by Mark Anthony
"Guildmaster Bock," Ferret said, nodding his head. The little man sounded calm, but Caledan knew he was nervous. His pointed nose was twitching furiously.
"My good Ferret, what a pleasant surprise," the guild-master said in a surprisingly rich, clear voice. "Do drink some wine with me."
"Er, I don't think we're really all that thirsty," Ferret said, eyeing the three goblets a servant carried on a tray.
"But I insist," Bock intoned. Caledan felt the swordpoint poking into his side.
"Now that I think of it, though, I could use a drink," Ferret said, grabbing a goblet and swilling down the contents. Reluctantly, Caledan and Mari did the same. The vintage was excellent, but Caledan detected a slight bitterness in the wine's aftertaste. He set the goblet back on the servant's tray and regarded the guildmaster.
"Which poison was in that, Bock?"
The guildmaster laughed. "Very good, Caledan Caldorien. Yes, I know who you are, and you as well, Harper Mari Al'maren. Neither of you are very inconspicuous, after all. And might I add, Ferret, that your taste in friends has gone downhill again. I thought your grandmother Jewel told me you had outgrown this disturbing practice of befriending Harpers."
Ferret shrugged. "Old habits are hard to break."
"You still haven't answered my question," Caledan said.
"Ah, yes, the poison," Bock replied with a smile, displaying a row of surprisingly even, white teeth. "It's sindari, a native herb of Thay. A very unusual substance. It shows absolutely no effects for an entire day, and then, without warning, the victim lapses into violent convulsions. I'm told they're quite painful. However, they are also quite brief. Death comes within but a few minutes. But not to fear, Caldorien. It is a precaution only." He waved a chubby hand, and the thieves sheathed their swords, retreating from the room.
"You see," Bock went on, "I also have the antidote. You might call the sindari a bit of insurance for my safety, that's all. Harm me, and you shall never have the antidote. Conduct yourself as civilized guests, and the antidote is yours."
Caledan shook his head. He had to admit, it was a clever method of ensuring good behavior.
"We're looking for a thief named Tembris," Caledan explained, deciding to lay all their cards on the table. Deception at this juncture could easily prove fatal.
"Interesting," Bock said. He stroked his numerous chins with a pudgy hand. "Let's see what I can extrapolate from this," he mused. 'Tembris is one of the few thieves in the city who has done work for the Zhentarim, Lord Ravendas-though it was a mistake, to be sure. You yourself are a Harper no longer, Caldorien, but you come to me in the presence of one who is. Knowing there is little love lost between the Harpers and the Zhentarim, I can only assume you are working against Ravendas, trying to discover her weaknesses to see if she can be defeated. And what has Tembris to do with this?" A calculating expression crossed his face. "Ah, yes, perhaps the work he did for Ravendas may shed some light on what it is she seeks deep in the heart of the Tor."
The guildmaster's logic was flawless. Caledan flourished his road-worn cloak and bowed deeply.
"Did Ferret tell you I enjoyed flattery, Caldorien?" Bock snapped. Then he chuckled, a deep, bubbling sound. "If he did he was correct. Very well, Caldorien. You may see Tembris. He is here in this very guildhouse. However, you may be disappointed after you meet him."
“Thank you," Caledan said, but the guildmaster waved the remark away.
"Don't thank me. I'm doing this purely out of my own interests. When a city falls on hard times, so do its thieves. It's difficult to rob people who are destitute, you know. I would like nothing more than to see Ravendas ousted from the tower. However, if the Harpers and the Zhentarim manage to annihilate each other in the process, that would be so much the better."
Bock clapped his hands twice. Moments later a servant arrived bearing three small vials-the antidote to the sindari. Caledan drank his down quickly, surprised at the trembling in his hand. It figured that the antidote would taste far worse than the poison. Mari's face was pale as she glared at him. It was apparent she hadn't enjoyed this little transaction with the thieves' guild.
"Now, Ferret," Bock said, "won't you give up your poor taste in company and come work for me? I can always use a thief of your caliber."
Ferret shook his head. "I'm flattered, Guildmaster Bock, but somebody has to keep on eye on the Harpers."
