Hand of Fire

Harping Through Spellfire

Campfires flared up in hungry threads of flame to join the leaping, everchanging web of spellfire above them. Its roar was almost deafening, and it stabbed out with arc after arc of fire that made wagons explode in fury at a touch.

"Gods above!" Mirt said, his merchant's soul shocked at the waste all around him, trade-goods and the wagons that held Asper nodded her head, seeming almost dazed by the sheer outpouring of howling force. It was like facing an angrily erupting volcano. Mirt shook his head to banish that brief, long-ago memory, set his teeth, and dragged his slender lady away from where the air itself was crackling and complaining.

Behind them, the bright figure hurled more spellfire, and in answer the High Lady's silver fire flared up into a shield. Spellfire and silver fire wrestled, and rushing streams of spellflame melted apart into a wild webwork of many holes-but still roared with frightening speed, streaming over the silver fire as a river rushes over rocks, and hurled Alustriel back.

Mirt had one glimpse of the High Lady's grim face before she sank down into a raging whorl of flames, and could be seen no more at the heart of their snarling, behind fires that reared up castle-high in their bright battling.

He became aware of a sudden sharp pain in his ear, and shook his head, bewildered. Asper had twisted in his arms to bite him, and he dimly became aware that she'd been shouting at him for some time, trying to gain his attention. "Aye, what?" he roared, and she pointed with her blade. "Look!"

Mirt looked, and saw a man behind Shandril-a slender, darkly handsome man with a wand in his hand. He'd just fired it, seen its magic race at Shandril's back and be swept toward the stars by billowing spellfire, shaken his head in disgust, and crouched low to crawl closer.

Mirt cast a glance at the maid from Highmoon. She was out of control, to be sure, but even if taking her down became needful, a wand-blast that might send miles of Faerun skyward wasn't the way to do it.

"I'll take him, leaving yon merry blades in yer hands," he growled in Asper's ear, and pointed to the handful of warriors struggling against the flames on Shandril's other side. She clapped him on the arm, whirled to give him a fierce, hot kiss, and then raced away.

Mirt watched her go with a smile-gods, what a beauty! What spirit! Gods keep her safe! — then turned and began his own sprint around the flames, toward the man with the wand.

He'd hoped to cut in close around the lass. The night was growing darker, so her flames must be fading a bit… yet they seemed to be raging as furiously as ever. Off to one side the silver fire that hid Alustriel from view flared up, but it, too, seemed dimmer.

Mirt glanced up as his boots skidded on something wet, and saw that the stars were blotted out. The dark thing, whatever it was, loomed over most of the camp, now, and seemed-by Mirt's familiar feeling of being under scrutiny-to be watching events below.

He shook his head and ran on. The gods certainly seemed to enjoy piling one misfortune atop another, enthusiastically providing three perils where one would do, and curse all the men-twisting bunch of them if that dog with the wand wasn't standing up behind Shandril to try sending death again!

The Old Wolf put his head down and ran, cutting in closer to Shandril than he'd yet dared, dodging hungry tongues of spellfire to get to this newest peril, and knowing he hadn't a blessed hope of reaching the man in time.

Yet Shandril was no fool. The curtain of spellfire cloaking her back was thicker than it raged anywhere else, and twice the man with the wand had to duck down as spellflames suddenly spat at him. The second time he ended up on his chin on the scorched turf, flattened out as low as he could, while an arm of silver fire wrestled with spellfire uncomfortably close above his head.

Mirt tried not to think about the fact that he was hurling himself at that particular snarling conflagration much too swiftly to stop or even veer with any hopes of putting himself where he wanted to be-out of the way of a swiftly raised blade, for instance.

He ducked back out of the way of flame, his racing feet skidding out from under him, and all time for thinking was past.

He crashed down hard on his back and bounced, slithering on, and saw the wand-wielder give him a startled look and rise again, as a drift of silver fire swept spellfire away like a hand clawing aside a tapestry, leaving the way to Shandril's back momentarily clear.

Marlel grinned savagely as he triggered his wand, and then swiftly ducked down again in case the wench should explode.

