Hand of Fire

Other Lives, Other Dreams

If The Sun Over Scornubel laid claim to the mantle of "a superior inn of service and distinction," The Stormy Tankard made no such pretensions. It was the sort of place where no one had ever cleaned anything since it was built, and rooms were small, dark bunk-holes boasting furnishings that were sparse, mismatched, and either battered or outright broken. This squalor was enlivened by the sounds of unclasped and uncloaked revelry from adjacent chambers-all such rental-quarters being situated up narrow, creaking stairs above a smoke-filled, ever-noisy den of drink and brawling and harsh-voiced chatter. There was nothing unpopular about the Tankard's taproom-it was crowded with folk of half a dozen races, who by their looks and garb hailed from a score of lands or more.

Night was falling over Scornubel like a dark cloak spread across a red, starlit sky as Marlel led Narm and Shandril-still in their robes, but fat she-priestesses no longer-in through a side door of the Tankard.

"Wait your turn," a cold voice greeted them sourly, out of the darkness.

"Aye," another voice agreed. "Just stand still and keep shut an' wait."

"Fair evening to you, Tulasker," Marlel said merrily. "As it happens, we're not in the market just now-make way, please, so I can get to Pharaulee and book a room."

"Ho, ho, the Dark Blade of Doom has chosen already, has he?" Shrewd eyes peered at Shandril and Narm in the gloom, and Tulasker added with an unlovely laugh, "Strange tastes for you, Marlel!"

"Not half so strange as what you'll be tasting if you don't roll aside, old blade," Marlel replied lightly.

"Ho ho! And what if I don't?"

"Then, Tulasker, I'm afraid you'll learn firsthand how I came by my rather grand professional title. It will be one of those sharp, painful, and rather final lessons, too."

"Aye, aye, impress us all," Tulasker muttered disparagingly, as he slowly shuffled aside.

At the far end of the gloomy room, a sharp-featured woman wearing rather too much face paint and rather too little of anything else ducked out from behind a curtain and snapped, "Next!"

"Fraea," the cold-voiced man said quickly.

"Four gold," the woman said promptly, holding out her hand.

"Four?"

"Dispute with me, Nalvor, and it'll be five," was the swift reply. "Four, or be off with you!"

Marlel led his two priestess-robed companions in the other direction, down a dark and narrow passage, to a doorway where a tall, bald mountain of flesh with tusks and large ears-a half-ore, whose face and chest were covered with old, wandering sword scars-stood with arms folded and a spike-handled axe gripped in each heavy hand, blocking the way.

"Business with Rildra," the Harper told him.

The guard's eyes narrowed. "You, Marlel?"

"Strange times, Ulburt, and strange doings. Look upon it as free entertainment, sent by the gods especially to you."

"I look upon it as trouble," the half-ore told him bluntly, "especially when you're involved. What business with Rildra?"

"A chance to flip her a coin and so get to talk to Pharaulee."

"That you can do directly," the guard told him, waving them past. "Rildra met with a little accident earlier today."

"Her last?"

"Unless she knows some way to come back to life after hanging for half a day with two glaives run right through her. But she took a Red Wizard down to the worms first, and one of his bodyblades, too-I guess they're not used to roughing up women who aren't slaves and don't carry hairpins. Right through the eyes, she skewered them."

Ulburt's voice was full of grudging pride. Against Narm's shoulder, Shandril convulsed in a silent, sudden shiver.

Marlel turned to his two companions. "Wait here. Ulburt will look after you, or I'll come back, cut off his down-belows, and feed them to him as Ms next meal."

Without waiting for a reply, the Dark Blade of Doom ducked past the half-ore's deep, annoyed rumble, through the doorway.

He returned quickly, standing aside with a flourish in Narm and Shandril's direction. They were momentarily aware of a pair of old and very sad eyes regarding them out of a large and gray-haired but lushly beautiful face, ere that face nodded and withdrew behind the half-ore once more.

"Pharaulee just wanted to see you," Marlel explained. "All settled. You have the-well, I'll show you."

Running a hand over the apparently solid wall next to Narm, the Harper found something with his probing fingers. There was a click, and a section of the weathered paneling shrank back into the wall. Marlel gave it a push, and it receded reluctantly.