Bock nodded. "Good lad. Give my greetings to your grandmother. And let me know if she's reconsidered my Proposal." Ferret promised he would, and then the three followed a thief who led them out of the chamber and down a twisting corridor.
“What 'proposal' to your grandmother was Bock talking about?" Man asked Ferret.
"A marriage proposal," he replied. "Bock's been asking her to marry him for the last twenty years."
"But she keeps saying no?" Mari asked.
"No," Ferret said with a sly expression. "She keeps saying maybe."
Bock's servant led them to a door at the end of a narrow corridor. "This is Tembris's room," she said as she opened the door.
They stepped into the small, dim chamber. The room was sparsely yet comfortably furnished. On a pallet in one corner sat a thin spider of a man dressed in a simple black tunic. His skin was wrinkled with age, his long hair iron gray. The old man turned his head when they entered the room. Where his eyes should have been there were only two deep, shadowed pits bordered by loose folds of skin. The old thief was blind.
"Ravendas did this to him," Bock's servant explained. "I'm telling you because he can't. Tembris is also mute. He has been since birth. That was why Ravendas hired him, because he wouldn't be able to talk after the job was done. He stole something for her, and you see how Ravendas rewarded him. She had his eyes cut out."
"But he can hear us?" Caledan asked, and the servant nodded. She left the three in the room with the old thief, shutting the door behind her.
"Greetings, old father," Caledan said, kneeling down to touch the thief s fine, wrinkled hand.
Tembris nodded, smiling placidly.
"We need your help against Lord Cutter," Caledan explained. Tembris clenched his jaw tightly. He was listening.
"Iriaebor is dying under her rule, Tembris. She's draining the life out of it. Even at midday the streets are filled with shadows and ghosts. The people have lost hope. You may be their last chance." Mari gave Caledan a look of surprise, but he concentrated on Tembris. "Will you help us?" The old thief reached out, searching until he found Caledan's hand, gripping it tightly. Tears glimmered beneath his ruined eyes. Tembris nodded.
"We need to know what it was you stole for Cutter," Caledan said gravely. Another nod, but followed by a shrug. Tembris gestured to his mouth. He could not tell them.
Mari knelt down. "Can you write, Tembris?" she asked. The old thief grinned then and gestured with his hand. A little, he indicated.
Mari pulled a blank sheet of parchment and a piece of charcoal from her pocket. She spread the paper before the old thief and placed the charcoal in his fingers. She guided his hand over the parchment. "Write for us, Tembris. Write what it was Lord Cutter had you steal for her."
The old thief nodded, biting his lip in concentration as he slowly moved the charcoal across the parchment. Caledan and Mari exchanged glances. Tembris seemed to grow confused after a minute. He scribbled fiercely at the first lines he had made, marking them out.
"It's all right, Tembris," Mari said, reaching for the charcoal, but the old thief held on to it tightly, shaking his head. He put the charcoal to the paper again and started over. He slowly moved the charcoal over the page, concentrating as he tried to summon the letters. Finally he finished and nodded, setting the charcoal down.
Caledan picked up the parchment. Scrawled across the Page were several letters. They seemed to spell a word, but it was not one he recognized. Malebdala. He showed it to Man and Ferret, but they shook their heads. Still, maybe it was a clue. Caledan carefully folded the parchment and put it in his pocket.
"Thank you, old father," he said, gripping the thief's hand. Tembris gestured to his eyes, to the air above his head, and then made a fist. The message was clear.
"We'll do our best to stop Cutter," Caledan told him. "I promise." The old thief nodded, then lay down on his pallet, weary. Caledan, Mari, and Ferret left the small chamber, shutting the door softly.
"Do you think the word he wrote means anything?" Mari asked the others.
"It has to," Caledan replied grimly. "It has to."
He was having the dream again.
He moaned, a low sound of fear deep in his throat, struggling against the tangled silken sheets of his bed. The chill night air coming in through the chamber's window did little to cool his fevered brow. It was the dream that had set him afire, as it always did. He could not escape it.
He was running through the labyrinth of sewers and drains beneath the city's dungeons, his feet splashing through foul, murky water. He was dripping with sweat, and his breath came in ragged gasps. He could hear the sound of booted feet echoing in the corridors above him, but he knew that the dungeon guards would not catch him. His fate lay deeper down, farther into darkness.
