"Our old loyalties," said Aoth, "have nothing to do with the current situation. We both left the service of the zulkirs a long time ago."
"But what if you're feeling nostalgic," Seriadne asked, "or the zulkirs simply promised you more gold than we did? Then you might concoct a tale to convince us to change our plans. If it worked, it would be an elegant solution. After we smashed our army to pieces against the rock that is Thay, we wouldn't be able to mount an invasion of the Reach for a good long while."
"I give you my word," said Aoth, "it's not like that."
"I hope not," Ertrel said. "As sellswords go-which isn't far in this regard-you have a reputation for honest dealing. Can we take it, then, that you still intend to abide by the pledge you gave us?"
Aoth hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. "Yes, my lord."
"You'll go where we send you and fight those we tell you to fight?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Then however you came by these absurd worries, put them aside. We simbarchs give you our word: no wizard could raise the kind of power you describe, and if Szass Tam truly imagines otherwise, we should all rejoice that the Terror of the East has gone senile."
chapter three
13 Ches-4 Tarsakh, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)
Bareris shrouded himself, Aoth, and Mirror in invisibility before they slipped from the house. Unfortunately, that didn't stop the watchers from shooting crossbows at them. Evidently, mindful of Aoth's considerable reputation as a warmage, the simbarchs had equipped their agents with charms that allowed them to see the invisible.
Aoth shifted his truesilver targe, and a quarrel glanced off it. Bareris sidestepped with preternatural quickness, and another bolt streaked past him. The bard drew breath, and Aoth saw the lethal intent in the set of his pallid features.
"Don't kill them!" said Aoth.
Bareris shrugged, then sang a melody soft and mild as any lullaby. The men in the shadows of the neighboring house collapsed. One snored.
Currently resembling a smeared caricature of Aoth wrought in glimmering smoke, Mirror bounded to the fallen spies. "One ran," he said and rose into the air, no doubt to hunt the man like a hawk seeking earthbound prey.
Bareris and Aoth trotted on toward the stable. "There was no need to kill them," said Aoth. "I knew you could stop them without it."
"If that is the way you prefer it, fine. But the fellow Mirror is running down won't be so lucky."
Smelling of feathers and fur, Jet waited beside his tack. "So I'm supposed to carry you and that, too," the griffon said.
"If you will," Bareris said. To Aoth's surprise, his friend's voice momentarily conveyed a hint of warmth or, conceivably, wistfulness. "I haven't flown on griffon-back in a long while."
Jet grunted. "Just make sure your touch doesn't poison me."
Aoth saddled his familiar with the unthinking deftness of long practice. He swung himself onto the griffon's back, Bareris mounted up behind him, and then Jet sprang forward, his aquiline forelegs and leonine hind ones thumping out the unique, uneven rhythm that every griffon rider knew. As soon as Jet cleared the doors, he leaped high, lashed his wings, and soared up over the rooftops toward the stars.
Mirror came flying to join them. Aoth didn't ask whether the ghost had actually needed to kill the fleeing crossbowman. He didn't particularly want to know.
Looking smaller astride a griffon than he did planted on his own two feet, Khouryn was the next to arrive. Then, one by one, the rest of Aoth's officers fell in behind their commander, forming a loose procession that stretched across the sky.
After his meeting with the Simbarch Council, Aoth had convened a meeting of his lieutenants in the back room of a seedy tavern in the heart of "old Velprintalar," the impoverished, decaying part of the city. In times past, the establishment sat on the harbor, as the dilapidated dock projecting out from it attested, but, thanks to the Spellplague, the retreating waters of the Sea of Dlurg had left it high and dry.
Goblets and tankards in hand, Aoth's lieutenants crowded into one side of the grubby room with its rickety chairs and smell of stale beer, puke, and piss and left the other half to the two undead strangers. That meant Aoth could see the embodiments of his present and those of his past arranged in two neat parcels. He felt a pang of resentment toward the latter and, knowing it was unfair, stifled it as best he could.
Lounging in a cloud of sweet cologne, one stocking orange and the other blue in the latest foppish style, auburn hair worn shoulder length, Gaedynn Ulraes took a sip of red wine, grimaced with exaggerated distaste, and set his cup aside. "Why does the emergency meeting spot always have to be somewhere disgusting?" he asked.
"I'm more interested in knowing why we're meeting," said Jhesrhi Coldcreek, her wizard's staff propped against her chair. The gold runes inlaid down its blackwood length complemented her tousled blonde curls, tawny skin, and amber eyes. "I thought the simbarchs liked us."
Aoth sighed. "They did, until I convinced them I'm not trustworthy."
Gaedynn arched an eyebrow his barber had sculpted into a fine line. "And how did you do that?"
Aided by Bareris, Aoth told the tale. His fellow sellswords reacted with astonishment but, to his relief, not overt disbelief. He supposed it was because they knew him better than the simbarchs did.
"In one respect," he concluded, "I guess I'm lucky. Our employers found my story so outrageous, it flummoxed them. Otherwise, they might have arrested me on the spot."
"Because," Jhesrhi said, "they think you intend to break our contract."
Aoth nodded. "And they're right."
Khouryn scowled. "You told me you never break a compact. That's what separates us from the scum. That's why I joined the Brotherhood of the Griffon in the first place."
Gaedynn grinned. "I thought it was to avoid having to stay home with that… remarkably articulate wife of yours." Jhesrhi shot him an irritated glance.
"I don't like it, either," said Aoth to the dwarf, "but I don't see a choice."
"Because these two dead men claim another dead man is going to lay waste to the whole world. Or our corner of it, anyway."
"I don't blame you if you can't believe it. You're all too young to have suffered through the Spellplague. But those of us who did know that at times, the world can be fragile as an eggshell. And I tell you again, I saw the devastation. In all our years together, have my visions ever turned out to be lies?"
"Not that I recall," Gaedynn said. "So it seems to me that, now that the Aglarondans have refused to heed your warning, the only sensible course of action is to flee west as fast as the wings of our steeds will carry us. But something tells me that's not what you have in mind."
"You're right," said Aoth. "With the simbarchs or without them, someone needs to try to stop Szass Tam."
"Possibly so," the foppish archer replied, "but even if it were feasible, I fight for coin, not noble causes."
"Would you fight for your life?" Jhesrhi asked. "Because that's what this is about. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it, too, but there it is."