Spellfire

“Elminster!” Jhessail greeted him. “Well met!”

“Aye… aye,” Elminster told her, “I’ve seen ye all before. It is with Narm and Shandril I would speak tonight.” He turned to them where they stood, astonished, and said, “I fear I lack courtly graces and the patience for glib flattery and suchlike. So I’ll just ask ye, Narm and Shandril. Will ye agree to a testing of thy powers this next night?”

Shandril nodded, her throat suddenly dry. Narm asked quietly. “Will it be dangerous?”

Elminster looked at him. “Breathing is dangerous, lad. Walking is dangerous. Sleeping can even be dangerous. Will it be more dangerous than these? A little. More dangerous than entering Myth Dra

Narm flushed and shook his head. “It would be a terrible thing, old mage, to fight you, both armed only with our tongues,” he said dryly, and a muted roar of delighted laughter rose around him.

Elminster chuckled. “So, do ye agree?”

Narm nodded. “Yes. Where and when?”

“Ye shall know that only at the last,” Elminster told him. “It’s safer.” Around them, talk began again. Elminster leaned close to them both. “Do ye enjoy the company of these folk?” he asked softly. Both nodded. “Good, then,” he said. “Most will be at the testing.” He patted Narm’s shoulder absently in farewell and turned back toward the table. “Oh,” he said, halting and turning in midstep. “I do grow forgetful. Shandril, what know ye of thy parents?”

Shandril almost reeled in surprise and sudden sadness. “I… I-nothing,” she said, and burst into tears. Narm and Elminster looked at each other in bewilderment for a breath, and then the sage clapped Narm on the shoulder awkwardly. “My forgiveness, if ye will. I had no idea she’d be so upset. Comfort her, will ye? Ye can do it best of all living in Faerun.” And with this cryptic remark the sage turned, muttered, “That explains much,” to himself, stepped onto the table by way of the chair beside it, and was gone.

A guard touched Torm on his shoulder. “Lord,” he said, voice carefully neutral, “it is the hour.”

Torm looked up from the wench he’d been kissing and sighed. “My thanks, Rold.” A sudden thought made him grin impishly. “Take my place, will you?” He rolled off the bed and to his feet, rearranging his clothing and adroitly bending to avoid the girl’s angry slap. Rold held out his sword and belt for him solemnly.

“Me, Lord? It would be more than my life is worth.”

“Aye,” Torm said as they hurried out together. “I think you have the right of it.” He halted in midstride, tore one of the chains off over his head, and handed it to the mustachioed veteran. “Give her this, will you, as a gift from me? My apologies, also, and I’ll try to see her as soon as I can. My duty to Shadowdale must come first, and all that.”

“Of course, Lord,” Rold said, and turned back to calm Torm’s angry companion. He found her sitting amid the disarray of the bed morosely, anger past, and dropped the chain into her hand.

“It’s no fault of yours,” he said, “that the Lord Torm is so young and ill-reared that he ca

“I could tell that,” Naera said, taking her gown as he extended it to her wordlessly. “Are you angry with him, uncle?”

Rold shook his head. “Nay, lass, not for long. I have seen something of the road he walks. Are you?” He buttoned and adjusted with as much skill as any mistress-of-robes, and patted her behind fondly when he was done.

“Not after a breath or two. Where did he have to go in such haste?” She looked at the chain dangling in her hands. “He patrols, outside, with the Lord Rathan. Elminster expects some trouble tonight… someone trying to get at our guests, no doubt.”

Naera turned to him in astonishment. “The young lad and lass? What danger could they possibly be to anyone? They are not royal, or suchlike.”

Rold chuckled. “Young, says Naera, who dallies with a man younger than herself, a-Oh? Did you not know? Yes, the lord’s seen a winter less than you have… Don’t look like that, now; was he any greater the monster for that?” He grew serious. “The young lass, as you rightly call her, defeated the High Lord of Zhentil Keep himself, the fell mage Manshoon. Scared him into flight, she did, and him riding a dragon, too! She holds some great power.”

Naera stared at him in amazement. “And Torm is needed to guard that?”

Rold nodded. “Why else do you think I’ve never spoken ill to you of pursuing him as you have? It is a rare one you chase, for all his rashness and rudeness and dishonest ways. I’d not want to stand against him in a fight.” He paused at the door and looked back, saying, “You’d do well to remember that, little one, when you’re sending slaps his way. Come down, now, and we’ll see what’s left at table. You must be hungry after all you’ve been up to this evening.”

Naera made a face at him, but rose to follow. She wore the chain proudly around her neck as they swept down the stairs.

In his chambers, Torm had torn off his fine clothing and jewelry like so many rags and pebbles and hurled them onto the bed, leaped around finding his gray leathers and blades, and burst back out the door like a lunatic, almost colliding with Rathan. The cleric stood waiting, arms crossed patiently, leaning on the wall across from Torm’s door.

“Remembered, did ye?” the cleric said jovially. “I warrant ye had help. It’s your short stature, I tell ye… with that small head ye carry upon thy shoulders, there’s no room for a brain that can think, once ye’ve filled it with mischief until it runs out thy ears and mouth-”

His words were cut short by a shrewd elbow in the belly as they hurried down the stairs. Puffing for breath, the cleric leaned on a pillar by the door, thought a prayer to Tymora, and then bustled out the door into the night.

“Remembered, did you?” a mocking voice asked out of the darkness beside him.

“Tymora forgive me,” Rathan Thentraver said aloud as he swept a pike out of the startled hands of a doorguard and rammed its butt end hard into the shadows. He was rewarded by a grunt. Satisfied, he returned the pike with a nod of thanks, and said kindly, “If ye’re quite finished playing the bobbing fool this night, perhaps we can get going. It might interest ye to know, by the way, that the guard ye gave the chain to is the uncle of the maid ye were dallying with. Adroit, lad. Adroit.”

“Oh, gods,” came the softly despairing cry, out of shocked silence. “Why me?”

“I’ve often wondered that. Truly, the gods must have grander senses of humor than we do,” Rathan replied, as they clapped hands on each other’s shoulders in the darkness, and drew their weapons. “Now, let’s get on with this, shall we?”

They had much wine and talked until late. At the last, Illistyl (she who had rescued Narm from devils not so very long ago) and Sharantyr were left in the bower, standing together, the ranger a head and more taller than Illistyl.

“We should say good-night, if we are to be fit for the testing on the morrow,” Illistyl said wearily, putting down an empty goblet. “You have seen them both in battle, have you not? What ma

Sharantyr shook her head. “I never saw them fight. I ca

Illistyl nodded and sighed. “You have the right of it.” She turned for the door. “Good evening, sister-at-arms. I must seek my bed before I fall upon any bare stretch of floor.”

“Good evening,” Sharantyr replied, and they kissed cheeks and parted. The ranger wandered down the stairs, a little dizzy, and nodded to the guards. Setting her goblet upon a table in the hall, she sought cool air to clear her head, and went out by the great front doors. One of the guards asked her, “Would you have an escort, lady?” He eyed her gown. “It is cold,” he warned briefly.