“Asperii,” breathed Hhune in an awed tone. He had heard of the rare and magical wind steeds, but never before had he seen one. Like pegasi, these horses could fly, but they had no wings. Their flight came from their natural powers of levitation, and they were uncommonly fast. An asperii formed a telepathic bond with a mage or priest of great power, and would remain with its master for life.
This discovery intrigued Hhune. He had arrived in Waterdeep the day before with a shipment of goods for the Midsummer Faire. Once his duties as a merchant had been discharged, he’d called on Lady Thione expecting a routine report. Instead, he’d discovered that she had made an alliance with a formidable sorceress, and that she had put a plan in action that would come to fruition in a matter of days. She would not tell him the details of this plan. In itself, this did not surprise Hhune, for he was not Lady Thione’s superior, and the Knights of the Shield kept secrets even from their own. He got the impression, however, that Lady Thione herself did not know all that would happen.
To Hhune’s eye, Garnet was firmly in control. The sorceress was using the Knights of the Shield as a personal tool, of that Hhune was fairly certain. He also suspected that she knew something that gave her power over Lady Thione. Hhune would dearly love to know what that was. Perhaps, he mused, a longer stay in Waterdeep would be most rewarding.
* * * * *
Morning light streamed in through the tall, slender windows that encircled the round bedchamber. Lucia Thione stretched, languid as a contented cat, and reached for her young lover. But the bed was empty, and only rumpled silk sheets and a broad depression in the down-filled mattress indicated that the evening before had been more than a pleasant dream.
“Ah, you’re awake. Now it can truly be said that morning has come.” Dressed in leathers and riding boots, Caladorn strode into the room, his auburn hair still damp from the baths. Lucia sat up and raised her face for a kiss. The young man bent over and greeted her tenderly.
“You are off so soon?” she asked, pouting a little. “But you have been working so hard of late. We’ve had so little time together.”
“I have business,” Caladorn said with a fond smile, tracing the delicate arch of her nose with a gloved finger. “Surely a merchant of your acumen knows the importance of that.”
“What sort of business?”
“The city has engaged me to train those who wish to compete in the Midsummer Games. I shall be at the Field of Triumph all day.”
After promising to meet her back at his townhouse that evening, Caladorn took leave of his lady. Left alone, Lucia smiled and flung herself back among the pillows. She waited until she heard the muffled thud of the front door. Although she would have enjoyed Caladorn’s company this morning, she needed the time alone to find a path out of her dilemma.
By pretending to be one of the Lords of Waterdeep, she had placed herself in a favored position with the Knights of the Shield. Their support had allowed her to amass a great fortune, and ail had been well, until Garnet entered her life. The sorceress’s dangerous knowledge had placed Lucia in a position of virtual slavery. The arrival of Lord Hhune from Tethyr worsened matters considerably, for the Knights of the Shield would not be pleased to learn of her alliance with Garnet. This association had started out on a dangerous note: Garnet had assumed control of Hhune, his men, and Lucia’s local agents. Worse, the sorceress had demanded that Lucia reveal the names of the Lords of Waterdeep.
Lucia could hardly admit she did not have this knowledge, so she’d compiled a short list for Garnet: Khelben Arunsun, Larissa Neathal, the moneylender Mirt, Durnan, and Texter the Paladin. These names were whispered in every tavern of Waterdeep, and they would suffice for now. Lucia knew she would have to do better, and soon.
The noblewoman flung aside the covers and left the bedchamber. If Caladorn did have connections to the Lords of Waterdeep, she would find no evidence of it here. She made her way down the spiral stairs to the next level, which held the bathing area and dressing rooms. One room was filled with chests and wardrobes, and it seemed like a good place to begin her search.
Moving quietly so as not to alert Caladorn’s manservant, Lucia systematically went through each chest and every drawer, looking for anything that might link Caladorn to the Lords of Waterdeep. For almost an hour she combed the room, to no avail.
