Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters

Out of the darkness, a clawlike hand dipped into dark waters at the bottom of an almost-empty metal bathtub, plucked up a tiny, dripping chip of stone, and juggled it to the sound of a chuckle that was not pleasant at all.

It was the space of a long-drawn, comfortable breath later when something in the depths of Blandras Nuin's bedchamber made a booming sound. There followed a triple crash, then the rising sound of a scream that grew markedly in volume. Its source, a naked man whose flesh was very red and whose body trailed countless tiny curls of smoke, burst out into the hallway, rebounded off the wall with his hair enthusiastically aflame, and sprinted for the bathroom.

The running man whooped into a fresh scream at the sight of his two servant maids floating in eerie, glowing splendor, upright and staring with their feet a good way off the floor. He tried to swerve or slow his onrushing progress, but succeeded only in another heavy collision with the wall. His howl of horror carried him through a bruising roll that took him past the floating women, but sent them tumbling about the hallway like spell-slowed juggler's balls.

Scrabbling to make the turn into the bath chamber, Auvrarn Labraster never saw the rolling wall of flame that thundered out of the bedchamber door and snarled hungrily along the hall after him, swallowing Nalambra and Karlae as it came. All he saw was his high-backed metal bathtub, filled to the brim with clear, clean water, gleaming in the moonlight that was flooding in the open window. Head blazing, he launched himself into a plunge.

His head struck the curving inside of the nearly empty tub with a solid gonging noise, and the rest of his body followed in an awkward somersault, dragging the tub over on its side. Filthy water raced through Labraster's sizzling hair as his head rang like a riven bell. His senses started to drift away from him.

The last thing he heard was hearty feminine laugh shy;ter-the full-bodied, head-thrown-back guffawing that so few women allow themselves-and the rising crackle of consuming fire. In the roaring heart of those flames was a sphere of open air where no flames reached. They streamed around it, defining its walls, but the space within was as cool, and the air as fresh, as if there was nothing burning for miles, and the gentlest of breezes was wafting over a pleasant meadow.

Three women hung in the heart of this little refuge. Two of them had been jolted awake into trembling terror, to find themselves floating in the air amidst an inferno that had only touched them enough to leave wisps of smoke from their scorched hair drifting about their shoulders. Speechless in amazement and fear, they stared dumbly at the third woman.

She was a tall, slender figure in a long, close-fitting gown that descended to her ankles and rose into a high collar. Her boots were of gleaming black leather, capped at heel and toe with gold. The sleeves of her gown flared from the elbow, and they rippled as she lifted a hand that bore several rings to shape an almost careless ges shy;ture in the air. She had long, wild silver hair that curled around her in endless, restless streams, like waves breaking on a beach, and here and there among its silken sweep, rings gleamed, securely entwined in the tresses. The wild disorder of her hair was echoed in the careless gape of her gown, that laid bare her front from throat down to where the garment drew in to hold her breasts. She.wore, it could be seen, nothing under the gown.

Her eyes were two dancing flames of fearless, reck shy;less amusement. They held the gazes of both Nalam shy;bra and Karlae at once, and though neither maid could have said then or later what color those eyes were, they knew somehow that this woman would hurl danger all about them and all the world without warn shy;ing-and often did so-but that they were safe from her.

They stared at her in wonder as the flames roared on around them all, consuming the house of Blandras Nuin. From somewhere nearby came the crash of a falling beam, the hissing of a cistern boiling away, then more crashes. The sorceress in the dark gown wove another spell, her body moving in the air with wild, sensuous grace, and smiled at Nalambra and Karlae.

They hung trembling, not daring to think what might now befall-then, of course, it did. Flames smote them with a deafening bellow, and the maids were hurled helplessly up through the air, soaring high in the star-strewn night sky as the house exploded in a huge fire shy;ball beneath them.

Nalambra and Karlae found breath enough for fresh shrieks of terror as they tumbled into an ever-quickening descent, realizing numbly that they were going to die.

