Songs & Swords 2 (18 page)

“You can bet I do,” Morgalla replied with a wink “Loud and often.”

The last silver of twilight faded from the Sea of Swords, and in the Dock Ward district of Waterdeep, business dealings became as dark and mysterious as the sea beyond. Those who knew the city and who wished to see the sun rise the next morning knew what alleys to avoid and which taverns served danger along with watered ale. The watch patrol assigned to the southern tip of the ward was therefore surprised to find a large and vocal group of merchants gathered at the corner of Dock Street and Wharf Street

“Is there a problem?” the watch commander inquired as politely as possible, considering that she was shouting over the din of some three dozen angry voices.

“I should say!” The speaker was Zelderan Guthel, the head of the Council of Farmer-Grocers, and at his words the crowd quieted somewhat Among its other responsibilities, the guild rented warehouse space to merchants of all kinds. The angry crowd was gathered in front of a large stone and timber warehouse built to provide winter grain storage. In off seasons, it was used to store the exotic goods specially made or imported for sale at the Midsummer Faire.

“This is a common facility, and protecting it is the city’s responsibility! Just what do you intend to do?” An angry chorus of mutters echoed the guildmaster’s question.

The captain scratched her chin. “Do? This area is well patrolled. We check this warehouse every twenty minutes!”

“Then whoever emptied the place went through us faster’n tainted stew,” groused a dwarf in an ale-stained apron. “My tavern had over a hunnerd kegs o’ mead stored here. The city better make good on it, is slll got to say!”

“It always has.” The captain took a small book and a quill from her bag. “I’ll make a full report.” She said, jotting down the dwarf’s name and losses.

Others came forward, shouting out lists of missing goods and demanding action. Within minutes the four members of the watch patrol were hidden from sight, surrounded by irate merchants jostling each other to give their reports. To all appearances, the crowd had not been noticeably appeased.

Hoof beats echoed down the nearby alleys as reinforcements rushed in from other beats. The first mounted guardsman to arrive noted the glint of green and gold chain mail in the midst of the angry crowd, and he came to what seemed a reasonable conclusion. Brandishing a stout rod, he rode into the angry crowd, laying about briskly as’ he cleared a path that would free the beleaguered watch.

The merchants reeled back, revealing the four members of the regular patrol. The “rescued” watch captain stared up at the guardsman in horror and disbelief. In her hands she held not a weapon, but a report book and a quill.

The silence that fell over the crowd was deep and uneasy. The dwarven tavern-keeper was the first to break it. Massaging a knot on his head from the guardsman’s rod, he muttered, “The city better make good for this, is all I got to say.”

Waves lapped at the wooden platform, sending a spray of salty water into the air. Lucia Thione leaped back, pulling her silken skirts away from certain ruin. “Where could this Hodatar be?” she fretted.

“He’s very reliable,” Zzundar Thul assured her, casting a surreptitious glance at the slender ankles revealed by the woman’s quick movement. Sun-bronzed and heavily muscled from his labors, Zzundar was a waterman and the son of the same, but he was as quick as any to recognize and appreciate a lady of quality. In Zzundar’s opinion, of all the privileges he’d enjoyed as master of the watermen’s guild, this meeting with Lady Thione ranked highest. A successful merchant and caravan organizer, she was a guild member and had just become their liaison with the mermen who helped keep the harbor clean. For this purpose she came to the guild hall. Zzundar was grateful for an excuse to accompany her down to the merdock, even though it was not the romantic setting he would have chosen.

Actually, the merdock was little more than a large cistern. It opened to a passage that led from the basement of the dockside guildhall into the sea. The reclusive mermen preferred to deal with as few humans as possible, and this particular arrangement suited them well.

The surface of the water dimpled and broke, revealing a gleaming, clean-shaven head The merman pulled himself partway out of the water, resting his weight on his elbows and leveling an insolent stare at the noblewoman.

“I’ve news,” he said bluntly. “Several ships bound for Waterdeep were attacked this afternoon. One fell to pirates, two more to monsters of the sea. There were no survivors on any of these vessels.” The merman quickly gave the names, owners, and ports of origin of each ship, information his people had gleaned from the logs of the sunken ships.

“And the cargoes?” Lady Thione demanded.

