by Ed Greenwood
“Oh, you’re the bright heroes from Espar! Be welcome!” The man glanced back over his shoulder, to where a sudden swell of noise had marked the appearance of a jowly man with a mustache through an inner door. The new arrival looked at the Swords, then nodded to the senior doorwarden-just as Narantha laid her dagger across the man’s palm and said to the jowly man, “Fair even, War Wizard!”
The mage blinked at her, stepped back to survey her from head to foot, then said hastily, “And good even to you, Lady-?”
“Crownsilver,” she answered, sweeping past him. “War wizard training is slipping, I fear; Vangey should have thoroughly acquainted you with all of us, from our faces to our indiscretions.”
Still blinking, the surprised war wizard gave ground as the Swords followed her, emerging into a huge, many-pillared taproom whose dark wooden tables were crowded with cheerfully noisy drinkers. It was a splendid, warmly lit room, awash in the smells of fried cheeses and more exotic platters, and it stretched from the gleaming bar before them to the booths along the far wall of the room, a long spearcast away.
Out of long habit Narantha paused just inside the door way to make a grand entrance-and Islif, who’d taken shrewd measure of Florin’s new friend, threw out her arm like a door-bar to keep the rest of the Swords from walking right into Narantha’s shapely back.
The noisy room hushed for a moment as the noblewoman clad in eye-catching flame was noticed, then talk returned all the louder. Through it, Narantha called to the tavernmaster, “A booth or table for six, if you have one!”
“Six?” Semoor asked, from behind her.
“Doust will no doubt be thirsty when he gets up off his knees,” she replied, without turning. “In the meantime, it might keep the war wizard-who’ll see it as his duty to eavesdrop on us-from hovering; he can just sit down with us, and join in.”
At the rear of the Swords, Florin and Jhessail looked with some amusement at the jowly mage beside them, who harrumphed and blushed.
The duty tavernmaster looked Narantha up and down just as the war wizard had done, then hastened out from behind the bar to lead them down the room, beckoning them with a flourish.
The Lady Narantha glanced neither to right nor left as they threaded through the tables, but the Swords behind her were acutely aware of interested stares from dwarves, tattooed dusky-skinned traders from the South, dozens of merchants, and almost as many fighting men-probably guards, though they wore little or no armor, and not one of them bore scabbarded blades or any other sort of weapon. The Swords’ sheathed weapons drew some curious looks.
The tavernmaster bowed and swept out his hand at a table almost at the end of the room. “Will this do, fairest Lady?”
“Admirably,” Narantha replied. “We thirst.”
The tavernmaster smiled. “As it happens, we solve such problems here. Ale, mead, zzar? Or shall I call the cellarer to acquaint you with our wines?”
“But of course,” the Lady Crownsilver replied, seating herself.
Islif rolled her eyes and cast a glance back at Florin. He was smiling, and mouthed one silent word to her: Adventure.
“No. Not to my liking, I’m afraid,” the tall trader said politely, setting down the boot. “Those I sell to rarely prefer anything practical-or used.”
He strolled out of the shop and across the road to the Moon, where the doorwardens accepted his belt knife and admitted him. Striding to the bar for a tankard, the trader carefully neglected to glance down the room. The polished brass and finemetals on the wall behind the bar would afford him reflections enough to know where the Swords of Eveningstar were seated.
He had plenty of time. The evening was yet young.
As usual, the hargaunt itched.
Semoor peered mournfully at the empty bottom of his tankard, and Islif sighed and lifted her arm to signal for more ale.
As he turned to grin at her, the large-nosed priest of Lathander asked, “Why’d they take away the salted nuts? And then bring them right back again?”
“To give the war wizard a chance to enspell the bowl,” Narantha told him, “so he can listen from afar rather than standing over us.”
“Ah,” Semoor replied. Scooping up the nut bowl, he put it to his lips and made a loud and rude sound. “I wonder what he’ll make of that?”
“That Master Semoor Wolftooth is with us,” Jhessail told him, “and being his usual self. Stoop, how are you ever going to keep your standing as a priest? If you behave like this inside a temple…”
“Dusking,” Semoor cursed. “Am I going to go on being reprimanded even now? When I’ve escaped from Espar, charter-anointed, into a life of fabled adventure?”
