"I've always had 'em. Ye know that." El waved away the skin, and Farl happily drained it.
"I thought ye wanted to slay all the wizards in Athalantar."
Elminster nodded. "All the magelords. Aye, I've sworn that oath—and slow, iron-careful, I've set about fulfilling it," he replied, staring out over the river, where a pole barge had just come into view in the distance, heading downstream toward the docks. "Yet sometimes I wonder what else I should do—what more life should be."
"Roast boar feasts every night," Farl said. "So much coin to buy them that I'll never have to feel the bite of a knife or hide in rotting dung while armsmen poke into it with their halberds."
"Nothing more?" El asked. "Nothing—higher?"
"What's the point?" Farl asked with a touch of scorn. "There're priests enough all over Faerun to worry about things like that— and my empty stomach never tires of telling me what I should be tending to." Satisfied that the very last drop of wine had fallen into his open mouth, he lowered the skin, rolled it, and thrust it through his belt. Then he looked across at his friend.
Eladar the Dark was frowning at him. "What gods should I worship?"
Farl shrugged, taken aback, and spread his hands. "A man must find that out for himself—or should. Only fools obey the nearest priest."
Amusement came into the blue-gray eyes locked on his. "What do priests do, then?"
Farl shrugged. "A lot of chanting and angry shouting and sticking swords into people who worship other gods."
In the same quiet, serious voice, El asked, "What use are faiths, then?"
Farl shrugged wildly, adopting a crazed, 'Who can know?' ex¬pression, but El's serious eyes stayed on him, and after a silence Farl said slowly, "Folk always have to believe there's something better, somewhere, than what they have right now—and that they just might get it. And they like to belong, to be part of a group, and feel superior to outlanders. It's why folk join clubs, and companies, and fellowships."
Eladar looked at him. "And go out and stick swords in each other in dark alleys—and then feel superior about it?"
Farl grinned. "Exactly." He watched the pole barge scrape to a stop against a distant dock, and said casually, "If we're going to be facing death together many nights longer, it'd probably be a good thing if I knew this code of yours. I know you prefer shop-guarding, dockwork, and errand- and package-running to thiev¬ing, but who wouldn't?"
"Crazed-wits out looking for thrills," El said dryly.
Farl laughed. "Leave me out of it for a breath or two, and tell."
Elminster thought for a moment. "I won't slay innocent folk . . . and I don't like stealing from anyone except rich merchants who are grasping, unpleasant, or openly dishonest. Oh, and wiz¬ards of course."
"You really hate them, don't you?"
Elminster shrugged. "I—I've contempt for those who hide be¬hind magic and lord it over the rest of us because someone taught them to read, or the gods gave them the power to wield magic, or something. They should be using the Art to help us all, not keep folk down and lord it over them."
"If you were Belaur right now," Farl said softly, "what in the name of the gods could you do but obey the wizards?"
El shrugged. "The king may be trapped, and he may not be. He never shows himself for us unwashed to get to know him—ye know, the subjects he's supposed to be serving—so how can I tell?"
"You said once your parents were killed by a dragon-riding wizard," Farl said.
Elminster looked at him sharply. "Did I?"
"You were drunk. I—not long after we met—I had to know if I could trust you, so I got you drunk. That night at the Ring of Blades, you wouldn't say anything else except 'outlaw' and 'kill magelords.' You kept repeating that."
Elminster stared steadily at the shattered crown of a nearby vault. "Every man needs an obsession," he said. He turned his head. "What's thine?"
Farl shrugged his shoulders. "Excitement. If I'm not in dan¬ger or doing high, hidden, and important deeds, I'm not alive."
Elminster nodded, remembering.
It had been a cold, blustery day, muddy slush ankle-deep in the streets of Hastarl. Newly arrived and wandering wide-eyed, El turned down a blind alley only to find, when he spun about, that he was facing a line of hard-eyed, grinning men blocking his way. A balding, burly giant in worn leathers stood at their head, a padded stick in one hand and a canvas sack big enough to enclose Elminster's head—for that was its purpose—in the other. They stalked down the alley toward him.
El backed away, fingering the Lion Sword and wondering if he could fight so many hardened men in such a confined space and hope to win.
He took a stand in a corner, blade out, but they didn't slow their steady, menacing advance. The bald man raised his stick, obviously planning to strike aside the lad's sword while the others wrestled him down, but before he could, a calm voice broke in from overhead.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Shildo. He's Hawklyn's meat already, marked and in use; see how bedazed he is?—and you know what Hawklyn does to blades who meddle."
