Crown of Fire

Ten A Hard and Stony Place

Ahead, the land was rising. “The Stonelands,” Mirt announced unnecessarily.

Delg squinted up at him. “It may come as a great surprise to you, large and mighty one, but I’d managed to puzzle that out for myself already.” Mirt sketched a florid bow. “The wits of the dwarves are keen, and the fame of their workings resounds from the Spine of the World to the peaks of the Dustwall.”

Delg made a rude sound in reply. The fire-blackened pans he carried clanked slightly as he clambered to the top of a ridge to get a better view ahead.

In the distance, like a row of old and gray teeth, a line of crumbling stone cliffs rose out of the mottled greenery of the forest. The edge of the Stonelands. Between that line and where they now stood stretched a wide expanse of gently rolling pastureland. Down its center, the road that linked Cormyr with Tilverton lay like a dark snake basking in the sun. The Moonsea Ride, it was called. Soldiers of Cormyr kept the brush cleared on either side of the road; a long, long walk across open ground lay between them and the Stonelands.

Delg turned to Mirt. “How d’you propose to get unseen across that? Wait for dark, I suppose—or have you some hidden magic at the ready?”

Mirt grinned easily, then lazily reached out one stout, hairy arm to haul the dwarf back from the crest of the ridge. “I’ve as little liking as ye do for waiting about while foes on our trail grow nearer, friend Delg. Sit ye down for a breath or two, and I’ll show ye my hidden magic.”

The old merchant wheezed as he bent over and fished in the open top of one of his large, flopping leather boots, dragging a leathern cord into view. It was loosely knotted around his leg; Mirt grunted, drew the knot open, and then pulled on the line. A wrinkled, seemingly empty sack came up from the depths of his boot. “A gift from a lady,” he announced with dignity, shaking the hand-sized thing to rid it of folds and wrinkling his nose at the boot smell it gave off. He was not alone in this reaction.

Then the Old Wolf opened the bag’s drawstring and plunged his hand in, drawing forth a gown of shimmering, flame-red silk, with a bodice of linked gold chains.

Hastily the old merchant thrust the garment out of view again, chuckling. “Sorry—wrong handful,” he explained as Shandril lifted an eyebrow and the other two grinned delightedly. The next thing he drew up was a mesh sack, holding a large bottle filled with something dark. The mesh bag and the bottle both seemed too large to have come out of the wrinkled sack—which still looked and hung as if empty.

Delg’s eyes fixed on the bottle and lit up. “Amberjack! Now that’s worth dragging around one of these magical sacks for.”

Mirt had already made it vanish into the depths of the bag again and was feeling around, his arm thrust into the small sack up to the shoulder. Shandril could see that it wasn’t half deep enough to swallow the Old Wolf’s arm—but …

“Ah!” Mirt said in triumph, and drew forth a large bundle of russet cloth, mottled with green, orange, and silver threads that confused the eyes, making one’s gaze involuntarily slide away from it. The old adventurer set the bundle carefully on the ground and undid its tied ends, unfolding it to reveal what looked like a stack of shallow, silvery glass bowls inside. With the air of a tavern show wizard, he fanned these curved pieces of glass as one does a hand of cards; they looked like plates or masks to Shandril.

Delg snorted in sudden recognition. “Priests’ regalia of Leira,” he said. “May I remind you, mighty Lord, that the Lady of the Mists numbers few priests among her faithful? We’ll hardly pass unnoticed.”

Mirt bowed. “True, but the nasty spells Leirans are known to favor will keep most folk—even Zhents—from bothering us, and we certainly won’t be recognized. These all-concealing robes—aye, put it on atop all ye wear, lass; over the head it goes—can shift about to fit the wearer, and even be commanded to hold their shape over emptiness, to conceal the true form and stature beneath. I carry half a dozen about, for—er, the proper occasions.”

He showed them how to don the featureless glass masks, pull the cowls over their heads, settle the mantles on their shoulders and chests, and do up the loose, dangling sashes that went on last. Unfamiliar in his own robes, face hidden under unmoving mirrored glass, the merchant laid a hand on the glass orb that adorned his mantle. He seemed suddenly taller.

