by Ed Greenwood
Florin drew out the sack, poured a handful of nuts onto a stone, and handed a smaller stone to the noblewoman. “Crush some of these and eat them.”
She gave him a glare then nodded and set to work. Nuts bounced and flew under her clumsy attack, but Florin paid no heed. As a breeze rose and rustled through the trees around them, he shook and laid out the clothing.
Narantha had just managed to crack her first nut without reducing it to powder, and was chewing and finding it pleasant enough-her mouth flooding with a sudden rush of hunger-when the forester said, “Stand up, and face yon tree.”
Wearily she rose, still chewing, and he drew her boots off. When she looked down at what he was bringing to her ankles, she started to protest-then threw her hands wide in exasperation, choked off whatever she’d been going to say, and cooperated as he drew the breeches up her legs. They were of stiff, stout hide, smelled a little of mildew, and gaped at the waist, twice the size of her own.
“Hold them up,” Florin murmured, sliding rope through belt-loops. Plucking her nightrobe up out of the way, he ran the hemp rope up and around her neck.
“What’re you-”
“Patience. Take off your robe.”
“ Sirrah, if you think I’m-”
“That’s why you’re facing that way, and I’m around here behind you. Take it off.”
With a weary sigh, her shiverings nigh-constant now, the Lady Crownsilver obeyed. Florin swiftly drew the rope tight into a suspender harness, plucking the robe from her hands and winding it around the rough-haired hempen to pad it and keep it from sawing at her skin. Cutting off the excess rope, he put the tunic over her head and the weathercloak over her shoulders-more mildew-and gathered the cloak at her waist with the belt. Getting her to sit down, he put her boots back on and carefully repacked them, massaging her feet where they’d rubbed raw. Narantha was mortified to discover that they’d acquired a faint but lingering smell.
“There,” Florin said, drawing her upright again. “That ought to-”
Narantha snatched her hand away. “Ought to, nothing. I look like a vagabond who’s stolen a floursack and tied it around herself. I’m not wearing this!”
Florin shrugged and stripped weathercloak and tunic away with a flourish. Untying the rope, he tugged twice-and the breeches fell in a tangle around shapely Crownsilver calves.
Shivering in her cloak of goosebumps, Narantha shrieked and sank down hastily, more out of discomfort than out of modesty.
“Gods naeth, the cold! ” she spat, her lips blue and trembling. The breeze quickened around her, almost mockingly.
Florin’s firm hand took hold of her neck and raised her upright again-for all the world as if he were a farmer, and she his chicken, Narantha thought savagely-to swiftly reclothe her. Mutely furious, she didn’t try to resist.
Smelling of mildew, hide hissing against hide with every step, the reclad fair flower of the Crownsilvers took a few tentative strides, a trifle warmer but no less miserable, sighed, and went looking for the nuts.
Florin was munching a handful of them, and holding a handful more-already shelled-out to her.
As she took them, the forester commanded, “On. Now. Eat as we walk. I don’t want to be anywhere near here when the light begins to fail.” He pointed at some fur caught in the bark of a nearby tree. “Bear,” he said darkly.
Narantha shook her head and looked down at herself. “I look like-like-” Words failed her, and she bit her lip and turned her head away, shaking it.
“A beautiful woman,” Florin replied, “whose beauty shines forth no matter what she’s wearing.”
When she looked at him disbelievingly, he winked.
“Oh, I hate you!” she snarled feelingly, giving him a glare.
Florin shrugged. “ ’Tis one way to get through life. Though too much hating eats away a person, inside. You’d do better to turn all that… verve… to loving, aiding, and helping. Young bride-hunting lordlings’ll be swarming all over you, swift enough, if you do.”
Narantha snorted. “ Those fops! Swaggering emptyheads, the lot of them! I doubt any of them can light a fire, or catch food, or-”
She stopped abruptly and looked away again, her face flaming.
Florin carefully said not a word.
The spell flickered, fading noticeably-but not enough to obscure the scene its caster was intent upon.
