by Unknown
shoulders could swing it, but height made it hard for him to cut the nets-nets that were settling over him
from above by . twos and threes. He was soon entangled. Then the nethurlers drew the net ropes taut
with their own great weight and reach. The dwarf was dragged down.
Shandril dropped the crumbling war hammer-it had been old, its enchantments all that still held it
togetherand rose from behind where Delg was struggling. Flames leapt and raged in her eyes.
The men who hauled on the nets that held Delg down were only two paces away. Without a word she
flung herself into them, letting spellfire rage from her hands and mouth. She crashed bruisingly against
armor, heard men snarl and then shriek amid the rising, roaring flames and then they fell silent.
Shandril drew the flames back into herself, and looked down at the blackened, smoking corpses. Beside
her, Delg was fighting his way free of the scorched remnants of webbing as the next wave of Zhentilar
rushed at them.
Shandril hurled spellfire again-ragged and faltering fire. She swallowed grimly and threw out one hand.
Fire streaked from it to lash the Zhents bending over Narm. They staggered and fell, shouting hoarsely
amid raging flames. Shandril raised her other hand to burn the warriors charging at her from the edge
of the clearing. A moment later, however, they laughed in triumph as her spellfire rushed outward, then
sputtered and died away in their faces.
She saw the cause: it came out of the night in front of the warriors, a band of utter darkness like a fence
or an impossibly wide shield-a black band floating before them as they came. Just behind the warriors
trotted a man in robes-a Zhentarim wizard!-with triumph shining in his dark eyes.
Shandril snarled and lashed out at their feet with spellfire, aiming below the dark band. The wizard
hastily lowered his creation-but he was too slow to save the feet of one running Zhentilar. Spellfire
blasted, and the man's boots vanished. With a shriek of agony, the charging warrior toppled forward
into the darkness and was gone, his cry cut off suddenly. As the wall of darkness advanced, Shandril
could see the remains of the man, twitching on the ground-two trunkless, footless legs.
Shandril gasped in horror-and then let her hands fall to her sides as the band of darkness came to a halt
an arm's stretch away, right above the still-struggling form of Delg.
"On your knees, wench-or he dies!" The Zhentarim's voice was coldly triumphant.
Shandril looked both ways along the band. It fenced her in against the rocky remnant of an ancient
wall, and from only feet away, a dozen or more Zhentilar warriors grinned at her, clubs raised.
She sank down, bitter despair flooding her mouth. The wizard snapped his fingers, and hurled clubs
were suddenly crashing in on her from all sides, even before the magical darkness winked out and was
gone ...
Six
FINDING THE TRUE WAY
Finding one's true way in life can sometimes take an entire lifetime, for it is often the hardest task one
faces-after finding out where the next meal is coming from, how to keep from freezing every winter
night, where there's a sleepingplace safe from enemies, and just who one can trust to share it with, that
is. Oh, aye-and finding the time to do all of these things. . .
Mirt the Moneylender
Wanderings With Quill and Sword
Year of Rising Mist
"It worked! Hah-ha!" Fimril, mage of the Zhentarim, laughed in glee as the Zhentilar hastened to truss
their senseless captives. They were careful not to do the three any further damage-the orders they had
been so coldly given about this came from much higher up than this capering wizard, and had been
most menacingly specific.
Fimril had spent a long and hard year in private, hurling spells and modifying his castings until he'd
fashioned a shieldlike band of magical annihilation: a deadly magic that sucked in light, warmth-even
campfires and braziers of fire-and solid things, like stools and unfortunate captives, too.
All the way here, through the forest, a tiny voice inside him wailed that his shield wouldn't absorb
spellfire after all, that he was marching to his doom. If the spell failed him, he was doomed ... even if
he escaped the girl's blazing spelIfire, any of the warriors who got away would see that he paid for his
folly-painfully and permanently. Magelings were not well loved among the Zhentilar fighting men.
But it had worked-and now not a one of them dared betray him; their orders had been very clear about
that. Fimril chortled and gloated, watching the warriors securely truss their unconscious quarry. Ah, but
this was sweet! At last, he, Fimril of Westgate, would get what he deserved, rising in the ranks of the
Zhentarim. . . perhaps even all the way.
He cast quick glances around, checking his bodyguard. Yes, they were ready-four burly, well-armed
Zhentarim standing in a crescent at his back, making sure that no harm would come to him until he was
safely back in Zhentil Keep.
Fimril laughed aloud and shouted down to the man who was busily checking the knots at Shandril's
throat, "Ho! Lyrkon! How are our losses this night?"
The Zhentilar finished his task, controlling his exasperation. The knots seemed tight enough: if she
struggled, she'd strangle herself. Aye, good enough. Slowly the Zhentilar stood. "A moment, Lord
Wizard; I'll see." Gods, but this mage was going to be insufferable now.. .
