“No. Not to my liking, I’m afraid,” the tall trader said politely, setting down the boot. “Those I sell to rarely prefer anything practical-or used.”
He strolled out of the shop and across the road to the Moon, where the doorwardens accepted his belt knife and admitted him. Striding to the bar for a tankard, the trader carefully neglected to glance down the room. The polished brass and finemetals on the wall behind the bar would afford him reflections enough to know where the Swords of Eveningstar were seated.
He had plenty of time. The evening was yet young.
As usual, the hargaunt itched.
Semoor peered mournfully at the empty bottom of his tankard, and Islif sighed and lifted her arm to signal for more ale.
As he turned to grin at her, the large-nosed priest of Lathander asked, “Why’d they take away the salted nuts? And then bring them right back again?”
“To give the war wizard a chance to enspell the bowl,” Narantha told him, “so he can listen from afar rather than standing over us.”
“Ah,” Semoor replied. Scooping up the nut bowl, he put it to his lips and made a loud and rude sound. “I wonder what he’ll make of that?”
“That Master Semoor Wolftooth is with us,” Jhessail told him, “and being his usual self. Stoop, how are you ever going to keep your standing as a priest? If you behave like this inside a temple…”
“Dusking,” Semoor cursed. “Am I going to go on being reprimanded even now? When I’ve escaped from Espar, charter-anointed, into a life of fabled adventure?”
Islif snorted. “The ‘fabled adventure’ part, good Stoop, may well be what swiftly befalls you if you ignore such reprimands. Ah, here’s more ale.”
As two smiling serving wenches in gowns with very low-laced corsets brought platters of drinkables, the talk at the table behind them-merchants from Sembia, if the shimmerweave and cloth-of-gold were anything to go by- rose in volume excitedly, so the Swords couldn’t help but overhear:
“Ah, but every last war wizard in the realm’ll be searching for it afore they’re done, mark you! The thing can slay them-and has! I’ve heard six have been fried alive already! Heads blown off and innards sizzled like spitted boar!”
“Six? I heard eleven, and more who’ll join them in graves right soon, if all the hired healing fails. Whoever wears this Iron War Crown can see active magics from afar-and from the thing hurl deadly bolts at anyone who has that magic!”
“ ‘Iron War’? What war’s that? Something dwarves got mixed up in?”
“I know not. All these magic things have overblown and oh-so-mysterious names; didn’t ye know?”
“Well, I know that magic in Cormyr means war wizards, and that they’re all frantically searching for this thing!”
“Well, I haven’t got it-and if I did, I’d sell it right quick to someone who wants to fry mages and is willing to pay handsomely for the power to do so!”
“The Witch Queen? So she can snuff out Red Wizards even faster?”
There followed a chorus of raucous laughter, then a sudden hush as several burly men rose from divers tables and went over to the Sembians.
“So, what’s all this about wanting to fry war wizards?” one of them asked, a shade too casually, and the richly garbed merchants looked up at him suspiciously.
“You look like a Purple Dragon who’s left his armor at home to me,” one Sembian replied, cleaning out one ear with a ring-adorned little finger. “So why don’t you sit down here and tell us about war wizards? We only know what we hear.”
“And what might that be?”
Another Sembian shrugged. “What all Cormyr is talking about-in the taverns, leastways: that something called the Arcrown’s been stolen, and your Wizards of War want it back.”
“Desperately,” a third Sembian added.
“Before ’tis too late for them all,” a fourth merchant put in, setting his tankard down hard.
The man who’d been bidden to sit down did so, fixed the loudest Sembian with a cool eye, and said, “Why don’t you tell me more about what you’ve heard of this crown?”
“Oh? Such as?”
“What it does… that sort of thing.”
The Sembian shrugged. “Arcrown or Iron War Crown, some are calling it, though most say it’s a plain circlet. Wear it and you can see magic at work-and you can choose to send slaying bolts out of it, at whoever has those magics… that sort of thing.”
“And then what?”
“And then they’re dead, that’s what, unless they throw away their magic or end their spell or whatever, right quick.”
The Purple Dragon, if that’s what he was, glanced up at some of the other burly men, and shrugs were exchanged.
Another of the Sembians looked down the table at the Cormyreans and added, “The rest is all rumors about how many war wizards have been slain already, by whom, and what it’s all going to lead to-and being as you’re all not-very-well-hidden agents of the Dragon Throne, suppose you tell us the truth about all of those things, hey?”
By way of reply, the man sitting at the end of the table favored him with a very cold stare, and without a word got up and went back to his own table, the other burly men drifting away as the Sembians chuckled.
When they spoke again, however, their voices were lower, and they seemed to be discussing prices and shortages and “how many barrels.”
The Swords traded looks with each other.
Semoor, of course, spoke up first. “So would this make our reputations, if we found this crown and presented it to His Majesty?”
“That’s a very large ‘if,’ ” Florin commented. “First, we have to have the faintest idea of where to go looking.”
Jhessail nodded. “And unless the spells the Morninglord grants you are more powerful than the spells of the war wizards-and remember, Stoop, some of them can split a castle keep in twain from top to bottom, with but a word! — we’ve not much chance of finding anything they can’t. Certainly not with my paltry castings!”
Semoor plucked up the nut bowl again, and asked it brightly, “Any advice? Places you might like some enthusiastic, newly chartered adventurers to go look? Some noble’s winecellar, perhaps? Or-ahem-pleasure chambers, where huffing and puffing monacled lords of the realm hide their hired harems?”
“Semoor,” Jhessail said reprovingly. “I deeply doubt the royal magician will find you either clever or funny.”
“Oh? Why would he find me at all? And for that matter, how would he find me?”
The Lady Narantha leaned forward to look down the table at Semoor. “Well, by the choruses of exasperation, for one,” she said, eyes twinkling. “And by the charter itself, for two: there’re spells buried in all of those fancy inks, you know, and Vangerdahast can find out exactly where our charter is, whenever he wants to. Any war wizard can-and they can also, just by touching it and uttering the right word, know right away if it’s a real charter or a forgery.”
“Darkrose!” Semoor cursed. “Well, there goes my scheme for a wealthy retirement: go to Sembia, make dozens of charters that look very much like this one, and sell them to anyone who wants to traipse around Cormyr waving a sword!”
Jhessail sighed, turned in her chair, snatched the nut bowl out of Semoor’s grasp, and told it fiercely, “He’s jesting-jesting! Believe not a word!”
“Pray pardon,” a voice purred by her ear. “I couldn’t help but overhear mention of a charter. Am I correct in assuming you’re lawful adventurers? And if so, are you looking for new members?”
The Swords of Eveningstar blinked at each other-then at the sleek young woman in dark leather who was leaning over Jhessail. Short and slender, with glossy black hair cut short in the same sort of “helm-bob” cut many warriors favored, she fixed them with large, liquid dark eyes.
