The Dream Spheres

by Elaine Cunningham

  Arilyn frowned at this mention of Danilo's kinsman and mentor—and her former Harper superior. "I thought he had long ago given up that notion."

  She was hedging, noted Danilo, buying time as she absorbed the implications of his revelation. "On the surface, yes, but as you well know, the good archmage prefers to work in mist and shadows. Some time back, when I declared my intentions of becoming a bard in truth as well as in jest, he was all gracious agreement. Yet he continued to give me valuable spellbooks, to share crumbs of his power, to confide in me secrets that bound me to the Harpers and to him. Before I knew it, I was attending him almost daily. I even had other Harpers under my command." He shuddered. "Insidious, our dear Khelben."

  Arilyn smiled at his droll tone, but there was a touch of anger in her eyes. "A better description of Khelben Arunsun could not be cast by his own shadow! You did well to break free. Do you still wear the pin?"

  This was a sore spot, for they both had reason to cherish the pins that marked them as Harpers, members of a semi-secret organization dedicated to keeping

  Balance in the world and preserving tales of great deeds. Arilyn had grown increasingly uneasy with the direction of the Harpers in general and the directives of Khelben Arunsun in particular. After their last shared mission, the rescue of Isabeau Thione, Arilyn had broken with Khelben and the Harpers.

  Danilo, however, was not quite ready to renounce either. He touched his shoulder where, pinned to his shirt and hidden beneath his tabard, a tiny silver harp nestled into the curve of a crescent moon.

  "A good man entrusted this pin to me. I will wear it always in his honor and try to be worthy of his trust." And his daughter.

  The words were left unspoken, but the deepening conflict in Arilyn's eyes marked them as heard. "I, too, wear the Harper pin in honor of my father, but for no other reason. My allegiance is elsewhere."

  "Yes, I am all too aware of that," Danilo said with more bitterness than he intended. He lifted a hand to forestall her explanation. "No, don't. We have traveled this road. What you did, you did for love of me. I wish the result had been different, but I cannot fault your intentions."

  Again his gaze shifted to the moonblade, a hereditary elven sword to which each wielder could add one magical power. For Arilyn's mother it had formed a magical gate between her human lover's world and the distant elven island of Evermeet. This had led to tragedy for the elven folk, and many years later it led to a long string of events that had brought Arilyn to the attention of the Harpers of Waterdeep. Danilo had been assigned to follow and watch her. In the course of this mission, he and Arilyn had formed their own bonds: trust, friendship, and something deeper and infinitely more complex than love. Arilyn had ceded to him the right to her moonblade and its power. In doing so, she had broken a tradition of many centuries, that none but a moon-blade's true inheritor could wield the blade. In doing so,

  she had unknowingly committed him to eternal service of the magic sword.

  It was a price Danilo would gladly have paid for the bond it gave them, but he had never had that choice. When confronted by the results of her decision, Arilyn had taken it upon herself to free her friend from a service he never chose. In doing so, she had broken the mystic, elven bond between them. Once that bond was broken, the sword had granted Arilyn a different power and forged another allegiance.

  Now the moonblade warned her when the forest folk were in need of a hero's sword. There were small bands of elves scattered through many forests in Faerun, and many were in danger and decline. Arilyn's sleep had become dream-haunted, and her sword gleamed with verdant light more often than not. Though she understood that hers was but a single sword and that she could not stand beside every beleaguered elf, the calls were too strong for her to ignore. Elf and moonblade shared soul-deep bonds. Since that day she had been on the road almost constantly and could not do otherwise.

  "You do what you must," Danilo said softly. "I have had my duties here. However, there is nothing more to hold me in Waterdeep. There is no reason why I cannot travel with you."

  There was, and they both knew it. Arilyn was an oddity among the forest elves, who seldom had anything to do with strangers among their own kind, much less moon elves with human blood. In the eyes of the forest elves, though, she had become part of the centuries-old legend of the moonblade she carried. Thus she had finally achieved what she had longed for all her life: true acceptance from the elven folk. No human was likely to manage such a feat.

