This seemed to anger the half-elf. "The gnome was your guardian. You owe him your life many times over. This is the regard you show him?"
The woman shrugged. "Have you never heard of the Mirrorshade Cipher?"
"You can tell me about it on the way." The half-elf took a step toward her.
Sophie shrunk back. "I'm not returning to the Friendly Arms. I won't!"
"You don't have to. I'm supposed to see you safely to Waterdeep."
She considered the gnome's warnings, and the words of the scarred mercenary. There was danger in Tethyr. Waterdeep would be safer, certainly, but would it be much of an improvement?
"And what awaits me there?" she said bitterly. "Another tavern, more years of working off my debt to you and your Harpers?"
Arilyn hissed out an impatient sigh. "You will be introduced into society as the daughter of Lady Lucia Thione. You will have possession of your mother's estate and fortune. And as long as you stay out of trouble, you need have nothing more to do with the Harpers. It's the best offer you're likely to get. I advise you to take it without further argument. There are limits to my patience."
Sophie stared up at the half-elf for a long moment, searching for any sign of deception. Arilyn's face spoke of distaste for the task, but determination to see her duty through. A smile began to dawn on Sophie's face. No. Isabeau's face.
She held out her hand and lifted her chin to an imperious angle. "Help me rise," she said haughtily.
This seemed to amuse the half-elf. She nodded approvingly. "Good idea. It'll take a lot of practice to make a noblewoman out of you. Might as well start now."
Isabeau rose to her feet unaided and brushed off her skirts with as much dignity as she could muster. "Let's be off," she ordered.
The half-elf shrugged and led the way into the trees, where a pair of horses waited. They rode in silence until the sun was high. Isabeau passed the time counting her new fortune, picturing herself living in splendor, thinking about the noblemen she would dazzle with her charm and beauty. She would start with the man who had ignored her the night before. He had scorned the offer of a tavern wench, but surely he would not resist Lady Isabeau Thione! Already her life at the Friendly Arms seemed a distant thing, a rapidly fading dream.
"Well, what is it?'
The words popped Isabeau's glittering fancy and jerked her rudely into the present moment. She focused with difficulty on the half-elf's face.
"The Mirrorshade Cipher," Arilyn prompted.
"The treasure worth keeping, the risk worth taking. Bentley Mirrorshade said those words often enough. He lived by them, and it's only fitting that he died of them."
"I'm not following," Arilyn said, in a tone that indicated she didn't expect to like the explanation.
"It's simple enough, wench." Ah, but it felt good to say such words, rather than to hear them! "I am Lady Isabeau Thione. I have title, wealth, a house of my own. A position in Waterdeep society. This is the treasure that Bentley kept from me. So great a treasure entails great risk. He took that risk, and the loss is his. It is right and fitting."
The half-elf studied her for a moment, then she shook her head. "You should do well in Waterdeep," she said coldly.
"I intend to," Isabeau said with a smile. "I intend to do very well indeed."
FIRE IS FIRE
3 °Ches, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)
What did you do when the Sea Devils attacked, Grandsire?
Oh, how I savored that question! I could hear it in my mind even as I ran toward the battle. The words were as real to me as the stench of smoke that writhed in the sky above the West Gate, and they rang as loudly in my mind's ear as the boom and crash of wooden beams giving way under wizard fire. No matter that the question would be many, many years in coming. A wizard's apprentice learns that all things must first be conjured in the mind.
As I ran, I conjured apace. Wouldn't the little lad's face be expectant, his eyes bright with the pride that comes of a hero's bloodline? Wouldn't the bards leave off their strumming and gather near, eager to hear once again the tale of the great wizard-that would be me-who'd fought at Khelben Arunsun's side?
That's what it would come down to, of course. That would be the first question to come to everyone's lips: What did Khelben Arunsun do during the battle? How many monsters fell to the Blackstaff's might? What spells were employed?
I must admit, I myself was most anxious to know the end of this tale.
"Above you, Sydon!"
