This was a terrible plan. The worst one Edgin had ever come up with, and yet, here he was, crouched in a corner of the ballroom, holding a barrel-sized potted plant in his arms—the only intact decoration left in the ballroom, by his calculation—ready to stake his life on this terrible plan.
“Why did we need the potted plant again?” Forge asked him as he crouched next to Edgin behind a ruined set of upholstered chairs.
“It’s my stand-in,” Edgin said, as if that made things obvious. “I named him George. George, meet Forge.”
Forge looked at him intently. “You’re not losing it on me, are you?”
Edgin laughed, and there was just a touch of hysteria to it. “Of course not. We’re about to try to murder a beholder by unleashing magic so powerful that it might blow up this entire house and everyone in it. I’m feeling excellent about all of this.”
“Well, if it helps at all, there’s no one else I’d rather have in charge of guiding us to glory or certain doom,” Forge said. He glanced across the ballroom to where Holga was limping her way into position with Simon. “Looks like we’re ready.” He held out his hand to Edgin. “Nice conning with you, Ed.”
Edgin shook his hand, the gesture made only a tad awkward with George in his arms. “You too, Forge Fitzwilliam.”
Just then, Torlinn shouted the words to a spell, sounding frustrated and exhausted. Edgin looked over just in time to see a fireball spiral from the wizard’s hand up toward the beholder. Sharrestren floated straight down, dodging the spell, and the fireball engulfed one of the crystal chandeliers above the buffet table. The flames quickly spread to the drapes hanging by the windows.
“Well, now it’s a party,” Forge said. Fresh screams echoed from the guests as smoke filled the ballroom.
Holga signaled them frantically from across the room. She was in position, and Sharrestren, in dodging the fireball, had drifted down nearer to the floor than he’d ever been. It was exactly the move they’d been waiting for.
“Go!” Edgin shouted.
All the players came onto the board at once, like a well-coordinated dance. Edgin had always sensed he had a good crew, that they worked in a harmony that would be envied by other thieving groups up and down the Sword Coast. Maybe it was because they were family too, and they were driven by more than just the motive to steal for themselves. They wanted to protect one another.
Or maybe Edgin was about to die, and this was just his life flashing before his eyes, a reexamination of all the choices that had brought him to this point. Either way, there was no turning back now.
The first move was Holga’s. She left Simon standing near the ballroom’s double doors and charged across the room toward Sharrestren. The beholder ignored her, focused entirely on retaliating against Torlinn for the fireball. Because of that, Holga, dropping her axe as she ran, was able to get right up to the beholder, but instead of attacking, she launched herself into the air with a fierce battle cry, landing on the beholder’s body. She wrapped both arms and legs around its bulbous form, grabbing two eyestalks to use as handholds.
And squeezed.
Sharrestren let out an incoherent shriek, spinning and bobbing in the air, trying to dislodge the large woman clinging to him like a stirge.
Torlinn’s face lit up with a wild grin, and he again brought the staff to bear, aiming it at both Holga and Sharrestren.
Edgin’s belly tightened with fury. A part of him had hoped that Torlinn wouldn’t try to attack, knowing that he’d hurt Holga in the process. But he was too far gone in his desire for revenge. Edgin recognized that mad light in his eyes. He’d felt the same way after Zia was killed.
But Edgin had also counted on Torlinn being too distracted to notice Forge coming up behind him. In a comically similar move to the one Holga had just made, Forge tackled Torlinn from behind, driving them both to the floor. In the tangle of arms and legs, Torlinn lost his grip on the staff, and it went rolling across the ballroom floor.
“What are you doing?” Torlinn screamed in rage, clawing at Forge’s face. “I had him!”
“Get ready, Simon!” Edgin shouted. He ran to the staff and wrapped his cloak around his hand before scooping it up. It was a risky move, but he was out of options. Now he had a potted plant and an ancient artifact.
Perfect.