A lone lady in a dark gown smilingly traded jests one last time with a overloud and rather tipsy Derovan Skatterhawk, then gracefully descended the wide flight of steps toward the long line of coaches gathered under the mansion lamps.
“Another highly successful feast, I see,” the watcher murmured, toying with a favorite-and loose-unicorn-head ring.
The scrying-spell was wavering on the verge of collapse; only by the bright favor of the gods had it lasted this long, through all the wards and watchspells laid on Skatterhawk House by Laspeera and her enthusiastic underlings: the young, avid dregs of the Wizards of War.
The watching wizard hissed in anger, thinking of them-then shrugged, smiled, and waved the unicorn ring-adorned hand dismissively. “Ah, but set aside such harshness. I must never forget I was one myself, once.”
The lady was handed into a coach. She waved airily to Derovan-who almost fell on his face on the steps, waving back as he leered through mustache and monacle-as her conveyance rumbled away.
“So Horaundoon of the Zhentarim is taking she-shape and courting randy elder nobles of Cormyr now, is he? Why, I wonder?”
’Twould be an elaborate scheme, unless Horaundoon had changed greatly in two summers…
“More importantly,” the watching wizard mused aloud, as the spell collapsed into a cascade of winking sparks, “can he be convincingly blamed for what I’ll do, when I strike at last?”
“Jhess? You’re sure you want to try this?”
Jhessail gave Doust a withering look. “I didn’t drag you all the way out here at this time of night to dare nothing. Douse the lantern.”
Her friend frowned. “Why? ’Tis hooded well enough-”
“I don’t want it interfering with my spell,” she hissed, holding her cloak wide to form a shield over him.
Doust blew the lamp out quickly, without leaking overmuch light into the darkness around them. Backing carefully away from it on his knees to avoid toppling it, he turned, patted Jhessail’s arm, and whispered, “Do it.”
She nodded, handed him her cloak, and on hands and knees crept to the edge of the dell.
As she’d expected, it was flooded with moonlight-and, sure enough, two nightbeaks were down there, tugging and tearing at the huddled bony heap that had been one of Hlorn Estle’s fattest sheep before it had stupidly strayed over the cliff.
Her lip curled back in disgust; the vultures of the Stonelands were cruel, rapacious things that hunted day and night. Doust had brought a cudgel, but she hoped it would not be needed. A nightbeak could easily kill a person, and they shed maggots and lice even more copiously than they voided.
Shuddering at the thought of fighting one fists to talons, Jhessail backed carefully away from the cliff edge-’twas a killing fall for her as surely as for a sheep-and found her feet again. Drawing a deep breath, she started to pick her way along the lip of the dell, Doust trailing her. She had to get to where she could see the nightbeaks, for the spell to work.
If she could make it work.
Here. This spot would do.
She could see them picking at the carcass. Big and dusty black, their heads like fire-scorched helms, their beaks like… like…
She shuddered again, and shut her eyes to banish such thoughts. Breathing deeply, she tried to settle her mind on the image of blue fire roiling vigorously in darkness.
My first big spell. My first battle spell, that deals harm to others.
Blue fire, seething and leaping…
If I can’t cast this, I am no spell-worker.
By Lady Mystra and Lord Azuth, the working was simple enough. So if this Art w
as beyond her, then all Art was.
She swept that thought away, seeing blue fire in her mind and plunging into it.
When she had its image bright and strong in her mind, she opened her eyes again to give Doust a quick smile and nod. He stepped carefully back, getting well away from her.
Jhessail looked up at the stars, brought the blue fire foremost in her mind, and when she was gazing at it and feeling a part of it, she looked quickly down into the dell, glared at a nightbeak, flicked her fingers in a swift circle, and with that hand pointed at the vulture.
Blue fire trembling inside her, she snapped, “Alavaer!”
Unleashed, something wonderful raced along her arm, coiling and surging arrow-swift, thrilling her though it left emptiness behind. It burst forth from her pointing finger as a deep blue bolt that streaked down into the darkness with the faintest of whispers.
One nightbeak looked up at the sudden flare of light. Approaching light, streaking Alarmed, it tried to flap its wings to leap into the air And died before it could even unfurl them, snatched off its talons and blasted, fire that wasn’t fire scorching through it, to bounce and flop among the cliff-bottom weeds and stones in loose-necked silence. Dead silence.
