In his arms, Tam carried a sullen bundle, wrapped in layers and layers of wool, and as they came to the door, he wondered if he’d made the right choice in bringing it. He would wonder over a lot of choices, he felt certain, in the years to come.
But not this one, he thought.
“Draw swords,” he ordered and pushed in.
The Fisher sat at his desk, his golden rings in a pile and a measure of whiskey before him. He looked up at Tam with a somber expression. “Well met, Shepherd. Too afraid to do this, just the two of us?”
“You owe them as much as you do me,” Tam said. “If not more.” A little digging had turned up a dozen missions turned sour, all run out of Waterdeep. All crossed with the Zhentarim. More than a few ending with dead Harpers. “Watching Gods, Fisher. Was this all for coin?”
“Coin,” the other spy said. “And the thrill of it.” The Fisher drained his whiskey. “I think you might have let me run for it, for old times’ sake. That’s why you brought these bravos. I think you knew you couldn’t trust yourself not to get soft for memory’s sake.”
Tam thought of Viridi, of the spymaster’s willingness to bend her rules for him when it came to Mira. And of what Viridi would have done-to Tam, to any of them-if their actions had ended with agents dead. “Viridi would have made certain she had every one of your secrets before you died,” he said, “whatever it took. So be glad I haven’t dwelt too long in memories of the past.
“Aron Vishter, you have betrayed your oaths and disgraced the cause of the Harpers. You are sentenced to death by hanging.” He signaled two of the Everlund Harpers-a half-elf man and a broad-shouldered Shou-to take hold of the spymaster. “But for the love of mercy, I hope you give us the names of your conspirators.”
The Fisher gave Tam a wry smile as the Harpers seized his arms and hauled him up out of the chair. “You won’t last long at this. Already told me you won’t make me talk.”
Tam shook his head. “I said be glad I’m not Viridi.” He handed the bundle containing the Book to the third Harper, a brunette woman. “Don’t touch it yourself,” he cautioned. “And lock it up tight in the vaults when he’s through.”
You will regret this, the Book’s voice said, as the armored Harper took hold of it.
“That I may.” He looked at the gaudy silver pin perched on his shoulder, a harp and a moon on a round shield. Another thing to get on Everlund about. There had to be a less obvious way to mark themselves to each other. They led the Fisher away into the more secret parts of the stronghold. Tam watched him go, mourning the loss of a comrade, the loss of the last connection to a life he still missed.
“Where will you start?” Dahl asked. The younger man stood over the Fisher’s desk, looking at the mess of documents.
“By purging the Fisher’s traitors,” Tam said. “Let us hope he is forthcoming. I don’t want a changeling hunt.” He looked over the cluttered office-he could clear it out while he waited for results. “And then … we need to start recruiting. Proper recruiting.” He looked over at the younger man. “I hope you’ll stay.”
Dahl gave a bitter laugh. “I have nowhere else to go.” He flipped through the papers on the Fisher’s former desk. “And I think I’d prefer the Harpers anyway. Especially if I’m not going to be sent rifling through antiquaries.”
“It would be a waste of your skills,” Tam agreed.
Dahl nodded absently, in the way Tam had come to realize meant he was saying thanks, but embarrassed to do so. “Did you consider,” Dahl asked, “recruiting … I mean, they’re young but … Farideh seems like she’d be a decent ally. Absent the devil.”
The girl was clever and quick, solving problems in the middle of everything falling apart as well as if she’d been put through the first years as the Red Knight’s own. Havilar’s glaive was, as they said, as good as her right hand and he would never need to ease Clanless Mehen’s true heir into the bloodier aspects of protecting the balance of Faerun. Even Brin, who was not cut out for the battlefield but was halfway to being able to lie to Cyric himself.
“I don’t think they’re ready,” Tam said. “Nor do I think the Harpers are truly ready for them.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Dahl looked down at the desk. “I suppose if she had been a Harper, we would both be facing a fair amount of trouble for what happened. Around the door. And such. It was awfully close to oath-breaking.”
Tam sighed. There are rules you bend, he thought, and rules to which you hold firm. “You both survived and came out better for it, I’d say. No need for tribunal. But I wouldn’t send you out together again, no.” He regarded the younger man more seriously. “And I hope to the gods you are never that self-indulgent again.”
“No.” Dahl pursed his lips. “Do you mind? I have an errand or two …”
“Of course,” Tam said. He followed him to the door. “When you get back I want a list from every available Harper of potential recruits. Anyone you know-from your past, from your present-who might make a proper agent. Think on it.”
“I will.” He stopped outside the door. “Have you any idea where Mira went?”
“No,” Tam said, and it was the truth. They’d no more than skirted the Shadovar before she and Maspero vanished in the night-not a note, not a word, not a fond farewell. She’d taken the spellbooks she’d rescued and left Tam the Book of Tarchamus. That, he supposed sadly, was her fond farewell.
“She’ll be all right,” Dahl offered.
“Go,” Tam said. “I need you back here soon.”
Dahl left, and at last Tam was alone, in the secret offices of the spymaster of Waterdeep’s Harpers. He’d been hiding from this for a long time, he thought. Running across Faerun as if the best and surest way to protect things were to be the one who brought the threats down, tangled in his chain. As if he could avoid ever being the one who handed down the orders that didn’t always turn out, that didn’t always save the day. That didn’t always bring Harpers home to their loved ones.
He looked up at the portraits the Fisher had hung along the ceiling’s edge-Harpers of old, men and women, bards and assassins and casters and more. All exuding the shrewdness and determination it took to maintain the balance of Faerun.
Less a balance these days, he thought, and turned to the window, looking out at the City of Splendors. More a dike against the tide of evil.
Someone must, he thought, and it reminded him so much of something Viridi might have said-the truth, said plain so that she could get to the business of doing something about it. Someone must, and the best someone is you. For all he wished his life had run a different course, it had not, and now the Harpers needed him and all the wisdom he’d gathered traveling the way he had. He hoped it would be enough. He hoped he would find himself suited to the spymaster’s role.
Tam hoped it might help him keep Mira from harm’s way.
He sighed and looked down at the sill, at the weather-damaged wood beneath his hands.
At the small, tightly rolled scrap of paper that had been wedged under the pane into the largest crack.
Dahl left Goodman Florren’s shop, having gotten a better deal than he would have elsewhere, yet feeling very much like he’d been robbed by the roadside. He carried the paper-wrapped package under one arm and wended his way through Waterdeep’s streets toward the Trade Ward. He hoped this was the right thing to do.
He wouldn’t be alone, would he? Dahl had racked his thoughts trying to come up with what he might have said or done that made Farideh put him in the same category as a Netherese wizard who didn’t think elves or gnomes were worth as much as humans. Who wouldn’t have thought a tiefling merited much concern at all.
And there hadn’t been anything, he was fairly sure, that was worth such a declaration. Not any one thing …