"Hurh!" Ulburt growled. "You're not supposed to know about that!"

"Well, you shouldn't be so careless, Ulburt," the Harper replied serenely. "You're the one who showed me this back stair, last month-taking a body through it after you had a little accident with your axe, as I recall." Giving the section of moving wall a last shove, he grabbed Narm's forearm and tugged him into the gloom.

"I never! I-"

"Come" Marlel murmured to Shandril with some urgency, "let's get up above before anyone decides we're interesting enough to follow."

Shandril rolled her eyes. "Oh, half Faerun already seems to have taken that view," she murmured. "You lead the way."

Marlel grinned. "You've done this before, haven't you?"

"I hesitate to agree until I know just what you mean by 'this,'" Shandril replied evenly, waving at him to precede her. "Increasingly, I find, I dislike disagreements-they tend to be so final."

"No doubt," Marlel said thoughtfully, giving her a look that was devoid of his usual smile for once. "No doubt."

He went up the narrow, foul-smelling stair in the darkness, Shandril followed warily and close behind him, and Narm watched the half-ore haul the section of wall closed and watched out behind them as best he could in the deep gloom that followed.

They were at the top of the stair, on a little landing where their way onward, up a few steps and along a passage of many closed doors, seemed to be blocked by two dark figures who were hissing curses at each other, when Shandril felt the first tinglings of a spell. It felt like cold tendrils, caressing her mind-without hesitation she drank the magic, her spellfire flickering in her eyes.

Each time it felt wilder. Each time she had the frightening feeling that it was going to overwhelm her thoughts and will and what inside of her was Shandril Shessair, and just burn its own willful way on in wild destruction. That feeling was growing stronger-but damn all these greedy, ruthless fools if they didn't keep on trying to snatch her, to take her spell-fire for their own.

What if they finally grew enough stone cold everyday wits and good sense to wait until she was exhausted and took her while she slept? What then?

Trembling, Shandril heard Narm make a queer sound behind her. She whirled. He was reeling, his face twisting as he looked at her wildly, nostrils flaring like a wolf smelling blood-gods! The spell had taken him-and as he reached for her, she caught the side of his head in her hand and slammed it into the stairway wall.

His eyes went dark, like two snuffed candles, and he slumped. Letting go of him, Shandril rode her rage around in a whirling turn that brought her nose to nose with Marlel- who leaned forward, frozen, with his hands out to grab at her.

Feeling fresh magic rolling at her, the kitchenmaid from Highmoon sent spellfire racing along the paths of those unfolding spells-stabbing out through the walls around her in three directions. There were brief screams as half-seen wizards staggered, in both directions-but Shandril ignored them to snarl at the Harper, "If you had any hand in this trap, Marlel, I'll make your death slow and terrible, believe you me!"

"Lady, I never!" Marlel protested. "I-let me past and I'll take up your man and carry him! We must get to your room-here: the keys! Third door on the left along yon passage!"

He certainly looked guilty-but then, he also looked afraid, and for men who carried secrets in plenty, there often wasn't much difference between the two looks. Moreover, there might not be a man who dwelt in all Scornubel who didn't have dark secrets enough not to look guilty, if you seared him with the candle that was fear.

"Do so!" Shandril snapped, snatching the keys. "If you do him harm, I'll make you regret it for days!"

Her eyes were like two flames, and the Harper flinched away as he slipped past her. Shandril made sure the wizards in the two rooms she'd gutted moved no more, and by then Marlel was on his way past her again, panting under Narm's limp weight.

It seemed like a very short time before Marlel had them both into the room he'd indicated. Shandril made no protest when he snatched the keys back from her and used them on the door with a deftness that told her his usual profession more clearly than anything else he'd done thus far. The Harper slammed the door behind them, laid Narm gently on the bed, and whirled back to the door to drop its two wooden bars into place.

"You didn't leave anything burning, back there?" he panted.

"Why?" Shandril snapped, still furious. "Were those wizards friends of yours?"

"Lady, if the Tankard catches fire…"

"A few floorboards were smoking. Most of what I seared, I took to ashes. I'll care about such things when my Narm is awake and-whole again."

Marlel gave her a worried look, and bent over the young mage. "Have you means of healing?" he asked quietly, after a moment..

