Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [31]
When the stones beneath her gave way before she reached the wall and Shandril fell into musty darkness, she was too weary to care.
Tymora, it seemed, had answered her prayer.
Shandril sank into oblivion, wondering what she had landed on that was so hard. Whatever it was shifted under her with a metallic slithering, for all the world like coins. Perhaps she would end up a rich adventurer, after all…
"Have a care, sot," Torm said affectionately to Rathan, kneeing his horse's flank to come closer.
"Else you'll be right off your beast and head-first in the mud!"
The florid, red-eyed cleric clamped large fingers onto the rim of his saddle and fixed Torm with drunken, baleful eyes. "Tymora love thee for thy ill-placed concern, sly and thieving, bootlicking dog!" He belched comfortably, adjusted his budding paunch in a small disagreement it was having with the front of the saddle, and wagged a finger at the slim, mischievous thief. "So I like to drink! Do I fall from the saddle, despite thy cries? Do I disgrace the Great Lady whose symbol I bear? Do I yip and yap incessantly in a double-tongued, fawning, untruthful manner, like some thieves? Aye?"
Narm, riding between them, wisely said nothing.
They were traveling in the deep wood, moving steadily eastward toward Myth Drannor. The horses evidently knew the trail, for the two Knights of Myth Drannor spared little attention to guiding them. Since they had left Shadowdale, days ago, the sharp-tongued Torm had spent his time needling Rathan, and the big cleric had spent his time emptying skin after skin of wine. The two pack mules that followed his mount had resembled huge ambulatory bunches of grapes when they had started out, bulging with full wineskins; now they merely looked heavily loaded. The pack mules behind Torm carried all the food.
Mourngrym had lent Narm the mount that now snorted and grumbled beneath him. He had also suggested that if Narm were so tired of living he ride back to the ruined city in the company of two Knights of Myth Drannor leaving for a patrol there.
Narm, somewhat overwhelmed by a magnificent feast and a comfortable canopied bed in the Tower of Ashaba the night before, as if he were visiting nobility and not a penniless ex-apprentice, had accepted. Several times since, he had questioned the wisdom of that decision.
Torm's thin moustache quirked in a smile. "Lost in thought, good Narm? No time for that, now, not once you're an adventurer! Philosophers think and do nothing. Adventurers rush in to be killed without a thought. A single thought as to what they're facing would no doubt have them fleeing just as quickly!"
"Not so," Rathan rumbled, wagging that finger again. "If ye worship the Lady Luck, Tymora the True, luck will cloak thee and walk with thee, and such thoughts but mar thy daring."
"Yes, if you worship Tymora," Torm returned. "We are both more prudent men, eh, Narm?"
"Ye worship Mask and Mystra between ye and speak to me of prudence?" Rathan chuckled. "Truly, the world rears strangeness anew with each passing day." He leaned forward suddenly to point into the dimness. "Look ye, loose-tongues! Is that not a devil in the trees?"
Narm froze in his saddle. His hands suddenly felt like ice. He tried not to tremble. Torm had turned his mount, slim longsword out. "Do they wander so far, now? We may not be able to wait for Elminster's or Dove's return before we raise all against them, if they are grown so bold!"
"It's but the one, oh bravest of thieves," Rathan said dryly, standing in his stirrups to get a better look.
"And there's something awry… see how its flame scorches not and it passes through brush without disturbance, without so much as a leaf crunching or a twig cracking? Nay, 'tis an illusion!" He swung about to fix Narm with a stern eye, the silver disc of Tymora shining in his hand. "This would not be your work, Narm Not-Apprentice, would it now?"
"No," Narm said, spreading