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."You mean he was signaling to someone in Sembia?" The mayor thought for a moment."There are a good number of Zhentarim agents in that country, are there not, Captain Flim?"But Flim didn't have a chance to answer, for Lindavar spoke instantly."There are indeed, Lord Mayor, and other villains besides.More than just Zhentarim agents have been captured near here recently.""The Iron Throne," muttered Captain Flim."Precisely," said Lindavar."The Iron Throne.""Wait a minute," Rolf said.'You telling me a bunch of merchants killed Dovo and the envoy?""More than just a.bunch of merchants, lad," Benelaius said.'They are a secret and dangerous organization, headed by parties unknown but thought to have its primary backers in the land of Sembia." Benelaius patted Grimalkin on his lap and nodded."Sembia's merchants are ruthless in their business dealings.""Like the old saying," Lindavar added, " 'When you look into a Sembian's eyes, you can see coins being counted in his mind.' Sembia was built on trade, so it lives and dies by it.And when it comes to matters of life and death, people arenot always scrupulous.Elduth Yarmmaster, the Overmaster of Sembia, has been a voice of reason in the past, but he grows old and may not live out his term.In the meantime, the Iron Throne has done much that the elected government would not dare to do, even if its leaders were able to overcome Elduth's sage council.""Like what then?" asked Shortshanks."Assassinating their competitors, extortion, selling illegal substances, trading weapons to inhuman tribes.the list goes on and on.The difficulty is that the Iron Throne's backers are unknown.They work through lower-level thugs for the most part.But still, the behavior of their agents has become so heinous that King Azoun banned the Iron Throne from acting within Cormyr for a year.Since the balance of trade between Cormyr and other kingdoms greatly affects the manipulations of the Iron Throne and of Sembian trade, it became imperative that the Iron Throne seek out that information, but with its agents arrested as soon as they set foot into Cormyr, this became more and more difficult."So if the Iron Throne could not legitimately enter our country and gather trade and production information, it would have to acquire that knowledge by stealth.""Wait a minute now," said Shortshanks impatiently."Are you sayin' that all this killin' was just to tell a gaggle of merchants how much oats and barley was gettin' grown and comin' in and out of the country?""That's exactly what I'm saying," Lindavar answered, "though how you put it is too simplistic.The information needed probably covered crop output, trade routes, what was to be exported, and what would be transported to different parts of Cormyr.Since the area around Ghars is basically agrarian, that was the intelligence that would be conveyed tothe Iron Throne in Sembia."In more industrial sections of the kingdom, and in areas that rely on crafts, I have no doubt that Iron Throne agents are telling their masters how many swords and pots and saddles and boots are being made and where they are being sent.It sounds like a stream of mundane information, but it can be the lifeblood of a country that depends on trade for its livelihood.A country like Sembia, and an organization like the Iron Throne.""So when Dovo was signaling with this lantern that the killer had taken away," said Captain Flim, as if getting it straight in his mind, "he was giving this information to the Iron Throne?" Lindavar nodded."But how do you know that? And what was all the ghost claptrap for?""We'll come to how we know it was the Iron Throne in a moment," said Lindavar."But the ghost was simply for cover.If Dovo had been seen walking off the swamp road with a lantern, questions would have been asked.What was he doing walking into the swamp at night? So the best strategy, and one that worked, was for him to dress up as the ghost of Fastred, an apparition that would make nearly everyone run the other way in fright.If Dovo heard horses' hooves, or someone walking along the road who might see him, he went into the ghost routine and scared them away, then moved into the swamp and did.what he was supposed to do.""Dovo?" Rolf said in disbelief."Look, I know you're a War Wizard and all that, but you expect us to believe that somebody as dumb as Dovo was could even get all this information you're talking about, let alone come up with this ghost idea? He scarcely had the brains to hammer on a horseshoe!""All he had to do was learn the code," Lindavar said."Hemight not have even realized what he was doing.Perhaps he was told that he was transmitting information to smugglers, or someone less reprehensible than the Iron Throne.Whatever he was told, he was also told all the information the Iron Throne needed."'Told by whom?" Barthelm demanded."What Cormyrean would betray his king and country?""And the local merchants, eh?" Shortshanks said with a sneer."The information was derived from someone who had easy access to it, someone whose official capacity not only allowed him but required him to know these things and report them to the local lord, Sarp Redbeard, in Wheloon.This person was a repository of export and trade information from Thunderstone to the Way of the Manticore, in all the lands between the Wyvernwater and the Vast Swamp.And it was from him that the information came, the same information that Dovo then gave the agents of the Iron Throne across the Vast Swamp.""Grodoveth.Mayor Tobald said softly."Grodoveth was a spy in the employ of the Iron Throne [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]