“Why?" Shandril asked, keeping her voice hard.

He shook his head in silent dismissal or exasperation, tapped gently at Narm's cheek, and then said, "He's coming around. That water-!" He pointed at an ewer of wash-water standing in the sink of a battered washstand. Shandril fetched it, and Marlel dipped his fingertips in it, nodded at its icy temperature, and drew a line of it down Narm's cheek.

The young mage's eyes flickered.

"Back with us. Narm?" Marlel asked loudly and jovially, throwing up a hand toward Shandril's face in a "be silent" gesture. "Ready to have a good look out at the lovely ladies of Hethbridle Street?"

Narm looked up at him dully, and the Harper waved airily at the window. "Hmm? Ready to buckle your swash, strut like a cockerel, and roar like a dragon?"

"Oh, gods," Narm muttered, "it's Torm's brother!"

Shandril exploded into giggles, a flood of mirth that dissolved into happy tears, and then her arms were around her man, shouldering Marlel aside.

The Harper drew back with a strange expression. His hand stole toward*the dagger at his belt-then fell away again, as he lifted his head and stared at the wall… in the direction of the two rooms full of wizards that Shandril had so swiftly blasted.

He swallowed and took a careful step back from the young couple. That movement was enough to bring Shandril whirling around to face him again, eyes sharp-and Marlel raised his eyebrows and his fingers in unison, waggling all of his fingertips to show that they were idle and that he meant no harm.

Shandril let her face show that she believed him not for a moment. "And now, Sir Harper?" she asked him softly.

Marlel gave her his quick, crooked smile. "Well, now. This room is yours for the night-I've paid for it, no need to thank me, all who carry the little badge you saw are paragons of flowering honor-and you'll have to give three silvers to Pharaulee by highsun tomorrow if you need it for another night, and so on. I should tell you a little trick we use: Take some of the soot from-back there-on a finger and run it around your eyes, and just here and here on your cheeks. Then wipe most of it away again, so it looks like shadow and not black face-paint, and gods above, but the shape of your face changes! Effective, if you don't want to be recognized straightaway, hmm? But I fear I must soon disappear on other business. Is there anything else you need me to do?"

"Yes," Shandril said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. "Tell us the truth."

Marlel raised his eyebrows, and refrained from smiling. "Ah. Well. That would be a grave mistake in style, here in Scornubel." He spread his hands, still unsmiling. "Anything else?"

Narm and Shandril exchanged glances. "Marlel," Narm said faintly, wincing at a hurt remaining in his head, "we're supposed to find and meet a man named Orthil Voldovan here."

The Harper nodded. "And join his next caravan to Water-deep? You're just in time and had best get down to the taproom and find him right now. He leaves on the morrow." He waved at the double-barred door.

Shandril looked at Narm, who winced again, then nodded. She turned her head and gave Marlel a commanding look.

That crooked smile touched his lips for a moment and went away again. "Leave nothing of value here," he said. "In Scornubel, without bars and bolts and guards whose loyalty you are certain of, locks are not to be trusted." He put a hand on the uppermost bar he'd so recently slammed down into place, and added, "Come with me now, and I'll point out Orthil to you."

Shandril nodded and came toward him. Narm followed, a little unsteadily.

In the darkness of the room next door, a watchful eye drew back cautiously from a spyhole nigh the floor, and its owner lay still on the soft fur he'd brought with him. When he heard the keys jingle in the lock and the soft, swift footfalls of the three moving along the passage to the front stair he stood up, stretched in the gloom, plucked up his fur, and cautiously opened his door. The passage was empty, and the man wrapped in the fur cloak slipped out into it and headed for the third stair. They were the two he'd been watching for, right enough, and he knew where they intended to go, now.

He hurried to deliver that news to those who'd promised to pay well for it. There'd be a slight delay while he picked up his own bodyguards-but without them, this was one meeting he probably wouldn't have survived. No messenger grows very old without knowing which clients are the dangerous ones.

These were the very worst, which was why his bodyguards included several mages and over a dozen other men he hoped these clients didn't yet know about. The alleys of Scornubel had seen all-out battles before.