That cold and terrifying knowing froze their hearts and minds throughout their whirling descent down, down to soft, seated landings on the stone bench at the far end of the ember-strewn garden. As its cold stone shocked their bare thighs, and heaps of their own clothing spun out of nowhere to fill their laps, they had a brief glimpse of a dark-gowned figure standing in front of them, tiny lightning coiling and darting around her slender, uplifted arms. The lightning filled the cupped palms of the sorceress, there was a flash, and Nalambra and Karlae were blinking at the empty night in front of them.

The woman with the smile like a wolf was gone.

The palace that crowns the hill above Velprintalar is a slender-towered castle of green stone, beautiful to look upon. Most citizens of Aglarond gaze upon it from a safe distance, and take comfort in its reminder of the mighty magic that shields them against the dark and greedy grasp of Thay. A few have the boldness or business needs to venture into it, and most such penetrate only so far as a particular, memorable chamber.

It can be found not far beyond the darkly soaring forechamber of the palace, an audience chamber, one of nearly a dozen rooms in several buildings in the vicinity of Velprintalar that can be described as a throne room. This one was to the smaller, plainer end of Aglarond's array of throne rooms. Its walls were flame-gleaming sheets of burnished copper, and its floor a smooth expanse of scarlet tile broken only by the dark needle of an obsidian and cast metal throne that rose in dark, many-curved, irregular splendor like a watchful open hand, facing the distant entry door. A few chairs floated about this chamber, and a few plants also hung from nothing within its walls, their fronds trailing down gently as they drifted idly about. Something had caused them to cluster near the front right corner of the room this day, as the duty sorceress and the door steward sat in gently-wandering chairs and chatted, keeping within easy hearing of each other by the mage keeping one slip shy;pered foot hooked on the hilt of the steward's extended, scabbarded sword.

A dark and familiar figure appeared in the air nearby, descending to the tiles with a thump. The sorceress and the steward rose hastily to attention, but the Simbul paid them no heed. She was staring into nothingness and nodding slightly. After a moment she smiled and said, "Thank you, sister. May your city and the realm rising around it both prosper. Hesitate not to call on me if you have need."

She brought her gaze down to focus on them both, and murmured, "Roeblen, Azmyrandyr, and Thaltar. Three scores to settle, and time to teach Thay the lesson once more that a little mastery of magic and a lot of arrogance do not give one any right, divine or otherwise, to rule all Toril-or even a small corner of Faerun."

She opened her clenched hand, and the sorceress and the steward saw a tiny chip of stone riding in her palm. The queen of Aglarond looked down at it and chuckled. "Well of course I'm different. Gentle prudence governs my every imperial act."

She turned and set the chip of stone carefully on the seat cushions of her throne. "Undignified," she told it, "but I need you to be where they'll sit on you from time to time-and always when there feeling most regal and headstrong. Help them only if you feel they need it. You can be most useful to us all if they don't suspect your presence for as long as possible."

The stone under her fingers hummed, and her smile broadened. "Why, with pleasure, sister dear, and I’ll tell Elminster you charged me to do it, too!"

The Simbul gave the stone a gentle pat and turned away to face the sorceress and the steward. Her boots moved with uncanny silence, their soles walking on air a finger's width or so above the tile.

"Well met this fair evening," she greeted the two, a customarily imperious tone returning to her voice. "I need haste in this, so both of you go, and escort Evenyl, Thorneira, Phaeldara, and the Masked One hence. I've already mindspoken them to spare embarrassments, delays for dressing, and the like. Evenyl is down in the city, the Masked One will appear shortly in the Twilight Chamber, and the other two are in their apartments here. Go."

She gave them a gentle smile of dismissal and turned back to her throne, which began to wriggle and shake. Curved doors popped open and trays thrust forth. Hum shy;ming, the queen of Aglarond selected several wands and scepters from the compartments, but the duty sorceress and the steward did not tarry to watch. They exchanged grim glances and a hug that failed to confer the reas shy;surance it was meant to before they parted. The uncom shy;fortable fear was growing in them both that this was one of those times when there was a real risk that fair Aglarond would soon be left undefended against the enraged survivors of a ravaged Thay. That jaunty hum shy;ming of sad old ballads meant only one thing. In earnest, and uncaring of her own safety, the Simbul was truly going to war.

