by Ed Greenwood
“He’s thrice the administrator you’ll ever be—and a capable schemer, too, if not my equal. The Brotherhood needs him. I hear you’ve been rather careless with our—ah, human resources, since I was last here. Sarhthor, Elthaulin, and about two hundred others, as I recall; the list made both long and distressing reading.”
Oprion’s hand tensed as he eyed a sideboard and the magical mace that lay upon it. It winked back at him, brimming with power. Mageslayer was its name; Fzoul had told him what it could do. His gaze flickered away from it, and Manshoon smiled.
“Is it to be war between us, then?” Manshoon’s voice was soft and level; he might have been asking what color cloak his colleague intended to wear.
Oprion’s wintry gaze met his own silently for a long time, and then the priest shook his head with careful slowness. “No. We work together—as always. It is the best way.”
Manshoon nodded. “Perhaps, one day, with trust,” he murmured.
Oprion looked at him sharply, but said nothing.
There was a faint smell of pipesmoke in the air, but neither of them recognized it for what it was.
“Be damned to trotting back an’ forth all night!” Mirt growled, coming back into the room with the keg on his shoulder. He staggered as he came; it wasn’t a hand-keg, but a barrel almost as large around as he was.
Shandril looked at Tessaril. “You think we’ll drink all that? Lords of Cormyr must be optimists, indeed!”
Tessaril looked at her dryly. “No,” she replied, “I think Mirt will drink all that—if we want any, we’d best pull a tankard each now, before it’s gone.” She watched Mirt, wheezing and grunting, set the keg onto a couch. “Tankards, Old Wolf?” she called.
Mirt gave her what some folk in Faerûn call ‘a dirty look,’ and set off toward the door again. He’d got about six steps away from the couch before it collapsed with a groan, settling the keg nearer the floor, but thankfully not dumping it. Tessaril surveyed it and said, “I’ve a feeling this is going to be a long night. You’d better put something other than that bearskin on, Shan.”
Shan was nodding as the Lord of Eveningstar looked across the room and added, “And so should your h—” Tessaril’s words broke off and, frowning, she glanced from one of them to the other.
Shandril and Narm both followed her gaze, then looked down at themselves. Both wore identical bearskin rugs.
“What’s the matter, Tess?” Shandril asked quietly.
The Lord of Eveningstar’s eyes were troubled. “Throw those furs off, right now! There should only be one of them!”
Shandril and Narm stared at her for one shocked moment, then Shan saw a gold light glowing in the eyes of the dead bear. She shrieked and tried to throw off the skin. Narm’s fur fell lifeless and heavy to the stone floor, but Shandril’s felt suddenly wet and glistening, and it slapped at her breast and flank as she snatched at the fur around her. Frantically she flung it away, just as it grew a long, hooked claw—that tore a thin ribbon of flesh from her ribs. Dancing backward, Shandril stared down at the blood.
The fur on the floor in front of her gathered itself, shifting, and scuttled toward her.
Shandril had the brief impression of tentacles as she backed away. Her hands flamed.
“No!” Tessaril shouted at her. “No spellfire in here!”
Shandril rushed to her discarded clothes and snatched up the Zhent dagger she’d picked up in the courtyard of the Wyvern—the one that had come so close to taking Narm’s life. With a snarl, she turned back to the thing that wasn’t a bearskin rug, and drove the blade deep into it. Warm, pink liquid as thick as honey gushed out, and the flesh seemed to quiver under her thrust.
The thing had grown, rising to about the height of a large dog. It was moving away from her, slashing with clawed, humanlike hands at Tessaril, who was angrily hacking at it with a belt dagger of her own. The Lord of Eveningstar turned her head then and called, “Knights!”
Her words were still echoing in the room when a door appeared in the ceiling and promptly fell open. Torm and Rathan plunged into the room through it, calling, “A rescue! A rescue!” as they came.
Torm hit the floor in a roll, bounced up, and slashed at the moving rug with the slim blade in his hand. Rathan landed hard on the thing with both feet, grunted as it convulsed and threw him off, and staggered back to fetch up hard against the wall. With a flourish he brought a mace out of his belt and swung it down to thump solidly in the middle of the shapeshifting fur.
