His face paled, then, as if he was seeing more in the Black Hand than a carving, and his voice deepened into the echoing tones of prophecy. “No struggle is ever done; no matter is ever closed. As long as gods and men strive on Toril, there is no ‘forever.’ ”
“I must go now, lass,” Elminster’s voice came again. There are others who’d speak with ye, though.”
Another, rougher voice came from the tankard. “Shandril? Lass?”
Shandril was up out of Narm’s arms in a rush, reaching toward the tankard. “Gorstag?” she cried, and happy tears wet her cheeks.
“Aye, lass; gods smile on you. Lureene has a word for you, too—”
The voice changed again. “Shan! Are you well?”
On her knees before the tankard, Shandril laughed. “Very happy, Lureene. Safe in hiding, both of us, and with a babe on the way.”
“Good! Give it a kiss for me—and mind you stop at two babes, Shan: the gods give us only two hands to hold them with. Keep smiling, little one.”
“My thanks.” Through her tears, Shandril was seeing again The Rising Moon, the inn where she’d grown up …. the place she’d run away from so long ago. So long—and so few actual days ago.
“Fair fortune, lass,” the tankard said gruffly.
“You fare well, too, Gorstag,” Shandril replied almost fiercely. “Both of you!”
And then, before her eyes, the tankard shattered with the sound of a ringing bell, its shards dancing on the stones.
Tessaril shook her head. “That magic eats away at whatever is the focus for farspeaking,” she said. “I’m surprised it held together this long.” She leaned forward to touch Shandril’s shoulder. “No harm has befallen any of them,” she said reassuringly. “The magic just overwhelmed the tankard.”
Mirt looked at its ruins, then sadly surveyed the empty depths of his bottle. “Is there more to be had anywhere about?”
Tessaril indicated a door. “I took the liberty of bringing in a keg of ale, a little while back.” Her nose wrinkled. “About the time I knew you’d be coming.”
Mirt threw her a look as he shambled toward the door.
She smiled sweetly and added, “On a shelf on the left, you’ll find a selection of tankards for the rest of us to use. You’re welcome.”
Still on her knees on the floor, Shandril found herself laughing helplessly. By the gods! Did they never stop teasing each other? And a small voice inside her promptly asked: Why should they?
“Oprion Blackstone?” the cold voice said in derisive surprise. “The priesthood of the Dread Lord flourishes indeed.”
Oprion scrambled up. How had anyone passed the guards and locks to reach this room? And that voice. He spun around, and his face went as white as polished bone. “Manshoon!” he gasped, when he could speak. “You’re alive!” He stared at the High Lord of Zhentil Keep, looking up and down, and then turned away in confusion. “I’m—I’m delighted.”
Manshoon’s smile was crooked. “You mean, you’re surprised I still have clones left.”
Oprion stuttered for a moment, and then said rather desperately, “No, no. But when so much time had passed, we—”
“Assumed you were finally rid of me. Have you raised Fzoul yet?”
Option’s mouth dropped open. “W-Why?”
“He’s thrice the administrator you’ll ever be—and a capable schemer, too, if not my equal. The Brotherhood needs him. I hear you’ve been rather careless with our—ah, human resources, since I was last here. Sarhthor, Elthaulin, and about two hundred others, as I recall; the list made both long and distressing reading.”
Oprion’s hand tensed as he eyed a sideboard and the magical mace that lay upon it. It winked back at him, brimming with power. Mageslayer was its name; Fzoul had told him what it could do. His gaze flickered away from it, and Manshoon smiled.
“Is it to be war between us, then?” Manshoon’s voice was soft and level; he might have been asking what color cloak his colleague intended to wear.
Oprion’s wintry gaze met his own silently for a long time, and then the priest shook his head with careful slowness. “No. We work together—as always. It is the best way.”
Manshoon nodded. “Perhaps, one day, with trust,” he murmured.
Oprion looked at him sharply, but said nothing.
There was a faint smell of pipesmoke in the air, but neither of them recognized it for what it was.
“Be damned to trotting back an’ forth all night!” Mirt growled, coming back into the room with the keg on his shoulder. He staggered as he came; it wasn’t a hand-keg, but a barrel almost as large around as he was.
Shandril looked at Tessaril. “You think we’ll drink all that? Lords of Cormyr must be optimists, indeed!”
Tessaril looked at her dryly. “No,” she replied, “I think Mirt will drink all that—if we want any, we’d best pull a tankard each now, before it’s gone.” She watched Mirt, wheezing and grunting, set the keg onto a couch. “Tankards, Old Wolf?” she called.
Mirt gave her what some folk in Faerûn call ‘a dirty look,’ and set off toward the door again. He’d got about six steps away from the couch before it collapsed with a groan, settling the keg nearer the floor, but thankfully not dumping it. Tessaril surveyed it and said, “I’ve a feeling this is going to be a long night. You’d better put something other than that bearskin on, Shan.”
Shan was nodding as the Lord of Eveningstar looked across the room and added, “And so should your h—” Tessaril’s words broke off and, frowning, she glanced from one of them to the other.
Shandril and Narm both followed her gaze, then looked down at themselves. Both wore identical bearskin rugs.
“What’s the matter, Tess?” Shandril asked quietly.
The Lord of Eveningstar’s eyes were troubled. “Throw those furs off, right now! There should only be one of them!”
Shandril and Narm stared at her for one shocked moment, then Shan saw a gold light glowing in the eyes of the dead bear. She shrieked and tried to throw off the skin. Narm’s fur fell lifeless and heavy to the stone floor, but Shandril’s felt suddenly wet and glistening, and it slapped at her breast and flank as she snatched at the fur around her. Frantically she flung it away, just as it grew a long, hooked claw—that tore a thin ribbon of flesh from her ribs. Dancing backward, Shandril stared down at the blood.
The fur on the floor in front of her gathered itself, shifting, and scuttled toward her.
Shandril had the brief impression of tentacles as she backed away. Her hands flamed.
“No!” Tessaril shouted at her. “No spellfire in here!”
Shandril rushed to her discarded clothes and snatched up the Zhent dagger she’d picked up in the courtyard of the Wyvern—the one that had come so close to taking Narm’s life. With a snarl, she turned back to the thing that wasn’t a bearskin rug, and drove the blade deep into it. Warm, pink liquid as thick as honey gushed out, and the flesh seemed to quiver under her thrust.
The thing had grown, rising to about the height of a large dog. It was moving away from her, slashing with clawed, humanlike hands at Tessaril, who was angrily hacking at it with a belt dagger of her own. The Lord of Eveningstar turned her head then and called, “Knights!”
Her words were still echoing in the room when a door appeared in the ceiling and promptly fell open. Torm and Rathan plunged into the room through it, calling, “A rescue! A rescue!” as they came.
Torm hit the floor in a roll, bounced up, and slashed at the moving rug with the slim blade in his hand. Rathan landed hard on the thing with both feet, grunted as it convulsed and threw him off, and staggered back to fetch up hard against the wall. With a flourish he brought a mace out of his belt and swung it down to thump solidly in the middle of the shapeshifting fur.