Elminster's Daughter Read online

  The winter had been hard. If it hadn’t been for chimneys like this one, the cold would have taken her before the first snows—and one had to fight for the warmest rooftop spots in Waterdeep.

  As it was, Narnra spent much time hungry these days. Hungry and angry. Fear was with her at every waking moment, keeping her glancing behind her and knowing it was largely in vain. She could not help but be uncomfortably aware of how skilled other thieves in this city were … to say nothing of the Watch and the Watchful Order and the Masked Lords alone knew how many powerful wizards. She was a match for none of them and not even a laughable challenge to most.

  To come to their notice—save as a passing amusement—would be to die.

  So here she crouched, desperate for coins to buy food for her belly and all too apt, these days, to fall into rages.

  Rage is something a thief who expects to live to see the dawn can ill afford.

  She sighed soundlessly. Oh, she was lithe and acrobatic enough to prowl the rooftops, but not comely enough to seek the warm and easier coin—hers if she could dance unclad inside festhalls. No, she was just one more lonely outlander scrambling to make a dishonest living on the streets of Waterdeep. Scrambling because she lacked the weapons of a noble name or a shop of her own to make forging a dishonest living comparatively easy.

  Scowling, Narnra drew forth the purse she’d snatched earlier in that street fight in Dock Ward. A gang of thieves, that must have been, to set upon two merchants that way, and she’d raced in and plucked their prize, so they’d be looking for her.…

  All for three gold coins—mismatched, from as many cities, but all heavy and true metal—six silvers, four coppers, and a claim-token to a lockbox somewhere in Faerûn that she knew not. Well, they would have to serve her.

  From inside the top of her boot she drew a larger yet lighter purse, drew open its throat-thong with two fingers, checked that the cloak was laid beside her in just the right position, and shifted herself a fingerlength closer to the edge of the roof, ducking low.

  So far as she could tell, the moneylender had no more guards left. He was wearing some sort of daggerclaw, shielded from idle eyes by a cloak he was carrying draped over that arm, but he moved like a man wary and alone. He’d hastened through Lathin’s Cut to reach the High Road, and there waited in the first deep doorway for a Watch patrol to pass, and fallen in close behind it. He looked like any respectable merchant caught in the wrong part of the city late at night and trying to wend his way safely home.

  If he was going to avoid the scrutiny of the standing Watchpost ahead, where the great roads met, he would have to turn aside just below her, in only a few paces more. His gaze flicked upward, and Narnra held her breath and kept very still, hoping she looked like a rooftop gargoyle. Caethur strode on, slowing and stepping wide so as to look around the corner, then drawing in toward it, to duck around close to the wall.

  Delicately, the Silken Shadow spilled her paltry handful coins down from above, to flash before his nose and bounce and roll. The moneylender froze rather than darting into a wild run back and away, peered at a rolling gold coin, and—looked up.

  To meet the handful of sand from her larger purse, followed by a shadow that leaped down at him with spread hands clutching the cloak in front of her like a streaming shield.

  Caethur the moneylender had time to gape but no breath for a shout ere she slammed into him, smashing him to the street. She felt something in him break and crumple as she rode him mercilessly, their bodies bouncing on the cobbles together. By then she had the cloak tight around his head, one knee atop the arm that bore the claw, and a hand free to backhand him across the throat, as hard as she could.

  That quelled the dazed beginnings of his groans and left him sprawled and limp. Narnra cut his well-worn belt with a slash from her best knife, snatched away the belt-satchel—heavy with deeds, coins, and coffers—and was up and gone, leaving her sacrificed coins and stolen cloak behind.

  Yet swift as she was, she was not quite swift enough. There was a shout from up the street and the flash and flicker of Watch torches turning.

  Grimly the Silken Shadow sprinted for her life, seeking the shop just ahead that had an outside staircase.

  You’d think I’d be somewhere grander than this, she thought savagely for perhaps the ten thousand and forty-sixth time, if my father truly was a great wizard and my mother a dragon. Where’s my high station, my wealth, and my power? Why can’t I hurl spells or turn into a dragon?

  * * * * *

  The old cook whirled around. “Hah! Caught ye! Boy, d’ye still want to have yer hire here, come dawn?”