The fiery-haired, impish sorceress that some in Velprintalar call "the Small Fury"-the queen, of course, being the larger one-was the first to enter the audience chamber, striding in without ceremony. She was barefoot and tousle-haired, more or less wearing the first gown she'd had at hand to pull on, which happened to be the same rumpled one the captain of the palace guard had laughingly helped her to remove not long before. She'd curtly ordered away his hairy, fumbling hands as he tried to help her lace up and adjust this and shake out that, and told him that finding his own uniform, in all haste, might be a wise act. Roused and unsatisfied, she was not in the best of humors. This had better not be just another of the Simbul's wild whims….

Thorneira Thalance tossed her head back as her determined march along the warm tile brought her near the throne. As she slowed, she lifted her eyes for the first time, nostrils flaring in fresh irritation. Three dawn-to-lastcandle days of spell weaving, three days, and now the queen had to pull th-

Thorneira saw what loomed before her, and screamed. Her cry was echoed from the door behind her. Phael shy;dara, too, was staring at the thing in front of the throne. It stood ten feet tall or more, a toadlike, glimmer-eyed mass of loose, billowing gray- and pink-streaked flesh. Five or six eel-like limbs were plunging busily among its folds, stuffing wands and scepters and small, hovering pouches of spell components-which it snatched in curv shy;ing tentacles, like an octopus-out of sight inside itself, or rather, inside pouches of flesh that were opening like obscenely gaping wounds all over its wriggling body.

Thorneira raised her hands, not quite knowing what spell to hurl, and one large, dark toad eye expanded and split at the same time, receding like an opening iris to reveal the familiar face of the Simbul inside, her hair writhing around her in all directions in a dark, fleshy tent within the monstrous mass, as the silvery tresses manipulated the rippling movements of the sagging, toadlike body.

"Oh, you'll do fine," the Witch-Queen of Aglarond said sarcastically. "I call you here to take the throne while I flit away on a brief pleasure excursion, and you scream at the very sight of me then hesitate-hesitate, when Red Wizards could be slashing at the very heart of the realm with their spells-as to which spell you should use to trash my throne room!"

"I-ah-Great Lady-" Thorneira stammered, face flaming.

The Simbul winked, laughed heartily, and shot forth a tentacle to give the Small Fury an affectionate slap. "I'm sorry I startled you. I'll be done in a moment. Phaeldara, put away that wand."

The two summoned sorceresses relaxed, sinking into seats with identical sighs of mingled relief and exasper shy;ation, as the misshapen mound of flesh before them dwindled, roiled, tightened, then faded down to a more familiar form. The Witch-Queen of Aglarond stood before them, in a dark, bulging garment that looked like a second skin-that is, like the skin of some leathery beast that carried things about in a series of bulging pouches made of its own hide, and had decided to mate its flesh with the head and upright bipedal shape of the Simbul. She grinned at them, and struck a pose with a hand on her hip.

"Going hunting?" Phaeldara asked with a smile, the gems in her dark purple hair gleaming in the glow from the ceiling. The Simbul winked.

"Red Wizards, of course," Thorneira put in. Her queen pouted.

"Am I so predictable?" she cried, in mock sorrow. "Does Aglarond offer such limited opportunities?"

"For magical mayhem to the point of spellstorms, yes," came a dry voice from the doorway. The Masked One had arrived, her face hidden as always behind a fantastical mask. This one was long, narrow, and curved, resembling the mandibled head of a giant beetle. Its metal shone with a glass-green hue, and the silver runes that mounted its center caught and held all eyes that strayed to them; a useful thing if those eyes should belong to an armed foe. A magic of clinging mists eddied teasingly around the full, floor-sweeping dark blue state gown the sorceress wore beneath the helmlike mask. The bodice of the gown was unseen beneath a pectoral of polished metal plates attached to the bottom of the mask; similar tongues of flexible metal cloaked the Masked One's shoulders and upper back.

"By Mystra's vigilance, don't you get hot under all that?" Thorneira murmured.

