"Then you must wait. And when he leaves the city again, be ready. I will concern myself with the other."

Snake spoke another ancient word of magic, and the image in the crystal vanished. He slipped it into its box, but he did not return to bed. For the rest of the night he watched the darkened city outside his window. With sleep would come dreams. And Snake did not want to dream again.

Nine

"That is by far the most idiotic idea you've had yet, Caldorien. And that's no mean feat"

Mari tossed her thick, red-brown hair as she peered at Caledan across the table. Morning sunlight streamed through the window of the Dreaming Dragon's private dining chamber, highlighting the edges of her wide cheekbones and too-square jaw.

Caledan sighed in frustration and leaned back in his chair. Had the Harpers trained Al'maren to be so contrary? Or had she simply been born that way?

"Listen, Harper," he said slowly, trying to explain it all once again. "You don't understand the Zhentarim as well as I do. There isn't enough loyalty flowing in the veins of the lot of them to fill a thimble even halfway. Without Ravendas, the Zhents in the city would start slitting each other's throats trying to figure out who's the top boss. They would do our dirty work for us." "And what about Cormik's report?"

Caledan picked up a rolled parchment from the table glanced at it, and tossed it back down. According to the report, Ravendas had requisitioned more warriors. The Zhentarim fortress of Darkhold in the Far Hills was only six days' hard ride north of Iriaebor. Soon there would be more Zhents than ever in the beleaguered city.

Caledan ran a hand through his dark hair, pushing it back from a furrowed brow. "I don't know, Harper." He shook his head slowly. "I think that, given time and a little of our help, Cormik's rebels might overcome the Zhentarim. But then, maybe not. Besides, Ravendas is still digging for something beneath the Tor, and it may not be long before she finds whatever it is. Time is something we don't have all that much of."

He took a deep breath, fidgeting with the braided copper bracelet on his wrist. "Of course, Ravendas will never have the chance to dig up anything if I confront her alone in the tower." He looked Mari in the eyes. "You should be able to understand that, Al'maren. Isn't that how the Harpers operate? They send one person to slip in and do a job where an army can't go. If that agent fails, they've lost only one. But if the agent succeeds…" He struck the oaken table with a fist. 'You're the person they sent to Iriaebor, Harper. Let me be the one to go into the tower, to end this all."

Mari regarded him for a moment. She laughed bitterly. "And what makes you think Ravendas won't simply toss your body down the tower steps, Caldorien?" She hesitated as if she was going to say something more, then bit her lip in silence.

"Why, Harper. You almost sound like you're worried. Don't tell me you actually care about me."

This time Mari's laugh rang with genuine mirth. Caledan winced. "All I care about is this city, Caldorien, and my mission for the Harpers. Don't forget that"

It was midafternoon when Tyveris came to the inn. Caledan had been enjoying a rare moment of solitude, Estah was with Jolle in the kitchen preparing the evening meal, and Mari was upstairs, trying to keep Pog and Nog out of trouble. Caledan had no idea where Ferret was. One typically didn't see the thief during daylight hours.

Tyveris had thrown a patched peasant's cloak over his broad shoulders, concealing his loremaster's robes. Priests of Oghma did not usually frequent taverns, and it was best not to draw any undue attention to the Dreaming Dragon.

The big loremaster slung a bulging satchel onto a table and began pulling out heavy leatherbound books. Caledan filled two clay mugs with foamy red ale-Estah's own brew-from a cask in a corner. He started to hand one to Tyveris, then paused.

"You haven't given up ale as well as your sword, have you?"

The monk shook his head emphatically. "Brewing beer is a most holy art, Caledan. Surely you know that" Tyveris sat down and took the mug, drinking deeply. "Ah, but then I'm forgetting what a heathen you are."

Caledan drank to that "What did you find in the abbey's library?"

"Quite an interesting search it was," Tyveris replied. He pushed his gold-rimmed spectacles up his broad nose with a dark finger and began sorting through the various tomes and codices. Yesterday Caledan had shown the big monk the scrap of paper the thief Tembris had written on-their one clue hinting at what Ravendas was searching for beneath the city. Caledan had asked Tyveris if he could research the peculiar and unfamiliar word the old thief had scrawled, and the loremaster had readily agreed, his dark eyes gleaming at the prospect of pursuing a scholarly mystery.

Mari descended the narrow back staircase then, clad in doeskin breeches and her customary green velvet jacket.

She poured herself a cup of pale sweet wine and joined the two men.

"What's this?" she asked, pointing to one of the molder-ing books that Tyveris had opened before him.

"A history of the lands west of the Sunset Mountains," the loremaster explained. He ran a big hand affectionately over a yellowed page, then drew out quill, ink, and parchment from his satchel to scribble a few notes. It was clear he was in his element. Still, Caledan couldn't help but remember the days when Tyveris had held a sword as comfortably as he now did a pen.

Caledan leaned over to peer at the faded words carefully scribed on the page. "I can't read a word of that."

"That's not surprising, given that it's written in a language that hasn't been spoken in a thousand years," Tyveris replied with a rumbling laugh. "It's called Talfir." He picked up the wrinkled scrap of paper on which the thief Tembris had scrawled the single word: Malebdala.

Mari arched a single eyebrow in curiosity. Caledan motioned for the loremaster to go on.

"The Caravan Cities-Iriaebor, Berdusk, and Elturel- were founded about three centuries ago," Tyveris continued. "That may seem like quite a long while, but against the full sweep of history it's really quite a recent development. People have lived in the lands along the banks of the River Chionthar for millennia. They raised kingdoms that had fallen to dust centuries before the first folk crossed the Sunset Mountains from Cormyr to the east to resettle these lands. And those ancient people spoke a different language than the one your ancestors brought with them. That language was Talfir."

Mari picked up the scrap of paper bearing the strange word. "Can you translate it?"

Tyveris nodded. "I think so. A number of books written in Talfir have survived over the centuries. We have a few in the abbey's library, and I've been studying them." He took the small piece of parchment from Mari. "Mai signifies shadows or twilight, and dala is a book or tome. Mal'eb'dala. The Book of the Shadows. That's how I would translate it."

Caledan frowned. "Ravendas had Tembris steal a book for her?" He had never known the Zhentarim lord to be the literary type. How could a book be so important to her?

"It would seem so," Mari replied, rubbing her square chin thoughtfully.

"I asked the other loremasters at the abbey if they had ever heard The Book of the Shadows mentioned before. One of them, Loremaster Avros, showed me this." Tyveris opened another book, this one bound with two flat pieces of wood. The pages were darkened with time.

"You can read that?" Caledan asked dubiously.

“This will help," the loremaster said. He took a pinch of white powder from a small clay pot and sprinkled it across the page. Then he blew gently. The powder seemed to stick to the parchment but not to the faded ink. The words stood out more clearly now, written in some archaic tongue Caledan could not make out. He looked at the Harper, but she shook her head doubtfully.