“Ye do the same, Delg,” his voice came to them, hollow through the mask. “Increase yer height, enough so no one will think ‘dwarf’ when they see you. Shan, the magic works by yer will, when ye touch the orb; make yerself taller—and yer shoulders greater, to hide yer womanly front. That’s it, good …. These robes were hard to get, mind, so hurl no spellfire unless ye are sore beset.” He turned, rummaged in the bag, and suddenly a staff, topped with a multihued, ever-changing orb, was in his hand.

Shandril only had an instant to stare in wonder at its flowing, lazily changing colors before the old merchant swung away, stuffed the bag into his belt, and led the way up over the ridge with a slow, measured stride.

“Keep with me,” his muffled voice came back to them, “Brothers of the Mists. In a half-circle, behind me, as is fitting. We go north this day, as the Lady’s weird bids us.”

Delg fell in behind and to the left and gestured for Narm and Shandril to walk beside him, to the old merchant’s right. Matching the old man’s stride, they marched slowly down the grassy slopes to the road, the orb-topped staff borne before them, its swirling hues shifting and brightening.

Narm wondered if the goddess Leira would be angered at this false use of her regalia, and bring some capricious doom down on them. Or would this deception delight her?

The young mage looked to either side, but the road seemed empty of life for as far as he could see in either direction. Yet he could feel the sudden weight of cold, unfriendly eyes regarding them from somewhere—and knew by the way her head moved beside him that Shandril felt the scrutiny too.

The uplifted orb flashed and pulsed ahead of them. Mirt said, “Ah! The Lady leads us on.” He strode right across the road, heading for the cliffs beyond.

The ground around them was rising now, with rocks rearing out of the grass. There was not a bird in the sky or a beast to be seen anywhere, but the strong feeling of being watched persisted until Mirt led them into the ferny gloom of a little gully that pierced the cliffs.

The orb on the staff suddenly darkened. Mirt regarded it with satisfaction. “Whoever they are,” he said, “they’re not using magic to send eyes around corners after us …. They could see us only when we crossed the open road. Right—get this stuff off, all of ye: haste is what matters now.”

After a few frantic minutes of unstrapping and wriggling out from under cloth, Mirt had stuffed the bundles back in the bag, and the bag was restored to its carrying place in Mirt’s boot. Delg eyed it suspiciously as it slid out of sight, and said, “How many more tricks do you carry, Mirt? And are all of them as helpful as that one?”

“Many, and of course,” Mirt answered smoothly. “Now let’s be on—no trails are to be trusted in the Stonelands, and it’s a ways yet to the gate I know of.”

They scrambled warily along the gully, Mirt in the lead. Delg muttered from the rear, “If it’s not betraying too much to tell us, just where are we heading?”

“Irondrake Rock,” Mirt said, and Delg nodded.

“I’ve seen it,” he said simply as they struggled up to the head of the gully and peered about. Bare shoulders of rock rose all around them in a confusing, broken landscape of rising ridges and plunging ravines. Scrub trees, gnarled and stunted, thrust branches in all directions, and the land ahead was a patchwork of greenery and rocky heights.

Death could lurk anywhere in a land like this, Shandril thought—and be at your elbow before you saw it. She felt strangely weak and very vulnerable, like a deer surrounded by hunters. She drew a little closer to Narm, who put an arm around her, as if knowing her thoughts.

Delg, seeking any signs of pursuit, was looking suspiciously back the way they’d come. After a long moment, he sniffed, shook his head, turned to follow Mirt over the first ridge, and executed a precarious scramble down the other side into the concealing thickets of the next ravine.

Wary as they were, none of them saw the skull that floated along behind them, for it was cloaked in magics that made it invisible. The lich lord’s cold gaze was bent steadily on the small band—in particular, on the slim form of the maid among them. Nightfall approached slowly as the day went on—too slowly, it seemed. Iliph Thraun was getting hungry again.

The day wore on in an endless struggle up and down treacherous slopes and breakneck ravines. Everywhere around the travelers rose the crags and outcrops that gave the Stonelands their name. The Lord of Waterdeep, the dwarf, the bearer of spellfire, and the young mage who’d married her struggled through the broken lands, scraping and bruising elbows and knees on the ever-present rocks.