His magic sped as swift as any arrow, straight at the maid's unprotected back. Nothing could stop it now! He was going to be the one who laid low this Sh The great gasping walrus of a man who'd come running out of nowhere flung himself up into the air with a roar that made Shandril whirl around. The wand-bolt struck him squarely in the chest.

Mirt was flung away as an angry child throws a rag doll, and the last, fading traces of wand-fire reached Shandril.

She shuddered, spellfire already racing up and down in her limbs in a fresh halo, and the Dark Blade of Doom heard her cry out in pain.

His grin widened as he fired again, and he was still grinning when spellfire sped back along the path of his bolt, snatching up and reversing the racing wand-fire to stab back and make all Faerun a single blinding-bright roar.

Asper saw something small and black tumble past her. From out of its whirling teeth gleamed at her, set in a broad grin, and then the blackened, blazing head was gone into the smoke and wandering flames of the many spreading grassfires.

She whirled from the business of dealing death to Zhentilar and launched herself into a run. Mirt had been trying to reach that man…

Spellfire reached for her, but silver fire lashed out again from the blazing ball of warring flame on the far side of Shandril, and the maid of Highmoon turned her attention back to it.

Asper saw Narm Tamaraith rise from his knees, recognize her, and begin to weave a spell. It did not seem a hostile magic, somehow, and she flung herself to the ground, rolled under the lone tongue of spellfire, and found her feet again to race on.

She almost tripped over Mirt, a few hard-running moments later, and screamed.

Spellfire snarled at her almost instantly but was turned aside, and as Asper looked up wildly, Narm gave her a grin and a wave. His magic was settling over her like a bright net, torn and plucked at by spellfire but keeping its full fury away from where Asper frantically fumbled at her belt and scabbard for the vials that held her healing potions.

The Old Wolf groaned, and smoke poured from his mouth. Asper bit her lip, snatched the seal off one vial, and practically threw its contents down his throat.

Mirt erupted into a storm of coughing, wheezing, and snorting beneath her, and she rode him like a lover, grinding herself against him to keep him down low to the ground as a fresh storm of silver fire, then spellfire swept Narm's spell away to claw at each other just above Asper's head.

"Easy, Old Wolf," she soothed him, tugging a second cork out of a vial with her teeth. "Easy, love. Here, drink this."

She rolled off him to give him a chance to breathe and swallow, then held the potion to his lips when his trembling hand could not. She didn't want to look at the ravaged ruin of his chest or wonder if all the healing magics she carried would be enough. Instead she risked a glance through the storms of streaming, whirling flame to where Narm stood, to wave him thanks.

He was casting another spell now, and as Asper watched she saw the caravan master Voldovan run up behind him, sword in hand, and stab Narm viciously, his second thrust running right through the young wizard's chest.

"Shan!" Narm screamed, staggering forward. "Sha-" His second cry ended in a gurgling of blood, and he lurched forward, clutching at his throat, as Voldovan ducked away and disappeared into the drifting smoke.

Shandril whirled around and stared at her man. Then she howled, "Noooo!" in a voice that must have deafened folk abed back in Triel, and hurled a river of bright fire at Narm.

It was a brighter sustained torrent than Asper had ever seen before-just looking at it made her eyes stream-and somehow different, shot through with spiraling bright motes that seemed larger and softer than sparks. It enfolded Narm and drove him fully upright, arms flung wide, and seemed to surge through him, pouring forth from mouth and nostrils… even from his eyes, as a storm of bright sparks.

Narm screamed again, a high, wordless cry of agony, and collapsed, falling over stiffly like a tree toppling into flames.

"Narm!" Shandril howled, "NARM! Answer me!"

The maid of spellfire crouched in her inferno, her face wet with tears, staring in despair at where the man she loved had stood. There came no reply from him, nothing but the roaring of flames. Her healing had served her beloved just as it had Beldimarn.

"No!" Shandril screamed at the skies. "No! Everyone DEAD! Death, death, all I do is slay!" Her voice mounted into a great shriek of grief and rage, and her body erupted in spellfire.

If Asper had thought the camp a place of blinding-bright flame before, she knew better now. She had to turn her head away, eyes shut tight, against the now-screaming brilliance, and shuddered atop Mirt, whimpering, as the ground beneath them flared into uncomfortable heat and slumped slightly. Closer to Shandril it must be melting and flowing, sinking into a pit… a pit that would claim them both if she didn't drag her Old Wolf to safe ground.

