"Morning," Korvan replied sourly. He had come for meat, not a lot of talk. Since that little brat Shandril had run off, he'd had to get his meat earlier, at a time of the day when he'd rather be abed yawning and dozing.
"Buying lamb? I've thirty good tails in the pen there, just down from Battledale." The sheepherder jerked his head at the muddy yards behind him.
"Lamb? Well, I'll look… if I can find two good hand-counts among them, I might do business with you," Korvan said grudgingly. The herder stared at him.
"Two hand-counts? Have you a large family?"
"No, no," Korvan said sourly as they went in. "I buy for the inn, The Rising Moon, down the road."
"Do you? Why, there's a tale I have for you, then!" the herder said, with sudden interest. "It's about that young girl who worked at the inn and left."
"Oh?" Korvan said, turning his head sharply in sudden interest. "Shandril, her name was."
"Oh… pretty, that," the herder replied, nodding. "I saw her in the mountains only a few nights back. I was chasing two lost sheep."
"The Thunder Peaks?" Korvan asked, nodding at the wall where, beyond, they knew the gray and purple mountains could be seen above the trees.
"Aye, near the Sember. I came upon a great crowd of folk, with weapons and all. They were all standing about, asking this girl of yours if she was all right, after she'd unleashed 'spellfire,' they called it…"
"Spellfire?" Korvan said, astonished.
"Aye. I hid-there were gold coins all over the place, and they had swords out. I wasn't sure that a guest who came uninvited would be left alive to walk away again, if you take my meaning-"
Korvan nodded. "Aye… but who were these people?"
"Shadowdale folk, they were. That old sage, and the ranger who rides about the Dales with their messages-Falconhand, is it? — and the elf-warrior who lives there, and a priest, I think. They were all excited over the girl… seems she burned up a dragon or suchlike with this spellfire. There was something about someone called Shadowsil, too. They walked about so that I couldn't rightly hear it. Never found the sheep, but I got their price and better in gold coins by keeping hid and coming out after they'd gone."
"She went off again, then?" Korvan asked. The herder nodded.
"North, down into the forest. Toward Mistledale, I suppose… and Shadowdale, beyond."
Korvan sighed. "Too far to follow," he said with feigned sorrow. "Anyway, if she wanted to come back, no doubt she'd have headed home by now." He shook his head. "Well, my thanks for your story," he said, looking past the butcher to the yard door. "Now, you had some sheep I'd do well to buy? The faster I buy from you, the faster I can be smoking and hanging."
Shandril must die, Malark of the cult decided. Not yet, but after these altruistic fools here had trained her to full powers. Somehow she had destroyed Rauglothgor and the dracolich's lair, slain or escaped The Shadowsil, and, if the talk hereabouts could be believed, had also somehow escaped-and driven away-Manshoon of Zhentil Keep. She had been lucky. It would be simply impossible for a slip of a girl to defeat the gathered mages of the Cult of the Dragon.
Malark cursed as the wagon crashed and rocked through a particularly deep pothole. Arkuel, in the leathers of a hired guard, turned and grinned apologetically through the open front door of the wagon. Malark snarled wordlessly and rubbed his aching shoulder. He collected his wits and considered how to separate this Shandril from her protectors in the tower of Ashaba. The Twisted Tower, they called it. Obviously, Malark would have to get into the ranks of the tower guards. Perhaps it was too soon.
There was a loyal cult agent already in the guard-Culthar, his name was. He could strike at Shandril later, when the time was exactly right. To try and take her now would be too risky. Malark did not trust his underlings to saddle a horse unsupervised, let alone do what would be necessary to make such a capture and escape, given the art and the swords that would come against them.
On the other hand, the longer the cult waited, the more likely it was that someone else would try to take the source of spellfire for themselves-the Zhentarim, certainly, and perhaps the priesthood of Bane.
Perhaps that would be for the best, though. With all the confusion that would ensue if one of those foes did make an attempt, Malark could storm in then and prevail, for the greater glory of the followers.
The archmage was jolted roughly out of that pleasant daydream as one wheel of the coach struck a pothole, bounced and sank, and then another wheel pitched sharply down into an even larger pothole. The wagon came back upright just as its rear wheels skidded sideways alarmingly on loose stones. The gods alone knew how fat little merchants managed this, day in and day out-and this was judged one of the better roads in the North! Malark questioned the wisdom of his own plan for the forty-third time, as the wagon slowed for the guardpost that would let him, a traveling merchant who dealt in love philtres, medicinal remedies, and special substances for use by distinguished practitioners of the art, into Shadowdale.
The bright light of morning made the bare, fissured rock of the Old Skull briefly a warm and pleasant place, despite the whispering wind that all too often made it the coldest, bleakest guardpost in Shadowdale. The three who stood there looked down over the green meadows to the south, and the grim and defiant Twisted Tower to their right.
"The gods help us if the Red Wizards of Thay hear of Shandril before she and Narm are both grown wise in the ways of battle and art," Storm said. "Without my sister, the defense of this little dale falls upon a few knights, and upon Elminster. And for all his art, he is but one old man."
"Things will get bad enough with just the Zhentarim, if Manshoon raises them against us," Sharantyr replied. "You miss Sylune very much. She must have been special indeed. They still speak of her often, and wistfully, in the inn below."
Florin smiled. "She was special-and she fell while defending the dale against a wyrm of the cult, a danger we may soon face again, with Shandril here. Even now, the cult must be searching for her-and with the testing, it will not take them long to learn that she is here."
Storm smiled, almost ruefully. "Elminster plays a deeper game than we do. He did that in front of everyone quite deliberately… I trust him completely, and yet I confess his doings often make me uncomfortable. We will all have to deal with the consequences."
"You think such a public display was unwise," Florin said with a smile. "I, too-and yet I thought then, and still feel, that Elminster was like an actor in the streets of Suzail. He plays to a larger audience than those standing around him, hoping to attract the eyes of those who pass, perhaps a noble or even a ruler. Our sage is no fool, and not feeble in wits from age, unless there is some feebleness that affects the judgment but leaves one able to perfectly work art and develop new magics."
"There is such a thing," Sharantyr teased. "But it strikes the young, too-it makes us adventurers when we could stay safe at home in fields or forests, doing dull, honest work and acquiring respect as we grow gray and bent."
"Well said," Storm noted. "But I think Elminster has some purpose, though not clear to us yet, in displaying Shandril's power so dramatically."
"Is this 'us' we three here?" Sharantyr asked, "or the Harpers? Answer me not, if you'd rather not speak of them."
Storm shook her head. "I have not spoken formally with others of the fellowship, but I can tell you that most who saw the testing were of like mind. It is the act of a rash youngster."
Florin nodded, turning his gaze thoughtfully to the top of Elminster's small, rough fieldstone tower, just visible over the foothills of the tor below them. "Shandril is a danger to him, more than any other in the dale, for she brings spells to dust. If ever she moves against Elminster, or is duped into foiling him, the old mage can be destroyed-and our defense against Zhentil Keep will be gone. Those who would work such a deed are only too many."