Crown of Fire

Epilogue

Lighting crashed and staggered across the sky far to the east. The guard watched it, thankful for the momentary entertainment. No duty post in Zhentil Keep was more mind-numbing than this one. He hefted his halberd wearily and yawned. Rubbing his cheek, he watched lightning crack the dome of night again, and was briefly thankful that the storm was far off; otherwise he’d have to huddle against the door of the crypt to keep dry. Hours to go until dawn.

“Gods deliver me from this everlasting boredom,” he muttered.

“The gods have heard you, fool—to your cost.” The guard tried to spin, but the hand that clasped his neck was very strong. Struggling wildly, he glimpsed the crypt’s doorway, dark and open, but he couldn’t see his attacker. He didn’t need to. Fear lashing his heart, the guard went down into the last darkness, and he knew who had killed him.

Manshoon looked down at the sprawled body. “Yawning when you were supposed to be guarding my future is a crime punishable by death. Had I forgotten to warn you of that? Life is so unfair.”

He carefully closed the door of the crypt, glancing at the four bodies lying ready there … four? Gods, he’d best be preparing others; how many had he gone through now? He turned away to start the long walk home across Zhentil Keep. The way was long, and the boots this body wore had started to crumble; he walked slowly, thankful that the storm had emptied the night streets. The few guards who saw him carefully looked away; Manshoon passed them with a grim smile.

Fzoul obviously hadn’t known about all of his crypts. Sloppy work, unfortunately typical of the more devout—or ostensibly devout—side of the Brotherhood. He looked up at the spires of the Black Altar as a lightning flash outlined them, and nodded.

“I have a score to settle there.” There were advantages to staying dead for a tenday or so—it gave traitors time to show their true colors, get their hands properly dirty and their plans half-hatched …. Smashing them then was most satisfying. He was looking forward to it.

He turned away. The High Tower beckoned. He needed a bath, a drink, and a warm body beside his in bed, before dawn. For the first time, Manshoon wondered why he had ever begun to strive for more than such things … after all, what more could a man achieve? He shrugged and put such thoughts from his mind. He’d feel more himself in the morning.

Shandril and Narm lay curled up together in front of the crackling fire, a bearskin rug soft and warm around them. Narm glanced up at the walls and ceiling and said thankfully, “Well, at least this room hasn’t grown any new doors or corners tonight.”

Shandril chuckled softly, took her own look at the Hidden House around her, and said, “I don’t know … I think I’ve almost grown used to it.” She reached out and turned Narm’s chin until his eyes met hers, and then asked quietly, “Don’t you think it would make a great home for us? The Zhents would never find us here.”

“That was my suggestion, too,” a calm voice agreed, “and I still think it’s a good one.”

Narm and Shandril turned their heads in surprise. A moment later, Shandril leapt up out of the furs to embrace their visitor.

Tessaril winked at Narm. “I come bearing gifts.”

“Though not baring them as much as certain folk,” Mirt grunted, stepping into view behind her and eyeing Shandril’s naked form, still pressed against the Lord of Eveningstar. Shandril stuck her tongue out at him.

Narm got up, holding the rug around him, and cleared his throat. “Er—welcome! Will you have wine?”

Mirt swung a huge bottle into view from behind his back and grinned at him.

Thank ye, lad, I will,” he said, striding forward. He’d brought his own huge pewter tankard, carrying it in the same large, hairy hand that held the bottle. The Old Wolf lowered himself to the floor with a grunt, stretched out on the rug before the fire, wheezed, snatched the fur from Narm’s startled grasp, and draped it over himself coyly.

“Oh, Shan-dril,” he trilled in mimicry of a young suitor. “I’m over here! You can come back and lie down by the fire now.”

Shandril looked at him, the firelight dancing on her smooth curves, and then walked deliberately to him, turned a corner of the furs over the Old Wolf’s face, and sat firmly on him. “So, what gift?” she asked, ignoring the muffled protests from beneath her.

Mirt started to reach his hands up to tickle her, but Narm grabbed them and ended up on the floor wrestling with the Old Wolf. Though her seat started to jerk back and forth beneath her, Shandril sat serenely atop the shifting and curling bear rug. Mirt’s muted voice roared, “Don’t break my bottle!”

