Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [13]
"Storm Silverhand," the lady bard told him calmly, "with two Harpers, the Lady Sharantyr, and-"
"Nay, lass, don't tell 'em my name," Elminster said gruffly, spurring forward. "Let 'em guess."
A helmeted face peered at him out of the mists, and visibly swallowed. "Lord Elminster," he said, "you may pass, of course…"
The row of spear points was suddenly gone, even before Elminster could snarl out any sarcastic reply, and they heard the clink and rattle of men in chain mail moving hastily aside to salute.
"My thanks, men of the guard," Storm said kindly into the mists. "Brion, isn't it?"
"Aye, lady…"
"I'll be back very shortly, alone," she said, and rode on waving for them all to follow. Elminster inclined his head to her in sarcastic acquiescence and spurred past her into the mists.
"Ye bloody gods!" Storm muttered, rolling her eyes and galloping after him, hand going to her sword out of long habit. Seeing that, the three who rode hurriedly after her reached for their blades, too. They rode on, hands on hilts but not drawing their steel, and soon heard ahead the thud of slowing hooves and Storm's soft "Hooo!" to her horse.
They came to an untidy halt in the mists, old wizard and all, milling around thigh to thigh in an open place where trails met. Storm pressed ahead a little way down one grassy ride until they followed her, and then reined in again. "Here I leave you. Follow this trail onward, and may you find fair fortune, all of you." She turned her mount, squeezed Sharantyr's arm for a moment as she rode past, and then was gone back into the mists.
As the thud of hooves faded away down the way they'd come, the first real gray light of dawn came stealing slowly in around them. "Whither now?" Sharantyr asked, peering at trees she could just begin to see on all sides.
"Forward, of course," Elminster said gruffly, and dug a toe into his mount's flank. It snorted its annoyance and moved off briskly down the new trail. The other three riders met each other's gazes, rolled expressive eyes, and followed.
"We appear to be heading into Daggerdale," Itharr observed carefully, as the first brightness of the coming day broke forth around them, and birds began to call and flutter.
"Perceptive, aren't ye?" the Old Mage replied without turning. His three companions, riding in his wake, sighed in unison.
"By all the lazily ruling lords," Belkram said under his breath, "it is Elminster."
* * * * *
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 15
Shadows shifted uneasily around them, seeming to sense the tension in the Great Hall of the Throne. A Malaugrym who bristled thorny spines from every inch of his lizardlike skin stood erect on the black marble beside the flickering scrying portal.
The portal was dim at the moment, showing only swirling gray mists somewhere in Faerun. As always, the portal hung silent, floating immobile some way above the floor, but the Malaugrym drew away from it after a few moments. While near the endless flickering, he could not escape a prickly feeling of being watched.
He glared at the portal and then turned his back on it, feeling ridiculous.
A moment later, a tentacle brushed his shoulder and he jumped, spinning around with a wild snarl only to freeze amid the titters of his kin, standing around the hall, half-seen in the shadows.
"Don't drop your guard for a moment, not even here," said the tentacled giant mushroom who'd tapped him. Facing it, he recognized the voice. "Or rather, especially not here." Now he was sure.
"Bheloris," he said flatly, and the mushroom cap nodded. "Neleyd," it named him in reply and began to collapse, flowing swiftly into something else.
The words had been helpful, even friendly. Nevertheless, Neleyd drew away warily and grew a stabbing bone-spike at the end of his tail, holding it up over his head, ready to