Islif snorted. “The ‘fabled adventure’ part, good Stoop, may well be what swiftly befalls you if you ignore such reprimands. Ah, here’s more ale.”
As two smiling serving wenches in gowns with very low-laced corsets brought platters of drinkables, the talk at the table behind them-merchants from Sembia, if the shimmerweave and cloth-of-gold were anything to go by-rose in volume excitedly, so the Swords couldn’t help but overhear:
“Ah, but every last war wizard in the realm’ll be searching for it afore they’re done, mark you! The thing can slay them-and has! I’ve heard six have been fried alive already! Heads blown off and innards sizzled like spitted boar!”
“Six? I heard eleven, and more who’ll join them in graves right soon, if all the hired healing fails. Whoever wears this Iron War Crown can see active magics from afar-and from the thing hurl deadly bolts at anyone who has that magic!”
“ ‘Iron War’? What war’s that? Something dwarves got mixed up in?”
“I know not. All these magic things have overblown and oh-so-mysterious names; didn’t ye know?”
“Well, I know that magic in Cormyr means war wizards, and that they’re all frantically searching for this thing!”
“Well, I haven’t got it-and if I did, I’d sell it right quick to someone who wants to fry mages and is willing to pay handsomely for the power to do so!”
“The Witch Queen? So she can snuff out Red Wizards even faster?”
There followed a chorus of raucous laughter, then a sudden hush as several burly men rose from divers tables and went over to the Sembians.
“So, what’s all this about wanting to fry war wizards?” one of them asked, a shade too casually, and the richly garbed merchants looked up at him suspiciously.
“You look like a Purple Dragon who’s left his armor at home to me,” one Sembian replied, cleaning out one ear with a ring-adorned little finger. “So why don’t you sit down here and tell us about war wizards? We only know what we hear.”
“And what might that be?”
Another Sembian shrugged. “What all Cormyr is talking about-in the taverns, leastways: that something called the Arcrown’s been stolen, and your Wizards of War want it back.”
“Desperately,” a third Sembian added.
“Before ’tis too late for them all,” a fourth merchant put in, setting his tankard down hard.
The man who’d been bidden to sit down did so, fixed the loudest Sembian with a cool eye, and said, “Why don’t you tell me more about what you’ve heard of this crown?”
“Oh? Such as?”
“What it does… that sort of thing.”
The Sembian shrugged. “Arcrown or Iron War Crown, some are calling it, though most say it’s a plain circlet. Wear it and you can see magic at work-and you can choose to send slaying bolts out of it, at whoever has those magics… that sort of thing.”
“And then what?”
“And then they’re dead, that’s what, unless they throw away their magic or end their spell or whatever, right quick.”
The Purple Dragon, if that’s what he was, glanced up at some of the other burly men, and shrugs were exchanged.
Another of the Sembians looked down the table at the Cormyreans and added, “The rest is all rumors about how many war wizards have been slain already, by whom, and what it�
�s all going to lead to-and being as you’re all not-very-well-hidden agents of the Dragon Throne, suppose you tell us the truth about all of those things, hey?”
By way of reply, the man sitting at the end of the table favored him with a very cold stare, and without a word got up and went back to his own table, the other burly men drifting away as the Sembians chuckled.
When they spoke again, however, their voices were lower, and they seemed to be discussing prices and shortages and “how many barrels.”
The Swords traded looks with each other.
Semoor, of course, spoke up first. “So would this make our reputations, if we found this crown and presented it to His Majesty?”
“That’s a very large ‘if,’ ” Florin commented. “First, we have to have the faintest idea of where to go looking.”
Jhessail nodded. “And unless the spells the Morninglord grants you are more powerful than the spells of the war wizards-and remember, Stoop, some of them can split a castle keep in twain from top to bottom, with but a word! — we’ve not much chance of finding anything they can’t. Certainly not with my paltry castings!”
