• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

"Thankee, I think," El replied wryly. "Why did that make a difference?"

"I intimated you were the property of the most powerful magelord. Shildo serves a rival whose power isn't great enough for open challenges yet. Shildo's under very strict orders not to provoke anything just now." He shifted on the snowy ledge and added, "Want to put away that blade? We could go somewhere warmer I know of, where they'll overcharge us for some hot turtle soup and burned toast… if you'll pay."

"Gladly," Elminster said, "if ye'll tell me where I can find a bed in this city, an' tell me what not to do."

"I'll do that," the laughing youth replied, jumping lightly down. "You need to learn, and I like to talk. Better; you look like you need a friend, and I find myself in short supply of them right now, too… hey?"

"Lead on," Elminster said.

He'd learned much that day, and in the days since then-but not where Farl had come from. The merry thief seemed part of Hastarl, as if he'd always been there and the city echoed his moods and manner. The two had taken a liking to each other and stolen more than their own weights in gold and gems through a slow spring and much of a long, hot summer.

Musing about this damp city of the magelords around him, Elminster found himself back on the sloping stone of the tomb roof, in the ebbing heat of a long, lazy summer day. He turned to look into his friend's face. "More than once, ye've said ye knew I came from Heldon."

Farl nodded. "The way you speak: up-country, for sure, and east. More-the winter when Undarl joined the magelords, talk went around the city that he'd impressed the others into accepting him in by riding a dragon he could command. At Lord Hawklyn's bidding he went to the village of Heldon to slay a man and wife there-and to show them what he could do, he had it tear the place stone from stone, an' burn all, even dogs running away across the fields."

"Undarl," Elminster repeated softly.

Farl saw that his friend's hands were clenched, white, and trembling. He nodded. "If it makes you feel better, El, I understand how you feel."

The eyes that Elminster turned on him blazed like a fire of blue steel, but his voice came with terrible softness as he asked, "Oh? How?"

"The magelords killed my mother," Farl said calmly.

Elminster looked at him, the fire dying. "What befell thy father then?"

Farl shrugged. "Oh, he's very well indeed."

Elminster looked a silent question, and Farl smiled a little sadly. "In fact, he's probably up in that tower there right now- and if Tyche frowns on us, he'll have magic up that enables him to hear us when I use his name."

Elminster looked up at the tower and said, "Could he strike us with a spell from there?"

Farl shrugged. "Who knows what wizards have learned to do? But I doubt it, or certain men'd be falling on their faces all over

Hastarl. Besides, the magelords I know could never resist taunting their foes before smiting them down, face-to-face."

"Then use his name," Elminster said deliberately, "and mayhap he'll come down where I can reach him."

"After I do," Farl replied softly. "After I'm done tearing his tongue out by the roots and breaking all his fingers to stop his spells-then I'll let you have some fun. He shouldn't die in any great haste."

"So who is he?"

Farl lifted one side of his mouth in a mirthless smile. "Lord Hawklyn, master magelord. Mage Royal of Athalantar, to you." He turned his head to watch a fleetwing whirl from one broken pillar to another. "I was illegitimate. Hawklyn had my mother- a lady of the court, loved by many, they say-killed when he learned of my birth."

"Why d'ye still live-outside yon tower?"

Farl stared into the past, not seeing the tombs ahead of him. "His men slaughtered a baby-but the wrong one; some other poor brat. I was stolen by a woman my mother had befriended… a lady of the evening."

Elminster raised his brows. "Yet ye proposed stealing from those same night maids?"

Farl shrugged. "One of them strangled my foster-mother for a few coins; I've never found out who, but almost certainly one of the girls