Shadows of Doom

20

Even though Elminster was braced, waiting for the magic to strike, his body still shook-and it still hurt. The ring of spell-turning, old when this Stormcloak's great-great-grandsire was a babe, shattered under the onslaught of Art.

As Elminster had known it would. He closed his eyes against the flash and spread his fingers wide to keep them from being torn apart.

The ring burst, its shards leaping from him, and much of his nearby flesh went with it.

The Old Mage clutched the wrist of his torn, smoking hand and roared in pain. Well, he thought with surprising calm, staring at what was left of that appendage, those who spend centuries hurling spells must bear their share of spells coming back at them. But holy Mystra, it hurt!

Belkram laid open a councillor's face and literally ran up the man as he fell, leaping for the table. Too late. Too cursed often, he thought grimly, Harper blades came too late!

Stormcloak's triumphant laughter broke off long enough for him to hiss a word, and he abruptly vanished from in front of the astonished Harper.

Belkram slashed empty air in case the wizard had merely cloaked himself with invisibility, then looked wildly around, sword held high.

Sharantyr's raw-throated scream warned him. The Zhentarim mage stood beside Elminster, wearing a sneering smile. His hand was coming up from his robes quite slowly, and a long dagger gleamed in it.

A dagger with a tapering, up-curving blade, a blade of black glass that winked and sparkled with many tiny, moving lights.

"A death dagger!" Itharr gasped, turning from the councillor he'd been about to kill. "He is a Zhentarim!"

Stormcloak gave him that cruel smile and waved a hand. Magic missiles burst from his fingers and streaked across the hall.

Itharr stiffened as they struck him, light flaring for an instant. Then he collapsed with a groan.

The Zhentarim laughed again in triumph and raised the dagger above his head. He met Sharantyr's horrified eyes, and she cried weakly, "No! No!" as she crawled toward him. A sudden spasm of agony made her clench her teeth, swallowing her cry. She shook her head, helpless in pain.

Angruin Myrvult Stormcloak looked down at Elminster, dagger winking in his hand as he slowly raised it, and savored the moment.

And then the forgotten Irreph Mulmar rose up behind the Zhent wizard like a vengeful ghost.

The rattle of chains warned the Zhentarim. Stormcloak spun around, hands rising to ward off a heavy length of chain that swept into him like the mighty slap of a breaking wave. The first blow shattered the dagger and the arm that held it, and left Angruin gasping in pain. Tiny lightnings fizzed and crackled to the floor as the death dagger's magic fled.

"It's too late for you to learn, wizard," Irreph rumbled, pain making his words sharp and hissing, "to beware toothless old men." His shoulders rolled like the aroused leap of an angry old lion, and the chain swung again.

The second terrible blow split Angruin's skull like the shattering of a hurled egg striking a stone wall, and nearly tore his jaw off. The corpse clawed at the air convulsively and vainly-and fell.

Irreph stood looking down at the body for a long time, chain clenched in his hand for another blow, but the mage called Stormcloak did not move again.

Silence fell as dalefolk and councillors left off trying to kill each other. The high constable finally lifted his head and looked slowly around the room as if seeing it for the first time. His gaze fell on the Old Mage, who knelt clutching the wrist of a blackened, broken hand.

"My thanks, Elminster," Irreph said thickly, "for giving me my home back again. We must feast together, later." And with a rattle of chains, he collapsed atop the body of the wizard who had dared to usurp his post.

Elminster shook his head to clear the pain and started the long crawl to where Sharantyr lay. Her eyes had opened again, and the smile creeping onto her face was glorious to see.

"Hurry up and heal, lass," Elminster growled as he drew near. "I'm in fair need of that ring meself."

From atop the table Belkram said, "Drop your weapons, councillors, if you would live. All who fight on will be declaring themselves Zhentarim… and will know their fate soon, and painfully."

As he looked coldly down at the councillors, dalefolk encircled them with weapons ready, and Itharr struggled to his feet.

The trapped men looked around the room, and steel clattered to the stones as councillor after councillor held up empty hands.

Belkram waved his sword at the chairs around the table. "Sit," he suggested. "I'm sure the high constable will have some words for you before long."

Through the open doors there came the ring of steel on steel, running feet, and a short, cut-off scream.

Gedaern looked up at Belkram and said, "We can guard these-and Irreph, the gods bless him. Go hunting Wolves, Harper." He grinned and looked over many sprawled bodies. "The pair of you certainly seem to have the hang of it."