He dusted his hands and looked around. Four-no, five; he'd forgotten Duthspurn until his eyes fell on
the poor bastard's legs lying motionless on the ground. And that should be all.... Wait, wasn't there a
sixth, over there?- Lyrkon took a stride down the ruined wall-in time to see another of his men fall as
silently as a gentle breeze glides through leafless trees. He stared at the hand that had appeared over
Glondar's mouth-and as the soldier slumped, the face that came into view behind it: a fat, grinning face
adorned with fierce gray-white brows and mustaches. Its blue-gray eyes met his own-and winked.
Gods!
"Out swords!" he bellowed, pointing at where Glondar was being killed. "We're under attack!"
Along the wall, his men looked up at him, snatching up their clubs or drawing swords-and the one next
to Glondar promptly collapsed, a sword through his armpit. The warrior next to him turned at the
muffled groan-in time to get the blade of the fat, mustachioed stranger right through his throat.
"Where?" Fimril shouted, peering down at Lyrkon. "Who's attacking us?"
Lyrkon pointed along the wall with his blade. "He is, wizard!" he snarled, making an insult of the last
word. Fimril's nostrils flared in anger, and he felt his face going red. That was one soldier he could do
without when this was over. Right now, though, he'd show them all.
Drawing himself up, Fimril pointed at the stranger, who was now battling his way along the wall.
Turning his finger to keeping it aimed at the moving man, the Zhentarim thumbed open a finger-pouch
in the breast pocket of his robe and spilled into his hand a dark powder that had once been a large black
pearl. He cast it into the air in front of hip lips as he spoke the echoing, awesome words that would
bring death to the man-and to the nearest soldiers, but that was the luck the gods gave
and drew himself up in cruel triumph to watch the slaughter.
Light that was somehow dark flashed between wizard and fa
t man-and back again!
The eyes of Fimril, would-be ruler of the Zhentarim, and those of his bodyguard darkened as one. The
mage and his men toppled to the ground like emptied husks, dead upon the instant.
The fat, puffing stranger sighed and shook the smoking remnants of a ring from his finger, saying
regretfully, "Watchful Order make ... they just don't enchant these gewgaws the way they used to, when
I was a lad..."
The last few Zhents, white to the lips, fell back before his lumbering advance, and as he crossed blades
with the first and disarmed the man in a skirl- of circling steel, they all turned and ran.
Mirt watched the man he'd disarmed scamper after the rest, and he sighed. When they were gone, he
raised his voice in an eerie, singing, wordless call. It echoed mournfully off the tumbled stones of
ruined Tethgard, and a long moment later, a soft reply came to him.
Mirt strode toward the origin of the sound. From a pile of rubble before him, a phantom lady slowly
rose. She had long, swirling white hair and a beautiful face; her dark eyes stared into his with such
sadness that Mirt found himself, as always, on the sudden edge of tears. Buried somewhere far beneath
the debris, Mirt knew, lay the crypt where she had been entombed. Lady Duskreene of Tethgard, its
door would say. Mirt silently added two words to the inscription he envisioned: Unquiet Spirit.
"Mirt," she said, in that soft, sad voice. "It has been long since you called me."
"Grandlady," Mirt said huskily. "I have need of yer powers."
The translucent, dead-white watch-ghost frowned, emerging in a smooth, silent flight from the rubble,
revealing her skeletal, legless torso. She floated in the air before him.
"Name your desire, son of my blood."
"There are soldiers fleeing this place-Zhentilar. They must be destroyed."
Duskreene smiled. "And your girth makes catching them all a doubtful prospect for you? Will you wait
for me? I have been so lonely."
Mirt went heavily to one knee and bowed. "I will," he said formally.
She swirled over his head and arrowed off into the trees. After a moment, a terrified scream-suddenly
cut off-came to Mirt's ears. A few breaths later, there was another, fainter and farther away.
Mirt got to his feet, grunting at the effort, and went over to Shandril. Checking that she was still
breathing, he cut the knots at her throat with his dagger, and set about unbinding her.
A few breaths later, as he was carrying the freed Narm over to the wall, he heard another scream.
Groggily, Shandril roused. "Whaa-"
"Peace, maid. Lie still while I free Delg, here. He's got more nets on him than several boatloads o'
Moonsea fish." When the ghostly lady at last returned, Mirt and his companions were all awake and
were nursing splitting headaches, rubbing at rope burns, and sipping cautiously at firewine from Mirt's
belt flask. Mirt had apologized to them for scouting in the wrong direction, and was telling Shandril
what he guessed-not much-about magic that could swallow spelIfire.
As the glowing apparition flew into view, Delg choked, grabbing Mirt's arm and pointing. "Hast any
spellfire left, lass? L-"
"Relax, Delg," Mirt said, pushing him back against the wall with one large and firm hand. "This is a
friend-an ancestor of mine-and a lady of high breeding, too. I'd like ye all to meet Duskreene, Lady of
Tethgard."
The three stared up at the translucent lady as she smiled and drifted slowly nearer. Long hair swirled
about her bare shoulders and breast and but for the white pallor and translucence of her form, she might
have been still a living woman. Below her breasts, however, bare ribs curved from a spine that
dwindled away into wisps of glowing radiance.
`Well met, friends of the son of my blood. Be welcome here, in what is left of my home." Her voice
was soft, almost a whisper, and her eyes were kind. She looked around at the crumbling ruins and
shook her head. "It was once so grand-and now, so little is left."