At that, Tessaril looked up from her belt pouch. She took in the scene, put her hands on her hips, and whooped with laughter. When her mirth had died, the Lord of Eveningstar extended a hand and drew Shandril to her feet. Then, lips quirked in a wry smile, she plucked the bearskin out of the struggling pile and put it around Shandril. “This gift is somewhat serious,” Tessaril said, “so we’d best calm the Old Wolf down a bit.”

Narm, who’d found himself in a headlock several moments earlier and was now unable to get free, agreed as audibly as possible.

When some order had been restored, Tessaril drew forth a sparkling gem from her belt pouch. “This is your gift,” she said, “but I advise you not to touch it, or even keep it on your person—you can probably be traced by it, and there may be worse things magic can work through it. I’ve had the stone tested by the strongest wizards of Cormyr, and we think it’s safe for you to see it. Remember: don’t touch it!”

Shandril looked at her quizzically.

“It’s a speaking stone,” Tessaril said, releasing the gem. It floated in the air by itself, turning slightly, innocently winking back the light at them all. “It came to me in Eveningstar—borne by a merchant who’d come from Zhentil Keep.”

In the silence that followed her words, she stretched forth a finger and touched the stone. Light winked within it, and then a voice spoke, cold and clear and very close, as if the speaker were in the room with them.

“To Shandril Shessair, greetings from Manshoon, and a promise: I and those I command will make no further moves against you and yours. Nor will we try again to gain spellfire. You may well mistrust this promise, but I assure you I’ll keep it.”

The light in the stone died, and the gem sank slowly to the floor, landing on the rug without a sound.

The stunned group stared down at it in silence, and then Tessaril bent over, took it up, and pocketed it.

Shandril shook her head. “I know I’ll never be able to trust those words, but—somehow—I believe him. When he said that, he meant it.”

“Being killed can have that effect on ye,” Mirt rumbled. “What puzzles me is how Sarhthor—Harper or no—knew about this ‘crown of fire’ bit.”

Tessaril looked up. “He was a Harper indeed, Mirt; High Lady Alustriel confirmed it. She tutored him in the Art and recruited him, years ago, but no longer knew if he held himself a Harper or followed his own path of power and evil. At Manshoon’s command, Sarhthor did a lot of research on spellfire, devouring entire libraries of spell-lore. In a diary kept in Candlekeep, he read the same passage I have: ‘If someone freely gives his lifeforce to a wielder of spellfire, it powers the spellfire to truly awesome heights, causing a crownlike halo of flame around the spellfire-hurler.’”

Mirt looked at her. “This happened before? Someone willingly gave his life for a brighter flame?” He shook his shaggy head. “Ah, well, I suppose there’s no shortage of crazed-wits in Faerûn.”

The tankard in front of him grew a mouth, and in the dry tones of Elminster, it said, “And few, indeed, are better able to speak of craziness than Mirt of Waterdeep.”

Mirt had flung the nearly empty tankard away—and the old sword on his hip had made it into his hand—before he growled, “Elminster?”

The tankard landed with a clang, rolled over, and stopped. “None other,” it said with dignity. “How many archmages do ye throw around, anyway?”

“Elminster!” Shandril leaned forward to peer at the tankard. “Have you—recovered? How are you?”

The tankard looked somehow testy. “Aye, forget about me for days, lass, and then recall old Elminster as if he were a favorite puppy—or some disease—ye’d forgotten ye had. I’m doing just fine, thank ye all, not dead yet.”

Narm laughed. “He hasn’t changed.”

“More respect, youngling,” the tankard growled.

“Elminster,” Shandril said eagerly, “we’re going to have a baby.” Her face clouded over for a moment, and she added quietly, “Again.”

Mirt looked at her. “Aye, and tankard or no, this calls for a toast or three! Mind ye not fight over its naming, now—if it’s a boy, call it after me, not him.” He jerked his head toward the stein on the floor.

The tankard spoke again. Shandril was surprised to hear how soft and gentle Elminster’s voice could be when he dropped his testy blustering. “It’s not a boy, Old Wolf. I know already that thy babe will be a girl, Shandril. The blessing of Mystra upon ye and Narm—and upon her.”

