Brin still hesitated at the opposite side of the road.
Even if there are Tormish priests and paladins in there, he told himself, they aren’t Tormtar. They wouldn’t be the brutally efficient sort of holy champion he knew from the Citadel. In fact, Brin felt pretty certain that if Constancia came to the Hall of Justice looking for him, she’d first dress down the two plinth-heads slouching on either side of the door and giving the medusa-eye to passersby. They were holy champions, by the gods, they could bloody well stand up straight! If her squire brought her a breastplate that dull, she’d give him a nail brush and an hour to remedy it!
Brin shuddered. Ye gods, if he came back smelling of puke Havilar would never let him hear the end of it.
Nothing for it, he told himself. He needed to make sure Constancia found him. He’d already gone to the southern gate and told the guards his name-his real name-where he was, and that he was expecting his cousin to arrive. They’d chased him off for pestering them, but they’d remember if Constancia showed up asking.
The Hall of Justice seemed the next likeliest place she might go-but would she, if there was a bounty on her head? Would she take the risk?
Should Brin be taking the risk?
He thought of the orcs, of the way he’d panicked when the twins appeared, of Constancia’s perpetual expression of disappointment. Now was not the time to be a coward. He took a deep breath and started to cross the road.
The door to the temple swung open as Brin reached the foot of the stairs, and of all people, Tam came out. He spotted Brin, and an almost maniac look overtook the expression of disconcert he’d worn.
Brin started to turn, but the silverstar was quicker. He grabbed Brin by the shoulder and stopped him in his tracks.
“Ah,” he said. “My assistant. Come along. I need your help with some rituals.” He steered Brin on the road north, toward the river. Brin went along, too startled to fight at first and then a bit relieved he wouldn’t have to face the Tormish priests.
“Why is it,” Tam said once they’d gone a ways, “when I ask after a young man of your description traveling from Cormyr, does the ranking priest of Torm turn gray and ask that I bring you in to speak with him? Please don’t do me the discourtesy of telling me you don’t know,” he added as Brin started to speak.
Brin shook Tam’s hand off. “Fine. I don’t intend to tell you. Better?”
“Much,” Tam said. “I’d rather you be honest than assume I can’t spot a simple lie.”
“I did all right before. You were perfectly happy to believe I was just some lovestruck idiot.”
Tam chuckled. “It made more sense than what we have here.”
“More sense than a silverstar traveling to Neverwinter for ‘a few days’ on the Harpers’ coin?” The road came to a bridge, a wide stonework pathway traced with carvings of fishes and sea life. They shouldered their way through the foot traffic. “I don’t see why you’re asking about me, anyway. It’s not your business.”
“Everything that doesn’t fit is my business,” Tam said. “Are you going to explain yourself, or let me guess?”
Neither, Brin thought. He was back to wanting to vomit. “Where are we going?”
“The Blacklake District. I told you. I need a hand with a ritual,” Tam said. “Your accent’s what’s troubling me. I’ve known Cormyreans enough to hear that your vowels are short, but not short enough. You don’t use much of the Suzailan slang. But you have the cadence down. And the manners.”
“My tutors would disagree,” Brin said.
Tam stopped and pulled Brin to a stop beside him at the end of the bridge. Brin’s stomach started doing flips. “Answer me one question, and do me the courtesy of honesty,” Tam said, all seriousness. “Are you fleeing Netheril?”
Brin nearly sighed in relief. Netheril, the shadow empire north of Cormyr, had swallowed whole nations in its expansion. They worshiped Shar, the goddess of loss and the ancient enemy of Selune, and generally had the rulers of every other nation on their toes and hoping their successors would do something about the Empire of Shade. If that was all the silverstar was worried about …
“No,” Brin said. “Only in the sense that I’m farther from them here than there.”
Tam pursed his mouth. “One hopes. Come along.”
At the end of the bridge, a strange sort of procession crossed their path: a small man, his fine lightweight suit soaked through with sweat, followed by two other men, similarly … damp. It was hot, to be sure, but even the tieflings in their heavy cloaks didn’t sweat so much. Brin tried not to stare and failed.
The last man in the line, a lanky sort of fellow, turned and looked Brin directly in the eye. His own eyes were colorless. Eerie. They gave Brin the sense he was staring into the space between the stars somehow … like a hole between worlds …
Tam grabbed ahold of Brin’s shoulder again, and Brin blinked. The effect was gone.
The man turned away, and the procession passed on, up the crossroad toward a row of houses, leaning precariously over the sluggish river. They disappeared into the third one, a bluish monstrosity that looked as if it were being held together only by luck and a whim of the Weave. But like the man’s eyes, there was something strange about the building. Something wrong.
“Stay away from there,” Tam said too lightly, “would you?”
“Do I look a fool?” Brin asked. He looked back at Tam. “What were they?”
“I don’t know,” Tam said, heading again into the shattered quarter. “Based on what I’ve seen in this city, I don’t believe I wish to know.”
Brin hurried after him. “You can’t riddle me with questions and then turn around and drop vagaries like that. What do you mean?”
“When a city gets as old as Neverwinter, old powers entrench themselves in all the gaps and crannies.” He slowed, scanning the broken buildings and piles of rubble that replaced the rebuilt structures. “And when a city this old falls, that just makes the gaps and crannies much, much larger. If there aren’t Netherese agents here, I’ll be surprised. If there aren’t worse things-”
“What’s worse than Netherese?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out.”
Brin watched him a moment. “Are you really a Harper?”
“I couldn’t tell you if I were. Are you really a holy champion?”
Brin scowled and didn’t answer.
A few blocks on, a patch of ruins had been cleared, leaving behind a large, more-or-less flat plot of land, waiting to be built upon. Tam paced it out and found the approximate center.
From his pack, Tam took out four sticks of incense, smelling of sandalwood and vinestars and shimmering faintly silver.
“Here,” he handed them to Brin. “Put them in the corners of the square.” As Brin went around the plot and pressed them into the corners, Tam followed, murmuring prayers to Selune and lighting the incense in smooth, ceremonious gestures. Then, he sat down, cross-legged at the center of the space and beckoned Brin to join him.
“Do you know this ritual?” he asked. Brin shook his head. “That’s all right. You’ve assisted before with other rituals? It’s not much different. Just call down what power you can from Torm and add it to mine. I want this one to last as long as possible.”
“Will they mix?” Brin said sitting down across from him. “Torm and Selune?”
“Of course.” Tam shrugged. “Might change the look of the place a little, but nothing dramatic. Close your eyes.”
Brin tried to clear his mind, to focus solely on the scent of the incense, the sound of the blade on the whetstone, the weight of duty … and not the concern that the men from the eerie house were something worse or that Constancia might catch him and drag him back to do his duty or that there were Netherese hiding in the shadows. He started to pray, the hard tones of the prayers to Torm mixing with the soft, cyclical chant to the powers of the Moonmaiden, Selune.