Crown of Fire

It was an interesting sight, seeing a watch-ghost blush. "Yes," she said, eyes far away, seeing things long ago. "He was much younger then. Yes," she said again, and laughed, "such as Elminster, indeed."

"Tell me more," Delg said eagerly. "I've got to hear this…

"How quaint," murmured one who watched from the darkness of the trees, concealed by layer upon layer of cloaking magics. It listened and spied all through the watch-ghost's long talk with Mirt, and through her silent vigil over the sleeping foursome, in the hours before dawn. All the while, it took care to keep out of her sight.

There was very little in Tethgard that night that Iliph Thraun did not see and hear.

"The trick to finding your way back out of deep woods, look ye," said Mirt to Narm, "is to glance back behind yerself often on the way in. Then ye know what to look for."

"What if you must be leaving by a different way?" Delg asked sourly, almost challengingly.

Mirt froze, and then turned and blinked at the dwarf. His face looked as if he had just been spoken to by a stone, or he'd just seen a bird smoking a pipe. He blinked again and said mildly, "Well, then ye ask the elf who guided ye in to show ye the way out, of course." And with a merry twinkle in his eye he strode on through the deepest stands of Hullack Forest in his relentless, rolling, brush-crashing way.

Delg snorted more than once as he followed. Mirt had urged them up in the chill dawn, bidding a hasty farewell to the wraithlike Duskreene. Without ceremony, he'd led them in a steady tramp through the trees. The going proved agonizing to Narm and Delg; limbs that had stiffened overnight cramped and groaned at the joints.

Mirt kept them moving along with a steady stream of jests and barbed digs directed at lazy dwarves and effete young mages. Shandril shook her head at some of his words, but she wisely kept silent and followed the bobbing axe the stout old merchant adventurer wore at the back of his belt.

Something about Mirt's name was niggling away in her memories, something fleeting that the ranger Florin Falconhand had said, and a reply that Elminster had given, in Shadowdale, at some point in the whirlwind activities of her brief stay there. She looked back at Narm, as if meeting his eyes would bring the memory to her-and it did. She smiled at Narm and turned back to stare at the broad back in front of her. Mirt was one of the Lords of Waterdeep, the not-so-secret band of powerful folk who ruled that great and splendid city.

Striding along at Delg's side, Narm returned Shandril's brief and knowing smile. Her expression had been as bright and beautiful as the rising sun, which had just

a

"When a lad chuckles like that," the dwarf said gloomily, "it's usually the sound of his wits escaping out his mouth. He's sure to do something wildly stupid, all too soon."

Ahead, Shandril turned, eyes flashing as she laughed. "Why, Delg! And what does a lass's chuckle warn you of?"

The dwarf's beard bristled as he clamped his mouth tightly shut and glared at her. A deep red hue slowly crept up his neck and across his face and balding head as he walked along in the general laughter. Almost thirty paces passed underfoot before a deep rumbling a

The morning sun was warm on the old wizard's face. Elminster stood conferring with the youngest mage of the Knights of Myth Dra

The old sage's pipe kept going out in the breeze. He tapped it on the stone parapet and said, "Mind ye watch Shaerl while I'm gone… she's apt to act 'ere prudence governs. She's young yet."

Illistyl, who had seen but nineteen winters herselfrather less than the Lady Shaerl-smiled tolerantly. "Impetuous action being the province of the very young and the very old, my lord?" she asked, eyes all too i

Elminster snorted. "Now girl, grant ye I could sit here happily amid books and all and let the Realms be hurled down and laid waste around me, but 'tis not impetuous nor foolish to lift a hand to prevent such a thing. Some of thy deeds, and those of thy fellow Knights, may be hastily thought on or taken at whim, but I do consider acts ere I take them-consider them well, as all sh-"

"Aye, aye," Mistyl interrupted him smoothly. "I shall, I shall. As ever." She patted the Old Mage's arm. "I would be more at ease if most of us weren't galloping all over the Dales, distracting those hunting for spellfire… and if Dove and Jhessail could spare more time from their little ones, though I know that above all we must keep such younglings safe. Alone, I can give Mourngrym little aid if aught demanding power or influence should befall."

Elminster's eyes were briefly moist. Her softly spoken, archaic words had reminded him of a young maid he had stood with long ago, as beautiful and as skilled in Art, a lady now only ashes. Too many young lasses laughed only in his memories now, gone to dust, naught left of them but their fading writings in spellbooks and his even more faded memories. Abruptly, the Old Mage looked south toward the trees that hid the millpond and the burned flagstones of Sylune's Hut. Gods be struck down, there is another lost lady, he thought briefly, then swept aside his dark thoughts angrily. I must be getting old!

He raised his eyes to look at lazily drifting clouds and, with an effort he cared not to show, said teasingly, "Perhaps Torm will again come to thy aid."

Beside him, slim Illistyl stiffened. "You jest, I trust," she answered coldly.

The old sage's eyes twinkled merrily as he gravely replied, "Aye. Of course." He turned then, took her hand gently, and kissed it.

Illistyl shred at him, astonished. His mustache rasped across her knuckles like a bristle-brush for a moment, and she found herself staring into very blue, very keen old eyes. She shivered involuntarily; Elminster's gaze made her feel quite naked, and more than a little ashamed. It seemed that he saw into the very depths and corners of her being, parting all the shadowy curtains of old jealousies, regrets, and small deceits. And yet his voice, when it came, was both tender and approving.

"I must go, little one," he said. "I foresee a need to face the archwizards of the Zhentarim before long-and with the spells and monstrous assistance they employ in battles, I've no wish to be anywhere near Shadowdale when the fray begins. Forget not what Jhessail and I have taught thee, and follow thy good sense, and all will be well in the ending of it. Thy good reason is more important than all the power ye will ever wield."

As he released her hand, Illistyl shivered again, closed her eyes briefly as if gathering her strength, and then snorted at him, eyes flashing open. "A lot my good reason will do if Zhentil Keep's soldiers march down that road there!"

Elminster clucked, reprovingly. "Manshoon has other worries, girl, worse than ye know. Myself, for instance. He needs his armies-or thinks he does, and that's all the same to us-to face other foes." He patted her hand. "Abide here and keep the dale safe. Lhaeo will serve thee in need. Mystra shield thee."

"And comfort thee," she replied formally, and added, "mind you return speedily, Old Mage. You will be needed -and missed."

"Many have said so," he said over his shoulder as he swept down the stairs, "over the years. And when I was not there, the will of the gods unfolded anyway."

Illistyl shook her head in amused silence, followed him down one flight of steps, and then crossed to a gallery with a window over the meadow.