“Not even the gods took unto themselves the power to control ye or me so tightly that we cannot walk or speak or breathe save at another’s bidding! It is their will that we may be free to do as we may. Slay a foe, sure, or defend thyself against a raider-but to strike down one who may some day menace thee? That is as monstrous as the act of the usurper who slays all babies in a land, for fear of a rightful heir someday rising against him!”
“Aye. Well said,” Florin agreed grimly, in quiet, deliberate challenge of the woman in black who stood among them. No other spoke. They waited in silence for the reaction of The Simbul.
The witch-queen stood in their midst, alone and terrible. They had heard of the awesome art she commanded, that held even the Red Wizards of Thay at bay, and hurled back their armies time and time again to preserve her kingdom. They knew the tales whispered of her temper and cruel humor and mighty power. Narm could smell their fear, there on the hilltop. Not a drawn sword moved.
The Simbul nodded, slowly. “Aye, great one,” she said to Elminster, “you truly have the wisdom lore grants you in these lands. I agree. If others had not also agreed so, many winters gone, I would not have lived to stand here upon Harpers’ Hill now.” She stepped around Elminster, and he did not bar her way.
Narm, however, moved protectively in front of Shandril even as The Simbul advanced. She came to a halt and stood facing him. “I have trusted,” she whispered. Her eyes were very proud. “Will you not also trust me?” Narm stared at her for a long, tense breath, and then nodded slowly and stepped aside. The Simbul glided up to Shandril and said, “My forgiveness, if you will take it. I wish you well.”
Shandril nodded, swallowed, and said softly, “I-I hold nothing against you, great lady.” She smiled, tentatively.
The Simbul smiled, too, and added, “A gift for you.” Her hand went to the broad black belt about her waist and drew from it a plain brass ring. She leaned close until Shandril could smell a faint, strange, stirring perfume at her throat. Shandril had never seen eyes so steel gray, stern, and sad all at once. “Use this only when all else is lost,” The Simbul whispered. “It will take you, and anyone whose flesh touches yours directly when you use it, to a refuge of mine. It will work only once, mind, and only one way. The word of command is on the inside of the band, invisible except when you heat the ring. Do not speak it aloud until you intend to use it. Your spellfire will not harm this ring.” Cold hands touched Shandril’s and pressed the ring, strangely warm, into her palm.
“One last thing” said The Simbul. “Walk your own way, Shandril; let no one control you. Beware of those who stand in shadows.” She smiled again and kissed the wondering Shandril gently on the cheek. Then she patted Elminster’s arm wordlessly and turned in sudden haste. Her form writhed and rose, until a black falcon soared up among the stars and was gone.
Eyes watched in silence until she could be seen no more, and then everyone spoke at once. Amid the hubbub, Elminster said, “My thanks, Shandril. The test is at an end. Narm, take thy lady home, and sleep. Keep the spellfire that remains within thee until ye have need of it. It will not harm thee to carry it, I know now. Guard well thy ring. A gift from The Simbul is rare indeed.” Behind them, Florin was quietly arranging a ring of guards to be about the couple as they returned to the tower.
“Think on this, and let us know when ye have decided,” Elminster said as they went down from the hilltop. “Jhessail and Illistyl will train thee, Narm, if ye wish, and I shall show thee what I can of working together spellfire and spells. The cloak is thine to keep. It will protect thee in battle. It is old, and its magic is not strong, so beware not to drain its magic without intention. It is easy enough to do.” The sage coughed. “Go now,” he said, “and get thee to bed-where these old bones would be, if I had any sense. After all, you could be needed to save Faerun tomorrow, after highsun sometime, I suppose.”
Shandril nodded, suddenly exhausted. “Thank you, lord,” she said-Elminster winced at the title-”I must sleep soon, or fall down where I stand.”