"Yes," the Masked One replied cheerfully, as a small commotion at the door behind her announced the breathless arrival of the last of the four summoned sor shy;ceresses. Evenyl gave them all a little smile and a wave as she gasped. The Simbul nodded and stepped forward.

"I'm off to hunt Red Wizards-particular and not very exalted ones, so a few zulkirs may find unmolested time and personal stupidity enough to strike out at Aglarond while I'm away. I don't plan to be long, but for me plans always fall before whims, of course. Try not to lose the realm while I'm gone." The queen gave them all a wolflike smile, and lifted her hands to begin a spell.

"What should we do?" Phaeldara asked quickly. "I mean.." she gestured toward the throne.

The Simbul shrugged. "Take turns sitting on it. Pull each other's hair, have spitting contests, try jumping over more prone courtiers than each other-determine who rules however you please, or just take it in shifts. You're all capable enough. See how you take to com shy;manding without any warning. I'm off!"

Those last two words were almost a shout of glee. In silence the four sorceresses watched their queen become a whirlwind of darkness, a spinning net of golden sparks that quickened into a high-singing blur, then a puff of fading, drifting purple cloud that rolled past Thorneira's shoulder before it was entirely gone.

The last of the sorceresses to arrive looked at the empty throne and shivered. "Sometimes I wonder just how strong her sanity really is," Evenyl said softly. "She scares me."

"Thankfully for us all," the Masked One said gravely. "She scares the Red Wizards far more."

They all nodded soberly, then, one by one, looked at the waiting, beckoning throne. None of them made a move to go and sit on it.

The man seated at the black table wore garments of black and silver. One of his arms seemed to be more a thing of bladed metal below his elbow than an arm grasping the hilt of a blade whose upper works coiled around and caged his arm.

Spread out on the table in a careful array were cards, large, long and narrow plaques that seemed to be sheets of thin, polished quartz or some sort of ice hued, translu shy;cent stone, each one different. Their varicolored faces glowed and pulsed, seeming to respond in a quickening, dancing white fire as the man reached across them to touch one of the slender, spirelike pieces that stood here and there about the table. He moved it with all the care of a chess player, setting it down with a slow frown of consideration. In response, a line of flashing fire rippled across the cards.

It looked like a game of solitaire using enchanted cards and tokens, but at least one of those watching knew it to be magic as old as Netheril. "Table magic," some called it, but that was akin to a tutor one of the watchers had once overheard at Bonskil's Academy in Telflamm describing swordplay as "hitting sharpened sticks of metal together in opposition."

The man at the table moved another piece. It's some shy;thing he'd never have done if he'd known anyone-anyone at all-was watching.

If he'd known just who was watching, and why, he'd have fled screaming from the room.

Irlmarren watched the cards flash as fingers gloved in black and silver moved another piece, and felt fresh excitement stir within him. If only he could obtain some of those plaques, somehow, and the vedarren-he knew, now, that the pieces that glowed were "vedarren." The "gult," the ones that were always dark, were simply pieces of particular sorts of stone that dampened and bent magical flows to serve as anchors for the spells being built. He could make his own gult, but each vedar shy;ren, it seemed, needed an imprisoned life-of a creature that could work magic-within it, to awaken its glow. Learning how to make those might take a lifetime, might even be something forgotten by the spellcasters of today. He must seize some vedarren, somehow. It would be best if no one knew he'd taken them, and came howl shy;ing at his heels for their return. He would need time to master them, time undisturbed and in hiding, as this adventurer so foolishly assumed he was.

Irlmarren itched to touch, hold, and handle those plaques. If only he could work with them, experimenting alone as this man in the depths of his crystal ball was doing, long enough to learn to build many-layered enchantments.

He understood, now, why Halruaa had never fallen. Even all eight zulkirs standing together-and he could not think of anything beyond the rage of a revealed god that could make any eight zulkirs stand together-would hesitate in the face of spells built like this. A single table magic, if it was intricate enough and unflawed, could lash out like the spells of a dozen arch-wizards acting at once. Some would even outlast their first awakening, and respond to what had aroused them to lash out anew in specific, aimed ways. As many as seven of these could be hung on the edge of being unleashed, carried unseen and untouchable-so long as their tables, hidden elsewhere, remained undisturbed-as single words or symbols in a caster's mind, or in an innocent-looking bone token or earring.

