Hand of Fire

A Little Trouble Lately

Years ago they'd discovered that this one small stretch of passage was safe. It ran between the archway whose pillars were carved into the likenesses of many writhing gargoyles and the little hall where four passages met, where it was rumored a hidden portal opened betimes to admit something large, dark, many-clawed and lurking that liked to hunt mages.

Safe, that is, from sending echoes-even of whispered converse-elsewhere.

It was always chill and dark, and as cold as stone everywhere that never sees sunlight, but those wizards who knew about it often tarried here to murmur words back and forth, like guilty young wastrelblades discussing secrets whose careless revelation would mean swift and harsh punishment. Their conversations were usually low-voiced, cryptic, and short-for even Zhentarim wizards have no love for slow deaths in torment.

Two wizards were standing in the safe stretch now, facing each other with their backs to the rough stone walls, where each could look down one direction of dark passage and see the slightest intrusion or approach when it was yet far away.

"If I have anything to say about such things," the taller wizard was saying sharply, "there'll be no more chasing about after useless, overly dangerous might-be's like this spellfire. We've strayed very far from being a fellowship founded on coins and power for all, with a hierarchy intended merely to keep peace amongst us and keep the ambitious from blasting the rest of us or betraying all our secrets in their eagerness to command all. Now we're venturing into an overboldness that's going to get us badly burned. Why make foes of Red Wizards, or even come to their notice at all, when there's no cause for it or gain in it? Why? Do our leaders now see themselves as Great Ruling Archwizards of the Realms or some other such fools' fantasy?"

"Don't let Manshoon or Fzoul or their like hear you speak like that, Korr," the shorter, stouter Zhentarim murmured, waving his hands toward the floor in a mute appeal for quieter speech. "We're very far from holding rank high enough to make such judgments or decide any policies."

"No," Korthauvar agreed, lowering his voice to an angry hiss, "we're of the great middling mass of competent wizards of the Keep-not overly ambitious magelings, but not masters who give orders, either That's precisely why the masters should listen to us, Hlael. If we have such great misgivings, isn't it just possible that snatching at this spellfire is-ahem-wrong? A mistake that endangers us all, instead of dooming a handful of us sacrificed for the long chance at gaining it? Spend a few lives chasing spellfire, yes, but don't send us out in wave after wave to get slaughtered!"

"Well put, Korthauvar," a cold voice said out of the darkness above them. "Very well put. I shall remember your cogent arguments with the very precision you desire. No, tremble not-you're right. As much as some of us 'masters' may hate to admit it, your conclusions are unassailable."

Silence fell, leaving Korthauvar Hammantle and Hlael Toraunt staring at each other in terror in the dim cold, their hurried breaths curling away like smoke between them.

That silence stretched and grew long. When at last hope crawled back into their hearts and they began to straighten and breathe more calmly, the cold voice snapped suddenly, "Now the policy so cogently outlined by Korthauvar Hammantle sees its first application. Both of you-a handful of us, one might say- are now-right now-welcome in my chambers for a little task that needs doing: a little snatching after spellfire."

Mirt the Moneylender took the broad steps that curved up to the upper floors of his mansion two at a time, puffing like a brace of harnessed boars dragging a heavy wagon.

"Ha-ha!" he roared, in full gloat. "Has ever a man strutted and swaggered in Dock Ward with more just cause than I?"

He rubbed his hands together in glee as his old, flopping boots found the uppermost step, and took him briskly past the frankly buxom wench of glossy ivory and fully life-sized stature that crowned the stairpost. Beyond, on a tray of gleaming silver large enough for Dambrathan slavers to serve up bound slaves upon-for they'd done just that, ere a certain fat and fiercely mustached mercenary swordlord relieved them of it-stood a sparkling forest of finely etched and smooth-blown glass decanters.

Snatching up the tallest and unstoppering it for a healthy swig without wasting time on such fripperies as a goblet, the Old Wolf of Waterdeep hurtled onward, borne along on a hearty trail of chuckles.

