Silver Shadows (12 page)

“She is very beautiful, this Harper?” Hhune asked casually.

“A goddess, my lord,” the prince blurted out, and then bit his lip as he realized what he had revealed.

The lord chuckled. 1 care not how you amuse yourself Nor do I wish to know the name of this other Harper—not yet, at least. Do all that you can to gain her trust. Prove yourself a competent informant. In doing so, you will serve me well.”

“As you wish, Lord Hhune,” he agreed.

Hhune, who was in feet a rather astute judge of men, did not doubt that all would be done as agreed. He recognized the fires of ambition, and seldom had he seen them burn so brightly as they did in Hasheth’s black eyes. This youth would do whatever he could to further his own cause.

The lord rose to his feet, signifying that the interview was at an end. “You will return to the city at once. My scribe, Achnib, has been instructed to teach you of my shipping affairs. Learn well. We will speak more when I return.”

“Return, my lord?”

“Each summer I travel to Waterdeep to attend the midsummer fair and to receive the report of our agent there, a countrywoman, Lucia Thione, who is highly placed both in business and society.”

The young man looked impressed, as Hhune had intended. The Thione family was related to the royal house of Tethyr. Few members had escaped the sword after the fall of the royal family. That one of these survivors was allied with the Knights of the Shield gave an additional luster to the secret society.

All things, including loyalty, had a price. As Hhune sent the young man on his way, there was no doubt in his mind that he was now the proud owner of a prince—

90

The Harpers

a prince who also happened to be a trusted ally of the Harpers. It was, in his estimation, a bargain well made.

The night passed slowly for Arilyn, for try as she might, she could not banish from her mind the image of the elven warrior she had seen in Assante’s treasure rooms. When at last she slept, her dreams were haunted by the face of her unknown ancestor and by a chorus of Elvish voices that demanded that the dishonor done to the swordmistress be redressed. Arilyn woke before dawn with the voices still ringing in her ears and the conviction that there was more to the night vision than the promptings of her own outrage. The dream had an eldritch intensity of a sort Arilyn had not experienced in over two years.

Instinctively her eyes went to her moonblade, which lay bared and ready on her night table, within easy reach. Arilyn reached out a tentative hand to touch the sword. As she expected, a surge of restless magic jolted through her.

The Harper snatched back her tingling hand. Then, with a sigh, she reached for the weapon and slid it back into its ancient sheath. She kicked off her covers and rose, buckling on her swordbelt with practiced fingers.

Barefoot and clad only in her leggings and under tunic—and, of course, the moonblade—Arilyn walked over to the window. The city below still lay sleeping, except for those who, like herself were most likely to do business under the cover of night.

For a long time Arilyn stood at her tower window, staring at Zazesspur’s rooftops with eyes that did not see, struggling to accept what she knew to be true. After a silence of more than two years, the elfehadow, the essence of the moonblade, was growing restless. Once again the spirit of the magic sword was demanding something of the half-elf who commanded it. -

Silver Shadows

91

The last time this had happened, twenty and more Harpers lay dead before Arilyn finally recognized the voice of the sword. She knew the cost of ignoring the moonblade’s warnings, yet the sunrise colors had faded from the sky before she was able to decide upon a course of action. The morning was nearly spent before she was ready to proceed.

The half-elf did not consider herself a coward. From an early age she had battled armed men, fought monsters of almost every description, met the Tuigan hoard in the lingering horror that was war. There was only one thing under the stars that Arilyn Moonblade truly feared: the unknown powers hidden in the ancient sword that was strapped to her side.

There were aspects of the moonblade’s magic that Arilyn understood and wielded with skill. The moonblade warned her of danger, struck with preternatural speed and power, enabled her to take on a number of disguises, and gave her a resistance to fire that had spared her life more than once. It was the elfshadow, her own mirror image, that Arilyn dreaded. Yet what else could she do but summon the elfshadow and learn from it what she could?

The Harper placed her hand on the moonblade’s hilt and drew a long, steadying breath. The elven sword hissed free of the scabbard and glittered in the bright morning light as Arilyn held it high in her two-handed grip.

“Come forth,” she called softly.

