Section 17
Year of Dark Frost
Ahead, the land was rising. “The Stonelands ” Mirt announced unnecessarily.
Delg squinted up at him. “It may come as a great surprise to you, large and mighty one, but I’d
managed to puzzle that out for myself already.”
Mirt sketched a florid bow. “The wits of the dwarves are keen, and the fame of their workings resounds
from the Spine of the World to the peaks of the Dustwall.”
Delg made a rude sound in reply. The fire-blackened pans he carried clanked slightly as he clambered
to the top of a ridge to get a better view ahead.
In the distance, like a row of old and gray teeth, a line of crumbling stone cliffs rose out of the mottled
greenery of the forest. The edge of the Stonelands. Between that line and where they now stood
stretched a wide expanse of gently rolling pastureland. Down its center, the road that linked Cormyr
with Tilverton lay like a dark snake basking in the sun. The Moonsea Ride, it was called. Soldiers of
Cormyr kept the brush cleared on either side of the road; a long, long walk across open ground lay
between them and the Stonelands.
Delg turned to Mirt- “How d’you propose to get unseen across that? Wait for dark I suppose-or have
you some hidden magic at the ready?”
Mirt grinned easily, then lazily reached out one stout, hairy arm to haul the dwarf back from the crest
of the ridge. “I’ve as little liking as ye do for waiting about while foes on our trail grow nearer, friend
Delg. Sit ye down for a breath or two, and I’ll show ye my hidden magic.”
The old merchant wheezed as he bent over and fished in the open top of one of his large, flopping
leather boots, dragging a leathern cord into view. It was loosely knotted around his leg; Mirt grunted,
drew the knot open, and then pulled on the line. A wrinkled, seemingly empty sack came up front the
depths of his boot. “A gift from a lady,” he announced with dignity, shaking the hand-sized thing to rid
it of folds and wrinkling his nose at the boot smell it gave off. He was not alone in this reaction.
Then the Old Wolf opened the bags drawstring and plunged his hand in, drawing forth a gown of
shimmering, flame-red silk. with a bodice of linked gold chains.
Hastily the old merchant thrust the garment out of view again, chuckling. “Sorry-wrong handful,” he
explained as Shandril lifted an eyebrow and the other two grinned delightedly The next thing he drew
up was a mesh sack, holding a large bottle filled with something dark. The mesh bag and the bottle
both seemed too large to have come out of the wrinkled sack-which still looked and hung as if empty.
Delg’s eyes fixed on the bottle and fit tip. “Amberjack! Now that’s worth dragging around one of these
magical sacks for.”
Mirt had already made it vanish into the depths of the bag again and was feeling around, his arm thrust
into the small sack up to the shoulder. Shandril could see that it wasn’t half deep enough to swallow the
Old Wolfs arm but…
“Ah!” Mirt said in triumph, and drew forth a large bundle of russet cloth, mottled with green, orange,
and silver threads that confused the eyes, making one’s gaze involuntarily slide away from it The old
adventurer set the bundle carefully on the ground and undid its tied ends, unfolding it to reveal what
looked like a stack of shallow, silvery glass bowls inside. With the air of a tavern show wizard, he
fanned these curved pieces of glass as one does a hand of cards; they looked like plates or masks to
Shandril.
Delg snorted in sudden recognition. “Priests’ regalia of Leira,” he said. “May I remind you, mighty
Lord, that the lady of the Mists numbers few priests among her faithful? Well hardly pass unnoticed.”
Mirt bowed. “True, but the nasty spells Leirans are known to favor will keep most folk-even Zhents—
from bothering us, and we certainly won’t be recognized. These all-concealing robes-aye, put it on atop
all ye wear, lass; over the head it goes-can shift about to fit the wearer, and even be commanded to hold
their shape over emptiness, to conceal the true form and stature beneath. I carry half a dozen about, for—
er, the proper occasions.”
He showed them how to don the featureless glass masks, pull the cowls over their heads, settle the
mantles on their shoulders and chests, and do up the loose, dangling sashes that went (nn last.