“Lost”

Zzundar paled beneath his tan. “The vessels you named carried goods for Midsummer Faire! You’re telling me that nothing could be salvaged?”

“We did what we could,” Hodatar said coldly. The gills on his neck flared, betraying his anger.

“I’m sure you did,” Lucia hastened to assure him. In truth, she was disturbed by the merman’s demeanor. Garnet had described him as cooperative, if not exactly respectful, but Lucia disliked the bold and calculating expression in his narrow, sea-green eyes. She paused as if suddenly distracted. “Whatever is that noise from the street, Zzundar? Ah, I was a fool to come to this ward, alone and at such an hour!” she lamented, raising her enormous dark eyes to his.

The guildmaster’s brow creased as he strained to catch the sounds that had distressed the lady. Finally, he made out the faint noise of voices and horsemen. “You needn’t worry. I’ll check it out and be back directly,” he said, patting her arm as if to reassure her. Her protector hastened up the narrow spiral of wooden steps that led toward the street. After a few minutes, the clunk of the heavy wooden trapdoor echoed through the basement chamber.

“Finally,” Lucia said in acid tones. When she turned back to the merman, all the softness had disappeared from her face. “What news of the goods?”

“They’ll be safely stored on Whalebones,” Hodatar said. “Minus the pirates’ share, of course.”

“I told you to take them to Orlumbor!” she protested. “I have agents on that island who can fence the goods. Whalebones is nothing but seal colonies and rock!”

The merman shrugged, unimpressed by her outburst. “What I can’t sell to the Ruathym, I’ll send south in small shipments to Alaron. I have contacts with Moonshae merchants there. Your share should be at least a third of the goods’ Waterdeep market value.”

“It should be considerably more than that,” Lucia snapped. “Without the information I gave you, your pirates wouldn’t have known the trade routes and could not have overcome those ships!”

“Information is very valuable,” the merman agreed slyly “I wonder, for example, what Zzundar might pay to learn that these ships disappeared at your command.”

Lucia’s dark eyes narrowed. “You’re very ambitious, Hodatar,” she observed softly. She took a small silk bag from her bodice and dangled it before the merman. “It is not enough that you take payment both from me and the city of Waterdeep?”

Hodatar snatched the bag from her and eagerly jerked open the purse strings. He smiled with satisfaction and fingered the rare spell components that he’d demanded as payment. “Magic is not inexpensive, and it is rare under the sea. Once I learn to use it, I’ll rule kingdoms that surpass those of your most ambitious conquerors!”

Lucia yawned delicately, patting at her parted lips with the tips of her fingers. “Don’t be tiresome, Hodatar. Future fish kings shouldn’t stoop to blackmail,” she chided him, her derision cloaked in genteel tones. “But Garnet tells me that you’ve been a good ally, and she would like to see you succeed in your study of magic. As a wizard, you’d be even more useful to our cause. I’ve a talisman that will increase the power of your spells.” She slipped a hand into a pocket of her gown, and then she paused and bit her lower lip, acting if she’d spoken before thinking and was now reconsidering her action. “Of course, it might be dangerous to one who lacked knowledge,” she added hastily.

“A risk I will gladly take!” the merman said. He sank low into the water, and then with a quick thrust of his tail sprang out at the noblewoman.

Lucia Thione was ready for him. She yanked a curved dagger from her pocket and sank it deep into his underbelly, ripping downward through scales and flesh as if she were gutting a trout Hodatar fell heavily onto the wooden floor, his mouth gaping in shock and pain as he clutched at his spilling entrails.

The noblewoman watched the merman’s death throes with an impassive face. When the treacherous Hodatar lay still, she stooped by the water and splashed some of the briny liquid over her dress. Standing, she raked her fingers through her hair repeatedly, reducing the elegant ringlets to a tousled mass of chestnut curls. Finally she took her money purse and scattered a handful of coins on the floor to make it appear that the merman had tried to rob her and had died in the struggle.