"Asper, m'gel," he roared, "I'm a very prince among thieves-a deal-master among merchants! Old Thaglon surrendered all his fine steel-and-silver Amn-work for half what he should have asked-all because they're nigh-starving down there, and I threw in those two warehouses full of rotting nut-marrows I've been trying to get rid of. Ha-ha! Even if he delivers half the amount he promised, at a third the quality he claims, I'm ahead several wagonloads of coin! Come here and kiss this bottle with me!"

He roared with gusty laughter and swung around a cabinet carved into the fanciful likeness of a wyvern's head, its eyes being doors, each fashioned of a shield-sized slab of smooth-carved amber, into the sun-drenched open space at the center of the chamber where furs and cushions lay thick (with Asper betimes lounging upon them, though she wasn't lying there now). He kicked a cushion at the head of an obsidian unicorn statue with an accuracy and fervor that could not have failed to startle the beast had it been alive, and added in loud and leering tones, "Hah! Then ye can kiss me, by the back hind tooth of Larloch's pet dragon-devouring dragon! We're rich!"

"You know, Old Wolf of mine, I believe I'd noticed that," a quietly musical and gently amused voice said from somewhere very near. "In fact, we've been rich for as long as I've been old enough to notice anything."

"Aye, but now we're richer-and 'tis so damned clever! Little love-lass, where are ye?" Mirt demanded in an amiable roar, stamping around the trophy-crowded room impatiently. Still rubbing his hands, he peered into the bedchamber, where the great canopied bed hung from the ceiling on thick gold-cord ropes overhung by the magnificent canopy Asper had made. Her wardrobe doors stood open, but so many clothes were bulging forth that there was no way that even so slender an imp as his little lady could be hiding therein. The bed hung well clear of the floor, with only a huddled pair of his old boots beneath. The bed-sized bathing-pool in which she loved to soak was empty, though the scent of blossom water bespoke its recent use. Nay, she was not here!

"Where are ye, love?" he roared, whirling back to face the domed trophy chamber and spreading his arms wide. "Wher-"

The air shimmered in front of him, over the widest open expanse of furs and cushions, and that shimmer became an opening door of silver sparks and roiling blue flame. Silent flames traced a doorway that hung upright in midair.

Through it stepped a very long, shapely leg, followed by a tall, even more shapely body that sported a face even the most unattentive Waterdhavian knew. Emerald eyes framed by long, flowing silver hair, the limbs below half-seen through a gown of fine silk worn over thigh-high boots, the gown itself covered by a tight-waisted stomacher adorned with flowing, sapphire-studded elven traceries of silverstar-thread. The Lady Mage of Water-deep strode forward to face the gaping merchant, who stood silent, teetering with the half-empty decanter in his hand and his mouth hanging open where he'd broken off in mid-bellow.

"Old Wolf," Laeral said crisply, "we have to talk." There was the faintest of sounds-and cold steel pressed against the Lady Mage's throat from behind.

"After," Asper said softly into Laeral's ear, from just behind the knife, "you identify yourself. I suspect you're the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, but we've been having a little trouble lately with shapeshifters."

Mirt made a half-amazed, half-delighted rumble deep in his throat. Like a striking snake, his leather-clad lady had swung down from the plant-filled skylight in the ceiling and now hung upside down above the Lady Mage, dangling from one foot caught in one of the rope loops used by those watering the plants.

Laeral calmly pushed the knife aside, turned around without stepping out of Asper's reach, and replied with a wry smile, "Most of the time I suspect I'm the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, too. Please accept my apologies for this overbold intrusion; 'tis not my habit nor to my liking, but-Asper, what shapeshifters?"

"Two I was forced to slay," Asper said, just as calmly, dropping barefoot and catlike to the floor with the knife still raised in her hand and ready to throw, "and one-"

"Who regrettably fell off yon balcony," Mirt rumbled with an airy wave of his hand, "when discussing the finer points of existence with me: my existence, to be more particular, and its chances of continuing."

"Malaugrym," Laeral muttered, "even here!" Mirt made a dramatic show of sighing. "Even in the best neighborhoods…"

Laeral gave him a sigh of her own and snapped four words: "Asper. Mirt. Spellfire. Shandril."

"What?" Asper asked, stepping forward, Mirt only a pace behind. "What's happened to Shandril?"

"She's heading this way," Laeral said grimly. "With half the darker folk in the Realms right behind her, blades and spells out."

