Cold Steel and Secrets Part 4 (neverwinter)

by Rosemary Jones

  “Let me fight!” Lord Neverember banged against the door, but a grim Tarnian dropped a wooden bolt across it and braced his body against it for extra protection.

  While the cries of the living increased, the pandemonium was remarkably one-sided in the frenzied fighting. The dead fought silently and seemed all the more terrible for it.

  “Elyne!” a shout from Montimort warned her when one of Dhafiyand’s undead servants tried to bash her from behind. The boy shadowed her every step, flicking spells into the crowd. But the undead seemed indestructible. Every blow, every spell, barely slowed them as they strove to reach Lord Neverember in his cabin.

  Dhafiyand surveyed the carnage with the same calm he had once displayed arranging the papers on his table. He stood in the center of the deck, directing stinging tendrils of darkness and whips of flame against any who dared attack him.

  Sarfael battled vigorously to overcome the Red Wizard’s undead minions and reach his former master, but a tall skeleton armed with a wicked long blade barred his way.

  The skeleton forced him back, back, across the deck until he was stopped by the bulwark. Sarfael spun, whirled, and drove Mavreen’s blade with desperate force down on the right shoulder blade of the skeleton. The bone cracked. The creature swung its own great blade at Sarfael’s head, but he rolled aside and the skeleton’s sword sank hard into the wooden bulwark. The skeleton jerked back but the abused bone of the shoulder shattered, leaving its arm dangling from the sword as it staggered into Sarfael’s next blow. He cut through the neck and sent the creature’s skull rolling.

  Then he looked to the center of the fight and, for the first time since Mavreen died, his heart quickened in fear. For a bright redhead could be clearly seen advancing upon Dhafiyand.

  With Montimort at her side, Elyne advanced step by deadly step through the swaying, pushing mass of Nashers, Tarnian guards, and undead on the deck. With deft strokes, she drove Dhafiyand’s fighters back into the blades of her students, protecting Nasher and Tarnian alike. Her calm voice cut through the din of clashing steel and cries of alarm.

  Sarfael dived after the intrepid pair, determined to overtake them.

  Elyne fought her way to within a sword’s length of Dhafiyand. The Red Wizard lifted his hands and a swirling shield of darkness rose before him. Elyne struck and struck again, but the shield held.

  Dhafiyand’s malevolent gaze rested on the swordswoman striving to reach him. He drew a great breath and raised his arm. A spear of glowing iron appeared in his hand. Sarfael shouted a warning, but she was too close to the Red Wizard. Dhafiyand hurled the spear at her.

  Montimort let out a terrible cry and leaped between Elyne and Dhafiyand. The bolt of red-hot iron pierced his chest. Blood flew in all directions. Montimort dropped like stone to the deck.

  With a choked exclamation, Elyne fell to her knees beside him, trying to shield the boy’s body with her own from the fight still swirling around them.

  Sarfael closed the gap between himself and Dhafiyand. He lunged forward as Dhafiyand finally turned to face him.

  “You told me there were no Red Wizards in Neverwinter,” Sarfael said, dodging the spinning shield of shadow that Dhafiyand directed against him.

  “I lied,” said Dhafiyand with a slight smile. “After all, deception is my trade.”

  Parnadiz charged the Red Wizard with a roar, using the same bullish tactics that he once tried against Sarfael in their mock duel. With an impatient swat of his hand, the Red Wizard knocked him halfway across the ship.

  Charinyn cried out. She pulled her cape from her shoulders. With one practiced flick of her hand, she dropped it over the startled Dhafiyand’s head. The man clawed at the fabric, dragging the cloak off his face.

  In that single moment of distraction, Sarfael drove Mavreen’s sword deep into his former master’s heart.

  The Red Wizard’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He swayed in place.

  Sarfael pulled the sword out for a second strike. But it was not necessary. Dhafiyand crumpled into a heap of dark robes.

  All around the deck, the undead dropped as their master died.

  Dhafiyand already forgotten, Sarfael hurried to Elyne’s side. She kneeled next to Montimort, cradling the boy’s head in her arms. “Why didn’t you change, little rat, why didn’t you change?” she whispered to him, her voice breaking with every word. “Why did you have to find such courage today?”

