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  Galdus watched the brigands struggle, slipping and sliding on the coins and swords that lay dropped and forgotten all over his recently cleaned floor. They crashed aside chairs and even a table, yelling in muffled fury and mounting fear, and rolled about, their struggles taking them vaguely away from the bar.

  The front door groaned open again, and Galdus looked up warily, wondering if he could reach any of the swords on the floor. The man who stepped inside, however, was Elminster.

  "My apologies, Galdus," he said. "I'd something else to attend to and no time to do it in. But 'tis done now."

  "Can I-may I ask what it was?"

  "I had to talk a few frightened archpriests in Baldur's Gate out of starting a religious war-on each other."

  "Why bother?" Galdus asked, frowning. Then his frown deepened. "Did it work?"

  "No, of course not, so I had to scare them into a truce by showing them what I'd do if they didn't make peace."

  "You flattened both temples," Galdus said hopefully.

  Elminster grinned. "I see ye know the basics. I did indeed. Rebuilding and trying to keep folk from looting will keep both sides busy for a time." He stepped carefully around the tangled knot of rolling, kicking brigands and continued. "And to answer thy other question, I bothered because I didn't want to see a lot of homes burned and innocent folk slain in the Gate over some disagreement that had nothing to do with them." He sighed. "This is going on all over Toril, right now. First thing this morn, I had to do the same thing to head off rival factions of illithids, in a city in the heart of Raurin."

  Galdus stared at him. "Mind flayers? You stopped mind flayers from killing each other? Why?"

  "They're intelligent folk too, just as ye, I, and these dolts here are. And besides, they're sitting on enough battle spells there to destroy half the eastern Realms! I didn't want any tentacle-heads to remember that and start tearing open vaults and using 'em. A few hundred years more, and most of the scrolls will have crumbled away to nothing… and it'll take them half that time to dig out all the stonework I piled up on top of those vaults!"

  Galdus grinned. "Make sure you check back with me in a few hundred years, then, to let me know Faerun is safe to live in at last. In the meantime"-he gestured down at the tightening mass of bodies on the floor-"what do we do with these?"

  "Roll them into thy outhouse and burn it," Elminster said calmly.

  10

  Talking to Gods

  Daggerdale, Kythorn 18

  The Mountains of Tethyamar rose like a distant wall ahead on their left as the three rangers in worn and patched leathers rode warily into another soft-shadowed evening. They were headed into the heart of lawless Daggerdale, Randal Morn had warned them; reaches where steads lay abandoned to the forest, orcs and hobgoblins roamed the land in raiding bands and clashed whenever they met, and monsters lurked in the ruins and woody tangles for the unwary. For all those dire warnings, they'd ridden all day and seen nothing more deadly than birds. Of course, Itharr reflected, they had no idea just what might have seen them.

  "Oh, but the land is beautiful," he sang softly as they forded their third tinkling stream.

  "And the living carefree," Belkram sang the next line, heavy irony in his tone.

  Sharantyr chuckled and took up the song. "So come, ye fairest of dark-eyed maidens…"

  "And come dwell in the greenwood with me!" Itharr and Belkram sang together. Ahead of them, a gore-crow took wing heavily from a dead branch and flapped away with a derisive caw.

  "What are you, a bard?" Itharr called after it. The bird circled, winked at him once with a very steady black eye, and flew away.

  "The Simbul?" Belkram breathed the question as they all stared after it.

  "Without a doubt," Sylune's voice came to them from the stone in his breast pocket. "She probably appreciates your singing about as much as I do."

  "A little less sarcasm there," Belkram told her. The stone thrummed against his chest in reply. The handsome ranger stood up in his stirrups to look all around and sighed. "I suppose we'd better start looking for somewhere we can defend-and protect the horses, too-and camp for the night."

  "Agreed," Sharantyr said, drawing up beside him on her patient steed. "But after we're out of the saddle, I'd like to talk about the wisdom of riding aimlessly around the most dangerous territory we can find, now that we lack a false Elminster to escort. Surely these deadly shapeshifters can find us wherever we are?"

  Belkram sighed again. "To hear good sense spoken so directly and clearly is always disconcerting. It makes debate seem so… foolish."

