It was late. Smoke hung thick in the air; wine had been spilled here, there, and everywhere else; and arms that had swung swords, axes, and clubs all day were stiffening to painful, iron-hard immobility.
All around the great hall of the High Castle, happy but utterly exhausted folk slumped in chairs or simply sprawled on the floor and gave themselves up to snoring slumber. Sharantyr stifled a yawn and glanced at the Old Mage.
Elminster winked at her and raised a drinking jack of shadowdark ale whose owner was too fast asleep to miss it. It was full.
'Had enough, Old Mage?' she asked, challenging him.
'There's no such thing as enough, lass,' Elminster told her severely. 'After ye've seen a few hundred winters, ye'll know that. There's no such thing as too much, either. Only too little time to enjoy it in.' He winked again and added with apparent innocence, 'That's true for drinks, too.'
Sharantyr sighed. ' 'Lass' again, is it?' she protested, then added in quieter tones, 'Do you still plan to leave by the gate tonight?'
Elminster nodded. 'I'd located the gate just about the time every daleman still able to stagger along with a blade hastened up to watch. They're still watching us now-no, lass, don't look around at them; they'll get excited. We'd best to bed, or we'll never be free of all these interested eyes.'
'Bed?' Sharantyr crooked a forbidding eyebrow at him.
Elminster rolled his eyes. 'Let them show you somewhere to sleep. I'll go out for a pipe, and…'
Sharantyr nodded, yawned theatrically, and got unsteadily to her feet.
Down the table, an old dalesman's face dipped forward gently onto the table. Over the now-bowed head, Gedaern, whose face had been wearing a fierce smile all evening, saw her.
He rose a little unsteadily. 'All well, Lady Knight?'
'Aye, goodman Gedaern,' Sharantyr told him truthfully, 'but I am most weary after all that blade work. If there's any place in this castle I can sleep…?'
'But of course!' Irreph Mulmar said heartily from behind Gedaern. He extended a massive hand to her. 'I've never seen such fighting as yours, today. We and the dale owe you much. The best bedchamber in the High Castle would be honored by your presence. Let me take you to it, if-?' He turned his head.
'It is ready, Sir,' Ireavyn assured him quickly, beaming. At her shoulder, Ulraea nodded happily. Shar could ask for the moon, this night, and they'd climb atop each other on the battlements to reach it down for her.
'No, no,' Sharantyr said, 'please. Nothing grand. Just somewhere quiet and out of the way, with a good bed.' She glanced back at Elminster, who had arisen and was unconcernedly filling his pipe. 'Ah-with room enough for two, or with two beds.'
Elminster turned one twinkling eye to meet hers as he tamped and fumbled, but said nothing.
'I know such a room,' Ulraea said. 'Up high, in Guards' Tower. A guest chamber. I can take you there.'
'Please,' Sharantyr said. 'Irreph… my thanks. Stay. You belong here, in this hall, with your people around you. Stay, please. Enjoy the castle being yours again. I don't want to take you away from this.'
At Irreph's shoulder, his daughter Ylyndaera smiled and nodded at the lady ranger from within her father's encircling arm.
Irreph looked down at his daughter and then at Sharantyr, and said roughly, 'My thanks, Lady Sharantyr. You see as keenly as your blade cuts. Until the morrow, then.'
'Until next,' Sharantyr answered with a smile. Behind her, Elminster bowed silently.
'Goodnight, Lady Sharantyr,' Ylyndaera said, eyes shining, and Gedaern echoed her words.
Farther down the table, Itharr and Belkram had their arms around two dark-eyed dale maids. They waved, and Belkram called, 'Keep an eye on him, Lady, will you?'
'This night more than ever,' Itharr added.
'Oh, I will,' Sharantyr replied in a voice that brought guffaws from all around, and she went out, Ulraea at her side.
Elminster came back from the fire puffing his pipe to life, gave the two Harpers a severe look, and followed.
Gedaern looked after him and said thoughtfully, 'Now there goes a man that kings and wizards and dragons an' all have found hard to kill, for more years than I and my old one and grandsire together have seen.'
Irreph watched the Old Mage walk out of sight and replied, 'They don't stop trying, though.'
It was a clear night. Above the dark, reaching shoulders of the peaks, stars glittered like tireless torches.
Elminster looked up at them as he had done on countless nights, from battlements on as many worlds as he had fingers, down too many years to remember, and puffed at his pipe. He'd told the earnest young dalemen on guard that he'd just have a pipe before he retired, and to go and get drunk while there was something left. They'd laughed kindly but sensed he wanted silence and solitude, thank Mystra, and had left him.
As the feast went on below, he'd heard them drift away, one by one, from watching a closed door. He only hoped Sharantyr wouldn't really fall asleep. After all she'd done today, waking her would be as cruel as it would be difficult.
Elminster blew silvery-green winking sparks around himself in a friendly, dancing cloud and sighed. He'd seen so many beautiful, capable, bright women die, down the long years. He hoped Sharantyr would not perish soon, and that he'd not be the cause of her death when it came.
He turned back to the doorway that let him watch over the guest chamber's closed door. He was regarding it fondly-gods, but this lass, one of the quieter and younger Knights, apt to be overlooked in all the bustle of their deeds back in Shadowdale, was a sparkling blade, to be sure! — when it opened softly and a cautious face peered out.
A long puff later, Sharantyr stole barefoot out of the dark room, carrying a bundle in front of her from which her scabbarded sword protruded. Starlight shone briefly on shapely bare legs, and the lady ranger brushed damp hair back over her shoulders, then frowned as she deftly caught a boot on its way toward the flagstones underfoot.
'Disrobed again, are we?' Elminster's tone was amused as he took the pipe from his mouth. 'I thought so. Young lasses have such predictable notions of adventure.'
'Hush, Old Mage,' Sharantyr hissed severely, holding her breeches aloft with one hand while the other struggled with a large number of extremely heavy, awkward, and active items that seemed to be continually trying to slip out of her grasp. 'You may not mind if you stink like a pig in a wallow, but being sticky and filthy bothers me. I availed myself of Ulraea's kindness and had a very nice hot bath, if the word 'bath' means anything to a certain old, hard-headed, and rather strong-smelling wizard. I think the High Dale owes me that much, at least. Here-hold my sword, will you?'
Elminster bowed, took the scabbarded blade in skillful silence, reached in to help hold her shirt up at the throat while she struggled with the lacings, turned his back with courteous haste, and then turned around again to hold Sharantyr's gloves while she did up her belt.
Then he reached up and took hold of the pipe that had been patiently floating in the air waiting for him all this time, and puffed on it again.
Sharantyr stared at it, and at him, and sighed and smiled. In answer to his curious look she said, 'Never mind, El. The pipe-it's a close personal friend and a thousand years older than I am, right?'
Elminster took the pipe out of his mouth and winked at it.
The pipe opened a rather world-weary eye and winked solemnly back at him before swiveling to do the same to Sharantyr.
Elminster was chuckling as he tapped the pipe-which instantly went out, leaving no smoke or odor behind- and put it in a hidden pocket inside his robes. The lady ranger never was sure if the pipe was alive or if she'd just been the victim of one of his pranksome little illusions.
Xanther sneered silently at the two dale youths who stood guard. They were barely old enough to hold their spears properly and did not see him where he stood in the dimness of the passage. The Zhentarim slipped behind the concealment of a shadow cast by a bulge in the rough stone wall, and did something.
