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 warriors 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 fime!" 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 warriors 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 roomed 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."