Hand of Fire

A Failing Hand of Flames

Hlael Toraunt ran as he'd never run in his life before. Even that young Tamaraith fool might be able to scorch him with a spell, and if the guard Arauntar caught up with him… well, he didn't want to ever get to know what a few feet of hard, cold steel sliding through his guts felt like.

He needed warriors-men sworn to the Brotherhood and as good with blades as these ragtag caravan guards. The Zhent magelings had some, and he needed them, now. If he had to blast a few Brother wizards to ashes to get them, well… it wasn't as if the Brotherhood lacked a surplus of such dolts…

Panting, Hlael rounded the wagon that held Deverel of the Zhentarim, masquerading as a dealer in cheeses from Elturel. He skidded to a halt as the point of a ready sword thrust up almost into his face.

"Yes?" its owner asked coldly. "You have business with Master Rinthar?"

Hlael drew in a deep breath, met the Zhentilar's cold regard with ice of his own, and said, "Yes. Tell him it's his brother-the one called Deverel. I've come from Manshoon, and I'd like to buy some cheese!"

"Stop!" Shandril yelled, into the storm of steel. "Stop, or you'll kill each other!"

She spat a tiny line of spellfire between their snarling faces, to make them heed-and it worked. Arauntar reeled back, blinking, and risked a quick glance in her direction. "Well, aye, Lass, when you take steel to someone, that's the usual aim," he growled.

"Gods, no," the maid of Highmoon cried. "Not you two!"

Sharantyr and Arauntar stared at her, and then at each other over their blades, blinked, and asked more or less in unison, "So who by Leira the Deceiver are you?"

Arauntar lurched up to the wagon, waved a weary arm back at the pole-lanterns flickering behind him-one of a small legion of such that now lit the camp with their glows- and growled, "That's the last of 'em lit. Order reigns. I doubt there's a man or maid in camp still asleep, but most of 'em are back in their wagons an' not running around burying blades in each other any longer… for now."

"Good," Orthil Voldovan grunted." 'Now' is all I'm worried about, until morning. Why by all the drunken dancing gods every man along on this run feels the need to butcher the next man every chance he gets, I know not, but-"

He fell silent and strode past Sharantyr and her raised and ready blade to glare at a man who staggered as he approached. "An' what by Beshaba's bright smile befell ye?"

Beldimarr managed a grin that would have been more handsome if blood hadn't bubbled from between his teeth and leaked in a long stream out of the corner of his mouth.

"Jus' a lucky thrust," he panted, as he reeled up to them, clutching his side with a hand whose fingers were slick with blood. "I took him down, mind-an' he was a Zhentilar, or I'm a dead man."

"I hope he was a Zhentilar," Arauntar said grimly, running to guide his friend to the wagon-perch. They didn't make it before Beldimarr went to his knees.

The head guard looked up from where he knelt beside his sagging comrade to ask Shandril roughly, "Lass?"

Shandril stared down at Beldimarr, then at Arauntar's grim gaze, and at the guards gathering around as if by magic, and all the color slowly went out of her face. "No," she gasped, shaking her head. "Oh, no!"

The wizard Rathrane drifted away from the lanterns, writhing and shuddering in pain. Sometimes he seemed almost solid, a dark man in dark robes, cloak billowing out impossibly long from his shoulders. More often he was but shifting, batlike shadows, roiling in pain around something bright and flickering in his midst, something tnat hurt, mm but that he cradled as if it was precious.

Such agony, unending… but he had to have this. How could he not hunger for such power? He must learn from these last few wisps of spellflame, as they flickered out in his grasp, how to adapt himself so as to drain this peerless might without harm… like so. Yes! Thus! This was the way.

The caravan master glared at the slip of a girl kneeling on his wagon-perch and growled disbelievingly, "Ye won't heal him? Why not? Ye did before!"

He took an angry step forward and found himself facing Sharantyr's swordtip.

"Dare to use that on me, Lady Whomever-Ye-Be, an' ye'll end up a mite diced by yon blades," he snarled, waving at the gathered guards.

