“All,” the Most High replied calmly.
“Seducing the least loyal and biddable of Thultanthar-sharing ourselves intimately with every last one of them-is hardly a duty Tanthuls expect to be asked to perform,” Manarlume observed. “I prefer to choose my partners.” She gave Telamont a sly look. “As you have no doubt already learned.”
By way of reply, he regarded her in impassive silence.
After a moment, she asked softly, “And if we refuse?”
“New princesses of Thultanthar can be sired easily enough,” he observed calmly. “You will not be remembered. Save as warnings to others who may contemplate such disobedience.”
“Are our lives worth so little, Most High?” she asked, her voice quiet but dark fire rising behind her eyes. “Advance this or that nuance of your latest scheme, or be casually destroyed?”
“I do nothing casually, nor do I embrace ‘latest schemes.’ I advance Thultanthar always and unstintingly, in many ways. Such is the duty of all Tanthuls.” Telamont’s voice was conversational, and for the first time he felt they were a little afraid of him. “As for the worth of life, those who do not strive toward goals are hardly alive. Not that I’ve observed any lack of striving in either of you.”
“You have been watching, haven’t you?” Lelavdra asked archly.
“Of course. How else could I know the work for which you are best suited?”
“Your words,” Manarlume observed calmly, “strike true. Shall we begin immediately?”
“It is why I summoned you now, and not a day ago.”
“Then we should take our leave and begin.”
Telamont nodded. “I have no doubt you’ll enjoy this work. It will be preferable if you work together rather than as rivals.”
“Your will be done, Most High,” they murmured in chorus, and withdrew, sultry grace in every gliding movement.
Telamont watched the doors close in their wake, and muttered, “Neither of you are quite as expendable as you believe I consider you. Yet.”
The steam rising from the stewpots in this dim corner of the lengthy Candlekeep kitchens dripped off the walls. Just as the sweat of Maerandor’s own hard work dripped off his nose.
He stepped back with a sigh and wiped his hands dry. When chopping with a cleaver this sharp, even if the cleaving was being done just to parsnips, dry hands were a must. He wiped the cleaver’s worn leather grip for good measure, hefted it, and stepped forward to the chopping board again.
And then stiffened, to freeze with cleaver raised and no parsnip menaced, as an unexpected hand touched his shoulder, then slid down his back and started to massage the stiffness there.
For an instant, Maerandor was whirling, hands darting up to slay-and in the next instant, he was forcing himself to stop and relax, shuddering under the caressing fingers.
“Locks of the Binder, Norun, but you’re upset! What’s wrong?”
It was Shinthrynne, and her voice held the soft concern of a friend. Not a lover. Good, that was a complication he didn’t want. Lovers noticed when you slipped out of bed and away.
Not that he knew where Chethil’s bed was. Shar curse and shatter. That hadn’t been among what he’d been seeking in the dying cook’s mind.
And of course, should have been. Why was life so full of “should have beens”?
Maerandor feigned a cough, then growled, “Apologies. I-” He coughed again, and it was genuine this time. The spices down this end of the kitchens were catching at the back of his throat.
Ah, but he had been getting stiff, and hadn’t yet noticed it. The Southerner’s long, slender fingers were digging deeper into his back now; she was good at this. He hastily started to pay attention to just where and how she was kneading, in case-
“Right, old snapjaws, now you do me. Stirring batter is much harder on the back than a little bending and chopping.”
“Of course,” he agreed, and found himself facing a truly splendid back, curving muscles flanking a long, sinuous, and deep line of spine. Shinthrynne wore only a light smock, smudged here and there with flour and a few stray petals of parsley, and he dug his fingers into it and tried to emulate what she’d just been doing to him.
“Hoy, lovers!” Rethele called, from the far end of the kitchen. “The thrummel and the dagh will be sticking and scorching in a trice, and I’m stuck down here stirring my goldaevur! Stir now, and fondle later!”
“Sorry,” Shinthrynne called back, and was out from under Maerandor’s fingers in a lithe instant.
Leaving him quelling a sigh. Good. Too much more of that, and his loins would have been more than just stirring.
And he had no idea how things stood between these two amiable young women and the senior cook of Candlekeep.
Well, at least he knew what thrummel was.
Men stank as they rotted. As did their dung pits, and the smoke of their cooking fires when left untended to burn refuse and nearby shrubs and saplings. Thin threads of reeking smoke were drifting through the trees as Storm, Amarune, and Arclath trudged warily along through a deep and soaring forest that was still beautiful, despite the war that had come to it, and was all around them now.
There was a faint, ever-present singing too. An ethereal, wordless rising and falling chorus that was by turns mournful and filled with exultation. Despite what looked like wild forest, they were within the City of Song.
Or what had once been Myth Drannor, before its fall and rebuilding on a smaller scale and now this siege.
Just now, the three companions were walking in a little dell that held no bodies or combatants. Just the three of them, walking among the tall trees.
“One hears so much errant nonsense about fell wizards energetically engaged in dooming the world, that one shrugs the words off like an ill-fitting cloak after a while, and pays no attention,” Arclath remarked. “Lately, of course, the rumors and reports have come darker and wilder with each passing month. Tumult across the world entire, mountains thrusting up and seas draining away, dragons falling from the skies and scores-nay, hundreds-of mortals proclaiming themselves Chosen of this god or that, and rushing here and there plundering things and destroying things and mustering armies. Yet tell me now-the wizards of the city that floats above Anauroch are behind this siege, truly?”
“Floated above Anauroch,” Storm replied. “Thultanthar is somewhat nearer now.”
Lord Delcastle rolled his eyes, then fixed them on his beloved. “So, a city of ancient archmages hovering above us, blotting out the sun as they enthusiastically hurl dark and mighty spells down on our heads … we are doomed.”
Amarune Whitewave looked back at him and rolled her own eyes. “We are all doomed in the end, my lord. The trick is to make the journey from birth to doom as delightful as possible.”
“Base philosopher!” he reproved her fondly. “I left my warm hearth and-dare I say it-splendid wine cellar for this?”
He waved a dramatic hand at the vista of burning trees and rushing men and elves, the din of battle rising loud from the still-unseen front line of the fray beyond.
“No,” Rune told him, “you left hearth and goblet for this.” She ran a hand down her curvaceous front and gave him a wink that was just this side of a leer.
“Right,” Storm observed briskly, “I believe it’s now my turn for some eye rolling. By all means bill and coo, you two-but on a battlefield, time for such dalliance must be earned. The hard way.”
She cast an arch glance Arclath’s way. “As a noble lord of the Forest Kingdom should know well, if he’s been raised properly.”
And with that, the silver-haired bard led the way over a ridge cloaked in dead, fallen leaves and a deep, rich emerald carpet of moss, heading for the fighting.