Crown of Fire

Nine Death Behind Thee, Its Claws upon Thy Shoulder

“Fare thee well, too, Baera,” Mirt said roughly, and then his arms were tightly wrapped around her, squeezing as though by mere strength he could hold onto some part of her afterwards. The fat Harper, looking somehow sleek and striking this morning after her bath, gripped him back just as hard, and they stood locked like two wrestling bears for a long moment.

“Go, then,” Baergasra said finally and pushed him away. Her voice was suddenly husky, and her eyes glimmered like the morning dew. “I fear I’ll not see you again, Old Wolf.” She waved him away sadly. “So go—quickly, all of you; I hate tears. Let me be lonely again.”

“Well,” Delg said gruffly, “if you took a bath more often, mayhap you’d be lonely less often ….”

He ducked under her wild and immediate grab and came running back to his companions, grinning from ear to ear.

“Next time, little man,” Baergasra called after him, hands on hips, “I’ll have a cake of soap ready for a certain dwarf. Begone, the lot of you!” She snorted, and then waved farewell.

Mirt, shaking his head at Delg, led them over a hill that hid the Wyvern from view behind them, and hid Baergasra with it.

The fat old merchant’s shaggy head swung to and fro as they walked on. They all went slowly under the weight of much new-bought food as Mirt peered watchfully at every tree and rise around them. At length his gaze came to rest on Narm, striding along beside Shandril in his customary silence. “Are you well enough?” he rumbled anxiously. “Any pain?”

Narm grinned. “I’m … well, it seems. Worry not! It’s in the past and done.”

“As you were nearly in the past and done yestereve,” Delg added meaningfully.

Narm sighed, then raised an eyebrow carefully. “Are you always this cheerful,” he asked the dwarf, “or is this some sort of special occasion?”

The dwarf shrugged. “I—something’s amiss; I feel it in my bones. I’m a little … bladesharp, this morn.” He shook himself as a dog shakes off water when climbing out of a pond, and went on down the road.

Mirt rolled his eyes and shook his head but said nothing.

Narm and Shandril exchanged glances. “I have a bad feeling about that,” Shandril said softly. “When Delg senses something amiss, he’s usually all too right—something goes amiss before the day is out. So please, Narm … be careful; watch always for danger.”

Narm nodded wryly. “What else do I ever watch for since we first met?” He wrapped an arm about her to show he meant no complaint, and added, “I fear you’re right, though. I’ll keep wary eyes, as best I can.”

“If you two can find the will to leave off cuddling for a breath or two,” Delg said sourly from ahead, “your mouths—and brains to guide them, too—are needed in a little dispute. Not our last ere sunset, either, I fear.”

Mirt stood at the roadside. He was looking down at the dwarf rather like a bull wearily regards a small, loud dog: as something not yet worth kicking, but that may soon become so if it continues to annoy. “We leave the road here,” he said patiently, “and go across the fields. Trust me; I know this land well.”

“As do I,” the dwarf replied, unmoved. “The more northerly we tend, the closer we get to the Zhentarim and the lawlessness of the Stonelands—where for all we know this Dragon Cult rides freely, too. Short of turning back into the teeth that follow us, this is the worst way we could head.”

Mirt sighed. “Aye, so it may seem. But look ye, Sir Dwarf, and heed—in Suzail, or any port on the Inner Sea, the Zhents and the Cult could have a dozen’s dozen of agents waiting, an’ we’d never know until their blades were in us. More than that; they’ve hired eyes aplenty watching for the walking source of spellfire, and those known to guard her, in all those places. Moreover they expect Shandril to come that way, and by the roads. These be all good reasons, by my blade, to turn aside and seek the secret way I know.”

Delg snorted. “The Stonelands are bandit country, and worse—they hold fearsome beasts and Zhent evil. Enough of both, even you must admit, that the Purple Dragons have never been able to hold Azoun’s word as law north of the road that links Arabel with High Horn, let alone to Desert’s Edge, where earlier kings of Cormyr always claimed to rule. A land of outlaws, breakneck gullies, little hidden cliffs and thornbushes; it crawls with monsters by night and creeps with them by day. Do you think us a band of sword-swinging heroes, bedecked with magic blades and fancy armor? Or have you such a band up your sleeve—or hidden in that capacious belly of yours?”

Mirt sighed again and spoke with exaggerated gentleness. “I have no quarrel with thy glowing description of the land, nor do I have any swordarms to protect us—save the two that come visibly attached to this belly ye’re so impressed with. Yet, look ye, I know of a way not known to those who chase at our heels. A way to save Shandril nearly a season of travel-time on her long way to the North, a way to avoid the roads and inns of Cormyr—and the trackless wastes of the Backlands on the western edge of Anauroch, too, where every second merchant could well be a Zhent agent, or someone else who’d just as soon stick a dagger between yer shoulder blades the moment ye turn yer back.”