"Dare to menace Shandril Shessair, and you'll be dead, and it'll be a mite late for you to take comfort in whatever may happen to me," the ranger replied coolly, lifting her blade to-almost-kiss his throat.

Voldovan jerked back as if he'd burned himself in a suddenly flaring fire, looked up at the wagon-perch, and found himself meeting Narm Tamaraith's furious glare. The caravan master swallowed whatever he'd been going to say and took another pace back.

"Bel," Shandril said pleadingly, "I daren't try to heal you. My spellfire is out of control! I could end up killing you!"

"I trust you, lass," he gasped, blood bubbling forth with every word.

"You shouldn't," Shandril wept, shaking her head violently. "Oh, Bel, you shouldn't!"

"Heal him!" one of the guards snapped. "Aye, try it," another echoed. "Y'did it before!"

"Heal him," others muttered, as Voldovan nodded. Shandril bit her lip and shook her head, face twisted.

"Please, lass," Beldimarr gasped from where he sat in Arauntar's arms, fresh blood fountaining forth.

"He's a dead man if you don't, lass," Arauntar growled, and Shandril sighed, shut her eyes, shook her head again- and came down from the wagon.

"I… this is not going to go well," she moaned, going to her knees beside the stricken guard. "I don't want to do this!"

"We all have to do things we don't want to do, lass," Voldovan growled. "Get on with it."

Shandril gave the caravan master a tearful look, turned imploringly to the guards, and whispered, "You don't understand, any of you!"

"Please, lass," Arauntar growled, leaning forward as if to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but sitting back even before Sharantyr's sword lifted warningly. "None of us'll blame you if Bel goes down. He'll be dead very soon if you try nothing."

Shandril nodded wearily and looked into Beldimarr's eyes. "I… do you…"

The wounded Harper managed a bloody smile, and said, "Whatever befalls, Shan, 'twill be a relief. Do it, an' if the gods gather me, well then…"

Shandril nodded slowly, swallowed, and whispered, "Very well. I'll try." She closed her eyes and held out one hand. Spellflames licked and flickered up and down her arm immediately, charring her tunic, before flaring brightly from her fingertips.

Shandril bit her lip and brought her hand down on Beldimarr's bared and bloodsoaked side.

There was a loud sizzling, as blood scorched up into smoke. Beldimarr jerked upright in Arauntar's grasp and screamed hoarsely.

That long, agonized cry ended with him staring fixedly at Shandril, as smoke streamed out of his mouth-and when Arauntar laid him gently back down, his stare never changed.

The guards leaned forward, but not a man took a step closer to the woman kneeling on the grass as she started to sob.

They could all see Beldimarr wasn't breathing. Where his gaping wound had been, the blood was gone. In its place was a deep brand in the shape of Shandril's hand. "Gods," a guard said hoarsely. "A hand of fire!"

"Cooked his innards," another muttered. Shandril stared pleadingly into Arauntar's eyes as she wept. "Lass," he said quickly, his voice raw, "you did what you could." She shook her head despairingly, sprang to her feet, and fled into the wagon, the ashes of her tunic trailing behind her in a scattering, drifting cloud.

Narm moved to block the wagon-mouth, his face bleak. Voldovan took two deliberate steps forward until he was stopped by Sharantyr's blade again, and said grimly over it, "Guard her close, lad. She hasn't many friends standing here right now, if ye know what I mean!"

The young wizard swallowed, nodded, and disappeared into the wagon.

Arauntar rose from his knees beside Beldimarr and said heavily, "Get to yer posts, men. I'll stand guard here."

"No," Voldovan said curtly, "Ye're needed to keep our verges tight, beyond the lanterns. Yon lass hardly needs guarding, with spellfire ready in her hands!"

Arauntar gave the caravan master a dark look but nodded and turned away. "Let no man touch Beldimarr's body," he snapped, whirling around again. "I'll see to it."

Voldovan nodded. "'Twill be so." He waved a hand in dismissal, more to the last few lingering guards than to Arauntar, then turned to Sharantyr and asked, "Are ye going to stand here in my own camp and menace me with steel all night, woman? Mind telling me yer name, first?"