"Me thought the lass was bound for Silverymoon and Alustriel," Mirt growled, rubbing his chin. "This city's a deadlier lair by far."

"Not so perilous as trying to cross the wilderlands to Silverymoon unseen," Laeral told him softly, plucking the decanter from his hands, "so my sister has agreed to come here, meet Shandril, and take her hence. Or wherever else she can best be safe." She raised the decanter, turned it, and eyed the liquid within, raising an inquiring eyebrow.

"Amberfire. Drink all you like, but be warned; he adds pepper to it," Asper said. "You need us to guard her." Her last sentence was a flat statement rather than a question.

Mirt lifted one bushy eyebrow. "Here in the 'Deep or out there in the wilds, a-finding her way hither?"

The Lady Mage drank deeply, shuddered, gave the decanter a disapproving look, and handed it back. "Both," she murmured, leaning forward. "If my Lord Khelben gets wind of this and goes rushing to her with risen magic raging around him, there can be no other outcome but spell-battle. Shandril will have no choice but to hurl spellfire or perish. In that sort. of storm, who knows what will happen to her spellfire?"

Asper stared at her. “You mean it might go wild, and grow to something dragons and archwizards alike would flee from?"

Laeral nodded. "In that case we three-and Alustriel and all the other Harpers and Chosen we could muster-would be facing a new foe who might even overmatch our combined strength: Shandril Shessair."

"If you stand still, Torm, just once, I'll mark you, I will!" Panting, Sharantyr swung away from the leaping thief's kick, flung her practice sword into the air before her, thrust her freed right hand to the ground in a spread-fingered claw, and on that pivot swept her body around. Her left hand caught her blade and stabbed it around ahead of her wheeling body, up and back. Torm was forced to fling himself over backward with an appreciative, "Woooa" to avoid a broken nose. The blunt steel blade whistled past his throat as he went over, and the lithe ranger let her swing carry her up and around with it to land facing him in a ready crouch.

Torm's backflip carried him into a similar pose, facing her from seven feet or so away. They grinned at each other, panting and glistening with sweat, while Rathan deftly uricorked a bottle, held it up to catch the sparkling sunlight reflected from the breeze-stirred waters of the Tower Pool, and commented, "She almost had ye that time, Sir Clevertongue. Ye got her angry, and that's never a wise thing."

"Oh? See how beautiful she is when fury rides her?" Torm returned airily, grinning and gesturing with his own blade. "How unwise can it be, for me to gaze upon-hah!"

He met Sharantyr's rush with a leap to one side, a deft parry, and a shrewd, perfectly timed thrust that only just grazed the ranger's breast as she ducked away,

Sharantyr hissed something unladylike and gave ground, rubbing at where Torm's blade had struck home. Chuckling, the thief circled her, waving his own practice blade-unsharpened but as tempered and as heavy as his favorite long sword- tauntingly. "Who'll mark who, again, Lady Temper?"

With a tight smile she lunged, blade thrusting hard at his crotch. The moment his dancing parry struck her blade aside she leaped with it, coming around almost behind him and stabbing thrice. His blade caught the first two jabs-but the third reached just past him, and as Sharantyr sprawled into the grass, her blade was planted solidly amid the thief's ribs, hurling him over into a groaning fall beside her.

"Thy wine," Rathan told them both in an approving tone, "awaits-and I must say ye've earned it."

Gasping, the two slightly wounded, barefoot Knights rolled over to smile at each other. The dark, tight-fitting homespun tunics and breeches they both wore were plastered to them with sweat, and with one accord they rose, sprinted across the trodden grass-and hurled themselves into the pool on their backs, sending a sheet of water over the stout priest of Tymora.

Rathan roared out a startled oath and arched himself over the goblets of wine protectively. The water was just crashing down over him when the door of the little leaning stone tower that Elminster of Shadowdale was pleased to call home swung open.

The Old Mage was elsewhere, as usual, but his scribe Lhaeo came out blinking into the sunlight, pursued by a wonderful kitchen smell, and sighed at the sight of the drenched, sputtering priest and the two hooting and chuckling heads bobbing in the pond beyond.