Mirt rolled back in through the door at that moment. “Ye gods!” he said, looking hurt. “I leave for a moment an’ ye start the fun without me!”
Tossing tankards in all directions, he snatched out his blade and lumbered forward, bellowing, “My turn, blast ye! Out o’ the way, Torm!”
The rug was bleeding freely now under their blows, but rising into a man-high form. Tentacles emerged and coiled and shifted back into the main bulk of the thing; the fur broke into shifting patches that floated atop a rippling, glistening, flesh-colored bulk.
Shandril stared at it in horror, then found Narm at her side, his hands raised to cast a spell if need be.
Tessaril stood beside them, her own hands also raised. “Kill it swiftly!” she said urgently, eyes on the thing. “Its magic can overmaster all of us!”
Torm laughed as he leapt over tentacles and repeatedly thrust his blade to the hilt. “Not so long as Elminster’s spell lasts!”
“The Old Mage’s spell ended when he was laid low fighting the lich lord!” Tessaril screamed. “Beware!”
“So that’s what’s making my amulet burn!” Rathan said, bringing his mace down with renewed vigor. “Hurry, lads—it won’t last much longer!”
“It may surprise ye to learn that I am hurrying!” Mirt puffed as ichor of many colors splashed around him, driven by the force of his blows.
“You must be old,” Torm remarked, as he hacked away a tentacle that threatened to grip his throat. The rising column in front of him had grown a head now, and its featureless front began to twist and shift, swimming into—Delg’s face.
“No!” Shandril stared at it. “Torm—stop! What if—?”
“Shandril,” the face said, in Delg’s familiar rumble, turning beseeching eyes to meet her gaze. “Stop them, lass! They’r—”
“Not a chance,” Torm said coldly, running his blade through the open dwarven mouth in front of him. “Die, Magusta of the Malaugrym!”
Delg’s eyes turned to flaming gold, gazed at the knight, and spat feeble jets of flame at him.
Torm leapt back and crashed against the wall of the room—but the eyes were already flickering and fading. Wearing Torm’s sword, the shapeshifting bulk sank down, coiling and sliding into a sickening puddle of flesh. Mirt and Rathan backed away from it, sweating, and watched it die.
As the first whiff of its death reek came to them, Torm picked himself up from the floor, rubbed at one elbow gingerly, and said, “Gods above! What a knight has to do to get a drink around here! Throw us a tankard, will you, Shan? Be useful for once.”
Shandril glared at him, opened her mouth to make a sharp reply … and then closed it again, smiled grimly, and went to get him a tankard. After today, she could wait to take her revenges.…
Much later that night, when they were alone at last, Narm pushed their bed over to where they could look out the newly repaired magical window, and see the ever-changing scenes of Faerûn that appeared beyond.
They lay in bed together and saw stars falling over the dark, dead ruins of an empty city; wolves howling on moonlit moors; men huddled around campfires in high mountain valleys; and a grim place that could only have been Zhentil Keep. Beholders floated menacingly there above a dark altar, where bowls of blood were cast into fires by horn-masked priests clad all in black. A priest they did not know lifted his head and cried some unheard invocation to Bane.
Shandril shivered at the sight. “Narm, hold me,” she said softly, trembling. “I’m afraid. So many folk want
us dead.”
Narm put his arms around her and held her tightly, as if the fierceness of his grip could keep enemies from her. He knew he must be strong when she needed him. It was the least he could do.
“No, my lady,” he said firmly into the darkness, “this is where we live happily ever after, as the tales say.…”
“Tell me one of those tales, my lord,” said Shandril in a small voice. Narm looked up into the darkness overhead—and for just an instant, he could have sworn he saw Elminster’s face winking at him, pipe in mouth. He blinked, and it was gone.
Narm cleared his throat, settled his lady’s head close beneath his chin, and said firmly, “Later. First, tell me what you plan for us both in the days ahead. How are you going to use your spellfire to remake Faerûn?”
“Well,” she said, in a small, quavering voice that gathered strength and humor as she went on, “first there’re the rest of the Zhentarim to roast—and then the Cult of the Dragon and their dracoliches. I’d still like to get to Silverymoon—remember?—and meet Alustriel. After that … well, we’ll see.”