If he could build enough of these, a zulkirate could be his. He could rule in Thay, he could build an empire, he could send mountains marching west to roll over Aglarond and fill in long reaches of sea and make Thay itself larger. Why, he could … wait for the treachery that was sure to unseat him.

Fresh fear stirred cold fingers along Irlmarren's spine. He'd found this man, a minor mage rumbling with things stolen from a tower in Halruaa, but still too well guarded for Irhnarren of Tyraturos to hope to reach, let alone overcome.

There must be scores-could well be hundreds-of mages in Halruaa who could work table magics as swiftly and deftly as a marketplace juggler. Hadn't he seen bone necklaces and pectorals and earrings in plenty in the depths of his crystal ball on the bodies of alert and ruthless Rashemaar witches? Who was to say the Witch-Queen of Aglarond herself didn't play with vedarren and plaques in hidden chambers?

Hmmm. That might well help to explain why the zulkirs never sent more than ambitious underlings, beasts, and sword-swinging armies against Aglarond. Irlmarren of Tyraturos sat back and sighed, letting his eyes wander from the glowing scene in the depths of his crystal. He was going to have to think about this. The world had suddenly become a darker, more complicated place.

"Go right ahead and ponder, idiot," murmured a man in another darkened room with a crystal ball.

He smiled a mirthless smile, then turned and grinned at himself in a nearby mirror. It reflected back a man in robes of purple, whose hair and beard were oiled and cut to razor sharp edges, a man whose thick, powerful fin shy;gers made a rude gesture to his reflection and grinned more broadly when it did the same to him.

Roeblen of Bezantur looked back at the crystal ball glowing before him, and smiled again at the thought of just how useful his trapped crystal balls were turning out to be. Whether looking in at what their user was spying on, or looking out to spy on that user, just two had brought him hours of entertainment and enlightenment in but a handful of days.

Azmyrandyr's gaunt, scar-faced apprentice Stilard was planning to betray his master. Why else would he aid a doppleganger in his private quarters in repeat shy;edly assuming Azmyrandyr's shape, then ask it to become a truly spectacular woman, and bed it? Now this.

Nasty little betrayals were just part of being a Red Wizard, and foreknowledge of them the weapons one simply collected whenever possible, and used whenever they'd best serve. This glimpse of-table magic, was it? — was important. Too important to let an over-impatient idiot like Irlmarren blunder about with, and inevitably reveal everything to a zulkir before Roeblen or anyone else could gain anything useful out of it. The power to effortlessly win a duel with any rival Red Wizard, for instance, or any two rival Red Wizards. Or, for that matter, any three…

"My, my, Roeblen," murmured a woman whose silver hair slithered around her restlessly as she floated in the dark depths of a dry, disused well somewhere in the uplands of Thay, looking into a scene that glowed and flickered between her two cupped hands, "you haven't changed a bit."

The Simbul shook her head disgustedly, and did something with one of her hands. "The implications of something as simple as a trapped scrying crystal seem to be almost beyond you, let alone as powerful a toy as what you two worms have stumbled upon. I don't think we want a nation driven by cruelty, slavery, and a love of magic used to tyrannize, coerce, and destroy to have such power in its hands. Thayans tend only to see things of power as weapons."

Two distant wizards sat bolt upright, mouths falling open in horror, as those coolly-spoken words echoed in their heads. "Wherefore," she added, "and regrettably,…"

Silver tresses did something, a pulse of deadly force flashed through the mind of a Chosen, and two wizards gasped in unison as their eyes went dark and tiny threads of smoke curled up out of their ears.

"Farewell," the Witch-Queen of Aglarond said, in a voice dark with doom. Two crystal balls exploded in bursts of flame, beheading both Irlmarren of Tyraturos and Roeblen of Bezantur in identical storms of glassy shards.

The first rays of real dawn were touching the tops of the olive trees on the hill outside the fortress wall. They were rich plantings, but it was time they were culled. He'd see to that soon. Right after he saw to the culling of his apprentices.