"My message," Lhaeo announced softly, arriving at the edge of the pool, "is for the Lady Sharantyr. Get me wet, and you don't eat."

There was a brief tumult in the water at his feet as Torm snatched Sharantyr's tunic up over her head-and then wrestled the lady ranger over backward, underwater.

Water roiled, a long leg kicked in the air, there was a brief but furious struggle beneath the waves… and Sharantyr rose from the waters. She strode unconcernedly up the bank, stark naked. A wet bundle of muffled curses thrashed the waters in her wake. Torm's head and one of his arms were firmly tied up in the ranger's twisted, wet clothing, but his other arm was free and rapidly clawing the rest of him toward freedom.

Ignoring him, Sharantyr gave Lhaeo a gracious smile, and asked, "Yes?"

The scribe squinted up at that smile, sighed, and put something into her hand. Closing her fingers around it with his own, he said severely, "Don't drop that. Don't even look at it yet."

He dragged his robe over his head, revealing a hairy, amulet-behung chest and quite fetching silken undershorts, and said, "Here. Dry yourself. I'd tell you to wear it, but it won't come down much past your waist, and then-" he jerked his head back toward the snarling figure, lurching up out of the pond "-well have him to deal with again."

"Why, Lhaeo," Sharantyr said, looking down at him, "there's no need-"

"Oh, but there is. Get yourself dry. I bear an urgent spell-message from Tessaril Winter in Cormyr."

Wordlessly Rathan steered a goblet into Sharantyr's hand and turned to firmly lead the wetly cursing Torm a good distance away.

Sharantyr frowned, drained her goblet in one long toss, and started toweling herself vigorously, darting an involuntary glance at her closed fist. "Tess? What-?"

Lhaeo smiled, took the empty goblet from her, and handed her Rathan's untouched one. "She says-" his voice changed, assuming perfect mimicry of the Lady Lord's light but commanding tones, and continued: "Shar, I need your help. The King has chosen this fair day to visit me. I can't slip away for more than a quick stroll to the garderobe or two, for he comes riding with more swaggering knights each time. To go missing would upset him, look ill in the eyes of those who ride with him, spread worry about my stewardship, and set the gossips to talking about a breach between us. So I'm stuck here-and Shandril and Narm have just set out through the Tombgate and in need of all the aid they can get. Saying the right word over this token will take only the person holding it to the far end of the Tombgate, the spot from which Narm and Shandril so recently set forth, wearing the spell-spun guises of two fat priestesses of Chauntea."

Shandril shook wet hair back over her shoulder, opened her fist, and looked down at what lay in her palm: a tiny piece of smooth ivory, carved into the likeness of a human skull.

She looked up from it with her eyes very large and dark, and asked softly, "And that 'right word' was…?"

The tapestries were already drawn across the windows, and a fire was crackling in the hearth. Highknight guards were well away, at the bottom of the stairs, and keeping everyone else even more distant, for the King of Cormyr was in private council with his Lady Lord of Eveningstar- and if he preferred to receive her reports while she lay unclad on her back upon the fur rugs covering the floor of her own bedchamber, that was his royal pleasure.

"Ah, Tess, Tess," the Dragon of Cormyr said fondly, leaning down to gently kiss-and then bite-the bared curves beneath him. "I've missed you, as always. How fares the little trouble with Manshoon and suchlike?"

"Unlike you, my Dragon," Tessaril gasped, writhing on the furs beneath him, "I believe that matter is now almost under control."

It befell so suddenly that Narm could scarcely believe it was happening. One moment they were walking along the banks of the boulder-studded brook, the bright sun shining hot upon their shoulders and the road not far away in front of them-and the next moment three figures rose in slow, menacing unison from behind one of the largest stones, swords and knives in their hands, and Faerun seemed suddenly dark and dangerous around them.

"Be still, Sisters of the Soil," one of them said grimly. "Don't move your hands at all-unless you want to lose them."

"Or you could scream and run," another said with a slow, unlovely smile. "I always like that."

"W-what?" Narm quavered, trying to sound like a middle-aged, fat, and thoroughly frightened woman-and succeeding far too well. One of the problems with acting scared was that you found, even after a few moments, that you really were.

