Erin Evans - The Adversary

“Yes, I know. That’s half the reason you should join us.”

Dahl glanced at the noblewoman, who was very deliberately not looking at Khochen or him, and made a face. “I’m fine here.”

“She hasn’t got a brightbird,” Khochen sang.

“One,” he said, “I’m not interested in Lady Hedare, and I don’t know why you’d think I was. Two, she does so have a brightbird. That bodyguard is doing more than guarding her body- you’re the one who told me that.”

“Did I?” Khochen looked back at Lady Hedare and waved her over. “Well you have to assume if it’s secret, it can’t be that serious.” The noblewoman smiled at Khochen, but took one look at Dahl and declined with a polite gesture.

“Three,” Dahl said, “she doesn’t like me.”

Khochen glared at him. “Well, if you’re going to be sour at her.”

Dahl tilted his glass, considering the dregs. “I’ve never been sour at her.”

“Liar. She said something you didn’t like, I’ll wager. What was it?”

Dahl hesitated. “After Lord Nantar died and she came up. . there was a misunderstanding. She thought I was Tam’s secretary, for Oghma’s sake.” He folded his arms. “I may have snapped at her. Now she acts as though I need to be coddled.”

“You are his secretary.”

“Only because someone has to be. I’m still-” He let the protest fall. It was arguable that he really counted as a Harper any longer, and that wasn’t an argument he felt like having. “Fine,” he said. “I’m his secretary.”

“I don’t know why that bothers you. It doesn’t mean you don’t count,” Khochen said, and not for the first time, Dahl wondered if the Westgate spymaster could pick through his thoughts. “You still have your itchy little tattoo to prove it. And while I’m sure it comes in terribly handy while you gather reports and make Tam’s schedule, it seems to mean you’re dedicated.”

Dahl scowled. “You’re going to have to have it done eventually.”

“And ruin this flawless skin?”

“You can’t see it once it’s done,” Dahl said, “unless you trigger it. And it only itches for a tenday.”

“I’ll hold out. I can hide a pin.” Khochen took his flagon from him and finished the ale.

“You owe me another ale for that.”

“For a sip? Hardly. Shall we go up?”

Dahl scowled at her again. “What do you mean ‘we’? You’re not due until this afternoon.”

She shrugged. “Vescaras and I tied our missions together. We’re to debrief as a team-didn’t you know that, Goodman Secretary? Come on.” Khochen stood, and though Dahl would much rather have stayed behind, he wasn’t about to make Lord Vescaras Ammakyl comment on the time.

“By the way,” Khochen said, as they slipped through the door that led to the more secretive areas of the Harper hall. “I found out why Vescaras dislikes you so.”

“I don’t care,” Dahl said. “What mission did you help him on? You’ve been in Westgate.”

“Shipping issues. And you care. Otherwise he wouldn’t bother you.”

“He bothers me because he’s a self-important prig who can’t see when he’s turned the wrong direction.” They headed up a flight of stairs, down a long hallway lined with rooms, and into an unassuming guest room that held another stairway. “His last reports were insisting that six earthmotes crashing on or in sight of the Trade Way means a conspiracy of wizards.”

“He’s cautious.”

“He’s idiotic,” Dahl said. “The rituals needed to take down one earthmote would have to mean that a cadre of archwizards the likes of which Vescaras of all people would have noticed is running around Faerûn wasting their powers on making caravans detour.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“No, and I wasn’t intending to. Tam will give him some other mission, and it won’t matter. Arguing will just set Vescaras against me more.”

“Maybe Tam thinks he could be right. There are worse uses of magic.”

“Yes, well, if you find Karsus, the Srinshee, and bloody Elminster gloating over a caravan they’ve just tipped, then I’ll concede. Until then. .” He opened the door to Tam Zawad’s study and waved Khochen in. Vescaras was already there. Of course he was.

Vescaras hardly looked at Dahl, which was probably for the best. There was not another Harper in all of Faerûn who pushed Dahl so close to snapping. The black-skinned half-elf looked like nothing more than the wealthy, hardworking second son of a noble family-crisp linen and spotless silk, each row of his braided hair threaded decadently with gold. Posh and polished and like he’d never dirtied a finger in his life. If the mix of Turami ancestry and elven blood made him stand out among Waterdeep’s old blood, Vescaras’s impeccably cool manners reminded his peers of where they stood. Not even the Ammakyls suspected that their son’s interest in the family wine trade masked the fact that he ran a network of Harper spies working along the merchant caravan routes. He was very good at what he did.

And-for a time-Dahl had been very good at finding where he could do better.

“Let’s begin with your joint efforts,” Tam said settling behind his scarred desk. “Then Lord Ammakyl-I know you have family business to attend to. And Khochen, you can sew things up.” The older Calishite man still wore the plain gray garments of an itinerant priest of Selûne, despite having been made a High Harper five or six years prior. In any other setting, a person might have assumed he was petitioning Lord Ammakyl for tithes.

“Many thanks,” Vescaras said, inclining his head. “I had word, you’ll recall, from one of my agents of potential smuggling through Westgate. Additional smuggling,” he added, as Khochen started to speak. “We crossed networks and uncovered quite an operation.”

“Gems out of Vaasa,” Khochen said. “But also a great deal of weapons, some rarer ritual components. And people.”

“Headed toward Sembia,” Vescaras went on.

“Not all of it,” Khochen said. “I asked around. Some of it’s gone straight to Shade. Some of it-not the gems, obviously-were headed back north. Fortunately there are reputable shippers thereabouts as well. We found a serious mining operation in place. They’re fully routed and all but one of the mines are in working order.”

“There are four shafts in place,” Vescaras said. “All still finding gems. We pointed the prospectors from Thentia over to them.”

Which only made Dahl wonder. “And the fifth shaft?”

Khochen smiled, with a pause that lasted half-a-heartbeat. “Broke through to the Underdark,” she said. “We sealed it back up.”

“Shade did that?”

“No,” Khochen said. “We did. We took out the miners in one of the farther locations. Some well placed explosives and there were more drow than even the Shadovar can handle.” She smiled at Dahl. “Impressive?”

Impressive they’d pulled it off. “How did you keep the rest of the mining teams busy?” he asked.

Khochen’s smile flattened, and beside her Vescaras’s jaw tightened-ah gods, Dahl thought. His stomach dropped as Vescaras went on. “We had some help from the Dalelands Harpers. Slowed them down with stray sheep and other nonsense. Very minor.”

Tam’s eyes stayed on the scarred surface of his desk. “Were any killed?”

“Eight, by the drow,” Khochen admitted. “One of ours, seven of the Dales’.”

“Seven,” Tam repeated.

“Not ideal,” Vescaras agreed. “But they were willing and-”

“And that doesn’t matter,” Tam said sharply. He ran a hand through his silver hair. “They don’t know what they’re offering, shepherds and farmers and milkmaids.”