The Srinshee smiled and nodded, but her face held more menace than mirth.

"Going somewhere?" she asked, her words a clear and sharp challenge.

The bored prince of Thultanthar at the head of the file of Shadovar walking along the stone-lined elven underways drew his sword and trailed it idly along one stone wall, making a grating, scraping sound. His brother sighed.

"We can have haste and stealth, Brother," Prince Vattick reminded his twin a little testily. "The quieter we are, the farther we can get before we're battling elves at every step."

Prince Mattick sighed. "Yes, yes, but after all this time spent planning and posturing, I want to smash something."

"Oh, I've no doubt we'll have opportunities enough for that. More than we'll want, I'm thinking, and sooner than I'd prefer too."

"You're probably right, but it's been nigh deserted down here. Our hired armies are probably keeping the longears so desperately busy fighting for their lives that they can't spare the time nor swords to-"

From around a corner ahead, an elf in eerie blue armor floated, to bar the way in menacing silence, drawn swords raised in either hand.

Vattick gave Mattick a disgusted look. "You had to say it, didn't you? Couldn't just keep your jaws shut for once, could you?"

"Brother," Mattick replied, "this is what I've been waiting for." And he showed his teeth to the waiting baelnorn and drew his sword with a flourish, letting it sing and watching the runes crawl like black flames up and down its blade.

"Arcanists," he ordered, "have fun. Let fly!"

"Please do nothing of the kind," the baelnorn said sadly, its voice low and gentle yet carrying to every ear with clarity. "I'm charged to guard House Velanralyn, and I'll do just that. You proceed at your own peril."

"Well, of course we do." Mattick sneered. "Arcanists!" He pointed at the baelnorn with his sword. "Blast her down!"

Obediently the Shadovar spread out in the passage, took up stances, and hurled spells.

Only to shout in pain and reel back, staggering, as their own magic rebounded from the baelnorn's blades to strike at them. One arcanist blazed up like a torch, shrieking, and another was flung headlong back down the passage they'd traversed, to slam into an unyielding wall with a bone-shattering thud.

The baelnorn shook its head, sighed, and backed away around the corner.

Vattick looked disgusted. "Just a little care on our part would have avoided that." He watched the arcanist who'd slammed into the wall slide down, broken and senseless, then beheld the burnt arcanist toppling to the floor trailing wisps of smoke, little more than ashes around blackened bones. "Years of training gone to waste."

"Just when did you become such a wistful philosopher, Brother?" Prince Mattick demanded. "When you go to war, you know there'll be losses. The trick is making certain you're not one of them."

The baelnorn leaned back around the corner, pointing a sword as if it was some sort of wand. Blue-green fire spat from its tip, and Mattick sprang hastily back from its snarling beam with a curse, clutching the seared knuckles of his sword hand. The fire raced past him and slammed into the chest of an arcanist, who was driven back on his heels, and then fell, his despairing shout ending in a horrible wet wail as the fire roared into and through his face-and on into the arcanist behind.

More Shadovar spells were hurled, but the baelnorn was gone from view back around its corner again, and only a few of the magics swooped around it after the undead guardian.

"Idiots," Mattick growled at the arcanists. "Must we do this all ourselves?"

He strode to the wall and stalked along it toward where it turned the corner, muttering to himself as he worked a magic that would hurl any nastiness this undead guardian served up right back at her. Two could play such games, and this blade of his held some nasty powers of its own ...

He thrust it before him, to round the corner first, but nothing happened. Still silence. Cautiously he peered with just one eye around the edge of stone, and saw the baelnorn floating in calm, deep blue silence, quite a few strides distant down its passage. Its upper armor, still glowing, hung floating behind it, leaving its body shrouded from the waist up in some sort of gauzy gown. Just behind its shoulder were the double doors the baelnorn was no doubt guarding.

Was this some sort of strange attempt at seduction? It was shapely, but an elf, and visibly beyond death at that. Not to his tastes. Perhaps this was some sort of strange elder elf custom.

Well, pah.

Prince Mattick had never heard of House Velanralyn before this day, and cared nothing for its history or former greatness. He had his father's orders; there was magical might here to be seized and drained, and the more he and Vattick took in, the more invincible they'd be when the next annoying elves showed up to offer battle. These arcanists were expendable. Unless too many of them fell through his folly, or his brother's. Then the Most High of Thultanthar would be too furious for comfort.

"Arcanists, attend me!" he ordered, trying for the calm coldness of his father's customary voice, as he strode grandly around the corner.

Let it try its worst, this lingering dross of elfkind. Then he could watch it humbled by its own battle spell, and step in for a little vicious hacking while it was still on its ghostly knees. This sword of his could cleave incorporeal undead as if they were solid meat; he'd enjoy its astonishment, for the fleeting moments before pain and death replaced that surprise.

Why- The baelnorn was doing nothing as he strode up to it, nothing at all. Suspicious, Mattick slowed, bringing his blade up warily.

"Is there some problem, proud human?" the baelnorn asked, as gently as any Shadovar nurse. "Your own deceits disappoint you, so you expect some from me?"