Belkram looked back at him and smiled rather sadly. "It seems that way, doesn't it?" he replied softly, and looked to his comrade-at-arms. "Itharr?"

"Here," Itharr said grimly, rubbing at parts of him that hurt. "I–I'll be with you, ready to end this slaughter… if you get down off that table slowly and give me time to catch my breath."

From somewhere nearby in the castle came a wild yell, a clash of weapons, and another scream-this one long and lingering.

The two Harpers exchanged glances as Belkram's feet found the floor, "By the sounds of it," he replied, shouldering his way warily through the councillors, "there may be no Zhent Wolves left to see to."

Itharr only grunted. He limped as they started back across the great hall, but they were both trotting, blades in hand, as they went out into the passage.

Ulraea stared after them. "They seem more like things of iron and untiring magic than men."

"They're men," Gedaern told her with a light in his eyes. He hefted the weapon in his hands and stared at the doors the two had left by. "More than that-they're Harpers."

"Better, lass?"

"It's 'Shar,' remember?" Sharantyr reminded him with a mock severe look.

Elminster spread innocent hands. "I'm an old man, lass-Shar. I forget things, like all old men." He looked her slowly up and down as if seeing her for the first time. By the time his gaze rose again to meet her own, Sharantyr found herself blushing.

"Ye look whole now," he added. "What say ye?"

Sharantyr smiled ruefully and handed him the ring. "Well enough, Old Mage. Your turn."

Elminster put the ring on his finger and said briskly, "Good. I prefer to heal while I'm up and doing. Come." He plucked at her arm and set off for the doors at a steady stride.

Sharantyr followed. Behind them, Gedaern shouted, "Hey!"

Elminster did not pause. Sharantyr looked back.

"Both of you," Gedaern said. "You heard the Harper! Hold!"

Elminster turned at the door, and said, "Guard those councillors well, as he bid ye, young man. I've other business to see to yet." And he was gone.

" 'Young man'?" Gedaern sputtered angrily. Sharantyr spread apologetic hands and followed the Old Mage.

One of the councillors watching them go frowned thoughtfully and reached inside his tunic.

Something shattered loudly on the stone floor. When Gedaern whirled around, darkness was already spreading smoky tendrils toward him.

Elminster moved slowly and kept his injured hand hidden in the sleeve of his robe. Sharantyr caught up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Elminster," she said, earnestly, "I'm well enough to get about, and fight if need be, but you! Are you in any shape to be strolling around in the midst of a battle?"

The Old Mage gave her a tired look. "The answer to that one, lass, is the same one it's always been: I have to be."

He looked down a side passage and added, "So rest ye assured, I am. We go this way."

Sharantyr rolled her eyes and followed him. "Just answer me this, then. Where are we going, and why?"

"Ah, lass," the answer floated back to her down the dim passage. "Sages and drunkards alike have been arguing over answers to that double-bladed question for longer than I've been alive."

"Elminster!" Sharantyr wailed despairingly.

Behind them a councillor slipped out of the great hall in the concealing smoke born of the magical globe he'd shattered. He trotted to where he could watch the lady ranger and the old man in robes turn into the side passage.

Shouts echoed not far off, followed by the sound of running feet drawing nearer. The councillor frowned and looked hurriedly around. Selecting a certain door, he slipped into the room behind it, closed the door in silent haste, and in the darkness felt his way past the table he knew would be there to the floor beyond.

On his knees, he drew a slim, smooth wand out of a concealed sheath on his forearm and muttered a word. The wand pulsed with a faint purplish-white radiance, and from its tip a ghostly white glow spun away to form… an eyeball.

The orb stared back at him, looking very much like his own eye for a silent, floating instant, then faded slowly from view.

The councillor slid the wand back into its place, took a hidden dagger out of its sheath inside his boot, and lay down on his face, hiding the hand that grasped the dagger under him, his other hand sprawled as if lifeless.

He blew dust away to ward off sneezing and lay still in the chill darkness. The invisible eye, driven by his will, slipped under the door and sped down the passage in pursuit of Elminster of Shadowdale.

Elminster rubbed his chin. "It's been many a winter," he said slowly, "and they've made some changes… but what I'm looking for should be about-here."