“Thanks, Elminster” Narm said with sudden boldness. “Good fortune this night and hereafter. After I get our clothes back from the knights, we shall go and think on your lords for a breath or maybe two before falling asleep.”
They chuckled together, and then the young couple went down the hill, the guards closing in around them. Florin and Merith flew watchfully above, leaving the sage behind with Jhessail and Illistyl.
“Satisfied?” the sorceress of Shadowdale asked her sometime master.
Elminster looked at the scorched marks on the rock at his feet. “I thought so,” he said softly. “The power to unleash spellfire. Her mother had it.” Both lady knights looked at him, startled, but Elminster merely smiled that distant smile that warned he would give no answer, and asked, “So what did ye hear of interest, Illistyl? Ye may edit such things as ye feel mine aged ears should not hear, out of consideration for my vulnerable heart.”
“Well, then” Illistyl said, with an impish grin, “there is precious little to tell.”
The mist was still streaming through the trees when Korvan from The Rising Moon, arrived at the butcher’s shop. “Morning;1 said a stooped man the cook had never seen before. The stranger leaned upon the yard fence by the door, the mud of much travel on his boots and breeches.
“Morning,” Korvan replied sourly. He had come for meat, not a lot of talk. Since that little brat Shandril had run off, he’d had to get his meat earlier, at a time of the day when he’d rather be abed yawning and dozing.
“Buying lamb? I’ve thirty good tails in the pen there, just down from Battledale.” The sheepherder jerked his head at the muddy yards behind him.
“Lamb? Well, I’ll look… if I can find two good hand-counts among them, I might do business with you,” Korvan said grudgingly. The herder stared at him.
“Two hand-counts? Have you a large family?”
“No, no,” Korvan said sourly as they went in. “I buy for the inn, The Rising Moon, down the road.”
“Do you? Why, there’s a tale I have for you, then!” the herder said, with sudden interest. “It’s about that young girl who worked at the inn and left.”
“Oh?” Korvan said, turning his head sharply in sudden interest. “Shandril, her name was.”
“Oh… pretty, that,” the herder replied, nodding. “I saw her in the mountains only a few nights back. I was chasing two lost sheep.”
“The Thunder Peaks?” Korvan asked, nodding at the wall where, beyond, they knew the gray and purple mountains could be seen above the trees.
“Aye, near the Sember. I came upon a great crowd of folk, with weapons and all. They were all standing about, asking this girl of yours if she was all right, after she’d unleashed ‘spellfire,’ they called it…”
“Spellfire?” Korvan said, astonished.
“Aye. I hid-there were gold coins all over the place, and they had swords out. I wasn’t sure that a guest who came uninvited would be left alive to walk away again, if you take my meaning-”
Korvan nodded. “Aye… but who were these people?”
“Shadowdale folk, they were. That old sage, and the ranger who rides about the Dales with their messages- Falconhand, is it?-and the elf-warrior who lives there, and a priest, I think. They were all excited over the girl… seems she burned up a dragon or suchlike with this spellfire. There was something about someone called Shadowsil, too. They walked about so that I couldn’t rightly hear it. Never found the sheep, but I got their price and better in gold coins by keeping hid and coming out after they’d gone.”
“She went off again, then?” Korvan asked. The herder nodded.
“North, down into the forest. Toward Mistledale, I suppose… and Shadowdale, beyond.”
Korvan sighed. “Too far to follow,” he said with feigned sorrow. “Anyway, if she wanted to come back, no doubt she’d have headed home by now.” He shook his head. “Well, my thanks for your story,” he said, looking past the butcher t6 the yard door. “Now, you had some sheep I’d do well to buy? The faster I buy from you, the faster I can be smoking and hanging.”
Shandril must die, Malark of the cult decided. Not yet, but after these altruistic fools here had trained her to full powers. Somehow she had destroyed Rauglothgor and the dracolich’s lair, slain or escaped The Shadowsil, and, if the talk hereabouts could be believed, had also somehow escaped-and driven away- Manshoon of Zhentil Keep. She had been lucky. It would be simply impossible for a slip of a girl to defeat the gathered mages of the Cult of the Dragon.
