"Fare you both well," she said, and before they could reply added briskly, "I go," and stepped forward. Her sword seemed to cut a gap in the air before her, a gash that leaked blue flame. She stepped through it and was gone, blue fire and mists vanishing in her wake.

Narm and Shandril looked at each other.. —

"Well," the kitchenmaid from Highmoon said brightly, after a moment of silence, "It's just the two of us, again. Well met, Thaerla of Chauntea."

"Fair day and fair harvest, Olarla of Chauntea," Narm replied.

Shandril winced and shook her head. "You sound like Narm," she told him. "Like a male. Try to squeak a little more… or growl and be surly."

After two attempts at squeaking that left Shandril doubled up in helpless laughter, Narm practiced growling and being surly as they peered around the hilltop.

Old, shattered tombs stood on all sides, overgrown by tall grasses. Here and there the grass had been trampled by feet that had been here before them, but there were no gnawed bones or stink of death-and thankfully, no yawning graves or cracks opening into fell darkness. However, someone had painted "Beware: The Dead Walk" on one tall, leaning marker-stone. Thaerla and Olarla of Chauntea looked at that recent message, exchanged glances, and with one silent accord strode together down off the hilltop, following the brook Tessaril had suggested.

Shandril looked sidelong at Narm as they went, trying to see her husband in the fat, trudging priestess-his quick grin, the glossy wave of his shoulder-length dark brown hair, his slender good looks. No, there was none of that in these jowls and thick lips and amiable cheeks. She was looking at a kindly, fat, and already wheezing woman, stumbling along as-she looked down-she must be, herself. Well, they were two, and no doubt those who could see the glows of spells would know they were disguised-but they did not look like a graceful little imp of a scullery lass with a long, unruly mane of curling blonde hair, and her slim young mage of a mate.