His slowing stride brought him to a halt between two closed doors. He retraced his steps to the first door and paced carefully along the passage from it. At a certain spot he took off one boot, leaving it as a marker, and padded unevenly on to the second door.

Pacing back carefully from that door, the Old Mage found himself at his boot again, nodded, and put it back on. He looked up at Sharantyr almost challengingly.

She merely shook her head. Elminster knelt down, touched with a questing finger the stone he'd marked, and nodded again emphatically.

Sharantyr cast a quick look behind her, sword in hand. The passage was dark and empty. Then she bent forward to watch as Elminster dug the fingers of his undamaged hand into a dark crack that looked no different from a hundred others in the flagstone floor, and heaved.

The stone shifted a little. Dust puffed up and swirled as it sank comfortably back into its place again.

Elminster grunted, dug his fingers in again, shifting for a better grip, and heaved. His shoulders shook.

Sharantyr leaned closer. "Want any help?"

The slab rose very slowly as Elminster looked at her sourly. Sharantyr shrugged.

Unseen above them, the floating eye drifted nearer.

The slab grated sideways. Sharantyr stared into the darkness of the hole that the Old Mage had uncovered. Air was moving upward. Foul air.

Sharantyr sniffed and wrinkled her nose. "A cesspool. You've found the castle's cesspool."

Elminster sat unconcernedly on the edge of the hole. A lip ran all around its edge to hold the slab he'd dragged aside. He sat on the edge and felt around in the darkness with his feet for the footholds he knew would be there.

"Lass, we've no defense against magic anymore," he said, holding up his blackened hand. "With the people roused, and the Harpers and Cormyrean agents I recognized among them, the Zhentarim cannot hope to hold this dale any longer and dare not try to openly seize control of it, not with so many Zhentish coins owed to Sembian merchants right now."

One foot found what he was seeking. The Old Mage nodded again and went on. "Our work here is done. I'd as soon be gone before some Zhent mageling or other finds us and decides to enhance his reputation by blasting Elminster of Shadowdale into little wisps of smoke."

Sharantyr raised her eyebrows. "Another gate?"

Elminster nodded. "Very old, spell-shielded-and just beside the cesspool, where no Zhent or other high-and-mighty mage would ever get dirty enough to look for it. If we find it now, Mulmar can feast as much as he likes, and we'll be long vanished in the night before anyone comes looking for us."

He climbed down into the hole until only his head and shoulders could be seen and beckoned her. "Ye're young, Shar," he said gently. "I know how it tugs at thy desires to leave this place before we've seen an end to it all. But learn a little wisdom and come now."

He waited until she moved forward, and added, "Oh, aye. Bring the stone, lass, and pull it down above thee. Ye'll find lines scratched on its underside to mark how it fits."

Sharantyr rolled her eyes in the gloom as she went to pick up the slab. With a sudden grunt of effort, she lifted it, staggered to the edge of the hole, and carefully set it down. A strong whiff of air from below made her cough.

"You certainly know how to find troubles to land me in," the lady Knight complained as she started to follow him down the hole.

"Ah, that's adventure, lass. Adventure," Elminster said cheerfully from somewhere in the darkness beneath her. "Some folk would envy ye."

Sharantyr rolled her eyes again. They were beginning to water. This gate had better be close by.

As the stone settled slowly back into place, the floating eye dipped to inspect it carefully. After a moment it soared into the darkness near the ceiling of the passage and sped away like an arrow fired from a strong forester's bow.

"Lord Most High," Councillor Xanther Srildar said, in the safe confines of a tiny secret room deep under the oldest tower of the High Castle, "Brothers Angruin Myrvult and Heladar Longspear have both perished this day, and Harpers and agents of Cormyr lead the people of the dale in armed rising. This dale is lost to us. Over my head, they're taking the castle as I speak. Almost all of our sword brothers and mages are dead." Xanther's words shook only a little.

When it issued out of the floating, darkly glowing black spindle in front of him, Manshoon's voice was silken in its easy softness. "Indeed. Have you an explanation for how this came about?"

Xanther swallowed. His throat was suddenly dry again. The lord's tone was a sudden and cold reminder that his position as Manshoon's spy on the other Zhentarim here, a Brother above and secret from them, would not preserve his life if the lord was sufficiently displeased.

"Yes, Lord," Xanther said boldly. "Elminster of Shadowdale led the forces that attacked the dale, accompanied by at least one of the Knights of Myth Drannor. I saw Elminster myself and overheard him talking to this Knight, a woman in leathers. He called her 'Shar.' They're presently going down a shaft that leads to the castle cesspool, where there's a hidden gate Elminster hopes to escape by."

