War in Tethyr Read Online Free PDF

her chest of drawers as she descended the steps-which had uncomfortably high risers, even for one possessed of her length of leg-from her observatory.
    "Good evening, head," she said. The breeze through the open but bar-crossed window was cool and sweet and carried the song of a night-bird in with it.
    "You are troubled," the head said.
    She let the comment pass. The head was quite correct; it was a very perceptive brazen head. She was allowing herself to worry about money and, in particular, her lack of it. If she didn't realize every farthing of the profit she anticipated from her current enterprise, she would at the least lose Morninggold. Her normal specific for such concerns was violent exercise, but the sheer exhaustion that hung on her shoulders like a leaden shroud precluded that.
    Life was so much simpler when I was a mere warrior, with nothing to trouble myself over save whom I might next have to swing my sword against… As soon as she thought it, she knew it was a lie, and faintly ridiculous; the way of the sword, whether as adventurer, mercenary, or even successful war leader against the nomad Tuigan, was far from carefree. Someone, possibly resident of another world, plane, or even time-Faerun being uncommonly porous to artifacts, ideas, and even visitors from such places-had once described life as hours of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror.
    That expressed it rather well. Yet she knew that wasn't full truth either. The warrior's life had its rewards. Battle was terrifying, but it was also exhilarating, filled with wild freedom and fury difficult to capture elsewhere. That was why Zaranda had not entirely forgone the sword when she made the latest change in her life and career-that and the fact that the world was, after all, a risky sort of place.
    The truth, Zaranda, she told herself, is that you got bored with the life and decided to settle down. And look how that's turned out.
    "I can help," the head intoned. Its eyes flashed a beguiling yellow.
    Zaranda glanced at it in irritation. It was her preference to sleep unclothed, a fondness she found impractical to indulge on the trail amid an exclusively male contingent of caravan guards and muleteers, and she had been looking forward to that luxury tonight in her own bed in her own secure keep. Now it occurred to her that she was hardly prepared to disrobe with that thing staring unblinking at her from her chest of drawers, which was ornamented with grinning goblin heads carved in bold relief.
    "Be silent," she told the head, "or I'll put you back in your chest."
    She had ordered the chests containing the truly powerful magic items conveyed to her chamber for security. Perhaps the rarest, most powerful, and most nearly priceless of all was the brazen head. The product of a mage whose bones had long decayed to dust and scattered on the winds a dragon's age ago, before Elminster was more than a gleam in his father's eye, the head was the bust of a man acerbly handsome, with a scholar's brow and an ascetic's narrow, bearded face. Unfortunately, it had also a satyr's sensibilities, which was why Zaranda was going to be sleeping in her nightgown tonight.
    Aside from lips and eyelids, which worked on cleverly crafted hinges, the head's cast-bronze face was immobile. Nonetheless it managed to convey both injured innocence and invitation.
    "You have been good to me," it crooned. "Far more congenial than my previous masters for millennia-not to mention easier on the eyes. I would help you. I offer you secrets."
    " 'Secrets,' " Zaranda echoed in disgust. Statue it might have been, but the head was palpably alive, aware of self and surroundings. Zaranda had found herself unable to bear the thought of the thing riding in claustrophobic darkness for weeks without end, so she took it out discreetly whenever she could. And look where your soft heart gets you, she upbraided herself.
    "Secrets," the head repeated eagerly. "Secrets of the ancients. Secrets of