• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Lord Haelwing, two tables away from Marlin, was one of those mistrustful nobles, it seemed, and had no doubt given his bodyguard wizard some blunt and specific orders before proceeding to the Old King’s Favorite and commencing to drink himself into insensibility.

So the mage, a Sembian of slim mustache and cold eyes hight Oskrul Meddanthyr, was seated at the table beside the drunkenly snoring heap of his employer. A table acquiring an interested audience of young nobles and wealthy pretenders to nobility, who had eagerly seized the opportunity to ply a talkative wizard with drinks and question him about the unfolding ways of the world.

Marlin listened as the Sembian became increasingly loquacious, as drink after drink took hold. Grand tale after grand tale was rolling out of Meddanthyr, and even the nobles’ bodyguards had started to listen.

“Oh,” he was saying to one would-be noble, leaning forward to favor the table with an unlovely smile, “the Harpers officially disbanded. That is, the head Harpers announced the dissolution and then set about very publicly butchering many Harpers whom they knew to really be agents of various evil groups who’d infiltrated Those Who Harp.”

Meddanthyr sipped from his jack, smiled again, and added, “Yet I very much doubt it will surprise any of you to learn that the Harpers did not, in fact, cease to exist. An extremely secretive, underground fellowship of some two dozen Harpers continued—as they do to this very day. In fact, my friends—”

The wizard thrust his head forward and lowered his voice dramatically, to add in a menacing whisper, “the Harpers are rebuilding …”

“WhooOOoohoo!” young Lord Anvilstone piped up, imitating a ghost’s frightening wail as he wiggled all his fingers in mock apprehension.

“They’re sitting among us right now,” his friend Lord Mrelburn put in sarcastically. “Under the tables, everybody!”

There were snorts and derisive chuckles, in the heart of which someone muttered, “Fear a lot of lasses and fancy-boys sitting half-naked over harps? Not farruking likely!”

“Here, now,” an older lord said quellingly, “I can hear wild nonsense about the Harpers any time! Leave off; we’ve got a wizard here, and for once it’s not one of Ganrahast’s watchful toadies. I want to hear about magic, old magic out of legend—and what out of all those tales has real spells and suchlike behind it that we should be seeking or being wary of or that might be here in Cormyr under our noses.”

A general rumble and roar of assent greeted these words, and Marlin decided to seize this chance to steer the Sembian’s tongue before he downed any more drinks and veered toward the fanciful or incoherent.

“Hey, now!” he called firmly, before Meddanthyr could decide what tale of magic to tell first. “If it’s to be magic spoken of, I want to hear about the Nine—the Crown of Horns, Laeral before the Blackstaff ‘saved’ her right into his bed, and the shattering of that fellowship. Two of whom had interests hereabouts, I’ve heard. We know what befell Laeral, but whatever happened to the rest of them?”

Meddanthyr turned to face Marlin for just long enough to dispense a shrug. “Dead, some of them. Fled away, others—I know not where, but they were veteran adventurers, mind; they may well have had other names and faces prepared to step behind, to live out their days in plain view but not known for who they really were. And they could have had all manner of spells and enchanted items, aye, though Laeral was their strongest spellhurler, by far. I’ve heard of nothing linking any of them or their doings to Cormyr after the Crown of Horns took her and she turned on them all. But as to powerful magic, three of them shared a fate that should be of interest to you.”

The Sembian sampled the fresh jack that Marlin’s signal had just set in front of him, set it down again with a sigh of nigh tipsy contentment, and added, “Three of them got trapped and bound into magic items.”

A murmur of interest rippled