  The greasy kitchen lad froze, a basket of discarded cuttings and rotten leavings clutched to his stained apron, and gave Phaerorn a look of utter astonishment. “Hey?”

  The cook stumped forward on his wooden leg, hefting his well-used cleaver in one stubby-fingered, hairy hand, and asked softly, “And now ye give me ‘hey,’ do ye? Fond of your nose, are ye?”

  The rising cleaver gleamed menacingly, and Naviskurr realized the depths of his error. “Ah, no, Master Phaerorn, sir—ah, that is, yes, I am, but I meant no harm, truly, and—and—”

  As the old cook advanced, the boy’s voice rose in a terrified squeak as that shining steel rose coldly to touch his nose, “—and before all the gods I swear I know not what I’ve done to offend what’d I do wrong sorry sorry what lord?”

  “Huh,” Phaerorn said in disgust. “This is the spine they send me, these days. This is the eloquence of the young who’ll shine so bright an’ save us all.”

  He turned away—then spun so swiftly and smoothly that Naviskurr shrieked, pointed with his cleaver at the three baskets the lad had already set down, and growled, “How many times have I told ye nothing is to be set against that door, lad? Nothing!”

  Naviskurr looked, blinked, set down the fourth basket where he stood, and hastily went to shift the three offending ones, grumbling, “Sorry, Master Phaerorn, sir … but ’tis no more than an old door. We never open it, never use it …”

  He dragged the baskets aside and straightened with a grunt to regard the nail-studded old door here in the dingiest corner of the Rain Bird Rooming House kitchens. Peeling blue paint on rough, wide planks, adorned with an admittedly impressive relief carving: a long, flowing face of a beak-nosed, bearded man that Naviskurr had privately dubbed “The Stunned Old Wizard.”

  Naviskurr scowled at its perpetual sly smile. “So why must we keep everything clear of it, anyway?”

  The carving flickered, glowing with a light that had never been there before—and even before the scullery knave could stagger back or cry the fear kindling in him, the face seemed to thrust forward, out of the door!

  It was attached, Naviskurr saw as he gulped and scrambled away, waving vainly at Master Phaerorn, to a swift-striding man—a hawk-nosed, bearded, long-haired old man in none-too-clean robes. The man flowed out of the closed door, leaving it carving-adorned and unchanged in his wake.

  Merry blue-gray eyes darted a glance at the gaping kitchen lad from under dark brows and gave him a wink ere turning to favor old Phaerorn with a nod, a wave, and the words, “Thy son’s working out just fine in Suzail, Forn, and looking likely to be wedded by full spring, if he’s not careful!”

  The old cook’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened with delight—and the briskly walking visitor was gone, a curved pipe floating along in his wake like some sort of patient snake.

  “Wha—wha—who …” Naviskurr gabbled.

  Master Phaerorn folded his arms across his chest, gave his scullery knave a wide grin, and said triumphantly, “That’s why we keep that door clear, lad. Yer Mystra-loving, world-blasting archmages don’t look kindly to stepping knee-deep in kitchen slops, look ye!”

  “Uh …” Naviskurr blinked, swallowed, and asked weakly, “Mystra? Archmage? Who was he?”

  “Just an old friend of mine,” Phaerorn said briskly, turning back to his sizzling spits. “No one ye’d know. His name’s El
minster.”

  With a chuckle he turned the roasts, waiting for the storm of questions to come.

  Instead, to his ears came a soft, rather wet thump. After stirring thickening gravy and licking the steaming wooden spoon consideringly, Phaerorn turned to see just how the lazy lad had made such a sound—and discovered Naviskurr sprawled across all four baskets of slops. His least promising scullion yet was staring sightlessly at the skillet-bedecked rafters. He’d fainted.

  Phaerorn sighed and flicked his spoon at the lad. Perhaps a few drops of hot gravy would revive him. Or perhaps not. Ah, the mighty valor of the young.…

  * * * * *

  Her mother’s apprentices had been lying to her, of course. They must have been. Yet they’d been angry and taunting her, not watching their words … and they’d acted later as if they shouldn’t have told her what they had. One had tried to make her think they’d been drunk and uttered nonsense, but the others had tried to use drink on her to find out exactly what they’d said and she’d remembered.