Azmyrandyr stifled a yawn, saw Orth do the same, and said sharply, "We're almost done here. Rildar, shape Taramont again."

The gaunt, black-bearded apprentice grimaced only for the briefest of moments as he stood up, shook out his sleeves, raised his hands carefully, and cast a spell of great length and intricacy.

He was operating at the very limits of his powers, and Azmyrandyr studied him with narrowed eyes. As it was, these four-the weakest of his apprentices, the only ones he dared trust outside Thay with some power in their hands-could only hold their disguises for a matter of hours, but they had to learn to move and speak like the people they were to supplant: the Lord of Nimpeth and his three chancellors.

Ilder Taramont was the "Admiral" of that wine-soaked city of slavers, a one-time adventurer whose thefts and subterfuges had won him infamy before the ascension of Lord Woren. He'd had to learn how to captain ships and move them like weapons, instead of merely stealing from their crews in passing. By all accounts, and by the signs Azmypandyr could see through farscrying, Taramont was a quick-witted, subtle man. Rildar, regrettably, was not.

Azmyrandyr folded his arms, glanced out the window again, then noticed moon-faced Orth was almost asleep, his eyes vacant, his chin nodding. "Orth," he said pleas shy;antly, "get down on your knees. You'll be a sailor-whom the Admiral is displeased with-scrubbing the decks. No, there's no need to take on a shape, just get down."

Rilder was now a shorter man, with a cruel, thin-lipped mouth, black hair beginning to go white at the temples, and sharp features. "And how is this, dog?" he demanded, in a high, sharp voice. "Have we so far descen-"

Azmyrandyr lifted a hand, "Stop," he said flatly. "The voice is right, but Vilhonna don't call each other 'dog.' Short, clipped sentences for the Admiral, one word replies whenever possible. Likes to hiss things, remem shy;ber? A casual derisive term here would be 'dung turtle.' Try it again."

The cruel mage put his toes into the backside of the kneeling man. All four of the apprentices were barefoot, wearing only loose robes to avoid being harmed, or wast shy;ing clothing, in their transformations. "What's this, dung turtle? This deck was claimed clean not very long ago. Has the word 'honesty' any meaning for you? Eh, now?" Azmyrandyr nodded. "Passable, but remember not to overuse that 'eh, now?' If the man knew it was his catch-phrase he'd cut back on it, right? Well, he couldn't help but know it if he repeated it every six sentences. And a little too formal, there. Not 'Has the word honesty any meaning for you?' but rather, 'Honesty mean nothing to you?' Taramont would say it the way you did when ridi shy;culing an important merchant of Nimpeth, but not a sailor or an underling."

He looked down and added in dry tones, "Very well done, Orth, acted superbly."

Everyone-even the sleepy apprentice on the floor-chuckled, and Azmyrandyr drew in a deep breath, threw his head back, and said, "Well, now, Burgel, let's see your Noster. Coming to me, an important merchant whom you don't want to be too rude to, to advise me in a friendly but low-voiced way that I'd best stop being interested in … whatever I'm too interested in. You want me to see that you're trying not to be overheard by others-for my own protection, of course."

Another of the apprentices got up from his chair, a shade less reluctantly than Rilder had, and paced for shy;ward.

Azmyrandyr turned his head sharply. "Rilder! Did I say to relax? Watch and keep silent, by all means, but watch as Ilder Taramont. Stand as he does, fidget as he does, scratch your nose and behind as he does, not as an overtired Rilder Surtlash does."

"Oh, Azmyrandyr! Give the lad some grace, will you? He can't help being a frightened idiot serving a master too stupid to be frightened, now can he?"

That jovial female voice snapped four heads up as if it had been a slaver's lash. Its owner gave them all a wide, affectionate smile before she blew them a kiss-the kiss that triggered the waiting spells that doomed them all.

A gray smoke seemed to pass over the window out shy;side, and three swarms of magic missiles burst forth from the empty air behind the Thayans. Two of the apprentices died without ever seeing the bolts that slew them.

