Crown of Fire

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, gri

"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 fat 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 spellfire.

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.