  Crouching on a rotten and unsuitable rooftop that would send tiles clattering down right in front of the Watch if she dared to move, Narnra thought up some furious curses at the scudding moon.

  She’d been over these memories more times than she could count and knew—knew—that Goraun and the other apprentice gemcutters had been telling the truth, or thought they were. It had taken her a year of careful probing to make sure they literally meant Maerjanthra Shalace the sorceress, better known to all Waterdeep as Lady Maerjanthra of the Gems, jeweler to the nobility, was a dragon with scales and wings and not merely the sort of “dragon” that meant a bad-tempered, powerful woman who was to be feared.

  Which powerful wizard? They’d never told her that.

  “Three gold,” came a voice from below as another Watch officer joined the others peering about the alley. The two who were halfway up the stair that led to Narnra turned at something in his voice and asked gruffly, “So?”

  “Well, so he was lured, right enough. But our victim’s Caethur the moneylender.”

  There was a general growl of disgust. “Pity the thief didn’t slay him,” one of the others said. “Or did he?”

  “Oh, he’ll live, though it might be long years, if ever, before he has much of a voice again. But unless Clutchcoins knows who did him—and will tell us—I think Waterdeep’s best served if we—”

  “Exactly,” an older, deeper voice agreed. “I’m sure there’s something that needs our urgent attention going on over River Gate way, about now. Help Caethur to the Watchpost, and see if he feels like making us all wiser. I’ll be deeply unsurprised if he does not.”

  * * * * *

  The bearded old man ignored the grand entry stair and its flanking stone pillars, striding instead up a flight of steps set into the mossy side of a rock garden that rose to the right of the sprawling stone magnificence of Mirt’s Mansion. Through a bower of dappled moonlight he moved unchallenged to a small stone arch bridge that joined the rising shoulder of Mount Waterdeep that held the moneylender’s gardens to an upper balcony of Mirt’s fortified house.

  Halfway across that span the air seemed to sparkle, and he was suddenly facing a silent woman in a clinging, flowing gown … a gown of pale moonglow, to match the tatters streaming across the sky overhead.

  Elminster smiled and bowed his head in greeting. “Fair even, Ieiridauna. Are Mirt and Asper at home?”

  Smiling silently, the watchghost nodded and stretched one long and shapely arm back to point at the door behind her. Then she drifted forward tentatively to touch the Old Mage’s cheek with her other hand. Elminster took a slow step to meet her.

  The soft brush of her fingertips chilled him deeply as it stole a little life-force, but Elminster turned his head to kiss those icy fingers, then clasped Ieiridauna gently against him.

  Her breath was like a icy thread of glacier-wind, and her shoulders and breast seem to grow more solid the longer he embraced her, but suddenly his encircling arm was empty, and the watch-ghost was past him, weepingly softly and saying into his ear, “Too kind, great lord, too kind! You must not give me too much.”

  Elminster turned and said softly, “Lady, ’tis my hope that you abide in Faerûn for at least an age to come, to bear witness and whisper wisdom—and the life is mine to give.”

  The watchghost shook her head and knelt to him, her head and shoulders silvery-solid but the rest of her mere shiftings in the night air. “You do me too much honor, Lord Chosen.”

  Elminster chuckled. “Ah, ye’ll have me blushing yet, lass!” He struck a mock-heroic pose, pulled a face at her, then winked, waved, and went to the door. Ieiridauna’s gentle sobs followed him.

  The plain dark door opened before his hand could touch it, and a bristle-moustached face peered out of deeper darkness at him. “Seducing my watchghost again, El? Is there no end to your lecherousness?”

  Elminster spread serene hands. “ ’Twould seem not, Lord Walrus. Nor my meddlesome curiosity, when it comes to the affairs of others—such as the overly rich of Waterdeep.”

  Mirt grunted and beckoned him inside. “This had better be good—ye interrupted us in the midst of Asper dancing.”

  “Ah!” Elminster said quickly, as they stepped between two motionless helmed horrors, into a lamplit bedchamber dominated by a massive many-pillared bed. “Pray continue!”

  Mirt’s lady love unfolded herself from a seemingly impossible pose. She’d been balanced on her shoulders on the bed, head looking back down its length as her legs arched over her to clutch a gem between her toes and dangle it in front of her own nose. She tucked her legs back in one graceful movement, tossing the gem upward in a sparkling of reflected glows, caught it deftly, and said firmly, “Later. I’ll hear fewer lewd comments this way. What befalls?”