Frustrated but determined to persist, Lucia headed for her own closet. She planned to search the townhouse to the last nail and tile, but she could hardly do so clad in a diaphanous nightdress. Caladorn, who was in all things attentive and romantic, had filled a closet with several changes of clothing for such mornings, all of them in Lucia’s trademark purple. With a deep sigh, Lucia drew a lavender robe from the closet. Perhaps, after a bath and a change of clothes—
Her thoughts came to an abrupt stop. For no reason that she could ascertain, the hem of the robe was stuck to the back of the wooden wardrobe. She gave the garment a sharp tug, but it held fast. She dropped to her knees for a closer look. The grain of the wood around the trapped fabric was even and uninterrupted, and when she ran her fingers over the smooth panel, she felt no ridge or gap. It was as if the lavender silk grew directly out of the wood.
Excited now, Lucia pushed the other garments aside and began to search the inside of the wardrobe. After several minutes, her seeking fingers found a tiny button hidden in the swirling pattern of the wood. She pressed it, and a small door on the back panel slid silently open, releasing the robe and revealing a hidden shelf. Lucia reached inside and drew out a black helmet covered with a thick veil.
She slipped the helm over her head and spun to view her reflection in a standing mirror. Though she could see with perfect clarity, her features were completely obscured by the veil. She sang a few notes of a Tethyrian folk song, and the voice was not recognizably her own. In fact, it was not recognizably anything. The voice could have been male or female, old or young. A peal of exultant laughter burst from her, and it, too, was magically disguised by the helm of a Lord of Waterdeep.
So! Her young lover actually held the place she had long pretended to! Caladorn could deny her nothing, and with knowledge gleaned from him she could easily placate Garnet A smile curved her lips, and the burden of worry fell from her narrow shoulders.
Lucia removed the helm and replaced it in the cabinet Before she shut the door, she carefully placed the hem of the lavender robe where it would again be caught in the hidden door. She arranged the other garments as she had found them, making it appear that the wardrobe had not been disturbed, and she dressed herself in the clothes she had worn the night before. When the room was in order, she sauntered out of Caladorn’s home in the direction of Mother Tathlorn’s House of Pleasure and Healing. With the morning’s success behind her, she felt well justified in treating herself to a massage, a manicure, and perhaps a little something more.
Five
Taskerleigh lay two days’ travel behind him, but Danilo had yet to come up with an explanation for his current predicament.
By Dan’s reckoning, Elaith Craulnober would rather wed a troll than travel in his company, yet here they were. Danilo had ruefully dubbed their combined forces “Music and Mayhem,” and the name stuck. That was not, in his opinion, a good omen.
Theirs was beyond doubt the most uneasy alliance the Harper had ever encountered. The elf held all the prejudices of his race and had no love of dwarves, but to Dan’s surprise Elaith treated Wyn Ashgrove no better than he did Morgalla. The elven minstrel was spared the sharp edge of Elaith’s tongue, but he pointedly ignored Wyn’s presence among the travelers. Several times, though, Elaith’s eyes rested on the gold elf, and the pure hatred in their amber depths chilled Danilo. For his part, Wyn treated everyone with the same distant courtesy, and he seemed to take no notice of his fellow elf’s bad manners. If there was a common thread weaving together the disparate adventurers, it was Vartain. The riddlemaster seemed to annoy everyone in equal measure.
But Elaith’s mercenaries, especially the hu
ge black-bearded man known as Balindar, were quite taken with the dwarf maid. When they learned that Morgalla was a veteran of the Alliance War, the men plied her with eager questions. Waterdeep had not sent an army to help turn back the barbarian invaders, and many sell-swords of the Northlands felt they’d missed out on the greatest, most glorious adventure of their lifetimes. The dwarf was hesitant at first, but she warmed to their interest, and by mid-morning of the second day, she was helping to pass the tedium of travel with one well-told tale after another. Dan listened to snatches of their conversations, enjoying the dwarf’s mellow voice and skilled storytelling. He remembered Morgalla’s gruff rejection of the title “dwarven bard,” but to his ears, she deserved to be accounted so even if there was no music in her soul. And that lack, he doubted. Every night since they’d left Waterdeep, Morgalla had persuaded him to play his lute and sing. Never would she join him, but she listened to every air and ballad with a rapt expression of mingled joy and longing on her broad face.