“Thanks, Old Mage,” Shandril said, touched.

“Ye’ll both be needing it—and Narm, too,” Elminster added, in his customary sharper tones. “For in the visions Mystra sends me, I’ve seen that thy lass will have the power of spellfire, too.”

Oprion Blackstone sat alone in a high, locked chamber in the Black Altar, staring into a scrying bowl as Fzoul had taught him to do. His false Manshoon speech sounded even better to his ears now than when he’d laid the enchantment, but that accursed Tessaril had put the speaking stone back in her pouch—so he could see nothing of what was happening in the Hidden House. Making the stone burn its way out of the pouch now would certainly be a mistake.

He could, though, hear everything. Oprion raised his head to stare at the carved Black Hand of Bane that hung on the wall, and he said to it grimly, “And that child will be mine. If need be, I’ll take the form of a younger man and woo it. For I will have spellfire for my own, whatever befalls gods and men in the days ahead. The gods have twisted humors, indeed, to give a silly, soft slip of a girl such power. Spellfire will be mine.”

His face paled, then, as if he was seeing more in the Black Hand than a carving, and his voice deepened into the echoing tones of prophecy. “No struggle is ever done; no matter is ever closed. As long as gods and men strive on Toril, there is no ‘forever.’ ”

“I must go now, lass,” Elminster’s voice came again. There are others who’d speak with ye, though.”

Another, rougher voice came from the tankard. “Shandril? Lass?”

Shandril was up out of Narm’s arms in a rush, reaching toward the tankard. “Gorstag?” she cried, and happy tears wet her cheeks.

“Aye, lass; gods smile on you. Lureene has a word for you, too—”

The voice changed again. “Shan! Are you well?”

On her knees before the tankard, Shandril laughed. “Very happy, Lureene. Safe in hiding, both of us, and with a babe on the way.”

“Good! Give it a kiss for me—and mind you stop at two babes, Shan: the gods give us only two hands to hold them with. Keep smiling, little one.”

“My thanks.” Through her tears, Shandril was seeing again The Rising Moon, the inn where she’d grown up …. the place she’d run away from so long ago. So long—and so few actual days ago.

“Fair fortune, lass,” the tankard said gruffly.

“You fare well, too, Gorstag,” Shandril replied almost fiercely. “Both of you!”

And then, before her eyes, the tankard shattered with the sound of a ringing bell, its shards dancing on the stones.

Tessaril shook her head. “That magic eats away at whatever is the focus for farspeaking,” she said. “I’m surprised it held together this long.” She leaned forward to touch Shandril’s shoulder. “No harm has befallen any of them,” she said reassuringly. “The magic just overwhelmed the tankard.”

Mirt looked at its ruins, then sadly surveyed the empty depths of his bottle. “Is there more to be had anywhere about?”

Tessaril indicated a door. “I took the liberty of bringing in a keg of ale, a little while back.” Her nose wrinkled. “About the time I knew you’d be coming.”

Mirt threw her a look as he shambled toward the door.

She smiled sweetly and added, “On a shelf on the left, you’ll find a selection of tankards for the rest of us to use. You’re welcome.”

Still on her knees on the floor, Shandril found herself laughing helplessly. By the gods! Did they never stop teasing each other? And a small voice inside her promptly asked: Why should they?

“Oprion Blackstone?” the cold voice said in derisive surprise. “The priesthood of the Dread Lord flourishes indeed.”

Oprion scrambled up. How had anyone passed the guards and locks to reach this room? And that voice. He spun around, and his face went as white as polished bone. “Manshoon!” he gasped, when he could speak. “You’re alive!” He stared at the High Lord of Zhentil Keep, looking up and down, and then turned away in confusion. “I’m—I’m delighted.”

Manshoon’s smile was crooked. “You mean, you’re surprised I still have clones left.”

Oprion stuttered for a moment, and then said rather desperately, “No, no. But when so much time had passed, we—”

“Assumed you were finally rid of me. Have you raised Fzoul yet?”

Option’s mouth dropped open. “W-Why?”