  “Ye’ll pull something, doing that,” the Old Mage commented, watching Asper flip herself forward and to one side in a deft, sinuous movement to end up reclining along the edge of the bed facing him.

  She twinkled a fond smile at him. “Indeed: the undivided attention of a moneylender and a Chosen of Mystra. Drink some of yon wine and speak.”

  Elminster raised his eyebrows, held out his hand, and a decanter lifted itself from a forest of its fellows atop a tall, ornately carved greatchest and drifted into his grasp.

  “No wonder mages are such drunkards,” Mirt muttered. “Why, if I could do that …”

  “You’d never have to get out of bed at all,” Asper murmured sweetly. “El?”

  “I come from Cormyr,” the Old Mage replied, uncorking and sniffing appraisingly at the mouth of the bottle. “Where coins in profusion enough that they’d best be described as ‘huge heaps of wealth’ are being spent on a secretive campaign to overthrow the Obarskyrs and put a new king on Cormyr’s throne.”

  “So what else is new?” Mirt grunted. “Our so-called nobles spend in like manner here, seeking to learn who each hidden Lord is, so they can have us murdered and bribe those who’re left to choose them to step into our shoes. They never seem to reflect that they’ll be setting themselves up to be murdered in turn, but then nobles are rarely swift-witted enough to get dressed without help.” He held out his hand. “Are ye going to drink that or just pose with it?”

  Elminster swigged, sighed appreciatively, said, “Nice fire, that!” and handed the old moneylender the bottle. “Well,” he continued, strolling to the bed to pluck up the palm-sized gem from Asper’s fingers and idly stroke one of her long, slender legs with it, “These coins are coming from deep pockets somewhere here in Waterdeep. Whose, I know not—nor even to whom precisely they roll when they reach the Forest Kingdom, but I abide in hope that ye …”

  Asper smiled. “Will find out for you, lord? Of course.”

  Mirt grunted agreement and passed the bottle back to Elminster.

  It was almost empty, of course.

  * * * * *

  Tirelessly, the tattered clouds chased each other across the sky, so many silver wraith
s fleeing a deeper darkness. From the battlements and windows and guardposts atop Mount Waterdeep, watching men shivered and looked away. Breath curling like gusting frost in the chill night air, each reflected some melancholy variation on the thought that there’d be nights like this long after he was dead, just as there had been nights like this long before his birthing.

  Unwarmed by such cheery thinking, each man clutched his cloak or nightrobe tighter around himself, shook his head, and tried to call to mind more pleasant things.

  * * * * *

  Elminster lifted his head to regard the rushing, ragged clouds. So many flames of silver in the moonlight in a silent, raging hurry to be elsewhere.

  “On a moonfleet night like this,” he murmured, “anything can happen—and all too often does.”

  He ducked through a narrow, noisome arch into the dung and refuse choked run of an alley.

  A dead-end alley. The shadow overhead frowned at that and stole forward over a shallow roof-peak like creeping smoke.

  Those cursed merchants had come light-coined to their fateful meeting, all of them. Oh, the satchel she’d cached where none but her would ever find it was full of bright gems and deeds that made her the owner of three buildings—in Castle Ward, yet!—but her lure-coins were gone, and she’d only three coppers left between her and starvation. And now this muttering old man comes blundering along right under her best hiding-place …

  He didn’t look the sort to carry much coin—but then, she didn’t need much. A handful of gold to replace what she’d lost, but a handful now.

  Across soft moss on old silver-worn wood shingles, Narnra crept to the ruins of an old bell-spire that perched above the midpoint of the alley, just as the old man passed below.…

  She had neither coins nor cloak, but he didn’t look like much. Only fools and drunkards walked weaponless by night in these alleys. Another handful of sand, a good kick when she came down on him, then away while he was still groaning.

  Across the next rooftop she went, almost to the end of the alley now. In a moment he’d see there was no way out and curse and turn. Narnra dug out a handful of sand, checked the blackened blade in the sheath at her wrist, leaned over the edge of the roof, and gasped, “Oh, yes!”