The broad stair Marlel took them down this time opened onto a landing overlooking the deafening, smoky din of the taproom. The Harper put a hand on Shandril's arm to bring her to a stop-then snatched it away as if he feared she'd burn him, and pointed.

"That's your man," he murmured into her ear, making sure her finger was pointing at the same man his was, "and I'd rather he didn't see me or hear about me." He rose, and slipped back up the stair past them. "We have," he murmured as he went, raising his hand in a farewell salute, "painfully unfinished business between us."

Shandril returned his wave-then he was gone into the shadows. She traded looks with Narm. They sighed in soundless unison, gave each other rueful grins, got up, and went boldly down the stair.

Orthil Voldovan sat facing their stair in the corner seat of a booth with his back to one of the stout pillars that held up the taproom ceiling. Even seated, he was tall and straight-backed, as broad as many a door at his shoulders, and with forearms like hairy tree trunks, massive, gnarled, and seemingly more solid than the stout, weathered tavern table they rested on. His eyes were like two dark daggers beneath the largest shaggy white eyebrows Shandril had ever seen, and his square-jawed face was fringed all around with a short but ragged tufting of white beard. He was not young but looked as if he could assume mighty displeasure in a moment with anyone who dared to delve into his age, and speculate on its effects. He also seemed the sort of a man for whom "mighty displeasure" might mean something on a hastily founded battlefield or something far less formal in the nearest alley.

With Voldovan sat half a dozen men in worn, stained leather armor hung about with daggers and swords and throwing axes-caravan guards, battlefield veterans, or outlawed warriors, perhaps all three. There were two eyepatches among those six men and perhaps thrice that number of visible teeth. Scars could be seen-half-hidden among bristles and tattoos-everywhere. Many coldly calculating eyes were raised from a forest of empty and half-empty tankards as Narm and Shandril approached, and out of habit hands ' dropped to the hilts of favorite weapons.

"Well, well," Voldovan remarked, looking Shandril up and down with a frank eye that made her-despite inner raging to the contrary-blush crimson, "they're letting children out after dark in Scornubel, now. Or are ye for hire as a pair, hey?"

"Orthil Voldovan?" she asked crisply. "I'd like to hire you- or rather, your protective professional company to Water-deep, on the caravan you're leading thither on the morrow. Tessaril Winter recommended you."

Mention of the Lady Lord's name made those bushy brows shoot right up to crown Voldovan's hard face, and several of the guards stopped glaring at Narm and Shandril every breath and exchanged swift, dark looks.

"Well, now," the caravan master said slowly, leaning forward to look narrowly but thoroughly at the young couple. "Well, now. How is Tess, anyway?"

Shandril kept silent. "Well enough when last we saw her," Narm hastily filled the silence. "With King Azoun riding hard up to her door."

"Aye, her back door, I'll be bound," Orthil said meaningfully. "As if all his kingdom doesn't know what he's up to. Bah-kings! Overfed rogues, the lot of them!"

"So you eat rather more lightly?" Shandril asked silkily. "What, then, is your fare to Waterdeep?"

"Ten gold pieces," the caravan master said gruffly. "Full coins, mind, like lions or highcrowns-not trade-tokens or those little gilded copper shards they use suth'rds."

Southwards, Shandril interpreted mentally.

"Payable in full before we leave, not 'half now and half there.' I'm not pretty, but I'm worth it. My caravans get where they're going."

"Well, that's a good start," Shandril said calmly. "Seven gold, did you say?"

Orthil gave her a sharp look, and one of his guards laughed.

"Eleven, I said," he told her with a grin. "Ye should listen better, dearie."

"Evidently so," Shandril said, perching herself on the table in front of him and shoving his most recent tankard aside. "I could have sworn I heard you say four gold for the pair of us."

Orthil regarded her coldly, and she leaned forward to stare with great interest right back into his gaze. Two tiny flames kindled in her eyes. From behind her, knowing what must be happening, Narm sighed and murmured, "Try not to kill anyone yet, love. They all seem to be such-gentle people."

Cold glares were lifted the young mage's way, and the oldest and most grizzled guard in the most patched and scarred leathers chuckled and leaned back to watch the unfolding fun, lifting a finger to signal a bet to his fellows.