"I am Sharantyr," she said, "Knight of Myth Drannor- and death to any who seek to harm Shandril Shessair."

"Well, then, Lady Death," the caravan master said gruffly, "/ am Orthil Voldovan, this is my caravan, and in this camp, my word is law. Remember that."

The ranger lifted her shoulders in a shrug, lowered her voice so only he could hear, and said coldly, "I met Orthil Voldovan once, and I'm not looking at him now."

The caravan master's eyes went flat and dark, and he raised a hand as if to-do something that he abandoned in an instant, to let it fall again as he smiled and said, "Ye're welcome in my wagon, Lady, but forgive me if I turn not my back on ye, hey?"

"Likewise," she promised him calmly, her eyes as icy as his own.

She ducked past him and under his wagon like a speeding arrow. He was still whirling around, mouth open to roar, when she burst up into view again with a man dangling from her swordtip.

A robed wizard Voldovan had never seen before was gurgling his last breaths with Sharantyr's long sword through his throat.

Men with swords and bowguns and better armor than they should have possessed showing here and there through their leathers and cloth tunics raced around the corner of the wagon and recoiled from the sight of their newfound commander with his head crazily askew, dying.

The ranger shook Hlael Toraunt off her sword to the ground and told them bleakly, "Shandril's not unguarded. Go down, wolves!"

The Master of Shadows looked up from his littered desk with anger glittering in his pale eyes. The movement lifted his jowls from his mountainous chest, but the man in the doorway was too weary and in far too much pain to feel revulsion or take heed of warning signs. "Master," he croaked, "I've returned!"

Belgon Bradraskor crooked a dark eyebrow. "Why, thank you, Nesger. I could hardly have hoped to notice that fact without your able assistance."

Nesger shook his head as if to rid himself of tiresome thief-lords and their heavy sarcasm alike, sagged against the doorway, and clutched at it for support with hands that left bloody marks behind. The lips of the Master of Shadows thinned.

"Slaughter," Nesger told him bluntly. "The caravan torn apart and set afire. More wizards'nTve ever seen in m'life, all hurling spells… an' that wench torching them all, and their wagons too, with her spellnre." He shook his head. "I'd back her 'gainst an army, or Manshoon of the Zhents himself, or both together. 'Slike she's a god, blasting everything that stands against her!"

Without waiting for reply or dismissal he turned and staggered out.

The Master of Shadows stared at the empty doorway where Nesger had been, interlacing his ringers and rubbing them back and forth together thoughtfully. It would probably be best to just forget about the whole affair, at least until Tornar's return.

If, that is, Tornar ever did return.

The Zhentilar eyed the dead wizard and the lone, helmless woman standing over him, shouted, and surged forward as one, firing their bowguns.

Voldovan cursed and vaulted up inside his wagon, struggling to get out sword and signal-horn at the same time-as small but deadly bolts thudded home in Sharantyr's flesh.

She groaned and reeled back, dropping her blade to claw at Lhaeo's bag with the hand that hadn't stopped three bolts because she'd thrown it up to shield her face.

They were going to sword her, and she wouldn't have time.

The ranger rolled frantically in under the wagon, and only one blade slashed fire across her ribs ere she got the bag open and found the right stone.

Ironguard again, but that meant one small bone knife against a handcount of large, angry, armored men. Wonderful.

In the wagon overhead she could hear the muffled sounds of Shandril weeping-probably with her face buried in her bedding.

That was just about what Sharantyr felt like doing, right now, as she rolled over on her wounded arm, grunted at the pain, and snatched out the bolts. Their iron heads passed through her flesh like smoke, but blood spurted from the holes they'd made. There was one more healing gem…

The lantern light coming in under the wagon dimmed- and not just from all the men stabbing at her and cautiously squirming in under the wagon to reach her, either. This gloom was like a hungry shadow, gliding forward…

"Shan!" the ranger cried. "Get away from here! There's something dark, that drinks magic!"