Panic infused my companion's voice, lifting it into the range normally reserved for frightened maidens and small, yapping dogs. Without breaking pace, I followed the line indicated by Hughmont's pointing finger.
The threat was naught but a goodwife at the upper window of the building ahead. She was about to empty a basin of night water out into the back street-a minor hazard of city life that did not abate even during times of conflict. Hughmont was at best a nervous sort. Clearly, he was not at his best, but he was my training partner nonetheless, so I snagged his arm and spun him out of the way. He tripped over a pile of wooden crates and sprawled, but if his landing was hard at least it brought him beyond reach of the fetid splash.
A word from me sent the tumbled crates jostling into line like soldiers who'd overslept reveille. They hustled into formation, then leaped and stacked until a four-step staircase was born. I whispered the trigger word of a cantrip as I raced up the stairs, then I leaped into the air, flinging out my arms as I floated free. My exuberant laughter rang through the clamor of the city's rising panic, and why should it not? What a day this was, and what a tale it would make!
Hughmont hauled himself upright and trotted doggedly westward, coming abreast of me just as my boots touched cobblestone. The look he sent me was sour enough to curdle new cream.
"You'd best not waste spells on fripperies and foolishness. You'll be needing all you've got, and more."
"Spoken like the archmage himself!" I scoffed lightly. "That bit of excitement is more danger than you'll face at the West Gate, I'll warrant."
Hugh's only response was to cast another worried glance toward the harbor. Smoke rose into the sky over southern Waterdeep, visible even in the darkness, and it carried with it the unsavory scent of charred meat and burning sailcloth. "How many ships fuel that blaze?" he wondered aloud. "The harbor itself must be aboil!"
"A dismal caldron to be sure, but no doubt many sahuagin flavored the chowder," I retorted.
Not even Hughmont could dispute this excellent logic, and we hurried along in mutual silence-his no doubt filled with dire contemplation, but mine as joyfully expectant as a child on midwinterfest morn.
I will confess that I am vastly fond of magic. My lord father paid good coin to secure me a position at Blackstaff Tower, and I have learned much under the tutelage of the archmage and his lady consort, the wondrous Laeral Silverhand. But not until this night did I fully understand how impatient I'd become with Lord Arunsun's cautions and lectures and endless small diplomacies. By all reports, the archmage hoarded enough power in his staff alone to drop the entire city of Luskan into the sea, yet I knew few men who could bear witness to any significant casting. The spells Khelben Arunsun used in the daily course of things were nothing more than any competent but uninspired mage might command. Mystra forgive me, I was beginning to view the archmage's famed power in the same light as I might a courtesan of reputed beauty and unassailable virtue: of what practical use was either one?
Then we rounded the last corner before West Wall Street, and the sight before me swept away any disgruntled thoughts. The Walking Statue was at long last making good on its name!
Each footfall shook the ground as the behemoth strode down the northernmost slope of Mount Waterdeep. My spirits soared. No one but Khelben could create a stone golem ninety feet tall, fashioned of solid granite with an expression as stolidly impassive as that of the archmage himself.
But the statue faltered at Jultoon Street, stopping in the back courtyard of a low
-lying carriage house as if made uncertain by the swirling chaos of the panicked crowd. After a moment the great statue crouched, arms flung back and knees bent for the spring. People fled shrieking as the golem launched itself into the air. It cleared house and street and landed with a thunderous crack on the far side of Jultoon. Shattered cobblestone flew like grapeshot, and more than a few people fell to the ground, bloody and screaming, or worse, silent.
A flash of blue light darted from the gate tower, and the Walking Statue jolted to a stop. The golem glanced up at the tower and shuffled its massive feet like an enormous, chastened urchin. In apparent response to an order only it could perceive, the statue turned toward the sea. Its stone eyes gazed fixedly upon the cliffs below.
"I wonder what it sees," murmured Hughmont.