"Four gold for the pair of ye 'tis, then," Orthil said quietly. The chorus of gasps and tiny clanks that followed came from his guards: the sounds of many jaws dropping open.

"The spellfire wench? You're sure?"

Belgon Bradraskor looked up from his littered desk with eager hunger catching fire in his pale eyes. His movement lifted the ample folds of his jowls from their customary resting place on the descending mountain of flesh that was his torso.

Standing safely in the shadows beyond the lamplight, Tornar the Eye shuddered delicately. Belgon had a wife-a tall, splendid woman-and half a dozen daughters. How they survived seeing that unclad was beyond him; as it padded around the house, it must seem like some sort of pale, quivering monster…

Still, the Master of the Shadows could move swiftly* enough when he had to-and his wits were as keen as any dozen caravan masters put together. For over a decade he'd seen through their every swindle and had always had a response ready ere it was needed; a very hard thing to do in the roaring, ever-lawless city of Scornubel.

"Yes, Master," Tornar said firmly. "I saw flames flare in her eyes, and she had a man with her who matches in looks, voice, and manner this Narm Tamaraith we've been told to watch for. She was with Marlel when they went upstairs but not when they came down. His trap failed. She fried all his hired mages-and perhaps him, too, though I've not seen his body."

"No, the Dark Blade of Doom has been seen not ten breaths ago, slipping out of town by the looks of where he was headed and what he was carrying." Bradraskor's tone dripped with scorn for Marlel's self-assumed title. "And she's sitting with Voldovan in the Tankard right now?"

"Making a deal with him," Tornar confirmed. "If they agree, she'll be part of his caravan up to the Big Brawl on the morrow."

"Hmm. 'Tis a long way to Waterdeep," the Master of the Shadows said thoughtfully. "I wonder how many accidents Voldovan will have on this run."

Tornar waited for the huge man behind the desk to say more, but silence stretched until he felt moved to ask, "We're not going to try for…?"

"No," Bradraskor said slowly. "No, I don't think I want to die badly enough for that."

Tornar nodded, as relief flooded through him and quite drove away his fleeting disappointment. He made for the door with his usual soundless tread.

"Eye of mine," the Master of the Shadows said softly, freezing Tornar in mid-step with his gloved hand reaching for the bolt, "not quite so fast. Something occurs to me."

Tornar waited. Something always did.

"We dare not try to seize spellfire because of what would certainly befall us if we tried to hold it," Bradraskor said slowly, "when all the vultures came down with their talons to tear us apart-but by not trying for it, and lurking like a vulture ourselves, we could do some handsome harm to any of our rivals who dare to snatch at it."

Tornar turned, excitement stirring in him. "And so?"

"So I think you'll be on your way to see Bluthlock right now," the Master of the Shadows said with a soft smile. "Tell him that he can spend freely, with my backing, to thin the ranks of anyone Scornubrian he's grown tired of. There are some faces about town that we can all easily miss."

Tornar matched the Master's smile and asked, "What about Andor?"

"You mean the shapeshifter who's gosing as Andor?"

Tornar the Eye stiffened. "What?"

"Andor was found in Old Ornrim's nets in the Chionthar a little over two months back, with a goodly part of his face eaten away by the fishes."

"I never heard about this," Tornar murmured, leaning forward in frowning interest. "Ornrim went missing about then, as I recall."

The Master of the Shadows nodded. "The one who's now posing as Andor saw to that."

"And how-?"

"Do I know this? Someone saw Ornrim's neck being broken."

Tornar did not voice his question, and Bradraskor grew a slow smile. "No, not one of my other Eyes. A visiting noble, as it happens."

Tornar's lip curled. '"You've found a noble who can be trusted?"

"Do you recall the lady who put a sword through Ulbegh last summer?"

"Tessaril Winter of Eveningstar?"

Belgon Bradraskor smiled. "Faerun is such a small place, sometimes. It's comforting, how all the spiderwebs draw together in tangles and most folk don't even notice. Haste now, Tornar-I can feel someone about to tug on this most interesting of webs."

The informant nodded, went out, and carefully drew the door closed before he shivered. The last thing he'd seen had been those two pale eyes, watching him. Yes, exactly like a pale, quivering monster, padding softly through the darkness…