Hand of Fire

The Sun Over Scornubel

"Pinch my nose," Shandril hissed. "Pinch it, or I'll sneeze!"

Thaerla of Chauntea promptly reached stubby fingers to the hooded face thrust toward her, found Shan's nose through the fabric, and covered the sneeze that promptly followed anyway with the severe comment, "You know the rule, sister." A solid application of the switch across the shoulders of the Sister of the Soil followed.

Thaerla found the tall, greasy-haired ferryman grinning at them and gave him a cold stare. "Seek not to misunderstand this sacred matter," she told him ponderously, and resumed her stare across the dirty waters of the Chionthar at the ramshackle buildings of Scornubel.

"Of course," the ferryman said in tones of mock humility, and spat into the river.

As if this had been a signal, his rowers leaned into their oars, and amid many creakings and thunkings the boat swiftly closed the distance to the docks.

With a regal nod to the ferryman-who grinned again- Thaerla stepped up the worn stone steps, tugging on the length of cord that kept her hooded companion stumbling along at her heels.

Shandril almost fell twice on the stairs, and Narm hauled her up the last few by the harness of ropes he'd tied around her. Glancing back and seeing the ferryman's eyes still upon them, Narm led his captive a good four paces away from the docks, stopped with hands on hips to glare around at the colorful sights and generally disagreeable sounds of nigh-lawless Scornubel, and sniffed.

"This is a most unholy place," Thaerla of Chauntea intoned. "Unwelcoming to Chauntea."

Shandril rolled her eyes, strode past the fat priestess of Chauntea, and gave "her" a most unladylike tug at the ample hill of flesh where the homespun robe curled around one hip. "Come on," Shan ordered, from beneath her hood. "We'll have plenty of opportunities to be unwelcome just a few paces from here. In among all the buildings, where I don't feel quite so watched."

Tessaril stretched, sighed-gods, what a magnificent man, even after all these years! — and tied the sash at her waist with a flourish. If she knew Azoun, his "just going down to fetch a map and a bottle" would bring him back with a Highknight or two in tow, and food. He always seemed to work up a hunger in this room, somehow…

She smiled wryly at that and kicked one of her boots out of sight, under the bed. The Beldragon lamp would cast the best light onto any map unfurled on the big table. She fetched it, reached a wooden skewer into the fire to light it with, positioned the lit lamp just so, and scooped up four Purple Dragon badges from her writing table to serve as map-corner weights.

The garderobe door opened just as she was setting them down, and Azoun stepped out-in a grand court tunic and breeches, no less. He was alone and emptyhanded, and when he looked at her, there seemed to be a question or an uneasiness brewing in his eyes.

She knew her own eyes had widened, and she hastened to soften whatever impression the startled-rather than welcoming-expression on her face must have made by saying eagerly, "Back so soon for more, my lord? I'm surprised you can still get through that little window!"

"I'm worried," Azoun said in a strange voice, "about this Shandril. She's a danger to all of us-not so much her, but all the folk seeking her, who bring their swords and spells to menace fair Cormyr, striking out whenever any of our folk or laws or walls stand in their paths. Where have you hidden her?"

His voice almost sounded like someone else…

Tessaril's eyes narrowed, and she took a swift step back. "Azoun?"

His hands reached for her with dizzying speed-on arms that lengthened into ropy, snakelike tentacles!

They swooped after her as she ducked away, around behind the table. One tentacle shot under it, thrusting at Tessaril, but she'd gained the handful of moments she needed. Hissing forth a spell, she vaulted up onto the table, rolled across it kicking at an eel-like arm that came snatching after her, found the floor on the far side-and the wand hanging in its sheath where she'd left it.

Behind her, her spell flung a vicious ring of lightnings around her foe, and left the thing that was not Azoun snarling and writhing in the heart of a crackling ring of restlessly leaping bolts.

By then she had hold of the wand-for a moment or two, ere the last ragged force of Tessaril's own spell was flung back at her.

Faerun flashed blindingly around the Lady Lord of Eveningstar, and it felt like she'd been slapped across the face with the flat of a swordblade.