The other nightbeak looked up and squawked questioningly, expecting an answer that would never come.
“Yes!” Jhessail cried exultantly, shaking her fists in the air. “I did it!”
The sound of her cry sent the surviving nightbeak into the air, flapping heavily out of the dell in search of quieter meals.
Laughing, the delighted Silvertree lass raced to Doust and embraced him, whirling him around and around in the night shadows.
“I believe,” he observed with a grin, “it’s considered bad form to sound surprised that your spell worked. Wherefore: of course you did it. Well done!”
Ecstatic and drenched with sweat, Jhessail hugged him, relieved and delighted laughter bubbling over him in a flood. Nose buried in her bosom, Doust managed to say gruffly, “Careful, now. You’ll start giving me unholy ideas.”
“Hah,” she laughed, clutching him even tighter, “and you’d dare to do something about them, when I can blast you with magic? Hey?”
“A compelling point,” he said to her stomach, as her wild mirth made him slide downward, his voice muffled by warm and smooth Jhessail.
An instant later, his chin struck her knee, which was very hard, bouncing him back up to behold the stars for a crazed and whirling moment-before his chin met the stony ground, which proved even harder.
“Oww,” he said. “Aye, most compelling.”
“What was that?” Narantha hissed, as the strange hooting call came again.
“Owl,” Florin said, his voice just a murmur above a whisper. “Successful in its hunting.”
The noblewoman rolled onto her side to look up from the rough pillow of his pack. The forester — her forester-was sitting just as before, back to a tree and drawn sword across knees, staring into the night. Stars glimmered over his shoulder.
“Are you going to sit there all night?”
“Yes.”
She waited for him to say more. Waited for breath after breath, until the chirping night insects started up again. Then she sighed in exasperation. “But when will you sleep?”
“On the morrow.”
“But you said we’re going to walk through the forest all day. So when?”
“I’ll find plenty of time to slumber,” he replied, “while you’re talking.”
“What?” she sputtered, nettled.
“You talked more than half the sunlit day just past,” the forester observed serenely. “Don’t you ever get tired of talking?”
“You,” she hissed back at him, “are impossible! Such rudeness!”
“The curse of our generation, I’m told,” Florin told the night. “Wherefore Cormyr sinks sadly from what it was in the golden days of our grandsires.”
His mimicry of a gruff old whitebeard sounded so like her uncle Lorneth that Narantha found herself giggling. The giggle built inside her, into something that burst out and had to be muffled by biting her knuckles and rolling over to put her face into the ill-smelling pack.
Above the shaking bundle that was Narantha wrapped in her weathercloak, Florin smiled up at the stars.
“Father, I-”
“Not a word, Torsard,” Lord Elvarr Spurbright said quickly, in the tone of voice that meant he would brook no defiance. “Not a word. ”
He held up an admonishing finger, and his son was astonished enough to blink at it mutely for the few moments Lord Elvarr needed.
Plucking up the great polished wooden ball that crowned one of the low footposts of his bed, the head of House Spurbright plucked a fine chain out of a hidden recess in the post that the root-peg of the ball had been sitting in, like a giant tooth, and dropped the ball back into place.
Torsard’s mouth fell open. His eyes bulged in fresh astonishment as his father undid a fine silver clasp at one end of the chain and reached out to snap it around Torsard’s wrist. Closing the clasp at the chain’s other end around his own wrist, Lord Elvarr nodded toward the balcony.
Mutely Torsard trotted after him. It was not until they were out on the balcony, with the great bedchamber doors closed behind them and the night breeze ghosting past under the moonlight, that Lord Elvarr spoke again.
“Yes, the chain is magic. And it cost me more than our tallhouse in Suzail, so don’t pull away from me suddenly and go breaking it. It cloaks our speech from everyone. Your mother could step between us right now and we could put our mouths to both her ears and talk-and she’d not hear our words, only squawks and gruntings. Nor could a war wizard, with all his spells. This is a family secret, mind: not even Thaelder knows of it. Keep things that way.”