He ran to the center of the dance floor, setting the potted plant down and driving the Staff of Aorth into the pot like a stake stuck in the ground.
Directly above him loomed the massive pipe organ, the centerpiece of the orchestra that Sharrestren had been so proud of. Around it, one by one, the other instruments were catching on fire, creating a disturbing tableau on the ceiling.
“Now, Simon!”
Across the room, Simon began to cast a spell. His hands trembled, his eyes fixed on the pipe organ.
“No!” Torlinn wrenched himself free of Forge and muttered a spell. A thunderous wave of energy hit the con man and tossed him across the room. The back of his head hit the buffet table and he collapsed, unmoving, on the floor.
Not good. “Simon, hurry!” Edgin shouted. He wanted to run to help Forge, and he wanted to get as far away from the staff as possible, but he couldn’t leave it. He couldn’t risk Sharrestren or Torlinn getting it again.
Luckily, Sharrestren was still distracted trying to get rid of Holga. Eye beams flashed, lighting up the ballroom in eerie glows, but Holga managed to dodge them, wrenching the eyestalks with her bare hands to throw off Sharrestren’s aim.
But Torlinn was getting to his feet. Edgin grabbed the staff, prepared to run, but Torlinn turned to face Simon, evidently divining what he was trying to do.
“Stop!” he cried, thrusting a hand at Simon, claws dripping blood from a wound Edgin couldn’t see. “I’ve waited too long! I won’t let you take it from me!”
Fire bloomed at his fingertips, pointing at Simon.
And Edgin saw something he’d never seen in the young half-elf’s face before. Simon stared at the fire growing in Torlinn’s hand, and a wave of calm seemed to wash over him. His hands stopped trembling. He lowered them, turning his attention from the pipe organ to Torlinn. He chanted some arcane phrases that Edgin recognized.
A counterspell.
Torlinn’s face, which had been alight with wild triumph, crumpled as the fire in his hand guttered and died. At the same instant, Simon looked up at the pipe organ and calmly chanted another spell, looking more confident in that moment than Edgin had ever seen him. It was as if, when his life was on the line, his back to the wall, Simon finally stopped being afraid.
Above him, the pipe organ groaned loud and ominous as Simon stripped away the magic holding it to the ceiling. Across the room, Sharrestren flung Holga off and spun to face Edgin.
“Die!” Sharrestren shouted at him. He was already firing an eye beam at Edgin as he screamed.
Edgin had that moment again, the moment of his life flashing before his eyes. Whatever that ray was, it was going to kill him. He knew it. He’d heard the stories of the eye tyrant rays that could kill with a touch, and he’d seen the dwarf disintegrated before his eyes.
This was it, then. He hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to Kira. His heart lurched in his chest, and his eyes burned, but somewhere inside him, he felt a sense of peace.
Holga. Holga would take care of her, would protect Kira no matter what, because she loved her. He’d always known that. And the rest of them would be there too. They were all a family of misfits. They would look out for one another, and he would do this one last thing to protect them.
Then the world was filled with light as a shudder rocked the ballroom.
“Edgin, move!” Simon was screaming at him.
But the beam…
Edgin turned just in time to see Torlinn in front of him, crumpling to the ground. He’d been running toward Edgin, and the beam had struck him in the back. He lay in a heap on the floor.
Sharrestren was coming at him—no, coming for the staff—and the pipe organ shuddered again as, freed from its magic, it fell.
Edgin dove out of the way, leaving the staff standing upright in the potted plant just as the pipe organ came down on top of it and Sharrestren.
A thunderous crash shook the house and knocked Edgin off his feet. He crawled to the wall, dragging the remains of a sofa down on top of his head just as a tremendous explosion rocked the ballroom, deafening him. He covered his face with his hands and curled into a ball.
Heat washed over him in a wave, hotter than flame, blistering in its intensity. Magic crackled in the air, lifting the hairs on his arms, invading his nostrils with the scent of lightning and burning flesh. His eyes watered, and he coughed on the smoke that was invading every part of the room. His heart thundered in his chest. Never in his life had he felt such an outpouring of magic as when the Staff of Aorth was destroyed.