The mouth of the empty drainage pipe loomed before him. Shadow seemed to pour thickly from its lip, as if the pipe carried not water, but darkness itself. He knew what horror awaited him down there, but he could not resist its pull. He began crawling down the dry, dusty pipe. He couldn't breathe in the cramped space and could hear the staccato beat of his own heart bouncing off the crumbling tiles around him. The sound was driving him mad.
Suddenly the floor gave way beneath him. Even though he had known it would, it did not lessen the terror of it. He fell down into endless darkness for what seemed an eternity. Finally a bloody, crimson light sprang to life all around him. He lay on a polished floor of darkest jet in a vast, columned chamber. His body was twisted and broken, and he could see his own hot blood oozing out to pool on the dark floor.
Weakly, in great agony, he lifted his head and gazed up at the massive throne he knew would be there before him. The throne was constructed entirely of dark steel, its edges as sharp as knives. Upon it sat a figure lost entirely in shadow, save for its gleaming crimson eyes. The dreamer moaned. That bloodred gaze filled him with such horror he felt it would rend his mind.
The figure upon the cyclopean throne lifted a hand. Its eyes pulsed in time with the dreamer's fading heartbeat. Then the throned figure spoke.
Be made whole, thief!
The dreamer screamed in agony as searing fire coursed through his body. His back arched off the stone floor, his fingers clawing helplessly at the dark marble.
Then he woke.
The lord steward of Iriaebor, the man named Snake, sat up suddenly in bed, clamping his jaw shut against a scream. For a moment his close-set eyes were wide in utter fear. In them shone a look of purest madness. Then it was as if a veil descended over those eyes, making them once again as hard and dark as polished stones. The madness of the dream slipped away. There was something Snake had to do.
He rose from his bed and, clad in his green silken nightrobe, moved to an ornate wooden cabinet near the window. He could see the city outside far below the tower, dark in this hour of the night. He opened a drawer in the cabinet and took out a small ebony box. Inside was an opaque polished crystal as large as an egg. He spoke a single arcane word, and suddenly the crystal darkened. An image appeared within its heart.
The image showed a moonlit ridgetop above a windswept plain. In the center of the image stood a figure clad in heavy black robes.
"Report," Snake whispered harshly into the crystal.
"Both with the shadow magic are in the city still," the figure's hissing, strangely accented voice emanated from the crystal. "Caldorien left the walls for a time, but he returned before I could take him."
"Then you must wait. And when he leaves the city again, be ready. I will concern myself with the other."
Snake spoke another ancient word of magic, and the image in the crystal vanished. He slipped it into its box, but he did not return to bed. For the rest of the night he watched the darkened city outside his window. With sleep would come dreams. And Snake did not want to dream again.
Nine
"That is by far the most idiotic idea you've had yet, Caldorien. And that's no mean feat"
Mari tossed her thick, red-brown hair as she peered at Caledan across the table. Morning sunlight streamed through the window of the Dreaming Dragon's private dining chamber, highlighting the edges of her wide cheekbones and too-square jaw.
Caledan sighed in frustration and leaned back in his chair. Had the Harpers trained Al'maren to be so contrary? Or had she simply been born that way?
"Listen, Harper," he said slowly, trying to explain it all once again. "You don't understand the Zhentarim as well as I do. There isn't enough loyalty flowing in the veins of the lot of them to fill a thimble even halfway. Without Ravendas, the Zhents in the city would start slitting each other's throats trying to figure out who's the top boss. They would do our dirty work for us." "And what about Cormik's report?"
Caledan picked up a rolled parchment from the table glanced at it, and tossed it back down. According to the report, Ravendas had requisitioned more warriors. The Zhentarim fortress of Darkhold in the Far Hills was only six days' hard ride north of Iriaebor. Soon there would be more Zhents than ever in the beleaguered city.
Caledan ran a hand through his dark hair, pushing it back from a furrowed brow. "I don't know, Harper." He shook his head slowly. "I think that, given time and a little of our help, Cormik's rebels might overcome the Zhentarim. But then, maybe not. Besides, Ravendas is still digging for something beneath the Tor, and it may not be long before she finds whatever it is. Time is something we don't have all that much of."