“So what is this magical way, that I’ve never heard of it?” the dwarf asked suspiciously, brows bristling.

“That’s it precisely,” Mirt said, lowering his voice. “Magic. That’s all I prefer to say.”

Delg snorted. “Trust me, then, you’re telling us: trust me to lead you into a land of death because I’ve left some handy, oh-so-reliable magic there, which’ll whisk us away from all danger and leave all our foes and cares behind.”

Mirt smiled thinly. “I couldn’t have put it much better than that—are ye sure ye don’t do a rich trade in dealing horses somewhere in Faerûn?” Then he sighed and looked to Narm and Shandril. “Ye’ve heard Delg, and my words too, about the paths before us. Choose then, whether ye’ll follow me. I will say only two things more: first, that the way through Cormyr’s roads and cities is almost certain death, where my way offers death not so sure by a long measure; second, that whate’er yer choice, it must be made speedily, for if we stand here debating in the open all day, death will come up behind us and lay claws on our shoulders while yet we speak.”

Shandril stared at him and at Delg, and then looked to Narm, who said, “The decision must be yours, love.”

They gazed into each other’s eyes for a moment, and then Shandril turned back and said very quietly, “I’m sorry, Delg. Storm and Elminster and the Knights told me some things about gates, and this sounds like one—am I right, Lord Mirt?”

Mirt nodded. “The gate, aye; but not this talk of ‘Lord’; ye’re no subject to me.”

Shandril waved away his words. “I would walk where Mirt leads us now, Delg. Will you come with us? Please?”

Delg growled, looked away, and then spat into the dust slowly and carefully. “Of course I’ll come. It’s wrong. I can feel it. It’ll bring death, but someone’s got to be along to see that it isn’t yours, Lady. I’ll come.”

Silence hung heavily around them for what seemed a long time, and then Shandril whispered, “Thank you, Delg. Thank you.” Her voice trembled on the last word, and Narm looked to her in alarm; she was close to tears.

His slim lady stood looking at the dwarf, who squinted warily back up at her a moment more, and then smiled, clapped his hands together, and said briskly, “Let’s be walking, then! The sun rolls on, and I grow older with it.”

Amid a general murmur of agreement, they set off after Mirt. The old merchant’s rolling gait was surprisingly fast. He strode purposefully across the field, heading for a distant stile over the rubble fence that separated this field from the next.

Delg, as was his wont, fell back to guard the rear, his ready axe glittering in his hands. He muttered as he walked, words meant for no ears but his own. “Never hurry to your doom, lass. It will come for you soon enough. Too many of my folk have gone looking for their doom—and sure enough, it found them.” His knuckles were white where he gripped his axe, and the corded veins in his hairy wrists and forearms stood out darkly as his hands shook.

It is never easy to see your own death close ahead, know there is no escape, and go calmly to meet it.

“They were here, in this village?” The Zhentarim’s voice was cold. “And no one knows which way they went?”

“No, Lord Mage,” the swordmaster said a little uncertainly. “We’ve asked everyone.”

“Not forcefully enough, I’d say. Start chopping off villagers’ fingers until someone remembers something.”

“Aye, Lord.” The warrior’s voice was not happy. Needless butchery was never wise. These folk were terrified of the Brotherhood already. Turning that fear to desperate, fighting hatred would be all too easy. The Zhents had to sleep somewhere tonight, whether or not this maniac of a wizard burned the inn to the ground.

“I’ve just remembered something,” a voice rumbled from a roof close overhead.

The swordmaster looked up. “Eh?”

“It’s Zhent-killing time!” Rathan Thentraver announced gleefully as he launched himself off the edge of the roof. His not inconsiderable bulk crashed down atop the swordmaster, who crumpled to the ground under the knight and did not move again. “Truly, the loads some of us bear in life are heavier than others.” Rathan smiled up at the startled Zhentarim wizard as he paraphrased the old maxim.

The wizard, looking at the stout priest in surprise and anger, never saw the slim thief lean down over the edge of the roof, Rathan’s borrowed mace in his hand.

“Magusta, dear?” Torm asked interestedly as he clubbed the wizard on the side of the head. Blood flew, and the man fell without a sound. “No,” Torm said, watching the mage bounce and sprawl on the ground, arms twitching. “I guess not.” He sighed theatrically and slid down from the roof. “When shall I ever catch up with that maiden? My lips ache for her kisses!”