"Escape?" came that smooth voice out of the speaking stone, quick with interest, and Xanther began to breathe more easily. It might be that his news would please the Dread Lord of the Zhentarim enough to save his own life after all.

"Yes, Lord," Xanther confirmed. "I heard him tell the Knight that they had no defense against magic anymore. His hand was burned where Stormcloak's magic missiles destroyed a ring of spell-turning he was wearing-I didn't know such rings could be affected that way, but I saw it fly apart. He said it as if the ring had been his only defense against magic. Then he said their work was done and he'd prefer to be gone before some 'Zhent mageling or other finds us and decides to enhance his reputation by blasting Elminster of Shadowdale into little wisps of smoke.' Those were the words he used."

The speaking stone floated before him, silent for the space of two long breaths. Then the silken voice came again. Its words made Xanther glad that the stone's magic carried only voices, and that he could neither see nor be seen by the leader of the Zhentarim.

"Tell me, Xanther Srildar," Manshoon's voice asked him, "why-hearing that as you did-you did not attack them both at once?"

"I-was far away, Lord," Xanther said, swallowing, "using the wand you gave me. By one of its eyes I followed them across half the castle full of men fighting."

The spindle floating at the height of his head hung silently.

Emboldened, Xanther added, "Had I been there, Lord, I doubt Elminster would have spoken so plainly."

"You've done well, Xanther," the smooth voice came again. "The Brotherhood is pleased with you, despite the disaster in the High Dale. Hear now my orders. Do whatever you can, and enlist whomever you feel necessary, to destroy Elminster of Shadowdale. Bring evidence of his death to me if you can-but whatever befalls and by any means, you must bring about his death. Your reward will be very great."

The silently listening figure that neither Manshoon nor Xanther knew was there decided it was time to withdraw before being discovered, with a chance to earn a reward instead of the cold, deadly weight of Manshoon's disfavor.

Hcarla Bellwind drew his robe more tightly about himself and hastened to a dark and winding stair he knew of. It descended directly to the part of the cellars where a certain noisome cavern held the cesspool.

Bellwind was in too much of a hurry to close the secret door to Xanther's little room, once a private treasury vault, no doubt, and discovered by the Brotherhood long ago. The councillor, hurrying along soon after, felt cold fingers of fear touch his spine as he stared at the open door. Who had found his secret place and listened?

Who knew Manshoon's orders and the truth about Elminster of Shadowdale; who was lurking somewhere near in the castle right now?

Xanther tried to look about in all directions and discovered, as others have before him, that it's not easy… and that finding no immediate danger brings no comfort.

The hurrying Hcarla had no time for fear as his hastening feet descended stairs cold, dark, and worn smooth with age. Others might sneer, as Stormcloak had, at the Old Mage's feeble powers and strange behavior, but Elminster had caused Manshoon himself to flee a fight at least twice. No, Hcarla Bellwind would not begrudge the power he could gain from Elminster.

Not begrudge, but not fear either. If he could take the Old Mage unawares, he could cast his most precious magic: a stealspell. It would draw the most powerful spell out of the Old Mage's mind into his own, for Hcarla to wield. If that mind was empty of magic, the Old Mage's magic was truly gone and he could never hope to stand against the other spells Hcarla carried.

On the way through the cellars, a thought struck Hcarla. He paused in a room where glowing mold had been left to grow undisturbed to cast its eerie light over a workbench. He took down a hatchet from where it hung over the bench and caught up a moldering old sack from a pile nearby.

With the Old Mage's head in a sack, Hcarla could steal away to ask questions of it at leisure, using his own adaptation of the spell that Brotherhood priests used to speak with the dead. With Elminster's lore-directions to his spellbooks and hidden magical items would be enough-Hcarla Bellwind could forget about Manshoon's favor or disfavor and think instead about replacing him to command the Brotherhood himself. Aye, now there was a thought.

As he hurried on through the familiar darkness, Hcarla wondered briefly why Elminster had never tried to take control of the Brotherhood himself

"Enough!" Itharr gasped. "I'm worn out… or at least my sword arm is. There can't be more than a hand's worth of Wolves left alive in all this castle."

