Ed Greenwood - The Elminster Series 5. Elminsters Daughter (Forgotten Realms)

Elminsters Daughter
2004 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Distributed in the United States by Holtzbrinck Publishing. Distributed in Canada by Fenn Ltd.

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Printed in the U.S.A.

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Cover art by J.P. Targete

Interior Art by Stephen Daniele

First Printing: May 2004

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2003116416

987654321

US ISBN: 0-7869-3199-X
UK ISBN: 0-7869-3200-7
620-96540-001-EN

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Ed Greenwood & Jeff Grubb

Ed Greenwood & Troy Denning

Sedit qui timuit ne non succederet

This ones for Brenna.
A daughter lost, not by me... but by us all.

nihil amori iniuriam est

A salute and thanks to the lore lords who have come to love Cormyr, and the work they have done on it, including Eric Boyd, Grant Christie, Tom Costa, George Krashos, and Bryon Wischstadtand of course Troy Denning, Jeff Grubb, Eric Haddock, and Steven Schend.

Sons, sonsalways you boast of what your tall sons will do, with their sharp new wits and sharper new swords!

Remember, O Prince, that you have also daughters! Youre not the first man, great or low, to forget the shes hes sired, but mark this wisdom, Lord (not mine, but from the pen of a loremaster who was dust before dragons were ever driven from this land): The sages who turn the pages of history have a word for men who overlook their daughters... and that word is fools.

Astramas Revendimar,
Court Sage of Cormyr
Letters To A Man To Be King
Year of the Smiling Flame

A wizard, a merchant, a lord among merchantsI see no shortage of fools here.

The character Turst Sharptongue
in Scene the First
of the play Windbag of Waterdeep
by Tholdomor the Wise Rammarask
first performed in the Year of the Harp

It was a moonfleet night, the silvery Orb of Selune scudding amid racing tatters of glowing cloud high above the proud spires of Waterdeep. Wizards in their towers and grim guards on battlements alike stared up and shivered, each thinking how small he was against the uncaring, speeding fire of the gods.

Far fewer merchants bothered to lift their gazes above the coins and goodsor softer temptationsunder their hands at that hour, for such is the way of merchants. Hundreds were snoring, exhausted by the rigors of the day, but many were still awake and embracingeven if the hands of most of them were wrapped only around swiftly emptying tankards.

There were no tankards, no embraces, and no soft temptations in a certain shuttered upper room overlooking Jembril Street in Trades Ward. Instead, it held a cold, bare minimum of furniturea table and six high-backed chairsand an even colder company of men.

Six merchants sat in those chairs on this chill night in the early spring of the Year of Rogue Dragons, staring stonily at each other. The glittering glances of five of them suggested that the health of the sixth man, who sat alone at one end of the table, would not continue to flourish for more than a few breaths longer had it not been for the presence of the two impassive bodyguards who stood watchfully by his chair, cocked and loaded hand-crossbows held ready and free hands hovering near sword-hilts.

That sixth man said something, slowly and bitingly.

Outside, in the night, a shadow moved. An unseen witness to the merchants meeting leaned closer to the only gap in the shutters across the windows of that upper room. Clinging head-downward to the carved stone harpy roof-truss nearest to the shutter, the shadow sacrificed as much balance as she dared, and strained to hear. Her slender arms were already quivering in the struggle to keep herself from plunging to the dark, cobbled street below.

There are really no more excuses left to you, sirs, the man who sat apart told the others, smirking. I will have my coins this nightor the deeds to your shops.

But one of the men burst out, and then bit off whatever else hed been going to say and looked helplessly down at the bare table before him, face dark with anger.

So youll ruin us, Caethur? the next man man asked, his voice trembling. Youd rather turn us out onto the streets than bleed us for another season? When you could set your hook at a higher rate, grant us more time, and keep us in debt forever, paying you all our days and yielding you far more coin than our stones are worth?

Secure in the strength of the two murderous bodyguards at his back, Caethur leaned forward with a wideningand not very nicesmile on his face and replied triumphantly, Yes.

He leaned back in his chair, very much at his ease, steepled his hands, and murmured over the resulting line of fingertips, It will give me great pleasure, Hammuras, to ruin you. And you too, Nael. And especially you, Kamburan.

He moved his eyes in his motionless, smiling face to the other pair of seated merchants and added with a sigh, Yet it almost pains me to visit the same fate upon you two gentlesirs. Why, Id almost be inclined to give you that extra season Hammuras speaks of, if, say, something happened to still Kamburans oversharp tongue forever. Why

One of that last pair of merchants slapped his hand down on the table. No, Caethur. Youll not turn us to savaging each other whilst you gloat. Well sink or stand together.