Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [4]
Belkram's tankard rose stealthily from the table and darted toward Elminster's waiting hand as the wizard of Shadowdale said mildly, "Long enough to tell this lass here-"
He gestured with a glance, and Belkram's eyes, following the wizard's gaze across the table to where Sharantyr sat with a dangerous look growing on her face, saw his tankard flying past. He made a grab for it, missed as it impudently shot straight upward, and overbalanced heavily onto the table.
Sharantyr's wine danced, and Itharr chuckled as she made her own-successful-grab for drinkables. As the lady Knight swept her goblet away from disaster, Elminster continued unconcernedly, "-that Flambarra was found by Elion of Talltrees, and by the grace of Tymora lives again."
Sharantyr stared at him for a moment in astonished silence. Then tears of joy rained from her, and she erupted across the table, crushing the stolen tankard against Elminster's cheek as she embraced the Old Mage. Around her tearful thanks he said gruffly, "Agh! Urgghh! I-The deed was not mine, lass, but if ye're bent on thanking me, well, my mouth is over here, and-"
Obedient lips found his enthusiastically, and his words trailed away in a confusion of frantic murmurs. One of the Old Mage's hands waved vainly above the lady ranger's smooth shoulders, gesturing frantically but not too frantically.
Itharr took in the sight with one bright eye. Turning deliberately to his Harper colleague, he remarked casually, "All in Faerun is not dark these days, indeed. Why, I could not help but notice, as we came here to partake of this excellent beer tonight, that the price of potatoes has fallen a full two coppers the wagonload, heralding a goodly harvest without doubt."
Belkram nodded his head and replied heartily, 'This is true, good Itharr, and yet surpassed by even more heartening news! Our internal ablutions cannot help but be aided by a similar drop in the price of ale, a drop that by the all-surpassing favor of the gods bids fair to coincide with a rise in the quality of the brew. Richer, nuttier, and more warming in the chest, by my halidom, and-"
"You can belt up now," Sharantyr told them both in dry tones. "I had to release him, to draw breath."
"And yet," Elminster put in merrily, in perfect mimicry of Itharr's conversational tone, "I find the surpassing memory of her kiss is a fiery balm upon the hitherto-cooling flames of my old heart! I could not help but notice, moreover, that her tears taste like the finest salt wine of Tashluta, and her eyes are like two dark and welcoming stars in th-"
Sharantyr plucked the gently smoking pipe deftly from where it floated in the air by the Old Mage's shoulder and thrust it into his mouth. "Glup," he added intelligently, ere smoke began to leak from his ears and nose.
The two young Harpers shouted their laughter at Elminster's slightly disbelieving expression… and then at the dangerous calm with which he spat the pipe out, watched it scud away trailing smoke across the room, and turned to regard Sharantyr.
The Lady of Shadowdale shrank back a little and brushed her long hair out of her face with one impatient hand as if preparing for battle, but met Elminster's gaze with a bold, silent calmness of her own.
Elminster's eyes blazed at her for a long, tense moment. Then the Old Mage turned his head and said lightly, as if nothing had occurred, "I observed the newborn pricing of potatoes too, and wondered in passing if it meant other goodly harvests, and a general time of plenty across the Dragonreach!"
"Well," Belkram said in a voice as dry as the bottom of the empty tankard he had retrieved, "if magic everywhere continues to fail and go wild, farmers'll certainly have less interference in taking their crops in, and we'll see fewer armies on the march to devour it all."
Itharr sighed. "You would have to drag things back to that."
Belkram spread his hands. "And is this chaos of magic not the true driving force of the times? And do we not share a victory, born of this very matter? A victory that bears celebration?"