Then she turned and smiled at Mirt. "For once, you've missed the best accommodation." She pointed.
"There's a door, the other side of that pile of stone. Behind it, several rooms are still intact-and safe
from falling in on you, I believe."
Mirt bowed. "My thanks, Lady." He turned to the others. "Lady Duskreene ruled in this castle before
there was a realm of Cormyr, very long ago. She's now a watchghost-one of the few ghosts who do not
always mean swift death to the living."
"Here," Duskreene added, "you sleep under my protection. Relax, and feel safe." She glanced at Mirt,
and mischief danced in her eyes. "And please bear with my kin -when he gets no sleep he's apt to be as
grouchy as a bear."
"'Gets no sleep,' Lady?" Narm's eyes were wide with wonder as he looked at her. He'd never seen a
ghost before-and this gentle, dignified, half-beautiful and halfskeletal woman was nothing like the
spectral monsters whispered of in ghost stories.
The lady who had laughed and loved a thousand years before he was born looked into his eyes sadly.
"I'm very lonely here-and on the too-rare occasions when Mirt comes to call, he tells me what has
befallen in the lands around since last we talked. I take a morbid interest, I'm afraid, in what the remote
descendants of those I knew as friends-and rivals, and foes-are doing, and what contemporaries of mine
still walk the world today."
"Such as ... Elminster?" Shandril asked on a hunch, inclining her head to one side.
It was an interesting sight, seeing a watch-ghost blush. "Yes," she said, eyes far away, seeing things
long ago. "He was much younger then. Yes," she said again, and laughed, "such as Elminster, indeed."
"Tell me more," Delg said eagerly. "I've got to hear this......
"How quaint," murmured one who watched from the darkness of the trees, concealed by layer upon
layer of cloaking magics. It listened and spied all through the watch-ghost's long talk with Mirt, and
through her silent vigil over the sleeping foursome, in the hours before dawn. All the while, it took care
to keep out of her sight.
There was very little in Tethgard that night that Iliph Thraun did not see and hear.
"The trick to finding your way back out of deep woods, look ye," said Mirt to Narm, "is to glance back
behind yerself often on the way in. Then ye know what to look for."
"What if you must be leaving by a different way?" Delg asked sourly, almost challengingly.
Mirt froze, and then turned and blinked at the dwarf. His face looked as if he had just been spoken to
by a stone, or he'd just seen a bird smoking a pipe. He blinked again and said mildly, "Well, then ye ask
the elf who guided ye in to show ye the way out, of course." And with a merry twinkle in his eye he
strode on through the deepest stands of Hullack Forest in his relentless, rolling, brush-crashing way.
Delg snorted more than once as he followed. Mirt had urged them up in the chill dawn, bidding a hasty
farewell to the wraithlike Duskreene. Without ceremony, he'd led them in a steady tramp through the
trees. The going proved agonizing to Narm and Delg; limbs that had stiffened overnight cramped and
groaned at the joints.
Mirt kept them moving along with a steady stream of jests and barbed digs directed at lazy dwarves and
effete young mages. Shandril shook her head at some of his words, but she wisely kept silent and
followed the bobbing axe the s
tout old merchant adventurer wore at the back of his belt.
Something about Mirt's name was niggling away in her memories, something fleeting that the ranger
Florin Falconhand had said, and a reply that Elminster had given, in Shadowdale, at some point in the
whirlwind activities of her brief stay there. She looked back at Narm, as if meeting his eyes would
bring the memory to her-and it did. She smiled at Narm and turned back to stare at the broad back in
front of her. Mirt was one of the Lords of Waterdeep, the not-so-secret band of powerful folk who ruled
that great and splendid city.
Striding along at Delg's side, Narm returned Shandril's brief and knowing smile. Her expression had
been as bright and beautiful as the rising sun, which had just
announced morning through the branches above them. Rosy lances of light struck amid the trees here
and there. The sudden, broad dawn reminded Narm that the Realms were beautiful and vast, but of
course safer when one walked them with friends. He chuckled his joy aloud and thus earned a sour look
from Delg.
"When a lad chuckles like that," the dwarf said gloomily, "it's usually the sound of his wits escaping
out his mouth. He's sure to do something wildly stupid, all too soon."
Ahead, Shandril turned, eyes flashing as she laughed. "Why, Delg! And what does a lass's chuckle
warn you of?"
The dwarf's beard bristled as he clamped his mouth tightly shut and glared at her. A deep red hue
slowly crept up his neck and across his face and balding head as he walked along in the general
laughter. Almost thirty paces passed underfoot before a deep rumbling announced that Delg had joined
in.
The morning sun was warm on the old wizard's face. Elminster stood conferring with the youngest
mage of the Knights of Myth Drannor, one Illistyl. The high balcony of the Twisted Tower in
Shadowdale afforded a splendid view of the lush green meadows below.
The old sage's pipe kept going out in the breeze. He tapped it on the stone parapet and said, "Mind ye
watch Shaerl while I'm gone ... she's apt to act 'ere prudence governs. She's young yet."