Semoor plucked up the nut bowl again, and asked it brightly, “Any advice? Places you might like some enthusiastic, newly chartered adventurers to go look? Some noble’s winecellar, perhaps? Or-ahem-pleasure chambers, where huffing and puffing monacled lords of the realm hide their hired harems?”
“Semoor,” Jhessail said reprovingly. “I deeply doubt the royal magician will find you either clever or funny.”
“Oh? Why would he find me at all? And for that matter, how would he find me?”
The Lady Narantha leaned forward to look down the table at Semoor. “Well, by the choruses of exasperation, for one,” she said, eyes twinkling. “And by the charter itself, for two: there’re spells buried in all of those fancy inks, you know, and Vangerdahast can find out exactly where our charter is, whenever he wants to. Any war wizard can-and they can also, just by touching it and uttering the right word, know right away if it’s a real charter or a forgery.”
“Darkrose!” Semoor cursed. “Well, there goes my scheme for a wealthy retirement: go to Sembia, make dozens of charters that look very much like this one, and sell them to anyone who wants to traipse around Cormyr waving a sword!”
Jhessail sighed, turned in her chair, snatched the nut bowl out of Semoor’s grasp, and told it fiercely, “He’s jesting-jesting! Believe not a word!”
“Pray pardon,” a voice purred by her ear. “I couldn’t help but overhear mention of a charter. Am I correct in assuming you’re lawful adventurers? And if so, are you looking for new members?”
The Swords of Eveningstar blinked at each other-then at the sleek young woman in dark leather who was leaning over Jhessail. Short and slender, with glossy black hair cut short in the same sort of “helm-bob” cut many warriors favored, she fixed them with large, liquid dark eyes.
“My name is Pennae,” she added, “and this is Martess.” She shifted a lithe shoulder aside to let the Swords see another slender, dark-clad and dark-haired lass standing behind her. “She casts spells out of books. I procure specifics when needs arise.”
Florin stared at them, then around the table, not missing Narantha’s look of encouragement.
Take command, it said, as clearly as if she’d shouted.
Clearing his throat, the man who’d rescued the king remembered one of Azoun’s last bits of royal advice.
“Well, now,” he began. “Well, now…”
“Lord Vangerdahast!” The war wizard’s swift hail was high and shrill in excitement. “Someone has just approached them, and-”
The royal magician held up a quelling hand. “So I hear and see for myself.”
He shrugged, the glow of his scrying crystal dancing across his face. “Let every jack and lass at loose ends in the upcountry join them, and ride hearty. It’ll take most-mayhap all-of their lives, just to poke their noses into the Haunted Halls.”
The Swords were still staring at the two women when two men wearing empty scabbards, easy grins, and the looks of muscled warriors came to the other end of their table.
“We’d also like to ride with you, if you’ll have us,” said the taller and more handsome of the two: a blond charmer who outshone Florin in looks. “Agannor am I, and this is my friend Bey. We swing swords… fairly well.”
The Swords found themselves staring at the two newcomers, then back at the two women, then at the grinning men again.
The Lady Narantha raised her eyes to the rafters and asked disbelievingly, “What is this place? A branch of the Society of Stalwart Adventurers?”
“Nay, Lady,” the tavernmaster told her proudly, arriving with a platter crowded with goblets and flasks on his shoulder. “Better than that: this is The Moon and Stars, finest tavern between Teflamm and splendrous Waterdeep!”
The tall trader nursing a tankard not far from the Swords’ table glanced their way with casual indifference at the tavernmaster’s merry boast-then stiffened in anger and surprise as his gaze fell upon a tall woman in forest green, who’d risen from where she’d been sitting alone, at a table against the wall, and was striding toward the Esparran adventurers.
Thinking silent curses, Horaundoon turned back to his tankard, taking care not to do so too swiftly. Dove Silverhand might be the most feeble in Art of the Seven-but just how feeble that might be, he did not care to learn.
No sane wizard challenges the goddess of magic, and expects to win.
Someone else was coming to their table. Florin glanced up.
