Elminster's Daughter

[But enough of my good times. Let's see something of like excitement from you . . . yes.]

A warm summer night, all the roofs of Waterdeep flooded in full moonlight, and Narnra in her shift gazing out at it all from her high bedroom window. A ghost of a breeze from inland, warm and dry and banishing the smells of salt and dead fish. The stirring excitement of putting one leg over the windowsill—something forbidden, something daring. . . .

The roof-slates rough underfoot but reassuring and standing now right out under the moon and glorious vault of stars, only a few tiny clouds torn and tattered off to the north. Nothing between her soft skin and all the warm night but light, gauzy fabric. Boldly striding down the sloping roof to the edge to get a better view of great Waterdeep spread out before her and dark Faerun beyond. Looking idly over the edge, seeing that it was a long, killing way down to the garden but being utterly unafraid.

Suddenly, in the distance, across the silver vista of roofs, a lone dark figure darting and leaping—a thief? Someone hurrying on the rooftops. Heart suddenly in throat, Narnra looking around at the roofs nearby, that one so close ... a quick run in bare feet, a leap, the warm wind in her hair, and landing catlike with a gentle thump that might just have awakened a servant if the Maurlithkurs forced one to sleep in their attic. On across their larger, sagging roof—tiles starting to go in one place, sliding askew—to the one beyond and perching there amid on an unfamiliar dormer hidden from her own window by the peak of the roof.

Perching like a carved gargoyle or an owl looking for prey, long legs doubled up, feeling truly alive, and laughing at the excitement. Castle Waterdeep soaring just over there and the great dark shoulder of the mountain beyond, with the tiny winking lights of lanterns where guards were at their lofty posts, looking down on ... her.

Rush of fear, heart hammer-beating, laughter, springing aloft, and turning a cartwheel on a flat bit of roof ere landing to strike a wide-armed, defiant pose. "Yes! Here I am! Come and get me!"

Excitement like fire in her veins, leaping from roof to roof, and finally back home to her waiting sill and in—in to wash filthy feet so she'd not be caught come morning. Looking back at the window knowing a whole new world—her world—lay waiting now. every night she wanted it.

[Ah. See then my moment of bold venture.]

Dimmer moonlight and Thloram murmuring, "Easy, now. The rest of us have come this way before, and returned. 'Tis safe."

Caladnei's hand trembling with fear as she holds it out to him then turns to face the cold, steady blue fire that bides so impossibly between the two ancient stone pillars. Cracked and vine-covered, nothing like the splendor she'd envisaged: no glowing runes on gleaming metal nor sinister guardians . . .

The first portal she'd ever seen, and merely being this close to it left her wet and shaking in terror.

"Where's our Caladnei of the Scrolls?" Thloram murmurs.

From somewhere she finds just enough will to force out a laugh and stride forward into waiting blue fire, biting her own tongue in terror to keep from sobbing. . . .

[Now, d'you recall your first theft? Show me.]

The next summer, a night just as warm, Narnra better at tumbling, bolder now. Often perching gargoyle-like on gables and around corner-spires, watching folk of Waterdeep through their bedchamber windows—and learning much more than some young lasses do.

Brawls and drunken fights and hurried little deals in dark streets and alleys, a knifing or two, many snatch-and-run thefts . . . and this night, one such that leaves a fat merchant on his backside grunting in pain and a fleet-footed, desperate loader-of-wagons pelting down an alley, heavy purse in hand . . . turning right beneath Narnra's perch and racing up a rickety, groaning outside stair, gasping raggedly for breath, snatching out a hand to a door-catch—and freezing to peer in the narrow lit sliver of window, stand uncertainly for a moment with a whispered curse at someone recognized within, and strain up on tiptoe to perch the stolen purse up on the edge of the roof overhead. Going inside, door banging closed, to raised voices and Narnra so excited she thinks she's going to be sick.

Dare she? Watch-lanterns down below and armed men tramping, clouds blotting the moon . . . and like a night-viper, Narnra crawling chin-first down the steep roof, grazing the tiles with her body as she keeps low, Watch officers calling closer . . . down to where she can put her hand on the purse, heavy and excitingly solid. And draw it oh-so-slowly back and up to where she turns and steals away with it. Opening it on another rooftop a safe distance away, when a cloud rolls on to let the moon stab down and show her coins galore between her hands!

[But things have gone darker for us both, haven't they?]

Great batlike wings and loose brown scales bristling from a gigantic bulk, shoulders like shifting boulders as the wings spread in a banking glide down . . .

Down toward her, great jaws gaping wide, stinging tail lashing the air.

"Help! Help!" Bertro calling weakly, blinded by his own blood, Umbero sprawled senseless or dead over him.

Caladnei cursing just for something despairing to say as she starts to run right at the swooping wyvern with no spells left and only a broken sword in her hand, ru

[No, I'll spare you those deaths. Every bloodletting leaves a stain on those who see it. What of the death that overturned your world?]

No! No, damn you, mage! I don't WANT to—don't—

Her mother working late that last night, before the great blast that left her broken and burned amid the shattered shell of her front parlor. Magic killed her, of course, but whose? A wizard who hated her? No, someone hired to slay—but by the House of Arte-mel, or the Lathkules, or another?

Bresnoss Artemel himself had brought the tiara to her shop, ringed by eight bodyguards openly wearing Artemel livery. Its glory-rubies had been the size of Narnra's fist, even the smallest ones were as large as her thumb. They were to be recut and set in matched pairs into a navel-length pectoral.

Maerjanthra had pi

No! {furious turmoil, claw thrust shake} NO! I won't see this! I WON'T!

—Later, wandering alone and despairing across the pitiless rooftops, weeping and raging. The rubies gone from the shop before Narnra, flung out her windowsill by the heaving shuddering of the explosion, could even climb back inside to ... to ...

Get out of my head, Caladnei! Get back go away leave me!

On the rooftops months later, as that winter came stealing in with ever-colder breezes, still heartsick, still wondering: Had it been the Artemels, wanting to silence Lady Maerjanthra of the Gems so she could never reveal that the rubies had come to her in a tiara? Or the Lathkules, wanting to obliberate a long-time rival at gemcutting, perhaps thinking her the tiara-thief? Had an apprentice betrayed her mother, whispering to the Lathkules, or . . . ?