He took a deep breath, fidgeting with the braided copper bracelet on his wrist. "Of course, Ravendas will never have the chance to dig up anything if I confront her alone in the tower." He looked Mari in the eyes. "You should be able to understand that, Al'maren. Isn't that how the Harpers operate? They send one person to slip in and do a job where an army can't go. If that agent fails, they've lost only one. But if the agent succeeds…" He struck the oaken table with a fist. 'You're the person they sent to Iriaebor, Harper. Let me be the one to go into the tower, to end this all."
Mari regarded him for a moment. She laughed bitterly. "And what makes you think Ravendas won't simply toss your body down the tower steps, Caldorien?" She hesitated as if she was going to say something more, then bit her lip in silence.
"Why, Harper. You almost sound like you're worried. Don't tell me you actually care about me."
This time Mari's laugh rang with genuine mirth. Caledan winced. "All I care about is this city, Caldorien, and my mission for the Harpers. Don't forget that"
It was midafternoon when Tyveris came to the inn. Caledan had been enjoying a rare moment of solitude, Estah was with Jolle in the kitchen preparing the evening meal, and Mari was upstairs, trying to keep Pog and Nog out of trouble. Caledan had no idea where Ferret was. One typically didn't see the thief during daylight hours.
Tyveris had thrown a patched peasant's cloak over his broad shoulders, concealing his loremaster's robes. Priests of Oghma did not usually frequent taverns, and it was best not to draw any undue attention to the Dreaming Dragon.
The big loremaster slung a bulging satchel onto a table and began pulling out heavy leatherbound books. Caledan filled two clay mugs with foamy red ale-Estah's own brew-from a cask in a corner. He started to hand one to Tyveris, then paused.
"You haven't given up ale as well as your sword, have you?"
The monk shook his head emphatically. "Brewing beer is a most holy art, Caledan. Surely you know that" Tyveris sat down and took the mug, drinking deeply. "Ah, but then I'm forgetting what a heathen you are."
Caledan drank to that "What did you find in the abbey's library?"
"Quite an interesting search it was," Tyveris
replied. He pushed his gold-rimmed spectacles up his broad nose with a dark finger and began sorting through the various tomes and codices. Yesterday Caledan had shown the big monk the scrap of paper the thief Tembris had written on-their one clue hinting at what Ravendas was searching for beneath the city. Caledan had asked Tyveris if he could research the peculiar and unfamiliar word the old thief had scrawled, and the loremaster had readily agreed, his dark eyes gleaming at the prospect of pursuing a scholarly mystery.
Mari descended the narrow back staircase then, clad in doeskin breeches and her customary green velvet jacket.
She poured herself a cup of pale sweet wine and joined the two men.
"What's this?" she asked, pointing to one of the molder-ing books that Tyveris had opened before him.
"A history of the lands west of the Sunset Mountains," the loremaster explained. He ran a big hand affectionately over a yellowed page, then drew out quill, ink, and parchment from his satchel to scribble a few notes. It was clear he was in his element. Still, Caledan couldn't help but remember the days when Tyveris had held a sword as comfortably as he now did a pen.
Caledan leaned over to peer at the faded words carefully scribed on the page. "I can't read a word of that."
"That's not surprising, given that it's written in a language that hasn't been spoken in a thousand years," Tyveris replied with a rumbling laugh. "It's called Talfir." He picked up the wrinkled scrap of paper on which the thief Tembris had scrawled the single word: Malebdala.
Mari arched a single eyebrow in curiosity. Caledan motioned for the loremaster to go on.
"The Caravan Cities-Iriaebor, Berdusk, and Elturel- were founded about three centuries ago," Tyveris continued. "That may seem like quite a long while, but against the full sweep of history it's really quite a recent development. People have lived in the lands along the banks of the River Chionthar for millennia. They raised kingdoms that had fallen to dust centuries before the first folk crossed the Sunset Mountains from Cormyr to the east to resettle these lands. And those ancient people spoke a different language than the one your ancestors brought with them. That language was Talfir."
