Spellfire ss-1

by Ed Greenwood

  "I was getting too old for rough nights spent on cold ground, anyway. Few of my former companions-at-arms were alive and hale, and an old warrior who must join or gather a new band of younger blades is but asking for a dagger in the ribs at first argument.

  "I brought you up as a servant here, Shan, for I dared not attract attention to you. Folk talk if an old retired warrior lives alone with a beautiful girl-child, you know. I had to hide your lineage-and, as long as I could, your last name-for I knew the cult would be after you if they guessed.

  "That fight at the bridge, you see-they could have slain us all by art from afar without exposing themselves to our blades and spells for anything near so high a cost, if all they'd wanted was us dead. No, they wanted you, girl, you or your mother. I let them have neither! It was the greatest feat I ever managed, down all those years of acting and watching my tongue and yet trying to see you brought up proper. "For they've kept nosing, all these years, the cult and others. I suspected your Marimmar, Narm, of being yet another spying mage-who knows, now? Some, I think, were fairly sure, but they did not want to fight rivals for you unless you were the prize, so they watched closely to see if you'd show some of your mother's powers. I dreaded the day you would. If it were too public a show, I might not have time to get you to the elves or the Harpers or Elminster.

  "I was more wary of the old mage, for it is great mages who fear and want spellfire the most and will do the greatest ill to get it. Even if I had the time to run, then, I might not have the time to get Lureene and the others safe away. The cult might well burn this house to the ground and slay all within, if they came to take and found me gone."

  He shook his head, remembering. "Some days, I was like a skulking miser, looking for those coming to plunder under every stone in the yard and behind every tree of the woods and in the face of every guest."

  Chuckling, he shook his head. "Now you are wed, and I am to be wed, and you went to find yourself because I would not tell you who you were. And you've come back, with all my enemies and more besides upon your trail, and you wield spellfire. And I am too old to defend you."

  "Gorstag," said Narm quietly. "You have defended her. All the time she needed it, you kept her safe. Now all the Knights of Myth Drannor must scramble to defend her! She drove off Manshoon of Zhentil Keep and wounded him perhaps unto death! My Shandril needs friends, food, and a warm bed, and a guard while she sleeps. But if others give her those, it is not she who needs defending now when she goes to war!"

  Shandril chuckled ruefully. "There you hear love talking," she said, wearily pushing her hair out of her eyes. "I need you more than ever, now. Did you not see how lonely The Simbul was, Narm? I would not be as she is, alone with her terrible power, unable to trust anyone enough to truly relax among friends and let down her defenses."

  "The Simbul?" Lureene gasped. "The Witch-Queen of Aglarond?" Gorstag, too, looked awed.

  "Aye," Shandril said simply. "She gave me her blessing. I wish I could have known her better. She is so lonely, it hurts me to see her. She has only her pride and her great art to carry her on."

  In a far place, in a small stone tower beneath the Old Skull, The Simbul sat up in the bed where Elminster lay snoring, and tears came into her eyes. "How true, young Shandril. How right you were. But no more!" she said softly. Elminster was awake, instantly, and his hand went out to touch her bare back. "Lady?" he asked anxiously.

  "Worry not, old mage," she said gently, turning to him with eyes full. "I am but listening to Shandril speak of me."

  "Shandril? Are you linked to her?"

  "Nay, I would not pry so. I have a magic that I worked long ago, that lets me hear when someone speaks my name-and what they say after, for three breaths, each time-if they are near enough. Shandril is speaking of me, and my loneliness, and how she wished to know me better as a friend. A sweet girl I wish her well."

  "I wish her well, too. She is at ease, then, and unhurt, would you judge?"

  "Aye, as much as one can judge." The Simbul regarded him impishly. "But you, lord! You are at ease and unhurt. Shall we see to changing your sloth into something more-interesting?"

  "Aaargh," Elminster replied eloquently, as she began to tickle him, and he tried feebly to defend himself. "Have you no dignity, woman?"

  "Nay-only my pride, and my great art, I'm told," The Simbul said, skin gleaming silver in the moonlight.

  "I’ll show you great art!" Elminster said gruffly, just before he fell out of the bed in a wild tangle of covers and discarded garments.

