Two Lines of Pressure

The morning after Renaer’s visit, they divided the inquiries. Rishi and Maeril would trace the Zhentarim working for Manshoon. Their Watchful Order appointments gave them access to reports of disappearances, patrol movements, and the people who had returned with pieces of memory missing. Somewhere among those accounts might be a way to find Lysaerra.

Elisa, Firemind, and Chime would follow Xanathar’s Guild. Renaer believed the Stone was in its lair beneath Waterdeep.

“I’ll try the contacts Renaer gave us,” Firemind said. “We need an entrance to that lair, and someone who knows what lies beyond it.”

“I’ll ask among the households and kitchens I knew through the Manor,” Elisa said. “And use Mereth’s introductions where I can.”

They could make those inquiries while keeping their names out of the Watch’s records.

Before leaving, Rishi copied Lysaerra’s name onto the first page of his notes. He took the reports of Manshoon’s experiments; Firemind kept the accounts of the Guild’s missing informants. They agreed to return to the Lathanderite house with whatever they learned.

For the next three days, Rishi carried their Order papers between records offices, guardrooms, and houses where someone had come home changed. He and Maeril compared the names in Renaer’s reports with sightings and changes in patrol routes. Where a statement led them to a survivor, Maeril examined the magic left behind. Rishi asked where it hurt, and waited when answering cost them effort.

One retired clerk could still remember the cellars he had surveyed. He could not remember the apprentice who had worked beside him for thirty years. The man sat across from his former pupil and apologized with the careful courtesy of someone receiving a stranger. Rishi stayed after the questions ended. There was little he could mend, but the clerk’s hands were cold, and a kettle stood within reach.

On the first two evenings, the five compared names over late meals and chose which leads to follow next. Rishi marked further statements to request from the Order. Elisa brought new addresses from Mereth, and Firemind added people he meant to approach through his old contacts. The following mornings, he, Elisa, and Chime went out together while Rishi and Maeril returned to the Order’s records. The lists on the reading-room table grew crowded with corrections and crossed-out names.

In the last dark hour of the third night, Rishi set the collected reports on the reading-room table. Elisa moved the cups aside for them. Firemind drew his chair closer, while Chime rose from the open reliquary to look over his shoulder. Maeril eased herself into the chair beside Rishi and laid down a sketch and a small cloth bundle.

A gray wing slipped free.

Firemind looked at it. “Have we brought a witness?”

“We have brought evidence,” Maeril said.

“It has a label?”

“It has implications.”

Rishi covered the wing while she spread the sketch. Two towers stood within a rough line marking the surrounding streets.

Maeril put her finger between two marked patrol routes. “One name keeps coming up in the reports. Agorn Fuoco. People have seen him in these streets with a rapier at his belt.” She tapped the towers. “Kolat Towers, in the Southern Ward. Deliveries too heavy for an empty house, people arriving where the Watch has stopped looking.”

“Do the reports put them inside?” Firemind asked.

“Close enough to investigate. The place is supposed to be abandoned. We saw continual flame behind the windows.”

Elisa drew one of the statements toward her. “And the people losing their memories?”

“In one room I could still examine what had been done,” Maeril said. “The memories were pulled outward, sorted, compared. Nothing was being devoured.”

Firemind stopped turning the charcoal between his fingers. “Unlike the Stone.”

“Yes. This was someone working on a mind, looking at what remained after pieces had been removed.”

“Learning how to use Lysaerra’s scar,” Elisa said.

“That is what I fear.”

Elisa read the rest of the statement before setting it down.

“We still have no witness who saw her taken into the towers,” Rishi said.

“But you went to look,” Firemind said.

Rishi nodded toward the bundle. “That bird struck something in clear air. It fell before I could reach it.”

Maeril traced a curve around the towers. “A barrier of force. It stands beyond the walls themselves. Walking up to the door would be an unpleasant way to discover it.”

“And behind it?” Firemind asked.

“More than the towers account for.” She ran her nail from one of them into the blank space beside the drawing. “There is conjuration reaching somewhere that does not fit the space. I think the circles lead to a separate sanctum, folded away. If he has brought her here, that is where I would expect him to keep her.”

“So even inside the walls, we may still have another crossing,” Rishi said.

“And I cannot tell you what waits on the other side.”

Firemind turned the sketch slightly. “How far down does the barrier go?”

Maeril looked at the base of the towers on her sketch. “I could follow it beside the masonry. Below the street, I have not established.”

“Something built over old cellars might leave us a way under.”

“It might. Or we dig until we find the same wall in the dark.” She leaned forward again. “Still. I would like to see what the working does below ground. Everything I could examine was above it.”

“Can we get close enough to look without entering?” Rishi asked.

“If there is a passage. I can examine the magic. I cannot tell from this drawing whether the ground will stay over our heads.”

“Nor can I,” Firemind said. “Some of these cellars will have been filled in. Some will only look as though they have.”

Rishi moved his cup away from the edge of the sketch. “Erik can judge that. His crew knows how to brace a working passage. I will ask him where we could start.”

Maeril nodded. “Good. Bring me something I can inspect before we offer Manshoon the entertainment of watching us collide with his wall.”

She folded the cloth over the pigeon and moved it to the shelf by the door.

