Crown of Fire

"A Harper holds peaceful sharing of the lands above all other goals," Mirt declaimed grandly, waving at the rolling fields around them. Several nearby cows turned their heads to stare at him curiously. "By sharing," he added, winking at the nearest cow, "we mean all the races living in and under the land, where each prefers to live, trading together where desire and need stir them to, and respecting each other's holds and ways-without the daily bloodletting that all too often holds sway in the Realms today."

"If you don't mind a word against that," Narm replied carefully, "it seems all too seldom that Harpers manage to avoid indulging in a little bloodletting themselves."

Mirt gri

"Oh," Delg grunted, "how'd you get to be a Harper, then?"

Mirt sighed. "My long patience had something to do with it, as I recall," he answered deliberately, drawing a gleaming dagger and, with a single flick of his wrist, casually trimming off the tips of the nails on one hand. Narm stared, fascinated, but Shandril shuddered. If he'd missed by half an inch…

But he hadn't. The Old Wolf smiled at her again, a mirthless grin that reminded her of a gri

Delg grunted in reply. "If I hear you tell us we're lost, just once," he threatened, "you'll find yourself rapidly becoming more my size." He glared at the tranquil winddriven clouds that filled the sky and the endless rolling fields and rubble walls around them.

"I've crawled along in the dirt once or twice before, ye know," Mirt told him, and added over his shoulder to Shandril, "that's something else to being a Harper "there's fools' pride: the sort that won't get dirty, an' do this or that-and then there's Harpers' pride: where ye won't quit and won't be scared off. If ye only have the first kind, ye seldom live long enough to learn the second, unless ye leave off being a Harper altogether."

"Do all Harpers talk this much?" Delg asked i

Mirt sighed again. "It's one way to keep from fighting," he replied patiently, then turned to Narm and Shandril. "Ah-remember that, too."

"You'll remind me, from time to time, about all the things 1 should be remembering?" Shandril asked him dryly, eyes twinkling.

"Certainly." the fat merchant boomed cheerfully. "All the way to Silverymoon, if ye like."

"I was afraid you'd say that," Narm told him as they approached another stile.

Mirt gri

"At the strutting grandly bit, Lord," Shandril told him, so softly that it was almost a full breath later before Delg snorted. Shandril chuckled softly despite herself, and Narm started to laugh. It was another breath after that before Mirt joined in.

Overhead, the moon rode high above dark, ragged, racing clouds that streamed across the stars like tattered ba

Narm lay drowsily watching the clouds, Shandril asleep on his shoulder. The two of them were buried in a warm haystack, only their shoulders and heads protruding. Beside Narm's face lay Shandril's hair, a swirling mass that smelled faintly of spices. Baergasra had given her some bathing spices to ruin her scent for dogs-and worse things-the Zhents might use to track her.

To his left, Narm could just see the alert shadow that was Delg sitting watch. The dwarf sat with his blanket held over the ready axe in his lap, thereby preventing moongleams from betraying their presence to a watcher in the night. Despite Delg's caution, the deep, rhythmic snores of Mirt the Moneylender-once Mirt the Merciless, mighty Lord of Waterdeep-could tell anyone in this corner of Faerun right where they were.

To Narm's left, something moved. It was Delg, creeping silently as a cat to peer into the night nearby. He seemed to see nothing amiss, because after a few moments, he turned and looked toward the haystack. His eyes met Narm's. The dwarf nodded and withdrew to his post as silently as he had left it

Narm thought the dwarf's face looked bitter and drawn in the moonlight Usually Delg seemed lit by a fierce fire from within, his face like a smithy door, spitting surly sparks with energy to spare. Not now. He looked like a ruined farmer Narm had once seen-beaten, bereft of hope.

The dwarf stared out across the moonlit field again, beaked nose pointing like an accusing finger into the night. Then something cold and wise crept slowly up Narm s spine, and with sudden certainty he knew the look Delg wore. He looked like a man about to leave his friends behind forever and go down into the darkness that does not end.

For all their differences, dwarves and men do look like brothers when their faces wear the same hopeless expression. Delg looked like a man who knew he was about to die.

Ten

A HARD AND STONY PLACE

The Realms hold many a hard and stony place-and the worst of it is, some of them come well furnished with wizards.

Glarthlyn of Silverymoon

Sage Shadows in the Firelight Year of Dark Frost

Ahead, the land was rising. "The Stonelands " Mirt a

Delg squinted up at him. "It may come as a great surprise to you, large and mighty one, but I'd managed to puzzle that out for myself already."

Mirt sketched a florid bow. "The wits of the dwarves are keen, and the fame of their workings resounds from the Spine of the World to the peaks of the Dustwall."

Delg made a rude sound in reply. The fire-blackened pans he carried clanked slightly as he clambered to the top of a ridge to get a better view ahead.

In the distance, like a row of old and gray teeth, a line of crumbling stone cliffs rose out of the mottled greenery of the forest. The edge of the Stonelands. Between that line and where they now stood stretched a wide expanse of gently rolling pastureland. Down its center, the road that linked Cormyr with Tilverton lay like a dark snake basking in the sun. The Moonsea Ride, it was called. Soldiers of Cormyr kept the brush cleared on either side of the road; a long, long walk across open ground lay between them and the Stonelands.

Delg turned to Mirt- "How d'you propose to get unseen across that? Wait for dark I suppose-or have you some hidden magic at the ready?"

Mirt gri

The old merchant wheezed as he bent over and fished in the open top of one of his large, flopping leather boots, dragging a leathern cord into view. It was loosely knotted around his leg; Mirt grunted, drew the knot open, and then pulled on the line. A wrinkled, seemingly empty sack came up front the depths of his boot. "A gift from a lady," he a