There was a deafening crashing sound in her ears as the magic broke over her, then the fainter, deeper crash of her shoulders smashing into her bookshelf and rocking it back against the wall. A cluster of tallglasses shattered somewhere above her and rained down their shards in front of her as she rebounded, breathless and staggering, and saw her wand spinning away from her numbed fingers… even as a small forest of tentacles stabbed at her…

There were times in Tessaril Winter's life when the gods were pleased to slow things to a crawl, so she could enjoy- or endure-them to the utmost. So it was that after the breathless whirling moments of being hurled back by her own magic, striking her shelves with force enough to break one shoulder-she could feel the sickening searing of bone grinding against bone, now-things became very quiet for a time, and very slow.

The shapeshifter was a thing of horror now, Azoun's features halt-melted into gray-brown, mottled shapelessness, the semblance of magnificent royal boots incongruously retained beneath a thicket of writhing, reaching tentacles-and now, off" to her right, the real Azoun was coming back up the stairs with a large, loosely rolled map of the Stonelands in one hand and two wine bottles clutched between the long, strong fingers of the other. There was a Highknight following behind him, carrying a domed platter from which steam streamed in enthusiastic plumes-bringing a strong scent of roast bustard with it.

"By Boldovar's bloody beard!" the King snarled. Things began to move swiftly again before Tessaril's eyes. Very swiftly. Bottles and platter thumped to the furs, swords flashed out, and men leaped forward through a fresh, whirling forest of tentacles. Tessaril ran after her wand-straight at the shapeshifting monster-and she had a glimpse of Azoun snarling and batting away swarming tentacles.

The Highknight plunged in front of his King, hacking with his blade like a madman, and the tentacles closed over him in an eager, writhing storm. Tess struggled against a thickening tangle of tentacles, trying desperately to snatch up the wand before the shapeshifter did.

The Highknight gave a desperate, gurgling cry, somewhere under the surging, shifting flesh that enveloped him-and a horrible wet splintering of bone followed.

Tessaril knew what that sound meant and felt no surprise at all when the man's head thumped to furs right beside her straining hand, bounced up into several questing tentacles, then thumped again to the floor and rolled away somewhere unseen, leaving a glistening trail of blood across the Lady Lord's fingers.

With a wordless roar of anger Azoun sprang into the air to reach over flailing tentacles and run his blade right through the head of his false double.

Blood spurted, the shapeshifter squalled, and tentacles whipped about in a frenzy, shattering the lamp, hurling Tessaril across the floor in a helpless tumble, and driving Azoun back along the stairhead rail in a confusion of curses and creaking wood.

The wand! Tessaril struggled to claw herself to a stop and get free of the encumbrances of her gown and her own hair, to see where the wand of lightnings now lay ere the shape-shifter did.

There was a slithering sound, the garderobe door banged open amid more slitherings, and the room was suddenly empty of tentacles.

Empty of… battle. Azoun was panting against the rail with his sword in hand and his fine tunic torn half off his body. Her wand lay alone and forlorn on the tangled furs, a headless Highknight was sprawled across the head of the stairs, his sword not far from his hand, and over in a corner the man's staring head lay amid the shards of her lamp. No flames, thank the gods.

She looked wildly around the room, past the wreckage of the big table. No flames anywhere-and not three paces away, the covered platter still steamed merrily.

With a groan, Tessaril struggled to her feet, shrugged her robe back onto her shoulders-gods, the pain! — and darted barefoot for her wand. Snatching it up, she raced to the garderobe.

It was empty, the window hanging down crazily from its frame.

"Tess," the King growled, "come away from there. I'll not have you killed chasing after some beast! Whence came it? Have you seen it before?"

Tessaril ran to Azoun and hugged him fiercely. His arm tightened around her shoulder, and she couldn't help but scream.

There was a frantic thudding of boots and the clang and thunder of armor striking against walls and railings, as Highknights came pounding up the stairs with blades drawn.

"Shapeshifter!" Azoun snapped, ere the questions could begin. "It went out the window-and, mind: It already knows how to take my shape quite well!"

Highknights plunged into the tiny privy-room. Wood splintered as someone burst right out the window frame without slowing, there was a curse and a scraping of boots on stone and roof tiles, and man after man followed after.