If Orth had been a slimmer man, he'd have been bowled off his feet by Burgel's dying fall, but he stag shy;gered, screeched in alarm and pain as blue-white bolts seared into him, and caught at a chair, gathering himself enough to snarl out his own magic missile spell.

Rilder went white to the lips in fear-the bloody Witch-Queen of Aglarond, laughing at them as she cast how many spells at once? — but he managed to stammer out the most powerful battle spell he had. Perhaps she'd never heard of a spectral axe, and he could get a good chance at her while she fought the others.

Azmyrandyr was the most fearful of all the Thayans, for he knew better than the others what they faced. That had been one of her spell triggers, and there was some sort of barrier all around them now, outside the room. Three swarms of spellbolts-four spells at once, and how many more triggers might she have? It was a slim chance, but his only one right now, given the cursedly paltry spells left to him. He raised his hands and tried to disintegrate the legendary Queen of Aglarond, knowing he would fail.

The silver-haired sorceress dropped her eyelids lazily and leaned her chin onto one hand in an insolent pose, smiling lazily at Azmyrandyr. "You're the one I've come for," she said, in the manner of a high-coin lass taking the hand of her patron at a revel.

She's laughing at me, Azmyrandyr thought. The bitch is laughing at me!

Azmyrandyr's sudden flare of rage was white-hot, and left him snarling in wordless fury as Orth's missiles struck ruthlessly. . and seemed to do nothing. All gods above, was she immune to everything?

As if she could read his mind, the Simbul stretched like a lazy cat, and lifted sardonic eyebrows as she gazed coldly and amusedly into his eyes.

Azmyrandyr lifted his hands to smash her into obliv shy;ion, and realized that all he had left were the magic mis shy;siles she seemed immune to. He clapped one hand over the ring he wore on the other, and cried aloud, "Aid! We are beset by a sorceress! Aid in the West Tower!"

The ring winked into life under his fingers, a ruby flame welling up.

Azmyrandyr had once seen a zulkir employ the ges shy;ture and the murmured word the Simbul used then, and all hope drained out of him in an instant. Her eyes had been on him. The tingling was taking hold of him. Azmyrandyr of the Twelve Talons was the target of her skeletal deliquescence.

Deep within himself, Azmyrandyr heard the ring send his plea for aid rolling out, but it seemed to pass into hushed silence not far beyond the walls and floor. That cursed barrier, no doubt, but even if magic was blocked hadn't they yet made simple noise enough in the fray for the priests in the chapel below, preaching dawnrise to the rest of the apprentices, to hear?

"Aid!" he roared, as loudly as he could, not caring if his voice broke raw. After all, how much longer would he have to use it?

It was beginning already. Through a gathering red haze Azmyrandyr saw Rilder's spectral axe swoop down and hack, hard, right into the Simbul's face. It flashed right through her, as if she were no more than a ghost. Of course, the bitch would have an ironguard up, but wait, wasn't the axe no more than a blade of spell force, and not metal at all? That must mean-

The groan and shiver that would be his last rose up in Azmyrandyr, his throat and nostrils collapsed, and he could speak no more, could barely think as the shudder shy;ing began. Of course, he thought dazedly as he began to fall, that was why the missiles struck the apprentices from behind, not from her at all….

The last thing Azmyrandyr of the Twelve Talons ever properly heard, through the rising, surflike surging in his ears, was the thunder of running, booted feet. He seized on the satisfaction that brought, wrapping him shy;self in the thought that either the insolent Witch-Queen of Aglarond would take real harm this day, overwhelmed by foes, or he'd not fall alone, while others lived on to take this his fortress and lord it here over his bones.

Not that he had any of those left, now.

Rilder frowned, in real puzzlement as well as grow shy;ing alarm and fury. The sorceress was casting a magic missile spell as calmly as if she were standing at home, alone in a practice chamber. All the while his axe was racing through her, circling with all the speed he could urge it to, and cleaving down again, biting right through her, and being ignored. How could this be?

How by dark, soul-chilling kisses of Shar, Lady of the Night, could this bloody well be?

