Not Amdramnar, then. What could have jolted her so? Did the Castle of Shadows have… shadow rats? Shar sighed and set down her glass. Stop doing this to yourself, lass, she told herself sternly, hunching forward in her seat and laying a hand on the hilt of her blade.
And then she felt it again, a gentle probing near her ankle. She kicked back sharply and got up, whirling to see what could have touched her, and bumped Amdramnar solidly, thigh to thigh.
Their Malaugrym host looked at her, startled, and Sharantyr had to catch her breath. Gods, but he's beautiful, she thought. And then a tiny voice within her replied: Of course. He can make himself look like whatever you most want. It's how they catch their prey.
"What's wrong, Lady Sharantyr?" Amdramnar asked, real concern in his stormy gray eyes.
They hadn't been that hue before. They'd been blazing red when he fought Olorn. Enough of this! Sharantyr shook herself mentally, wondering if she was falling under some sort of spell, and said firmly, "I'm sorry. I was startled. The seat… it started… to touch my leg."
"Wise seat," Belkram told his plate, and Itharr chuckled.
The Malaugrym shook his head at them. "Are they always like this?" he asked, mild amusement in his eyes.
Sharantyr nodded serenely. "Yes," she said. "I pay them no mind. They're my swordbrothers."
The Shadowmaster seemed to freeze for a moment, then said, "You'll have to explain that to me sometime, after we deal with your seat." He leaned forward and pushed on the fabric. "All of this is shadowstuff," he explained to them, "and it responds to magic. Some shadows flee strong magic, and others try to merge with it. This seat is of the latter sort. Your blade is powerful magic indeed. May I ask where you got it?"
He straightened, holding her eyes with his own, his deep and somehow hungry gaze locked with hers. So this was it, at last, Sharantyr thought, heart suddenly racing. Belkram and Itharr watched her, their faces expressionless.
And then she thought: He has spoken truth to us since we met. Lied with truth perhaps, but cleaved to truth. Very well. I shall do the same.
"This blade was given to me by the goddess Mystra," she said. "I am here under her protection, and she watches what we do even now."
The Shadowmaster stood as if frozen, and she wanted — suddenly wanted desperately-to see him show just the smallest amount of shock. Or surprise. Anything but that smooth, almost mocking confidence.
His mouth did not fall open, but he did lick his lips and hesitate before choosing his next words, almost whispering, "And your true mission here, Lady Sharantyr?"
"Is not something I can reveal to you," Sharantyr told him gently, "if you would live." She saw his eyes flicker and added almost pleadingly, "It is not something that should bring doom upon you, if you behave well toward us."
Amdramnar bowed then, and they saw his mocking confidence return. "Then I shall strive to be the perfect host, Lady," he murmured, bending over her hand.
Smoothly she took her hand from his grasp, pretending not to see the little barbs that were showing just above the skin of his fingers, and smiled at him. "I have no complaints at all about your behavior," she told him softly.
"Uh-oh!" Belkram told the ceiling loudly. "We know what those words mean, don't we, Itharr?"
Itharr nodded. "We get to sleep in the passage tonight," he said forlornly. "I hope it's softer than the last hallway was."
Sharantyr gave them both murderous looks and tried to keep all hints of the laughter welling up within her off her face. These two Harpers! What a pair! Catching sight of the Shadowmaster's quizzical expression, she lurched a dangerous step closer to open laughter.
And then she saw the first glint of what might have been fear in Amdramnar's eyes, and her heart surged in triumph. They'd just won the respect they might need to stay alive this night.
Of course, it was also the respect that might drive him to betray them on the morrow.
Somewhere in Faerun, Kythorn 19
"Warriors of the Nose Bone obey no coward's orders!" The hobgoblin askarr almost spat the words. "We run only to hunt down those who flee from us! We do not run-ever-to flee from battle!"
"Then warriors of the Nose Bone are fools," growled the other hobgoblin, "and are better off dead fools, leaving the fields of Thar to those more worthy."
"More worthy?" The askarr followed that last snarled word by swinging his rusty-spiked morningstar with all his strength.
It whistled past its target's shoulder with a rattle of chain and crashed to the stones underfoot as its wielder fell forward, the blood-drenched point of a broadsword protruding from his back.
"Aye," its wielder said, snatching a replacement blade from the fallen askarr's scabbard. "More worthy, I said. Are yuh deaf, too?" He laughed harshly, made a rude gesture with his new sword-and with the long, dirty knife in his other hand-at the ranks of the Nose Bone, and trotted away.
And with a ragged roar, the hobgoblins of the Nose Bone turned from the cowering warriors of the Thentian caravan they'd attacked, and charged after the running hobgoblin who'd slain their leader.
The battlegar of the Splintered Sword, he was, and if they had their way, he'd soon be shattered bones on a cookfire, with all his band on side platters!
In moments, the crest of the hill was a shrieking, hacking mass of dying hobgoblins. One of them, who'd come up that hill running, just kept on going, flinging his captured Nose Bone blade away… and then his knife… and then his helm.
He seemed to dwindle as he ran, and by the time he reached the nearest tree, a trail of greaves and bracers and armor plate marked his route, and he stood almost naked, his unlovely hide dark with dirt. Then he grinned at the sky, scratched at his ribs, and became Elminster again for a moment before he shrank into a crow once more and leapt into the sky. He circled over the hilltop, cawing loudly to give any surviving hobgoblins an ill omen, and watched the Thentians hastily hitching up their beasts again and trying to move off in frantic, almost comical haste. Another caravan saved, another scrap of order salvaged from all this chaos.
Ao was going to owe him a lot, Elminster decided, before this Time of Troubles was through.
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 19
"The time has come, Milhvar, for some explanations," Ahorga said coldly, and the row of candles in the Great Hall of the Throne flickered as if in agreement.
Milhvar smiled that slow smile of his and spread his hands. "The cloak of spells was a project ordered by Dhalgrave before his unfortunate passing. Obedience to the will of the Shadowmaster High is the cornerstone of order among those of the blood of Malaug, something recognized by all of the diligent participants in this work, not merely myself. Many of us labored long and hard to weave a web of enchantments that would shield users fully against the perceptions-and the launched magic-of any of Mystra's Chosen. Only with such a shield can we hope to bring doom to Elminster."
"Yes, yes," Ahorga growled, rising against the candlelit shadows like an angry giant. "We've heard this self-serving 'I am loyal' speech before! I'm-"
"Going to hear it again," Milhvar said, his voice suddenly steely. "Come, Shadowmaster Ahorga. That is the least you can do to honor the memory of your daughter Huerbara, who sacrificed her life testing this cloak. She fell in battle nobly, striving against the might of the defenders of Silverymoon. Let her sacrifice not be in vain."