Shandril and Narm lay curled up together in front of the crackling fire, a bearskin rug soft and warm around them. Narm glanced up at the walls and ceiling and said thankfully, “Well, at least this room hasn’t grown any new doors or corners tonight.”
Shandril chuckled softly, took her own look at the Hidden House around her, and said, “I don’t know … I think I’ve almost grown used to it.” She reached out and turned Narm’s chin until his eyes met hers, and then asked quietly, “Don’t you think it would make a great home for us? The Zhents would never find us here.”
“That was my suggestion, too,” a calm voice agreed, “and I still think it’s a good one.”
Narm and Shandril turned their heads in surprise. A moment later, Shandril leapt up out of the furs to embrace their visitor.
Tessaril winked at Narm. “I come bearing gifts.”
“Though not baring them as much as certain folk,” Mirt grunted, stepping into view behind her and eyeing Shandril’s naked form, still pressed against the Lord of Eveningstar. Shandril stuck her tongue out at him.
Narm got up, holding the rug around him, and cleared his throat. “Er—welcome! Will you have wine?”
Mirt swung a huge bottle into view from behind his back and grinned at him.
Thank ye, lad, I will,” he said, striding forward. He’d brought his own huge pewter tankard, carrying it in the same large, hairy hand that held the bottle. The Old Wolf lowered himself to the floor with a grunt, stretched out on the rug before the fire, wheezed, snatched the fur from Narm’s startled grasp, and draped it over himself coyly.
“Oh, Shan-dril,” he trilled in mimicry of a young suitor. “I’m over here! You can come back and lie down by the fire now.”
Shandril looked at him, the firelight dancing on her smooth curves, and then walked deliberately to him, turned a corner of the furs over the Old Wolf’s face, and sat firmly on him. “So, what gift?” she asked, ignoring the muffled protests from beneath her.
Mirt started to reach his hands up to tickle her, but Narm grabbed them and ended up on the floor wrestling with the Old Wolf. Though her seat started to jerk back and forth beneath her, Shandril sat serenely atop the shifting and curling bear rug. Mirt’s muted voice roared, “Don’t break my bottle!”
At that, Tessaril looked up from her belt pouch. She took in the scene, put her hands on her hips, and whooped with laughter. When her mirth had died, the Lord of Eveningstar extended a hand and drew Shandril to her feet. Then, lips quirked in a wry smile, she plucked the bearskin out of the struggling pile and put it around Shandril. “This gift is somewhat serious,” Tessaril said, “so we’d best calm the Old Wolf down a bit.”
Narm, who’d found himself in a headlock several moments earlier and was now unable to get free, agreed as audibly as possible.
When some order had been restored, Tessaril drew forth a sparkling gem from her belt pouch. “This is your gift,” she said, “but I advise you not to touch it, or even keep it on your person—you can probably be traced by it, and there may be worse things magic can work through it. I’ve had the stone tested by the strongest wizards of Cormyr, and we think it’s safe for you to see it. Remember: don’t touch it!”
Shandril looked at her quizzically.
“It’s a speaking stone,” Tessaril said, releasing the gem. It floated in the air by itself, turning slightly, innocently winking back the light at them all. “It came to me in Eveningstar—borne by a merchant who’d come from Zhentil Keep.”
In the silence that followed her words, she stretched forth a finger and touched the stone. Light winked within it, and then a voice spoke, cold and clear and very close, as if the speaker were in the room with them.
“To Shandril Shessair, greetings from Manshoon, and a promise: I and those I command will make no further moves against you and yours. Nor will we try again to gain spellfire. You may well mistrust this promise, but I assure you I’ll keep it.”
The light in the stone died, and the gem sank slowly to the floor, landing on the rug without a sound.
The stunned group stared down at it in silence, and then Tessaril bent over, took it up, and pocketed it.
Shandril shook her head. “I know I’ll never be able to trust those words, but—somehow—I believe him. When he said that, he meant it.”
“Being killed can have that effect on ye,” Mirt rumbled. “What puzzles me is how Sarhthor—Harper or no—knew about this ‘crown of fire’ bit.”
Tessaril looked up. “He was a Harper indeed, Mirt; High Lady Alustriel confirmed it. She tutored him in the Art and recruited him, years ago, but no longer knew if he held himself a Harper or followed his own path of power and evil. At Manshoon’s command, Sarhthor did a lot of research on spellfire, devouring entire libraries of spell-lore. In a diary kept in Candlekeep, he read the same passage I have: ‘If someone freely gives his lifeforce to a wielder of spellfire, it powers the spellfire to truly awesome heights, causing a crownlike halo of flame around the spellfire-hurler.’”
Mirt looked at her. “This happened before? Someone willingly gave his life for a brighter flame?” He shook his shaggy head. “Ah, well, I suppose there’s no shortage of crazed-wits in Faerûn.”
The tankard in front of him grew a mouth, and in the dry tones of Elminster, it said, “And few, indeed, are better able to speak of craziness than Mirt of Waterdeep.”
Mirt had flung the nearly empty tankard away—and the old sword on his hip had made it into his hand—before he growled, “Elminster?”
The tankard landed with a clang, rolled over, and stopped. “None other,” it said with dignity. “How many archmages do ye throw around, anyway?”
“Elminster!” Shandril leaned forward to peer at the tankard. “Have you—recovered? How are you?”
The tankard looked somehow testy. “Aye, forget about me for days, lass, and then recall old Elminster as if he were a favorite puppy—or some disease—ye’d forgotten ye had. I’m doing just fine, thank ye all, not dead yet.”
Narm laughed. “He hasn’t changed.”
“More respect, youngling,” the tankard growled.
“Elminster,” Shandril said eagerly, “we’re going to have a baby.” Her face clouded over for a moment, and she added quietly, “Again.”
Mirt looked at her. “Aye, and tankard or no, this calls for a toast or three! Mind ye not fight over its naming, now—if it’s a boy, call it after me, not him.” He jerked his head toward the stein on the floor.
The tankard spoke again. Shandril was surprised to hear how soft and gentle Elminster’s voice could be when he dropped his testy blustering. “It’s not a boy, Old Wolf. I know already that thy babe will be a girl, Shandril. The blessing of Mystra upon ye and Narm—and upon her.”
“Thanks, Old Mage,” Shandril said, touched.
“Ye’ll both be needing it—and Narm, too,” Elminster added, in his customary sharper tones. “For in the visions Mystra sends me, I’ve seen that thy lass will have the power of spellfire, too.”
Oprion Blackstone sat alone in a high, locked chamber in the Black Altar, staring into a scrying bowl as Fzoul had taught him to do. His false Manshoon speech sounded even better to his ears now than when he’d laid the enchantment, but that accursed Tessaril had put the speaking stone back in her pouch—so he could see nothing of what was happening in the Hidden House. Making the stone burn its way out of the pouch now would certainly be a mistake.
He could, though, hear everything. Oprion raised his head to stare at the carved Black Hand of Bane that hung on the wall, and he said to it grimly, “And that child will be mine. If need be, I’ll take the form of a younger man and woo it. For I will have spellfire for my own, whatever befalls gods and men in the days ahead. The gods have twisted humors, indeed, to give a silly, soft slip of a girl such power. Spellfire will be mine.”