As he bent to pick up his sword, he saw one of the leather-bound books on the floor-fallen, likely, while he stumbled around begging shadows for mercy. It had landed open to the middle.
Dahl picked up the book, glancing at the text: … Cormyrean line of succession as of 1478 DR. He stopped, scanning the artful inking of a tree, laden with names. King Foril Obarskyr … Crown Prince Irvel Obarskyr … Prince Baerovus Obarskyr … Princess Raedra Obarskyr … Lord Aubrin Crownsilver (Obarskyr) …
“Gods’ books,” he said. He read it again, but the names and dates were all the same. Where in the Hells had such a thing come from? Where had it picked up the notion that Brin …
He raced after Farideh, toward the camp, still worried first and foremost about the Shadovar at the gates, but suddenly far more concerned about ghosts and illusions, and a certain over-helpful tome.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tam never stopped watching Maspero, as the zhent picked through the shadovar’s belongings, and Maspero never stopped watching Tam, as the Harper examined the bodies of the Shadovar. The two shadar-kai still clutched angry-looking weapons, and wore the streaks of dead flesh that signaled death by powerful magic. The shade had bled out, both shadow and fluid, from the belly wound. Tam gently prodded it with the tip of a dagger.
“It looks like these two attacked the shade.” Tam said.
“Shouldn’t have killed him though,” Maspero said.
Tam straightened. “Must have been poisoned. Doesn’t look like he was healing himself like they do.”
“You been around many shadow folk?” Maspero asked.
“Not many live ones,” Tam replied. “Sounds like not as many as you.”
Maspero smiled cruelly at him. “Are you implying something?”
“Why would I do that?” Tam wiped the dagger down. “At least we know it’s not something new that killed them. Did you find anything in there?”
“Rations,” Maspero said, pointing to each item he’d laid out on the floor. “Some candles. Bottle of poison-well, there we go. Map. A recreation of that stone fragment. Bloody thing.” He picked up a slim leather-bound book. “Here. Can’t read this.”
Tam took it from him. The shade’s handwriting was sharp and condensed-the runes of Loross, linked and shortened into script. The ritual he’d cast gave only the slightest hesitation at the variation.
“It’s a log of their mission.” He frowned. “It’s mostly coded. ‘Message to W. Six units past.’ They started out right after the revel. Looks like Rhand was more prepared than we’d thought.” He flipped to the end, the last entries before the party’s death.
“There were five of them,” he said in surprise.
“Five of what?”
“Five in their party. The shade, the two shadar-kai, and two humans.” He skimmed the coy notes. “Definitely five. He was keeping track of supplies.”
“You think they’re still here somewhere?”
“If they are they’re in trouble. Those rations look like the last of their supplies.” Tam looked down at the pale eyes of the shade. “Attacking a shade … that’s a fool’s move.”
“You think those ghosts engineered it?”
“Makes sense.” Tam turned back to the journal, skimming ahead. “Looks like the doors sealed on them too. And … Hells.”
“What?”
“There’s a third floor. A third floor, and he had them retreat here to keep clear of it.”
“Doesn’t say why?”
The walking dead themselves would flee, the journal read. Not flame, not blades, not the power of Shar Herself seems to halt it. Tam shut the book between both hands and pursed his lips. “Not clearly.” He cursed. “We need to get back. We need to pull Mira and Pernika out of there before they find that third floor.”
Maspero grunted. “Could be he was keeping his people away from the good stuff.”
Tam slipped the journal into his bag. “What’s your business with my daughter?”
“Better to ask what’s her business with me.”
“I couldn’t place you before,” Tam said. “I’ll admit, I was thrown by the mercenary act. Maspero of Everlund-you don’t even bother hiding your identity.” He faced him. “You work for the Zhentarim.”
Maspero didn’t flinch. “I work for myself.”
“Oh, don’t be modest,” Tam said. “You head a cell of Zhentarim. You’re gaining enough of a foothold in the North to be in Harper sights, anyway. I’m going to assume you’re in a lot of rivals’ sights as well.”
“Not for long if your girl succeeds.” He set his hands on his hips, on the hilt of his dagger. “People tend to leave you to your own devices when you make it known you have magic capable of destroying whole cities.”
I could end him here, Tam thought. Leave him in the library and no one would know it hadn’t been a ghost or a trap or one of the lost Shadovar.
But he’d done nothing. Yet. It would be murder, nothing less. And Tam wasn’t the hot-blooded fool Viridi had found elbows-deep in blood and shadow.
“What’s Mira owe you?” he said. “What are you holding over her?”
Maspero chuckled, eyeing Tam as if he weren’t sure if Tam were serious. Then he chuckled again. “She’s right about you, isn’t she?” he said. “Always have to play the hero. Always saving people, even when they don’t want to be saved.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You assume she owes me something,” Maspero said, “that we forced her into this, and you can undo her debt? But it never crosses your mind, does it, that she might have come to us? That she might appreciate what the Zhentarim can offer her.”
“You want me to believe Mira’s interested in your power struggles?”
“Cold-blooded Mira?” Maspero chuckled again. “I wouldn’t ask your glaive-girl to buy that nonsense. Mira’s got her own agenda. Always has. But we all line up nice and neat, don’t we? At least,” he added, “so long as I get my spellbooks.” He stepped around the corpse and back out through the swinging shelf.
Zhentarim. Tam had hoped he’d been wrong, guessing after Brin’s intimations. That Maspero was only a mercenary with an over-inflated sense of his own worth. He cursed under his breath. Once they left the library, he’d have to be careful-he’d have to get the twins and Brin and Dahl away from Maspero, away from Pernika.
Away from Mira, he thought. His heart squeezed. Silver Lady, let him be wrong. Please, he thought, please let them have found a way out. Please let them have found something to disarm the seal. Please, let Shar pass us by.
If the Lady of Loss could be persuaded, he thought, you’d have a much easier job.
Havilar leaped in front of him as he approached the camp, her glaive ready. “Are you Tam?” she demanded. Then, “Wait, how are we supposed to tell?”
“He’s got Maspero with him,” Brin supplied from behind her.
“Have the others come back?” Tam asked.
“No,” Brin said. “You’re the first.”
“Right.” Tam considered the camp, the supplies strewn across the space, the tall shelves of books surrounding them, and tried to imagine the mind of an arcanist who built such a fortress for his knowledge. The ghosts, the Book, the illusions-something wasn’t right.
Footsteps pattered through the maze of shelves, and Farideh crossed the border into the camp, her fists balled and and her expression fierce.
Brin pointed his sword and holy symbol at her. “Stop. She’s by herself.” Farideh halted, glanced back over her shoulder, and cursed softly.
“No,” Havilar said mildly. “That’s definitely Farideh.”
Farideh gave her a puzzled look. “How can you be sure?”
“How can you not be sure?” Havilar asked. “If the ghost could sound like you, move like you, look like you, and make that face you make when you’re annoyed”-she scrunched up her nose and pursed her mouth in an exaggeration of Farideh’s earlier expression-“well, then I don’t think you’d have ever figured out they were ghosts, right?” She stopped, as if she’d remembered something, and turned back to her glaive with a scowl of her own.