Two Highknights lingered, swords out and eyes hard as they looked at Tessaril and around at the ruins of her room. "We're fine," Azoun told them curtly, and jerked his head toward the stairs in an unmistakable order. Reluctantly- and not before giving the Lady Lord parting looks of cold promise-the knights went downstairs.

Azoun sighed and stepped away from Tessaril. "I didn't want to even ask this," he said to the stair rail, "but you did shelter Shandril Shessair in the Hidden House. Is she there yet? Where have you hidden her?" At his last words, the King brought his head up and looked at her sharply.

Tessaril gave him a crooked smile, and said softly, "She's half Faerun away from here by now, my Dragon-and that's all I'll say."

Azoun looked into her eyes for a long moment, expression grim-and then bowed. "I'm sorry, Tess. I trust you… but the next time Manshoon of the Zhentarim comes skulking nigh Eveningstar, call on me, won't you? I don't want to lose the best Lord I have!"

"Azoun," Tessaril murmured, "hold me. Please. Just hold me."

"Of course," the King of Cormyr said quietly, and put his arms around her with the greatest of care.

"Gods, but I'm hungry," Shandril murmured into Narm's ear as another wagon rumbled deafeningly past, sending the dust swirling up around them. "Grubby, too. Ah, for a bath!"

"The river's just back there," Narm suggested slyly.

Shandril pinched him. "Did you see how many dead fish were floating around those docks? No, thank you!"

"Well, how about yon bright establishment?" Narm waved across the crowded street. More mules than people inhabited Scornubel, it seemed, and thanks to the dung no one cleared away, buzzing flies outnumbered both together. They looked at the bright signboard of a shopfront that seemed grander than most.

"The Sun Over Scornubel," Shandril murmured, squinting through her hood to read the name on the sign aloud. "A club, do you think? Or a proper inn?"

"Well, there's washing hanging, out behind-bedlinens," Narm replied. "I saw it a few paces back… and smell the food?"

"Well, then, why are you holding me back?"

"Do priestesses of Chauntea use inns or just sleep in the fields? And-your penance?"

"Sisters of the Soil certainly slept under Gorstag's roof, back in Highmoon," Shandril said. "Often." She took a step toward the signboard, pulling her rope harness tight in Narm's grasp. "Come on. I'm hungry."

"And if I refuse?"

"I," Shandril reminded him, with a wry grin that he could hear in her voice, "have the spellfire, remember? I'm not to be argued with."

"Yes," Narm agreed quietly, holding firmly to the ropes that bound her arms to her sides but letting her walk forward, “thwart me out, out does the rest of the Realms know that? And how urgently do you want them to?"

"No, Torm, I'm going alone," Sharantyr said firmly, for perhaps the eighteenth time. "Much as I enjoy your lame jokes and prancing pranks, there are times when stealth is necessary, and a little quiet so one can think, and even something called 'prudence,' which I believe would require Elminster and about a year of his unbroken time to make you fully and truly understand. So bide you here with Rathan, drinking far too much and annoying the good folk of Shadowdale, and let me see to this in my own way."

Wordlessly the thief held out the next piece of her leather war-harness, to help her put it on. He was holding the breastplates, of course.

Sharantyr stepped forward until she filled them, lifted her arms so he could bring the buckles around, endured his novel way of doing so in good-natured silence, and as he casually brought one of his knives up to her throat intercepted his wrist in a grip of iron and said, "No, Torm. As much as you find it hard to believe that any female could refuse you in anything, I'm going to do just that. Threaten and coerce all you like: You stay here. Now I'd like to be on my way. I'm almost dressed despite your kind help, the sun waits for no laggard, and if you delay my leaving I'm going to toss you in the nearest horse trough and hold you there while Shaerl douses you with all the vile perfumes her older Rowanmantle kin insist on sending her from the highhouse fashion lounges of Suzail-and believe me, you wouldn't like that."

"Ah," Torm said impishly, "but just how far d'you think you're going to get without this?" He opened his hand, and the ranger saw the little ivory skull gleaming in it.