As they went, Mirt spoke seldom—no surprise, for he was wheezing and puffing like an old and indignant goat. When he did break silence, it was always to cheer them with tales of skeletal trolls, monstrous ettins and hobgoblins, and sly, cruel-fingered goblins who lurked in the Stonelands, dragging intruders down in ambushes or stonefall traps—and feeding on them.

“Do you mind belting up, merchant?” Narm asked at last, exasperated. The young mage was white to the lips from fear, and he cast involuntary glances at every bush and shadow as they walked.

Mirt chuckled and clapped him on the back, a mighty blow that nearly sent the mage sprawling. “Ah, stop me vitals, lad,” he rumbled, “but it’s good to see some spirit in ye at last.”

Delg squinted up at the fat merchant. “Speaking of ‘spirit in you,’ I recall seeing that bottle of amberjack in your bag—and wondering what else it might be hiding from us, too. Berduskan dark, perhaps? Or have you a little winter wine?”

Mirt chuckled. “I once had a considerable cellar in here, aye—but traveling’s thirsty work, and most of the stock’s gone now. Moreover, friend Delg, this is not the sort of country one should try legging it through with a few skins of wine on board. Falling and breaking bones is easy enough when sober.”

“A lecture on morals and practicality from Mirt the Moneylender?” Delg put his hands to his open mouth in mock amazement.

“Stow it, little one,” Mirt suggested in kindly tones, then led the way along the winding, snakelike crest of a ridge that headed west, on into the seemingly endless maze of rocky heights and tree-cloaked ravines.

As the group climbed and clambered on, Shandril’s fingers went numb from clawing at too many rocks, and she felt a growing weakness—an emptiness—inside. What was wrong with her? She sighed, drawing an anxious look from Narm, which she put off with a smile. Scratching at a scrape on her arm, Shandril wondered how much more of this punishing travel she’d be able to last through.

Overhead, the sun had passed its height, and was beginning the long slide toward sunset. As she squinted at it, Narm voiced the thought that had just come into her own mind.

“I’m not liking the idea of camping in this, somewhere on the side of a rockfall,” Narm said to Mirt. “How much farther is it to this gate of yours?”

“If we keep on steadily,” Mirt told him gravely, “we should reach it just before nightfall.”

Narm rolled his eyes. “Nightfall,” he said. “Of course.”

The old merchant—as usual, Delg reflected sourly—proved to be right. The sun was low and the depths of the ravines shrouded in purple shadows when Mirt pointed to a tiny spur of rock in the distance. Ton’s Irondrake,” he said simply, and hastened on. Despite the chill breezes of twilight, they were all sweating as they clambered up, over, down and through seemingly endless rocks.

Narm could well believe what he’d heard of brigands evading armies of Cormyr in this tortured land; half a hundred men could be waiting on the other side of every ridge, and you’d never know it until y—Suddenly wary, Narm swallowed and suspiciously checked the terrain around them.

Delg, who was climbing in his wake, grunted. “About time you started being scared, lad,” the dwarf said. His tones told Narm the dwarf had just deemed him not quite a complete idiot—but still damned-before-all-the-gods close. The young mage sighed and looked at Shandril. The sight of her always cheered him.

As it happened, there weren’t a hundred armed brigands waiting around the next ridge. Instead, a grassy meadow opened out in front of them, rising steeply up to tumbled rocks at the base of a lancelike pinnacle of stone. The fire of sunset blazed down one side of this rocky spire.

“Irondrake Rock,” Mirt announced as if he’d just put it there himself. “Named for a great wyrm that once laired here.”

“Once?” Delg asked suspiciously.

Mirt chuckled and pointed a thick finger at the base of the toothlike spire of stone. “Its grotto lies there, if ye’ve a mind for fool-headed poking about. Perhaps, if it’d make ye sleep easier, Shan’ll hurl a little spellfire in there—and singe whatever calls it home now.”

