Spellfire

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.”

Narm 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 i

“Now close the bedroom door, love, so the gooblins 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 punings 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 ca

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 ca

“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?”