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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."