Crown of Fire

Elminster of Shadowdale dusted himself off, looked around with a critical eye at the glowing tapestries, and then stared thoughtfully up at the dragon window. Scratching his beard, he grunted, "Tis high time, indeed… for certain folk to set down their harps and get their hands dirty. Again. Just as its time old Elminster got walked all over, again. Tis not the first time, this tenday, the world's needed saving."

Three

SWORDS GATHERED IN THE SHADOWS

Stormy weather is always with us, somewhere in Faerun. Beneath it, all too often, swords are out, the hand that wields one seeking to bury it in the body that wields another Part of the way of things as the gods order, perhaps-or just the way of all of us flawed beings who walk this world I fear I'll never see a day when no swords will be drawn-or needed. But then, perhaps my sight fails too soon.

Alustriel, High Lady of Silverymoon To Harp and to Help Year of the Deep Moon

It was, as the minstrels say, a bright and beautiful morning in the forest. Birds sang and swooped in the branches as three Zhentilar warriors, whose faces and backs ran with sweat, bent to their work. Grunting under its weight, they lowered the stout frame of wooden poles into the pit where they stood. "How're we to know she'll come this way? Aye?"

"Not our worry, Guld." The swordmaster's voice came from above them at the lip of the pit. "We're just swordarms. When the cover's done, we just hide by it and wait with blades out and that's exactly how Lord Manshoon said it."

The swordmaster had meant to awe them into silence with his last words, but the three sweating men now climbing out of the pit and struggling to drag the dirt-andbrush-covered wooden lid properly onto the greased axlepole-were young. They still owned tongues that wagged faster than the muzzle applied by prudence would allow.-

"What makes high-an'-mighty Manshoon think we can do what he couldn't? Him with a dragon and all his spells and wands, too!"

"He obviously knows your true worth better than I do, Alorth." The swordmaster's tone was biting.

Guld bent to slide the thin twigs into the sockets provided for them, taking care. The branches would hold the trap-cover up until this Shandril's weight was on it. Giving the last one an extra tap, he looked up, wiping sweat and hair out of his eyes. "Seriously, Sir: what leads Lord Manshoon to send swords against this lass, where spells fail?"

Swordmaster Bluth bent his critical gaze on the finished pit trap, watching as Alorth spread a basketful of earth and leaves over its edges, kicking them into place with a practiced boot.

Then Bluth shrugged and looked up. "We're only intended to wear this Shandril down so she's tired and hurt and has used most of her spellfire before the magelings attack her. I'd like to surprise a few wizards, though, by capturing her ourselves."

"Ourselves being those of us who're still alive, you mean." Alorth's voice was hard. "Why attack her at all if we're just going to our deaths? Why not leave her for the wizards-tell them she's slipped past us somehow?"

The swordmaster walked all around the pit trap and nodded his acceptance; it was well-concealed. He stepped back to look at the trees around, searching for any signs they might have left of their presence, then replied, "Duty, lad. Duty to orders. It's what we live for-and die for."

"So lords can sit safe in their towers," Alorth replied bitterly.

Bluth turned a cold eye on him. "Dangerous talk, Alorth. Taking the venomed dagger of your tongue to the plans and deeds of your betters is a sport that was oldand deadly-long before you were born."

He looked around one last time, and then drew his sword and said to the other men briskly, "Best we get dressed again and ready. If the other lads do their work as well as we have, they'll be here soon."

"I'm done, Shan." Narm shut his spellbook with a snap. "Mighty magic once more up my sleeves."

"At least you're not as overblown about it as most mages," Delg said, looking up at him. "Though you're not much better than most of 'em at walking, or cooking, or digging latrines… or anything else much useful.."

"Delg!" Shandril and Narm protested together. The dwarf laughed and settled his bulging pack on his sboulders. As usual, he carried far more than his larger companions.

"We'd best be off before some more Zhents find us," he said merrily. "North as before, then?"

Shandril shrugged. "You know better than I. Lead on." Without further words, the dwarf set off into the waiting woods.

"How do you feel today, love?" Narm's voice was low. Shandril gave him a smile. "Better than I have since we left Shadowdale. About time, too-it's a long way to Silverymoon. From what Storm said, if we walk and have to avoid Zhents more than once or twice, winter could well find us before we're halfway there."

"See Faerun," Narm said, gesturing at the trees around them. "Know high adventure. Meet strange and fearsome beasts, the like few folk have ever seen-"

"And slay them." Shandril's voice was wry. She seemed to be looking at something far away. "I never dreamt, back at the Moon, that when I finally got my taste of adventure, it would mean I went around burning powerful wizards and veteran warriors to ash-and that the Cult of the Dragon, the Zhentarim, and just about everyone else I met would attack me."

Narm hastened to head off her darkening mood. "Who else your age, though, has fought dragons-undead dragons, even-and lived?"

He caught his lady by the shoulders, eyes dancing, and went on jovially, "Has been rude to Elminster the Sageand lived? Blasted Manshoon of Zhentil Keep and the dragon he rode out of the sky, and sent them fleeing for home? Blown up entire castles? Made friends with the Harpers, with Elminster, and with the Knights of Myth Dra

Shandril smiled ruefully. "Yes, and hasn't had a spare moment to draw breath, yet alone enjoy any of it."

"You married me-and seemed to enjoy that," Narm protested in mock hurt.

"She must have been deaf, then," Delg put in, ahead of them. 'Me way you babble day and night through." Narm favored the dwarf with a certain rude sputtering noise made by small children throughout Faerun. "You'll have to be a little closer to kiss me, lad," the dwarf replied, eyes twinkling. Then his face grew more grave. "Shan-are you having thoughts against this journey?"

Shandril shook her head. "No-whatever I do, danger waits for me or comes looking. At least if I'm going somewhere, I have the feeling I'm doing something rather than just ru

Fire danced in Shandril's eyes for a moment, and then died away, leaving her expression empty, her eyes like two dark, despairing pits. "I do scream," she added, voice unsteady, "when I have to use spellfire-cursing the gods for playing this jest on me."

Delg squinted up at her. "Others have cursed the humor of the gods, lass, even among the dwarves-but I've heard elders tell them the gods jest with us all, and we are measured by how we deal with what befalls. Of course, you want to be free of all who harry you. Who in Faerun wouldn't?"

He shifted his heavy pack on his shoulders and added, "More than that: I'd be sad if one so young and inexperienced as you had already decided exactly what she'd do her entire life through… because she'd have to be a fool to be so certain about so little."