  Downstairs, Lhaeo chuckled at the ensuing laughter, and began to warm another kettle. Either they'd forgotten him, or thought he'd grown quite deaf-or, at long last, his master had ceased to care for the proprieties. About time, too.

  He began to sing softly, "Oh, For the Love of a Mage," because he was fairly confident that Storm was busy, far down the dale, and would not hear how badly he sang.

  These are the sacrifices we make for love, he thought.

  Upstairs, there was laughter again.

  "It grows early, not late," Gorstag said, as he saw Shandril's head nodding into her soup. "You should to bed, forthwith-and then it is in my mind, Narm, that you both stay and sleep as long as your bodies need, before you set off on a journey that is long indeed, with no safe havens anywhere."

  "We have not told you all yet, Gorstag," Narm said quietly. "We have joined the Harpers-for now, at least-and we go to Silverymoon, to the High Lady Alustriel, for refuge and training."

  "To Silverymoon!" Gorstag gasped. "That's a fair journey, indeed, for two so young, without adventurers to aid you! Ah, if I was but twenty winters younger! Still, it'd be a perilous thing, even then. Mind you stay with caravans for protection. Two alone can't survive the wilderness west of Cormyr for long, no matter how much art they command!"

  "We'll have to," Shandril said in a grim, determined voice. "But we will try to take your advice and stay with the caravans. And if you don't mind, we will sleep over tomorrow. Foes or no foes, I can't stay awake much longer."

  "Come," Lureene said, "to bed, lass. In your old place, in the attic. Gorstag and I'll sleep by the head of the stair, the other side of the curtain. I'm not leaving you alone while you're here."

  "Aye," Shandril murmured, rising slowly by pushing upon the table. In the darkness of the passage that led out to the kitchen and the attic stair, cold eyes regarded them for a last instant and then turned with their owner and fled silently into the dark. So the wench had returned, had she? Certain ears would give much, indeed, to hear speedily of this…

  "Gorstag?" Lureene asked sleepily. "Happy, love? Put that axe down at hand here, and come to bed now."

  "Aye," Gorstag replied. "There's something I must find first, love." He ducked into the darkest corner of the attic, at the end beyond the stairs, and dragged aside a chest bigger than he was. He did something to one of the roof beams, down low behind it in the dust, and part of the beam came away in his hands. He took something from a small, heavy coffer, and then replaced everything as before.

  Bearing whatever he had unpacked with him in his hand, he came back across the broad boards of the attic floor to the curtain and called softly, "Narm? Shandril?"

  "Aye, we are both awake. Come in," Narm said in reply, from where they lay together.

  Gorstag came in quietly, and lowered something by its chain from his hand to Narm. "Does your very touch drain items of art, Shan, or only when you will it so?"

  "Only when I call up spellfire, I think," Shandril told him. She gazed at the pendant Narm held. "What is it?"

  "It is an amulet that hampers detection and location of you, by means of art and the mind, such as some foul creatures use. Keep it, and wear it when you sleep. Only try to take it off when you must use spellfire, or you'll drain its art. Wear it tonight, and you may win a day of uninterrupted rest tomorrow. I only wish I had one for each of you-but the dark necromancer whose neck I cut it from, long ago, only found the need to wear one."

  N
arm chuckled. "You should have gone looking for his brother."

  "Someone else had slain him already," Gorstag replied with a grin. "It seems he liked to torment everyone around with summoned or conjured nasty creatures. Someone finally grew tired of it, walked to his tower with a club, threw stones at the windows until he appeared, and then bashed his brains out. The someone was eight years old."

  "A good start on life," Narm agreed with a yawn, and put the amulet about Shandril's neck. "This has no ill effects, does it?"

  "Nay, it is not one of those. Good night to you both, now. You've found the chamber pot? Aye, it is the one you remember, Shandril. Peace under the eyes of the gods, all." The innkeeper ducked back through the curtain. Lureene grinned up at him, indicating the empty bed beside her, and the great axe lying on the floor beside it.

  "Now close the bedroom door, love, so the gooblies can't come in and get us," she said gently. Gorstag looked at the trapdoor at the head of the stairs.

  "Oh, aye," he said, and closed it down, dragging a linen chest over it. "There. Now to sleep, at last, or it will be dawn before I've even lain down!" Clothes flew in all directions with astonishing speed. Lureene was rolled into a bear hug, and kissed with sudden delicacy. She chuckled sleepily and patted his arm.