Evaereol Rathrane had never known power like this before. He was as large as a dozen dragons, a great glowing dark cloud with power enough now to solidify at will or even to make this gigantic form striding, earth-shaking reality. He dared not do so, just yet, as spellfire and something even stronger-these silver flames he'd never seen the like of before-raged below him. Soon, though, all this greatly changed world would tremble and bow down before Evaereol Rathrane, archwizard of archmages, mightiest of all weavers of Art! Smiling inside, the darkness that was Rathrane looked south and west, where a fell and cold awareness had awakened to his presence and now regarded him.

Larloch, he named that foe, and laughed at it, mind-to-mind, knowing he could sweep away the lich at will… and knowing the distant lord of liches knew it, too.

Yes, he was now greater than the mightiest of Netheril had ever been, a colossus of flowing magic-and still the spellfire flowed into him from below, and he grew mightier. The little female who was its source was capering and wailing now, gone from rage to grief, but her pull on the Weave was as strong as ever, and the power-the power!

Ah, still it flowed, bright and searing, painful now as it flooded on into him. Endless, fiery, delicious… Rathrane exulted, throwing up hands to the stars as if he could reach them, towering ever higher. He was shuddering helplessly in the grip of pain, now, as the spellfire flowed on, but he'd master it as he'd mastered it before.

His shoulders rose again, and he was tall enough to see small winking wisps of silver fire in a distant crater in the wilderlands rock that had not been there before, wherein a spreadeagled and broken Lady Mage of Waterdeep lay staring up at the same stars he stood among.

He could reach out and pluck her life as easily as a thought… but drew back, even as the thought quickened in him, out of mistrust of that silver fire. There was something" too fey about it, too… strong.

Bah! What could be stronger than he? Well, this pain, for one thing…

As he convulsed and moaned and collapsed in earnest, Rathrane began to realize for the first time that the endless flow of spellfire was going to rend and overwhelm him, extinguishing all that was Evaereol Rathrane-and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, he could do to stop it. He tried to tear himself away from the great colossus, becoming a small and flying thing of shadows once more, but He could no longer gather all that was Rathrane together, even if he let all this newfound power slip away and became naught but a ghostly sentience once more… even less than he had been, for all that long, dark time…

He was going to die at last, he was going to be lost, drowned and torn apart in this sea of endless, gnawing power. He was-doomed. He was… going… at last…

The darkness above her was alive. Riding her grief and lost in it, Shandril barely cared as the awareness overhanging her faltered and then failed, and thoughts that were not her own invaded her.

They came in a whispering flood as the great wraith-cloud dwindled and died and… faded away. Caring little, Shandril let them rush over her and into her, imparting their secrets like storm-blown leaves slapping her weary face.

Rathrane, the gloating ghost had been, a wizard of Netheril-of course; were not all these awakened ancient evils from that fell time and realm above realms, where wizards had thought themselves kings? This Rathrane had drunk magic as some carters gulped ale, and grown strong, and in his towering, this last little while, had touched many minds…

Shandril shivered at some of those thoughts, even as she realized dimly that her striving had worked-once spellfire had slipped from her control and raged unchecked, the magic-draining phantom was doomed.

Narm, none of this will bring back my Narm, she whispered bitterly into the darkness, as thoughts opened up like night-blooming flowers around her, catching her unwilling interest as if they had hooks, and showing her…

… Orthil Voldovan had been slain in Triel, and his likeness and place taken by the Red Wizard Thavaun…

… Alustriel of Silverymoon and Laeral of Waterdeep had ridden her spellfire here, bringing her friends Mirt and Asper to her aid-and now she'd harmed them all…

… Sharantyr had been hurled away, wounded, by magic, somewhere into the night…

… the man staggering up to his feet in front of her, tossing down the empty vial that had held the third healing potion he'd poured down his throat in swift succession, was a worm of a wizard. "Hlael of the Zhentarim," she named him aloud. A man ruled by terror, who'd been ordered to seize spellfire by the mage Drauthtar and sent here into this battle by a fell, much-feared Zhent, the wizard Hesperdan.

