“Our men-at-arms cannot reach the dale in time without use of art, or in numbers enough to be useful without alarming our foes. We must, therefore, forego our warriors. I believe that it would be foolish-as foolish as deliberately going into battle without shield and armor-to abandon also the strength of Bane in this matter. Moreover, I feel that the warriors under me, and probably many underclerics and magelings here and in Darkhold, would think the same-and seriously question our collective wisdom in doing so, whatever the outcome of the venture.”
With that emphatic point. Marsh sat back and looked directly at Fzoul, fingers toying with a bauble at his throat which Sememmon, and no doubt most of the others at the table, knew to be an explosive globe from a magical necklace of missiles. Sememmon almost smiled. The hard-faced warrior was another who bore no love for the Master of The Black Altar.
The eye tyrant hung over them all this time, silent and terrible. Ignoring it, bearded Sarhthor rubbed his hands and said, “Well, I’m for such a strike, and the sooner the better. The spellfire must be ours.”
Sememmon did not turn to look at his fellow mages, but nodded absently as he raged inwardly. Was the fool actually that simple and enthusiastic? Or was he working with Fzoul? Nay, listen to the way his words were spoken, the little soft twists at the end of the words that flashed like dagger blades turning over! Sarhthor was telling Fzoul, openly and cuttingly, that he knew Fzoul’s game and thought very little of it.
“I’m so glad that we were able to come to an understanding so quickly,” Fzoul said softly. His voice was like an assassin’s bloody dagger being wiped clean on velvet.
The deep voice of the beholder rolled out from overhead, shocking them all with its sudden interjection. “Consider, and consider well, the nature of your understanding.”
As Sememmon looked up to meet Manxam’s many gazes for the first time, he took sudden satisfaction in the fact that Fzoul had to be more upset at the eye tyrant’s comment than any of the rest of them. Its disapproval was directed at him. Sememmon nodded, deliberately, and saw all of the other mages nodding, too. Sememmon left that chamber feeling almost satisfied, despite the danger ahead.
The moon scudded through tattered gray clouds high overhead. The air was cold and still around the spires of the city. Fzoul stood on a high balcony of The Black Altar and smiled up at Selune in satisfaction. Strong magic protected his person from attack by art, and none but servants of Bane could enter the courtyard below.
The mages would have no choice. No doubt they would slaughter Casildar, but he was too ambitious anyway, and a small price to pay for the destruction of Manshoon’s pet spellhurlers. The Zhentarim would serve Fzoul at last.
Even if Manshoon did return now, he would find himself isolated, with only upstart magelings-all too eager to betray him for their own advancement-to stand with him against the loyal of Bane, who served Fzoul. The beholders cared not which humans they dealt with, so long as their wants were met. The city would be his at last.
Until someone took it from him.
Fzoul never noticed the wizard eye floating above and behind him among the dark spires, keeping carefully out of sight. He could not see its invisible owner, regarding him from the dark window of a tower nearby.
He did hear the commotion in the courtyard below, as the warrior-priests of the High Imperceptor crept over the wall, and were met by alert and waiting underpriests of the Altar. Fzoul leaned forward and indiscriminately cast a blade barrier down into the growing fray below, caring nothing for the fate of his own acolytes. Let them see Bane the sooner, all of them.
Sememmon heard the clash and clatter of many whirling blades and screams below, and suddenly saw the bloody slaughter as one of the attackers boiling over the temple wall cast magical light upon the scene. He leaned out swiftly before Fzoul could leave the balcony and attacked with his Ring of the Ram. He struck with all the force that the magical ring could muster, draining it of multiple charges to do the task quickly and surely. He did not aim directly at the Master of The Black Altar, for he knew Fzoul would be well protected, but struck instead at the balcony.
It shivered and cracked, as if struck by a battering ram, and then fell away, crumbling in midair, down into the shrieking and death below. It seemed to fall with awful slowness, but Sememmon watched Fzoul’s fall closely; The cleric had no time to use an item or utter a word of recall- unless he managed to do so after the first blade had sliced crimson across his red mane of hair. A falling chunk of stone blocked Sememmon’s view seconds before the balcony crashed to the ground.
Sememmon turned away in satisfaction, resolving that the attack on Shadowdale would begin and end with the destruction of Casildar, at least until the spellfire-maid was out from under the eye and thumb of Elminster.
He never noticed another wizard eye that floated just above the dark window.
The eye was gone, however, some six breaths later, when a great round shadow drifted out of The Black Altar’s depths, its many eyestalks coiling and writhing like a nest of serpents. Then the slaughter really began.
The night was cold. Overhead, Selune was scudding amid a few tattered gray clouds. Lower down there was little breeze, but Shandril had shut the windows against the chill. She sat on the bed, facing Narm. “Well, my lord?” Shandril asked. Narm shrugged and spread his hands.
“What do you want, my lady?” he asked. Shandril looked at him, eyes dark and beautiful, and spread her own hands.
“To be happy. With you. Free of fear. Free to walk as we will, and neither cold nor hungry. More, I care little for, as long as we have friends.”
“Simple enough,” Narm agreed, and they both laughed. “All right, then,” Narm continued, “we must travel west, as they all say. But, advice be damned, let us go by way of The Rising Moon and Thunder Gap, so you may see Gorstag once more. What say?”