She heard a startled oath from Narm and a wild shriek of grief and fury that must be Shandril. It was followed by a louder oath from Voldovan in the instant before the wagon above her burst apart in spellflames that sent the Zhentilar scrambling back with curses of their own. The darkness swirled hungrily up from beneath the wagon, reaching for Roaring white fire that crisped the shouting Zhentilar and the grass they stood in alike, in a single, terrifying instant, ere stabbing down at the darkness.

"Sharantyr!" Shandril shouted, from somewhere above and behind it. "Get clear-you can, can't you?"

"Yes!" the ranger shouted back, rolling for all she was worth. The darkness was swirling like leaves circling in a storm whirlwind, feeding on the flame that sought to destroy it. She had to warn Shandril about that, so the lass could-could… do what?

Dimly Sharantyr became aware, as she found her feet and, staggering, her balance, that the darkness was screaming. A shrill, high cry, words in an unfamiliar language that somehow reminded her of things she'd heard, down the years, then just pain again, shrieks that soared higher and higher.

There came a sudden coldness in Sharantyr's heart, and she looked down to see a swordtip emerging from under her breasts.

"Ye shouldn't have turned yer back on me," a voice whispered in her ear.

"And you," she snarled, as she whirled around and bruised her knuckles on Voldovan's nose and jaw in a solid punch that sent him flying, "shouldn't try to impersonate a caravan master who'd know better!"

She sank down, clutching herself with both hands against sudden, surging pain. Ironguards were great spells, but when a foe used an enchanted blade…

"Sharantyr!" Shandril cried, leaping out of the wagon in a halo of snarling spellfire. "Are you hurt?"

"I–I'll live," the ranger managed to reply, going to her knees. "I think."

Arauntar was pounding toward them across the camp, sword in hand and an endless bellow calling guards to him as he came. Several had heeded and were following him, but reluctantly and at quite a distance.

Behind Shandril, however, was a sight that shook Sharantyr more than anything she'd ever seen before. The screaming darkness was man-shaped, now, and thrice as tall as the wagon. As she watched, it grew swiftly larger, looming like a shadowy giant. Shuddering and writhing, it grew ever darker and more solid. It was drinking the spellfire that Shandril had hurled!

"Shan!" the ranger screamed, pointing. "Behind you!" The maid of Highmoon turned, saw, and pointed both her hands at the shadow-thing like a wizard gleefully hurling his first lighting bolt.

As Shandril poured spellfire into the looming giant in an eye-searing white storm that shook the very air it tore through, Sharantyr saw that the young woman's teeth were clenched, and her face was as white as bone. Fine fury, yes, but how could the lass prevail against something that could feed on spellfire?

Pain crashed over the ranger in a fresh wave, and she lost all sight of false Voldovans, running guards, shadow-giants and spellfire-hurling Shandril’s alike in a shuddering collapse onto her face and side, writhing on the trampled grass. What magic had been on that blade?

The ground was shaking so violently now that the ranger started to tumble from side to side, ending up on her back- in time to see the night sky split apart with spellfire.

Flames were arcing all over the camp as Shandril lashed out. "Die!" she spat. "All of you! Die and leave us all be! Touch not Sharantryr and Arauntar and my Narm! Leave us alone!"

Laeral gasped and swayed. An anxious apprentice dared much to reach out and touch her-then held the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, cradling her awkwardly as if she might shatter or burst in a fury of rending spells. Other apprentices in that chamber of Blackstaff Tower saw and fell silent, staring in awe.

"Lady," the daring apprentice asked, "are you-well?"

"Back," Laeral said urgently. "Maratchyn, leave go, for your own safety!"

The youth did so, to stare at her anxiously from a few paces away. Laeral waved at him. "Get all enchanted things out of this chamber," she gasped. "Go!"

Apprentices stared an instant longer, then hastened to do her bidding… save Maratchyn. He stood by, hands raised to-he knew not what. Catch her if she fell?

He saw Laeral steady herself, clench her fists as if to fight down pain or nausea, and straighten. "Yes," she whispered, nodding to empty air. "Yes, sister, I feel it too."