Belkram came to a reluctant halt, nodding. "You must be right," he said. "Even the Zhentarim can't make men out of nothing, and nothing is all we've found for six-seven? — rooms now."

Itharr nodded. "That reminds me," he panted. "One of the men… yelled after us. After Elminster… left the hall, someone… created… magical darkness, and some councillors… got away."

Belkram groaned. "Well, you've just proclaimed the task left to us: rounding up a lot of scheming councillors in their various hidey-holes all over this dale."

Itharr waved a hand. "Time for that on the morrow," he said. "I'm more worried about archmages of Shadowdale wandering about the place."

Belkram rolled his eyes as he opened his mouth to reply, but another, familiar voice rang out instead.

"Hail, Harpers!"

They turned. The clangor of arms had faded away in the bloodstained passages of the High Castle, and a man they knew was coming slowly toward them.

Gedaern was stumbling on a leg that was no longer sound. Blood soaked his clothes and ran down his face from a cut where hair was tangled and caught fast in gore. The blade in his hand was broken, its tip shattered by the same fierce blows that had marked its length with deep notches. His breath was a wet, whistling sighing that spoke of blood spilling inside him.

But Gedaern of the High Dale came on, eyes bright and fierce, and through the blood he was smiling. A proud, dangerous smile. A smile that Belkram would never forget, to the end of his days.

"Fair fighting, Harpers," Gedaern said. "I thank you for this chance to hit back, at last." And he smiled that terrible smile again.

"Gods, Old Mage," Sharantyr choked as they felt around in the thick, foul air. "You sure know some romantic places to take a lady!"

Elminster made a harrumphing, throat-clearing noise from somewhere in the darkness nearby. "When ye've lived as many years as I have, Shar, ye know all the places!"

Sharantyr turned toward him. "So why come here instead?" A whiff of putrefaction set her to coughing again. "Can't we even go for a torch?"

"In this bad air, ye'd probably set off a blast that'd bring the stone above down atop us, after separating thy limbs from thy body and spreading ye all over the nearest wall."

The ranger Knight sniffed. "Without light, Old Mage, the alternative bids fair to be finding the cesspool before finding this gate, by the simple means of falling into it!"

Keep talking, idiots, Hcarla Bellwind thought with savage glee, coming cautiously nearer in the deep, velvety darkness. Their voices would lead him close enough. Cautiously he probed ahead of him with his foot, testing for firm footing before he committed his weight.

His foot came down on something yielding, something that squeaked and moved hastily out from under his toes. He felt the harmless pressure of teeth on his boot before whatever it was scurried away.

"Old Mage!" Sharantyr hissed, ahead. "Did you hear?"

"Aye," Elminster replied. "Someone stepped on a rat."

Silence fell, deep and waiting. Hcarla snarled a silent curse. Then he shrugged. No need to come within reach of the woman's sword while he had the stealspell.

Setting down the axe and sack with slow, stealthy care, he moved his hands in the gestures he'd learned from an old Myth Drannan tome, its ever-bright metal pages still clear in his mind's eye, and softly spoke the words that tied the magic together and hurled it on its way.

"No!" Elminster gasped roughly, a moment later. "Oh, no."

Like someone uncorking a wineskin and squeezing it, the power pent up within him started to flow, being drawn off into the darkness. "Lass," he snapped urgently, "close thy eyes!"

An instant later there was a blinding flash and a shattering roar that left their faces wet.

Hcarla Bellwind, with all his dreams, had been consumed in a white-hot fireball by the titanic power of Art surging into him.

In a chamber dark and warm, where soft limbs caressed his own in the flickering torchlight, Manshoon watched his favorite scrying crystal burst apart in the blue-white flame of Hcarla Bellwind's destruction. As the ladies in the wide bed around him shrieked and scrambled away, he sat up and hissed, "I'll have your head at last, Elminster!" His hand moved to the silken tassel of the bell cord to summon mages. Many mages.

"Dread Lord?" the best of his companions asked, standing uncertainly beside the bed. "Shall I summon the"- her voice faltered and dropped almost to a whisper- "beholders?"

Manshoon turned eyes that were very cold and dark on her. "You share my opinion of our current magelings, then? You expect them all to fail?"

Anaithe looked back at him with the eyes of a trapped animal, licked her lips, and managed to say, "Yes."

"Perhaps they'd do better," the High Lord of Zhentil Keep said in silken tones, "if you accompanied them in their search for Elminster. One who's seen so much she's not supposed to must have keen eyes indeed."

