Dahl shook his head. “Right.” He cleared his throat. “Anyone raiding a farmstead would have ransacked the stores. And if they fled, they would have taken supplies.”
Tam frowned. “Did you have a wizard search it?”
“They didn’t find much,” Vescaras said. “The two I brought down there said it would be a feat to kill as many people who lived there with magic that destroyed the body so completely and left no trace. If there were portals involved, they sealed closed. If it was some other planar passage, it had been too long to find evidence of it.
“There’s more,” Vescaras said. “Possibly. A connection, perhaps. I’ve lost two agents as well. One scouting along the High Road, one working out of Athkatla. Again, out of the blue, no word, no sign.”
“Still, not as odd as we’d like,” Tam said sadly.
Vescaras shook his head again. “It doesn’t feel right. They were good agents, careful agents. They weren’t heading into anything difficult. Athkatla was recovering from fieldwork, watching donations to Waukeen’s temple. She missed a report, I went to see her. No one knew where she’d gone. The scout was in Daranna’s territory, reporting to her as well. Nothing. She’s covering a lot of empty wilderness,” he admitted, “but it’s Daranna.”
That made eight lost agents in the last tenday. And a farmstead, Dahl thought, wiping his quill on a rag. And much as he thought Vescaras was over-cautious, he agreed: something felt wrong.
“What else?” Tam asked.
“There are Shadovar picking through the ruins of Sakkors,” Lord Vescaras Ammakyl was saying. “I can’t say what they were doing, precisely. I didn’t want my people getting too near, but I would wager they’re looking for artifacts.”
Tam nodded at the dark-skinned half-elf over his steepled fingers, staring intently at the surface of his desk. Dahl kept writing and waited for the older Calishite man to say something-what else would the Shadovar be doing with the ruins of their floating city? Looking for survivors a year after the collapse?
“I still have no count of those who might have fled by arcane means,” Vescaras went on. “One assumes there were some, but we haven’t ascertained what exactly brought the city down yet. There mightn’t have been time.” Dahl dutifully added this to Vescaras’s report as well.
“Why are you still looking?” Khochen interjected. “It’s been ages.”
“Clues,” Vescaras said. “Sakkors falls, then the earthmotes start. It could be connected.”
“You mean the Trade Way crashes?” Khochen asked. “Dahl thinks that’s idiotic. I think he makes a convincing argument.”
Dahl froze, his mind a swirl of doubt. Vescaras glared at him.
“Oh?” Tam said, turning to face his scribe.
Dahl laid his quill down, swallowed to wet his mouth, and gave Khochen a glare of his own. “Most likely.”
“Then how do you explain it?” Vescaras asked.
“Bad luck? Odds? I’m not trying to be difficult, all right? It makes more sense.”
“Six within sight of the Trade Way and that’s the odds?” Vescaras demanded. “I’ll not be dicing with you throwing anytime soon.”
“If they were dice, you’d be right, but they’re great hulking mountains of earth.” Dahl shook his head, too far to stop now. “Moving an earthmote isn’t as easy as people seem to think. They float, but they’re enormously heavy and especially if they’re moving, it takes an absurd amount of power to turn them. They’re falling all across Faerûn, you know; it’s not that odd to have six fall near a road that runs the entire length of the continent. Otherwise you’d find signs of the rituals long before you’d get up to six earthmotes.
“And,” he added, “if you’re going to poke around Sakkors, a much better question to be asking is where are they taking those artifacts, because there is absolutely nothing else to be looking for in those ruins, and who is looking for them, because it’s almost certainly someone who expects to find something, and is possibly hoping that their fellows don’t notice, since you didn’t see a great bunch of Netherese soldiers. So yes: it’s idiotic, there are better uses of your time.”
Deliberately ignoring Khochen’s smirk, Vescaras’s glare, and Tam’s raised brow, Dahl picked up his quill again and set his eyes on the parchment.
“Lord Ammakyl,” Tam said, “Khochen. Would you give us a moment?” Dahl didn’t dare look up as the other Harpers left, his face burning, and for a long moment, the older man said nothing.
“My apologies,” Dahl said. “It just came out.”
“To be honest, I’m glad it did,” Tam said. “You almost sounded like your old self.”
“My old self is not exactly in high demand.”
“Oh for the gods’ sakes.” Tam stood and came around the desk to stand opposite Dahl. “What else haven’t you been saying?”
“It’s nothing important.”
“Dahl.”
Dahl blew out a breath. “Daranna’s agents could cover the ground Everlund’s leaving open, and instead, she shouldn’t worry about the possible slavers crossing into Anauroch. Our Zhentarim agent requested ‘reinforcements’ be sent to help the Bedine near there, and they’re going to walk straight into a moot of Bedine tribes, and you know exactly what they think of slavers. It will probably help Mira’s case, really-get them all banded together against the slavers as a mass for once. Brin’s reports are over-detailed-they boil down to two important facts: Crown Prince Irvel has the nobles in line for the moment and all our intelligence about the Dales and Sembia is correct. You could tell him to stop wasting parchment.” He paused. “That’s all I can recall. I expected to re-read reports tomorrow. No, wait-Vescaras’s agents and farmstead. That comes to eight agents-plus the farmstead-reported missing, although I haven’t gotten a report from Sembia or Many-Arrows, so it could be ten.”
“Were you planning to bring any of this up?”
“Of course,” Dahl said. Then added, “When I was sure.”
Tam sighed and covered his face with one hand. “How long is this going to go on?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Dahl you’re not the first person to have a mission go sour,” Tam said. “You aren’t the first Harper to let a target slip by. You aren’t the first one to find dead bodies that shouldn’t have been there.”
“Nor will I be the last,” Dahl finished.
Tam gave him a stern look. “If you believed me, I wouldn’t have to repeat myself. I pulled you off the field to give you time to collect yourself, to use your skills inside the house.”
“And I’ve done that,” Dahl protested.
“By deciding not to tell me things you don’t think I want to hear.”
“I just told you,” Dahl said. “Do you want more? I think you need to see a barber, you’re wrong about Storm Silverhand’s Harpers-in this case, anyway-and I’m pretty sure your daughter’s thinking about running off with that Bedine fellow or murdering him, maybe you should talk to her. Shall I keep going?”
Tam shook his head and chuckled softly. “You’re impossible.”
Dahl studied Vescaras’s report, the blot of ink marring the runes that spelled farmstead. “You can always dismiss me.”
“That would be easier wouldn’t it? A pity, I dislike easy answers. Mira can take care of herself-which she’d be quick to remind me if I delved into her love life-so until she murders him or asks for my opinion I’ll stay mum. I’m right about putting untrained bystanders with their heads full of myths and stories into harm’s way, and you certainly don’t put other people’s safety in their hands-we have protocols for a reason.”
“It’s how they did it in the olden days,” Dahl said.
“Yes, well how did that suit them once Shade returned? Storm Silverhand can certainly let her networks run how she wants, only I don’t want my spies leaning on brethren who lack good sense and training. We ought to-”
“Forgive me, if you suggest you’re going to track Storm Silverhand down and explain what a terrible idea-”
“That was once,” Tam said, and he had the grace to look embarrassed. “I may be too old to blame wine as if I don’t know what it does to a man’s senses, but I’ll do it anyway.”