“Not half so much as yon wizard’s head aches for another hit o’ my mace, I’m thinking,” Rathan rumbled, taking it from his fellow knight and bending forward to finish the task.

There was a startled shout from a nearby window, and two Zhents ran around the corner of the Wyvern’s front wall, swords drawn.

While Rathan finished the mage, Torm snatched up the sword of the sprawled swordmaster, hefted it critically, and then threw it hard. It flashed end over end through the air and cut a crimson line across one Zhent’s face. Torm leapt after it, drawing his own sword with a smile. “This is more like it!” he called back as steel rang and he turned aside the first warrior’s blade. “Chop and hack merrily, work up an appetite, get a lot of good fresh air ….”

“Did ye have to mention food? My belly feels like it’s been lying starving in a dungeon for a month—and here I am going into battle.” Rathan’s snort of disgust was matched by a low, ominous rumble from his abdomen. Torm hooted with laughter and killed a Zhent.

Rathan lumbered along the front of the inn as the man fell, calling plaintively, “Wait for me, will ye?” At full run, he spread his hands comically and addressed the sky. “Tymora—I try to serve ye faithfully, but this selfish thief never waits for me. Was ever a priest so put upon as I?”

All that day and the next, they walked farmlands, avoiding bulls and their owners alike and, when necessary, keeping to the shelter of the high stone walls that divided one farm from the next. Mirt led them at a tireless, steady pace across country, always seeming to know exactly where he was going. He kept silence when they walked, but was ready with an endless flood of salty jokes and tales whenever they stopped to eat or rest.

It was on the morning of the third day, after a night whose chill made them all stiff, that Delg asked the stout merchant, “Why, Deeppockets, could you not bring along a nag or six for us to ride? We’ll die of gray hair and cold winter catching us in these fields before we see Silverymoon.”

Mirt chuckled. “I did ride some of the way in Cormyr before we met. But horses are wiser than those who seek adventure: ye can’t get them to go into deep woods, try as ye might. So I bid them a fair gallop and let them loose, and I walked.”

“We’re not exactly in deep woods now,” Delg reminded him sourly, waving at the empty fields around them. “Or are there trees on all sides of us that I’m too short, perhaps, to see?”

Mirt sighed. “I’ve also yet to succeed in getting a horse to climb over a stile—or crawl along a stone wall to escape a farmer’s eyes. Walking’s better … as most dwarves are only too quick to tell me.”

Delg sighed in his turn. “You’re right, as usual,” he replied. “I just mistrust all this open sky above, and not a hole to hide in. These bone dragons that attacked Shan before—they always fly, and I’ve heard of mages flitting about in the sky, too. I feel … naked.”

Mirt nodded. “I prefer shade, and trees overhead, myself. Yet since I took up the harp, I’ve learned that all country has a way of its own, and ways in which it serves better than other countryside. This may be open—yet it’s more private, look ye, than the roads.”

Narm nodded. Shandril eyed the fat lord curiously as he wheezed his cautious way up a creaking stile to peer over its top into the field beyond. He nodded, then waved a hand for them to follow.

Shandril climbed up behind him and asked, “What is it, Lord, to be a Harper?”

Mirt froze, then sighed gustily and went on down the other side of the stile. “Don’t call me ‘Lord,’ look ye, lass. I’m not so old as all that.” He gained his balance, looked testily all about in the manner of an old and short-sighted lion, and added, “Ye should know, little one, that I’m not a very good Harper.”

Shandril smiled. “Don’t call me ‘little one’—and don’t try to wriggle out of answering, either.” Behind her, she heard Delg’s dry chuckle.

Mirt turned slowly and loomed up over her like an angry mountain. Then he grinned. “Right, then, good Lady Shandril. I shall try to tell thee something of what it is to be a Harper.” He cleared his throat grandly and waved his hand at the field before them. It was dotted with cow dung. He lofted the nearest pat into the air with the toe of his boot and added, “As we walk, of course.”

“A Harper holds peaceful sharing of the lands above all other goals,” Mirt declaimed grandly, waving at the rolling fields around them. Several nearby cows turned their heads to stare at him curiously. “By sharing,” he added, winking at the nearest cow, “we mean all the races living in and under the land, where each prefers to live, trading together where desire and need stir them to, and respecting each other’s holds and ways—without the daily bloodletting that all too often holds sway in the Realms today.”

“If you don’t mind a word against that,” Narm replied carefully, “it seems all too seldom that Harpers manage to avoid indulging in a little bloodletting themselves.”