Anaithe trembled, bit her lip, and brought her hands deliberately down to her sides, recovering her poise with an effort. "I shall do whatever my lord desires… though I cannot see how I, without any magic, can be of any help in destroying an archmage."

Manshoon smiled suddenly. "As always, your spirit pleases me. You may live."

Anaithe's skin paled to the hue of old bone, all over. "My thanks, Great Lord," she said softly, and bowed. Manshoon heard the thread of sarcasm she couldn't quite keep from her voice, and his smile broadened. Perhaps he should teach this one magic-after she'd been humbled by a whipping.

Sharantyr spoke first, while their ears were still ringing. "What's this all over me?" she asked grimly.

"Droplets of ambitious Zhentarim mage, no doubt," Elminster replied wryly. "Are ye all right?"

"I-think so. I can't tell, in the dark." The lady ranger sounded angry. "Look… that was a blast, Old Mage, and the air around us didn't flame up to join it. So let us have light."

Elminster nodded, and an instant later remembered to speak. "Aye, lass, but one problem occurs to me."

"And it is-?"

"In this darkness, we'll be hard put to it to find a torch."

Sharantyr said something very rude and unladylike that made Elminster sigh and shake his head. And then, down the passage from which the attack had come, they saw the bobbing light of many torches.

"Say nothing of the gate," Elminster muttered hastily. "We'll seek it later."

The sputtering torches were coming fast. A few breaths later, the two men in leathers who'd slain Longspear in the marketplace burst into the room, blades drawn and trailing a handful of armed, bloody men. "Elminster?" one of them asked, holding his torch high.

"Aye, ye've found him." Elminster moved to stand beside Sharantyr's drawn, ready blade. "Who be ye?"

"Itharr," said Itharr simply.

"Belkram," Belkram added. "Storm sent us."

"So I need nursemaids now, do I?" Elminster grunted, and waved a hand. "Well met, and thanks for thy blade work outside the walls. Ye have my favor. Go and see if Mulmar needs ye for something."

Itharr and Belkram looked at each other, shrugged, and grinned. They were four strides back up the passage they'd come from when they heard Elminster chuckle.

They halted and turned. "We were asked to bring you with us," Itharr said rather hesitantly.

"By whom?" Elminster asked with an air of offended dignity.

"Irreph Mulmar, high constable of the High Dale."

"Oh." Elminster smoothed his beard with long fingers. "Well… let's go, then."

They went, climbing a long and winding way through empty passages, hearing excited voices echoing from here and there as they ascended through the castle, until they reached the great hall.

Irreph Mulmar sat on the high seat there, in fine clothes and with the chains struck off his limbs. Men and women of the dale stood around him with weapons in their hands. Elminster stepped through the door and nodded casually to him, and sudden silence fell across the chamber.

"Ah, Old Mage?" the high constable asked awkwardly. "We're grateful for your help an' all, but we've had a bellyful of wizards ruling things."

Folk of the dale stood watchfully by, weapons ready.

Elminster blinked at him. "By the good gods, man, what would I want to rule anyplace for?"

There was another moment of silence, until Gedaern started to laugh. His guffaws set others off. In a moment the hall rang with laughter, the first light and general merriment that had been heard there for many a day.

Another platter of steaming fowl banged down on the table between them, and Itharr plucked a drumstick from it without looking, his eyes on Belkram and Sharantyr.

The two leaned toward each other over the table, chins almost in their wine goblets, as they strained to hear each other over the general din in the hall. All around them, dalefolk who should have been too exhausted to do more than snore were laughing, dancing, devouring with the speed of starving wolves everything that was brought in from the kitchens… and drinking as if they sat in parched desert sands instead of a mountain pass.

"Baldur's Gate?" Shar said in pleased surprise. "Really? I was born there, too!" She grinned across the table at the tall Harper, then turned to Itharr. "So where do you hail from?"

Itharr rolled his eyes. "All the same places as him. We've walked together for some years now, in the service of the Harp. But as to my upbringing, well… I have the misfortune-in the eyes of Baldurians, at least-to have been born in Athkatla."

"We forgive you," Belkram and Sharantyr said in perfect, unplanned unison. They exchanged startled looks and started to laugh. When they had breath to talk again, Sharantyr refilled Itharr's goblet from her third wineskin of the evening and took a drumstick of her own. "So how do two men from such prosperous cities end up Harping across the backlands?"