"Oh, shut your over-clever mouth," Mattick snarled, slashing at it two handed, in a great swing that it parried with apparent difficulty. As both its swords clanged aside, struck wildly by the force of his blow, he grinned savagely-and thrust his sword home into its unprotected breast, low and angling up, up through ribs and through its heart and up into spine and brain.

"Die, elf bitch." He grinned into its face. Which, though he could see right through it to the dark stones of the passage beyond, showed gasping agony, dark eyes that clung to his in desperation and ... was that triumph? He twisted his sword within it, shoving the blade in even farther-and felt nothing, of course. It was but a wraith to him, only his sword could slice the baelnorn as if it was wholly alive and solid.

With a sneer, he leaned forward until he could feel the chill of its undeath on his chin, could have thrust himself forward and kissed it if he'd wanted to.

"Does it hurt?" he whispered, smile widening, letting it see the cruel contempt he felt. "Does it?"

"Of course," the guardian breathed back-and kissed him.

The cold of that contact shocked Mattick's breath away, and he flung himself back, lips and face seared as if with ice. He tried to curse, and found his tongue a thick and then an unfeeling thing. He slashed furiously with his sword-and found that he was holding nothing but a hilt.

The stub of the blade was smoking, runes smoldering as they slid off steel that was no longer there, and collapsed into nothingness.

Prince Mattick stared at it in disbelief, stumbling back. The baelnorn was a brighter and more opaque blue than before, and it was smiling at him, sadly.

"I have descended to this," it whispered. "Still, you intend to do worse to me, and shall. I thank you for the energies in your blade, man-and your life-force. I'm well aware you didn't intend to yield either to me, but ... I will do anything for House Velanralyn. That is my honor, and my curse."

Mattick flung down the hilt of his sword before the dark smoldering consuming it reached his fingers. He felt weak, sick ... hollow.

He was, he was ... suddenly no longer alone, as the five surviving arcanists led by his brother boiled around the corner and charged at the baelnorn.

Vattick stopped abruptly as he saw what had befallen his brother, ignoring the sudden flare of spells rocking the passage.

"Kisses of Shar!" he cursed in astonishment, grabbing Mattick by his elbow and towing him back around the corner. "You've no lower face left! How did it do this to you?"

Mattick shook his head helplessly, no longer able to speak. His heart was slowing, coldness was creeping across his chest, he couldn't breathe ...

Vattick sighed, stepped back, and started casting spells.

"This should teach you," he began severely, between the second and the third. And then, when the sixth was done and Mattick was looking distinctly better and feeling his jaw and face wonderingly, Vattick sighed and added, "but it won't."

Mattick managed a grin. "Oh, I don't know. A few things stick, sometimes. I owe you thanks, Brother. And I am thankful, believe me. Now, let's see to this blasted baelnorn."

And he strode back around the corner.

The baelnorn had lost even more of its armor, and looked to be in pain again. The shards of one of its swords were circling it in midair, tumbling in slow leisure, but the guardian was holding its other blade high, looking more than ready to slay.

As it had been, and rather busily, it seemed. Only two arcanists were still standing, and one of them looked to be in pain, his clothing torn and burned away and scales appearing here and there on his revealed skin, before fading away to reappear somewhere else.

"Now that's interesting," Vattick told the baelnorn politely, pointing at the scales. "How did you manage that?"

He looked at Mattick, who was wincing at the carnage and muttering, "Father is going to be less than pleased."

Vattick nodded-and without looking at the baelnorn, unleashed something small and blindingly bright from his hand at it.

Mattick and the arcanists all shouted in pain and clutched at their watering eyes, dazed and blinded, but Vattick ignored them, turning to gaze hard at the writhing wisp of fading blue radiance that was the baelnorn.

It was gone from the waist up, consumed by his sunglow magic. He watched it sigh into oblivion with satisfaction that would have been greater if he hadn't known he had no more sunglows. And that his father had given it to him months ago in secret to use as a "last resort," not for this.

Oh, well ...

"Can you see yet, Brother?" he asked wearily. "Why you feel the need to spend so much time playing the stone-headed fool is beyond me, but I'm yoked to you, great lout of Thultanthar!"

"I can see more or less," Mattick growled. "Pretty well for a stone-headed fool, anyway."

"Good. Then take this mace-what's left of Arthulniyr here certainly won't be needing it again-and breach the crypt doors. Have fun just hammering away at them. I'll stand ready, lest a trap or another guardian waits inside."

Mattick hefted the mace a few times, shook his head as if to clear it, passed a hand across his eyes as he worked a minor healing on them, and strode to the vault doors.

The entwined phoenixes of House Velanralyn didn't stand a chance.

The view out of Storm's kitchen windows into her herb garden was beautiful, even in mid-Marpenoth.

Yet with an exasperated sigh, Amarune suddenly turned away from it, fists clenched. "I know I can walk right out that door, and down to the gate, and out into all waiting Faern-but I daren't. I know not where to go, or what to do ... this house is as warm and comforting as any place I've ever been in, yet it's a prison for us!"

