Manshoon smiled suddenly. 'As always, your spirit pleases me. You may live.'
Anaithe's skin paled to the hue of old bone, all over. 'My thanks, Great Lord,' she said softly, and bowed. Manshoon heard the thread of sarcasm she couldn't quite keep from her voice, and his smile broadened. Perhaps he should teach this one magic-after she'd been humbled by a whipping.
Sharantyr spoke first, while their ears were still ringing. 'What's this all over me?' she asked grimly.
'Droplets of ambitious Zhentarim mage, no doubt,' Elminster replied wryly. 'Are ye all right?'
'I-think so. I can't tell, in the dark.' The lady ranger sounded angry. 'Look… that was a blast, Old Mage, and the air around us didn't flame up to join it. So let us have light.'
Elminster nodded, and an instant later remembered to speak. 'Aye, lass, but one problem occurs to me.'
'And it is-?'
'In this darkness, we'll be hard put to it to find a torch.'
Sharantyr said something very rude and unladylike that made Elminster sigh and shake his head. And then, down the passage from which the attack had come, they saw the bobbing light of many torches.
'Say nothing of the gate,' Elminster muttered hastily. 'We'll seek it later.'
The sputtering torches were coming fast. A few breaths later, the two men in leathers who'd slain Longspear in the marketplace burst into the room, blades drawn and trailing a handful of armed, bloody men. 'Elminster?' one of them asked, holding his torch high.
'Aye, ye've found him.' Elminster moved to stand beside Sharantyr's drawn, ready blade. 'Who be ye?'
'Itharr,' said Itharr simply.
'Belkram,' Belkram added. 'Storm sent us.'
'So I need nursemaids now, do I?' Elminster grunted, and waved a hand. 'Well met, and thanks for thy blade work outside the walls. Ye have my favor. Go and see if Mulmar needs ye for something.'
Itharr and Belkram looked at each other, shrugged, and grinned. They were four strides back up the passage they'd come from when they heard Elminster chuckle.
They halted and turned. 'We were asked to bring you with us,' Itharr said rather hesitantly.
'By whom?' Elminster asked with an air of offended dignity.
'Irreph Mulmar, high constable of the High Dale.'
'Oh.' Elminster smoothed his beard with long fingers. 'Well… let's go, then.'
They went, climbing a long and winding way through empty passages, hearing excited voices echoing from here and there as they ascended through the castle, until they reached the great hall.
Irreph Mulmar sat on the high seat there, in fine clothes and with the chains struck off his limbs. Men and women of the dale stood around him with weapons in their hands. Elminster stepped through the door and nodded casually to him, and sudden silence fell across the chamber.
'Ah, Old Mage?' the high constable asked awkwardly. 'We're grateful for your help an' all, but we've had a bellyful of wizards ruling things.'
Folk of the dale stood watchfully by, weapons ready.
Elminster blinked at him. 'By the good gods, man, what would I want to rule anyplace for?'
There was another moment of silence, until Gedaern started to laugh. His guffaws set others off. In a moment the hall rang with laughter, the first light and general merriment that had been heard there for many a day.
Another platter of steaming fowl banged down on the table between them, and Itharr plucked a drumstick from it without looking, his eyes on Belkram and Sharantyr.
The two leaned toward each other over the table, chins almost in their wine goblets, as they strained to hear each other over the general din in the hall. All around them, dalefolk who should have been too exhausted to do more than snore were laughing, dancing, devouring with the speed of starving wolves everything that was brought in from the kitchens… and drinking as if they sat in parched desert sands instead of a mountain pass.
'Baldur's Gate?' Shar said in pleased surprise. 'Really? I was born there, too!' She grinned across the table at the tall Harper, then turned to Itharr. 'So where do you hail from?'
Itharr rolled his eyes. 'All the same places as him. We've walked together for some years now, in the service of the Harp. But as to my upbringing, well… I have the misfortune-in the eyes of Baldurians, at least-to have been born in Athkatla.'
'We forgive you,' Belkram and Sharantyr said in perfect, unplanned unison. They exchanged startled looks and started to laugh. When they had breath to talk again, Sharantyr refilled Itharr's goblet from her third wineskin of the evening and took a drumstick of her own. 'So how do two men from such prosperous cities end up Harping across the backlands?'
Belkram shrugged. 'My parents were crew on the Dancing Dolphin, a nao that sailed out of the Gate. They were slain by pirates during my twelfth summer. For a youngling, alone, the Gate's too pricey a place to fend for oneself, so I took to the roads.'
'And I,' Itharr said dryly, 'grew up to hate cheating folk-'
'Commerce, my boy. 'Tis called commerce,' Belkram put in, setting down a goblet that seemed to have rapidly emptied itself.
Itharr gave him a look. 'Aye, commerce… what folk in Amn do. So I ran away, out of Amn, seeking something to do that was a mite more noble-and adventuresome too, if possible.'
'We met at an inn… in Daggerford, wasn't it?' Belkram peered suspiciously at the barren depths of his goblet.
Itharr shrugged. 'Wherever. Some house that had guests who worshiped the dead dragons.'
Sharantyr raised an eyebrow. 'The Cult of the Dragon?'
'Aye, and a witty old man with white hair and a wisp of a goatee slew them all, right there in the taproom, when they drew blades on him for being a Harper.'
'And then,' Belkram put in, 'he sat down amid all the bodies and calmly played and sang for us. Osryk, his name was.'
'A Master Harper who's been missing for a while now,' Itharr said rather sadly,
Belkram nodded. 'Aye, Osryk. Impressive, he was. We were both aflame with the idea of becoming Harpers, so he sent us to Berdusk.'
'Where Obslin Minstrelwish didn't much like the look of us,' Itharr added with a sigh of remembrance, waving a half-eaten drumstick, 'and decided we needed some harsh adventuring experience before we'd be worthy of the Way of the Harp.'
'It's the noise you made with his songhorn,' Belkram explained patiently. 'You shouldn't have claimed to be an expert horn player.'
'How was I to know it was his favorite instrument?' Itharr protested, sliding his goblet over to Sharantyr for a refill. 'After all, how many halfling horn players d'you know?'
'One is all you need,' Belkram told him dryly. 'And sometimes far more than you need.'
Sharantyr watched Itharr answer him with a rude gesture, and looked briefly up at the rafters. 'You two must be a riotous pair to travel with,' she said, shaking her head.
'Is that an invitation?' Belkram asked eagerly, leaning even farther across the table. Shar rolled her eyes and decided she needed a refill of her own.
'I don't think so,' she said firmly, only to start back as Itharr leaned across the table just as aggressively and asked, 'So how does a beautiful lady come to swing such a deadly blade, and join the Knights of Myth Drannor, hey?'
'Ahhh,' Shar began, taken aback.
Belkram grinned at her. 'Aye, it's our turn,' he told her happily, steering a goblet she'd never seen before into her hands. It was as large as a man's head, and it was brim full. Belkram winked at her over its lip.
After the moment it took her to sigh, she winked back.
The feast was long and loud, and went on through the night. Folk roared and cheered and sang old songs, and Sharantyr moved-accompanied by the two Harpers-to sit with Elminster. She was soon amazed by the rapidity