Belkram shrugged. "My parents were crew on the Dancing Dolphin, a nao that sailed out of the Gate. They were slain by pirates during my twelfth summer. For a youngling, alone, the Gate's too pricey a place to fend for oneself, so I took to the roads."

"And I," Itharr said dryly, "grew up to hate cheating folk-"

"Commerce, my boy. 'Tis called commerce," Belkram put in, setting down a goblet that seemed to have rapidly emptied itself.

Itharr gave him a look. "Aye, commerce… what folk in Amn do. So I ran away, out of Amn, seeking something to do that was a mite more noble-and adventuresome too, if possible."

"We met at an inn… in Daggerford, wasn't it?" Belkram peered suspiciously at the barren depths of his goblet.

Itharr shrugged. "Wherever. Some house that had guests who worshiped the dead dragons."

Sharantyr raised an eyebrow. "The Cult of the Dragon?"

"Aye, and a witty old man with white hair and a wisp of a goatee slew them all, right there in the taproom, when they drew blades on him for being a Harper."

"And then," Belkram put in, "he sat down amid all the bodies and calmly played and sang for us. Osryk, his name was."

"A Master Harper who's been missing for a while now," Itharr said rather sadly,

Belkram nodded. "Aye, Osryk. Impressive, he was. We were both aflame with the idea of becoming Harpers, so he sent us to Berdusk."

"Where Obslin Minstrelwish didn't much like the look of us," Itharr added with a sigh of remembrance, waving a half-eaten drumstick, "and decided we needed some harsh adventuring experience before we'd be worthy of the Way of the Harp."

"It's the noise you made with his songhorn," Belkram explained patiently. "You shouldn't have claimed to be an expert horn player."

"How was I to know it was his favorite instrument?" Itharr protested, sliding his goblet over to Sharantyr for a refill. "After all, how many halfling horn players d'you know?"

"One is all you need," Belkram told him dryly. "And sometimes far more than you need."

Sharantyr watched Itharr answer him with a rude gesture, and looked briefly up at the rafters. "You two must be a riotous pair to travel with," she said, shaking her head.

"Is that an invitation?" Belkram asked eagerly, leaning even farther across the table. Shar rolled her eyes and decided she needed a refill of her own.

"I don't think so," she said firmly, only to start back as Itharr leaned across the table just as aggressively and asked, "So how does a beautiful lady come to swing such a deadly blade, and join the Knights of Myth Drannor, hey?"

"Ahhh," Shar began, taken aback.

Belkram grinned at her. "Aye, it's our turn," he told her happily, steering a goblet she'd never seen before into her hands. It was as large as a man's head, and it was brim full. Belkram winked at her over its lip.

After the moment it took her to sigh, she winked back.

The feast was long and loud, and went on through the night. Folk roared and cheered and sang old songs, and Sharantyr moved-accompanied by the two Harpers-to sit with Elminster. She was soon amazed by the rapidity with which his glass became empty, was refilled, and seemed to leak its contents yet again.

Sharantyr made the huge goblet Belkram had given her last the rest of the evening, and kept eyeing the merriment around her watchfully. If someone yet lived, particularly an archer or a wizard, who wanted the Old Mage dead, this joyful chaos would allow a very good chance to kill him

About the time she loosened her blade in its sheath and pulled away from where she was pressed against Elminster to get steel out should she need it, she felt the pressing regard of a hostile gaze.

Looking up quickly, she saw the burning eyes of a councillor across the table dropping swiftly away from her. Hawklike, Sharantyr watched him, her blade a finger out of its sheath.

A long time later, amid the laughter and song and weary dancing, the man's eyes flicked up again, almost involuntarily. Xanther. Aye, that was his name. One of those who'd been spared, thus far. His eyes flicked away again to stare at something, roved about the table, and returned to stare at the same something again.

She followed his hungry gaze as he leaned just a finger or so forward to better study whatever it was he was so intent on.

He was eyeing the wand lying on the table by Elminster's hand.

Another wizard? Sharantyr drew a deep breath and pondered what best to do.

Feeling the sudden weight of the lady ranger's gaze upon him, Xanther carefully didn't look up.

He could not fail to notice, however, the sudden gleam of naked steel as the lady ranger drew her long sword and meaningfully laid it ready on the table, its shining tip resting over the wand.