"Such long faces," she said tenderly. "Do you like feasts so little?"
"No, it's not that," Shandril whispered back. "We fear to bring danger upon you all."
Jhessail shook her head as they walked on together. "Is that all? Do you not know that we here stand in danger at all times? Zhentil Keep attacks us every summer, at the least. The Cult of the Dragon and the dark elves beneath us are constant menaces… Myth Drannor's devils are a worry to us, as is the lawlessness in Daggerdale. Adventurers may move on, or even run from such problems-but we cannot move the dale. Once we accepted Shadowdale, we became targets, and remain so. Why else live so high as we have been tonight, as those below"-she gestured to the noise-"still do?"
She traded glances with the young couple. "I could be slain tomorrow… should I therefore be miserable today? Why not make the best of it?" She took Narm's free hand, and drew them both into the bower. "Come, let us talk of other things." Behind them, Thurbal came watchfully up the stairs.
Within, it was much quieter than below. Florin greeted them both with a firm armclasp, as one warrior to another. Storm smiled and kissed them both, saying, "It is seldom these days that I see two who have entered Myth Drannor leave again, alive."
Beyond her stood another lovely lady with long, silky hair who wore a gown of rich blue that left flanks and back bare, and had slit sleeves. It had been a long road from the taproom of The Rising Moon, and it took a moment before either Narm or Shandril recognized her.
"Sharantyr!" Shandril said when she did, and found herself in a warm embrace. At the same time, Narm was introduced to Mourngrym's wife, Lady Shaerl, by Illistyl-and then a sudden silence fell.
Atop a table that had been bare a moment before stood Elminster. Thurbal was coming in the door with sword half-drawn before he saw who it was and halted, shaking his head. But the sage had eyes only for Narm and Shandril.
"Elminster!" Jhessail greeted him. "Well met!"
"Aye… aye," Elminster told her, "I've seen ye all before. It is with Narm and Shandril I would speak tonight." He turned to them where they stood, astonished, and said, "I fear I lack courtly graces and the patience for glib flattery and suchlike. So I'll just ask ye, Narm and Shandril. Will ye agree to a testing of thy powers this next night?"
Shandril nodded, her throat suddenly dry. Narm asked quietly. "Will it be dangerous?"
Elminster looked at him. "Breathing is dangerous, lad. Walking is dangerous. Sleeping can even be dangerous. Will it be more dangerous than these? A little. More dangerous than entering Myth Drannor alone? Nay, not by a long road."
Narm flushed and shook his head. "It would be a terrible thing, old mage, to fight you, both armed only with our tongues," he said dryly, and a muted roar of delighted laughter rose around him.
Elminster chuckled. "So, do ye agree?"
Narm nodded. "Yes. Where and when?"
"Ye shall know that only at the last," Elminster told him. "It's safer." Around them, talk began again. Elminster leaned close to them both. "Do ye enjoy the company of these folk?" he asked softly. Both nodded. "Good, then," he said. "Most will be at the testing." He patted Narm's shoulder absently in farewell and turned back toward the table. "Oh," he said, halting and turning in midstep. "I do grow forgetful. Shandril, what know ye of thy parents?"
Shandril almost reeled in surprise and sudden sadness. "I… I-nothing," she said, and burst into tears. Narm and Elminster looked at each other in bewilderment for a breath, and then the sage clapped Narm on the shoulder awkwardly. "My forgiveness, if ye will. I had no idea she'd be so upset. Comfort her, will ye? Ye can do it best of all living in Faerun." And with this cryptic remark the sage turned, muttered, "That explains much," to himself, stepped onto the table by way of the chair beside it, and was gone.
A guard touched Torm on his shoulder. "Lord," he said, voice carefully neutral, "it is the hour."
Torm looked up from the wench he'd been kissing and sighed. "My thanks, Rold." A sudden thought made him grin impishly. "Take my place, will you?" He rolled off the bed and to his feet, rearranging his clothing and adroitly bending to avoid the girl's angry slap. Rold held out his sword and belt for him solemnly.
"Me, Lord? It would be more than my life is worth."
"Aye," Torm said as they hurried out together. "I think you have the right of it." He halted in midstride, tore one of the chains off over his head, and handed it to the mustachioed veteran. "Give her this, will you, as a gift from me? My apologies, also, and I'll try to see her as soon as I can. My duty to Shadowdale must come first, and all that."
"Of course, Lord," Rold said, and turned back to calm Torm's angry companion. He found her sitting amid the disarray of the bed morosely, anger past, and dropped the chain into her hand.
"It's no fault of yours," he said, "that the Lord Torm is so young and ill-reared that he cannot give you a night when he is not called to guard duty. He gives you this by way of clumsy apology, and sends me to pour soothing words in your ear. I doubt he even knows we are kin."
"I could tell that," Naera said, taking her gown as he extended it to her wordlessly. "Are you angry with him, uncle?"
Rold shook his head. "Nay, lass, not for long. I have seen something of the road he walks. Are you?" He buttoned and adjusted with as much skill as any mistress-of-robes, and patted her behind fondly when he was done.
"Not after a breath or two. Where did he have to go in such haste?" She looked at the chain dangling in her hands.
"He patrols, outside, with the Lord Rathan. Elminster expects some trouble tonight… someone trying to get at our guests, no doubt."
Naera turned to him in astonishment. "The young lad and lass? What danger could they possibly be to anyone? They are not royal, or suchlike."
Rold chuckled. "Young, says Naera, who dallies with a man younger than herself, a-Oh? Did you not know? Yes, the lord's seen a winter less than you have… Don't look like that, now; was he any greater the monster for that?" He grew serious. "The young lass, as you rightly call her, defeated the High Lord of Zhentil Keep himself, the fell mage Manshoon. Scared him into flight, she did, and him riding a dragon, too! She holds some great power."
Naera stared at him in amazement. "And Torm is needed to guard that?"
Rold nodded. "Why else do you think I've never spoken ill to you of pursuing him as you have? It is a rare one you chase, for all his rashness and rudeness and dishonest ways. I'd not want to stand against him in a fight." He paused at the door and looked back, saying, "You'd do well to remember that, little one, when you're sending slaps his way. Come down, now, and we'll see what's left at table. You must be hungry after all you've been up to this evening."
Naera made a face at him, but rose to follow. She wore the chain proudly around her neck as they swept down the stairs.
In his chambers, Torm had torn off his fine clothing and jewelry like so many rags and pebbles and hurled them onto the bed, leaped around finding his gray leathers and blades, and burst back out the door like a lunatic, almost colliding with Rathan. The cleric stood waiting, arms crossed patiently, leaning on the wall across from Torm's door.
"Remembered, did ye?" the cleric said jovially. "I warrant ye had help. It's your short stature, I tell ye… with that small head ye carry upon thy shoulders, there's no room for a brain that can think, once ye've filled it with mischief until it runs out thy ears and mouth-"
His words were cut short by a shrewd elbow in the belly as they hurried down the stairs. Puffing for breath, the cleric leaned on a pillar by the door, thought a prayer to Tymora, and then bustled out the door into the night.
"Remembered, did you?" a mocking voice asked out of the darkness beside him.
"Tymora forgive me," Rathan Thentraver said aloud as he swept a pike out of the startled hands of a doorguard and rammed its butt end hard into the shadows. He was rewarded by a grunt. Satisfied, he returned the pike with a nod of thanks, and said kindly, "If ye're quite finished playing the bobbing fool this night, perhaps we can get going. It might interest ye to know, by the way, that the guard ye gave the chain to is the uncle of the maid ye were dallying with. Adroit, lad. Adroit."