Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [122]
Most of the knights will be going off about the dale and elsewhere about the Dalelands at Elminster's bidding."
"Ah, things'll get a mite quieter for a few days, then"
Raeth said with some satisfaction. Many of the older guards chuckled.
"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 cant 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 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