Norwood.”
“Norwood? Lord Marden Norwood?” Jack blinked in surprise. “What in the world would he want with it?”
“That is the question, now, isn’t it? The spell of shadow-simulacra is a potent weapon. It is a perfect tool for espionage, manipulation, or simple assassination. Do you know what might be done with that sort of magic in the wrong hands?”
Jack refrained from pointing out that Myrkyssa Jelan possessed that knowledge because she had in fact been the wrong hands just a few short years ago, by his measure. He also refrained from pointing out that the spell in question was actually in his vest pocket. Why did Seila’s father want the Sarkonagael? Was he engaged in some secret skullduggery of his own, or was he in cahoots with the drow in some unexpected manner? Jack’s mood soured even more at that thought. As heartily as he disliked Marden Norwood at the moment, for Seila’s sake he hoped that the man was not a villain. “Why do you distrust Norwood?” he asked.
“Have you seen how the nobles rule over Raven’s Bluff?” Jelan countered. “They control the city’s trade, its laws, the magistrates, the watch, the city officials, the Wizards’ Guild, everything. What do you think might happen when you give a man accustomed to using power as he pleases the sort of power the Sarkonagael holds?”
“He might want it simply for safekeeping,” said Jack, even though he was not at all sure that was the case.
“Possibly, but that is not a gamble I care to take.” The swordswoman motioned to her surviving mercenaries.
“Let us be on our way-there may be more drow about. Jack, you will find a stair leading back to the streets about thirty yards behind you.”
“That is it?” Jack asked. “You are letting me go?”
“You have nothing I want,” Jelan replied. She drew a dagger from her belt; Jack flinched despite his best efforts to hold still, but she merely sliced the bonds on his wrists and returned the knife to its sheath. “However … you have access to Norwood Manor that I do not. If Norwood tires of your games or you decide that he shouldn’t have that book you gave him after all, I’ll reward you for bringing it to me. Ask for Elana at Nimber’s Skewer Shop- that is how I prefer to be known in the current day. And you’d best heed my advice about avoiding the drow in the future, Jack. It might not be in my interest to rescue you again.” Then she turned on her heel and strode off, her small gang falling in behind her.
Jack stood in the dank sewer, surrounded by dead dark elves, and stared after Myrkyssa Jelan in confusion. He would never understand her peculiarities, not in a hundred years … which was ironic, considering that that was about how long he’d known her by one measure. He stooped to arm himself with a rapier and crossbow from the nearest dark elf, then hurried off to find his way back to the city streets.
Maldridge, unfortunately, burned to the ground.
“This will not endear me to Marden Norwood,” Jack muttered, watching the firefighting companies breaking up the smoldering debris and dousing hot spots with water pumped from their great wagons. “The destruction of Maldridge will try his patience sorely, or I am a goblin.” Somehow he doubted that Norwood would believe any story of drow kidnapers and accidental fires, not when the old lord was already inclined to look at him as a scoundrel and a fraud. Jack’s mind turned again to Norwood’s parting remark about the influence he wielded in the city and the sort of troubles he could arrange if his patience were tried.
He managed to retrieve about half of his new wardrobe, thanks in no small part to the fact that Edelmon had conveniently arranged his belongings close by the front door. Looters had carried off the large, fine trunks in which his new clothes had been housed. That, of course, was not unusual-opportunistic sorts had been racing fire companies to the scene of any fire since long before Jack’s time. He was, however, simultaneously insulted and relieved to find that the looters had discarded Jack’s bold and colorful garments in the street while stealing the trunks themselves. At least the looters had shown the uncommon decency to drag the unconscious Edelmon out of the burning house, or so Jack heard from the gawkers still standing about. Although he had no particular obligation to look after his discharged valet, he wouldn’t have wanted the old wretch to have ended up dead on his account.
It seemed unwise to linger near the destroyed mansion for long, so Jack carried a heaping armful of his clothing away from the scene. At a chandlery two streets over he found a large canvas duffel that could accommodate his sadly reduced wardrobe, stuffed his smoky-smelling clothes within, and set off again with all his possessions in the world carried over his shoulder.
