and armies everywhere. The gods are wandering Faerun with little more up their sleeves than ye or I have. A lot of folk will get hurt, aye, but at least the gods'll be feeling just what ye went through.'
Galdus stared at him, slack jawed. Then a deep red color slowly rose in his face, and he leaned forward with the first enthusiasm El had seen in him. 'Is this true?' he asked excitedly, and then paled. 'I–I didn't mean…'
El smiled. 'Be easy, Galdus. Yes, it's true.'
And then the old, balding bartender threw back his head and bellowed with laughter. 'Yes!' he cried. 'Yes!' He whooped, jumped around behind the bar, and with sudden resolve snatched up a cracked tallglass and hurled it exultantly across the taproom. Watching it shatter into a thousand shards in the empty fireplace, he looked up with fierce exultation in his face and said,
'Where are these brigands? I'll face 'em, and fifty more besides! Bring 'em on!'
Elminster grinned. 'There's the fourth thing,' he added.
'What?' Galdus grinned back.
'Ye may have to lose that old outhouse,' El told him. 'And I hope ye have a fire in the kitchen ye can get to swiftly, with some logs on it that're well and truly alight, but have unburnt ends ye can carry 'em by.'
Galdus stared at him for a moment, and then laughed again. 'I have, and can. What's this all about?'
'Well,' El began, 'just be sure ye say With Elminster's regards' to whoever touches that coin, an-'
The door banged open suddenly, and the Old Mage was gone, as if he'd never been there. Galdus blinked at where he'd been and then at the drawn swords coming across the room at him, followed by the stench of old sweat and desperate men.
'Counting the coins, were ye? Well, I think that right kindly of ye, to save us the trouble of finding 'em. Go and get yer real savings, old man, with Baerlus here beside ye to save tricks, while we have a pull or two at a keg o' yer best!'
'Who-? What're y-' Galdus began, struggling to keep a smile from his face. Then he saw the man's hands raking the coins across the bar, and knew the enspelled one might bounce and roll on the floor in a moment, so he stammered, 'With Elminster's regards!'
'You fools,' he added a breath later, watching the coin erupt into wildly coiling black tentacles. The five brigands shouted in alarm, and the one who must be Baerlus snarled and drove his blade into Galdus, under the old man's ribs, jerking his steel savagely up and sideways.
Galdus stared down in wonder as the weapon slid through him as though he were a ghost. He didn't feel a thing! The outlaw stared up at him, face paling, and then hacked wildly at him, the blade whipping back and forth like a flail on the threshing floor.
The blade seemed not able to touch him, though he felt the man's knuckles graze his shoulder on one wild swing. Baerlus stared at him, dumbfounded. Galdus snatched a wooden salad bowl from its wall peg and brought it down smartly on the man's sword hand.
Baerlus howled and stepped back, dropping his blade with a clatter, so Galdus leaned in and walloped him across the side of the head with the edge of the bowl. The outlaw staggered and stepped back, right into his four fellows.
They were thrashing and grunting in fear, staggering around his taproom helplessly in a confused tangle of arms and legs. The coin had become a black ball with many long tentacles that stuck to flesh as a sucking eel sticks to fish. The tentacles were wriggling and probing constantly but didn't stick to clothing, weapons, or wood. The four outlaws-no, five now, with Baerlus-were firmly bound together, unable to straighten up or even turn to face each other as the tentacles pulled them in closer together… and closer still…
Galdus watched the brigands struggle, slipping and sliding on the coins and swords that lay dropped and forgotten all over his recently cleaned floor. They crashed aside chairs and even a table, yelling in muffled fury and mounting fear, and rolled about, their struggles taking them vaguely away from the bar.
The front door groaned open again, and Galdus looked up warily, wondering if he could reach any of the swords on the floor. The man who stepped inside, however, was Elminster.
'My apologies, Galdus,' he said. 'I'd something else to attend to and no time to do it in. But 'tis done now.'
'Can I-may I ask what it was?'
'I had to talk a few frightened archpriests in Baldur's Gate out of starting a religious war-on each other.'
'Why bother?' Galdus asked, frowning. Then his frown deepened. 'Did it work?'
'No, of course not, so I had to scare them into a truce by showing them what I'd do if they didn't make peace.'
'You flattened both temples,' Galdus said hopefully.
Elminster grinned. 'I see ye know the basics. I did indeed. Rebuilding and trying to keep folk from looting will keep both sides busy for a time.' He stepped carefully around the tangled knot of rolling, kicking brigands and continued. 'And to answer thy other question, I bothered because I didn't want to see a lot of homes burned and innocent folk slain in the Gate over some disagreement that had nothing to do with them.' He sighed. 'This is going on all over Toril, right now. First thing this morn, I had to do the same thing to head off rival factions of illithids, in a city in the heart of Raurin.'
Galdus stared at him. 'Mind flayers? You stopped mind flayers from killing each other? Why?'
'They're intelligent folk too, just as ye, I, and these dolts here are. And besides, they're sitting on enough battle spells there to destroy half the eastern Realms! I didn't want any tentacle-heads to remember that and start tearing open vaults and using 'em. A few hundred years more, and most of the scrolls will have crumbled away to nothing… and it'll take them half that time to dig out all the stonework I piled up on top of those vaults!'
Galdus grinned. 'Make sure you check back with me in a few hundred years, then, to let me know Faerun is safe to live in at last. In the meantime'-he gestured down at the tightening mass of bodies on the floor-'what do we do with these?'
'Roll them into thy outhouse and burn it,' Elminster said calmly.
10
Daggerdale, Kythorn 18
The Mountains of Tethyamar rose like a distant wall ahead on their left as the three rangers in worn and patched leathers rode warily into another soft-shadowed evening. They were headed into the heart of lawless Daggerdale, Randal Morn had warned them; reaches where steads lay abandoned to the forest, orcs and hobgoblins roamed the land in raiding bands and clashed whenever they met, and monsters lurked in the ruins and woody tangles for the unwary. For all those dire warnings, they'd ridden all day and seen nothing more deadly than birds. Of course, Itharr reflected, they had no idea just what might have seen them.
'Oh, but the land is beautiful,' he sang softly as they forded their third tinkling stream.
'And the living carefree,' Belkram sang the next line, heavy irony in his tone.
Sharantyr chuckled and took up the song. 'So come, ye fairest of dark-eyed maidens…'
'And come dwell in the greenwood with me!' Itharr and Belkram sang together. Ahead of them, a gore-crow took wing heavily from a dead branch and flapped away with a derisive caw.
'What are you, a bard?' Itharr called after it. The bird circled, winked at him once with a very steady black eye, and flew away.
'The Simbul?' Belkram breathed the question as they all stared after it.
'Without a doubt,' Sylune's voice came to them from the stone in his breast pocket. 'She probably appreciates your singing about as much as I do.'
'A little less sarcasm there,' Belkram told her. The stone thrummed against his chest in reply. The handsome ranger stood up in his stirrups to look all around and sighed. 'I suppose we'd better start looking for somewhere we can defend-and protect the horses, too-and camp for the night.'
'Agreed,' Sharantyr said, drawing up beside him on her patient steed. 'But after we're out of the saddle, I'd