Narm is gone, she hissed into his mind, as Hlael became aware of her regard and stiffened in alarm, and you shall pay for it! You'll all pay for it!

Shandril reached down into herself so deep that it hurt her sorely, dug her fingers like claws into all the spellfire she could handle, sobbed with the pain of that heaving, and hurled it at Hlael Tor aunt.

The Zhentarim managed to open his mouth to scream before his mind and then his body burst apart, but Shandril scarcely noticed his dying. She rode her bright and deadly flood on into the darkness, leaping along a scrying-linkage to another cold-hearted wizard-the one who'd been watching Hlael from afar.

"Drauthtar," she snarled as she reached him, "die!"

Spellfire roared and swirled, and the lass who was its source and its rider turned away without another glance, seeking the next Zhentarim to slay, gathering her energies to seek Hesperdan.

Power in plenty, but no spells to seek a man hidden. Shandril screamed in rage when the energies roiling around her served her not, and hurled herself like a lightning bolt back across miles of wolf-haunted night to where Alustriel of Silverymoon was emerging from a self-spun fortress of silver fire to seek her stricken Sister, Laeral.

"Child," Alustriel told her gravely, as their gazes met, "let fall your flames, and know comfort."

There was no trace of fear in the High Lady's voice, but Shandril heard pity and let it spur her on to greater rage.

"Show me Hesperdan!" she screamed, shaking.

Spellfire and silver fire snarled and clawed each other once more, but Alustriel nodded through their striving and with the barest trace of a smile replied, "I can do that."

Silver fire swirled into a tunnel. Shandril looked down it and then flung herself at the distant figure she saw there, riding her flame a long, dark way.

Halfway to that distant robed man, he became aware of her. Glittering dark eyes widened, hands wove frantic spells, and the tunnel she raced down began to come apart.

"No!" Shandril screamed through fresh tears, hurling spellfire in frantic haste. "Mystra, let him not escape me! Lady of Magic, hear me!"

Her cry seemed to roll out across vast distances, echoing and booming, but the figure ahead was fading into darkness. As her spellfire leaped after it, she could not see where the flames went.

Everything was dissolving into darkness and tears, the stink of smoke and burned flesh growing stronger around her.

Flames burst forth out of empty air where no flame should have been able to kindle, and men drew back in murmured alarm to leave the gleaming black tiles before the high seat of Manshoon bare.

A line of black flames outlined by angry red fire descended to the floor-and vomited forth a blackened man in robes, his hair afire.

"Spellfire," Drauthtar gasped, shuddering in the aftermath of his desperate teleport, "destroys all! Seek it not!"

Many priests and mages gaped at him as he staggered a few paces across the floor of the Zhentarim stronghold, leaving footprints of flame in his wake.

By the time he turned to face Dread Lord Manshoon- who'd risen hastily from his throne, rings winking into life-Drauthtar was little more than a husk filled with raging flame. As his face twisted into a smile and he opened his mouth to deliver a dying curse on the leader of the Zhentarim, he toppled forward.

His last magic unworked, Drauthtar Inskirl collapsed into swirling, spitting flames that scorched out to almost lick the boots of Lord Manshoon.

The leader of the Zhentarim stared down at the dying flames until they were gone into drifting smoke, and then turned without a word and walked away.

A young mageling named Imvoran shivered, then was violently ill all over the gleaming black tiles in front of him. He'd heard of spellfire and seen many a mage die by magic, too-but it was the first time in his dozen years of service to the Brotherhood that he'd ever seen fear on the face of Dread Lord Manshoon.

The old man ascended the lightless shaft like a racing wind, hurling aside shield-spells and helmed horrors alike, and sprang into the midst of the startled gargoyles before the mage with serpent-fingers and floating eyeballs could do more than snatch up a long, dark-spired scepter with a heartfelt curse.

"Hesperdan, you-" the Maimed Wizard began, but whatever colorful description Eirhaun had intended to snarl was lost in the flash and roar of spellfire leaping up the shaft, tumbling helmed horrors into smoke and shards, and stabbing into the shadows.

A blue-white web of force suddenly glowed around Hesperdan, and the spellfire that clawed at it rebounded across the room at the wizard with the scepter.