I had no such thoughts, nor eyes for anything but the source of that arcane lighting. It came from the West Gate, a massive wooden barricade that soared fully three stories high, surrounded on three sides by a stone lintel fancifully carved into the face of an enormous, snarling stone dragon. Atop this gate was a walkway with crenellations and towers contrived to look like a crown upon the dragon king's head. Wizards lined the walkway, flaming like torches with magical fire. Brightest of all burned my master, the great archmage.
I broke into a run, no longer caring whether Hughmont kept pace or not. My only thought was to take my place with the other battle wizards, and in the tales that would be written of this night.
These shores stank of magic. I could smell it even before I broke clear of the water. The scent of it was bitter, and the taste so metallic and harsh that my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. I did not remark on this to any of my sahuagin brothers. Though I called the source of my discomfort "magic," they might name my response by another, even more despised word: fear. To me, the two were one.
I broke the surface. My inner eyelids slid closed, but not before a bright light burst against the endless dome of sky. Half blinded, I waded toward the shore.
Hundreds of sahuagin were on the sand, and scores of them already lay in smoking piles. We expected this. We had trained for it. Ignore the dead, storm the gate, breach the walls.
Good words, bravely spoken. They had sounded plausible when spoken under the waves, but what was not easier underwater? I felt heavy on land, dangerously slow and awkward. Even as the thought formed, my foot claws caught on a fallen sahuagin's harness and I tripped and fell to my knees.
It was a most fortunate error, for just then a bolt of magic fire sizzled over my head and seared along my back fin. I threw back my head and shrieked in agony, and none of my dying brothers seemed to think the less of me. Perhaps no one noticed. In the thin air sound lingered close and then dissipated into silence. How, then, could there be so much noise? If a hundred sharks and twice a hundred sahuagin entered blood frenzy amidst a pod of shrieking whales, the clamor might rival the din of this battle.
It took all the strength in my four arms to push myself to my feet. I stumbled toward the place where the baron, our warleader, stood tall with his trident defiantly planted as if to lay claim to this shore. Two paces more, and I saw the truth of the matter. A large, smoking hole had opened and emptied the baron's chest, and through this window I could see the writhing bodies of three more of my dying clan. One of them clutched at my leg as I passed. His mouth moved, and the sound that came forth was thin and weak without water to carry it.
"Meat is meat," he pleaded, obviously fearing that his body would be left unused on this shore, his spirit trapped in his uneaten body.
I was hungry after the relentless journey to this city-desperately so-but the stench of burning flesh stole any thought of feeding. Meat is meat, but even good sahuagin flesh is rendered inedible by the touch of fire.
I kicked aside his clinging hand and looked around for my patrol. None had survived. All around me lay carrion that had been sahuagin. Their once proud fins were tattered and their beautiful scales were already turning dull and soft. Meat is meat, but there were not enough sahuagin in the north seas to eat this feast. Our leaders had promised a great conquest, but there was nothing to be gained from this, not even the strength to be had from the bodies of our fallen kin.
Anger rose in me like a dark tide. Orders were orders, but instinct prompted me to turn back to the sea, to flee to the relative safety of the waves. As my eyes focused upon the black waters, what I saw drew another shriek from me. This time, the sound was triumphant.
The pounding waves stopped short of the sand, piling upon each other and building up into a massive creature born of the cold sea and magic new to Sekolah's priestesses. A water elemental, they called it. Like a great watery sahuagin it rose, and as it waded to shore each pace of its legs sent waves surging onto the black and crimson sand.
The sahuagin yet in the water took heart from this. Some of them rode the waves to shore and hit the sand running. They, too, died in fire and smoke.
The water elemental came steadily on. Blue light-endless, punishing, hellish light-poured from the flaming wizards. A searing hiss filled the air as the elemental began to melt into steam. The magic that bound it faltered, and the watery body fell apart with a great splash. It sank back into the waves, and where it had stood the waters churned with heat.
For a moment I was again tempted by retreat, but there was no safety in the sea, not when steam rose from it. So I lifted one of my hands to shield my eyes from the blinding light, and I studied the gate tower.
