He turned around to face the woman. “Whatever you can tell me, whatever you can learn for me, will be much appreciated.”
She looked at him skeptically.
“And richly rewarded,” he added.
A smile widened on the Shifter’s pretty face. “Five hundred pieces of gold,” she said flatly.
Normally Effron would have argued, even to the point of refusing the transaction, so outrageous was the price, but again the specter of Alegni hovered over him and he brought forth a bag of coins and handed it to the Shifter.
Of course, that was just an image of the disorienting woman, and he felt a sudden pull from the side as the invisible lady snatched the purse, which seemed to dematerialize into nothingness as it left his hand.
He heard the clink of coins off to the other side and started to turn, but just held his ground and laughed helplessly. Maybe she was there, maybe not, for this clever sorceress could certainly misdirect sound as easily as she created the visual discrepancies.
“You did not tell Jermander that Alegni’s man would defend Dahlia,” she said.
“Defend her? Or did he wish to claim the kill as his own?” Effron replied.
“Either way, Jermander is dead.”
Effron swallowed hard, suddenly understanding that there would likely be a great price to pay for this unfolding catastrophe.
“And Dahlia?” he managed to ask past the lump in his throat.
Herzgo Alegni felt like a prisoner in his own city of Neverwinter, and it was a feeling he did not like at all.
“I would see the result,” he stated flatly, and started for the door.
“You would not,” Draygo Quick rasped back at him.
Alegni paused and composed himself, not looking back at the withered old warlock. Draygo Quick’s news that Jermander and some others of Cavus Dun had been killed was not unwelcomed by Alegni, nor was it surprising, for he had figured from the first time he had seen Jermander in Neverwinter that Effron had hired out the mercenaries, and that Effron would be bold enough to try to strike at Dahlia despite his orders to the contrary.
For the twisted and broken young warlock, it would be, after all, a double victory.
“Don’t you think they are coming for you?” Draygo Quick asked. “Or lying in wait, should you ever leave the defenses of this place?”
Alegni shrugged as if it hardly mattered. It wasn’t as if Barrabus the Gray could actually hide from him, after all, though he did wish that his magical link to the dangerous man was more informative and more continual.
“Do you not think they will come into the city after me?” he asked.
“Do you?”
“I count on it,” Alegni said with a grin. “I hope for it.”
“Don’t underestimate-”
“I do not underestimate anyone,” Alegni interrupted. “Even you.”
It was not often that Draygo Quick could be put back on his heels in a conversation, but Herzgo Alegni had obviously done just that, and the warrior tiefling did well to hide any gloating at that moment.
“Effron is young,” Draygo Quick said, and Alegni could hardly believe that the stubborn and fierce warlock was actually changing the subject. “He is full of promise.”
“And full of conflict,” Alegni added.
“Indeed,” said the warlock. “Particularly in this delicate situation.”
“I didn’t bring him here,” Alegni reminded. “I didn’t want him here.” He paused and stared hard at the withered warlock for just a moment. “I do not want him here.”
He thought that he might have pushed just a bit too far, though, when Draygo Quick stiffened and hardened his gaze.
“And yet he is here,” the warlock stated flatly. “And he remains here by my command.”
Alegni’s face tightened, but there was no room for debate in Draygo Quick’s tone.
“There are proper punishments and there are excessive punishments,” Draygo Quick warned. “I take it personally when one of my minions is excessively punished.”
“And there are reparations,” Herzgo Alegni offered, and Draygo Quick cocked his head curiously. He seemed so decrepit and withered that, had he been reclining, Herzgo Alegni might have thought that he had just died.
“Sylora Salm is dead and the Thayans in disarray,” Alegni explained. “But they are not yet fully defeated. And there are other interests in the region, including these Neverwinter citizens I have subjugated, and some agents, I presume, of other interested parties. Now is the time for a full show of force.”
“You’re asking again for more soldiers.”
Alegni shrugged. “It would seem prudent.”
“The best thing you might do to secure your hold here is to destroy these assassins who hunt you,” Draygo Quick replied.
“That will be done,” Alegni assured him, and he instinctively grasped Claw’s hilt, though the sword had offered him little of late regarding Barrabus the Gray. “But still… to minimize the damage done by Effron…”
“A hundred,” Draygo Quick agreed.
“Three,” Alegni started to bargain, but Draygo Quick cut him short with a sharp reiteration.
“A hundred.”
After a courteous-and wise-bow, Herzgo Alegni took his leave.
“You understand your role?” Draygo Quick spoke in the apparently empty room.
From behind a tapestry stepped an elf Shadovar, dressed in fine breeches and an expensive waistcoat, and with a flat top hat adorned with a ribbon of gems. He wore his blousy white shirt open to the waistcoat, showing a shapely neck and a small tattoo to the right of his windpipe: the letters CD, for Cavus Dun, intertwined.
“We have a great opportunity here,” Draygo Quick said.
“And a great risk,” the elf, Glorfathel, replied, his words carrying more weight in light of the recent losses Cavus Dun had realized.
“You are my hedge against that,” said the old and powerful necromancer.
The elf bowed low. “How will I know?”
“I trust your judgment,” Draygo Quick assured him. “This region of Toril, Neverwinter Wood particularly, is of importance to us, no doubt, but not with the urgency that drives Herzgo Alegni. And I will not be embarrassed by chasing that hot-humored tiefling on a fools’ errand.”
“I understand.”
“I knew you would.”
“Did you think it would be any different?” Arunika asked Jelvus Grinch when she found him with some other prominent citizens of Neverwinter, all standing with hands-on-hips, staring dumbfounded at various points along the city walls. Portions of the wall were cloaked in deeper gloom. For at those locations, shadowy magical gates had appeared, like doorways into the void, and Netherese soldiers, shades one and all, were coming through.
“Is it an invasion?” Jelvus Grinch asked the red-haired woman.
“If it is, then ye’d be wise to be thinkin’ o’ leaving,” answered a voice from the back, and a female dwarf, quite dirty from the road, stepped out into the open.
“And who might you be, good dwarf?” Jelvus Grinch asked.
“Amber Gristle O’Maul, at yer service,” she said with a low bow. “O’ the Adbar O’Mauls. Me and me friend just come in from the road to yer fine city.”
“Your friend?”
“Sleepin’, ” Amber explained.
“Came in from where?”
“Luskan, and what a mess that place’s become!”
“A paradise compared to Neverwinter,” another man remarked, and several laughed-but it was an uneasy bit of mirth, to be sure.
“Aye, ye got some problems, and I’m thinkin’ that me and me friend’ll be wandering on our way quick as can be done.”
“You should be on your way now,” Arunika said, rather coldly. “This is none of your affair.”