“Yes! It if pleases you, it pleases me. But what of the Harpers?”
“Well…”
Outside in the night, Torm strained to hear, but slipped. He breathed a curse upon fickle Tymora as he slid slowly backward on the wet slates despite his splayed, iron-strong fingers. He soon ran out of roof and fell over the edge.
Desperately he swung himself inward as his fingers left the slates. Then he was falling, mind racing coolly. His fingers closed on a window ledge as he plummeted past it.
With a Jerk that nearly wrenched his arms from their sockets he brought himself to a halt and hung grimly in midair. It was then that he noticed his left hand had come down hard upon a nesting evendove and crushed its frail body against the stone ledge.
“Ugghh,” he said, suppressing an urge to snatch his hand away.
“How do you think I feel?” demanded the crumpled bird, opening one eye sourly.
At that Torm did fall. The bird sighed, became Elminster even as Torm fell helplessly away below him, and created a fan of sticky web-strands. These lanced down to the grounds far below, enveloping Torm on the way.
The thief came to a slow, rubbery halt only feet from the ground, and hung there helplessly. He began to struggle. “Serves you right,” Elminster muttered darkly, and became a bird again.
Above the two eavesdroppers, Shandril and Narm had decided to join the Harpers. “After all” as Narm put it, “if we don’t like it, we can back out.” “Shall we tell them now?”
“No. Sleep on it, Elminster said.” Outside, Elminster smiled quietly, though one couldn’t see it for the beak.
“And so to bed again, you and I-and this time I would not hear your life story.”
Outside, on the window ledge, the bird that was Elminster looked up at the stars glimmering above Selune. The Silent Sword had ascended above the trees. The night was half done. The bird’s beak dwindled. It grew a human mouth, and sang, very softly, a snatch of a ballad that had been old when Myth Drannor fell:
…and in the wind and the water the storm-king’s fire-eyed daughter came a-rotting home across the sea leaving none on the wreck alive but me…
The sun rose hot that morning over Shadowdale, glinting on helms and spearpoints atop the Old Skull. Mist rose and rolled away down the Ashaba. Narm and Shandril rose early, and lingered not in the Twisted Tower, but set out for a brisk morning walk accompanied by six watchful guards that Thurbal insisted on sending with them. Their bright armor flashed and gleamed in the sunlight, and reminded the two lovers constantly of danger lurking near, and of spellfire.
They found themselves hungry again, despite a good breakfast of fried bread and goose eggs at the tower. They stopped in at The Old Skull Inn for bowls of hot stew. Jhaele Silvermane bid them fair morning as she served them, waved away their coins, and asked them when the wedding would be.
Shandril blushed, but Narm said proudly, “As soon as can be arranged, or even sooner.” Their escort of guards developed sudden thirsts for ale that made Shandril shudder with the earliness of the hour, but all soon set forth again up the road toward Storm Silverhand’s farm.
The dale was quiet despite the morning vigor of workers in the fields. All Faerun seemed at peace. Birds sang and the sky was cloudless. Narm realized that he and his lady had only a vague idea of where Storm SUverhand’s farm was. He turned to the nearest guard, a scarred, mustachioed veteran who bore a spear lightly in his hairy hands. “Good sir,’ Narm asked, “could you guide us to the dwelling of Storm Silverhand?”
“It lies before you, lord-from this cedar stump, here, on up to the line of bluewood yonder.” Narm nodded and said his thanks, for Shandril had already hurried ahead. The guards trotted with him until they caught her again.
It lay behind a high, crown-hedged bank of grass-covered earth. Over the hedge could be seen the upper leaves of growing things. All was lush and green. On this bright morning, bees and wasps danced and darted among the curling blossoms of a creeper that coiled in gnarled loops. The men-at-arms walked watchfully and carried their blades ready, but Shandril could not believe that there could be anything lurking to offer ready danger, in such a place and on such a morning as this.
They turned where a broad track cut through the hedge, and followed it up a line of old, twisted oaks to a large, rambling house of fieldstone. Its thatched roof was thick with velvet-green moss and alive with birds. Vines on tripods and pole-frames stretched away from them in rows, like choked hallways amid the green, rustling walls of a great castle. Far down one they saw Storm Silverhand at work, her long silver hair tied back with a ragged scrap of cloth.
The bard wore dusty and torn leather breeches and a halter, both shiny with age. Swinging a hoe with strength and care, Storm was covered with a glistening sheen of sweat, and stray leaves stuck to her here and there. She waved and, laying down the long hookhoe, hastened toward them, wiping her hands on her thighs. “Well met!” she called happily as she came.
“I’m going to hate leaving this place/’ Shandril said in a small, husky voice. Narm squeezed her hand and nodded.
“I am, too,” he said, “but we can come back when we are stronger. We will come back.”
Shandril turned to look at him, surprised at the iron in his tone. She was smiling in agreement as Storm reached them. The pleasant smell of the bard’s sweat-like warm bread, sprinkled with spices-hung around her. Narm and Shandril both stared.
Storm smiled. “Am I purple, perhaps? Grotesque?”
Narm caught himself, and said, “My pardon, please, lady. We did not mean to stare.”