When Zzundar returned, the noblewoman threw herself into his arms, babbling helplessly that she hadn’t meant to kill Hodatar. She sobbed against the guildmaster’s broad chest, allowing him to smooth her hair and murmur inane platitudes about the gods, the fates, and the right of any woman to protect herself from thieves and scoundrels. After a suitable interval she looked up at Zzundar, giving him a small grateful smile and declaring through her tears that she couldn’t bear to be alone that night

As Lucia had anticipated, the guildmaster was too entranced by this turn of events to question her story. Nor did he think to ask how she knew that a strong undercurrent caused by the morning tides would carry the body far into the harbor.

Hodatar himself had told this to Garnet, and Lucia had tested the theory with the body of Larissa Neathal’s maid. Zzundar was not the only guild-member enchanted by Lucia’s elegant beauty, and it had been a small matter to arrange access to the merdock for two agents of the Knights of the Shield. Of course, she had paid that man in

a coin far less personal than that she was using to purchase Zzundar.

She cast a sidelong glance at the guildmaster and repressed a sigh. She was not averse to using her charm and beauty to serve her own ends, but she bitterly resented doing so to further Garnet’s vendetta against Khelben Arunsun. As she accompanied Zzundar out of the guildhall, Lucia wondered what more the half-elven sorceress might demand of her.

Astride her magical asperii, Garnet sped through the sunrise clouds on her swift journey northward. Far below, she could see the spires of Silverymoon gleaming in the soft pink light, and the sight filled her with dark satisfaction.

More than three moons had passed since she had last visited the wondrous city and cast the spell that bound the bards to her will. They had done their part admirably, and would soon prove the power of bardcraft.

From the vantage point of her wind-riding mount, Garnet spotted a narrow brown ribbon, the main trade route leading east from Silverymoon to Sundabar. She sent a silent command to her horse. The asperii followed the command without comment or complaint, but the telepathic creature’s thoughts were tightly closed to her. For a moment this irritated Garnet, but she had far too much on her mind to concern herself overmuch with her surly steed’s mood.

Before highsun the bard saw below her the stout gray walls that surrounded Sundabar. The city had been built long ago by dwarves and was still a heavily armed fortress. Once the site of the barding college known as Anstruth, it was still renowned for the fine wooden instruments crafted there. The city sat at the crossroad of the River Rauvin and the trade road, and beyond it were the thick forests that yielded lumber for the city’s craftspeople. More exotic woods were carried on the barges that traveled the busy river. From Garnet’s height, the cargo boats looked to be about the size of water bugs.

Another command from the bard sent the asperii into a spiraling descent. Garnet landed openly on the trade road and entered the city without challenge, for bards were welcomed almost anywhere for their music and the news they carried.

As she traveled down the narrow cobblestone roads past the homes and shops of busy trades-people, she found that Sundabar was greatly changed since she had last walked its streets, almost three hundred years before. As a very young noblewoman she had studied at Anstruth on her path toward the degree of Magnum Alumnus, the highest honor afforded a bard. Her years of study did not bring her to that goal, however, for a charismatic young bard had persuaded her to join the Harpers. While she ran about the Northlands doing the bidding of politicians such as Khelben, the barding colleges began their final slide into decline.

That Garnet could never forgive. The Harpers had originally been created, at least in part, to sustain tradition and preserve history, yet their efforts were ever directed to this or that political end. She would repay the lords and rulers in their own coin. Let Khelben and his ilk see what happened when music and history no longer served them and furthered their political games!

Finding her way through Sundabar was more difficult than Garnet had anticipated. The city through which she rode was now more concerned with commerce than art, and to her dismay she found that only one of Anstruth’s original buildings still stood: a concert hall whose stone walls had survived the passage of time. Rage coursed through the bard when she realized that the once-beautiful building had been gutted and turned into a common warehouse.

Nevertheless, she tied her horse outside and made her way to a door at the back of the building. Within she found stacks of lumber, and at one end of the vast room was a workshop equipped with lathes and bores that transformed wood into the fine musical instruments for which Sundabar was famed. A number of unfinished recorders, shawms, and wooden flutes lay on various work tables, but she was alone in the vast room.

The workers had just left, probably to take a highsun meal. Garnet’s sharp eyes—part of her inheritance from her elven mother—perceived the blurred and quickly fading shadows of warmth they had left behind. She had little time to complete her task. Garnet pulled up a low stool and seated herself in the midst of the workshop. Once again, she began to play the melody that bound magic and music together, singing the interwoven riddles that formed the words of the spell.