Rosemary Jones: Cold Steel and Secrets Part 1

Sarfael stifled his protests. Years of verbal dueling with the old man taught him that once Dhafiyand was set upon a course, it took careful prodding and poking to turn him toward Sarfael’s own interests.

“Look to the real threat: these so-called Sons of Alagondar and their youngest adherents, the restless ones who gnash their teeth at authority and take that for their name,” Dhafiyand said. “If these Nashers go unchecked, Lord Neverember’s plans crumble and our fortunes with him. I need sharp-toothed hounds to set upon their trail and pull them down, not foolish men wanting to hunt animated corpses in back alleys.”

“You were glad enough to find me in that alley that day,” Sarfael pointed out. The old man often acted as if he owned him, but Sarfael considered himself a free man, able to come and go as he pleased. Right now, it pleased him to be in Neverwinter and it pleased him even more that Dhafiyand was willing to pay him to be there.

“You have your uses,” said Dhafiyand, “when you keep your mind upon the task.” He reached out one long, ink-stained hand and shuffled through a stack of papers, pulling out a small scroll and regarding it with a frown.

From where he sat, Sarfael thought it looked like a map of Neverwinter’s defensives, the division of the city into its unsafe, but often patrolled, precincts and its truly dangerous neighborhoods. It was no Luskan, but then Luskan’s dangers were primarily living creatures, not all human but mostly so. Neverwinter’s recent cataclysms were tinged with foul magic and even, some muttered, divine meddling. Sarfael rather doubted that the gods cared much for Neverwinter, but he truly believed that the city attracted more than its fair share of undead and their creators. As long as Mavreen’s sword hung at his hip, he would use it on such creatures.

Sarfael stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles and letting his chin slump down to his chest. Today, he might be Dhafiyand’s hunting dog, but it never paid to let the old man think that he could snap his fingers and command him upon the instant. “Do you have work for me or not?” he said.

The spymaster merely gave a grunt and selected another scroll.

Sarfael considered, as he had many times in the past, whether the coin he was paid was worth the aggravation of waiting upon the old man’s torturous plotting and planning, his neverending capacity for contemplation before he acted. Typical of him to fuss over Sarfael’s delay and then not speak out-it was all part of his tricks and Sarfael felt the old resentment rise up. Once he had been a masterless man, and quite content to be so. Now Neverwinter’s spymaster moved him to and fro like a piece in some elaborate game.

Yet-and there was always that “yet” resounding in Sarfael’s mind-Dhafiyand of Neverwinter collected every whisper breathed in the streets, knew every tale tracking through the taverns, and kept stacks of secrets in the papers rustling beneath those long ink-stained fingers. If ever a man could lead Sarfael to the lair of the Red Wizards operating in Neverwinter, it would be Dhafiyand. In the end, he would come to see them as much a threat to Neverwinter’s peace as the Sons of Alagondar. And Sarfael would be ready to help him burn them out of Neverwinter and chase them all the way back to Thay if he had to. He might not have been able to save Mavreen, but he could make sure that he never again saw a friend’s body rise from a grave.

So Sarfael waited, listening to the fire crackle in the grate. Late in the season, and Dhafiyand still had fires going in every room of his house, a small luxury in a poor city, but a telling one. Letting his gaze slide around the room, Sarfael noted the exits as he always did, but also the silver candlesticks, a painted miniature framed in silver upon the old man’s table, the fine porcelain bowl filled with dried herbs and blossoms to scent the air, and the woolen tapestries draped across the walls to block drafts.

Dhafiyand picked up a pen, dipped the end in a crystal inkpot, and then made a brief note in the margin of one page. Only then did he look up at Sarfael.

“What do you know of bladedancing?” he said.

“A fancy name for those who like to fight with the tip as well as the edge of the sword while following set figures with the hands, wrists, arms, and so on,” Sarfael responded. “Although the definition varies by city and by teacher. Some believe that the flourishing of the blade and the posturing prior to the engagement leads to a fairer fight. Myself, I prefer the deft strike and the dead opponent over fine form or fairness.”

“But you could pretend an interest and skill in the art of the duel?”

“I thought dueling was outlawed in Neverwinter, by order of our most gracious General Sabine?”

“On the streets and in the taverns, yes. But there is a certain gathering place, a school for the elegant arts of fighting, as its mistress calls it. There, they engage in practice bouts, seeking to dissect and study the various styles practiced by blademasters along the coast. Also, the lady in charge, one Elyne Tschavarz, assures me that dueling is not allowed. Simply the teaching of various methods to improve the stance, strength, and grace of her students.”

Sarfael fingered the blackhorned hilt of Mavreen’s sword. “And do you not find her students graceful and gracious?”

“I find them to be a troublesome nest of fledgling rebels, most likely Nashers,” snapped Dhafiyand with more heat than Sarfael had ever heard from the old man. “However, a great many have ties to the old nobility of Neverwinter and Elyne Tschavarz herself has family in Waterdeep as well, family known to Lord Neverember.”

“Ah,” said Sarfael. “And our great lord has met her.”

“In his last visit, he remarked upon her charm and called her ‘cousin’ at a dinner.”

“Ah,” said Sarfael again. Dhafiyand would not like to act openly against one who had attracted his lord’s flirtatious attention, especially one with noble ties to other powerful families in both Neverwinter and Waterdeep.

Dhafiyand pursed his lips and nodded at Sarfael’s unspoken assessment of the situation. So many years of plotting together often left them without the need for words. “This Elyne plays the game of fealty to Neverember well and can bend her head when she needs to. But look close and see how she is glancing all around while she does it. A pretty ruffian, I name her, and dangerous.”

Sarfael raised his own head and looked his master straight in the eye. “And wily enough to escape your nets?”

“A delicate approach is dictated. Every attempt to infiltrate her school has proved futile,” Dhafiyand went on. “I have had my best sent back to me on stretchers-each with a politely worded note from the lady decrying the carelessness of her students and their eagerness to try the untested with such thrusts and counterattacks as they have been studying!”

“And you want to send me there to have my skin pricked and my blood upon their points? Very kind of you.”

“I expect you to show more skill than the dolts now recovering upstairs,” grumbled Dhafiyand. “And cost me less in healer fees.”

“And if I do find the lady teaches rebellion along with thrust and counterthrust, then what do I do?”

“Learn their plans and confound them before they become troublesome. Lord Neverember returns to Neverwinter soon, and I would not have his visit disturbed by such rabble as these so-called Nashers.”

“Last I saw the great lord, he was dancing measures in Waterdeep and seemed content enough there.”

“He holds court where he must, and soon it must be here,” Dhafiyand said. “He means to announce new plans for the rebuilding of the city.”

Sarfael shrugged. No matter what dreams were entertained by Lord Neverember or the rival remnants of Neverwinter’s nobility, the city could never regain its fabled past. The plagues that had decimated its population and the natural disasters that had toppled its grand houses meant it would never again command the Sword Coast as once it had.