"W-we have nothing," he added, letting his hand drift nearer to his belt-dagger-but steel flashed, his fingertips burned and then went cool… and when he moved his hand, it trailed blood from two of his fingers.

"Don't try that again," the third brigand said bluntly. "Just stand still, and we'll take what we want."

They stepped forward in unison, and Narm feigned mewing terror and trembled his way back from them.

"Don't trouble about your virtue," the second brigand said, the shortest one. "You're not exactly… handsome, hey? Just stay still-we can rob your corpse with far less trouble than it takes to run after you, or listen to you screaming."

The tallest brigand was looming over Shandril. Narm cast a quick glance at nim and saw that a sword had long ago left a long, disfiguring white scar across the man's face. From brow to cheek it ran and had turned the eye it crossed much larger and darker than the man's other eye-which was cold, steady, and a deep brown in hue.

Shandril went to her knees-in reverence, it seemed, rather than fear, and stared up into those mismatched eyes with an expression of awe on her fat and weathered face. "The man with different eyes!" she gasped. "At last!" The brigands frowned at her in unison. "What foolery's this?" the second one snapped.

"You are the one foretold," Shandril said, in a voice that trembled with excitement. "I must aid you in any way I can!" She fumbled with the thin purse at her belt, got it undone, and thrust it up at him. "Take all I have, Exalted One!" she pleaded, reaching up for him with trembling fingers-as Narm hastily went to his knees beside her. "Take me!"

"Exalted One, eh?" the brigand growled slowly, and then his teeth flashed in a wondering grin. "Well, then."

He pointed at Shandril's bodice, and the fat priestess hastily started to tear it open, tugging at its laces. The brigand went to his own knees, reaching for her.

Narm hesitantly reached out for the man, too-only to earn the curt command, "See to my fellows. Surrender yourself to them!"

Grinning, the other two brigands loomed over Narm. "Turn around, you ugly sow," the third one said. "On your knees, mind! I don't want to have t-"

Shandril judged them close enough. At last- She smiled up into the face of the brigand with the mismatched eyes-and blasted him to scorched, tumbling bones.

The other two brigands barely had time to snarl out startled oaths before they lacked heads to say anything with at all. Smoking, the headless corpses reeled back and toppled away from Narm.

"Shan," the young wizard murmured urgently, as he shrank away from loosely bouncing brigand boot heels. "Your seeming… 'tis gone. I can see… the real you."

"I know," Shandril sighed, "but it couldn't be helped. These damned robes'll fall right off me now, too."

Narm frowned. "The ferry's only a hill or so away, and Tess-Lord Tessaril warned us how lawless Scornubel was."

"I'm not walking in there barefoot and naked," Shandril told him, "and priestesses of Chauntea don't keep slaves."

Narm frowned again, trying to hunt down memories. Shandril watched them pass like shadows across his face and kept silent.

"But," her husband said slowly, remembering, "they do penances. I've seen them and asked why. For acts of waste and carelessness, like campfires that they let get out of control to scorch plants and trees and all."

"Meaning?"

"Your spare tunic-you can see through it if it's pulled over your head, yes?"

"So I go hooded, forbidden to speak, and you carry a switch to strike me if I do," Shandril said slowly. "I saw a priest of the Mother punished like that, once. His hands were tied to his body, the rope crossed around and around him, with flowers and seed-heads stuck through it." She nodded then grinned suddenly. "Well, I wanted adventure. Let's get behind yon rocks, out of sight of the road, and do it. Collect their knives and purses-oh, and their belts. These damned boots won't stay up now that my legs are their proper size again. I'll start picking wildflowers."

Narm rolled his eyes. "Don't you trust my taste in colors?" he replied mockingly.

"You," Shandril told him severely, holding together the remnants of her homespun Chauntean robe as it fell off her shoulders once more, "spent far too much time in the company of one Torm. A clever tongue is not the prize feature you seem to think it is."

Narm grinned, opened his mouth to replay-then flushed at whatever thought had leaped into his mind.

Closing his mouth again hastily, he turned to the bodies of the brigands, where flies were already buzzing.

"That's better," Shandril told him, trudging for cover in boots that were already wadding shapelessly down around her ankles. "That's much better."