Danilo glanced over at Elaith, who was riding apart from the others, as alert and wary as the silver fox he resembled. He could not imagine what treasure induced the elf to take to the road. It was widely rumored in Waterdeep that the moon elf was wealthy almost beyond calculation. Elaith often hired mercenary bands and sent them on trips of exploration and adventure, but in recent years he had remained in Waterdeep, making his dark deals and reaping the reward from others’ blood and toils. The Harper didn’t trust Elaith for a moment, and the sooner he knew the elf’s hidden purpose, the better his little band’s chances of survival. Danilo reined his bay, a fast and sturdy horse he favored for long trips, over to the elf’s fine-boned black steed.
“How does Cleddish?” the Harper asked, nodding toward a mercenary who had been wounded in the harpy attack. Cleddish was one of five men who had been turned into living statues by the harpy charm song. The effect had finally worn off this morning, and Danilo would long remember the man’s horrible, keening screams when he awoke. Danilo carried a number of tiny vials containing potions that sped healing or countered poisons, and he’d given one of each to Cleddish. This precaution closed the gashes made by the harpy’s filthy talons and would probably stave off putrefaction, but the man had lost a good deal of blood. Danilo suspected that Cleddish had sustained hidden wounds, as well. The mercenary sat his horse with grim, stoic determination, but he had spoken little since the attack, and his face was almost as gray as the single braid of hair that hung over his wounded shoulder. Still, Cleddish was more fortunate than his comrade, a Northman who had been blinded by the harpy’s venom. At Elaith’s order, the blinded man had been put out of his agony and his body left beside the trail.
“Cleddish seems rather subdued, and his color is poor,” Danilo pointed out, “but I don’t know him well enough to judge whether or not this is normal for him.”
Elaith turned a long-suffering gaze to the human, his expression plainly indicating that he tolerated this interruption as but one indignity among many. “Cleddish is a hired sword, not some beloved cousin. You know him as well as I.”
“Ah. Well, that exhausts that topic,” Danilo said dryly.
“I should hope so.”
After a moment’s silence, the nobleman tried again. “In all candor, I can’t envision you joining forces with bards and Harpers.”
The elf responded with an enigmatic smile. “Let’s say that I’ve become a patron of the arts.”
“Most commendable. I must say, it was a surprise to learn that you’ve taken up adventuring again. I trust your expedition to Taskerleigh was a success?”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t be so trusting.” The rejoinder was offered in silky, pleasant tones, but it was nonetheless a warning.
Danilo decided not to take it “Hit a nerve there, did I?” he said cheerfully. “Well, if your men expected treasure and were disappointed, one way of keeping up morale would be offering them a green dragon’s hoard.” He left an unspoken question hanging in the air.
“A gracious offer.” Elaith made the Harper a small, mock bow. “On behalf of my men, I accept. Now, if you’ll excuse me, one of us should watch the road.” The elf kicked his horse into a trot, putting several lengths’ distance between himself and the Harper.
Danilo grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck with both hands. That went about as well as he’d expected. Still, the elf had a point The terrain through which the adventurers rode was rugged and inhospitable, and caution was definitely in order. The village of Taskerleigh lay near Ganstar’s Creek, in hilly and fertile land northwest of the Goldenfield temple farms. The roads through it had fallen into disrepair, for rumors of monsters and the disappearance of more than one adventuring party had discouraged resettlement. The main road that led westward from the deserted village was also lightly traveled, for only the heartiest travelers ventured into the High Forest, and even fewer emerged. The path that Music and Mayhem followed skirted the rock-strewn hills marking the grave of the Fallen Kingdom, a long-ago settlement of humans, elves, and dwarves. The land had long since become wild: fields had been reclaimed by scrub forest, buildings had been reduced to occasional heaps of stone, dwarven tunnels had either collapsed or become home to underground monsters. To Danilo, the scene was an ominous suggestion of what befell humans, elves, and dwarves who tried to cast their lots together.