The apprentice's stare widened as a ghostly face started to form in the air facing Laeral. He'd seen Alustriel, High Lady of Silverymoon, a time or two before and knew very well who he was looking at. She gave Maratchyn a wink of recognition as she grew more solid. He swallowed. She knew him? Oh, gods…

"Her spellfire must be out of control," Alustriel said simply. "This could be the end."

Laeral nodded. "We must be there. Can you-?"

Alustriel smiled thinly. "If this continues, a Weave-field between us will serve to scoop enough of this wild, spilling-in-all-directions energy to strengthen me fully and take us all to Shandril."

"All?"

"Bring Mirt and Asper, as well as the both of us-but leave yon handsome apprentice behind. I've a feeling we'll have enough innocent victims to try to protect against raging spellfire as 'tis."

Laeral gave the overbold Maratchyn a warning look as she replied, "I can feel one such right from here, now. Mother Mystra, but her spellfire's strong!"

"You feel one who needs protection? Who?"

"Sharantyr of Shadowdale-sorely wounded, too." Alustriel nodded. Her ghostly face tightened, gasped at the ceiling, and then said, "Ahh, better. Almost whole. Sister, farspeak Mirt and Asper. 'Tis less than kind to snatch folk half across Faerun without warning, and we want them properly clad and armed."

Laeral's lips twisted in a wry smile. "If there is such a thing as 'properly clad and armed' for attending a battlefield where spellfire's running wild."

"You could wear Khelben," Alustriel suggested lightly, her words only half-teasing.

The Lady Mage of Waterdeep smiled and shook her head. "He's needed more here keeping Waterdeep in order-and I'd not want to place him among so many foes of Art. Not for his protection, but for theirs. He's all too apt to smite first and show mercy later."

Alustriel nodded. "lean feel Sharantyr now. She's in bad shape. We'd best not wait longer to translocate her, but we need an anchor point that won't land her among foes."

"If it's only to be for a short time," Laeral replied, "we can just send her back to where she last relieved herself, on the trail. She walked, remember?"

"Haste matters most," Alustriel agreed, and her phantom face seemed to blaze more brightly.

Maratchyn watched in silent awe. The two Chosen of Mystra must be snaring raging spellfire energies and using them to teleport this distant Sharantyr person from wherever she was to an unknown anchor point-waste or discarded hair or the like that had once been part of her own body.

He shivered at the very thought. "Dangerous" was too mild a word. Why, th "Done," Alustriel said calmly. "She lives. Are Mirt and Asper ready?"

"More so than I’ll ever be, I think," Laeral replied and turned to give Maratchyn a jaunty wave.

Her hand was still moving in that wry gesture when she vanished. Alustriel's ghost-face winked out in the same instant, leaving the apprentice blinking at where they'd been.

Maratchyn was still' drawing breath and trying to remember every last nuance of tone and look exchanged by his Lady Teacher and the High Lady when there was a sudden crackling of the air behind him, a presence that made him turn quickly.

The Lord Mage of Waterdeep was standing in the nearest doorway, in his customary black robes and with no less than three scepters of power clutched in one of his hands. The other held a quill pen from which a single drop of ink dripped-iridescent green-gold ink, Maratchyn couldn't help but notice, as it splattered in all directions.

The Blackstaff did not appear to be in the best of moods. He fixed the lone apprentice with a very direct stare, and said, "I feel very great disturbances in the Weave, and Art surges through this chamber far more strongly than my wards should allow. Master Maratchyn, have you any explanation for this? Should I be wary of your great powers of mischief or despairing of your clumsiness… or merely demanding the utmost of your no doubt finely honed powers of observation?"

Maratchyn swallowed. "I-ah-the Lady Alustriel, Lord Khelben. She appeared, conferred with the Lady Mage Laeral, and-well, they departed together. She said there was no need to involve you."

Khelben's eyes narrowed. "So glib, Master Maratchyn? I fear I'm going to have to visit your memories directly and see and hear just as you did. You may well be telling the truth, but you must admit that it sounds a mite… farfetched."

"No disagreement there, Lord!" Maratchyn replied, heartily and meant it.

