The shepherd-lad sighed and shrugged his worn, patched leather jerkin closer about him. It had once belonged to a for¬ester. Under a patch on the back, it still bore a ragged, dark-stained hole where an arrow—an elfin arrow, some said—had taken the man's life. Elminster wore the old jack—scabbard buckles, tears from long-gone lord's badges, and worn edges from past adventures—for all the dash its history made him feel. Sometimes, though, he wished it fit him a little better.