Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,41

trying to draw the young Bedwyr into the casual conversation.

Luthien nodded but remained distant from the banter as Oliver and Brind’Amour went back and forth, with Oliver recounting the tale of an adventure he had experienced in a wizard’s tower, and Brind’Amour adding some detail to Oliver’s descriptions and generally nodding and gasping at the appropriately polite places. Now that the meal was done and the formal introductions were at their end, Luthien was anxious to focus on the task at hand. Brind’Amour had saved them from the cyclopians, and passes to Montfort (the last chance he figured he might have of ever catching up with Ethan), as well as getting that merchant off their backs, was a reward the young man could not ignore.

“You mentioned a task,” Luthien was finally able to interject. The ease of the conversation disappeared in the blink of a halfling’s eye. “Over dinner, I believe you said, but now dinner is over.”

“I did not think that I could get my words in above the clamor of an eager halfling guest,” Brind’Amour said with a strained smile.

“Oliver is done,” the stern and determined Luthien remarked.

Brind’Amour sat back in his chair. He clapped his hands and a long-stemmed pipe floated out of a cubby, lighting as it approached the man, then settling gently into his waiting hand. Luthien understood that the magical display was for his benefit, a subtle reminder that Brind’Amour was in control here.

“I have lost something,” the wizard said after several long draws on the pipe. “Something very valuable to me.”

“I do not have it,” Oliver remarked, clapping his hands.

Brind’Amour gave him a friendly gaze. “I know where it is,” he explained.

“Then it is not lost.” This time, the halfling’s humor did not evoke any appreciative response from Brind’Amour or from Luthien. The young Bedwyr could see the pain on the old man’s wizened face.

“It is in a great sealed cave complex not so far from here,” he said.

“Sealed?” Luthien asked.

“By myself and several companions,” Brind’Amour answered, “four hundred years ago, before the Gascons came to the Avonsea Islands, when the name of Bruce MacDonald was still prominent on every tongue in Eriador.”

Luthien started to respond, then stopped, stunned by the implications of what he had just heard.

“You should be dead,” Oliver remarked, and Luthien scowled fiercely at him.

Brind’Amour took no offense, though. He even nodded his agreement with the halfling. “All of my companions are long buried,” he explained. “I live only because I have spent many years in magical stasis.” He waved his hands suddenly, wildly, indicating that he needed a change of subject, that they had gotten off the issue at hand.

Luthien could see that the man was plainly uncomfortable.

“The world might be a simpler place if I was dead, Oliver Burrows,” Brind’Amour went on. “Of course, then you two would also be dead,” he pointedly reminded them, drawing a tip of the hat from Oliver.

“My task for you is simple,” the wizard explained. “I have lost something—you are to go to the caves and retrieve it.”

“It?” both friends asked together.

The wizard hesitated.

“We must know what we are looking for,” Luthien reasoned.

“A staff,” Brind’Amour admitted. “My staff. As precious as anything I own.”

“Then how did you come to leave it in this cave?” Oliver wondered.

“And why did you seal the cave?” Luthien added.

“I did not leave it in the cave,” Brind’Amour replied rather sharply. “It was stolen from me and placed there not so long ago. But that is another story, and one that does not concern you in the least.”

“But . . .” Oliver began, but he quieted as soon as Brind’Amour’s dangerous scowl settled on him.

“As for the cave, it was sealed to keep its inhabitants from roaming Eriador,” the wizard said to Luthien.

“And what were they?” Luthien pressed.

“The king of the cyclopians and his mightiest warriors,” Brind’Amour replied evenly. “We feared that he would ally with the Gascons, since we knew that they would soon be on our shores.”

Luthien stared hard at the old man, not sure he believed the explanation. Oliver was even more doubtful. Gascons hated cyclopians more than did Eriadorans, if that was possible, and any potential alliance between the people of the southern kingdom and the one-eyes seemed unlikely at best.

Also, Luthien could not begin to fathom why such extreme measures would have been taken against a race that had been savaged not so long before that. Bruce MacDonald’s victory had been complete, bordering on genocide, and as far as the young Bedwyr