"Think you so?" Kelan asked him. "It's a long run through the forest, in full armor, to Harpers' Hill!" Rold was still chuckling as the bell rang and they hastened out to their posts. Raeth, mouth full of bacon, wasn't.
"This is a fool's plan," Rathan grunted. "One only Elminster could have come up with." The chosen of Tymora surveyed the tents sourly. "Lady, aid me," he prayed. "I am surely going to need all thy help."
"Cheerful, aren't you?" Torm answered him. "I'm enjoying this."
"Ye have weird enthusiasms," Rathan grunted. "Ye can't even enjoy thy lady when she must wear the form of Shandril every instant."
Torm grinned. "Oh? That's going to hamper me? How so?" He raised dark eyebrows. "Besides, I look like Narm for the the present."
"Shameless philanderer," Rathan growled. He looked at the trees all about them. "I wonder when the first attack will come?"
"While you're standing there," Torm replied, "if you keep yapping sourly about Elminster's wisdom and the danger you have so foolishly plunged headlong into. Go in, then, and pray to the Lady for healing art. No doubt we'll need it soon enough."
"Aye, there ye speak truth, I doubt not," Rathan replied darkly. "Is there no wine about?" He peered into the tents. Illistyl grinned back out of the depths of one, looking as if she were Shandril. She moved with the smooth innocence of Shandril, abandoning her own defiant strut.
"No," Torm answered the cleric brightly. "We seem to have left it behind at the tower. A tragedy, I agree."
"Indeed… well, one of the guards will just have to go back for it," Rathan concluded. "I can feel my thirst growing already," he added, squinting at the sun.
"Here, then." Torm passed him a flask. Rathan unstoppered it and sniffed suspiciously.
"What is it? I smell nothing."
"Water of the Gods," Torm replied. "Pale ale. Tymora's Tipple."
"Eh?" the cleric frowned at him suspiciously. "Ye blaspheme?"
"No," said Torm. "I offer you a drink, sot. Your thirst, remember?"
"Aye," Rathan agreed, mollified, and took a swig. "Aaagh!" he said, spitting most of it out. "It is water!"
"Yes, as I told you," Torm replied smoothly, and then leaped nimbly out of reach as the cleric reached for him.
The chosen of Tymora pursued his sly tormentor across the rocky hilltop, while Illistyl looked out of the tent and shook her head.
"Playing already, I see," she remarked, just loudly enough for Torm to hear. He turned and waved at her, grinning-and promptly fell over a stone, with Rathan on top of him. Illistyl burst into laughter before she realized that she couldn't recall what Shandril's laugh sounded like.
The little stone tower rose, leaning slightly, out of a grassy meadow beside a small pond. It was made of old, massive stones, and had no gate or fence or outbuildings. Flagstones led right up to a plain wooden door. It looked small and drab in comparison with the Twisted Tower, which rose large against the sky across the meadow. But it seemed somehow a place of power, too-and more welcoming.
Inside, it was very dark. Dust lay thick upon books and papers that were stacked untidily everywhere. The smell of aging parchment was strong in the air. Out of the forest of paper pillars rose a rickety curving stair, on up to unseen heights. A bag of onions hung over the doorway. Beyond an arch, faint footsteps could be heard.
"Lhaeo," Elminster called. "Guests!"
An expressionless face appeared in the doorway. "You need not do your simpering act," the old mage added. At that the face smiled and nodded. It was that of a pleasant, green-eyed man with pale brown hair and delicate features. He was about as tall as the elf Merith, very slim, and wore an old, patched leather apron over plain tunic and hose.
"Welcome," Lhaeo said then, in a soft, clear voice. "If you're hungry, there's stew warm over the fire now. Highsunfeast will be herbed hare cooked in red wine… that Sembian red Mourngrym gave us. I deem it good for little else. I fear I have no dawnfry ready."
Elminster chuckled. "Ye would have been wasted on a throne, Lhaeo. I've eaten no better fare since Myth Drannor fell than what ye cook. But I forget my manners, such as they are… Lhaeo, these be Narm Tamaraith, a conjurer who flourishes these past days under the tutelage of Jhessail and Illistyl; and his betrothed, Shandril Shessair, who can wield the spellfire." Lhaeo's eyes opened wide at that.
"After all these years?" he asked. "You were right to bring them here. Many will rise against such a one."
"Many already have," the sage replied dryly. "Narm, Shandril-I make known to thee Lhaeo, my scribe and cartographer. Outside these walls he is counted a lisping man-lover from Baldur's Gate. He is not, but that is his tale to tell. Come up, now, and I'll show ye thy bed-I hope ye don't mind, there is only one-and some old clothes to keep you warm in this place. We two don't feel the cold, but I know others find it chill."
"Keep him to one speech," Lhaeo added as they started up the stairs, which creaked alarmingly, "and I'll have tea ready when you come down again."
They went up through a thick stone floor into a circular, open room. Shandril cast an eye over the maps and scrolls littering a large table in the center of the chamber. She looked away quickly as the runes began to crawl upon the parchment. Over the table, a globe hung in midair, a pale ball of radiance that shone like a small, soft moon. By its light, they could see a narrow stair curving up into the darkness overhead. Books and scrolls littered the tops of chests and were piled high upon a tall black wardrobe.
The old, dark wooden bed, with a curved rail at head and foot, looked very solid and cozy. Shandril suddenly felt very tired after the battles and conferences and their long talk in the night outside. She swayed on her feet.
Narm and Elminster both put out a hand to her at once. Shandril waved them away with a sigh. "Thank you both. I really have been a burden since I left Deepingdale."
"Second thoughts?" the sage asked quietly, no censure in his tone. Shandril shook her head.
"No. No, not when I can think clearly. I just could not have lived through it alone." Then she noticed something, and turned to the sage. "There is only one bed. Where will you sleep?"
"In the kitchen. Lhaeo and I are rarely asleep at the same time; someone has to watch the stew."
Narm laughed. "The greatest archmage in all Faerun," he said, "or so I would deem you, and you spend nights watching a pot of stew!"
"Is there a higher calling, really?" Elminster replied. "Oh, speaking of pots, the chamber pot's by the foot of the bed. Aye, I know it looks odd-it is an upturned wyvern skull, sealed with a paste. I stole it from a Tharchioness's bedchamber in Thay long ago, in my wilder days.
"Come, have thy tea, and then ye can sleep. Ye will be safe here, if anywhere in the Realms. Do as ye always do together, so long as it does not involve a lot of screaming and yelling. A little noise will not bother us. If ye pry about, be warned that the art here can kill in an instant if ye put an eye or tongue wrong… on your heads be the consequences."
"Elminster," Narm said as the old mage started down the stairs again, "our thanks for this. You've gone to much trouble over us."
"If I did not, what sort of greatest archmage in all Faerun would I be then?" was the gruff reply they got over the old mage's shoulder. "I'm stepping out for a pipe. Mind ye come in haste-Gond alone can guess what Lhaeo'll put in thy tea if you're not there to stop him. He thinks every cup should be a new experience." Below, they heard the door bang.
"By the gods, I'm tired," Narm said.
"Aye, too tired," Shandril agreed. "I hope we can sleep." Her hands, as she held them out to clasp his, were shaking. They went down to tea wearily.
When Elminster finished his pipe, he knocked the ashes from it out on the doorstep and came back in. "All well?" he asked.