Sharantyr sighed, made a grab for it that He easily ienueu off-and as he twisted away, chuckling, brought her booted left foot up hard into his crotch with all the force she could put behind it.

His codpiece was armored and would leave a bruise on her shin that might take a month to stop aching, but the thief of the Knights was smaller and lighter than the lady ranger, and her kick launched him into the air with a startled whistle of pain and escaping breath that took him into senselessness with nary another sound-save for the meaty thud of his body falling with full, limp force into the waiting arms of Rathan Thentraver, Stalwart of Tymora. The priest winced, cradled Torm as gently as one might hold a babe, and lowered him deftly to the floor.

"Had he not been armored, lass," he said gravely, "that would have been far less than kind. As 'tis-well, one can't deny he hath reaped a harvest his own hand hath most enthusiastically sown. The cup will have cut his thighs. He'll be stiff and sore for some days, and then-1-I fear, as should we all-himself again." He tossed her something small and smooth: the ivory skull.

Sharantyr caught it and told Rathan, "I wish, just for once, he'd let someone else's will prevail. When he awakens, tell him I'm sorry for doing this… but this matters much to me: not just the doing of it, but undertaking it by myself. The days and months and years pass, and I wither in his shadow."

The priest nodded. "I understand just what you mean," he said, "and will tell him. Tymora and all the other benevolent gods watch over thee, Sharantyr-and come back safe to us."

The lady ranger put the skull into her belt pouch, adjusted the slender long sword that rode on her hip, and looked up at him with a sigh, then a rueful grin.

"Well," she replied, "I suppose there's always a first time."

"Better?" Narm asked, as he tightened the ropes around her arms again.

"Much," Shandril said, and kissed his cheek as he bent past her. Narm gave her a grin-it made Thaerla of Chauntea's face wrinkle up like a benevolent toad-and said, "I'm not sure how you're going to like sitting there watching me eat and drink when you can't have anything."

Shandril stiffened. "I'd forgotten that," she said slowly. "Narm, I've got to eat. I-won't they bring food up to us, here?"

"I'll go see."

"No, we'll go see. I'm not parting from you, not even for a moment. This is Scornubel-anything can happen."

Thaerla of Chauntea's smile was decidedly wry this time. "Try that last sentence of yours again, and put the word 'Highmoon' in place of 'Scornubel.' Then try it with 'Shadowdale.' 'Waterdeep' has a nice ring to it, too."

"Hush! That's not funny!" The penitent priestess wriggled her arms, testing the ropes around her and added in a smaller voice, "True, though. I'm not happy to say it, but… 'tis true." The Sun was a good inn and a popular one. In Scornubel, that meant it was something of a fortress, uneasily cloaked in small touches of luxury. Room doors in the Sun came with their own lock-props, to be set by patrons on the inside when being intruded upon was not highly desirable. Narm shot the bolt, lifted the prop aside, and indicated the door with a flourish. "Penitents first?"

Cautiously Shandril pulled on the door-ring, and even more cautiously peered out. The passage beyond was empty. It ended in a short flight of steps leading down onto a landing that overlooked the forehall of the inn-a landing that sported a lounge Seat for the use of patrons, and two smaller, harder seats flanking the passage. On one sat a uniformed servant, and the other was occupied by a hard-faced, openly armed guard. Thaerla of Chauntea exchanged a few polite words with the servant and towed her silent penitent back to their room.

"That was simple enough," Narm said, going straight to the window to test its frame of iron bars-old and rusty, but solid. "I'd rather stay right here until late morning on the morrow, and go seeking the Tankard and our caravan-master then."

A short, choked-off scream came in the window, and he gestured ruefully in its direction. "The local sights seem- well, a trifle too exciting."

"I hate this place," Shandril said softly. "A whole city full of folk being brutal to each other, cheating and threatening and coercing…"

Narm shrugged. "So we get away from here as soon as Orthil Voldovan will take us-and go straight to Water-deep, another den of harmony, fresh air, and public safety."

"Stop it," his lady whispered fiercely. "I'm serious, Narm. What if someone drugs or poisons our food? 'Twouldn't surprise me!"

