Silence fell in the wake of that biting rebuke, and Harflame went pale and thin lipped. He sat back and reached for one of his decanters.
“Our realm has troubles and tumult enough,” another old lord muttered, “but wars are raging everywhere, on our soil included. We should worry. The lass speaks truth.”
One of the young ladies sitting with Lady Wyrmwood burst out eagerly, her eyes large and dancing in her fervor to be a part-at last! — of important matters, “Fabled Myth Drannor stands besieged! And there’s talk that gods long thought dead and gone are awakening! And Chosen-or folk believing they are Chosen, or base pretenders claiming to be Chosen, and those are all one when it comes to the damage done-of every deity, demigod, and half-forgotten place spirit are everywhere, toppling thrones and raising armies and murdering those who stand against them, or whose gold or fancy hats they covet.”
“A bad time,” Haelrood agreed heavily. “A bad time indeed.”
Lord Snelgarth slammed down his twentieth empty goblet of the evening and snorted, “I think it all began when some sages started talking of the World Tree, and were allowed to go on doing so. Madness, sheer madness. Give me the Great Wheel, and I know where I stand. Give me order, and the rule of kings, and laws and good roads and warm indoor privies-”
“And clean water,” Lady Rowanmantle put in firmly.
“And clean water, aye, Lady, well said, so long as servants and peasants are taught to use it occasionally, upon their own persons-and I can live out my life content, worrying myself over the trifles my very safety gives me the luxury to raise into grave concerns. Caring about gossip and fripperies, secure in the knowledge that the Realms is as safe as it can ever be, life solid and sure for most, and peace preferred to war by sane folk. Not this ‘world all afire’ stuff. I’m too old for it.”
A darkly handsome stranger who’d just strolled into the room, a goblet and a sealed flask of the choicest Shaldaunsan glimmerfire in his hand, nodded at Snelgarth and murmured, “Me, too.”
Various nobles looked up at the sound of that smoothly cultured, purring, unfamiliar voice, but-not recognizing the face, and so judging the man an outlander-made no reply.
Into the resulting silence, as he unhurriedly crossed the room, the newcomer added, “Yet some old ways still hold true now as Marpenoth begins in this Year of the Rune Lords Triumphant-and just who are they, now? Feuds, hatreds, and the desire for revenge keep many of those of elder years alive and active rather than sinking into their dotage, as such things always have.”
“True,” Mirt granted, waving a hand at the empty chair across his table, as the man reached the back wall and discovered no handy vacant seats. “And which lord are you?”
“Manshoon,” the darkly handsome man replied quietly, dropping into the proffered chair and using a thumbnail to unseal the glimmerfire with the ease of long practice. “Once, I was High Lord of Zhentil Keep. Just as you were once a Lord of Waterdeep, Old Wolf.”
Mirt’s eyes narrowed. “Now that’s a name I’ve not been called in many a year …”
Manshoon shrugged. “Old glory, older secrets. Yet you tarry here, in this pretty kingdom of knights in shining armor, great green forests, and foolheaded nobles. Why?”
“ ’Tis as pleasant a place to die as any, and the lasses are passing fair.”
“I’d noticed you partaking of their company, yes,” the darkly handsome man almost purred, over his goblet of glimmerfire. “Yet wolves can never content themselves with mere dalliance. Surely you have greater concerns.”
It was Mirt’s turn to shrug. “Don’t we all? Or pretend to, to justify our idleness? What concerns you, that you have time enough to listen to idle nobles prate and blow wind?”
“The Chosen of the gods concern me, as it happens. Specifically, that they now seem as abundant as wild-breeding rabbits, underfoot everywhere, all running about in confusion-save those who’re being rounded up and imprisoned.”
Mirt’s eyes narrowed. “Oh? By whom?”
“A god who wants to feed on their power, of course,” Manshoon replied. “The question is, which one? Obvious candidates leap to mind, but I like to be sure.”
“And the gods aren’t talking to you these days?”
“The mantle of Chosen is one I’ve never accepted.”
Mirt shrugged again. “Most of us never even receive such an offer.”
Manshoon sipped glimmerfire. “Do shepherds ennoble their sheep?” He set his goblet aside, and added, “I confess to be harboring growing curiosity as to your own standing, Old Wolf. Do you tarry here because someone divine asked you to? Are you a Chosen?”
Mirt smiled thinly. “Old wolves never tell.”
Manshoon sighed. “Yet you just have, haven’t you? Ah, but deeds press and time races on.” He rose, drained his goblet, and set it down beside the flask. “Enjoy,” he said, turning away. “I must see a goddess, about the fate of a world.”
Mirt lifted bushy eyebrows. “What-again? What a dashing life you lead!”
The onetime lord of Zhentil Keep threw a scowl back over his shoulder, and was gone.
Mirt regarded the glimmerfire calmly, and resolved to take it with him, not touching a drop, and hurl it into a foundry fire. When the smiths were at a safe distance, of course.
The Manshoons of this world, he thought, are capable of anything.
Amarune heard the old man’s approach long before she saw him, in the damp, deep forest: slow and careful but heavy footfalls. Nor were his the only footfalls she could hear.
There were others out there in the thick stands of trees, quieter than he was-and moving cautiously closer.
She shot a swift glance back into the tomb behind her to see if her companions had heard.
One wise old eye met hers just long enough to wordlessly tell her they had. Yet they kept to their work, seemingly unconcerned, so Rune kept to hers.
Not that she turned her back on the forest for an instant.
She’d thought nothing more dangerous than deer would disturb them here in this small but forgotten forest tucked into the rolling hills southeast across the Chionthar from Elturel. Too small to even be shown on most maps, and old and tangled and untouched by woodcutters. Well, so much for her judgment.
The old man came into view at last, ducking out from behind the trunks of trees as fleetingly as he could until he climbed the last leaf-covered ridge and bobbed up into the open.
At first, she pretended not to notice him, though anyone not deaf would have heard his coming, this close at hand. Heavy boots stalking with care through the rotting leaves, old stones, and dry dead ferns, not more than a dozen strides away.
She cast one swift glance in his direction through the fall of an errant lock of hair that always escaped her browband, just to make sure he carried no bow.
There was no sign of one, so she returned her attention to her work, not looking up again.
After all, he was just one man, and she could hear the wheeze in his breathing-and no matter how many others were skulking unseen out in the trees, the tomb had thick stone walls girt with much earth and gnarled tree roots, and only this one door.
Rune kept on scraping away the muck of centuries with her trowel. Gods, but small furry forest things shat a lot. And went to a lot of trouble to gnaw twigs and weave them into nests that-
“Well met.”
The old man’s greeting was flat and unfriendly. The sort of “Well met” a warrior tosses before him like a gauntlet, in challenge. He might as well have bluntly demanded to know her name and what she was doing-