The dwarf squinted up at the stone spire. Save for the calls of birds in the trees below and behind them, all was quiet around it. The tall grass of the meadow, studded with weeds and wildflowers, looked as if nothing had disturbed it all this season. Even so, Delg didn’t care much for the way stony walls rose on either side of them to hem the meadow in, forming a great funnel that lead only upward to the Rock. But he could see no sign of danger. Yet.

Grumbling into his beard, Delg led the way up through the thick grass toward the rocky spire. “Where’s this gate of yours, then?”

Mirt grimaced. “At the very top—of course.”

“You’d need the luck of the gods to get to it in winter,” Delg replied, staring up at the crumbling flanks of Irondrake Rock.

Shandril followed his gaze, and swallowed. She’d have to climb that? She turned to Narm and found on his face the same growing alarm she felt. Without thinking, they threw comforting arms about each other.

“Last light,” Delg said sourly. “Little as I like camping anywhere in these lands, we’d never get more than halfway up before it’d be too dark to climb—even without the two lovejays, here.” He cocked his head at Narm and Shandril. They looked back at him with identical expressions that told Delg he might have problems getting them to climb Irondrake Rock even in full sun, and with a whole day to do it.

Delg turned back to Mirt. “Where exactly does this gate of yours take us, anyway?”

“A certain place in the High Forest, south of Stone Stand,” Mirt replied, his eyes on the cliffs around them. “Shall we look at the cave?”

Delg nodded. “After I’ve looked around behind the Rock first, and had a bit of a peer at those ledges above us, too—or we may find ourselves attacked both in front and behind.” He strode on through the grass.

“What a cheery fellow,” Mirt observed in the fluting, jolly tones of an effete courtier. Shandril stifled a laugh.

As the merchant strode forward, twilight laid deepening gloom on the meadow. Night came down swiftly on the Stonelands; before Delg had returned to them, it was fully dark. “A fire?” he asked, stumping up to Mirt. “You know better than I how dangerous that is here.”

The old merchant adventurer shrugged. “In the cave, we’ll need light and can have it. Out here—well, it could be seen a long way.” He rummaged in his magical sack for a moment and drew forth a stout, iron-caged lantern. Opening one of its glass panes, he sniffed, pronounced it “full” with a satisfied air, and extended it to Delg with a grand flourish.

The dwarf sighed, took it, and extended his other hand. “Another?” he snapped, looking from Mirt to his empty palm.

It was Mirt’s turn to sigh. He rummaged in his bag for a long time and finally held up—another lamp, identical to the first. It came to Delg accompanied by Mirt’s triumphant smile.

The dwarf merely snorted, thrust both lanterns into Narm’s grasp with a terse, “Here—hold these. No dropping,” and extended his empty hands again. “Flint and steel?”

Mirt raised an eyebrow. “Of course—but what happened to yer own, eh?”

Delg chuckled. “Just testing,” he replied, hands going to his belt. As he took one lamp from Narm and lit it, and Mirt did the same with the other, Shandril put her hands on her hips and demanded, “Are the two of you going to play these games all the way to Silverymoon?”

“Of course not,” a menacing voice purred out of the darkness near at hand. “They’d both have to stay alive to do that.”

Mirt spun around with an oath—in time to meet winged death swooping down on him from the night sky. He ducked aside, grabbing for his blades, and stony claws tore at him. The fat merchant turned and smashed the lantern to flaming ruin on a grotesque, leering horned face—and stony wings beat as the thing fled aloft, squalling.

“Patience,” Gathlarue said in that same purring voice. The rings on her fingers glowed with a faint blue light. “We’ll strike only when my winged ones get them really dancing.”

Mairara stared into the eyes of her mistress and saw a light in them that made her shiver. She looked hastily away, down over the edge of the cliff, to the battle below. “The soldiers, Lady?”

Gathlarue nodded. “Those with Tespril stay up here with us; send the others down. They’re getting restless; best give them some blood.” She laughed aloud.

Mairara shivered again as she hastened to pass on the orders.

“Gargoyles!” Delg shouted. “Only magic can harm them. Narm, ge-” The rest of his words were lost in the jarring impact of another winged form. The dwarf’s lantern fell to the grass, smoked—and then its flames caught dead weeds, and flared.