The bald man looked up, face ugly. "And who's going to say we did it?"
The slim youth crouching on the windowsill, hand crossbow sliding gently back and forth to menace one bravo after another, smiled and said, "That's already been done, bald-pate. Two breaths ago Antaerl flew off to report. He left me to dissuade you because he recalls an old debt he owes you—and what happened the last time a snatch band took the wrong man. Wasn't pleas¬ant, was it, Shildo? Recall what Undarl said he'd do to you if you made another unfortunate mistake? I remember."
Snarling, the bald man spun around and stalked off, breaking the line of bravos and waving at them to accompany him.
When the alley was empty, Elminster looked up and said, "Thankee for a rescue. My life is thine, Sir—?"
"Farl's the name, an' no 'sir' am I. I'm proud of that, mind." Farl explained that 'meat' was the name given to bumpkins, slaves, and other unfortunates used by magelords for experi¬ments that slew, twisted, transformed, or left them mind-slaves. The wandering, obviously bewildered Elminster had looked like a prime snatch candidate, or a mind-slave already in thrall. "That's what I persuaded him you were," he said warningly.
"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 tur¬tle 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 accept¬ing him in by riding a dragon he could command. At Lord Hawk¬lyn'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 under¬stand 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 fa¬ther 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 taunt¬ing their foes before smiting them down, face-to-face."
"Then use his name," Elminster said deliberately, "and may¬hap 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 in the Wench on"—his voice mockingly assumed the pedantic tones of a sage relating a tale of awesome importance— "the night when two magelords' sons revealed their love to all Hastarl."
"Oh, gods," Elminster said quietly, "and I've felt sorry for me¬self a time or two. Farl, ye—"
"Can tell you to belt up and not say whatever tearful mush you were about to spout," Farl said serenely. "When the feeble¬ness brought on by my advancing dotage requires sympathy from thee, Eladar Mage-Killer, I shall not keep thee unapprised of the fact."
His grandiose tones brought forth a chuckle from Elminster, who asked, "What's it to be now, then?"
Farl grinned and, in one smooth movement, rolled to his feet. "Rest time's over. Back to the wars. So you won't let me take ad¬vantage of ladies of the evening or innocent folk—well, that's not a hard bind. There can't be more than two or three of the latter in all Hastarl—an' we've hit the wizards and the high-and-mighty families overmuch. If we roost too often on the same perch, 'tis traps we'll find waiting, not piles of coins ready for the taking. This leaves us with two targets: temples—"
"Nay," Elminster said firmly. "No meddling with the affairs of gods. I'd rather not spend the rest of a short and unhappy life with most of Those Who Hear All furious with me—to say noth¬ing of their priesthoods."
Farl grinned. "I expected that. Well, then, there's but one field we've not touched: rich merchants."
He held up a hand to forestall Elminster's coming protest about plundering hardworking shopkeepers and said quickly, "I mean those who lend coins and invest in back rooms and behind secure doors, working secretly in groups to keep prices high and arrange accidents for competitors . . . ever notice how few com¬panies own the barges that actually land here? And the ware¬houses? Hmmm? We've got to learn how these folk operate, because if we're ever to retire from plucking things out of the pockets of lesser folk—and no one's fingers stay nimble forever, you know—we'll have to join the folk who sit idle and let their coins work for them."
Elminster was frowning thoughtfully. "A hidden world, masked by what most see in the streets."
"Just as our world—the realm of thieves—is hidden," Farl added.
"Right," El said with enthusiasm. "That's our battlefield, then. What now? How to begin?"
"This night," Farl said, "by handsomely bribing a man who owes me an old favor, I plan to attend a dinner I'd never be al¬lowed in to. He'd be serving wine there, but I'll be doing it in his place, and listening to what I should not hear. If I'm right, I'll hear plans and agreements for quite a bit of quiet trade into and out of the city for the rest of the season." He frowned. "There's one problem. You can't come. There's no way you can get close enough to hear anything without being caught; these folk have guards everywhere. I've no excuse for getting you into the place, either."
Elminster nodded. "So I go elsewhere. An evening of idleness, or have ye any suggestions?"
Farl nodded slowly. "Aye, but there's great danger. There's a certain house I've had my eye on for four summers now; 'tis home to three free-spending merchants who deal in exchanging goods and lending coins but never seem to lift a finger to do any real work. They're probably part of this chain of investors. Can you skulk about the place without being seen? We need to know where doors, and approaches, and important rooms and the like are— and if you can overhear anything interesting while they dine...."