A temporary setback, he told himself, and not a sign of any lasting change of fortunes-but just in case, Jack went straightaway to the counting house of Horthlaer to withdraw every last copper of the credit Norwood had provided for him. The old lord might remember to revoke the line of credit, or he might not, but Jack wasn’t about to take any chances. He decided to leave the Sarkonagael reward in the care of House Albrath for now; there was a limit to the amount of gold Jack wanted to carry around in a duffel without a place to lay his head at night. And then, since the afternoon was growing late and he had no idea where else to go, he wandered toward the Smoke Wyrm. He was sorely in need of a few tankards of good ale.
The dwarven taproom was bustling with business; the workday was done for many of the city’s common folk. Jack bought a pint of Old Smoky, ignoring the irony of the transaction, and found himself a seat at a small table by the wall. His duffel he slid under his chair. “Things are not so bad as they seem,” he reminded himself after a long pull from the tankard. He was still a man of means, after all. What did it matter that all the possessions he called his own could now fit in a canvas bag under his seat? He had a fortune of thousands of gold crowns to reestablish himself in more comfort whenever he liked.
“Maldridge was too big for me anyway,” he decided, and soothed his throat with another pull from his mug. “I will find myself a smaller, more comfortable place to call my own, and fit it with a front door that would defeat a rampaging minotaur.” The notion had much to recommend it … but the small satisfaction he felt from the resolution dulled all too quickly. When he considered all the schemes and ambitions he’d developed upon liberating himself from the dark elves’ captivity, he could truthfully say he was satisfied with the progress of not a single one of them. He’d had some success in winning the affections of the delightful (and delightfully wealthy) Seila Norwood, only to incur the mortal disapproval of her father. He’d discovered who had imprisoned him in the wild mythal a hundred years past, but now an impatient wizard of some skill seemed determined to return him to his prison as soon as possible. The Sarkonagael he had recovered in a daring and well-executed expedition to Sarbreen, only to discover that he’d undertaken the effort on behalf of the man who distrusted him more than anybody in Raven’s Bluff. And of course his ambitions of establishing himself in the elevated company of the city’s noble classes had foundered on the twin rocks of Norwood’s disfavor and a drowish vendetta.
“Appearances are important,” he reflected glumly. Jaer Kell Wildhame, heroic adversary of the dark elves and well-heeled intimate of Lord Marden Norwood, was a fellow who was clearly going places. Jack Ravenwild, fraud and arsonist, was much less compelling. “Somehow I must find a way to present myself in a better light.”
The first order of business was to arrange a roof over his head. Jack spied Tharzon behind the bar, consulting with Kurzen on some matter or another, and an idea came to mind. He hopped up from his seat and crossed the taproom to address the old dwarf. “Friend Tharzon, I am in need of some advice,” he said.
Tharzon looked Jack up and down. “Rise early, and go to bed soon after the sun,” he replied. “You will be astonished at how much more you can do in a day’s work. Oh, and pay your debts promptly in full. Your comrades in the Sarbreen venture are beginning to wonder about your reliability.”
“The former is difficult and impractical. I have little interest in doing more in a day’s work, as you should well know. As to the latter …” Jack suppressed a wince. He hadn’t meant to part with twenty-five hundred coins of gold this very day; scrupulous attention to debt was against his nature. But in this case perhaps it was for the best. Thanks to his stop at Horthlaer’s he had sufficient funds on his person, and he was sorely in need of allies on whom he could rely. “As to the latter, you will be happy to learn that I have concluded the business of the Sarkonagael, and can pay you, your son, and the stouthearted Blue Wyverns this very moment.”
Tharzon’s bushy white eyebrows climbed in surprise. “That I was not expecting,” he said. He jerked his head toward the keg room behind the bar. “Well, step around the bar, then, and let’s count it where we’ll not have every eye in the place on us.”
Jack feigned a broad, sincere smile, and followed the old dwarf into the next room. Under Tharzon’s watchful eye he counted out five stacks of platinum double-moons, each coin worth twenty crowns, on a battered old work- counter beneath the heavy casks of ale. “There you are, my friend-a good day’s work,” he said. “You can see to it