  "Good night to you, my lord," she said softly, and rolled over. She had barely settled herself before she heard him breathe the deep, slow, and steady draws of slumber. Once an adventurer, always… she fell asleep before she finished the maxim.

  It was highsun when Narm awoke. The sun was streaming in the small round windows at either end of the attic, and the curtain had been drawn back. Lureene sat upon a cushion beside them, mending a pile of torn linens. She looked over at Narm and smiled. "Fair morning," she said. "Hungry?"

  "Eh? No, but I suppose I could be." Narm sat up and looked at Shandril. She lay peacefully asleep with the amulet gleaming upon her breast, Narm's discarded robe clutched in her hands. Narm chuckled and tugged at it. A small frown appeared on Shandril's face. She held hard to it and raised a hand in an imperious, hurling gesture. Narm flinched back, but no spellfire came.

  "Shandril," he said quickly, bending close to her. "It is all right, love. Relax. Sleep."

  Her hands fell back, and her face smoothed. Then, still deep asleep, she muttered something, turned her head, and then turned it back and murmured quite distinctly, "Don't tell me to relax, you…" and she trailed away into purrings and mutterings again. Lureene suppressed a giggle into a sputter. Narm did likewise.

  "Aye, we'll let her sleep some more. If you want to eat, there's a pot of stew in the taproom, untouched by Korvan's hands, on the hook over the hearth. I've bread and wine here. Go on… I'll watch her."

  "Well, I-my thanks, Lureene. I'll…" He looked about him.

  Lureene chuckled suddenly, and turned about on the cushion until her back was to him. "Sorry. Your clothes are over there on the chest, if you can live without that robe Shan's so fond of."

  "Urrr… thanks." Narm scrambled out of the bed and found his clothes. Shandril slept peacefully on. Lureene gave him a friendly pat as he climbed down the stairs past her. He was still smiling as he went down the hall from the stairs, past the kitchen, and came face to face with Korvan. The cook and the conjurer came to a sudden stop, perhaps a foot apart, and stared at each other. Korvan had a cleaver in one hand and a joint of meat in the other. Narm was barehanded and weaponless.

  Silence stretched between them. Korvan lifted his lip in a sneer, but Narm only stared straight into his eyes and said nothing. Korvan raised the cleaver suddenly, threateningly. Narm never moved, and never took his gaze away from Korvan's own. Silence.

  Then, giving a curse, Korvan backed away and ducked into the kitchen again, and the hallway was free. Narm strode forward without hesitation into the taproom; and greeted Gorstag as though nothing had happened. Elminster had been right. This Korvan wasn't worth the effort. A nasty, mean-tempered, blustering man-all bluff, all bravado. Another Marimmar, in fact. Narm chuckled at that, and was still chuckling as he went back past the kitchen door. There was an abrupt crash of crockery from within, followed by a clatter, as if something small and metal had been violently hurled against a wall.

  Thiszult cursed as he looked up at the sun. "Too late, by half. They'll be out of the dale and into the wilderness before nightfall! How, by Mystra, Talos, and Sammaster, am I to find two children in miles of tangled wilderness?"

  "They'll stay on the road, Lord," one of the hitherto grimly silent cult warriors told him. Thiszult turned on him.

  "So you think!" he snarled. "So Salvarad of the Purple thinks, too, but I cannot believe two who have destroyed The Shadowsil, an archmage of the Purple, and two sacred dracoliches can be quite so stupid! No, why would they run? Who in Faerun, after all, has the power to match them? No, I think they'll turn aside and creep quietly about the wilderness slaying those of their enemies they come upon, while the rest of us search futilely elsewhere, until we are all slain or overmastered! I must reach them before dark, before they leave the road!"

  "We cannot," the warrior said simply. "The distance is too great. No power in the Realms could-"

  "No power?" Thiszult fairly screamed. "No power? Why think you I follow these two, who felled such great ones! Hah! That which I bear is power enough, I tell you!" He reined in sharply and cast his eyes over the warriors in leather who rode behind him. "Ride after us, all of you-to Deepingdale, and the Thunder Peaks beyond! If you see my sigil-thus-upon a rock or tree, know that we have turned off the road there, and follow likewise."

