“To be happy. With you. Free of fear. Free to walk as we will, and neither cold nor hungry. More, I care little for, as long as we have friends.”
“Simple enough,” Narm agreed, and they both laughed. “All right, then,” Narm continued, “we must travel west, as they all say. But, advice be damned, let us go by way of The Rising Moon and Thunder Gap, so you may see Gorstag once more. What say?”
“Yes! It if pleases you, it pleases me. But what of the Harpers?”
“Well…”
Outside in the night, Torm strained to hear, but slipped. He breathed a curse upon fickle Tymora as he slid slowly backward on the wet slates despite his splayed, iron-strong fingers. He soon ran out of roof and fell over the edge.
Desperately he swung himself inward as his fingers left the slates. Then he was falling, mind racing coolly. His fingers closed on a window ledge as he plummeted past it.
With a Jerk that nearly wrenched his arms from their sockets he brought himself to a halt and hung grimly in midair. It was then that he noticed his left hand had come down hard upon a nesting evendove and crushed its frail body against the stone ledge.
“Ugghh,” he said, suppressing an urge to snatch his hand away.
“How do you think I feel?” demanded the crumpled bird, opening one eye sourly.
At that Torm did fall. The bird sighed, became Elminster even as Torm fell helplessly away below him, and created a fan of sticky web-strands. These lanced down to the grounds far below, enveloping Torm on the way.
The thief came to a slow, rubbery halt only feet from the ground, and hung there helplessly. He began to struggle. “Serves you right,” Elminster muttered darkly, and became a bird again.
Above the two eavesdroppers, Shandril and Narm had decided to join the Harpers. “After all” as Narm put it, “if we don’t like it, we can back out.” “Shall we tell them now?”
“No. Sleep on it, Elminster said.” Outside, Elminster smiled quietly, though one couldn’t see it for the beak.
“And so to bed again, you and I-and this time I would not hear your life story.”
Outside, on the window ledge, the bird that was Elminster looked up at the stars glimmering above Selune. The Silent Sword had ascended above the trees. The night was half done. The bird’s beak dwindled. It grew a human mouth, and sang, very softly, a snatch of a ballad that had been old when Myth Drannor felclass="underline"
…and in the wind and the water the storm-king’s fire-eyed daughter came a-rotting home across the sea leaving none on the wreck alive but me…
The sun rose hot that morning over Shadowdale, glinting on helms and spearpoints atop the Old Skull. Mist rose and rolled away down the Ashaba. Narm and Shandril rose early, and lingered not in the Twisted Tower, but set out for a brisk morning walk accompanied by six watchful guards that Thurbal insisted on sending with them. Their bright armor flashed and gleamed in the sunlight, and reminded the two lovers constantly of danger lurking near, and of spellfire.
They found themselves hungry again, despite a good breakfast of fried bread and goose eggs at the tower. They stopped in at The Old Skull Inn for bowls of hot stew. Jhaele Silvermane bid them fair morning as she served them, waved away their coins, and asked them when the wedding would be.
Shandril blushed, but Narm said proudly, “As soon as can be arranged, or even sooner.” Their escort of guards developed sudden thirsts for ale that made Shandril shudder with the earliness of the hour, but all soon set forth again up the road toward Storm Silverhand’s farm.
The dale was quiet despite the morning vigor of workers in the fields. All Faerun seemed at peace. Birds sang and the sky was cloudless. Narm realized that he and his lady had only a vague idea of where Storm SUverhand’s farm was. He turned to the nearest guard, a scarred, mustachioed veteran who bore a spear lightly in his hairy hands. “Good sir,’ Narm asked, “could you guide us to the dwelling of Storm Silverhand?”
“It lies before you, lord-from this cedar stump, here, on up to the line of bluewood yonder.” Narm nodded and said his thanks, for Shandril had already hurried ahead. The guards trotted with him until they caught her again.
It lay behind a high, crown-hedged bank of grass-covered earth. Over the hedge could be seen the upper leaves of growing things. All was lush and green. On this bright morning, bees and wasps danced and darted among the curling blossoms of a creeper that coiled in gnarled loops. The men-at-arms walked watchfully and carried their blades ready, but Shandril could not believe that there could be anything lurking to offer ready danger, in such a place and on such a morning as this.
They turned where a broad track cut through the hedge, and followed it up a line of old, twisted oaks to a large, rambling house of fieldstone. Its thatched roof was thick with velvet-green moss and alive with birds. Vines on tripods and pole-frames stretched away from them in rows, like choked hallways amid the green, rustling walls of a great castle. Far down one they saw Storm Silverhand at work, her long silver hair tied back with a ragged scrap of cloth.
The bard wore dusty and torn leather breeches and a halter, both shiny with age. Swinging a hoe with strength and care, Storm was covered with a glistening sheen of sweat, and stray leaves stuck to her here and there. She waved and, laying down the long hookhoe, hastened toward them, wiping her hands on her thighs. “Well met!” she called happily as she came.
“I’m going to hate leaving this place/’ Shandril said in a small, husky voice. Narm squeezed her hand and nodded.
“I am, too,” he said, “but we can come back when we are stronger. We will come back.”
Shandril turned to look at him, surprised at the iron in his tone. She was smiling in agreement as Storm reached them. The pleasant smell of the bard’s sweat-like warm bread, sprinkled with spices-hung around her. Narm and Shandril both stared.
Storm smiled. “Am I purple, perhaps? Grotesque?”
Narm caught himself, and said, “My pardon, please, lady. We did not mean to stare.”
“None needed, Narm. And no ‘lady’, please. we’re friends. Come in and share sweetwater, then let us talk. Few enough come to see me.”
On the way to the house, she said to Shandril, “So what is so strange about me?”
Shandril giggled. “Such muscles” she said admiringly, turning to point at the bard’s flat, tanned midriff. Corded muscles rippled on her flanks and arms as she walked. Storm shook her head.
“It’s just me,” she said lightly, leading them through a stout wooden door that swung open before she touched it, into cool dimness within. “Sit here by the east window and tell me what brings you here on such a fine morning. Most seek Storm in fouler weather/’
“Urrhh… as bad as Elminster? Narm said in response. She handed him a long, curving horn of blown and worked glass, in the shape of a bird. He held it gingerly, in awe. “It’s real glass!”
“Aye… from Theymarsh in the south, where such things are common. It breaks easily,” the bard said, filling another. Shandril held hers apprehensively, too. One of the guards backed away when offered one.
“Ah, no, lady,” he said awkwardly. “Just a cup, if you have one. I’d feel dark the rest of my days if I broke such as that.” Shandril murmured in agreement. The bard smiled at them all, hands on hips, and then turned and spoke softly to the guardsmen.
“We must be alone, these two and I, to talk. Bide you here, if you will. The beer is in that cask over there; it is not good to drink more sweetwater so soon. Bread, garlic butter, and sausage is at hand in the cold-pantry. Come with speed if you hear my horn.” She took down a silver horn from where it hung on a beam near her head, and turned to Narm and Shandril.
“Drink up,” she urged simply. “There is much to talk about.” She went to the back of her kitchen and swung open a little arched door there, into the sunlight. “Follow the path into the trees, and you shall find me.” Then she was gone.