He walked to the stone rail, Torsard following. Together they gazed out and down at the night. Rolling wooded hills and verdant pastures stretched north into the night and the not-so-distant mountains, under a sky glittering with stars. Below the balcony, on the lawns and in the orchard garden, there were no signs of anyone still up and about. “Now, you wanted to ask me something?”
“Yes, Lord Father. Ah… at the Fallingmoon feast I heard Lord Delzuld talking with some of the older lords-Gallusk and Illance among them-about the king. He said the Obarskyrs are corrupt and it was high time we were free of them, and that they had no stronger claim to the Dragon Throne than any of us! Is this true? Why does he hate the Obarskyrs so? And why were so many lords agreeing with him?”
“Steady, son, steady. Ask, receive answer, then ask again, not this flood of why, why, and why! As to the first: Lord Delzuld-’twas Lord Creion, aye? Head of his house? I thought as much-says many things. Most aren’t true, but he believes that if he says them oft and loud enough, those who listen will begin to think they are true. For so it has worked before, on many folk in diverse lands. Truth is a surprisingly mutable thing.”
Lord Spurbright smiled wryly. “As to the second: the Delzulds are the wealthiest nobles in Arabel, and would swiftly become far richer if they paid no taxes to the Dragon Throne, and could crush trade rivals without the annoying hindrance of Crown law. More that that: most folk of Arabel-commoners as well as proud houses-would fain be free of Cormyr if they could. They were once a free city, and hunger to be so again; that will never change, in either of our lifetimes.”
Lord Spurbright turned to face his son directly. “As to why he’s gaining so much support: very few nobles are pleased with His Majesty at the moment. Nor have they been since the mage Vangerdahast rose from being just court wizard to also being royal magician, head of the war wizards and-in all but name-the real ruler of Cormyr.”
“Vangerdahast. They hate him, I know,” Torsard Spurbright said. “But why? Just fear of his spells?”
“That, and his use of the war wizards as his spies. More than one who’s spoken out against him-remember Lord Lorneth Crownsilver? — has vanished, probably permanently silenced by our beloved royal magici
an. It should come as no surprise to you that we hate anyone and anything that seeks to curtail our powers-just as farmers hate tax collectors, and outlaws hate Purple Dragons. Well, King Azoun and his Royal Magician Vangerdahast have steadily been making new laws, these last few years, that increasingly restrict the power of all nobles to do as they please with those who dwell on their lands. Dissatisfaction with Azoun’s rule is widespread, and growing.”
“So why don’t we all act together?”
“Lad, have you ever known more than three nobles to agree on anything?”
“Yes: that the king’s rule is bad! So the Obarskyrs are few, and I’ve heard the war wizards really serve Vangerdahast, not the king-”
“Correct.”
“-so if enough of us make common cause, and call on our house wizards…”
“To do what? Blast the palace in Suzail to smoking rubble? Torch cows in the fields? Melt the banners of Purple Dragons as they come riding to arrest us? Talk sense, boy!”
Nettled, Torsard Spurbright slapped the balcony rail, stared away into the night, and said petulantly, “Well, I don’t see why we don’t just use the spells of our house wizard to get what we want! I’ve seen Thaelder-”
Lord Elvarr rolled exasperated eyes. “Know you nothing but hunting and hawking, Torsard? Every titled family in Cormyr has a house wizard-and every last spellhurler of that sort in all the realm is a war wizard, or has their minds reamed by the war wizards nightly. House wizards are here to keep us in line, and report back all talk of treason, and everything else interesting we do, to old Vangerdahast. Remember that, if you’d like to keep your head a while longer.” He raised his hand and rattled the fine chain meaningfully. Its magic glowed obligingly.
“So we can do nothing to stop the Obarskyrs? And old Thunderhast? While they do just as they please to us?”
“Gently, son, gently. I did not say that.”
“Well, then?”
“Well, then, you’ll learn in good time. News will spread at revels and in marketplaces and taverns-news that comes as great astonishment to all of us, who know nothing and had no part in what befell.”
