Erin Evans - Lesser Evils

Farideh bit her lip, tenser and more uneasy. “It belonged to an arcanist, from the sound of things. A powerful one.”

WATERDEEP

1 FLAMERULE, THE YEAR OF THE DARK CIRCLE (1478 DR)

The small Wyrm Inn, though less grand and less capacious than its cousin, the Greatwyrm, had gotten a reputation among Waterdeep’s moderately well-heeled as an excellent place for a meal, a draft, and perhaps a few stronger substances. It was pleasant enough that the merchant, his guards, and the treasure they guarded had taken rooms on the third floor.

You are too old for this, Tam thought as he slipped through the packed taproom toward the entrance to the inn. You have been too old for this for well on fifteen years.

But what else could he do? Send Dahl in to steal the page? Send Farideh? Beg the Fisher for the thousands upon thousands of gold pieces it was likely go for?

No, he’d have to take care of matters himself.

There was a guard at the door to the guests’ rooms, the burly fellow who’d been beside the stone at the auction viewing. Tam watched him from the corner of his eye as he eased past. The guard’s eyes never left Tam. No slipping by that one.

He kept walking. Fortunately, inns were notably insecure. There would be another way to the treasure of Tarchamus.

The merchant running the auction, a man called Artur Chansom, wasn’t that way. Chansom had held out, despite-Tam had discovered-already receiving multiple offers to buy the piece. There was too much coin to be made. Far too much to hope that his sense of duty could overwhelm his sense of profit. Even if it could mean leaving a path to the sort of powers that Netheril spent ages acquiring.

Even without knowing what the page and stone had once belonged to, even without being sure what the arcanist’s works of power entailed, Tam knew enough about the heights of power that ancient Netheril had reached to know the artifacts couldn’t just be left to fall into anyone’s hands. Works of magic like none the world had seen, yes, but Netheril’s arcanists had also destroyed or decimated the surrounding civilizations in their quest for an empire, flouted the gods themselves, and reached for powers that ended in the First Death of the goddess of magic and the ultimate collapse of ancient Netheril. Not treasures, he thought, one left for the taking.

Tam passed through the side door and in through the kitchen entrance, his thoughts echoing back to the night when he and his comrades had run afoul of the Shadovar scouting party. It was before he had gone into Viridi’s service, before he had even taken vows as one of Selune’s silverstar, when he was just a headstrong lad with no sense at all of what he could lose. And then they’d died-dear Ariya, brave Seris, wide-eyed Myk, that blessed bastard Payel-and the Lady of Loss had made it clear how much could be taken away.

Slipping into the Smallwyrm’s stairwell, he shuddered. He’d pledged himself to the Moonmaiden, the eternal enemy of Shar, shortly after. If what he’d seen were the predations of a minor scouting party, Faerun would need all the help it could get to stand against the city that sent them, and he’d been young, idealistic, full of spleen and holy fire.

Which is exactly how Viridi had caught him and brought him into her service.

A far more orderly one than he served now. He settled down in front of the keyhole to the second floor with a grunt for his achy knee. Did Dahl even know how to pick a lock if pressed? he wondered. Or what to say if someone caught him at it? How to disarm a pressure plate or a trip wire? How to pass as a wealthy merchant or a copperless beggar? How to get up off the floor and bring down an attacker in one swift movement? Tam couldn’t have said, and what’s worse, he doubted the Fisher could have either.

His lockpick snapped with a sudden ping , and Tam cursed. The metal spine protruded hardly a hairsbreadth from the edge of the keyhole. He pulled his head back to see better, scraped at it with his fingernails. The damned thing slipped deeper.

Beyond the door, he heard footsteps.

Tam leaped to his feet and hurried up to the next landing just in time to see one of the potjacks come through the door laden with chamberpots. The boy trundled down the stairs, and did not notice Tam catch the door just as it started to close and duck inside. He bent and rubbed his knee.

After this, he thought, catching his breath, I need to do a healing on that stlarning knee. It wouldn’t last long-it never did-but it would take the edge away, keep him flexible.

He peered down the hallway of the inn, remembering that night twenty-seven years ago, when he-an overeager silverstar-had stumbled on a representative of Netheril, rooming in an inn in Athkatla, and killed him. He was damned lucky-he knew it now and he knew it then. He was doubly lucky that when Viridi’s assassins had broken in and found him there-unsure of how to escape while covered in another man’s blood-they’d nabbed him and returned him to Viridi instead of leaving him to take the blame.

He’d come to in a lavish study, bound with bent knees and lying on a plush Amnian rug, a roaring fire behind him, and an enormous wooden desk in front of him. The dark-skinned woman behind the desk, her crinkled hair the color of tarnished silver, marked the balance of a pair of brass scales, made a note in her ledger, and said nothing as Tam pulled himself onto his knees.

“I find it interesting,” she said, “that what took two months of planning on my people’s part apparently took you an afternoon and a bottle’s worth of courage.”

Tam didn’t reply. “You bound my wounds,” he said.

“What did you think?” Viridi said. “That I’d leave you bleeding on my silk rug? Come now, priest.” A trickle of gold coins fell from her fist into the scale’s tray, bringing it nearer to level. “My people say you’re a mercenary as well. That’s an odd combination, Brother Nightingale.” She clucked her tongue and turned to face him. “A bit melodramatic for a cryptonym, don’t you think?”

“What do you want?” he asked. “Vengeance for your man?”

“Not my man. It so happens,” Viridi said, “that we’re on the same side.” She peered at the scales and wrote something. “More or less. I’ll take coin from a lot of people, but I don’t want Shade owing me any favors. But you,” she said thoughtfully, “we could owe each other quite a few favors, I think.”

For more than a decade, Tam had been her Shepherd, her cleric in the house-healing and resurrecting her spies-and her field agent among the faithful. And here and there, she put him on teams set against Shade. She kept his secrets and he kept hers, more loyal than he would have ever imagined, as a headstrong lad. For more than a decade, the Shepherd had been his purpose and his focus.

And then Viridi had died, and it all came unraveled.

He knew a handful of her agents who’d been killed for the mistake of seeking employment with Viridi’s prior clients. He knew half a dozen more who’d died because they ran afoul of her prior targets. And one who died to save Viridi, the agent known to her only as the Shepherd, and his dearest secret. And he hadn’t been able to stop any of it.

The Harpers needed a Viridi. Several Viridis, he thought, coming to the merchant’s chambers. People who could keep things together and running smoothly, who could gather the sort of patrons that made field work possible and the sort of agents that made it sensible. He listened for a moment, then slipped the lockpicks into the keyhole.

But the Fisher was right-it was a different world. Even if there had been spymasters on every corner, there were a thousand other, smaller organizations ready to claim them. He picked the lock more smoothly this time and eased the door open without leaving any of the pick behind.