His shielding was a thing of mingled crimson and emerald fire, and it wrestled desperately with the spellfire. The scepter smoked and burst apart, followed into oblivion by two rings that took Eirhaun's hissing snake-fingers with them. Spellfire scorched and sizzled about the walls, shattering pillars and gargoyles alike, then faded and fell back down the shaft.

The two wizards looked at each other-Hesperdan's cold and dark smile meeting the glare of the Maimed Wizard. The older wizard had deflected the spellfire that sought his life at Eirhaun Sooundaeril, who'd in turn thrust it aside into the walls of his stronghold. That massive peak of stone was old and huge and girt with many spells, but there was no one and nothing it could deflect spellfire into.

Wherefore cracks had already appeared in the walls and the vaulted ceiling, and the floor beneath the two men was shuddering and starting to move. Explosions rumbled far below, and ravaged stone screamed like a man in anguish. A chasm opened in the rippling floor between the two wizards.

Stone fell away with a rush and a roar. Hesperdan and Eirhaun the Maimed stared at each other across the gulf as rooms fell away beneath them, one after another, crashing down into the dust and screams below.

"Oh, dear," Hesperdan remarked mildly. "I do believe your stronghold is collapsing."

The Maimed gathered the spell around him that would whisk him away and replied menacingly, "We will meet again, Old Man."

Hesperdan smiled again. "Indeed. I'm counting on it."

He vanished an instant after his longtime foe-but just before the shattered floor he'd been standing on cracked and fell away with a roar.

Shandril went to her knees as she wept, spellfire raining down with her tears. More spellflames raced along her arms to roll away into the night. "Oh, Mystra, aid me!" she cried.

"Shan?" a voice as grief-ridden as her own asked her, from very close by. "Is there anything I can do?"

Asper was also on her knees, facing Shan across smoking ash from about an armslength away. Shandril stared at her in horror.

"Get away!" she snarled. "Go from here before I burn you, too!"

"No," Asper told her, her face white with fear but her voice firm. "My Mirt lies wounded behind me. I'll not leave him. I'm his only shield against-oh, Shan-against spellfire!"

Shandril burst into fresh tears, shook her head, got up, and fled blindly into the night.

Men cowering amid the smoke watched her go, a stumbling, sobbing figure wreathed in flames, who left blazing footprints behind her.

She stopped atop a bare knob of rock on the edge of camp, and there turned, tears glimmering in her eyes and splashing in flames to the rocks below. On a curl of spellfire like dragons' breath her voice rolled softly back to Asper: "Farewell!"

Asper stood up and reached out to her. "Shan, no!"

"No?" Shandril cried wildly. "I've killed Narm! My man is gone, dead by my hand! Dead by this cursed spellfire that feels so good!" She shook her head, flames swirling in her hair, and sobbed bitterly. "Beldimarr too, and the Lady Laeral, and dozens more! I slaughtered them all! Everywhere I go, people die-and still wizards keep trying to get their hands on this fire inside me! One day they might succeed in taking it-and what then? Shandril Shessair causes the rest of Faerun be swept away?"

"Shandril, 'tis not your fault!" Asper cried, taking a few reluctant steps closer.

"Nay? I say it is," Shandril howled, her eyes two flames. "And I am done with slaying, done with fear and running and fighting, done with it all!"

She threw back her head and told the stars, "Gorstag, forgive me… Mystra, take me!"

Drawing in a deep breath, she gave Asper a little wave and a half-smile, and went to one knee. Propping both elbows on her raised knee, she put her fingers in her mouth-and fed herself spellfire.

There was a. moment of silence, then a trembling-a shuddering of earth and air and blood pounding in the ears that began as a sound so low it shook bones rather than being heard, but built swiftly to a din greater than any dragon might make.

No one could stand or wage war or be heard in that trembling tumult. All over that bloody field men fell, tumbling helplessly, and lightning snarled out from the lone lass on the rock, playing like restless blue snakes from blade to shield and back again, until men threw away their swords or tore off their armor, to lie wincing, cowering, and wondering when they would die. Asper fell, tried to get up again, and found herself once more on the ground, one shoulder to the scorched earth. She kept her eyes on Shandril all the while, and it was as she was rolling over onto her stomach again that she saw the maid from Highmoon rise up into the air, trembling in the thrall of the furious white stream of spellfire leaking from her mouth to roil around her as she went on feeding it to herself.