Mirt grinned, rather like a wolf raising bloody jaws from its fallen prey. “True. We must fight, it seems, often enough to keep old blades such as—’hem—myself busy, our swords and our tempers both sharp enough. Yet, know ye; all of us fight when we must, or die. Moreover, ye hear only of blades drawn and death and spells hurled, and never know of the many, many times more that a quiet word and a skillful deal has turned enemies aside from each other, forced a way clear where none was before, or distracted foes from the eager task of tearing each other’s throats out. That is the true Harper way, lad: subtle and quiet, behind the shouting. Trust, and wisdom, and outfoxing others is what we deal in.”

“Oh,” Delg grunted, “how’d you get to be a Harper, then?”

Mirt sighed. “My long patience had something to do with it, as I recall,” he answered deliberately, drawing a gleaming dagger and, with a single flick of his wrist, casually trimming off the tips of the nails on one hand. Narm stared, fascinated, but Shandril shuddered. If he’d missed by half an inch …

But he hadn’t. The Old Wolf smiled at her again, a mirthless grin that reminded her of a grinning skull she’d seen—long ago, it seemed—amid the ruins of Myth Drannor. Then he pointed ahead. “We turn here,” he said shortly, and then added, looking down, “even if we’re clever dwarves.”

Delg grunted in reply. “If I hear you tell us we’re lost, just once,” he threatened, “you’ll find yourself rapidly becoming more my size.” He glared at the tranquil wind-driven clouds that filled the sky and the endless rolling fields and rubble walls around them.

“I’ve crawled along in the dirt once or twice before, ye know,” Mirt told him, and added over his shoulder to Shandril, “that’s something else to being a Harper. There’s fools’ pride—the sort that won’t get dirty, an’ do this or that—and then there’s Harpers’ pride: where ye won’t quit and won’t be scared off. If ye only have the first kind, ye seldom live long enough to learn the second, unless ye leave off being a Harper altogether.”

“Do all Harpers talk this much?” Delg asked innocently from somewhere just out of reach.

Mirt sighed again. “It’s one way to keep from fighting,” he replied patiently, then turned to Narm and Shandril. “Ah—remember that, too.”

“You’ll remind me, from time to time, about all the things I should be remembering?” Shandril asked him dryly, eyes twinkling.

“Certainly,” the fat merchant boomed cheerfully. “All the way to Silverymoon, if ye like.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Narm told him as they approached another stile.

Mirt grinned at him. “Ye, lad, are already beginning to speak as a Harper does. If ye can learn some spells to match that mouth, ye’ll be a mageling to be reckoned with … now, where was I?”

“At the strutting grandly bit, Lord,” Shandril told him, so softly that it was almost a full breath later before Delg snorted. Shandril chuckled softly despite herself, and Narm started to laugh. It was another breath after that before Mirt joined in.

Overhead, the moon rode high above dark, ragged, racing clouds that streamed across the stars like tattered banners. Where the moonlight fell between the clouds, it laid bright white strips across the field.

Narm lay drowsily watching the clouds, Shandril asleep on his shoulder. The two of them were buried in a warm haystack, only their shoulders and heads protruding. Beside Narm’s face lay Shandril’s hair, a swirling mass that smelled faintly of spices. Baergasra had given her some bathing spices to ruin her scent for dogs—and worse things—the Zhents might use to track her.

To his left, Narm could just see the alert shadow that was Delg sitting watch. The dwarf sat with his blanket held over the ready axe in his lap, thereby preventing moongleams from betraying their presence to a watcher in the night. Despite Delg’s caution, the deep, rhythmic snores of Mirt the Moneylender—once Mirt the Merciless, mighty Lord of Waterdeep—could tell anyone in this corner of Faerûn right where they were.

To Narm’s left, something moved. It was Delg, creeping silently as a cat to peer into the night nearby. He seemed to see nothing amiss, because after a few moments, he turned and looked toward the haystack. His eyes met Narm’s. The dwarf nodded and withdrew to his post as silently as he had left it.

Narm thought the dwarf’s face looked bitter and drawn in the moonlight. Usually Delg seemed lit by a fierce fire from within, his face like a smithy door, spitting surly sparks with energy to spare. Not now. He looked like a ruined farmer Narm had once seen—beaten, bereft of hope.

The dwarf stared out across the moonlit field again, beaked nose pointing like an accusing finger into the night. Then something cold and wise crept slowly up Narm’s spine, and with sudden certainty he knew the look Delg wore. He looked like a man about to leave his friends behind forever and go down into the darkness that does not end.

For all their differences, dwarves and men do look like brothers when their faces wear the same hopeless expression. Delg looked like a man who knew he was about to die.