“Master Zawad?” Dahl said, climbing off his stool and stepping into his path. He extended a hand in greeting. “I’m Dahl Peredur. Aron said … He should have mentioned my pin-”
“Good gods,” Tam said, looking Dahl up and down. “You? Where did you get the impression that eavesdropping like a gawping spectator made for good spycraft?”
The rebuke shut Dahl’s mouth. “My apologies,” he said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your business.”
Tam sighed again. “Get that pin off your cloak. You’ve never met me-what if someone else had shown up in my place? An agent of Shade or a Zhent or something worse?”
“I suppose I’d question their goals,” Dahl said, sharply, removing the harp-shaped pin that marked him. “Searching out antiquities doesn’t seem in the best interests of the Zhentarim.”
“Never assume.”
“All right,” Dahl said. This was all going to the Abyss’s privy and back. Dahl straightened his shoulders and took out the list of antiquities. “I’ve gone through all the reports that Master Vishter and his friends had,” he said. “I’ve brought together a list of the most likely and mapped out-”
“Is there anything pressing? Anything that will leave someone dead if we don’t do something right now?”
Dahl bit his tongue. “They’re antiquities,” he said. “Not plague-pockets.”
“Later then,” Tam said. “Tomorrow, preferably. I’ve had my fill of other people’s plans for the day.” He stopped and looked back at Dahl. “But I will buy you a drink. We can go over how to present yourself properly.”
The Fisher-fifteen years gone by and still he preferred that epithet to all the others-poured himself a few fingers of Damaran whiskey at the end of the day, intending to read a few more pages of reports and call it a night. But when he turned from the sideboard, he found himself face-to-face with a woman in dark leathers, watching patiently from the shadows of the door.
He stopped himself from crying out-thank the gods-and from tossing the alcohol in her eyes and pulling a dagger. But his disquiet must have shown.
“Did I startle you?” she asked striding into the room. “I couldn’t wait.”
The Fisher settled himself behind his desk. He knew enough about her to be sure she hadn’t been trying to surprise him-Mira was simply quiet on her feet, which was far more embarrassing.
Not Mira, he corrected himself. She’d told him another name, like she ought to have, and damned if he was going to breach etiquette that way. Not without a better payoff for the hoarded information. Trouble was he couldn’t recall the false name.
“What can I do for you, my dear?” he asked, skirting the issue. “Please sit.”
“I’ve sent messages,” she said, standing in front of the desk. “Where’s my team?”
Ah, here, here was a better payoff, the Fisher thought. “Would you like a drink?”
“No. Thank you.” She bit off each word. “Where is my team? We can’t wait any longer.”
“Ah, well, that,” the Fisher said. “You see I can’t, as it turns out, spare you so many agents. We’re short of hands as it is, and-”
“You promised,” she said. There was no plea there; this one was cool as they came.
“I thought I could,” the Fisher said. “But don’t worry: I’ve managed something better. A single agent-and perhaps an apprentice if they get along for the first part, you never know.”
“What in the Hells am I supposed to do with one agent?”
“A venerable agent,” the Fisher said, suppressing a grin. “Tam Zawad. Previously known to a lucky few as the Shepherd, as Brother Nightingale, and briefly, for an unluckier few, as the Culler of the Fold.” The woman’s thin lips pursed at the name, tightened with each of the epithets, and the Fisher’s grin broke free. “Do you know him?”
She stared at him, as if waiting for him to amend his words, as if he would take back what he said and give her a different contact. The Fisher felt the old blood stirring for something more exciting-he’d noticed already she was a quiet one, a calm one, but somewhere in that gaze something dangerous simmered. Too dangerous, likely, for an old spy with a fancy dagger. Or maybe not. He sipped his drink. At least it was more interesting than reports and corralling children playing at being Harpers.
“I understand,” she said softly, “that they hold you dear in Waterdeep. A venerable agent, yourself. They respect your expertise, your years of service, to an extent-a cheap extent. It’s less than you deserve, isn’t it? Makes a man willing to test limits. Seek out other allies.”
Her dark eyes pinned him but the Fisher refused to look away. If she thought to cow him, with information he hadn’t hidden from her, she was after the wrong man.
“I also understand,” her tone a little sharper now, “that you think this assignment is a minor matter. An inconvenient aside to your normal activities. Let me disabuse you of that notion: it is not. You do not accept Maspero of Everlund’s coin and then brush him aside. If we fail-”
“You’ll not fail,” the Fisher interrupted. “You can’t. Not without paying the same price.”
The woman stared at him again, as if he were a schoolboy speaking out of turn. What she said next came with such venom, such fury, that the Fisher momentarily considered he might have misjudged her.
“Maspero’s not one to make unnecessary examples, whatever your reports say. If I fail, it will be because you put a man known for rushing about to play hero, for trying to make up for past cowardices, for not working well with others-you, Fisher, put him on my watch when I specifically asked for strong-backed greenlings with eyes for antiquities who could follow orders and not ruin my site. This little jape, this game that makes you feel as if you’ve triumphed-over what, I can only imagine, Fisher; you’re a man of so many shortcomings-make no mistake, it’s not a mere inconvenience to me. Your games have jeopardized everything.
“And on top of that, you’ve delayed too long.” She pulled a folded page from her jerkin and tossed it on the table. “He’s selling it.”
The Fisher drew the leaflet toward him, avoiding the woman’s eyes. The Secrets of Attarchammiux, Terror of the Silver Marches. A paragraph of reconstituted history-tales of a wizardly dragon fit for chapbooks. A row of broken Draconic letters. The Fisher cursed to himself.
Sloppy, he thought. Godsdamned sloppy, you.
“You said he’d gladly sell it to us.”
“He would have,” she agreed. “And then you sat on your hands so you could pull a stupid prank on an old rival instead of moving quickly enough to catch him before he had it appraised by a nib-brained collector who went ahead and decided to tell him we were dealing with a stlarning dragon’s hoard. Now it’s too valuable to sell for Harper coin.”
“How high is it likely to go?”
“For clues to a dragon’s hoard?” The woman shrugged. “Depends entirely upon the crowd. Worst case: more than one ‘lordly adventurer’ shows up with their pockets spitting gold and their good opinions of themselves raging, and we have a battle of bidders. Could go very high, very quickly. Ten times the value or more.”
The Fisher swallowed more whiskey. “I can’t just hand over that sort of coin.”
“I’m well aware.”
“There’d be questions. They’d want to know what was so important.”
“I said, I’m well aware.” The woman glared at the city out the window glittering with torches, and bit her upper lip, deep in thought. “The plan will have to change. Your agent will know about the items?”
“He will. The greenling I tasked him with is nothing if not thorough when it comes to antiquities.”
She nodded to herself, still thinking. “Then he’ll find me. Keep the coin ready. We’ll find a use for it.”
The Fisher narrowed his eyes at the woman. She stared right back, implacable as ever. Her true identity hadn’t been difficult to puzzle out-even if she hadn’t told him her name, with those dark eyes he would have suspected. Twenty-five years in the field, missing such a detail would have him reaching for the hemlock.