  “I’ll call for a healer, there must be one on this ship,” Sarfael said. But she raised her tear-stained face to him and he knew it was too late. He reached out a gentle hand and closed the dead boy’s eyes.

  Lord Neverember emerged from the cabin looking flushed and angry. He shook off the restraining hands of his bodyguards and stepped over the body of Dhafiyand. One of his boot heels skidded on the bloody deck, but he righted himself, snapping out an order in passing to the men clustered around him. One dropped to his knees to search Dhafiyand’s corpse as Lord Neverember strode to the gangplank.

  “I am more than pleased to congratulate the brave sons and daughters of Neverwinter, who so valiantly defended our person against this insidious plot,” Lord Neverember waved over the ship’s railing at the gathering crowd below. “Their bravery shows that the enemies of the new Neverwinter shall not prevail. Soon our city will rise again as the emblem of all that is good and noble, a center of culture and trade, a shining beacon for others!”

  Leaning against the same railing, Rucas Sarfael panted and waited for his heart to stop slamming against his chest. Trust Dagult Neverember to wade through the blood of his former spymaster to make a rousing political speech to the populace gathering on the pier.

  Lord Neverember’s bodyguard stood up with something in his hands that glittered briefly in the sunlight. He grabbed a rag from a nearby bucket and wrapped it around his prize, hurrying over to Lord Neverember. The Tarnian whispered in the Open Lord of Waterdeep’s ear. Lord Neverember briefly lifted the rag and stared at whatever the man held in his hands. Then he took the bundle from his bodyguard and passed it to another servant.

  “Secure it,” he said, loud enough for Sarfael to hear.

  The man bowed and hurried back to the ship’s cabin.

  Lord Neverember surveyed the crowd upon the deck. Upon seeing Sarfael, he motioned him closer.

  “I owe you my life,” he said to Sarfael with a smile. And then, with a grimmer look: “Do not abuse my favor.”

  Warned, and rather charmed by the man’s style, so like his own, Sarfael bowed deeply before Lord Neverember.

  “My lord, it is forever my honor to have assisted you in your noble endeavor to build a new Neverwinter. And to give you this evidence of nefarious plots.” He handed Lord Neverember the paper that he’d taken earlier from Dhafiyand’s house, the one inscribed with the order to kill him.

  Lord Neverember briefly glanced at it.

  “I am sorry to lose Dhafiyand. He was a man of great subtlety and guile,” he said. “It is unfortunate that his loyalty did not match his intellect.”

  “Who can know the hearts of Thayans?” Sarfael responded. “The man betrayed you and betrayed us all, but I count myself lucky to have stopped him before any harm befell your lordship. I could not have done it without the assistance of your noble cousin.”

  He beckoned to Elyne. Like himself, she had moved to one side, letting Neverember’s bodyguards clear the remaining zombies and other bodies from the ship. Except for Montimort. When they reached for him, she stepped forward and claimed his body. He lay wrapped in her cloak, his thin face covered from view.

  Parnadiz crouched on the deck. Blood dripped from the cut on his shoulder. Charinyn kneeled beside him, ripping off the tail of her shirt and binding his wound. The rest of the Nashers clustered close to them, their blades still drawn but down as they waited to see what would happen next.

  Elyne approached Sarfael and Lord Neverember with her head held high. Like the others, her sword remained out of its scabbard, but she held the b
lade down and away.

  “My lord,” said Sarfael, “without these loyal daughters and sons of Neverwinter, as you yourself just named them, we may have well lost the city to Dhafiyand’s dark designs. I hope that your gracious thanks will extend to them and their safe passage off this ship and back to their homes.”

  Lord Neverember snorted, but quietly, and when Elyne reached them, he swept her into a hasty but warm one-armed embrace.

  Sarfael chuckled to see her quickly exchange her sword to her left hand to avoid entangling it in Lord Neverember’s friendly hug.

  “My dear,” said Neverember, “I regret that we meet again in such difficult circumstances.” Which Sarfael considered quite restrained, seeing the chaos all around them.