  "No. No reason at all," she said faintly and unconvincingly. She met his eyes and manufactured a rueful smile. "You seem to have broken free of all things but

  one. This night you must meet family obligations. When does this ball start?"

  Danilo squinted at the window. Twilight had passed, and the faint glow of lamps rose from the streets below. "An hour, I should think. If you hurry, we can be fashionably late." He punctuated this remark with a sly smile. "If we take our time, we could be scandalously late."

  "A tempting suggestion, Lord Thann," she said with prim tones but laughing eyes. "I am in accord with the spirit of it but not the timing. You go on without me, and I'll follow as soon as I can. Since this is your family's party, your absence would be noticed and remarked."

  "The Lady Cassandra sees all," he murmured, naming the formidable woman who had given him life and who managed the Thann family fortunes with an iron will and a capable hand.

  Arilyn's blue and gold eyes took on the hard, flat gleam common among warriors who heard their nemesis named. "True enough. Even without delay, I'm sure we'll manage to cause some sort of scandal."

  "That's the spirit," he said approvingly.

  * * *

  Not much more than the allotted hour passed before Arilyn stepped from her hired carriage at the gates of the Thann family villa. The vast, sprawling white marble mansion commanded nearly a city block of the North Ward, and every pace and breath of it was ablaze with light and sound. Danilo, it would seem, had used a bit of poetic license in naming the starting hour. By all appearances, the festivities were well under way and had been for quite some time.

  Arilyn surveyed the scene through narrowed eyes, as a warrior might size up a potential battlefield. Though the Gemstone Ball was one of the last fetes of the

  summer season, in this bright place the drab and chill of coming winter seemed far away. Even the darkness of night was held firmly at bay. The moon cresting the peaked roofs of the villa was as bright and full as a summer rose, and in the gardens surrounding the villa floating globes of light winked on and off like giant, multicolored fireflies. From the open windows floated the sounds of laughter and festive music.

  She followed a small crowd of latecomers, cursing the slim skirts that broke her stride into small, mincing steps. Inside the Thann family villa, scores of guests gathered in a great hall ablaze with the light of a thousand candles. Dancers dressed in vivid gem-toned costumes dipped and spun in time to the music. Other guests sipped the rare wines that were a cornerstone of the Thann family fortunes or listened to the fine musicians who seemed to be everywhere. Paired guests wandered into artfully designed alcoves and garden nooks to gather the last blossoms of a summertime romance.

  It was, Arilyn had to admit, quite a spectacle. This party was considered a highlight of the season, and the merchant nobility rose to the occasion, each guest striving to outdo the others in matters of finery, beauty, or gallantry. It was understood—expected!—that on such a night everything must be perfect. Cassandra Thann, the matriarch of her clan and a maven of noble society, would not have it otherwise.

  The only discordant note, if merry laughter could ever be thus described, came from the far corner of the great hall. With a certainty born of experience, Arilyn headed in that direction.

  She slipped quietly into the crowd surrounding Danilo as he began to recount his misadventures with a riddle-loving dragon. It was a comic retelling and quite different from the story Arilyn had heard. She doubted that those who'd shared th
at grim encounter would recognize the tale. Or, perhaps they would. Arilyn had noted

  that truth had a way of ringing through the words of a bard, even when it, and he, were concealed by gilding and motley.

  She studied the man who had been her Harper partner and who still held her heart in his hands. By all appearances, Danilo was an agreeable and entertaining dandy, well favored by nature and fortune and good company. He was a tall man, lean and graceful, fair of form and face, and completely at home with the finery and deportment that such evenings demanded. The sleeves of his fine emerald green jacket had been slashed repeatedly to reveal the bright cloth-of-gold lining beneath. Gold glinted also on his gesticulating hands and in the pale hue of the thick mane that flowed past his shoulders.

  Golden, she decided. That was the word for him. Offhand, she could not name an advantage he had not enjoyed, a task he could not accomplish with almost indecent ease. Danilo was to all appearances well content with himself. Nor did he seem to be alone in his high opinion, for his roguish grin and the mischief in his gray eyes brought instinctive, answering smiles to many who beheld him.