“He’s thrice the administrator you’ll ever be—and a capable schemer, too, if not my equal. The Brotherhood needs him. I hear you’ve been rather careless with our—ah, human resources, since I was last here. Sarhthor, Elthaulin, and about two hundred others, as I recall; the list made both long and distressing reading.”

Oprion’s hand tensed as he eyed a sideboard and the magical mace that lay upon it. It winked back at him, brimming with power. Mageslayer was its name; Fzoul had told him what it could do. His gaze flickered away from it, and Manshoon smiled.

“Is it to be war between us, then?” Manshoon’s voice was soft and level; he might have been asking what color cloak his colleague intended to wear.

Oprion’s wintry gaze met his own silently for a long time, and then the priest shook his head with careful slowness. “No. We work together—as always. It is the best way.”

Manshoon nodded. “Perhaps, one day, with trust,” he murmured.

Oprion looked at him sharply, but said nothing.

There was a faint smell of pipesmoke in the air, but neither of them recognized it for what it was.

“Be damned to trotting back an’ forth all night!” Mirt growled, coming back into the room with the keg on his shoulder. He staggered as he came; it wasn’t a hand-keg, but a barrel almost as large around as he was.

Shandril looked at Tessaril. “You think we’ll drink all that? Lords of Cormyr must be optimists, indeed!”

Tessaril looked at her dryly. “No,” she replied, “I think Mirt will drink all that—if we want any, we’d best pull a tankard each now, before it’s gone.” She watched Mirt, wheezing and grunting, set the keg onto a couch. “Tankards, Old Wolf?” she called.

Mirt gave her what some folk in Faerûn call ‘a dirty look,’ and set off toward the door again. He’d got about six steps away from the couch before it collapsed with a groan, settling the keg nearer the floor, but thankfully not dumping it. Tessaril surveyed it and said, “I’ve a feeling this is going to be a long night. You’d better put something other than that bearskin on, Shan.”

Shan was nodding as the Lord of Eveningstar looked across the room and added, “And so should your h—” Tessaril’s words broke off and, frowning, she glanced from one of them to the other.

Shandril and Narm both followed her gaze, then looked down at themselves. Both wore identical bearskin rugs.

“What’s the matter, Tess?” Shandril asked quietly.

The Lord of Eveningstar’s eyes were troubled. “Throw those furs off, right now! There should only be one of them!”

Shandril and Narm stared at her for one shocked moment, then Shan saw a gold light glowing in the eyes of the dead bear. She shrieked and tried to throw off the skin. Narm’s fur fell lifeless and heavy to the stone floor, but Shandril’s felt suddenly wet and glistening, and it slapped at her breast and flank as she snatched at the fur around her. Frantically she flung it away, just as it grew a long, hooked claw—that tore a thin ribbon of flesh from her ribs. Dancing backward, Shandril stared down at the blood.

The fur on the floor in front of her gathered itself, shifting, and scuttled toward her.

Shandril had the brief impression of tentacles as she backed away. Her hands flamed.

“No!” Tessaril shouted at her. “No spellfire in here!”

Shandril rushed to her discarded clothes and snatched up the Zhent dagger she’d picked up in the courtyard of the Wyvern—the one that had come so close to taking Narm’s life. With a snarl, she turned back to the thing that wasn’t a bearskin rug, and drove the blade deep into it. Warm, pink liquid as thick as honey gushed out, and the flesh seemed to quiver under her thrust.

The thing had grown, rising to about the height of a large dog. It was moving away from her, slashing with clawed, humanlike hands at Tessaril, who was angrily hacking at it with a belt dagger of her own. The Lord of Eveningstar turned her head then and called, “Knights!”

Her words were still echoing in the room when a door appeared in the ceiling and promptly fell open. Torm and Rathan plunged into the room through it, calling, “A rescue! A rescue!” as they came.

Torm hit the floor in a roll, bounced up, and slashed at the moving rug with the slim blade in his hand. Rathan landed hard on the thing with both feet, grunted as it convulsed and threw him off, and staggered back to fetch up hard against the wall. With a flourish he brought a mace out of his belt and swung it down to thump solidly in the middle of the shapeshifting fur.

Mirt rolled back in through the door at that moment. “Ye gods!” he said, looking hurt. “I leave for a moment an’ ye start the fun without me!”