Spellfire blinded Sharantyr and turned blue-a rushing blue fury that flashed through her, spun her head-over-heels, and whirled her up into its flood. The ranger felt herself plucked up from the grass nigh Shandril, and hurled somewhere far, far away. Somewhere that had something to do with a bloody lock of her own hair…

Suddenly she was elsewhere-an elsewhere that had moonlight and many tree branches, but entirely lacked spell-fire, lanterns, wagons, running men, or spell-hurling wizards.

What it did have was warm, yielding, gently snoring bodies-or at least one. Sharantyr landed hard atop it, and was aware of a male, human, rather unwashed smell as she sank deep into its source with a crash of snapping branches and sliding boots.

The incoherent oaths of a man jolted awake in startled pain accompanied them both to the ground, as they fell out of the tree together.

Sharantyr landed hard on a particularly unyielding surface of the scenic Blackrocks, and lay there twisting and gasping in helpless agony, her breath driven out of her and what felt like roiling fire in its place.

The man was more fortunate. Tornar the Eye had been sleeping in a tree somewhere in the Blackrocks for safety against marauding beasts-not an altogether successful tactic, it seemed. He did, however, land with one knee atop whatever had pounced on him, and bounced back and away from it, to land on his feet in an angry crouch, blade hissing out.

The moonlight clearly showed him the ranger Sharantyr writhing on the rocks, her face contorted in pain. He stared down at her and slapped at his pouch with an oath. Thin wisps of smoke were rising from it, and when he slapped at it frantically, backed swiftly away from the pain-wracked woman on the rocks, and tore it open, out fell a flaming, sizzling tangle of-hair?

Her hair. Some sort of magic, obviously. He shook it all out, dug fingers in where it had been, and rubbed to make sure no smoldering was left. Frowning, he shook his head and turned back to Sharantyr.

She'd made no move to draw a weapon or do anything more than curl up like a child, clutching her gut and trembling in what seemed to be utter agony. Yet she bled not, nor seemed cut. He frowned down at her, then sheathed his blade, knelt, and put out a cautious hand to where her own agonized hands were clutching.

Sharantyr shuddered, sobbed, and tried to twist away from him, kicking at the rocks beneath her. Tornar winced. He'd seen a man do that, once, while dying with his guts torn out by the horns of an enraged bull. She must be hurt badly…

"Lie still," he hissed, putting a hand on one trembling shoulder. "Easy, there!"

Sharantyr moaned beneath him, a despairing bleat of hopeless pain, and he dug hastily in another of his belt-pouches, seeking one of his most precious items of booty: a steel vial that never left him.

Her teeth were clenched, but with brutal strength he forced fingers into the corners of her jaws and got them apart enough to pour the contents of the vial between. Then he clapped a hand over her mouth and held her jaws together during the brief frenzy of convulsions that followed.

When she lay unmoving under him and her breath seemed to be coming in deep, regular gasps, Tornar let go and hastily drew back.

Only Sharantyr's eyes moved to follow him. They regarded each other for a moment in the moonlight before her lips moved.

"Thank you for healing me, Tornar," she told him. "I–I know not how I came here. Was it by your hand? Are you taking me back to the Master of Shadows?"

"I was ordered to slay you," he replied slowly, "but I'll not do it-or go back to Scornubel. I've no idea how you came to fall out of the sky onto me… but Lady, I do know one thing: I've never seen your like before or ever thought to." He hesitated, and then asked, "Could you learn to trust me?"

"I could," Sharantyr replied, her eyes on his. "Why do you ask this?"

"I–I'd like to part with you as a friend," he told her, eyes steady on hers.

She reached out one weak arm and squeezed his hand. "I think we can manage that."

Her reaching was the last insult to her much-slashed leathers, and they fell away from her shoulder and bodice.

Wordlessly Tornar plucked up her ruined garments and held the scraps back up in position. "The night's cold," he said simply.

She looked at him, smiled, and then glanced up at the tree. "Is there room on your branch for two?"

The man from Scornubel made a horrible wheezing sound, then, and doubled over. It was three anxious breaths later, when the crawling lady ranger of Shadowdale reached his side to see what was wrong, that she realized Tornar the Eye was laughing.