“Nentyarch?”
Havilar shrugged, her eyes on the cobbles. “It’s some sort of frozen war prince,” she said. “Read it in a book.” She looked up at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Brin sighed. “It’s complicated, and it would get far, far more complicated if I put any stock in it. Look, I didn’t tell you-but I didn’t tell anyone. I don’t want to be a prince or a king or a nentyarch.” He smiled at her. “I told you a lot more than anyone else. I told you about Constancia and Helindra.”
She nodded absently. “I would have understood.”
“I hardly understand it.” He opened the door to the inn. “I would have to draw charts.”
She didn’t laugh. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” he said. “Sorry. Let me buy you evenfeast. You and Farideh.”
They’d no more than reached the top of the stairs when Farideh stepped out of the air, forcing them both to leap back. Flushed and furious-looking and seething that strange, wispy shadowstuff that stung his eyes like burning brimstone-it was a stark reminder that Havilar wasn’t really the scary one. Usually, Brin amended.
“Hells, but you look terrible,” Havilar said. “What are you doing, jumping around corridors?”
“I’ve met Brother Tam’s new apprentice,” Farideh said sharply. “That fellow from the taproom.”
“The tall, good-looking one?” Havilar asked.
Brin had to admit it was a bit like being hit in the stomach by the shaft of her glaive. “When did you meet him?” he asked.
“The first day we were here.” Havilar smirked at her sister. “Did you get him to loosen up?”
Farideh shot her twin a dark look. “No. Though if you’d like to knock his jaw free to help him with that, I’d thank you for it. He’s very skilled at needling my last nerve.”
“Who isn’t?” Havilar said. “We’ve just been to see about Brin’s sudden fortune.”
“Not sudden,” Brin said. “It’s not mine, either.”
“Oh, just be pleased,” Havilar said, nudging him with her elbow. “Even if you let it all sit in that vault, you’ve got piles of sudden fortune. Anyway, now we’re going to have a drink and some food. Do you want to come?”
Farideh drew a long breath, the tendrils of smoke retreating. “No,” she said. “I’d rather just sleep.”
“Come on,” Havilar cajoled. “It will cheer you up.”
“And then I’ll see that henish and I’ll be unbearable for another day,” Farideh said too lightly. “No.” Her tail started flicking against the wooden floor. “Come up soon.”
“When we do,” Havilar said with a wave of her hand.
“What were you doing with Tam and his apprentice?” Brin asked.
Farideh shook her head. “There’s an artifact for sale. A page from a book of some kind and a piece of a door or something. I was helping them do the translation.” She hesitated. “It’s a Netherese language.”
A feeling like icy water poured down Brin’s back and drove every thought about his own petty problems out of his head. Constancia’s warnings about encroaching Shadovar armies echoed after them.
“Ye gods,” he said. “Where’s Tam?”
Farideh shook her head. “He ran off-but he didn’t say where to. He took his chain.”
“Well, that’s good,” Brin said with forced cheer. “He’s likely taking care of things.”
“There were guards around the treasure,” Farideh said. “Sharp-eyed ones.”
“He’s pretty sharp himself,” Havilar said. “And I thought silverstars could”-she waved a hand in the air-“you know, go all invisible and things?”
Farideh stared at her sister. “Where in the world did you hear that?”
“Everyone knows that. Why else would you worship the moon goddess?”
Brin took a deep breath-slain down to a soul-and calmed himself. Tam knew better than any of them what Netheril might do, and he was taking care of things. What was one moldy old page anyhow? “Did he have a guess as to what sort of book it was from?”
Farideh bit her lip, tenser and more uneasy. “It belonged to an arcanist, from the sound of things. A powerful one.”
CHAPTER FIVE
WATERDEEP
1 FLAMERULE, THE YEAR OF THE DARK CIRCLE (1478 DR)
The small Wyrm Inn, though less grand and less capacious than its cousin, the Greatwyrm, had gotten a reputation among Waterdeep’s moderately well-heeled as an excellent place for a meal, a draft, and perhaps a few stronger substances. It was pleasant enough that the merchant, his guards, and the treasure they guarded had taken rooms on the third floor.
You are too old for this, Tam thought as he slipped through the packed taproom toward the entrance to the inn. You have been too old for this for well on fifteen years.
But what else could he do? Send Dahl in to steal the page? Send Farideh? Beg the Fisher for the thousands upon thousands of gold pieces it was likely go for?
No, he’d have to take care of matters himself.
There was a guard at the door to the guests’ rooms, the burly fellow who’d been beside the stone at the auction viewing. Tam watched him from the corner of his eye as he eased past. The guard’s eyes never left Tam. No slipping by that one.
He kept walking. Fortunately, inns were notably insecure. There would be another way to the treasure of Tarchamus.
The merchant running the auction, a man called Artur Chansom, wasn’t that way. Chansom had held out, despite-Tam had discovered-already receiving multiple offers to buy the piece. There was too much coin to be made. Far too much to hope that his sense of duty could overwhelm his sense of profit. Even if it could mean leaving a path to the sort of powers that Netheril spent ages acquiring.
Even without knowing what the page and stone had once belonged to, even without being sure what the arcanist’s works of power entailed, Tam knew enough about the heights of power that ancient Netheril had reached to know the artifacts couldn’t just be left to fall into anyone’s hands. Works of magic like none the world had seen, yes, but Netheril’s arcanists had also destroyed or decimated the surrounding civilizations in their quest for an empire, flouted the gods themselves, and reached for powers that ended in the First Death of the goddess of magic and the ultimate collapse of ancient Netheril. Not treasures, he thought, one left for the taking.
Tam passed through the side door and in through the kitchen entrance, his thoughts echoing back to the night when he and his comrades had run afoul of the Shadovar scouting party. It was before he had gone into Viridi’s service, before he had even taken vows as one of Selune’s silverstar, when he was just a headstrong lad with no sense at all of what he could lose. And then they’d died-dear Ariya, brave Seris, wide-eyed Myk, that blessed bastard Payel-and the Lady of Loss had made it clear how much could be taken away.
Slipping into the Smallwyrm’s stairwell, he shuddered. He’d pledged himself to the Moonmaiden, the eternal enemy of Shar, shortly after. If what he’d seen were the predations of a minor scouting party, Faerun would need all the help it could get to stand against the city that sent them, and he’d been young, idealistic, full of spleen and holy fire.
Which is exactly how Viridi had caught him and brought him into her service.
A far more orderly one than he served now. He settled down in front of the keyhole to the second floor with a grunt for his achy knee. Did Dahl even know how to pick a lock if pressed? he wondered. Or what to say if someone caught him at it? How to disarm a pressure plate or a trip wire? How to pass as a wealthy merchant or a copperless beggar? How to get up off the floor and bring down an attacker in one swift movement? Tam couldn’t have said, and what’s worse, he doubted the Fisher could have either.
His lockpick snapped with a sudden ping, and Tam cursed. The metal spine protruded hardly a hairsbreadth from the edge of the keyhole. He pulled his head back to see better, scraped at it with his fingernails. The damned thing slipped deeper.