  "Spoken like a man!" Itharr agreed in robust tones. "Exactly," Shar and the stone that was Sylune said in perfect unison. After a moment, everyone laughed.

  Belkram rose again in his saddle still chuckling, and pointed northwest. "Is that a suitable place I see before me?"

  "Pray, good knight, ride ye and see," Itharr quoted in response.

  Belkram looked quickly at the lady ranger who rode with them, cleared his throat, and said loudly, "Ah, no, Itharr. Not that ballad. Really."

  Shar gave him a smile, a twinkle in her gray-green eyes, and sang steadily, "For I crave a bank by a stream running softly, where ye'll lay me down and make love to me!"

  "Oh, no!" Itharr said in shocked tones. "You were right, bold Belkram. Not a suitable ballad at all!"

  "Belt up and stow it," Belkram told him dryly. "Well, what say you? Does anyone know what that place might be?"

  "It's a little hard to see from inside this pocket," Sylune said sweetly. "Perhaps if we get closer and you dismount, I could tell something about it. We'd best poke about a bit first, to see if that's a prudent course of action."

  Itharr and Sharantyr both spread eloquent empty hands in answer to Belkram's query. "We're out of the bits of Daggerdale I know," Shar added. "It looks more like a manor on a hill than a keep, but just as far past its proud days as Irythkeep. We'll be lucky to find any part of it still with a roof."

  "Well, we've been very lucky in avoiding rain thus far," Itharr observed brightly.

  "Hush!" both of the other riders said severely.

  "Do you want to bring it on?" Sharantyr demanded, scowling. "I've heard of lump-headed idiots before, but-"

  "You weren't prepared for what a couple of Harpers can do," Sylune said loudly enough for them all to hear, startling Belkram into nearly falling out of his saddle.

  "Stead)' on, there," Itharr commented. "The bit of the horse that snorts and has ears is the front. Now, all you have to do is keep a leg either side of the beast and that front bit pointed-"

  "You can belt up any time, friend," Belkram said easily. 'Your tongue runs on almost as much as Elminster's!"

  The stone in his pocket laughed heartily.

  "Enough," Sharantyr said, her eye on the lowering sun. Trap or no, let's look at this place before darkness leaves us no choices at all."

  The ruin they were fast approaching stood on a grassy hill whose steep slopes fell away into thick, tangled woods to the east and south. Broken land, all hills and copses, lay beyond it to the north, and there seemed to be a patchwork of woodlots and meadows-the former manor farmlands, no doubt-to the west. An overgrown road of sorts crossed the rolling country before them, leading down into the woods and thence up that oddly bare hill to the ruin. Why had no saplings sprung up on the hillsides?

  "I don't like the look of it," Itharr said.

  "Nor do I," Belkram said, "but I must remind you that I've heard those same words from you about seventy times since we began faring together."

  "And how often was my concern justified?"

  "Umm… twenty times or so."

  "Well?"

  "But if we strike out the times we were looking at known Zhentarim holds, brigand camps, and undead holds, Itharr… four times."

  "Perhaps this'll be five," Itharr offered, almost hopefully.

  "You don't really have too much doubt, do you?"

  "No. The backs of my hands itch," the burly Harp
er said, as if that explained everything.

  "The backs of his hands itch," Belkram told the sky. "Shar, you're closer. Scratch them for him, will you?"

  "I go out riding with a pair of hairily handsome men," Shar told her horse conversationally, "and what do they want me to do? Scratch the backs of their hands. You certainly meet some crazed-wits in the ranks of the Harpers, don't you?"

  "Enough levity," Itharr said in quite a different voice, and drew his sword. A moment later he was riding down a green tunnel beneath the interlaced branches of the trees, slowing his mount abruptly and looking warily at the trees ahead. "Lady of the Forest, be with us," he breathed, knowing an arrow could take him in the face or throat before he even saw it.

  He glanced back once. Sharantyr was catching up to him swiftly, her beautiful brown hair flowing free around her shoulders and her blade naked in her hand. Far behind he could see Belkram, head turning from side to side and then twisting to look back the way they'd come, in a steady, watchful cycle.

