running steps in pursuit, saw how he held his sword and that he was running toward Elminster, and snatched a dagger from her hip.
Balrik saw the blade spin to catch Albeir's ear in a gout of blood. He saw Albeir stagger, catch himself, and bear down on the wizard. The brigand grabbed the old man by the throat, swinging him around with brutal haste to serve as a shield.
Sharantyr halted and cast a look back at Balrik. He came on toward her, beginning to grin. Then he saw Albeir's grim face suddenly twist in pain. The old warrior's eyes went wide and he took a half step toward something unseen. Still staring, he crashed to the ground. Elminster looked down with evident sadness at the bloody dagger he held.
Balrik knew cold fear. The lady in leathers was turning back to him, blade low and deadly. It had seemed so easy, four on one, and an old man, too. Tymora spits on us from time to time, that minstrel had said back in Scardale. And look, 'twas the cold truth.
Then that blade came leaping at him again, and Balrik had no time for thought. Steel rang on steel inches from his nose as he parried desperately in the last instant before death would have found him. Then he had to do it again, gasping for air. Gods, this woman was not human! Where in the name of Tempus had she learned to wield a bla-there! Balrik saw an opening. His thrust, delivered with all he could put behind it, ran down her arm and laid open the leathers in a smooth, sliding strike. Her sword arm.
The silvery blade flew free, as he'd known it would, but she did not scream or fall back. She stepped into him, hard, and smiled into his face. 'Good fight, carrion,' she said calmly, eyes not a hand length from his own, and Balrik felt a sudden cold wetness in his gut.
She shoved him away and ducked aside from his last desperate slash. Balrik's fingers found the dagger-gods, hilt deep! — and his lips found time for what he had to say before blood welled up to choke him. 'I am… a dead man. Lady, I am Balrik Daershun. Who are you?'
'I am Sharantyr of the Knights of Myth Drannor,' she answered as the man fell heavily to his knees. His eyes had gone dark before her words were all out, and she never knew if he'd heard them. The brigand toppled from his knees, falling on his side with a rattling groan, and lay silent.
Sharantyr looked down at the flapping tatters of her forearm leathers, watched the bright blood dripping from her elbow, and shook her head. She must be getting old.
Elminster stood up slowly and brushed leaves from the chest of his robes with hands that shook only a little. Then he looked at the lady in leathers, the beginning of a smile at the corners of his lips. In his hand was his purse, plucked up from where it had fallen when the brigands had cut it away. From it he'd taken a vial of clear liquid that he held out to her, nodding at her arm.
'I wondered, for a time, if life was still worth the living. It is, and I thank you for saving mine to run awhile longer.' Elminster looked around at the trees and added quietly, 'How much longer, I wonder?' He shrugged.
'Old Mage,' Sharantyr asked, as he knew she would, 'why did you not use your magic? I've seen you lay low Zhent soldiers by the armful. Zhentarim who hurled spells against you, even! What befell?'
Elminster looked away for a long moment. Then his eyes met hers calmly and he said levelly, 'My magic is lost to me. All of it-gone.'
Silence hung between them for a moment as they stood in the leaves looking at each other. Without taking her eyes off his, Sharantyr uncorked and drained the vial. Then she asked, 'If you will tell me, what will you do now?'
Elminster looked far off for a moment. Then he sighed and said softly, 'I've a lot of neglected reading to be about. Perhaps in the palace library in Silverymoon, and in the Heralds' Holdfast, to start with. And then… I used to harp, once.'
'Long ago?' Sharantyr asked lightly, using the toe of her boot to roll over the body of one she'd slain and bending smoothly to salvage a dagger.
'Aye, under the skilled teaching of a fair lady,' the Old Mage replied.
'Fairer than me?' Sharantyr teased, holding out the dagger to him.
It hung in the air between them for a long, silent breath as their eyes met. Elminster's hand slowly reached out. The Old Mage took the dagger as gingerly as one handles a bloody corpse when dressed in finery, and said slowly, 'My memory says yes, but what are mind images beside living beauty? She's long dust, now.'
Sharantyr took his elbow and led him firmly to where the brigands had tethered their horses. 'Long ago? How long ago was this?'
'In Myth Drannor before it fell,' Elminster replied in a voice that was almost a whisper, his eyes on something far away and long ago.
He felt Sharantyr's arms move gently around him, the warmth of her leather-clad body against his shoulders. 'Oh, Old Mage,' she said tenderly into his neck, 'I wish you well. You deserve fairer than this.'
'I'll be all right,' Elminster said firmly. 'Stop soaking my robes with tears, look ye! They cost me three silver pieces, they did, in-' He fell silent and then added, 'Well, in a place gone now.'
Then he snorted. 'Which is where we'll be, if we stand about sobbing until winter finds us here.' He grinned suddenly. 'Aye, lass, I'll be all right.'
There came a knock on the door-not the first time that had happened, nor yet the last. Lhaeo opened it without delay, his eyes anxious.
Storm stood on the doorstep with two men he'd not seen before, so Lhaeo spoke to her in simpering tones. 'Well met, Lady Storm. How does this fair morn find thee?'
'Restless to speak with the Lord Elminster,' Storm replied crisply, with a wink. 'Is he within?'
Lhaeo's eyes warned her. 'Nay, Lady,' he said softly. 'He is gone, alone, this dawn, walking and troubled. You know why. Look to the trees. I have no doubt you'll find him therein.'
With a look, Storm collected the two silent men at her side and bowed. 'Our thanks, Lhaeo. We go. Those who harp will look out for the Old Mage.'
Lhaeo bowed in his turn and said, 'My thanks for that, and farewell. I hope to see you all again, in happier meetings.'
He went in and the door closed. Itharr and Belkram looked at Storm, than at each other, and spoke at once.
'Is that Elminster's scribe?'
'What now, Lady?'
Storm looked at them both. 'Be not hasty in judgment of Elminster's true friend,' she said calmly. 'He is not as he appears, for good reasons, and he is very worried for the safety of Elminster. The task I set you both now, friends, is the guarding of the Old Mage wherever you find him. Go now and seek him out.'
Itharr looked at her. 'You will not be with us, Lady?'
A shadow passed across Storm's face for just a moment. She looked at them both, and suddenly it seemed as if she were about to cry. Then she shrugged. Her hand dropped to the hilt of her blade and clenched about it like a thing of iron.
'I cannot. I want to, very much, but this thing I must not do. Itharr, Belkram, please believe me. There is a good reason that I cannot be with you in this.'
'The burden of Mystra?' Belkram asked, very quietly. The taller of the two Harpers, he had frozen into treelike immobility but for the flashing of his keen eyes.
Storm looked at him in silence, her face going slowly white.
'I read a lot,' Belkram added, almost defiantly. 'Always old books, the sort others have forgotten. You learn more that way.'
Storm nodded very slowly. 'Be very, very careful,' she said to him in a voice that trembled a little, 'Belkram of Everlund. The things you know could kill you very quickly if the wrong folk hear.'
'Such as myself?' Itharr asked half in jest. The shorter, burly Harper spread his hands in a wry 'gods, why me?' gesture.
Storm looked from one man to the other and then threw strong arms around them both and swept them into an embrace. Three chins touched. She bestowed two swift kisses, looked deep into both sets of eyes so close to hers-at least one owner blushed-and said briskly, 'Go now. Take much care, and come back alive to tell me what has befallen. Hurry! For all his years, Elminster walks fast and can find trouble as well as men half his age. Or less,'