Thaerla of Chauntea raised one chubby but triumphant finger. "Ah, there I can be of some service. Jhessail taught me a very rare spell that reveals taints and poisons to a mage-as purple glows."

"And if you cast it, there goes your disguise, just as my spellfire shattered mine," Shandril muttered into his ear. "Leaving us for all the world to see in the heart of this-this city of thieves, slavers, and brigands!"

Narm sighed. "So what would you have me do? Let you faint of hunger?"

"Narm," Shandril said in a low whisper, "I don't know. I haven't known 'the wise thing to do' since I first left Highmoon… and I don't seem to be getting any better at it. I-"

There was a sharp rapping at the door. Narm clapped a hand over Shandril's mouth for a moment and slid aside the little window shutter, asking in Thaerla of Chauntea's sniffiest voice, "Yes? You disturb us at prayer for a good reason?"

"You ordered evenfeast for two," a flat, unimpressed voice replied, "and I've brought it. Still interested?"

"Ah, now. That's different," Thaerla replied, unbolting the door again.

A hard-eyed guard entered, a loaded hand crossbow aimed at the ceiling and his other hand hovering above the hilt of his blade. Behind him came two chambermen in the maroon-and-gold uniform of the inn, bearing steaming dome-covered platters on their shoulders, followed by another guard. The foremost guard pulled on a carved knob on the wall beside the door that Narm had thought was mere decorative molding atop a pillar-and the whole affair came out of the wall as a table on edge. Expertly he kicked it up and open, and stood back to let the servants set down their platters.

As they did so, the other guard came into the room, drew the door closed, and leveled another hand crossbow at Shandril-as the first guard brought his crossbow down to menace Narm, and the two chambermen lifted the domes away from their platters to reveal small plates of roast boar on skewers-and cocked hand crossbows of their own. With swift deftness they removed wooden safety catches, laid darts into tracks, ready to fire, and pointed their weapons at the two priestesses.

"W-what is the meaning of this?" Thaerla of Chauntea quavered in outrage.

"It means," the first guard said pleasantly, "you're both going to get down on your faces on the floor in front of us, with no hurlings of spellfire or anything else-or well see if someone can wield spellfire with two crossbow darts in her throat. Or eyes, perhaps,"

"Down!" one of the chambermen snarled, gesturing with his crossbow. "On the floor now!"

"Which one of them is the spellfire wench, do you think?" the other guard muttered. "We could kill the other one and-"

Slowly the hooded, penitent priestess wavered uncertainly to her knees, and then down. After a swift glance at her, Thaerla followed, murmuring, "ChaunteadeliverusChaunteasaveusChaunteakeepandpreserveusyourfaithfulservants-"

"Silence! She's a god, so she's heard you. Now, enough!" the second guard snarled, stepping forward to aim his crossbow at Shandril's hooded head from only a few feet away. One of the chambermen did the same. The other two thrust their bows almost into Thaerla's face, and the priestess ended her supplication with a sort of peeping sound and sank floorward.

The spellfire came without warning, roaring forth with enough fury to snatch all four men off their feet and drive them, shattered to pulp, into the wall behind them-in the scant instants before that wall disappeared, and startled faces gaped at Shandril from the room beyond.

The owners of those faces promptly screamed, clawed aside their prop and bolts, and fled. Shandril rose with her face white and set but her eyes dark and terrible with rage.

From the window came a burst of fire and flame that flung iron bars like kindling into the room, to crash and bounce and roll. Shandril caught a glimpse of two faces outside, glaring in at her with expressions that were less than friendly-and as they aimed wands in through the roiling smoke and crumbling hole that had been the window, she gave them spellfire, blasting much of that wall away. uS-shan, easy" Narm hissed, still on his knees. "This building might come down on us if y…"

"So get us out of here," she said in a voice that trembled with rage. "Right now I just want to lash out at anyone in this Nine Hells of a city!"

Narm snatched up their packs and snatched the door open-to stare into the hard-eyed faces of a dozen or more warriors. He barely slammed it again before a crossbow cracked. The quarrel slammed through the closing gap and shivered its way across the room, and Narm was hurled back, the door banging open, under the fury of hard-charging warriors.

