Elminster's Daughter - 05 by Ed Greenwood

Author:Ed Greenwood [Greenwood, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786961597
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2011-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

Twelve

DRAGONFIRE

Come storms, great waves, earth-cleaving, god-smiting lightnings, and dragonfire, Faerûn shall abide. Us smaller creatures on it? I’m not so sure.

The character Blind Nars

in Scene the Second

of the play Four Bloody Swords

by Corsour Hamadder of Waterdeep

first performed in the Year of the Nightmaidens

The torches were guttering out now, one by one, leaving the great soaring hall of Haelithtorntowers noticeably darker. Two long-frozen figures in leather moved in sudden unison, both drawing back cautiously from the balcony rail—and lifting their heads to regard each other.

Narnra Shalace did not give her pursuer her usual angry glare. Like Rhauligan, she knew unfolding treason and disaster when she heard it. This was the sort of softly menacing talk she was sure went on inside the spires of the wealthy and nobility of Waterdeep all the time—though she’d never been foolish enough to try to enter and lurk in such places, with their alarm-magics, wardings, and enthusiastic guards.

No wonder nobles didn’t want anyone close enough to hear what they were saying. Caethur the moneylender would have had to double-deal for years to reach the point of openly plotting ambitions like these.

She stared almost thoughtfully across the ring of emptiness at Rhauligan, knowing that she’d just gained one more reason to elude the Harper without being seen by others in this house. A very good reason.

Keeping herself alive at least a few nights longer.

* * * * *

It was a bright and breezy morning in Candlekeep. The sea-breeze blowing ashore could better have been called a strong wind. In front of the Lady Nouméa Cardellith, as she walked the last stretch of the Way of the Lion, the banners of a minor noble of Tethyr flapped and streamed in a constant fury. The rearguard of that personage—six riders in gleaming armor who rode with great spiked long-axes gripped in their gauntlets—were eyeing Nouméa narrowly, at least two of them always crossing to opposing sides of the noble party so as to keep full watch on her.

And no wonder. Through the wonders of magic Nouméa may have looked like a lone, bespectacled male merchant from Lantan, afoot and bearing only a leather carrysack slung over one shoulder—but she’d arrived out of nowhere, just suddenly there, in mid-step. And Tethyrian house guards who hadn’t seen teleport spells in use before had certainly heard of them—and knew well enough to be wary in the presence of what must be an accomplished wizard or sorcerer.

Or something worse.

Wherefore they turned to present Nouméa with a leveled row of glittering spike-points when the party reached Candlekeep proper and stopped to parley with the monks of the gate.

Nouméa came to a halt, nodded to them politely, and waited calmly enough. When it was her turn at the tall gates—spell-shrouded vertical bars as thick as her forearm, bearing the castle-and-flames device of Candlekeep and a guard of five purple-robed priests—she gave the expressionless monk who approached her a book from her sack and waited while he carefully stripped away its wrappings.

“The Life of the Sembian Woodworm,” he read aloud, his voice devoid of judgment.

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