  It amazed Arilyn still that this effortlessly golden, merry person saw anything to cherish in her, an elf whose life was consumed with duty and danger. But nevertheless when he saw her his eyes lit up with a genuine pleasure that gave lie to the bright façade he wore in her absence.

  "Arilyn, you must come watch this!" he called, raising his voice over the applause that followed his tale. He beckoned with the object in his hand—a half-blown rose in a rare, true shade of blue.

  A murmur of interest rippled through the group. Such roses were the stuff of legend, known only on distant Evermeet. Danilo had somehow managed to charm a few of these treasures away from the fey folk. He had

  determined to fill the courtyard behind his townhouse with an elven garden in honor of his lady, one that would rival the best Evermeet had to offer. Arilyn had heard that this romantic tale was repeated often by Waterdhavian ladies, always punctuated by wistful sighs. Many eyes turned in her direction now, some envious, some merely curious. The crowd parted, leaving her standing alone.

  More than a few stares lingered pointedly on the sword she wore on her hip. She was the only person in the hall thus armed. To be sure, the moonblade was a priceless thing, worth more than the gems that bedecked a score of guests, but it was still a weapon. Most likely, a few of them had heard of her dark reputation and regarded an assassin's sword as not merely a faux pas but a threat.

  Arilyn ignored the stares and went to Danilo. Her fingertips brushed his outstretched hand and the symbolic rose he held, then she fell back to observe the spell he clearly planned to cast in tribute.

  He held the rose out before him at arm's length as he sang a few words to it. When he drew back his hand, the blue flower remained suspended in the air. Chanting now, he drew from the bag at his belt a pinch of dark powder with a distinctive, unmistakably barnyard aroma. He sprinkled this on the floor beneath the rose, quickly sweetening the burgeoning spell with another layer of powder that smelled of meadows and summer rain. A flurry of rapid, graceful gestures followed, accompanied by a song in the Elvish language.

  Power, in the form of green and glowing light, began to gather around the spellcasting bard. Danilo's audience fell into expectant silence as the verdant aura reached out to envelop them, as well. Elsewhere in the room, laughter and conversation faded as the guests awaited the effects of the spell. Their faces showed varying degrees of curiosity, wonder, or—in the case of

  those who knew Danilo's reputation in such matters— apprehension.

  His spell ended in a high, ringing note. Some of the spectators responded to the music with a smatter of applause, but most merely gaped at the transformation taking place before them.

  The blue rose was growing—not as roses grew in the normal course of events but with the same eerie speed that a dismembered troll regenerated its limbs or a hydra sprouted two new heads to replace one lost to a warrior's axe. Unlike these regenerated monsters, however, the elven rose did not stop growing once it reached the size ordained by nature.

  The rose's stem lengthened into a stalk, which in turn sent new shoots racing toward the ceiling and roots slithering along the smooth marble of the floor. Leaves murmured as they unfurled. Buds quite literally popped open, sounding like tiny bottles of sparkling wine decanted by unseen pixie folk. In moments dozens, scores, hundreds of rare blue roses covered the magical rosebush.

  The monstrous rosebush.

  Already the thing was half way to the vaulted ceiling, and the limbs were beginning to droop down of their own weight. Its growth showed no sign of slowing. This, Arilyn surmised, could be a problem. She grimaced and dropped her hand to the hilt of her sword.

  Gracefully soaring branches described a slow, lazy outward arc, then began a plunging descent toward the marble floor.

  Murmurs of wonder fell abruptly silent, and a heartbeat later returned as cries of alarm. The rosebush's many branches lunged toward the revelers like the grasping, thorny talons of a hundred swooping falcons.

  Cries went up for Khelben Arunsun, a relative of the Thann family and the most powerful wizard in all of Waterdeep, but the archmage was not presently in the

  hall. Frenzied chanting mingled with the growing clamor as a few lesser mages tried their hands at containing the runaway magic. The best that any of them could do was to change the hue of the flowers from their elven blue to a more mundane shade. Still the bush came on.