Perhaps forty feet off the ground her hands fell away from her mouth as she stared at the empty air beside her and gasped in wonder, "Narm? M-Mystra? Gorstag?"

And then Shandril exploded, in a burst of radiance so bright that Asper saw nothing for days afterward.

"Oh, lass," the High Lady murmured. "You saved him and healed him, and never knew. He but collapsed from the pain and lives yet. Unlike you."

The Weave flashed and shook itself, as if rid of a great burden. Alustriel Silverhand, weeping with grief and pain amid leaping tongues of silver fire, let go her shielding spells at last.

In Shadowdale, Elminster looked up sharply from an old map as Mourngrym frowned across the table at him and Illistyl and Jhessail winced in unison and grabbed for the backs of chairs, for support. "She's gone," the Old Mage said slowly, shaking his head. "She lasted longer than I'd ever thought she would."

Torm's eyes narrowed. "Who?"

"Shandril," Rathan said heavily, and reached for a decanter. "Gathered, as the gods gather us all."

"Mystra preserve her," Jhessail gasped, and threw back her head as if starving for air. A single tear fell like a wet star on the map before her. Torm reached out a finger and drew a prayer-rune with it, right across the face of Elminster's map.

Mourngrym waited for the Old Mage to erupt, but no storm came. Elminster merely shook his head again, looking off into a distant otherwhere that only he could see, and murmured, "Mystra will provide."

"Sharantyr?" Florin asked quietly, from his end of the table.

The Old Mage almost smiled. "Someone else has already provided for her. Someone who could teach Torm, here, a thing or two."

"What's wrong, Tess?" the Purple Dragon asked, coming awake in an instant and reaching for her with one hand and his ready sword with the other.

Tessaril Winter trembled under his touch like a little girl, and he swiftly wrapped a comforting arm around her smooth curves. "I know not, King Azoun," she said formally, her voice empty and despairing. "I only know someone has died-and in dying, reached out to me."

"Who?" the king of Cormyr asked softly, enfolding her in his arms.

Tessaril whispered, "She. Young, and of great power… it can only be Shandril Shessair. She never made it to Silvery-moon, after all." She swallowed. "Oh, Az-hold me."

"I will," Azoun said gently, not bothering to point out that he already was. Kindness is a rare quality in a king, understanding another, and caring a third. Tessaril lay still and thought on all three, and her eyes filled with tears.

"At least I have you," she whispered, and the Purple Dragon's answer was a simple whisper.

"Yes."

They lay together in silence for a long time before his Lady Lord of Eveningstar twisted free of the royal grasp and of her bed in one smooth movement, to stand bare and magnificent in the moonlight.

"Where-?" Azoun asked, hefting his sword.

Tessaril turned from a jewel-box on her dressing table with a pendant in her hand. As she held it out, the great jewel seemed to glow slightly. "I must tell Fee without delay," she explained almost apologetically. "She'll have felt my- my upset, and be lying awake now, wondering."

"Filfaeril? Are your two minds often linked, when you and I are together?"

Tessaril smiled a little sadly at him. "I would consider it treason on my part if they were not," she said quietly. "We also talk often with this."

She heard his sigh as she bent over the jewel, and turned her head again to add, with a thin half-smile, "And yes: often about you."

Azoun lay back with another sigh and told the moonlit ceiling, "I might have known."

Lord Manshoon stopped in midstride, the whirling magic that had brought him to this chamber in Zhentil Keep still dwindling behind him, and snapped, "Send for the priests! Something has happened-something that has made the Weave itself tremble!"

As wizards scrambled to do his bidding, he murmured, "So if the wench is dead, who has spellfire now?"

In the Stonelands a cool breeze was quickening, but despite the leaves it rustled and the branches it bent, a swirl of ashes rose and stood against it in the air, whirling up briefly into a shape that might have been an armored dwarf.

The shape turned, peering northwest over the puddled flow of stone that had once been a spire called Irondrake Rock as if straining to see something. No one was there to see the ashen phantom, and after a time it collapsed with a sigh and was gone again.

Peace returned to Delg's Dell, though the breeze blew no more that night.