The sun cast long shadows before them as they climbed a particularly high and rocky hill. At the summit, Elaith signaled a halt. The riders came together to survey the land before them. Near the bottom of the hill was a fork in the road. The southern branch, Danilo knew, led toward the town Secomber, where it connected with a major trade route. The northern fork was a narrow path into the High Forest Far to the north Danilo could see the rapid waters of Unicorn Run, and beyond the river lay the dense green wilderness. A section of the road ahead went through marshlands, and the bed had been built up with soil and stone into a narrow causeway. This road had been built many years before by an adventuring party known as the Nine, and it ended at their famed stronghold in the southern part of the High Forest But the Nine had retired long before Danilo’s birth—some rumors had most of them rolling in wealth on another plane—and the causeway had crumbled.
Danilo considered the marshlands with a dubious expression. Sunset was hours away, yet already the songs of frogs and other, unknown swamp creatures drifted toward them. He had fought lizard men once in the dreaded Marsh of Chelimber, and it was not an experience he cared to repeat “I, for one, am for making camp right here,” Danilo said.
“There is no water here, nor fodder for the horses,” Vartain pointed out, predictably enough. No matter what idea was presented, the riddlemaster usually had a better one. “If would seem the best course to ride on. At a good pace, we could be past the wetlands before nightfall. The best and safest campsite would be near the river, but not in the forest itself.”
Elaith gave a curt nod of agreement, and Danilo, despite misgivings, gave in.
They rode hard, reining their horses to a walk only when they reached the narrow causeway. Caution was needed, for though some parts of the path had room for two or three to ride abreast, large chunks of the road had been reclaimed by the marsh. They picked their way along, riding in silence.
The chirping of the frogs grew louder as they rode, with an unearthly, reverberating sound that made the marsh seem to close in around them. Danilo found it unnerving. When they were near the middle of the causeway, he leaned close to Morgalla and whispered, “Reminds me of the effect I get when singing Tantrasan opera in a small bathchamber.”
“Yeah. I don’t like it,” the dwarf responded grimly.
“Tantrasan opera is an acquired taste,” the Harper quipped.
Morgalla nodded absently. “That, too.” Her brown eyes searched the shallow water for anything that might signal danger. After a moment she smacked Danilo’s knee to get his attention, then pointed to their right A stand of thick, oat-colored reeds swayed in the breeze. The tops of man
y had been partially severed, and they emitted a strange, hollow whistle as the wind blew across them. When the riders passed, the flow of air was interrupted and the mournful sound ceased. “An alarm?” the dwarf suggested.
Danilo was about to demur when he noticed a strange stand of reeds several yards ahead. A thick bank of these reeds seemed to have been arranged in several rows. Those in back were long and thick, and each successive row was shorter. The reeds in each row tapered downward to either side. Something about the arrangement struck Danilo’s memory. He reached down and tugged at one of the reeds that grew near the path, but it would not give. He took a hunting knife from his boot and hacked off the bent top. It was hard and rigid. The tops of these water plants had not broken by a passing breeze, of that much he was certain. Danilo motioned for Wyn, and the elven minstrel reined his horse over to the Harper’s side.
“Look at that bank of reeds ahead,” Danilo said softly. “Is it my imagination, or does it remind you of something?”
The gold elf examined the plants politely, then his green eyes widened in astonishment. “A pipe organ,” he murmured. “Some being has fashioned a musical instrument in this marsh!”
“Damn,” Danilo said with feeling. “I was hoping it was my imagination.”
The Harper caught Morgalla’s eye and rested his hand on his sword hilt. She gave a barely perceptible nod, and urged her pony over to Balindar’s side. She whispered something, and the huge fighter passed the hushed message down the line. The mercenaries readied their weapons with a lack of subtlety that made Danilo wince. The gold elf, however, took his lyre from its shoulder strap and quickly checked the tuning of the strings.
Immediately, the “organ” began to play. At first, the whistling tones were indistinguishable from the random, hollow sounds of the windswept reeds around them. The sounds quickened and became higher in pitch, tumbling together into a dancelike melody that set the bank of reeds ahead quivering merrily. There was something oddly like speech in the music, Danilo noted. A moment later, the song was echoed back from the far side of the marsh. He would have given a great deal to know what the little tune said, and even more to avoid learning to whom the music spoke.
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