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there could be anything lurking to offer ready danger, in such a place and on
such a morning as this.
They turned where a broad track cut through the hedge, and followed it up a
line of old, twisted oaks to a large, rambling house of fieldstone. Its
thatched roof was thick with velvet-green moss and alive with birds. Vines on
tripods and pole-frames stretched away from them in rows, like choked hallways
amid the green, rustling walls of a great castle. Far down one they saw Storm
Silverhand at work, her long silver hair tied back with a ragged scrap of
cloth.
The bard wore dusty and torn leather breeches and a halter, both shiny with
age. Swinging a hoe with strength and care, Storm was covered with a
glistening sheen of sweat, and stray leaves stuck to her here and there. She
waved and, laying down the long hookhoe, hastened toward them, wiping her
hands on her thighs. "Well met!" she called happily as she came.
"I'm going to hate leaving this place/' Shandril said in a small, husky voice.
Narm squeezed her hand and nodded.
"I am, too," he said, "but we can come back when we are stronger. We will come
back."
Shandril turned to look at him, surprised at the iron in his
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tone. She was smiling in agreement as Storm reached them. The pleasant smell
of the bard's sweat like warm bread, sprinkled with spices hung around her.
Nairn and Shan-dril both stared.
Storm smiled. "Am I purple, perhaps? Grotesque?"
Nairn caught himself, and said, "My pardon, please, lady. We did not mean to
stare."
"None needed, Narm. And no 'lady', please . we're friends. Come in and share
sweetwater, then let us talk. Few enough come to see me."
On the way to the house, she said to Shandril, "So what is so strange about
me?"
Shandril giggled. "Such muscles" she said admiringly, turning to point at the
bard's flat, tanned midriff. Corded muscles rippled on her flanks and arms as
she walked. Storm shook her head.
"It's just me," she said lightly, leading them through a stout wooden door
that swung open before she touched it, into cool dimness within. "Sit here by
the east window and tell me what brings you here on such a fine morning. Most
seek Storm in fouler weather/'
"Urrhh ... as bad as Ehninstei? Narm said in response. She handed him a long,
curving horn of blown and worked glass, in the shape of a bird. He held it
gingerly, in awe. "It's real glass!"
"Aye... from Theymarsh in the south, where such things are common. It breaks
easily," the bard said, filling another. Shandril held hers apprehensively,
too. One of the guards backed away when offered one.
"Ah, no, lady," he said awkwardly. "Just a cup, if you have one. I'd feel dark
the rest of my days if I broke such as that." Shandril murmured in agreement.
The bard smiled at them all, hands on hips, and then turned and spoke softly
to the guardsmen.
"We must be alone, these two and I, to talk. Bide you here, if you will. The
beer is in that cask over there; it is not good to drink more sweetwater so
soon. Bread, garlic butter, and sausage is at hand in the cold-pantry. Come
with speed if you hear my horn." She took down a silver horn from where it
hung on a beam near her head, and turned to Narm and
SPELLFIRE
Shandril.
"Drink up," she urged simply. "There is much to talk about." She went to the
back of her kitchen and swung open a little arched door there, into the
sunlight. "Follow the path into the trees, and you shall find me." Then she
was gone.
The visitors from the tower looked around at the low-ceiiinged kitchen, the
dark wooden beams, and hanging herbs. It was cozy and friendly, but ordinary,
not the wild showplace of art and lore one might expect in the home of a bard.
A small lap harp rested half-hidden in the shadows on a shelf near the pantry
door. Narm almost dropped his glass when suddenly, and all alone, it began to
play.
They stared at it as the strings plucked themselves. One of the men-at-arms
half rose from his seat with an oath, clapping hand to blade, but a veteran
turned on him. "Peace, Berost! It is art, aye, but no art to harm you, or any
of us." The harp played an unfamiliar tune that rose and fell gently, and then
climbed and died away to a last high, almost chiming cluster of notes.
"Sounds elven," Narm said quietly.
"Let us ask," Shandril said, standing her empty glass carefully upon the
table. "I'm done." Narm drained his with a last tilting swallow and set it
down with care beside hers.
They nodded to their guards, went out the little door, and found themselves on
a path that twisted down a little ravine, around herbs and beneath overhanging
trees. Down they followed it, to emerge at last by a little stream amid the
trees that widened into a pool.
Storm stood beside it in a robe, hair wet. She was still damp from bathing,
and as they came, she sat upon a rock and beckoned them to two other rocks at
the pool's edge. Close by her head, the silver horn hung from a branch.
"Come and sit," she said, "and bathe, if you would ... or just dabble your
toes in the water. It is soothing." She turned serious eyes upon them, and
said, "Now tell me, if you will, what it is that hangs upon your hearts."
"The harp that played by itself," Narm asked innocently, "was that an elven
tune?"
"Aye, a tune of the Elven Court that Merith taught me. Is that all that
troubles your mind?" she teased, shaking water
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from her silver hair.
"Lady," Shandril said hesitantly, "we think we would like to join the Harpers.
We have heard only good of those who harp from all whom we respect. Yet we
have heard only little. Before we set foot on a new road that we may follow
most of our lives and that may well lead us to life's end sooner than not we
would know more from you of what it is to be a Harper. If your offer still
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