And then, just like that, it was over. Silence reigned except for the loud ringing in Edgin’s ears. Slowly, he uncurled his body and thrust the remains of the sofa—which was now blackened and on fire—off of him. He got to his feet, knees wobbling. The driftglobes in the room had all gone out. The only light now came from the moonlight at the windows and the fire licking along the ceiling and walls.
There was a pipe organ–sized crater in the center of the ballroom, but little else remained of the instrument. Ash drifted in clouds in the air. That seemed to be all that was left of Torlinn, Sharrestren, and the Staff of Aorth. They’d all been consumed by the magical explosion.
Edgin called out through the haze and smoke for his friends.
Holga emerged from behind a pile of rubble with Simon at her side. Edgin’s head swam with relief. “We’re here,” Holga said. “Forge?”
He’d been unconscious by the buffet table. Edgin ran over there, boots crunching on bits of the crystal chandelier, which had come down and shattered on the floor.
Forge was lying where he’d fallen, but someone else had reached him before Edgin. Lady Sofina was bending over his chest, listening for a heartbeat.
“Is he dead?” Edgin asked tightly, kneeling next to her.
Lady Sofina looked up at him in surprise. “You’re alive?” she said, blinking at him. “I thought for sure you’d been caught in that blast.”
“Is he dead?” Edgin repeated sharply.
“No,” she said. She reached into a pocket of her dress and pulled out a potion, unstoppering it with her thumb. “I can’t believe I’m using this on him, after our history.” She sighed and poured the potion down his throat.
Forge’s eyes popped open and he sucked in a breath, coughing weakly on the smoke. “Am I dead?” He groaned and clutched his head. “Or hungover?”
“He’ll be fine.” Lady Sofina got to her feet with Edgin’s help. She looked exhausted, and she was bleeding from a deep cut on her cheek. “I believe I’ve had enough revelry for one evening. I’m leaving.”
“Who are you?” Edgin asked, a suspicion he couldn’t ignore gripping him suddenly. “Are you really just a party guest here?”
“I’m as much a party guest as you are,” she said with a daggerlike smile. “Let’s just say I represent a group in Neverwinter who wanted Torlinn’s magical activities investigated.”
Ah. That could mean she was a Harper, or a member of the Lords’ Alliance, or even the Zhentarim. There were any number of organizations that kept an eye on threats to Faerûn.
“I thought that you and your crew were involved somehow,” she went on, “though obviously not in the way I expected.” She cocked her head as she looked at Edgin. “Who are you, if I might ask?”
Did she know him? Edgin wondered if she’d asked around about him. It wouldn’t be terribly difficult to find people who remembered him from his days as a Harper.
It didn’t matter. Edgin shook his head, giving her that charming smile he’d perfected. “We’re just common thieves, ma’am,” he said. “We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Just common thieves,” she repeated skeptically. “Well, if that’s the case, you’d better leave soon if you want to avoid more than just my own questions. My backup will be arriving shortly, you see.”
“That’s our cue, then,” Edgin said, giving her a bow. “Oh, and you might tell your people that there’s a fairly extensive complex beneath this estate. It’s full of monsters and murderous traps. Just, you know, if they want to check it out.”
Lady Sofina’s eyes sparkled with interest. “I will. My thanks, Edgin. Perhaps we can work together again in the future.”
Edgin nodded politely, though he sincerely hoped they never met again. He helped Forge to his feet, slinging an arm around the con man’s shoulders. “Holga, Simon, can you get Alyanna and meet us out front?” he said. “I need to find Kira.”
“And the loot,” Forge mumbled.
“We’ll take care of it,” Holga said. She and Simon turned away, but Edgin called out to the half-elf, who turned back to look at him. There were dark circles of exhaustion and pain under his eyes.
“Way to come through, Simon,” Edgin said. “Thanks.”