  Knowing just what reckless fools they were, Itharr sighed as he faced the woods and rode on. Ahead, the road dipped to ford a small stream. No-a sagging bridge, gray with age and neglect, sloped across the bright ribbon of water. Past the bridge, the road climbed out into daylight, up the hill.

  He expected an attack where prudence forced him to dismount and lead the horse through the shallow waters just above the ruined bridge, but none came. He thought he saw a small dark figure turn and scuttle away through the trees well downstream, but brownies and halflings could almost always be found in country like this, and might well leave a few humans alone.

  Or might not, as their inclinations took them. Itharr's shoulders felt very exposed as he rode up the hill and circled the ruin at a careful trot, seeing his companions come up the hill in turn.

  Someone had burned the manor house a long time ago. Roofless walls were all that was left of two barns and the house itself, which had a semicircular flagstone terrace commanding a very pleasant view from the hilltop. Anything with eyes had seen them approach, but the ruins looked safe enough in themselves. Sharantyr was already dismounting to check the corners.

  "Human bones here," she said almost immediately, "and orcs, too. Long dead, and scattered by something that came along later, something hungry that had big teeth."

  "Ah, the expertise of the trained ranger," Belkram said jovially. "Have you decided on the best place for the horses?"

  "Indeed," Shar told him pleasantly, "but I'm not sure if all three of them'll fit there; you'd probably struggle and squirm."

  Itharr's barked laughter spilled out his relief that no attack had come, and it was Sylune's turn to sigh. "Crude, children… very crude. I'd best come out and look about. I can see undeath and things invisible where you can't."

  "Please do," Belkram replied. "Teasing aside, I've just as odd a feeling about this too-pleasant place as Itharr."

  The stone seemed to turn over in his pocket, and Belkram felt the softest of breezes against his cheek. "Try to behave while I'm gone," came a whisper in his ear, and he frowned in puzzlement at the word "gone" until he recalled her first act as Elminster, when coming to a camp: checking the trees all around for spies, brigands, game trails, and the like. He stretched, trying to relax shoulders tight with tension, and looked around the ruin.

  The place must have been a cozy house when it was whole, not a grand residence. There were no halls, fore-chambers, or defensive ring walls, just a stout building of rooms opening into rooms. They chose one for the horses and another for themselves, and built a fire as soon as Sylune drifted back unseen to tell them the woods around were safe for as far as she'd cared to look.

  Belkram had bent his ear her way in suspicion at something subdued in her tone, but Sylune saw him and said firmly, "Nothing is amiss that need concern you, Belkram. Relax, and have that debate you were so looking forward to. I'll stand watch the night through, if you'll all sleep clothed-or at least with your boots on-and with weapons to hand."

  "That's hardly fair to you," Shar objected, and was rewarded with light laughter.

  "Child, I don't need to sleep anymore… remember?"

  "True enough," Sharantyr conceded. "Well, then, let's have our tongue-wag now, and stow it all when the food's ready."

  "Aye, I've noticed that works with these two," Sylune agreed. "Speak."

  "The question," Sharantyr said promptly, looking to her companions for confirmation, "is whether we're better off out here in the wilds or back home in Shadowdale, now that the Malaugrym have slain Old Elminster."

  "It's safer for us back in the dale, surely," Itharr told the food he was preparing.

  "Yes, but if we return there, we'll bring danger to Shadowdale at the hands of any Malaugrym who show up to attack us," Belkram put in from where he was seeing to the horses.

  "Well, then, what about going to another defensible place?" Sharantyr replied. "One we don't care about, but which shelters us from brigands, hungry beasts, and other wandering perils-including marauding avatars, I suppose."

  "Umm… got any such place in mind?" Itharr asked, looking up.

  Shar shrugged. "My experience of these lands is limited," she reminded them. "I'm merely suggesting a strategy."

  "What I'd like to know more about is our foes," Belkram grunted, checking the hooves of a horse who saw no reason for staying in a stony pen when there was a lovely grassy hill out there under the setting sun, and was firmly telling the nearest human its views. "Sylune?"