  “My lord,” replied Elyne as she stepped neatly out of his embrace. “We rejoice to spare Neverwinter further attacks this day.” She did not look at Sarfael.

  “A fine sentiment and we will welcome you at any time to our court,” Lord Neverember returned. “But you must wish to return home now. Shall you need an escort or any assistance?”

  “No, my lord,” she said. “We will take our wounded and our dead.”

  Lord Neverember signaled to his bodyguards and they fell back, letting the Nashers pass down the gangplank. Four carried Montimort’s body on a hastily improvised stretcher.

  As Elyne brushed past him, Sarfael reached out a hand and touched her arm. She stopped abruptly.

  “I am sorry for the boy’s death,” he said.

  The look she gave him was bleak. “It was my fault. He died to protect me.”

  “I told myself the same thing when Mavreen died. These days, I’m not sure if it’s true, but I don’t think knowing the truth would lessen the guilt in my heart.”

  She turned away without reply, following the others down the gangplank.

  “A pretty rebel,” said Lord Neverember, watching Elyne catch up with the ones carrying Montimort’s body. She leaned down to catch an edge of the stretcher and help them maneuver it off the pier and up to the street.

  “My lord?”

  “Oh, I am not a fool. But better the enemies that I know, rather than the ones hidden in shadows. Besides, being a wise woman, she has never voiced any great ambition to rule this city and she holds her friends very dear. Which makes her a minor threat compared to some.”

  Sarfael bowed again and reminded Lord Neverember, “Today she saved your life.”

  “A good point.”

  “And you gained a crown.” Sarfael knew he pushed his luck with that statement, but Lord Neverember’s man had taken something from Dhafiyand’s body.

  “A crown?” Lord Neverember said. “I do not remember seeing such a thing. Crowns would be a dangerous treasure to find in Neverwinter. It could even cost a man his head. As Dhafiyand found.”

  Sarfael stepped back. “Well then, it is lucky that I saw no such thing aboard this ship or any other place.”

  “Very lucky, indeed,” said Lord Neverember. Then, more surprisingly, “I could use a new spymaster in Neverwinter.”

  Sarfael thought about that a moment, and about the body of the last spymaster being bundled efficiently away by Lord Neverember’s servants. In a few days, he doubted that any would speak Dhafiyand’s name and, in a year, he would wager that none would remember the old man-or, at least, none would admit to remembering him. No one ever carved epithets for spies.

  “There are other threats in this city,” he said to Lord Neverember. “Give me a license to hunt the undead and those who create them. Let me do it openly, in your name and for the new Neverwinter.”

  Lord Neverember considered the offer longer than Sarfael had contemplated his. “Very well, if that is what you wish. I will have Soman Galt draw up some grant or other. Our mayor can give you a wax-sealed charter to destroy the undead as you see fit and to let you command a small force to assist you. Name those you wish to fall under your protection.”

  Sarfael smiled. Not all of the Nashers would want to join him, some were too deeply committed to their dreams of rebellion, but he also thought that the day’s fight had shaken others, let them see that there were far greater threats than Lord Neverember.

  “Thank you, my lord,” he said and he truly meant his gratitude.

  But Lord Neverember had already walked off, to greet the city officials crowding up the gangplank, clap shoulders, and shake his head with rueful goodwill over the day’s events.

  Figuring himself fortunate to be forgotten, Sarfael rushed down the gangplank and hurried after the Nashers. He meant to catch up with Elyne and sound her out about the hunting of the undead.

  But, as he reached the street, Sarfael remembered the box. They’d left it behind in Dhafiyand’s room. If any of the Nashers went back there, then there was every chance that the whole mess would start again.

  With a curse, Sarfael whipped around and raced back to Dhafiyand’s house.

  The house was dark and cold. Already it felt more like a mausoleum than a home. The servants had fled; word of their master’s death must have traveled swiftly up the streets. Or perhaps they had been illusions, like the others on the boat.

  The box lay open on the table, just as they had left it.

  Sarfael piled kindling in the grate and lit it with his tinder and flint. The flames flickered, and he grabbed handfuls of paper from the table, stuffing it into the fireplace. The fire began to crackle and burn merrily.