There were many, many wizards-far more than our barons had led us to expect. In the very center stood a dark-bearded human, tall by the measure of humankind and strongly built even to my eyes. If he were a sahuagin, he would be a leader, and so he seemed to be among the humans. All the wizards threw fire, and the dark circles on the smoking sand were all about the same size-ten feet or so, the length of a sahuagin prince from head fin to tail tip. All fire killed, but the fire thrown by the tall wizard turned sahuagin into fetid steam, and melted the sand beneath them into oil-slicked glass.
I turned tail and padded northward toward those wizards who merely killed. Great piles of stinking, smoking corpses were beginning to rise. Soon they would reach the top of the wall, and those who survived would swarm over the pile and into the city beyond. That part of the plan, at least, was going as expected.
As planned, no sahuagin approached the great gate. No corpses added their weight to the wall of wood. As I began to climb the mountain of carrion, I prayed to almighty Sekolah that none of the humans would fathom the reason for this.
Just then a new wizard took his place along the wall and hurried northward toward the spot I planned to breach. Judging from his size he was young. He was as small and thin as a hatchling and lacked hair that so disfigured the other humans. I was close enough now to see his face, his eyes. Despite the strangeness of his appearance, his eagerness was apparent to me. This one regarded battle with the joy of a hungry shark. A worthy foe, if any human could be so named.
Ignoring the searing pain of my burned fins, I readied myself for battle.
I raced up the winding stairs and onto the ramparts, smoothing my hand over my head to tame the curly red locks before I remembered that my head was newly shaved-I had grown tired of the taunts that had dogged me since childhood. A bald pate, which I contemplated decorating with tattoos as did the infamous Red Wizards, was more befitting a man of magic.
But the sight before me drove such trivial thoughts from my mind, freezing me in place as surely and as suddenly as an ice dragon's breath.
The sea roiled, the sand steamed, and enormous green-scaled creatures advanced relentlessly through a scene of incredible horror.
"Sydon, to me!"
Khelben Arunsun's terse command snapped my attention back to the task at hand. I edged along behind the spell-casting wizards to the archmage's side.
Before he could speak, the largest elemental I have ever seen burst from the waves like a breaching whale. Up, up it rose, until it was taller by hal
f than even the great Walking Statue. Its shape was vaguely human in such matters as the number and placement of limbs, but never have I seen so terrifying a creature. Its wide, shark-toothed mouth was big enough to swallow a frigate. Translucent, watery fins unfurled along its arms, back, and head like great sails.
"Sweet Mystra," I breathed in awe. "Wondrous mystery, that mortals can wield such power!"
"Save it for your journal," Khelben snapped. "Hugh, mind the gate."
Hughmont hurried to the center of the dragon head rampart. He was not an accomplished mage, and his fire spells were as limited as festival fireworks-all flash and sparkle, but little substance. Even so, I had to admit that the effects he achieved were quite good. His first spell burst in the sky with rose-colored light-a titanic meadow flower budding, blooming, and casting off sparkling seed, all in the blink of an eye. It was most impressive. A few of the sea devils hesitated, and I took the opportunity to pick several of them off with small fireballs.
A spear hissed through the air. Instinctively I ducked, though it would not have hit me regardless, nor the man next to me. The man next to him was less fortunate. He jolted as the spear took him through the chest. The blow spun him around, and he lost his footing and toppled over the guard wall. He was falling still when the sea devils began tearing at him with ravenous hands.
Khelben pointed his staff at the grim tableau and shouted a phrase I'd never heard used in any magical context-though it was no doubt often heard during tavern brawls. Before I recovered from this surprise, a second, greater wonder rocked me back on my heels. The dead man's wizardly robes turned crimson-no longer were they spun of silk, but fire. The flames did not seem to touch the fallen wizard, but they seared the creatures that dared lay hand on him. The sea devils blackened and almost melted, like hideous candles tossed into a smithy's forge.
The archmage seized my arm and pointed to the burning robe. "Cast fire arrows on that," he commanded, then he turned his attention to the next attack.
The Stories of Elaine Cunningham Page 20