Narm shook his head; his nose told him he was indeed smelling a faint whiff of pipesmoke.…
ED’S (ELMINSTER’S)
AFTERWORD
Hi. Yes, ’tis the author: me. Ed. Ahem. The novel in your hands was first published years ago. It’s set in a younger, more carefree Realms preceding the Time of Troubles or Godswar—that grim time when gods walked Faerûn and there was great upheaval in both the mortal Realms and the ranks of the divine alike.
The previous Shandril novel, Spellfire, glanced at what might happen if a popular dream became real: the yearning of many a young person to run away and taste glorious adventure.
To keep the naive, relatively weak heroine of Spellfire alive—and to thrust importance upon her, as well as explore the corrupting effects of power—I gave her spellfire, one of my old “bag of tricks” from a decade of D&D® roleplaying in the “home” realms campaign (wherein the Company of Crazed Venturers were extremely puzzled by a certain mysterious Masked Mage whom they met repeatedly in Undermountain, who otherwise ignored them, but seared their best spells and magical barriers to nothing with jets of all-consuming fire that erupted from his bare hands).
Spellfire is, of course, dangerously unbalancing to the wrong sort of roleplaying campaign. In the fictional Toril spun into colorful life by scores of busy authors writing Realms novels, Shandril is the equivalent of a roving archer whose bow shoots endless line-of-sight atomic bombs. Inevitably all sorts of “power groups” (clandestine and “official” organizations, priesthoods, local petty rulers and the agents of mighty kingdoms) swiftly become very interested in seizing, controlling, influencing, or “steering” this source of spellfire—and Crown of Fire picks up where Spellfire left off, exploring the reactions of various of these Powers That Be to the sudden emergence of dangerous power in the hands of a young, inexperienced female.
It should be obvious that Elminster and The Simbul are (in addition to the hundreds of other matters they’re juggling) wrestling with various Malaugrym and powerful Zhentarim to keep Narm and Shandril alive during both novels—and the one to come, too: Hand of Fire.
However, many readers have asked why the Knights of Myth Drannor “abandoned” Narm and Shandril near the end of Spellfire, so here’s a long-lost “missing scene” to explain why:
Bright sun fell across the table where Mourngrym, Lord of Shadowdale, sat looking gloomily over letters—requests, demands, supplications, and entreaties he’d have to read and answer, every one. Ah, just to swing a sword and not have to think twice and again about one’s every breath for a while!
At that happy thought he sprang up, turning smoothly to catch his chair ere it hit the floor, and in the same motion used its back to vault towards the door. He was still two quick strides short of that old and stout portal when it swung open. Cool green eyes fixed upon him.
“And just where,” his wife asked calmly from the doorway, “are you going?”
Mourngrym sighed. “Oh—out to clang steel for a few breaths! I weary of all these honeyed words—” he waved at the parchment-strewn table behind him “—and constant deceit!”
Shaerl regarded him with amusement as she swung the door closed and came into his arms. “You expect courtiers the Realms over to change their ways all of a sudden to please thee, now? My Lord, really!” With a chuckle she spun away from his kiss, and when she spun around again two paces away, his belt dagger was in her hand, and her eyes gleamed with a dangerous light.
“Yet you need have no further fears, my Lord Mourngrym,” she said with teasing formality. “For of all folk in the Realms, I understand thee. So draw thy blade, brave Knight, and do thy worst!”
Shaerl spread her arms wide in mimicry of a swooning lover, thrusting her bodice forward. Then she blew him a kiss, batted her lashes, and shook back the puffed sleeves of her fine embroidered gown as she circled to his left, raising the dagger with practised ease. Its point caught the sunlight and winked at him. “If,” his lady added in a whisper, “you can.”
Mourngrym regarded her in amazement, turning unthinkingly to keep facing her as his hand found the hilt of his sword. Then a joyous smile nearly split his face in two as his blade sang out. “Well, then, Lady,” he quoted a fairy-tale knight grandly, “have at thee!”
