Elminster's Daughter

Miraculously, the two mages didn't notice the rock-still thief crouched on her fingertips. Narnra let out a long, slow breath as quietly as she could, gathered in air, and sprang forward and over the balcony rail.

Vangerdahast's secret was out. Spellbound dragons to guard Cormyr! So she'd found Duskwinter, and that jovial trim-bearded one in the bath earlier had been Bathtar Flamegallow—more interested in floating carved little wooden ships than anything else, that one, but his jokes had certainly been amusing. Calaethe Hallowthorn was out near some place called Jester's Green—and was being out and about in the countryside suspicious? She knew too little about these War Wizards to judge—but the other woman she was to watch over, Iymeera Juthbuck, was a bit of a wildcat when it came to strong adventurers, if the rather catty War Wizard gossip could be believed—and what did the Harpers think of all this, anyway? Had Rhauligan told any of them?

Ah, this was the place. Dark My Harp Yet Flaming. Gods, what a name!

Narnra paused on a rooftop, peering down at the old, ramshackle club. It had once been a grand mansion, by the looks of it, before later owners had grown it wooden side-wings in all directions. Well, at least no din of bad minstrelry was clawing her ears from this distance, at least.

With a shock she realized that no less than three sentinels were watching her—one from a tiny moon-window in the club roof and the others from different buildings on either side of her.

To her relief, the one on the nearest building gave her a curt nod as their eyes met. She responded with a grave wave of her hand and proceeded down to the street to enter the club openly. If she'd been seen anyway, it'd be best not to risk any bowfire.

The wig she'd "borrowed" through an open window a few frantic hours back was slipping again, but she needn't have bothered with any attempt at stealth. Dark My Harp Yet Flaming was dimly lit, crowded, casually cozy, and—no music, thankfully—a-bubble with talk of nothing else but Vangerdahast's plan.

"Gods, man, we'll be crotch-deep in slinking and grandly mysterious mages with fireballs up both their unwashed sleeves the moment word of Vangey's grand plan gets about!" one man with a lute strapped across his back and daggers sheathed everywhere else all over his well-worn leathers growled, slamming down a tankard as big as Narnra's head. "All sorts of mages'll want his spells and kill to get them! Who controls the most dragons, and first, will be able to settle a lot of old scores before the rest of us can unite to try—and I say try—to rescue all the Realms from him!"

"What if a dragon gets those spells and builds himself into a new Dragon King?" a shortish man with a wildly bristling mustache responded. "That's what I want to know!"

Narnra listened to this and similar loudly enthusiastic speculations as she drifted through the club, playing the old game of feigning looking for someone she knew.

When she recognized two of the Harpers who'd been part of that grim line down in the cellars when Mystra herself had been awing the squitters out of everyone, she sidled in their direction. They headed grimly up a flight of stairs, listening to the chatter and exchanging sour glances about it as they went.

Narnra walked away from the stair, around a corner, and raced up another staircase she'd spotted earlier. The floor above would have a linking passage, she was sure, and if not. . .

The creature at the top of the stair was the largest, ugliest half-ore she'd ever seen—all pimples and open, weeping sores and yellow, roughly broken-off tusks. Steady eyes that held promises of both humor and casually swift death peered down at her as one claw-like hand drew aside a fold of cloak to reveal the first six-bolt-at-once handbow Narnra had ever gazed upon.

The glittering-headed bolts looked very sharp, and they were all trained on her. Lips drew back from the great reeking mouth above them to mutter, "And on your deathbed, little rat, you will—?"

Narnra swallowed, drew in a deep breath, and managed to say the word "Harp" confidently enough that it didn't—quite—seem like a guess.

The cloak drew back over the bow, the head nodded grudgingly, and with astonishing speed that mountain of flesh drew aside to let her reach the head of the stair and pass.

She gave the—the thing—an expressionless nod as she did so and strode down the passage confronting her as if she knew quite well where she was going.

A door was open halfway along it, and a voice from just inside was saying, "I care not. Let every sneak-thief and fat merchant in all Suzail hear us debate, Sareene! I want them all aware and alert and mindful of the danger we all face—because we all face it, no matter who or where we are!"

"Naetheless, Brammagar, you're proposing a very dangerous double game!"

"What choice have we?"

The backs of the two men standing just inside the door looked very familiar, so Narnra dared not ask what Brammagar's proposal had been. Thankfully, someone else did it for her.

"I dare not leave Dragondusk right at this moment," said a strangely remote, echoing voice, "and my magic was not working in time to hear Brammagar speak. What proposal, please?"

"That We Who Harp protect Vangerdahast by lying in wait for all mages, so as to have a chance at taking them down as they arrive to attack Vangey . . . then, when the time's just right, we turn around and ruin the old wizard's spell-work, to make sure he never manages to bind a dragon by any new, more powerful magical means."

"And who among us gets to decide which mages we slay and which we let live? You're tossing maggots into all our soup, I say!"

"Kill as many as we can, regardless, and give some shred of power in Faerun back to all of us who aren't spellslingers!" someone else grunted, and a burst of argumentative voices began.

Narnra went on down the passage to the other stair as swiftly as she quietly could. Traitor-wizards would have to wait. She had to get to Caladnei in all haste. This must be reported to the Mage Royal without delay!

Harnrim Starangh smiled down at the lithe figure in leathers as his careful casting came to an end—and the building looming beside the rooftop she'd just landed on started to topple.

No matter how swiftly she leaped, she couldn't hope to avoid its thundering, crushing flood of stones. They'd bury the entire roof and probably smash flat the building beneath it ...

The rolling crash shook his own perch, here atop one of newer and loftier buildings in Suzail. The dust rolled up ... and with a groan like a dying dragon, the building the thief had been trotting across collapsed under its load of fallen stone, to the accompaniment of a few fresh screams.

Yes. Exit Narnra Shalace, and enter—her impostor.

Trying to bargain for the life of his daughter with Elminster and all the Chosen the Old Mage could call on was sheer foolishness . . . to say nothing of what such an ... ah, active captive might do on her own, whilst he was busy bargaining . . . but being Elminster's daughter himself, now—yes! Even if the Old Mage caught up to him, the old goat could be warned away from mind-thrusts and meddlings by claiming Mystra's protection.

Yes. Risky, but everything to do with magic held risk. And if a certain Darkspells could stay ahead of the Old Mage of Shadowdale and snatch War Wizard magic by being Caladnei's little agent on the one hand and Elminster's daughter on the other, he could gain much ere it became necessary for Narnra to forever disappear.

The Red Wizard smiled thinly and waved his hand. The air beside him obediently wavered into an image of the Waterdhavian thief he'd just slain.

He studied it carefully, peering and crouching to do so, before begi