  Sarfael lifted the box from the table. The emerald decorating the lid of the box winked in the firelight. He held the wooden box high, ready to throw it into the roaring fire.

  “Don’t!” A sharp command came from the doorway.

  He looked over his shoulder at Elyne.

  “Montimort was the only one who knew the spell,” he said to her. “You can’t use it again, not without him. It’s just a temptation for thieves. Every faction in Neverwinter will try to steal it from you.”

  “We can find another wizard,” Elyne said, advancing into the room. Her sword was drawn and her face was still streaked with tears. “With the box, we can summon the crown from wherever it is hidden. That is what Karion said.”

  “And Montimort murdered Karion to steal his secrets from him. Who else will do such things to gain a crown in Neverwinter?”

  She blanched. “There was no malice in Montimort. He had a gentle heart.”

  “He did, but he betrayed it for the prize of a crown.” He kept his words blunt, no kind lies for the grief-stricken woman in front of him. But there were desperate stakes. All he had done to secure Lord Neverember’s pardon would be undone by a simple box of wood and the dream of a crown.

  She stared with loathing at the box in his hands. “I think there is some evil in it, to tempt Montimort so, to drive Karion mad,” she said.

  “Then let it go,” he counseled her.

  “I can’t,” she said. “I’ve failed Montimort today. How can I fail the others?”

  “How will it aid them, to gain a crown?”

  She shook her head and gestured with the sword. “Put it down.”

  “When you tell me one thing: Whose head will wear a crown in Neverwinter? Yours?”

  “No!” Her denial was vehement and instant. “I never wanted such a thing.”

  “Arlon?”

  She flung her hands wide, as if she had been hit in a practice duel at her school. “He is not ready to rule.”

  “Well, if you mean to give it to Lord Neverember,” Sarfael said with a sudden smile, “then I think the problem is already solved.”

  Elyne swung her sword, but not at him. She sliced through one of the tapestries and cut it down, just as Arlon might pound his fist on the table.

  “Ah,” she cried, “what should I do?”

  “Watch it burn,” said Sarfael, and he threw the box into the flames.

  The fire consumed it quickly, but they stood together, watching silently until it was completely gone.

  Out on the street, Elyne walked at his side. Without ta
lking, they automatically took the turns leading back to her school for elegant fighting.

  “I never learned how or why you came to Neverwinter,” she finally said to him.

  Sarfael lifted one eyebrow. “Didn’t I tell you some story or other?”

  “You told me several. I am fairly certain that none of them are true.”

  “Only fairly certain?”

  She frowned at him, but not too severely.

  “Well, once I had a student, who ended up teaching me a trick or two. And that led me to some very interesting encounters.” He paused for a moment but all he heard was Elyne’s quick step at his side.

  “What is in the past is in the past,” Sarfael said, his hand resting easy on Mavreen’s sword. “These days, I think the future is much more interesting.”

  “And what is in the future?” Elyne asked.

  “Ah,” said Sarfael with a twinkle in his eye. “Desperate work, hard fighting, countless adventures, and an official grant from Lord Neverember to sanctify it all.”

  “And, just so I’m clear in my own mind about this, exactly who would be having these countless adventures?”

  “Why you,” said Sarfael, draping a friendly arm across her shoulders, “and me. It’ll be the perfect partnership. You’ll see.”

  Elyne’s laughter echoed down the street.

  In the moonlight streaming through the open window in Dhafiyand’s room, the lady might be mistaken for a young girl, a beautiful moon elf, but then the shadows shifted and her nightmare face was revealed.

  Valindra kneeled by the fireplace and shifted her cold hand through the dead ash. She lifted up the large emerald left behind.

  Then she stood up and spoke a spell long forgotten by the living. The emerald shimmered and changed. A gleaming green woman stood before her.

  “Speak!” Valindra commanded. “Does the crown of Neverwinter still exist?”

  “Yes,” replied the emerald golem.

  “Can you bring it to me?”

  “No. Not without the box.”

  Valindra scowled. Then her brow grew smooth. “But can you tell me where the crown is?”

  “Yes,” said the golem.