He bounded forward, slashing at her vigorously but aiming his blade wide so as to have no chance of hurting her. Shaerl stuck her tongue out at that as she caught his swordtip on the point of her dagger, spun beneath it so his steel nearly touched her breast, and lunged at him down the outside of his swordarm.
Mourngrym’s training took over. He brought up his other hand to ward her off and send him springing away, blade turning to menace her.
Shaerl bounded in her soft slippers to leap past his swordtip again like striking lightning. The dagger in her hand flashed down with all her weight behind it, to strike aside his blade. Edged steel met with a shriek.
Grinning, Mourngrym met her strength with his own. His blade dipped and then straightened again—but his lady had already used its resistance to propel her on into a leap across his front, landing close to his left side and turning in a flash to strike at him.
Mourngrym batted the dagger away with his forearm, bringing his sword around again.
From behind him came the thunder of booted feet in the passage; the nearest guard had heard the skirl of steel upon steel. Mourngrym shook his head ruefully as his lady laughed and sprang away from him. Her leap was high and backwards, to stand upon the table facing him, the creamy linen under-skirts of her green gown flashing before him amid a brief whirlwind of disturbed parchments.
The door crashed open. “My lord?” came a gruff and puzzled voice. The old grey tip of a halberd that had seen much service thrust past Mourngrym’s elbow, to come between the Lord of Shadowdale and his laughing lady.
At the same moment a droll voice broke in upon them all from the open window. “And you wonder, stout one, why I’m reluctant to marry even one of the wenches I share a dance or two with! Alone together for a few breaths, and they’re trying to carve one another with whatever weapons they happen to have handy! Look you! The gods alone know what they get up to at night, without any of us around to watch!”
“Enough, Torm,” Shaerl said with a smile, tossing the dagger back to her Lord over the shoulder of the astonished guard. “ ’Twas all in fun.”
“Have you not heard of doors, man?” Mourngrym added, pointedly.
Torm merely grinned but was suddenly shoved aside by a larger bulk that rose to block much of the sunlight framed by the window.
“Precisely what I said to him,” Rathan Thentraver said grimly, heaving himself over the broad windowsill. The stout priest was breathing heavily. “But neither his hearing nor his good sense have grown overmuch, of late.”
“As yours have, to follow him in such a climb?” Shaerl asked, springing lightly down from the table. Torm watched her de
scent in mock sorrow from the window.
“Down from thy pretty display already, before I’m even in the chamber! Does that mean it’s not going to be one of those sort of councils?”
“My sorrow, Torm,” Mourngrym said gravely, sheathing his blade and clapping the guard’s shoulder in thanks and dismissal. “I fear ’tis not.”
“My sorrow, too, Torm,” Shaerl said teasingly, as the thief swung smoothly through the window into the room.
“And I suppose my sorrow, too,” Rathan grunted, “as it seems to be in fashion.” He was peering about the chamber, rather as a tortoise stretches forth its head to look about, and then draws it back close to its shell before turning to look in another direction. “Have ye no wine?”
Mourngrym sighed. A council-of-war among the Knights of Myth Drannor was apt to empty entire casks of the Tower’s wine-cellars at one go. Rathan was grinning at him now.
“Time will be saved, mark ye,” the priest rumbled, “if ye have them bring up two casks straight away. One for, ah, the great glory of Tymora, and one for all the rest of ye. Talking’s thirsty work, I’ve learned.”
“Aye, and fighting, praying … even walking,” Torm told the ceiling innocently, “or so I’ve learned, from a certain good yet a mite too well-padded cleric of my acquaintance.”
“Oh? Ye must introduce us, some time,” Rathan replied gruffly, the seat beneath him creaking as he rose to advance upon a decanter half-hidden in the shadow of a drapery, upon a tallchest near the window.
Mourngrym watched Rathan’s progress with a sigh and went to call the guards to carry up a cask. Or two. Well, perhaps three …
“It grieves me to say it,” Sharantyr said wearily much later, accepting a goblet of wine from Torm with a silent nod of thanks. “I know I gave you all angry words enough over this, not so long ago. Yet I can see it, whate’er my heart bids me see instead: We’ve no time left to spare. Narm and Shandril must fare their own way and make their own good fortune. We’ve the dale to rebuild again, and another hard winter coming all too soon upon us.”