Oprion Blackstone looked out of a high window in a certain tower of Zhentil Keep and murmured, "Another scheme fallen to ashes. Manshoon will send his spell-dogs to summon us to parley. What would happen, I wonder, if, I simply refused to come?"

"We'd slay you, of course," a deep, wet voice said from the air outside a moment before its owner drifted into view from around the tower's curve. "Many humans are that stupid, of course, but I was hoping we'd weeded out the worst dolts already."

A second beholder shuddered as it drifted after the first. "One human she," it said, "and so much slaughter of our kind. It will be long before I rid myself of that memory."

The priest carefully made no comment about seeing the cobbles below awash in beholder blood. He was in no hurry to follow Shandril Shessair into the waiting arms of the gods.

A scrying-spell collapsed back into the surrounding shadows, and a slender hand put down a goblet. "Well, that was spectacular," its owner said calmly. "Perhaps the younglings will return from their misadventures, now that their prize is gone."

"I think not," another voice replied. "Once freedom is tasted…"

Into that place of shadows burst the sudden light of a spell, bringing back those very tasters of freedom far more swiftly than even the most optimistic elder had hoped.

"By the blood of Malaug in us!" one newly returned Malaugrym burst out excitedly, tendrils snaking out toward a handy decanter. "Did you see?"

"We did," the owner of the goblet replied politely.

"Indeed," the second elder agreed, holding up another goblet in a hand that shook more than slightly.

The Red Wizard Thavaun let his spell-guise fall away. Caravan Master Orthil Voldovan would be needed no more.

Surveying the smoking ruin of the camp, he drew in a deep breath and hissed, "So much for spellfire. Well, at least I'm still alive."

"Not for more than a breath longer!" came a growl of doom from right behind him.

Arauntar took the wizard by the neck even before Thavaun could stiffen. He closed the fingers of one hairy hand firmly around a Thayan windpipe, batting the mage's frantically darting hands away from belt and pouches with the other.

Throttling Thavaun slowly, the Harper snarled, "For Orthil Voldovan! For Beldimarr! And-and for Shandril Shessair, damn you and all spell-snakes! I loved that lass! She was worth a hundred Red Wizards, a thousand Thays! She could have ruled all wizards and set the Realms to rights!"

He paused in mid-bellow and panted, looking around at the crawling caravan-men, who stared back at him with wide, frightened eyes. Arauntar flung down the dead, boneless body and added softly, "Or become the worst tyrant Faerun has ever known."

He sighed, turned to look at the burning wagons, then shook his head. Turning, he walked alone into the night.

"Like so many other things," he told the stars, "we'll never know, now. Another dream snuffed out… and I harp to keep those dreams alight. Fare you well, Shandril Shessair. Rest easy, Bel. Arauntar needs some time alone, now."

From where she lay unregarded in the darkness, Alustriel Silverhand lifted her head and through bleeding eyes watched the gruff Harper stalk away. It took her some time to gather strength enough to reach out across Faerun and say simply, "Sister, I need you."

She called on the Weave, and out of a twinkling of tiny stars stepped a buxom figure in dark leathers.

Storm Silverhand bent over the High Lady of Silverymoon and murmured, "Mystra defend you, Endue. Who did th-oh. Oh, Bright Lady of us all. Shandril. She's…"

"Gone. Gathered to Mystra," Alustriel said wearily and pointed past Storm's knee as the bard knelt to hold her. "Someone else needs you, Sister," she added, almost fiercely. "Someone you can help more than anyone else in Faerun. A Harper in need of someone to walk with him for a time."

Storm turned and looked along Alustriel's pointing arm, to where the dwindling form of Arauntar was striding along in the moonlight.

"My thanks," she murmured, squeezing the High Lady's shoulder, and rose to follow the man walking alone into the night.

As she went, she cast a spell with a few swift, sure gestures, and tiny star-motes were born out of the darkness around her, shaping themselves into a harp in her hands. Its high, clear notes rose in her wake and went before her. Alustriel saw the Harper slow, then turn to see the source of the music.

He stopped and waited as the tall woman in leathers came striding toward him. Together, walking hip to hip like old friends, they went slowly down into the trees, walking on into the darkness until the harping could be heard no more.