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 tradespeople, 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.
When the spell was complete, Garnet picked up her harp and hurried into the back alley. Impatient to test her new power, she set down the harp on the cobblestones and with her right hand plucked a single string. Her left hand she flung upward, lightning sizzled upward, disappearing into a low-hanging bank of clouds.
The rain began immediately. Garnet closed her eyes and raised her face to the soft shower, smiling as she imagined the reaction another such storm would cause in Waterdeep. Rain on Midsummer’s Day was such a rare event that it was considered a dire omen. She would use this superstition to fuel the growing discontent in Waterdeep, and she would spread rumors that the freak weather was due to the twisted wizardry of Khelben Arunsun. A small thing, perhaps, but Garnet knew that rulers had lost favor for less than this.
A stinging blow slapped Garnet’s cheek, and then another. Her eyes snapped open, then widened in disbelief. The rain had turned to hail! She ducked back into the doorway of the warehouse, out of the way of increasingly larger pieces of ice. As the appalled half-elf watched, the sky darkened to the color of slate and hail began to accumulate on the stone-paved alley.
Garnet hurried through the warehouse to the front post where she had left her asperii. She quickly untied the frightened, battered horse and drew it into the building, soothing it as best she could with soft words and projected mental assurances. The asperii quieted, and it fixed its liquid brown eyes on its mistress. For an instant the veil that the asperii had cast up between their two minds parted, and Garnet caught a glimpse of the horse’s fear and indecision.
For the first time, Garnet understood the significance of the asperii’s withdrawal; each magical horse only formed its telepathic, lifelong bond with a mage or priest of great power, and the asperii would not serve anyone whose goals or motives were evil. Garnet had never before doubted the rightness of her plan, and the quiet accusation in the asperii’s eyes struck her like a physical blow. Pain flashed in the half-elf’s chest and down her arm, and she sank gasping onto a nearby crate.
“I seek justice, not vengeance,” Garnet whispered to herself when the waves of pain had subsided. She looked up into the asperii’s eyes, and saw her twin reflections there as if in a dark mirror. “In all things, there must be a balance,” she said earnestly.
The horse merely blinked and turned its gaze toward the open door. After a moment Garnet also looked out at the plummeting hail. The silence between them was complete as they waited for the storm to play itself out.
It was uncanny, mused Jannaxil Serpentil, but sooner or later every scrap of stolen paper in Waterdeep seemed to come across his desk. The proprietor of Serpentil Books and Folios sold everything from spellbooks to love letters, but this latest find was something quite new.
Deftly sketched on the paper was a picture of Khelben Arunsun. The archmage stood before an easel, dabbing at the canvas with an oversized brush while the faceless, black-robed Lords of Waterdeep stood by, holding his palettes and brushes. By Deneir, it was clever! The artist had caught perfectly the mood and fears of the cityfolk, condensing much gossip and speculation into a single, vivid image.
Jannaxil scratched his thin black beard thoughtfully. The first secret of being a good fence—and he was very good indeed—was to have a buyer for nearly anything. No one in Waterdeep would be so foolish as to attempt to blackmail the archmage, but the fence could think of several people who might have an interest in this sketch.
He affixed the would-be seller, an apprentice instrument builder whose gambling debts far outstripped his earnings, with his most intimidating scowl. “Where did you find this?”
The young man licked his lips nervously. “One of Halambar’s patrons dropped it in the shop. I thought that, perhaps—”
“I doubt that you thought at all!” Jannaxil glanced at the sketch again and sniffed disdainfully. The second secret of success was knowing the value of an object, and then convincing the seller to accept far less. “Who would have a use for such a thing? I can give you three copper pieces, no more.”
Jannaxil pushed the coins toward the young man. “You have brought me a few interesting pieces in the past. These coppers are an investment, for I hope that you might do better in the future.”
“Yes, sir.” Halambar’s apprentice looked disappointed, but he gathered up the coins and left the shop.
Alone is his dusty, book-lined kingdom, Jannaxil finally gave vent to a dry chuckle. He was tempted to keep the sketch himself, although he was certain that the sorcerer Maaril would be delighted by the satirical jab at his more powerful colleague, and that the wizard would pay many pieces of silver to possess it.
The challenge in this transaction, Jannaxil mused, was finding a carrier foolhardy enough to take the drawing to the Dragon Tower. Maaril’s tower was actually shaped like a dragon, standing upright on its haunches with its mouth flung open as if ready to attack. Although the odd tower was a landmark that held great appeal for children and visitors—especially at night when the light within made the dragon’s eyes and mouth glow with a crimson fire—only the most intrepid ventured close enough for more than a peek. The tower was steeped in sinister magic, and even the streets surrounding it were dangerous.