Shadows of Doom - Ed Greenwood [33]
He turned away again and walked on.
Behind him, one of the men muttered, "Tymora willing, let him be more bloody use than the last mages we had with us."
"He could hardly be less," another voice agreed.
"It's as well," a third voice cut in from afar. "His life may depend on it."
"Enough," the Sword boomed, silently indicating the mage's back, reminding them that he could hear every word. Grim smiles answered him; they'd meant him to.
Unseen, Nordryn smiled at the wall ahead and went on his way. Warriors were like cattle. They died in head-high piles when you needed them to. They ate and drank too much but could be useful the rest of the time, if you knew how to treat them. Like dogs, they needed proper handling. He showed his teeth to the wall again and continued on into the darkness.
"Mages who walk in darkness," went the old saying, "cloak themselves in it and think themselves strong- until the day it swallows them, and they come not out again." Nordryn remembered the saying wryly until memory told him who'd first said it: the Great Enemy, Elminster of Shadowdale.
Shaking his head and feeling anger building inside him again-a warmth in his chest rising into his throat -Nordryn went in search of a door that locked and a chamber pot beyond it. All goals in life should be so simple.
* * * * *
"The gods alone know where they are by now," Storm said quietly. "I think Elminster went west, but he could have a dozen or more gates nearby he's never told anyone about."
"A cheery thought," Jhessail observed sardonically. "Shall I tell Mourngrym to revise our plans for defending the dale to include a dozen or more unknown, invisible backsides that invading armies may rush through?"
"Easy, wench," Lhaeo told her gruffly. "Have some more firequench." He pushed one of the pair of decanters of ruby-red liqueur across the table. Storm made a silent grab for the bottle as it moved away from her, and was rewarded with a raised eyebrow from Jhessail. She returned it, with interest.
"Ladies, ladies," Lhaeo sighed, shifting his feet down from atop the table. "Must you spit and snarl like rival kittens?"
Jhessail shrugged. "It's what we've always done before," she observed with impish serenity.
Storm chuckled. A breath later, the others joined her, but the mirth in Storm's kitchen broke off abruptly as a bat as large and black as a small night-cloak flapped heavily in through the open doorway. It circled low over the table and seemed to twist and writhe in the air in front of the fireplace.
An instant later, the bat had become a tall, gaunt woman in a tattered black gown. Her hair and eyes danced wildly, and a fierce pride leapt in her face as she glided toward them.
"Sister," Storm greeted her with a welcoming smile. "Will you take some firequench with us?"
The Simbul nodded, sighed, and shivered all over like a cat after a fright. "Perhaps later," she said, taking a seat at the table, "after I try to learn what we both want to know,"
"What all of us want to know," Storm replied quietly. "I've sent two good men out after them. Two who harp." Across the room, the strings of her harp quivered by themselves for a moment, singing faintly.
The Simbul looked around, not smiling. She nodded to Jhessail and Lhaeo, then bent her head and began whispering words of Art.
A heavy tension grew in the room like dark green smoke, and all the candle flames shrank to steady, watching pinpoints. The Simbul sat at the center of her gathered power, dark and unmoving, and the tension rose to an almost audible roar.
Her shoulders shook, she gasped, and the candle flames leapt and flickered again. The room was somehow brighter. And yet, Lhaeo thought, looking at the Simbul's forlorn and ravaged face, it seemed no safer or warmer.
The Witch-Queen of Aglarond said simply, "I'll need your help, all of you. Join hands with me and I'll try again."
Without hesitation they leaned forward around the table, the decanters standing like frozen red