The hargaunt made its querying whistle, accompanied by that wisp of pink that meant, as clearly as if it had shouted out the word in Common: “Why?”
Horaundoon shrugged. “The ranks of the Zhentarim grow steadily unfriendlier, the schemes and betrayals and false blamings crowding in hard and fast, one upon the other. If I remain, with the wits and standing all know I have, I continue to be a target. Sooner or later, most probably sooner, some rival or cabal of rivals will inevitably slay me.”
The archmage raised a hand, and the air around him sang, briefly and faintly, reassuring him that his shielding spells-that blocked all scrying, and warned of attempts to intrude, or to shatter or alter them-remained intact.
“So I must grow powerful enough to make myself a way out of the Zhentarim. That’s why I tolerate apprentices. Already my magics have made them my slaves, though they know it not. When the time is right, I’ll force one of them to take my shape and seeming. The others, just as spellbound, will slay this false Horaundoon. Leaving me, in a new guise fashioned by you, to vanish from the notice of the Brotherhood. Free once more.”
The hargaunt trilled, throwing up a scene that flashed briefly blue.
“Already? Haularake, where does the day go?” Horaundoon hurriedly loosened the sash of his robes and shrugged them back off his shoulders, letting them fall to where his arms held them up at his waist. “I know, I know,” he added, before the hargaunt could interrupt him. “Spellcrafting always takes longer than I think it will. Naed, we’ll have to really hurry now.”
He extended his other hand to the skull. It promptly bulged, coiled, and became an ivory-hued, sightless snake, oozing up his arm with purposeful speed, and leaving no sign of the skull it had been.
“Naed, naed, naed, ” the archmage murmured impatiently, the last word muffled by the hargaunt flowing over his lips as it molded itself to his face, giving him quite a different visage. A woman’s face, strikingly beautiful.
Below Horaundoon’s newly pointed chin, the bulk of the hargaunt had molded itself into a pair of decidedly feminine-and decidedly attractive-breasts.
He was breathing hard in his haste by the time he reached the wardrobe mirror, and cast the spell that turned him from a rather gaunt and hairy man with an incongruously smooth and beautiful woman’s face and front, into a shapely and curvaceous woman. Blowing himself a mocking kiss, he whirled into the wardrobe, snatched out a suitable gown, thanked the watching gods (and not for the first time) that the current fashions in footwear were low-heeled and the current jewelry simple, and hurried to pin up his hair.
He was staring into a mirror, three of the pins in his mouth and one in his hand, when a hollow chant arose from whence he’d come. He slammed the hairpins down on the table and hurried back to his study.
“An intruder!” the remaining two skulls chanted in unison, jawbones wagging. They were still rising up from the table as Horaundoon slid to a halt in front of them. “An intruder!”
“Blast him down!” Horaundoon roared, “and trouble me no more with such trifles!”
He was two running strides back toward the mirror when the floor under him shook slightly, there was a long and rolling booming sound, and the skulls ceased their chanting in mid-word.
Duly blasted. Good.
Horaundoon snatched up the pins and grimly set to work again pinning up his hair. With all the war wizards infesting this oh-so-peaceful Forest Kingdom, beautiful and wealthy merchants’ widows could get far closer to king’s lords than archmages widely suspected of being Zhentarim could.
And there was a lord or three in Cormyr he wanted to befriend. They might well come in very useful when the time was right. Soon.
“We… we’re following the stream, aren’t we?” Lady Narantha gasped, clambering up to join Florin beside an overhanging tangle of exposed tree roots and boulders.
The forester gave her a sharp look. “We are. Well spotted. ’Tis the best way not to get lost.”
“Won’t the bears and the… the hunting beasts follow it, too?”
“Yes.”
“But-” Narantha started to scramble up a stairlike tangle of roots, to look over the boulders. Florin’s hand shot out and caught hold of her elbow-and Narantha found herself struggling to climb but not moving one fingersbreadth forward. “What’re you-?” she gasped.
Florin drew her close and murmured sternly, “Never show yourself over the top of a ridge like that. Haven’t you been watching me? Cautious, duck low, show as little head as possible as you take a good look; that’s the way. Now, you just used one of my least favorite words: ‘but.’ What were you going to say after that?”
The noblewoman blinked at him, as they stood nose to nose, then frowned as she remembered. “ But if the beasts follow the stream, they’ll find us-and what then?”
“Ah.” Florin nodded. “Then this.” He held up the sword Narantha had all but forgotten was in his hand.
She looked at it, then up at him. He asked, “You’ve never been trained to use one of these, have you?”
Narantha frowned. “Well, of course not.”
“ ‘Of course’ nothing. What were your parents thinking? Or not thinking? Lord Hezom will likely have you swinging steel-something light enough for to suit your arm, mind, not this.”
“Crownsilvers,” Narantha said haughtily, waving an airy hand to indicate phantom legions of retainers in lace and livery, “need not swing swords. We have servants enough to do that for us.”
“Oh?” Florin crooked an eyebrow. “And if the person who seeks to slay you is one of those servants? What then?”
The noblewoman looked incredulous. “No servant would ever dare — ”
“And yet I do-constantly, it seems-and again and again you exclaim that I wouldn’t or shouldn’t. I think you’d be unpleasantly surprised at just what some folk of Faerun will dare, if ever they catch someone as beautiful and as important as you alone.”
Narantha stared at the forester, eyes widening and face going pale, then took a swift step back from him. Unfortunately, a root was right behind her.
A moment later she was blinking up at him, flat on her back and winded, with Florin reaching down a helping hand.
She gazed up at him for a long, hard-breathing moment, face unreadable. Then, slowly, she reached out and took that proffered hand.
Gently but firmly, the ranger pulled her upright. “Lady Narantha,” he said, “I don’t mean to give you orders or offer you rudeness. Yet understand this welclass="underline" doing the wrong thing, out here in the forest, can get us both killed. Please do as I suggest until you are safely in the hands of Lord Hezom-or your family. Please. ”
The flower of the Crownsilvers was breathing fast and her face was set, her eyes hard and unfriendly. But she nodded, curtly, and snapped, “I’ll try, man-what was your name again? Hawkhand? Falconhand? I’ll try.”
“Florin Falconhand thanks you, Lady,” the handsome forester said, his manner almost humble.
Narantha inclined her head regally. “ That’s better,” she declared, starting to climb the ridge again.
This time, Florin let her go, merely snaking swiftly around a boulder to look at the forest ahead before whatever might be lurking in it got a good look at a wild-haired young noblewoman of Cormyr with a dirty, once-translucent nightrobe plastered to her, and large, flopping mens’ boots on her feet.
A bird took startled wing at Narantha’s appearance, but nothing more sinister seemed to be lurking in the trees just ahead.
“Coming, Falconhand?” the Lady Crownsilver called imperiously. “I grow tired of seeing nothing but rocks and trees. Is all this corner of Cormyr endless rocks and trees? No wonder no one ever goes here, or thinks of it. My father must be mad.”
Florin rolled his eyes. So much for terrifying her. So this was a high noble of Cormyr.
And this was an adventure.