Elisa unrolled a sewer map into the cleared space. A route had been copied across it in faint gold. “We have a way to look for the lair too. There was a woman who used to bring bread to the Manor. She did not recognize me until I spoke Rika’s name.”

Her hand rested on the curled edge of the paper. Firemind set his cup on the corner to hold it flat.

“She remembered,” Elisa continued. “And she knew people who had seen the Guild moving below the streets. They helped us follow the marks.”

“An old friend supplied the entrance.” Firemind touched a point in the Castle Ward. “A secret stair from the sewers. The descent is marked with carved eyes. It should take us into Xanathar’s own passages without going through Skullport.”

Rishi followed his finger to the end of the gold line. “How much farther can you take us?”

Firemind drew two circles on a blank sheet beside the map, then a short passage between them. “After the stair, I have descriptions. Round doors. Eyes carved into the walls that open passages when pressed. These rooms may connect like this, but no one has measured them for us.”

“Some doors may have been left out,” Chime said.

“Several, I expect.”

“Who has been close enough to know?” Maeril asked.

“An engineer I used to deal with passed on a warning from Thorvin Twinbeard. Xanathar’s chief engineer. He has been sending pieces of information out.”

“We have not spoken to Thorvin himself,” Elisa said.

Firemind wrote the name beside the sketch. “The warning says the Stone speaks when no one holds it, the Dream Nullifier hums wrong, and the room with the fishbowl is safer than Xanathar’s sanctum.”

Maeril stopped turning her cup. “The Dream Nullifier?”

“A machine meant to suppress Xanathar’s dangerous dreams. Keep them from becoming things that walk out and kill people.”

“Then something has failed,” Rishi said.

“Something has,” Maeril said. “We do not yet know whether it is the machine.”

Firemind glanced toward her. “The Stone could be changing what it has to contain.”

“Or what escapes it. We have a report of an altered sound and a creature on the road. I want to know what connects them before anyone starts pulling parts out.”

“So do I. That is why I would rather find the engineer than guess at his work.”

“He noticed the sound changing,” Chime said. “Chime would like to ask what it sounded like before.”

Rishi looked back at the rough rooms. “And the fishbowl?”

“Sylgar,” Elisa said. “Xanathar’s goldfish.”

Rishi waited.

Firemind drew another circle, smaller than the others. “According to the warning, Xanathar is less suspicious there. The friend who gave us the entrance called the fish its obsession. He was very firm about not mistaking that for a weakness we could safely use.”

“Does any of this put the Stone in that room?” Maeril asked.

“No. But Xanathar may keep it near what it trusts most. Sylgar, or the machine protecting its sleep. Those are places to look.”

“Provided Thorvin can help us reach them,” Elisa said.

“If we find him. A warning is not an offer to guide us.”

Elisa lifted his cup and smoothed the last curl from her map. The two sketches lay edge to edge now. Rishi could cover the distance between their entrances with one hand.

“If we all go below,” Elisa said, “Lysaerra stays with Manshoon while we search rooms that may not even join.”

“And if we all go to the towers,” Rishi said, “another creature could reach the road before we come out.”

Firemind put the charcoal down. “Dividing us does not make either place easier to survive.”

No one answered at once.

“You may cross into a room none of us can reach,” Firemind continued. “Below, one wrong door could close the way back. We have only just found one another again. I would like to keep us within reach.”

Rishi looked at Elisa. She had drawn her hands into her lap. Maeril sat with one finger still touching the edge of the towers.

“So would I,” he said. “Can either search wait until the other is finished?”

Firemind rubbed charcoal from his thumb. “I cannot promise that.”

“Nor can I.” Maeril looked at Rishi. “I can work on the wards. If we find her, you can help her through whatever we have crossed. I want you beside me in there.”

“I will be.”

“And I know the Guild’s ways better than Manshoon’s,” Firemind said. “I can work on the locks and mechanisms below.”

“Then I go with you,” Elisa said. “You will need healing below.”

He looked toward her. “Elisa, if they recognize you—”

“You have told us how dangerous it is. I heard you.”

His gaze dropped to the map before he nodded.

Chime lowered between them. “And Chime is coming. I want to hear the machine and ask the person who knows it. A warning carried through someone else cannot answer back.”

Firemind held out one hand. Chime settled close above it.

“With us,” he said. Then he looked across the table. “We still need help. Someone who can keep a passage open while we work.”

“Then we find help before we go,” Elisa said.

Maeril pulled the tower sketch back toward her. “And we find out whether there is ground beneath this thing that can be crossed. I am agreeing to prepare. I have not suddenly become comfortable with Manshoon.”

“I should worry if you had.”

“Please continue worrying. I am.”

Rishi reached for his Order papers. “We compare what we have before either group enters. If the routes will not serve, we need to know while we can still reach one another.”

Firemind nodded and picked up the charcoal again. He marked a question beside the passage joining his two circles.

Maeril folded the tower sketch and passed it to Rishi. “Ask Erik about the ground first. Then I can tell you what else I need.”

Rishi tucked it between the papers, clear of the damp ring his cup had left. He took his staff from beside the door while Elisa drew a clean sheet toward her and Firemind began marking the gaps in their route.