Tossing tankards in all directions, he snatched out his blade and lumbered forward, bellowing, “My turn, blast ye! Out o’ the way, Torm!”

The rug was bleeding freely now under their blows, but rising into a man-high form. Tentacles emerged and coiled and shifted back into the main bulk of the thing; the fur broke into shifting patches that floated atop a rippling, glistening, flesh-colored bulk.

Shandril stared at it in horror, then found Narm at her side, his hands raised to cast a spell if need be.

Tessaril stood beside them, her own hands also raised. “Kill it swiftly!” she said urgently, eyes on the thing. “Its magic can overmaster all of us!”

Torm laughed as he leapt over tentacles and repeatedly thrust his blade to the hilt. “Not so long as Elminster’s spell lasts!”

“The Old Mage’s spell ended when he was laid low fighting the lich lord!” Tessaril screamed. “Beware!”

“So that’s what’s making my amulet burn!” Rathan said, bringing his mace down with renewed vigor. “Hurry, lads—it won’t last much longer!”

“It may surprise ye to learn that I am hurrying!” Mirt puffed as ichor of many colors splashed around him, driven by the force of his blows.

“You must be old,” Torm remarked, as he hacked away a tentacle that threatened to grip his throat. The rising column in front of him had grown a head now, and its featureless front began to twist and shift, swimming into—Delg’s face.

“No!” Shandril stared at it. “Torm—stop! What if—?”

“Shandril,” the face said, in Delg’s familiar rumble, turning beseeching eyes to meet her gaze. “Stop them, lass! They’r—”

“Not a chance,” Torm said coldly, running his blade through the open dwarven mouth in front of him. “Die, Magusta of the Malaugrym!”

Delg’s eyes turned to flaming gold, gazed at the knight, and spat feeble jets of flame at him.

Torm leapt back and crashed against the wall of the room—but the eyes were already flickering and fading. Wearing Torm’s sword, the shapeshifting bulk sank down, coiling and sliding into a sickening puddle of flesh. Mirt and Rathan backed away from it, sweating, and watched it die.

As the first whiff of its death reek came to them, Torm picked himself up from the floor, rubbed at one elbow gingerly, and said, “Gods above! What a knight has to do to get a drink around here! Throw us a tankard, will you, Shan? Be useful for once.”

Shandril glared at him, opened her mouth to make a sharp reply … and then closed it again, smiled grimly, and went to get him a tankard. After today, she could wait to take her revenges ….

Much later that night, when they were alone at last, Narm pushed their bed over to where they could look out the newly repaired magical window, and see the ever-changing scenes of Faerûn that appeared beyond.

They lay in bed together and saw stars falling over the dark, dead ruins of an empty city; wolves howling on moonlit moors; men huddled around campfires in high mountain valleys; and a grim place that could only have been Zhentil Keep. Beholders floated menacingly there above a dark altar, where bowls of blood were cast into fires by horn-masked priests clad all in black. A priest they did not know lifted his head and cried some unheard invocation to Bane.

Shandril shivered at the sight. “Narm, hold me,” she said softly, trembling. “I’m afraid. So many folk want us dead.”

Narm put his arms around her and held her tightly, as if the fierceness of his grip could keep enemies from her. He knew he must be strong when she needed him. It was the least he could do.

“No, my lady,” he said firmly into the darkness, “this is where we live happily ever after, as the tales say ….”

“Tell me one of those tales, my lord,” said Shandril in a small voice. Narm looked up into the darkness overhead—and for just an instant, he could have sworn he saw Elminster’s face winking at him, pipe in mouth. He blinked, and it was gone.

Narm cleared his throat, settled his lady’s head close beneath his chin, and said firmly, “Later. First, tell me what you plan for us both in the days ahead. How are you going to use your spellfire to remake Faerûn?”

“Well,” she said, in a small, quavering voice that gathered strength and humor as she went on, “first there’re the rest of the Zhentarim to roast—and then the Cult of the Dragon and their dracoliches. I’d still like to get to Silverymoon—remember?—and meet Alustriel. After that … well, we’ll see.”

Narm shook his head; his nose told him he was indeed smelling a faint whiff of pipesmoke ….