Malark cursed as the wagon crashed and rocked through a particularly deep pothole. Arkuel, in the leathers of a hired guard, turned and grinned apologetically through the open front door of the wagon. Malark snarled wordlessly and rubbed his aching shoulder. He collected his wits and considered how to separate this Shandril from her protectors in the tower of Ashaba. The Twisted lower, they called it. Obviously, Malark would have to get into the ranks of the tower guards. Perhaps it was too soon.
There was a loyal cult agent already in the guard- Culthar, his name was. He could strike at Shandril later, when the time was exactly right. To try and take her now would be too risky. Malark did not trust his underlings to saddle a horse unsupervised, let alone do what would be necessary to make such a capture and escape, given the art and the swords that would come against them.
On the other hand, the longer the cult waited, the more likely it was that someone else would try to take the source of spellfire for themselves-the Zhentarim, certainly, and perhaps the priesthood of Bane.
Perhaps that would be for the best, though. With all the confusion that would ensue if one of those foes did make an attempt, Malark could storm in then and prevail, for the greater glory of the followers.
The archmage was jolted roughly out of that pleasant daydream as one wheel of the coach struck a pothole, bounced and sank, and then another wheel pitched sharply down into an even larger pothole. The wagon came back upright just as its rear wheels skidded sideways alarmingly on loose stones. The gods alone knew how fat little merchants managed this, day in and day out-and this was judged one of the better roads in the North! Malark questioned the wisdom of his own plan for the forty-third time, as the wagon slowed for the guardpost that would let him, a traveling merchant who dealt in love philtres, medicinal remedies, and special substances for use by distinguished practitioners of the art, into Shadowdale.
The bright light of morning made the bare, fissured rock of the Old Skull briefly a warm and pleasant place, despite the whispering wind that all too often made it the coldest, bleakest guardpost in Shadowdale. The three who stood there looked down over the green meadows to the south, and the grim and defiant Twisted Tower to their right.
“The gods help us if the Red Wizards of Thay hear of Shandril before she and Narm are both grown wise in the ways of battle and art,” Storm said. “Without my sister, the defense of this little dale falls upon a few knights, and upon Elminster. And for all his art, he is but one old man.”
“Things will get bad enough with just the Zhentarim, if Manshoon raises them against us,” Sharantyr replied. “You miss Sylune very much. She must have been special indeed. They still speak of her often, and wistfully, in the inn below.”
Florin smiled. “She was special-and she fell while defending the dale against a wyrm of the cult, a danger we may soon face again, with Shandril here. Even now, the cult must be searching for her-and with the testing, it will not take them long to learn that she is here.”
Storm smiled, almost ruefully. “Elminster plays a deeper game than we do. He did that in front of everyone quite deliberately… I trust him completely, and yet I confess his doings often make me uncomfortable. We will all have to deal with the consequences.”
“You think such a public display was unwise,” Florin said with a smile. “I, too-and yet I thought then, and still feel, that Elminster was like an actor in the streets of Suzail. He plays to a larger audience than those standing around him, hoping to attract the eyes of those who pass, perhaps a noble or even a ruler. Our sage is no fool, and not feeble in wits from age, unless there is some feebleness that affects the judgment but leaves one able to perfectly work art and develop new magics.”
“There is such a thing,” Sharantyr teased. “But it strikes the young, too-it makes us adventurers when we could stay safe at home in fields or forests, doing dull, honest work and acquiring respect as we grow gray and bent.”
“Well said,” Storm noted. “But I think Elminster has some purpose, though not clear to us yet, in displaying Shandril’s power so dramatically.”
“Is this ‘us’ we three here?” Sharantyr asked, “or the Harpers? Answer me not, if you’d rather not speak of them.”