Crown of Fire

Delg sighed. "Shandril," he said plaintively, "you had a thousand thousand dalesmen to choose from after-after the company fell. Did you have to choose a whiner and a worrier?"

Shandril sighed right back. "Delg," she said mildly, "I love this man. Give him at least the respect you'd give a dwarf of his age, will you?"

"I am, Lady. I am," Delg replied, and they saw his gri

"Forgive my ma

"My thanks, Delg," Narm said shortly, "but I'd be happier if you could tell me what that is."

"What, lad?" Delg's axe glinted in the moonlight.

"That thing, there!" Narm said fiercely, pointing. Far away across tumbled arches and broken rubble, something dark and winged seemed to both fly and to flow over the stone beneath it, like some sort of giant black snake. A snake with batlike wings, eyes like glimmering rubies, and a cruel snout. It was coming toward them, not hurrying, as though di

"Shandril!" Narm said commandingly. "Hold still, and I'll cast my light spell." He lowered his voice, and added, "It's my last-to feed your spellfire… Ready?"

Shandril nodded, and Narm hurried through the gestures of casting the spell as the dwarf advanced to stand as foreguard, hefting his axe. "Battle again, is it?" he muttered. "Then let it come! Clanggedin be with me and guide my axe."

Narm's casting ended as the winged thing rose up into the air before them, passing over Delg's reaching axe. No magical radiance appeared beneath Narm's hands, which rested on Shandril's neck. She had willed the light into her, drawing the tingling energy in through the bare skin of her neck. Flames danced briefly in her eyes as she waved him away, then looked up to face the winged horror directly.

It loomed above her. Dark and terrible, its leathery wings beat in eerie silence, its bony jaws spread wide, its red glowing eyes met hers. "Turn back," Shandril said,.and we will not harm you. Turn back!"

Above the glowing crystal ball, a light feminine voice chuckled. 'They do talk a lot, these fools. Always threatening and declaiming grandly-when they're not pleading, that is."

"True, Mairara," came an older female voice in answer. "Yet I fear this servant creature will fail us as all the others have done."

Gathlarue set her goblet down on the tabletop and stared into the crystal ball that had risen to float just above it. In its curved depths they both beheld the scene in the ruins. Both stared so intently into the globe that neither noticed as one leg of their table grew a silent, bearded smile for an instant, ere a quiet wisp of a shadow rose from it and slipped away.

In deadly silence, the dark horror folded its wings and plunged down on Shandril. Narm cried out and drew his dagger, and Delg's axe rose as he raced in to swing at the flank of the descending menace. But there was a sudden flash and rolling roar of flame.

While backing toward a fallen stone wall, Shandril had hurled fire into the beast's open mouth.

The man and the dwarf both staggered hastily back from the rush of flame as the monster, covered with it, perished in writhing tatters of smoking flesh. It gave off a horrible smell. With mixed awe and satisfaction, Narm and Delg watched for a moment while it shriveled and burned. Then they heard a queer choking sound from behind the ruined wall.

In three bounds Narm was around the corner, heart in his mouth. His wife knelt on the stones. Shandril shook her head, waving him feebly away. She was being thoroughly and wretchedly sick. "The smell," she gasped. " Gods, how vile!"

"Vile, indeed," said a new voice from beyond her. "Were I younger and less, hem-stout of stomach, I'd be doing that too. Which should serve ye as a warning, girl, not to be hurling flames about at just everything that moves. Ye'll burn up something ye value, one o' these days. Phew? Come away, come away, all of ye-that thing smells as if it did nothing but roll in dung and eat dead things."

"Who," Delg and Narm demanded together. "are you?" The stout, dark figure beyond Shandril drew something from its belt-a dagger whose blade glowed with blue fire in the night. Narm stepped quickly in front of Shandril, raising his own dagger, but the man shook his head and brandished the glowing blade to serve as a light.

Its radiance shone down on him, illuminating the grizzled, scarred, and yet somehow good-natured face of a burly man clad in flopping, food-stained leather armor. Fierce brows and mustaches gleamed gray-white on his large and weather-stained face. Huge swash-boots flapped beneath an ample paunch as he stepped forward, handed the glowing dagger to Narm-who juggled it gingerly then swept around the young mage and grandly offered his hand to Shandril to help her rise.

Warily she avoided it, coming to her feet in a crouch, facing him. "Yes," she said, fire winking in her eyes, "who are you, sir?"

The battered, leonine face wagged sadly from side to side. "An' here I thought I was famous at last, over at least the lands of all the North. Ah, well."

He drew back from Shandril, plucked his dagger deftly from Narm's grasp, and struck a heroic pose, holding the dagger forth as though it were a great battle-sword. "I am Mirt, called the Moneylender, of Waterdeep. Men once called me-'hem--Mirt the Merciless. Some folk call me the Old Wolf."

Delg eyed the stout man sourly. "I am Delg, of the dwarves." It was a gentle dwarven insult, implying that the speaker did not trust the one he addressed enough to furnish his last name.

Mirt bowed in reply, and made a quick, complex sign with one hand.

Delg's eyes widened. "So," he said with new respect, "you have known others of my race as friends, before. Well met, stout one. What brings you here-to the depths of this forest, and alone?"

"Well met, short one," Mirt replied easily. "I like to pick mushrooms this time of year, and Hullack Forest seemed a nice enough place-quiet an' all, until spellfire started roaring about all over the place, and-well, ne'er mind. Come back to my camp, all of ye, and we can swap stories for a bit. Until dawn, say…"

"A moment," Narm said quietly. "Delg's question is a fair one, sir. Before we follow you into gods know what, tell us how you come to be here. We are-suspicious folk, these days. Everyone and everything in Faerun seems eager to kill us."

"Ye, too?" Mirt replied mildly, raising his brows. "Tis a plague, it seems. They're always trying to kill me, too." Narm waited. A breath of silence passed, and Shandril quite deliberately climbed up a ragged edge of stone wall to stand above them. She glanced quickly all around, and then stood facing the man who called himself Mirt, one hand raised. Fire licked along her fingers for a moment. The stout man watched her, nodded as if in acknowledgment of power, and then turned back to the young mage and smiled wi

Narm frowned. How did this man know his name?

He opened his mouth to ask just that, but the stout man waved him to silence, saying, "Aye, it's rude of me not to congratulate ye on your wise marriage to Shandril Shessair right off, and set ye three at ease."

Mirt smiled up at Shandril and added, "The bride is as beautiful as I've been told, and no mistake. Well met, all of ye." He bowed again, various daggers and scabbards about his belt jangling and ringing, and smoothed his mustaches with broad, hairy fingers.