  "The Malaugrym-a race of shapeshifters descended from the sorcerer Malaug, who have traditionally kidnapped women of Faerun and taken them as mates- dwell in a vast, ever-changing Castle of Shadows on the demiplane of Shadow," the disembodied voice told them. "Some of them are powerful mages, but none dare to walk Faerun openly because of Elminster, whom they call the Great Foe."

  "Because he once foiled one of their kidnappings or slayings?" Itharr asked.

  "Precisely. Centuries ago, they stole spells and enchanted items from all over Faerun-competing with each other, I've been told-and quite often killed wizards so as to have a free hand in plundering their magic. When they tried to do the same to Elminster, he slew one of them and warned the others present to stay out of our world, but that just made them determined to eliminate him. It's been a running battle between the Malaugrym and the Chosen down the long years since, especially a year back when spellfire appeared in the Realms, in the hands of Shandril Shessair. Elminster and the Simbul between them kept her alive and out of Malaugrym hands, more than anyone else."

  Sharantyr nodded slowly. "I know, now, why the Knights decided to let Narm and Shandril go unescorted, but for Torm and Rathan riding after them."

  "Yes," Sylune said. "Elminster didn't want any of you slain by the Malaugrym because you got in their way. The Shadowmasters, as they call their eldest and most powerful, think themselves superior to all folk of Faerun. We're cattle, to be slaughtered or stolen from at whim."

  "Charming," Shar commented, lifting her lips in a sneer. "Remind me, dahlings, to slaughter the cattle out of hand tonight…"

  "Now, now," Belkram said, "don't give them any ideas. They may well be listening to us now."

  "They probably are," Sylune confirmed calmly.

  "What puzzles me," Itharr said, "is why they haven't taken to ruling the Realms long ago. How many of them are there, that a few diligent archmages can stop them? And what else do we know of their powers? What can slay them?"

  "We don't know how many of them exist," Sylune replied. "As you can appreciate, it's difficult to do any sort of body count on secretive shapeshifters who're engaged in intrigues against each other as well as battles with folk of the Realms… except for, of course, a literal body count."

  "Hoo-hah," Belkram agreed. "So what's Elminster's best guess?"

  "He thought there were about seventy of any consequence," Sylune answered, chuckling at the calmly pressed question, "but that's before the Simbul had her little disagreement with t
hem back at Irythkeep."

  "Killing them," Itharr said. "Get back to killing them."

  "Well, they're physically very strong-hardy is perhaps a better word; they'd have to be, to change shape so often-and so fare well in falls and the like, though it seems Malaugrym who've taken another shape can be slain by whatever would usually be fatal to the shape they're using. Cut off the head of a Malaugrym horse"- one of the horses lifted its head to give her a hard stare, and Sylune darted over to mindtouch and be sure it was a horse and not something more, before proceeding- "and you'll slay the Malaugrym, unless it's moved its vital functions somewhere else by starting to shift into another shape. Apparently they're suspicious enough of each other to shift body shape all the time, and go about their castle in forms that have several heads, tentacles all over the place, and so on."

  "Definitely charming," Itharr said. "Go on."

  "They like to take human shape but tend to put their vital functions in unusual body areas, so stabbing one in the eye might not blind it, and there may be no brain behind the eye to harm. Malaugrym who have magic can, of course, hurl spells if need be, in any body shape, and can cast protections on themselves before venturing out, just as human wizards do. They're also, as far as we've been able to learn, immune to all poisons fatal to men."

  "So what is poisonous to a Malaugrym, I wonder?" Belkram asked softly. "There must be something."

  "There is," Sylune confirmed. "The touch of silver in their blood-so on a blade, for instance-is corrosive to all of their tissues it reaches."

  "It would have been useful," Itharr said quietly, "to have known this a little earlier."

  "My apologies," Sylune said. "You are right, and right to be angry. We-Elminster, of course-didn't want you to alert the Malaugrym to a possible deception when we rode out, by demonstrating that you knew all about them. He's… he can be ruthless too, in his own way."

  "We know that," Sharantyr said with feeling. "Believe me, we know that." The two Harpers laughed easily.

  "Ah, Shar, 'twas a grand adventure that befell us in the High Dale!"