Dahl lowered the paper. “I tried. He wouldn’t see me without a serious bid in hand. Master Vishter told me to stand back. That we’d sort it out once we see what we’re in for. That he had an eye and a hand ready for that.”
“So you haven’t got any idea of what you have to bid with?”
“This is just a viewing for potential buyers.” He folded up the paper with exaggerated neatness. “We still have time.”
Tam sighed. “Well, shall we see what the city is fussing about?”
It didn’t take long before they hit the crowds. Hungry-eyed merchants and adventurers in scarred armor rubbed elbows with urchins and Watchmen. Waterdhavians trying to finish up their market day struggled past with baskets, or just gave in and followed the eyes of the crowd up to the covered dais where the merchant had set up his treasure.
Faded ink skipped and shifted over the yellowed surface, changing from lines of text to detailed drawings, always ebbing away from the torn, jagged edge. Held up by the invisible strings of a spell, the page seemed to shiver with the changes, as if it were alive. Something about it made the air hum, and Farideh’s brand started to itch. The hum broke into a low string of whispered words, a language Farideh couldn’t place.
The page was speaking.
“This,” Dahl murmured, “is more promising.”
Behind the spell’s shimmer and to one side of the page, there was a piece of granite leaning against a small chest. The size of a charger, it had been polished once, but years and weather and gods knew what else had dulled its surface and softened the edges of the runes that spattered the blue-gray surface. The edges were broken and jagged, all but on the right side, which ended in a smooth, straight lip, as if it had once fitted against something else.
On either side of the dais were two guards-a lean half-orc man and a human woman with dark eyes and darker hair bundled up on top of her head. She looked down at the crowd, at Tam and Farideh and Dahl, and her mouth went small. She whispered to the half-orc and slipped away. Farideh frowned and glanced at the crowd around her-not a few people were eyeing her the same way.
“Henish,” she muttered. What did they think Farideh would do? Steal the page from thirty feet away in a thick crowd?
“Mother of the moon,” Tam swore looking around at the crowd. “No. It’s too many people. The price is going to get too expensive too fast.”
“If there’s anything in this city that the Harpers ought to protect,” Dahl said, “any artifact worth watching over, it’s this.”
Dahl pressed the sheet of paper against the wall of a nearby stall and tapped the line of runes reprinted there. Draconic letters scratched their way across the paper like a line of claw marks, each dripping tails and serifs. Farideh peered at the runes.
“So the page keeps changing,” he said. “Faster, the more people that get near it. The same Draconic letters as the stone, but more, too-Dethek, Elvish, all sorts of things in bits and pieces. The merchant’s not repeating any of that. This replica is of the text on the stone.”
“What does it say?” Tam asked.
Farideh frowned. “It-”
“I haven’t translated it yet,” Dahl said over her. “But the style is old. Absolutely pre-Spellplague.” He traced the curve of a rune, a hard glottal sound, with the tip of his smallest finger. “Modern Draconic doesn’t make this line curve so much. The serifs are shortened too. It’s a strong indicator that whatever it came from is older than they’re saying. Considering how slowly Draconic changes, it could be as old as Waterdeep. Even if it’s just some dragon’s laundry bill, if it’s that old, it has to have value.”
“But it’s not Draconic,” Farideh said.
Dahl startled, as if he hadn’t expected her to know how to speak. “Of course it’s Draconic,” he said sharply. “I know what Draconic looks like, and I’m sure the merchant does too.”
“And I can read Draconic,” she countered. “It’s not Draconic.”
“What is it if it’s not Draconic?” Tam asked her.
“The letters are,” Farideh said. “But they just make gibberish. It doesn’t say a thing. Here”-Farideh reached over and drew a finger beneath the cluster of runes recreated on the leaflet. “Ah-nuh-jach nuh-thay-rell,” she read. “Even if you suppose the merchant got some letters wrong in the copy-”
“What did you say?” Tam demanded, his eyes suddenly wide.
Farideh blinked at him. “It’s … gibberish?”
“The runes, Fari, what does it say?”
“Ah … ah-nuh-jach,” she repeated, carefully rechecking the letters. “Nuh-thay-rell. The vowels … it might be a little different, that’s mostly where things change. The ‘ch’ is harder in true Draconic. But not much.”
“Nuh-thay-rell,” he repeated. Tam ran his hands through his hair and cursed. “Loross.”
“Netherese?” Dahl said. He looked back at the letters and cursed.
“Is that what it’s speaking?” she asked. “It doesn’t sound like Draconic spoken.”
“Speaking?” Dahl said. “What speaking?”
Farideh narrowed her eyes. “The mumbling noise. It sounds like speech. Like an old man muttering.”
“What’s it saying?” Tam asked, urgently. Farideh shrugged.
“Gibberish,” she said. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the fine, whispery syllables. “Ashenath … enjareen … nether pendarthis …” She shook her head and opened her eyes. “You can’t hear it?”
“Only a hum.” Tam pursed his lips, staring at the page. “Right,” he said after a moment. “Dahl, I’m assuming you can cast a language ritual?”
“Not here,” Dahl said. “I need-”
“Of course not here,” Tam said. “You have the components?”
Dahl bit off whatever he’d been saying. “Yes.”
“Good.” Tam steered Farideh toward the dais and pressed her through the crowd, close enough that she had to force people aside. “Study that stone,” he implored, low and in her ear, “and remember as much as you can. Every letter you can manage. I’m going to need you to redraw it for Dahl.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because,” he said, “you’re right and he’s right: it’s older than the mountains, and it’s not Draconic. It’s from ancient Netheril.”
At least, Dahl thought, something useful came of all that antiquary hunting. Even if it wasn’t entirely clear what it was.
Dahl laid out the components for the ritual that would let him understand the ancient language on one side of a square table. On the opposite side, the tiefling woman drew the remembered runes onto the back of Dahl’s list of artifacts with ponderous care, a strand of purplish-black hair trailing in the ink.
Gods, he’d like to have died then and there when she’d shown him up. There were dozens of languages that used Draconic letters-he knew that. Why had he just gone along and assumed they spelled out true Draconic?
This is why Oghma has no need of you, he thought. Because you’re stupider than some tiefling girl out of the mountains.
Tam paced between his bed and the fireplace, his expression drawn and distant. When Dahl had asked what his plan was, Tam had merely shaken his head and said nothing. Dahl set down the last of the components, an ink imbued with salts of copper. No room for error, now-if he miscast the ritual, the Harpers would never have him doing anything more than scouring the markets for goods.
“That should do it,” he said. He hefted his ritual book onto the table, a thick volume bound in crimson leather and embossed with the golden harp of Oghma in the center of the cover. Once upon a time, ritual magic had been a specialty of his, a focus among many dazzling and precious forms of the Art and the magic of the divine. The tome was nearly filled now, most of its pages inscribed with magic obtained after Oghma had left Dahl and Dahl had left Procampur.
Farideh stared at the heavy tome as he flipped to the proper page. “That’s … quite a lot of spells. Did it take you long to learn them all?”