs of their heads.

"A pillow?" Narnra asked incredulously.

"Something to keep you both from splitting heads open on the hard floor," Laspeera replied rather severely, "if emotions surge. Now, hold hands and begin."

"Yes, Mother," Caladnei replied in a gently mocking voice. Narnra found herself smiling. The Mage Royal murmured a long, complicated rising and falling incantation, and . . . the dragons overhead went away.

Warm and dark, descending, the darkness around flashing with a bewildering whirl of half-glimpsed bright scenes, bursts of sound, surges of anger, amusement, even weariness . . .

[Narnra.]

[Narnra, hide not.]

Surge of energy, darkness going rubyshine, lights and noise coming fast . . . [Narnra Shalace!]

I'm here. What do you want of me? [Show me your mother.]

Raven-black hair and kind emerald eyes, bent over her in a face as white as bleached bone, cheekbones that made her look as exotic as she was beautiful, tender deft hands cradling her so firmly and yet gently. Maerj, the apprentices called her . . . Mother Maerj, comforting her in a dark room, her sniveling still loud around them. "There, there, my little one. Dreams can be bright as well as terrible. Like meals, some are good and some bad, but we need them all, just the same. . . ."

As always, Narnra found herself aching to reach out and clutch her mother's fingers, to cry her name, to speak her love and loneliness so Mother Maerj would hear and smile and tell it was all right, everything was all right.

[Of course. Come away, and see something of mine that will hurt less.]

Sudden raucous laughter, and thick smoke in a low-beamed, crowded, candlelit i

"What's this? Caladnei of the Scrolls, eh? You read scrolls for fees? What idiot can't read a scroll?"

"One who has a magic scroll, sir, but can't work spells," Ca-ladnei's young but firm voice said quietly, tight with the fear of coming trouble.

Three young, bristle-bearded, red-with-drink faces were leaning over her now, peering—and breathing the fumes of golden Sarthdew she hadn't coin enough for even a finger-flagon of, all over her.

"You a mage? Who'd you study with?"

"No one, sirs. I ... my spells come from within."

"Well, now. What say your parents about that?"

No lass restlessly chafing under the rule of parents and afire to see the wider world likes to be thought of as a child out on the sly, and Caladnei's voice was stiff as she replied, "My parents let me find myself and make my own dealings with Faerun. Do yours?"

There were snorts and roars and guffaws of mirth, and one of the men bawled, "I like you, lass! Want to ride with us?"

"Where is it you ride, sir, and for what?"

"Across all wide and splendid Faerun, Lady Caladnei—in search of adventure and lots of these!"

An eager hand un-throated a purse and spilled dozens of heavy gold coins across Caladnei's little table with a flourish, leaving her gaping at more money than she'd ever seen in her life before.

Some of the coins rolled, folk everywhere leaned to see—and a shorter man in the group, almost a boy by his looks, plucked up one rolling coin and tossed it idly with two fingers . . . right down the front of her dress.

There was another roar of laughter, and Caladnei knew her face was burning. The mirth spread around The Old Cracked Flagon, and she clenched her fists, wishing she were anywhere but here.

"Yours, lass," the first man roared. "Yours to keep—and plenty more like it if you come with us! We need more magic to back up our blades!"

"Oh, but . . ."

"Hold, now," the oldest face among the men looming above her table said quietly. "We'd best talk to her parents. I don't want to be hounded as a slaver, snatching young lasses . . ."

"Gods, Thloram, anyone can see we're not slavers! Nor lechers, neither—we've got Vonda for that!"

"Aye," a buxom woman whose lush curves were spilling out of a loosely laced bodice purred, sidling past the men to appraise Caladnei with an almost contemptuous eye. "And I can handle the lot of you! Don't worry, dear, I'll see that they're too weary to come pawing you. Oh, stop laughing, you hogs! Here, dear, take a handful of these coins, and pr'haps Marcon will stop leering at you quite so overeagerly!" She turned. "Stop pestering locals, you louts, or we'll have more trouble! She's barely old enough to—"

"I'm coming with you," Caladnei a

[Enough. Now . . . what's this? Something hidden, not just from me, but from yourself . . . something old. Let's see. . . .]

Cowering in her cot late on a dark night, as angry voices soar up the stairs. A man with a fluting, patrician accent—some noble on the city, she knows not who—is shouting at her mother.

Too far away to hear, too scared to slip out into the chill to hear better.

Her mother's replies, too faint to make out the words, but cold and angry and sharp-edged.

The voices building, louder and faster, slashing and snapping like crossed swords—then suddenly a mighty roar that shakes cot, room, stairs, and all. A startled shout amid its thunder and . . . silence.

No! No, I don't want to see this! I never wanted to see this again! It never happened! Never never NEVER!

[Easy, Narnra. See something else of mine, now. Something happier.]

Laughter and warm firelight, and Marcon pouring a river of gold coins down onto her body while Bertro and Thloram Flambaer-tyn grin and clink goblets with her, all of them bare and a-tangle amid the furs. Rimardo hooting with laughter across the room and springing from the top of an ornate wardrobe—newly purchased, every bit as fine in its carving as her father's best work and priced accordingly, too—onto an unseen Vonda, who shrieks with laughter and mock pain and slaps him energetically. Umbero intoning solemnly through the midst of all the merriment: "Truly Tymora smiles upon we of the Brightstar Sash! I make the count to be a full six thousand full-weight gold coins, not counting what you're playing with in here, and the odd ones!"