And froze, heart pounding, as he met her dark blue eyes-and fell into them, plunging into endless wise depths…
He swallowed and shook himself like a wet dog, tearing himself out of whatever reverie-had he been caught in some sort of spell?
Was this a fell sorceress?
She had long brown hair, that swirled unbound about her shoulders-shoulders as broad as his own, and outstripping Islif in bulging build. She was as tall as him, too, and clad in the vest, tunic, breeches, and high boots of a man. A stylish man able to afford the best weaves and leathers, and have even his boots dyed forest green.
She was all in green, this woman, and strode up to them with casual grace, as one deft and strong who knows her power but assumes no airs of rank or mincing affectation. Narantha might have a title, but this lady was truly noble.
The very sight of her stirred and unsettled him; Florin looked down, certain he was blushing. Her image remained bright before his eyes even as he stared into his tankard. He had to know her, to speak with her-yet he felt none of the swift, strong lust that lush feminine beauty or flirtation was wont to stir in him. She was… she was… gods, was this what minstrels sang of, “love at first glance”?
He was lost…
“Well met, adventurers,” she said, voice low-pitched and husky. “I happen to be an officer of the Crown, and perceive a possible need. If you desire to amend your charter-to add to your ranks, say-I can ply the pen properly, so the nearest Purple Dragon, Wizard of War, royal magician, or even the king himself will pronounce it proper.”
“Uh-ah-t-that’s very kind of you, Lady… ah?” Florin flushed crimson. Gods, he was gabbling like an awestruck village idiot! He was deathly afraid Semoor would erupt in a acidic comment about “lovestruck Florin” or some such, and yet… and yet he cared not.
“I am known here as the Lady in Green,” she said warmly, and her eyes seemed to flare silver, just for a moment. None of the Swords saw war wizards and Purple Dragons all over the room stiffen and stare vacantly at nothing for a moment, silver flames dancing in their eyes-then return to their tankards and mutterings, all notice of a lone woman in green gone. “You can trust me.”
Leaning close to Florin-who fought furiously with himself to keep his gaze from plunging into her bodice, and just barely won-she murmured, “As Azoun told you: ‘Tathen.’ ”
Hearing her, and looking again at the four other visitors to their table, the
Swords traded arrow-swift, excited glances, looking at last to Narantha. Who smiled at them in wry amazement, shook her head, and said, “Truly the gods do smile upon you, friends!”
Take command, Florin reminded himself. “Are we all agreed to accept four new companions? I know ’tis swift, and they’re strangers, but the king…”
“The gods!” Semoor said firmly. “The hands of the gods have provided them!”
Islif spread her hands. “We need the strength. I’m for them all.”
“I, too,” Jhessail put in. Semoor, Narantha, and Florin found themselves nodding at each other.
“Done, then,” Florin said, shuddering in relief, and clawed at the buckles of the breastplate he wore. Azoun had given it to him, and he hadn’t wanted to leave it in his room, in case…
“Pray excuse this disrobing,” he muttered, swinging the breastplate open and plucking the precious charter from between the inside of the plate and its inner lining. He held it out to the Lady in Green.
Who smiled at him and shook her head. “You’d best find another place for it. Your sweat will rot it away in a month or so if you keep it there; believe me, for betimes I wear steel in battle; I know.”
Out of the inside of her vest she produced a plumeless, tapering quill and a vial of ink that sparkled through its confining glass. “I’m going to need four names,” she said calmly, “with their proper spellings…”
Horaundoon brooded, the hargaunt shifting restlessly as it felt his fury. Not six places from him, she was, and the Weave fairly crackling around her. Sark her!
She was more than a creature of Mystra-though by all the eye tyrants Manshoon could name, wasn’t that enough? She was a Harper, and this room could well be crawling with them…
Nay, almost certainly was crawling with them. Which in turn meant sarking Vangerdahast was probably scrying this place, right now, with half a dozen of his most senior Wizards of War.
Which meant Horaundoon of the Zhentarim dared do nothing. Nothing at all.
If any of the war wizards and out-of-uniform Purple Dragons in the taproom had happened to notice the tall trader, all they would have seen then was his eyes narrow, and his expression grow thoughtful.