In the sudden, flickering blaze, Shandril and Narm saw Mirt turning toward them, glowing dagger in one hand and sword in the other. Above and behind him, the gargoyle that had attacked him was turning in the air, wings beating raggedly. Narm coolly raised his hands and blasted it with a bolt of force. The stony monster screamed thinly as it spun end over end away from them, clawing vainly at the air. Then it leveled, banked, and flew heavily on; Narm muttered a soft curse. He had no more such spells.

The other gargoyle was clawing at Delg, who rolled in the grass, cursing. Shandril lashed out at it with spellfire—a thin tongue of cutting blue-white flame that laid open the nearest shoulder and flank of the gargoyle, and sent it over on its back with a scream of pain.

Mirt was on it an instant later, bounding in with flailing blade and heavy knees, pinning it. The glowing dagger stabbed down, rose, and thrust again, viciously. Squalling, the thing convulsed.

Behind Mirt, the other gargoyle was diving in savage haste. Shandril stepped forward, trembling with sudden anger and—could it be—pleasure? She shuddered at the thought, but poured out spellfire in a huge ball of destroying flame. Small stony bits flew in all directions, clattering wetly off the stones around it.

Mirt rose from the sagging form of the gargoyle. Dark wetness smoked all down the blade of his glowing dagger. He looked irritated. “Gods,” he snarled, “give me something to fight!”

The gods seemed to have heard. A breath later, the beleaguered travelers saw dark, armored forms charging out of the night. Dark forms armed with swords.

Mirt’s face twisted into a savage smile, and he gave a satisfied hiss as his blades swept up to meet the foremost Zhentilar.

The rumble that came from Delg as he bounded past Narm and Shandril also sounded satisfied. “Watch behind us, lad!” he called back, as he rolled under the blade of a Zhentilar, and felled the man with a smashing blow to the side of his knee.

Something small and dark spun out of the night at Narm, and Shandril blasted it into flying dust with a little shriek of anger. The flash of her spellfire showed her the dark helms of half a dozen or more warriors approaching across the meadow. Lips tightening, she hurled a handful of destroying spellfire. If she wasn’t quick, the next dart or arrow or stone might get to her beloved.

Narm gave her a quiet smile of thanks before he turned and pointed into the night beyond Delg. Green fire crackled from his hand, and Shandril saw three men in dark armor convulsed in the grip of Narm’s magic before it faded. Their screams faded a little more slowly.

“Gods above, Mistress!” Tespril was frightened, her eyes large and dark. “They’ve destroyed the gargoyles already. Shouldn’t we throw spells now, before our soldiers are gone, too?”

Gathlarue was kneeling, nursing fingers that still smoked from where the rings she’d worn had flared and burned away. She looked up and hissed in anger and pain, “Do you command here, Miss?”

Tespril shook her head frantically. “No, no, Mistress,” she said, almost pleading in anxious haste. “Yet look! Our best chance slips away.”

Leaning over the edge of the rocky height where they crouched, she pointed at the trampled grass below. The meadow was lit up as spellfire lashed out again, and more Zhentilar died.

Gathlarue reached out and caught hold of Tespril’s arm and breast with cruel fingers, digging them in bruisingly deep. Tespril hissed in pain, but the sorceress clawed her way up her younger apprentice until she stood upright again. Swaying slightly, Gathlarue stared down at the ruin of her force.

Freed, Tespril sobbed in pain and shrank away. Then Mairara felt the cold eyes of her mistress turn on her.

“The mistake is mine,” Gathlarue said in a soft voice. “I was too impatient to get my hands on spellfire.” She turned to look at the battle below once more, and spellfire flashed again. “Now, Mairara, is your chance to prove yourself. Use the power you planned to betray me with—show me how good your killing sorcery has become!”

Mairara stiffened, met the cold eyes of her mistress for a long, chilling moment, and then whispered, “I’ll make you proud of me, Lady.”

Gathlarue raised a hand. “Do nothing—yet—to draw their attention to us up here.”

Mairara had already raised her clawed hands to work a spell that would blast the fray below with lightning. At her mistress’s words, she lowered them, frowned, and then nodded suddenly in decision. Flicking hair back over her shoulder with one hand, she gestured with the other, muttering.