In response, a faintly azure mist rose from the sword and swirled into the air, taking on a familiar, yet ghostly form. The Harper’s arms lowered until the moonblade’s point rested on the wooden floor. But Arilyn hardly noticed, so intent was she on the image taking shape before her.

For a moment she had the feeling she was looking at her own reflection in some moonlit pond. Then the elfshadow stepped out of the mist and stood before her, as

82

The Harpers

apparently solid and mortal as Arilyn herself. Unlike the Harper, the elfshadow was dressed as if for the road, in the worn but comfortable boots and breeches that Arilyn favored when left solely to her own desires.

For a long moment the half-elf and the elfehadow regarded each other solemnly. A strange impulse—the urge to scratch her nose just to see if the elfshadow followed suit—flashed into Arilyn’s mind. The absurdity of this brought a tiny smile to her lips.

“Well again, sister,” the elfshadow said, speaking in an exact duplicate of Arilyn’s contralto tones. “I had hoped you would call me forth long ere this.”

The Harper folded her arms over her chest and glared. “I’ve been busy.”

A sad smile crossed the elfshadow’s face. “You still blame yourself for the death of those Harpers, though the hand that slew them was mine.”

There’s a difference?” Arilyn asked bitterly.

“Oh, yes. For the time being, at least.”

The half-elfs brow furrowed with puzzlement. She had many questions; this one seemed a logical place to start. “I don’t suppose you want to explain that.”

“No more than you want to hear the explanation,” the elfehadow responded with an unexpected touch of dry humor.

Arilyn lifted an inquiring brow. That’s something I might have said,” she observed. “What are you? Are you the moonblade, or are you me?”

“Both, and yet neither.” The elfshadow fell silent, as if carefully measuring her next words. “You know that each wielder of a moonblade imbues the sword with a new power, but you do not understand the source of that power. Unlike any other moonlighter who came before you, you were not told of the moonblade’s secrets before you claimed the sword.”

“So tell me.”

“It is not so simple,” the elfshadow cautioned her. The moonblades are ancient elven artifacts, arid the

Silver Shadows

93

mysteries that went into their Grafting cannot be adequately described—no more than I could convey to you with mere words a melody you have never heard or a color you have never seen.”

“Noted. Go on,” Arilyn said tersely.

Pirst let me point out that the moonblade accepted you when you were but a child, not to mention the first half-elf ever to inherit such a sword! This decision was not lightly made, for it was foreseen that you would do a great service to the People/”

The elfgate,” Arilyn murmured, naming the magical gateway to Evermeet that she had discovered and then fought to protect.

That and more,” the elfehadow agreed cryptically. “Once accepted, you slowly became attuned to the sword. That is how I came into being. For lack of a better description, I am the personification of your union with the sword.”

“I see. Do all moonblades have people like you?”

“By the sea and stars! No, not at all. The ability to form and summon an elfehadow was one of the powers added to the moonblade you carry. By Zoastria,” the shadow added in a lower voice.

Something in the elfshadow’s tone convinced Arilyn that this was the name of the sleeping warrior. “So that’s why IVe been having these dreams. Not since the time of the Harper assassin have I had such visions! But why would finding Zoastria’s body stir them, if you are the personification of my union with the sword?”

“Like the elves who have gone before you, you added a power to the moonblade,” the elfshadow continued softly. “A power that reflects your character and your needs.”

Arilyn shrugged, impatient for the elfshadow to move on to something she did not already know.

“Moonblades contain great magic, and they grow in power with each wielder. But as with all magic, the cost is high.” The elfshadow paused and spread her hands,

94

The Harpers

as if inviting Arilyn to observe in her what that cost might be. “My name is chosen well, for I am the shadow of what you will become.”

Arilyn stared at her image, not wanting to understand. Yet she suspected that she knew what the elfshadow meant. Suddenly, she realized that in some small way she had always known.

“Then when I die— she began.

“You will not die, strictly speaking. Your life essence will enter the moonblade. This is the ultdmate source of the sword’s magic.”

Arilyn turned abruptly away. For a long moment she stared at the wall, her face frozen as she struggled to control her roiling emotions. “So what you’re saying is that this sword is full of dead elves,” she said at last.

