When she saw Haerarn's eyes focus on her again, she said briskly, "Well done, armsman. Now get up and unbar the door, will you? A lot of folk will be rushing in here shortly. Ring for service, too; Silder's hurt. Oh, and you'd better put away that leapknights board before your swordlord sees it, hadn't you?"
Haerarn hadn't managed to carry out more than one of these instructions before a dozen armed men boiled into the wardrobe, weapons drawn.
"Thank you, gentle sirs," Mistress Iraeyna said serenely, "but it's all over now. You'd best check along the back passage, though, in case there are more lurking about."
"The day that Swords of the Guard take orders from ladies' dressers," the oldest and burliest swordlord told her, his moustaches bristling, "is-"
"Belt up and stow it, sirrah," she told him sweetly, causing some of the men who were goggling at the dead tentacled thing under her to look up and grin. "I give you orders by the High Lady's decree."
"Oh, aye, and how did you manage that, with her at the other end o' the palace from here?"
With a sigh, Mistress Iraeyna began to unlace her bodice again.
12
Daggerdale, Kythorn 18
Sharantyr held up the blade admiringly. Its blue outshone the moonlight and turned the center of the meadow into a ring of eerie beauty. Sylune flew out of the tree-gloom toward her, and Shar smiled in welcome and said, "Look what the Lady Mystra gave me!"
Sylune danced around her in the air-the first time Sharantyr had ever seen her do so, rather than drifting or walking along upright-and then smiled and said, "I'm proud of you, Shar. Yet perhaps it'd better be sheathed instead of waved about, here in the wilds by night. What say you?"
Sharantyr sighed and shook her head. "Foolish Shar. Back down to the everyday with a crash."
Sylune chuckled. "Be not so downfallen, Shar. Have I called you 'child' yet?"
"No."
"Nor will I again," the Witch of Shadowdale told her, "now that you've faced a goddess and held your bladder."
Shar grinned and shook her head but slid her new blade obediently into the scabbard at her side. Though it seemed far too large to fit there, it went in. Sylune shook her head.
"No. Better back in its own sheath. Don't forget your own blade, either. It's served you well for years, and will again."
Shar looked back at the blade she'd driven into the turf, standing forgotten in the moonlight, and blushed. "How could I-?"
"Relax, lass," Sylune told her gently. "You've faced divinity and are apt to be mazed in the wits for a while yet. Recover your blade and draw the new one again. There's something I want you to see."
Shar did as she was bid, and as she held the blue blade up again, she became aware of a flickering white ring in the trees that she was sure hadn't been there before. She pointed at it with the blade, which immediately gave off a satisfied-sounding little hum. "Is that what you wanted me to see?"
"It is," Sylune said. "Use the blade to work it. Don't fear, for it will not take you far."
Wondering, Shar approached the ring. It flickered, and the blue radiance of her blade pulsed as if in reply. As she stepped into the ring, white motes of light circled her, making her skin tingle. The blade pulsed again, as if asking her if she wanted to call on it.
She willed the gate to take her wherever it went, and the sword flared a bright blue before her eyes.
When the light faded, Shar looked hastily around. It was warmer-much warmer-but she seemed to be standing under the same moon, at night in an open ruin. The manor!
She looked down and found herself standing in the midst of the campfire, which had been banked over with turf for the night. She sprang back hastily, boots scraping on the stone, and saw Sylune floating into view around a wall.
"Some folk," Shar said sternly, waving her blade, "have a very strange thing where / carry a sense of humor."
Sylune's light laughter tinkled on a night breeze, and a sleepy male voice said, "All day you have to gossip, and you must do it when honest men are trying to sleep?"
"Belkram," Shar told him smugly, "there are no honest men here, only you and-"
"What's that?" Belkram cried, pointing at her blade. "You didn't have that when I went to sleep!"
"Fast, isn't he?" Sylune observed lightly.
"Not half so fast as he's going to have to be, if I find he's awakened me for no good reason," a deeper, more sour voice said from another corner of the roofless room.
"Well met, Itharr!" Shar said gaily, waving her blade at him.
"Where'd she get that?" Itharr asked Belkram irritably. The Harpers, both propped up on their elbows in the moonlight, exchanged glances and shrugs.
"I haven't a scrap of an answer to that," Belkram said testily. "Tomb-robbing, probably. That's usually how such baubles turn up. But she's been waving it around like a young maid displaying a doll at her birthday feast since I woke up!"
"And still is," Itharr said, tossing his blanket aside. "Where'd you get it, Shar?"
"In a tomb," Shar said lightly, tossing it from hand to hand. "Like it?"
"Here," he replied, coming toward her, "let's have a look at it!"
She sprang back, fetching up against a stone wall suddenly enough to make one of the horses snort in its sleep, and told him, "Looking is generally performed with the eyes, Itharr. Only thieves need to 'look' at things with their hands!"
Belkram chuckled. "Right enough, Shar. Tell the man."
Itharr halted, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Seriously, Shar… where've you been?"
"In the Elven Court," she told him quietly, meeting his incredulous gaze with level eyes, "in a tomb somewhere dose to Myth Drannor."
"And how did you find this tomb?" Belkram asked softly, disbelief heavy in his tone. Sharantyr saw his gaze dart to her empty blanket, to be sure he wasn't facing some apparition-or shapeshifter.
"Mystra took me there," Sharantyr told him, wonder in her eyes, "and gave the sword to me. A weapon against the Malaugrym, she called it, and charged me to use it against them. Are you with me?"
"Shar," Itharr said gently, "we've been with you since we met in a ruined castle by the desert, and watched a crazy old mage kissing a rotten old archlich. We're still with you." He tilted his head to regard her coolly. "But are you sure your wits are steady?"
Sharantyr held up the blade. In response to her rising exultation, it blazed bright blue fire around her. "You think I'm imagining this?"
"Well," Belkram told the nearest wall brightly, "it's certainly nice to share the same delusions as one's closest friends…"
Sylune chuckled. "She's telling the truth, Harpers, and she's not crazed. Excited, yes, but meeting Mystra does that to one… as you should both remember."
"I believe," Belkram said, getting up and folding his blanket.
"We believe," Itharr corrected, going back to retrieve his own bedding. "So what now? You want us to follow that bright blade of yours through a gate into the castle of the Malaugrym and start dicing them up for morn-ingfeast?"
"Yes," Shar said sweetly. Belkram rolled his eyes and groaned loudly, waking the horses.
"Look… we're a mite leery of swords that appear in the night-even with you holding them-and strange tales that go with them, so tell us plainly what you intend."
Itharr grunted. "And then we'll tell you plainly 'no.' Or at least, not until morning."
Sharantyr and Sylune laughed together, making the horses snort and stamp. "Well said," Belkram told Itharr,
"Thank you," the other Harper said, sketching a courtly bow.
Shar drew in a deep breath and then let it out slowly, "My apologies, friends," she said softly, "for rousing you. Mystra did tell me to wait until morning. There's a gate to the Castle of Shadows down by the bridge, where you felt so uneasy, Itharr. When it's drawn, this sword shows me any magical gates nearby, and works them if I reach them and will it to. Mystra told me, 'Take your companions and go and slay Malaugrym for me.' So here I am."