The sprawled form of the gargoyle Mirt had slain now moved, wriggled, slithered, and seemed to flow, unseen amid the tumult of clashing blades and lumbering Zhentilar. It rose slowly and split, twisting and flowing into sudden sharp definition—becoming the alert, deadly-looking forms of two smaller, unharmed gargoyles.

Mairara made a growling sound deep in her throat, and spread her hands. Gathlarue smiled. Somewhere in the darkness behind them, Tespril whimpered. Mairara, eyes flashing, gestured again, lips drawn back from her teeth in killing laughter.

Delg turned, bloody axe in hand. Something had moved—there! Ye gods! More gargoyles were leaping and flapping out of the night, heading for Shandril. Roaring, the dwarf bounded away from the Zhentilar who’d been cautiously approaching and ran full tilt toward the lass, swinging his axe for momentum as he went.

Narm threw something into the fallen lantern’s flames to make them blaze like a bonfire. By its leaping firelight, he spotted the gargoyles. With one hand, he caught Shandril’s arm and dragged her around to see this new danger. Small bolts of light streamed from his other hand, but the monster ignored them as it plunged toward the human maid, claws reaching out to rend and slay.

Shandril turned in time to stare into red, baleful eyes close enough to touch easily with her fingertips. Startled, she screamed—spitting spellfire into the face of the thing as it crashed into her, slashing with cruel claws. She screamed again. Spellfire suddenly exploded into a bright ball around her that made Narm stagger back—and the gargoyle disappear forever.

In the wake of her fire-burst, Shandril lay dazed, smoke drifting from her torn clothing. Where the gargoyle’s claws had slashed her, ribbons of blood glowed briefly with the same radiance as spellfire, and then faded.

On the trampled grass nearby lay Narm, groaning and clutching at his eyes. The burst of flame must have blinded him, at least for now.

Delg cursed as he ran toward them both. He saw the second gargoyle flying in for the kill, sinuous stone wings beating as it stretched out long-clawed limbs. With a last, desperate bound, Delg leapt at it. It sensed him, and slid aside with frightening speed. Delg found himself about to pitch over its moving body, but he hooked his axe around one of its wings. The shock as he was brought up hard against a stony flank a moment later told him he’d succeeded. The gargoyle had crashed to the ground.

The dwarf kicked and scrabbled against living stone for a few frantic moments, then got to where he’d hoped to be: crouched low astride the back of the gargoyle, with a firm grip on the root of one wing. He raised his axe to hack and hew.

The gargoyle charged at Shandril—and with jarring force Delg brought his axe down on the side and top of its head. Stone chips flew. Beneath him, the monster shook and screamed. It tried to stand up, stony muscles surging—and Delg hacked at it again, putting his whole shoulder behind the blow. Sparks flew from the striking edge of his axe, and the gargoyle shuddered. A good part of its shoulder broke off and fell away—and a maddened instant later, the thing and Delg were both aloft. The beast whirled, buffeting Delg with stony wings, trying to shake him off.

At the stars overhead, Delg snarled, “For the glory of the Ironstars!” and brought his axe crashing down again. The unwilling mount of living stone he rode plunged earthward with terrifying speed.

Rocks rushed up to meet him like hungry teeth. Delg clung to the gargoyle, hacking desperately. Air roared past him in an angry wind—and at the last instant, the gargoyle twisted aside and shook itself, tearing his fingers free.

The impact of the stone, smashing through his chest and guts like a great fist, drove the breath from him, and his axe spun away like a hurled hammer. Delg scarce heard the despairing cry of the Zhentilar it happened to strike, for he himself hung impaled on stone.

Stone—always his friend, something he could work to his bidding, and trust, something solid and dependable.

As if from a great distance, Delg Ironstar heard the voice of one of the elders, telling him long ago—so long ago—From stone we come, to stone we return, in the end.

He looked out as the shattering pain rose to choke him, and he saw Shandril’s eyes blazing with grief and shock as she screamed his name. She was running toward him through the fray. Dying, Delg of the dwarves of Mintarn Mountain, Harper, and Shield-Son of Clan Ironstar, wondered if the young lass he’d come to love so much would reach him in time.