“No! That explanation is simplistic and crude, not to mention entirely inaccurate. Except in unusual cases, elves are immortal. We pass from this world on to the realms of Arvandor without tasting death as humans know it. But yes, each elf who accepts a moonblade understands that his or her passage to Arvandor will be delayed, perhaps for thousands of years, until the moonblade’s purpose is fulfilled. When a sword fells dormant, the elves are released. It is an enormous sacrifice, but one that certain noble elves take on gladly for the greater good of the People.”

“But what of me?” The words poured from Arilyn in an agonized rush. “I am half-elven\ The gates of Arvandor are closed to such as I, and most of the elves Fve known believe I have no soul! What will become of me? Of us?” she amended bitterly.

The elfshadow merely shook her head. “I do not know. None of us know. You are the first half-elf ever to wield such a blade. At the risk of sounding like a two-copper cleric discussing the afterlife, you will have to wait and find out.”

“But your best guess would be eternal servitude, cooped up like some genie in a cheap bronze lamp?”

Silver Shadows

95

Arilyn said with cold rage. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

**You cannot.”

“The hell I can’t. I didn’t sign on for any of this!”

“Your fate was decided when you first drew the sword,” the elfshadow insisted.

But Arilyn shook her head, her eyes blazing. “I’ll accept that when I’m drinking tea and swapping stories with Zoastria’s shade! There has to be a way out! Where would I find someone who knows it?”

“Arvandor,” the shadow replied grimly. “And, possibly, Evermeet.”

Arilyn threw up her hands. To her, one was about the same as the other. She would never be accepted on. the elven island. And not even for the sake of her soul—if indeed she had one—would she take something unearned from the hands of her mother’s people!

Unearned.

Suddenly the furious Harper remembered the missive from the Queen of Evermeet, and she knew what she must do. She would accept AmlaruiPs impossible mission, and she would find a way to succeed beyond the elven monarch’s highest expectations, and she would do it in her own way and on her own terms! And once that was accomplished, the queen would pay dearly for services rendered.

Arilyn lifted the sword and faced down her elfshadow. “In you go,” she said grimly. “Where I’m headed, the patrons are already seeing double.”

Six

“It’s been days, and no sign of them elves,” Vhenlar fretted, and not for the first time. “How’re we to know when they’re coming? You’d sooner hear your own shadow coming up behind you than one of them unnatural things. Like ghosts, they are! For all we know, every man on patrol is lying under some bush right now with a second smile under his chin!”

Bunlap threw a queuing glance toward the nervous archer. “Maybe so, but well know,” he said shortly. TU know.”

As the mercenary spoke, his hand lifted to touch the livid scar on his cheek, three curving lines that combined in the simple but distinctive design of a woodland flower of some sort. Bunlap had seen that mark elsewhere, and since the day the red-haired eh7 had marked hiip, he had done his dead-level damndest to make sure other people saw it, too—people who wouldn’t think kindly of the elf it identified. And by extension, tfie rest

Silver Shadows

97

of Tethir”s elves. Bunlap’s hatreds were nothing if not inclusive.

They were a scrappy bunch, the wild elves of Tethir, even if they were short and scrawny. The half dozen that Bunlap’s men had captured from the forest glade had put up a fight all out of proportion to their size and number. And these were but womenfolk, and half-grown elf-brats! The mercenaries kept these few around as bait for a trap, but there were many other elves in the forest who might well blame the red-haired elf whose arrows Bunlap had strewn judiciously around the ravaged elven settlement.

Bunlap liked the idea of angering some of the Elmanesse border tribes and turning them against the elven warrior who had maimed him, and who had eluded him for too long. Keep the long-eared bastards busy—that was what he was getting paid to do. But when it came time to kill the red-haired elf, Bunlap wanted the honor for himself.

The mercenary propped his boots up on a bale of dried and cured pipeweed. From his left boot he pulled a small knife, with which he began to carve some of the dirt from under his fingernails. From the small window across from him, he had a clear view of the field that stretched between the drying barn and the forest’s edge. Sunset colors spilled into the small, winding creek that separated field from forest and provided water for the thirsty crops. In the dying light the shadows were deep and long. Even so, nothing, and no one, would be able sneak past him.