Arclath set aside the old, thick book of recipes he'd been delving in, and hastened to wrap comforting arms around his beloved. "You want to be out there doing," he murmured soothingly. "That's my lady. A true however-many-greats granddaughter of Elminster."

"Lord Delcastle," Rune muttered into his chest, "are you patronizing me?"

"No! Gods, no! Your need to be out striving is a credit to you; you are a true noble, caring for the land and the folk in it, wanting to help. It's just that ... staying here, where Storm knows where to find us, and you can survive if the Old Mage should fall, is the best service you can render just now."

Rune arched her back and shoved on his upper arms to put distance between them, so she could lift her chin and glare at her lord. "Oh? And who made you the all-knowing sage, between two beats of my heart? Hey?"

Arclath grinned. "There, you're even sounding noble."

"Oh, go ride a unicorn's horn!" she snarled, breaking free and striding across Storm's kitchen. She flung out an arm to bat a bundle of dried herbs down off its beam, then stopped herself, hands like claws, only to whirl back to him and say pleadingly, "Oh, forgive me, my love! It's just-not being part of what's going on gnaws at me!"

"I know," Arclath almost whispered. "I feel that same ache." He took her hand, as if he was going to whirl her into a dance across the smooth-worn flagstones of Storm's farmhouse kitchen, but instead drew her close and murmured, "But I must confess it's being overtaken swiftly by a deeper ache. Yawning hunger. Let's make some soup."

"Soup? At a time like this? Is that how Cormyr was founded, and defended, and made great? By the making of soup?"

"Doughty nobles ride into war best with full bellies," Arclath replied brightly, giving her a wide and false smile. When he batted his eyelashes at her like a dockside lowcoin lass, Rune found herself snorting in helpless amusement.

She wagged a reproving finger in his face. "You, my lord, are a dangerous man!"

"But of course," Arclath replied airily, twirling away from her into a full-flourish court bow. When he rose out of his crouch, he was holding a tureen and a large wooden spoon. "Soup?"

Amarune put her hands on her hips, shook her head, and then smiled wryly. "Soup," she confirmed.

"Good. Pull some leeks and parsnips while I prime the pump."

Rune arched an eyebrow. "My, but lords are very good at giving orders."

" 'Tis what we do best," he replied airily. "Which really means most of us are hard-galloping disasters at doing anything else, but at least I'm one of the all too few who knows so, and will admit it. You chose well."

"I chose-? Lord Delcastle, may I remind you-"

"You may. Several times, and beating your points into me with yon spoon if you feel the need-after you get the leeks and parsnips."

Rune stopped in midretort, nodded, grinned, and went out the back door into the garden. Only to peer back through the door arch and ask warily, "You do know how to cook, yes?"

Arclath grinned. "Wise woman. Know ye: so long as we stick to the six-no, I lie, seven-dishes I was taught, down the years, behind my mother's back, I probably won't kill us both."

"Probably," Amarune echoed warily-and flashed him a grin before ducking out into the garden again.

Arclath found the pump didn't need priming, so he had the tureen full of water and the beginnings of a fire smoldering under it when his lady returned.

"Gods, what a garden," she murmured, joining him at the counter with its window looking out into the beanstalks. "I could learn to love it here."

"Storm told me generations of Harpers have stayed here, when they found the need," Arclath told her, inspecting what she'd brought and reaching for a trimming knife.

"You're strangely calm, considering the doom that may soon befall all Faern," Rune complained.

Her lord shrugged. "I can't do much, so I'm seizing this rare time of not running around swinging a sword to think. Yes, we nobles do think. Once or twice in our lives, between flagons and platters of whole roast boar."

For a moment, Rune's face told him she was going to say something saucy and stinging by way of reply, but then her face changed and she asked almost humbly, "And what are you thinking about just now, my lord?"

Arclath set down the knife, looked straight into her eyes, and replied, "When I was a child, my mother told me of a prophecy the High Herald Crescentcoat once shared with her. It impressed her so much that she wrote it down and often referred to it. I'm trying to remember it."

"Because?"

"It might bear on what's befalling right now. All I can recall of it, here and now, is the last half of it: 'That when two cities fall together, nobles across Faern must and shall renew the realms they serve.' So I find myself wondering if the prophecied time is nigh."

"Renew Cormyr?"

"If it's time. And if that be the case, and Myth Drannor is one of the cities that will fall, what's the other?"

Rune shrugged to indicate she hadn't the faintest. "Elminster has shown me that prophecies are put into the minds and mouths of mortals by the gods. They are what they want mortals to believe-wishful thinking, if you will-not firm destinies that can be fully understood beforehand, and counted on. That prophecy may be so many empty words, or-"

The front door of the kitchen swung open, and a man in worn leathers and homespun confronted them, drawn sword in hand.

"Who are you?" he growled. "And what're you up to?"

"Making soup," Arclath replied, bending to add some of Storm's split kindling to the fire, and wincing at how damp it was. "I hope."

The sword leveled at him didn't waver. "Neither of you are the Lady Storm-"

"No," Amarune replied calmly, "but she brought us here, and asked that we stay and await her."