"For how long?" Labraster growled. "The High Lady of Silverymoon still has no proof against me. After all, I did not slay the tradelord. Such legal niceties would not matter, say, to those who rule in Luskan, but she is one who does take refuge in laws, and hold to them."
Meira lifted her misshapen shoulders in a smooth shrug. "For as long as need bo. You lost a life, merchant-yes, the one you'd built, but most of us only ever get one. Think of a fresh start, a chance to deal with some travel shy;ing traders who'll come unaware that you know their true natures as a challenge, hmm?"
Labraster bowed his head, "I grant that, though it does not yet seem a gladsome thing to me. So tell me, who am I? Blandras Nuin, yes, but who is Blandras Nuin?"
The priestess lifted her lip in an unlovely smile, like a dog about to snarl. "A man of moderate prosperity, ruled by honesty. An innocent in the intrigues of the world, con shy;tent to live out his life in trade."
"Trade in what, and where?"
"Blandras Nuin is a trader in textiles," the priestess said grandly, as if telling a fireside tale to rapt children, "respected in his home city of Neverwinter. He seldom travels, and when he does, 'tis usually to Everlund or Sil shy;verymoon, on matters of business. He's a kindly man, with little interest in women beyond watching tavern girls dance, and has no family or relatives."
Labraster looked pained. "Textiles? What do I know about cloth?" he snarled.
Green eyes twinkled. Their owner replied crisply, "Whatever you'll learn between here and Nuin's house. It is a tall and narrow abode, roof of old shields sealed with pitch, stone lion gateposts, on Prendle Street. You'll have six servants, but the old chambermaid Alaithe is the only one who really knows you-that is, the real Blandras Nuin."
Auvrarn Labraster sighed, glanced around at the standing stones and the hillside falling away into the trees, then brought his head up to peer at the priestess who'd transformed him. "I've no choice, have I?" he asked, his words more bitter than he'd meant them to be-but not nearly as bitter as he felt.
"None at all, Blandras Nuin," Meira told him. "Now start walking."
Labraster's brows lifted stormily. "Can't you teleport me?"
The priestess pointed a wart-studded finger at the merchant's hand and shook her raven-haired head. "The ring, remember?"
The darkness of closed eyes, and the roaring that meant Labraster's snoring would render his ears useless until he awakened, left the eldest of the Seven Sisters utterly alone once more. She was alone and alert, not needing to sleep, but unable to ride a body around to look at new things, and talk to other beings, and see more. She was alone to think.
So what had she to show for all the hard work Dove, Qilue, Laeral, and Alustriel before her had done? A little more than the usual quiet, underhanded alliance between a rogue at one end of a caravan route and a thief at the other. A little more even than a trading coster gone bad, or illicit goods bought with stolen coin. It was a shadowy chain of varied individuals who worked covertly in Scornubel, Waterdeep, Silverymoon, a hermit's cave some shy;where north and east of Longsaddle in the wild hills between the Long Road and the Goblintide, here in Neverwinter, and presumably in distant Thay. . probably also in Sembia and Cormyr, and possibly in Amn and other Sword Coast ports such as Luskan and Baldur's Gate.
They behaved not unlike the Zhentarim, but enough unlike their work to remove them from suspicion, even if there'd been no Thayans or Sharran clergy to make the differences sharp.
Drow were working with humans to supplant other humans, using magical guises-long-lasting shapeshifting; powerful magic needed there. Humans were busily engaged in smuggling, hidden investments, market manipulations, and slavery, but such a widespread secret organization, with all of its perils, was hardly needed for anything but the slavery and smuggling. So why? Larger aims, as yet unseen, must underlie it all. The presence of the Red Wizards-who by nature need great power, and therefore work at a great reach, whether prudent or not-and that of any clergy of Shar both pointed to bigger things.
Just what those bigger things were was probably beyond what Labraster knew, but not necessarily beyond what he could guess.
Well, Chosen of Mystra could make guesses, too. If drow could masquerade as humans in Scornubel, what was to stop others in the cabal-yes, call it that, however ugly or possibly misplaced the word-from using similar means and magics to take the places of other folk, elsewhere? They'd target rich folk, of course, influential folk, rulers-why else had others considered this Labraster a fitting stand-in for Azoun of Cormyr, and Meira thought him too weak? — and elder noble families, energetically rising merchants, those who commanded armies or con shy;trolled fleets, caravan companies, and trading costers.
It was grain and beans again. Centuries ago, a certain bored, younger Sylune-restless and not yet rooted, not yet the Witch of Shadowdale, not yet loving any place too closely, and the poorer for it-had watched merchants grow rich. Oh, aye, merchants grew rich all the time, sometimes by innovation and more often by rushing in needed goods when there were shortages.
She remembered a few growing rich by virtue of the mercenaries they could hire to burn crops in one place, or fight the mercenaries hastily hired against them across sown farmers' fields, which bought the same result. They'd take advantage of these shortages, rushing in goods they'd already secured elsewhere when demand and prices were highest.
Grains and beans. Not so glamorous as kidnapped princesses or fell wizards cracking castles asunder, but just as hard on the folk whose land the wars raged through, or who starved outright or dwelt in misery, for the lack of things that need not have been scarce. All the while merchants who hired armsmen to kick back beg shy;gars rode in ever grander coaches to revels where they grew fatter and laughed louder, guzzling wine and eyeing each other's new jewels and hired bedmates, until they were all so bored that feuds and hunts and the ever-changing whimsy of styles known as "fashion" came to the fore as a way of spending time and coin.
Just the way of the world, a Waterdhavian merchant dead and dust these four hundred years had told her, derisively dismissing her protests at such behavior. Just something she hadn't, of course, the native wits to under shy;stand, and should leave off thinking about and hurry, while she still had her looks, to the nearest whorehouse to get back to earning herself a living.
She'd tried that, too. Mirth still rose in Sylune after all these years at the haughty merchant's wife who'd looked down from a festhall balcony with scorn at the silver-haired dancer and called out that she might as well wear naught but pig herders' boots to do what she did … only to recognize her own son in Sylune's arms later the same night… a Sylune wearing only pig herders' boots, which she'd given the man to present to his mother on her morningfeast platter the next day. The woman's shrieks of rage had been the talk of her hitherto quietly exclusive Waterdhavian neighborhood, but that woman, too, was long dead, and her fine son. Sylune, caught defending her beloved dale in the heart of a storm of dragons, should have followed them both into the cold, eternal darkness, but for the love of her sisters and the grace of her mother Mystra.
"Oh, Mystra," she prayed now, alone in the darkness with no voice to speak aloud. "Let me do what is right and best for thee and for all Faerun. . and let those two rights and bests run ever together."