  "We?" the warrior who had spoken before asked him.

  "Aye-you and I, since you doubt my power so much. Trust in it, now, for it is all that stands between you and spellfire!" He gestured at all of them. "Halt!" Turning to the warrior, "You, dismount… No, leave your armor behind!" He touched the warrior, and spoke a word.

  They both vanished, warrior and mage, in an instant. The other men-at-arms stared. One of the now riderless horses reared and neighed in terror; the other snorted. Quick hands caught bridles. "Stupid beast," one warrior muttered. "There's no danger, now. Why'd it take fright?"

  "Because the smell of the man that was on its back a breath ago is gone," another, older fighter told him sourly. "Gone-not moved away, but suddenly and utterly gone. It would scare you, if you had any wits. A stupid beast, you call it? It goes where you bid it, and knows not what waits, but you ride to do battle with two children who have destroyed much of the power of the cult hereabouts in but a few days, and know they await you, and still ride into danger… So who, of man and mount, is the stupid one?"

  "Clever words," was the reply, but it was made amid chuckles. The reins of the two mounts were lengthened so that they could be led, and the warriors hastened on.

  "Is it in your mind, then," one asked the older warrior, "that we ride on a hopeless task?"

  The older warrior nodded. "Not hopeless, mind you-but I've seen too many young and over-clever mages who follow our way-like that one, who just left us-come to a crashing fall, to think that this last one has any more wisdom or real power than the others."

  "What if I tell Naergoth of the Purple of your doubting words when we return? What then?" asked the one he had rebuked earlier. The old warrior shrugged and grinned.

  "Say the word, if you will. It is my guess you'll be adding them to a report of Thiszult's death, unless he flees. I've served the cult awhile, you know. I know something of what I say, when I speak." His tone was mild, but his eyes were very, very cold, and the other warrior looked away first. They rode on.

  A wild-eyed Shandril was buckling and lacing and kicking on her boots for all she was worth, at the head of the stairs. "We must away," she panted to Narm, as Lureene fussed about her. "Others come… I dreamed it… Manshoon, again, I tell you-and others! Hurry and get dressed!"

  "But…but…" Narm decided not to argue and began to eat stew like a madman, wincing and groaning as he burned his lips on hot chunks of m
eat. Lureene took one look at him, as he danced about Shandril on bare feet, and fell back onto the beds hooting in helpless laughter.

  "Forgive me," she gasped when she could speak again. By then Shandril had straightened her belt and started down the stairs, and Narm had halted her with a firm arm to the chest. He handed her the bowl of stew.

  "— You two," Lureene continued, "but I doubt I shall ever see a mage of power so discomfited! Whhooo! Ah, but you looked funny, gobbling like that!"

  "You should see me casting spells," Narm said dryly. Then he asked, "When did she awake like this?"

  "Scarce had you gone down when she sat upright, straight awake, and called for you. Then she scrambled up, grabbing for clothes and the like, all in haste. She dreamed that enemies follow fast upon your trail."

  "She's probably right," Narm said ruefully, and began scrambling for clothes himself.

  "Did your art have the desired effect?" Sharantyr asked softly.

  "Yes," Jhessail said heavily. "This dream-weaving's wearisome work. No wonder Elminster was so reluctant to teach it to me. Yet, I think I scared Shandril enough to get her moving before the cult tries again." She lay back in her chair wearily, rubbing her eyes. "Ahhh, me," she said. "I'm ready for bed."

  Sharantyr arose. "I'll get Merith," she said, but Jhessail shook her head.

  "Nay, nay… it is sleep I need, not cuddling and companionship… you have no idea, Shar-it is like a black pit of oblivion before me, I am so tired…"

  With that the lady mage of the knights drifted forward into the pit, and was gone. Sharantyr found a pillow for her head, drew off her boots, wrapped her in a blanket, and left her to sleep.

  Then she drew her sword and sat down nearby where she could watch Jhessail, laying it across her knees. After all, it had been overlong since Manshoon had worked his last mischief in Shadowdale.

  They kissed Lureene good-bye in excited haste, thrust the empty bowl into her hands, and were downstairs and out through the taproom, and into the sunshine, before they drew breath again.