“What?”
“You’re terribly fond of that word. What merchant? What dragon? What happened next? Or d’you mean ‘I can’t believe you’?”
Narantha stared at him. “I… I guess I really mean ‘I don’t believe it.’ No one-no one’s ever talked to me as you do.”
Florin dropped his pose and stood casually facing her. “And are you going to have me horsewhipped for it, when we reach Espar?”
“No.” She looked at the ground, and said almost petulantly, “You must think I’m some sort of dragon. I-” Almost reluctantly, she looked up again. “No, of cour-no, I’m not.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Your turn in the Dathyl; ’tis not exactly warm, but it’ll be colder later on.”
Narantha looked at the forester thoughtfully, as if judging him, then blurted out, “Don’t stop doing it. Even when I scream at you. Please. You’re like the older brother I’ve never had.”
Florin smiled. “Have my thanks, Narantha. Those words are… nice to hear.” He reached out to pat her shoulder, and said not a word when she flinched away from him.
Swallowing, she deliberately stepped forward again to meet his hand.
“So,” Florin asked lightly, unhooking the catch of her weathercloak, “will you let your older brother help wash your hair?”
Horaundoon frowned over his scrying orb. The hargaunt belled questioningly.
Without taking his eyes off the glowing orb, the Zhentarim replied, “Echoes. I’ve never felt echoes before. I wonder…”
He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “They could just be wards, or detection spells responding to my magic… or they could be something more dangerous.”
Horaundoon went on staring into the orb. The hargaunt trilled and chimed again, but he made no reply.
“He knows,” Horaundoon said suddenly, one of his hands closing into a fist. “The elf knows my magic is drifting into his mantle. He keeps looking over… ah, there it is. A scepter of some sort, probably his strongest battle-magic. Yet he casts nothing, makes no adjustments to his mantle at all. Restless, though, as if he wants to. Yes, he’s itching to. So why the echoes, if he’s not-?”
His eyes narrowed, and he scratched at his jaw as if at an agonizing itch. “Once my spell conquers the focal gem and the spellstealing begins, the link back to me is strong. Yet if I hold back from the gem, and trace all spells linked to it, I should be able to see if our elf mage has some waiting friends.”
Horaundoon closed his eyes and let his hands fall to his sides, concentrating hard. “Yes,” he whispered, after a long moment. “Yes, there’s a second link… and a third. Tracing spells. Nigh a dozen.”
He opened his eyes as he ended his spell, letting it collapse and take the distant elf away from him. “And other mages at the end of every one of them! A band of wizards waiting to spring their trap on the mysterious Eater-of-Mantles. Not a mantle among them, but I daresay they’ll have minds brimming with murderous spells and eagerness to use them.”
The hargaunt spoke, and the Zhentarim smiled a wolflike smile. “Not ended, just halted for a time, until I can craft a spell to plunder mages’ minds when they’re not wearing a mantle. In the meantime, I can attend more revels and learn about a few more magical baubles in the collections of old and foolheaded Cormyrean nobles. While their house wizards probe at me in vain, finding minor cosmetic spells but not the shapeshifting magics they’re expecting. Thanks to you. ”
He grinned at the hargaunt almost fondly, and its chiming reply was intricate and enthusiastic.
The Lady Narantha Crownsilver came out into the glade and stopped in wonder. Florin strode on in his nigh- soundless way, but seemed to sense she wasn’t right behind him. He whirled around, saw that nothing menaced her, and came back to join her, moving as quietly as ever.
Narantha no longer felt sticky and dirty, and for the first time her boots felt familiar and almost painless. The sun was bright and warm, birds were calling in the trees around, and looking down the length of the glade she could see the land ahead rising in a great shoulder of pines and duskwoods, to a rocky ridge. Beyond, purple in the distance, great mountains rose like so many eternal fangs against the cloudless blue sky: the Storm Horns… and somewhere at their forefront, probably hidden behind the nearby ridge, rose the bright fang that was the great castle of High Horn.
Narantha looked long at the scene before her, breathing deeply of the clear air. The merest ghost of a breeze was bringing her the sharp scent of bruised needles, and just a hint of unseen, distant woodsmoke. She had never really looked at a sky before, or wild and magnificent Cormyr laid out in a vista before her. The green glory of trees and rolling hills…
Narantha pursed her lips and shook her head. She had gazed, but she had never really seen before. So much time wasted, so many petty nothings and empty fripperies crowding her life.
Florin was standing beside her, looking down at her. She looked up at him, not knowing how to say what was in her mind.
He caught hold of her hand with his own, and squeezed. “Memories are treasures,” he murmured. “Lock the best of them in your mind forever, the most splendid moments, and throw away the rest. Any day when you gain such a treasure is a day well-spent.”
She nodded, her throat tight on the edge of tears, and they walked on in silence together, still holding hands.
Jalander swallowed. Vangerdahast was looming over him, having appeared as unexpectedly and disconcertingly as always. He could not avoid that commanding gaze; bristling eyebrows lifted in a silent question, the eyes beneath them hard and keen.
Jalander was not a junior war wizard, and so could-just-control his awe and fear at such close attention from the Royal Magician of Cormyr. “ ’Tis these new ward-spells you’ve had us working at. They work well enough when cast on Jester’s Green or a back pasture somewhere, even when guarding someone who’s moving. But they keep collapsing-and going wild, too, in little outbursts here and there-whenever we cast them anywhere near the palace. Even up at High Horn we had problems. Too many other magics-”
“Indeed,” Vangerdahast said. “Wards upon wards, old enchantments underlying those we know about, some slumbrous and many awakening without warning. They all interfere with each other. I feared as much. So the gaps in our armor must remain.”
Jalander Mallowglar dared much, then. He dared to sit back in his chair and observe, “I thought you’d be more upset than-than you seem to be.”
“Lad, if I let Cormyr see how upset I am most of the time, they’d lock me up as a madman. If I showed all Cormyr why I’m upset, they’d flee the realm so hard and fast, screaming their terror to the skies, that most of them would probably drown in the Dragonmere before they noticed they’d run right off the ends of our piers!”
There was a sudden shriek from the deep words to their left, and Narantha tensed, wide-eyed. “What’s that?”
The shriek rose wildly and broke off suddenly, leaving an ominous silence. Florin strode on.
“Aren’t-aren’t you going to go see?” Narantha asked, aghast. “That was a woman, frightened and in pain! Something just happened to her! Don’t foresters care-”
Florin spun around, looking grave. “That was a wolf, not a woman-and it was dying. Under the claws and jaws of something large enough to kill a wolf at a pounce, without much of a fight.”
He shrugged, and added a little sadly, “Whenever you hear that sort of noise, ’tis too late to do anything.”
Narantha stared at him, her face white, and Florin added, “ ’Tis the way of things. The forest is fair to gaze upon-but cruel.”
“Gods,” she said, her voice almost a sob ere she steadied it. “Even here. I thought-I thought…”
“You thought that out here, because ’tis beautiful and you’ve lost your first fears of it, that things are, ah, gentler than the games of verbal and social dagger-hurling nobles play at?” Florin’s voice was soft. “Ah, now, that would be a world…”
He drew his sword again, and reached out his free hand to take hers.
“Come, Narantha. The light will fail soon, and we must find a good place to camp-or yon wolf’s fate may yet be ours.”
Narantha shivered. “I… Florin, I’ve been horrible to you.”