  All of this took less time than the telling would take. In the first moments following his spell, Danilo stood in slack-jawed amazement at the very center of the verdant maelstrom, unscathed by the wild growth of thorn and branch. He saw at once that Arilyn might not be so fortunate. Too many times had she witnessed his "miscast" spells, and he feared she would not understand that this night, the danger was real. She stood at alert but did not flee the approaching thorns.

  Danilo thought fast. "Elegard aquilar!" he called, praying that Arilyn could read the truth of the matter in the old Elvish battle cry.

  As he'd hoped, the half-elf's sapphire eyes went flat and level, a warrior's ready stare. Her moonblade hissed free of its scabbard as the racing limbs closed in. She lifted the sword in time to bat aside the first leafy assault, then fell into a deft, practiced rhythm.

  Some of the thorny limbs dove into the crowd of retreating guests, tearing at their bright clothing and tangling with flowing hair. Panic set in, and the nobles turned tail and made a frantic, collective dash for the exits. Graceful dancers tripped on their diaphanous skirts and sprawled. Courtly gentlemen leaped over their ladies' prone bodies in their race toward safety. The musicians abandoned their posts—all but for the waggish uilleann piper who struck up the first plaintive notes of "My Love, She is a Wandering Rose."

  Through it all, Arilyn's elven blade danced and sliced. Severed limbs piled around her, hampering her attempts to wade forward and cut down the source of the spell.

  The rosebush, that is, not the spellcaster.

  So Danilo fondly hoped.

  Still, he couldn't be completely certain. As Arilyn advanced on him, slashing her way through the persistent growth, the expression in her blue eyes was grim and furious.

  Danilo couldn't fault her. He was renowned for his miscast spells, but never had he turned one of his pranks upon Arilyn. He winced as one of the limbs broke through her guard and snagged her skirt. The sapphire velvet gave way with a resounding rip, tearing her gown from thigh to ankle and leaving a thin, welling trail of blood on her exposed leg.

  Instinctively Danilo's hand dropped to the place where his sword usually hung, and he started to move toward her before he remembered he was weaponless.

  "Hold," she commanded. She lunged forward, her sword whistling in so high and close that Danilo felt the wind of it on his face.

  He fell back a step, then began to turn in a circle, looking for some way to bridge the verdant barrier between himse
lf and Arilyn. Suddenly the bush ceased its advance. The halted branches, poised as if for renewed flight, began to shimmer with green light. Severed limbs faded into mist. The bush disappeared—all but for the single, half-blown blue rose lying on the marble floor.

  From the corner of his eye, Danilo noted that the guests were edging back into the hall, their faces bright with mingled wariness and curiosity. However, his attention was fixed upon the grim, disheveled woman before him, and his usually nimble tongue felt weighted down with stone as he sought for some word of explanation.

  "What a remarkable performance. Again, I might add," observed a cultured, feminine, all-too-familiar voice at his elbow

  Without turning, without seeing the direction of the speaker's ice-blue stare, Danilo knew that his mother's ironic commentary included both his miscast spell and Arilyn's response.

  So, apparently, did Arilyn. The half-elf's gaze flicked to Danilo's face in wry acknowledgment, then to the sword still in her hands. She thrust the weapon back into its sheath and turned to her hostess.

  "My apologies for the disturbance. Again, I might add," Arilyn responded dryly. She gestured to her shredded skirt. "If you'll excuse me, Lady Thann, I think I'd better change."

  Cassandra Thann eyed the half-elf with genteel distaste. "On that," she said, with a pause that silently shouted, if in nothing else, "we are in accord. Suzanne will show you to a guest room with an appropriate wardrobe. Choose whatever suits you."

  It was a command thinly cloaked in courtesy. Arilyn acknowledged both with a curt nod, then turned to follow the maidservant who darted forward to do her mistress's bidding.

  Danilo caught Arilyn's arm as she shouldered her way past him. "We'll talk about this later," he said, speaking only for her ears.

  She met his eyes and lifted one ebony brow. "On that," she replied in kind, "you can bet your—"

  At that moment the dance music resumed, drowning out the last words of her response. Danilo, however, was fairly certain he got the gist of it.