Shandril Shessair was waiting for them, spellfire leaking from her eyes and nose as she glared. "Leave me alone!" she howled, slaying them with roaring gouts of flame that seared the passage outside and left small fires raging in its wake. "Just-"

There were angry shouts from the inn stairs, and the thunder of running feet. Figures moved in the next room whose wall Shandril had breached, dark-robed figures who'd obviously come in through its window, and were now waving spells as fast as their fingers could fly.

Shandril hurled spellfire at them-but her searing flames clawed along something that wrestled with it and withstood it, something that looked like black fire. Open-mouthed, Narm watched jet-black flames rage and snarl in the face of white-hot spellfire. Then a wizard moaned, reeled, and collapsed-as if exhausted or drained, not struck by anything Shandril had sent-and the black flames sank back^

"Shan!" Narm cried, "we have to get out of here! The wall behind us-blast it!"

His raging wife turned with her hair swirling around her like so many eager, licking flames, and the wall obligingly darkened, melted away, and was gone-but her flames were faltering, now,' and in the darkened room beyond were more hard-faced warriors in dark battle armor, with drawn swords and glaives in their hands.

A cascade of lightnings crashed down around them, and Shandril drank them in eagerly, turning with renewed vigor to face the wizards, trying to draw them into hurling more spells-ere she fed a slaying sheet of spellfire at head-level out into the passage and spun around to give the same to the warriors now surging forward to try to clamber through the hole she'd burned into their room.

The boar-like stench of cooked man-flesh was rising around them now, and Narm was crouching at Shandril's feet with their packs in his hands, trying not to hamper her as she turned and spat fire again and again-brief, careful gouts now, trying to preserve what she had left. The passage was afire; there was no going out that way-and the longer she was forced to fight, the less likely stepping into either of the other rooms, wizards and fresh hostile warriors or none, would give them any easy route to escape. That left "The window!" Narm snapped. "Someone's climbing in the window!"

Shandril wheeled around, smoking hands raised to slay once more-only to stop, her eyes caught by a gleaming silver harp badge.

The man holding it was a smiling, dark-haired figure in leathers, wearing a sly expression on his handsome face that reminded her of Torm of the Knights of Myth Drannor. He gave them an airy wave, and called, "These accommodations seem a little-crowded. I generally provide free guidance to visitors to this fair city. Is there anywhere else you'd prefer to be, about now?"

"I can think of several," Shandril replied, hurling a tongue of spellfire at a wizard in the next room who'd fumbled out a dagger and was raising it to throw, "but none of them are in Scornubel. Do you-harp alone?"

"Most of the time," the black-haired man replied, giving the two priestesses of Chauntea a crooked smile. "I am Marlel, and I believe I already know both of your names-your real names. I can take you to-'ware behind you, in the passage!" Shandril whirled, blasted, and watched the body of a warrior who'd been carrying a full-sized crossbow along the burning hallway toward them dance headless back into the flames, to fall and be lost, his bow firing harmlessly down the passage. There was a thud and a groan in the distance-hmm, not so harmlessly, after all.

"My thanks," Shandril told the Harper crisply. "Now, can you take us to, say, The Stormy Tankard, on Hethbridle Street?"

"Of course," Marlel told them with a smile. "If you can hold onto a rope, the window awaits."

Shandril gave Narm a shove in the Harper's direction, and after two quick glances into the room of the warriors-where no one moved-and the passage-burning too merrily, now, to fear any arrivals that way-turned to face the wizards once more. One of them was just finishing a spell of hurled fists. Shandril gave him a cold smile and awaited it, spellfire racing up and down her widespread arms-and the wizard promptly fled.

Marlel leaned out the window almost lazily, flung a knife, and there was a short, strangled gurgling sound, followed by the heavy thud of a body ending its fall.

Shandril's body jerked under the first few blows of the mage's spell, and then her spellfire rose bright around her and she sighed almost in rapture as she drank in the magic.

The small fires on her body died away, and she smiled and strode to Marlel, who gave her his crooked smile, indicating the window with a flourish.

"Just a moment," Narm said, and cast his poison-detecting spell on the platters that still steamed on the table mode the shattered door.

The roast boar brought for them promptly glowed bright purple.