He didn't realize that he'd snarled that aloud until he heard her laugh. Strangely, that laughter seemed to come from right behind him.

That meant… that meant… well, it meant something, but the thought was lost to Rilder as his master Azmyrandyr-hard and cruel indeed, but a pillar of dark strength that somehow Rilder would have never expected to see topple-slumped into a boneless, spreading puddle of flesh in front of him, flowing greasily out across the floor in front of Rilder's toes.

The apprentice was already drawing back in mount shy;ing disgust-his flowing master was warm-when he saw that his racing axe was going to cleave right through the central, sinking lump that had been Azmyrandyr. His master was collapsing, yes, but not col shy;lapsing quite fast enough to avoid-

Rilder winced as his conjured weapon slashed through the flowing thing, cutting a deep channel. Blood, and other wet, bubbling substances started to well up in its wake. A severed hand, still recognizable from the winking ring despite its long, trailing sausages of fingers, tumbled away.

Rilder was desperately trying to be sick all over the spreading mass of his master when a volley of blue-white bolts tore through him from behind. Things changed for Rilder Palengerrast in that instant. It was no longer necessary for him to vomit if he wanted to spatter the chamber in front of him with all that had once been inside Azmyrandyr's most loyal apprentice. He fell forward, never knowing that he was doing so.

"Sweet Shar preserve us!" one of the two running apprentices gasped. All that was still whole of Rilder were his toppling legs. What flopped bloodily above that was torn into more holes than a sponge. Small stars marked more tiny, fist-sized explosions as the stupidest apprentice fell.

"Must've … been carrying … feather tokens … or the like," the other apprentice husked out, becoming uncom shy;fortably aware that he was completely out of breath to cast spells, as they came rushing down on a woman he'd never seen before but had an uncomfortable feeling he knew from her swirling silver hair. She'd been calmly standing behind Rilder, and had now turned her head to smile at them both over one shoulder.

The apprentices crashed to a hasty, unsteady halt. "Holy Shar, be with us now!" the first apprentice whis shy;pered, and for perhaps the first time in his life, truly meant it.

The other apprentice spun on his heel and pelted right back down the passageway they'd sprinted up, weaving desperately from side to side. "I'll raise the alarm!" he shouted back, in case Marlus was so angry at being left alone to face the legendary Simbul that he turned and fed a burst of spellbolts to his colleague.

Marlus, however, was too busy recognizing the spell that the sorceress was casting, and throwing himself flat on his face, to be angry about anything.

"Behold your alarm," the Simbul remarked pleas shy;antly, then lifted a surprisingly pleasant singing voice into a little ditty "Come one, come all, to the murderous ball.. "

The fireball that crisped fleeing Ilnabbath shook the fortress and sent tongues of hot flame over his head, but Marlus rolled onto his side the moment it was done and calmly cast the spell he'd been saving for Ilnabbath, later: feeblemind.

His reward, as he scrambled up to watch the sorceress start to drool, was a look of withering contempt from the Witch-Queen of Aglarond. This seemed like a good time to gulp in despair, so Marlus Belraeblood did so.

Temple Master Maeldur stepped back hastily and threw up a hand to shield his eyes. "A fireball? This is more than an apprentice trying to fell his master! Go you, Staenyn, to rouse our visitors. One of them at least outstrips Master Azmyrandyr in the Art. Hurry back, I may well need you!"

He slapped at the fortress guards trying to shoulder past. "Hold! Let me cast some protections on you. Yon's a sorceress of some power."

"I'm growing impatient," the Witch-Queen of Aglarond called, watching the puddle that was Azmyrandyr grow broader and shallower. “Give me battle, worms of Thay!"

She chuckled, and added, "Ah, but I sound like a hero in a bard's ballad. Time to singe that priest down there."

Some called them magic missiles, others knew them as spellbolts. They were swift, and-surprisingly often-deadly enough to be all that was needed. She called up a swarm of them, and fed half to the fool of a mageling who'd tried to feeblemind her, who was now determined to prove his foolishness beyond all doubts by charging up to her alone, and the other half to the priest shouting at the armsmen, with all of them clustered together down the far end of the passageway.

She watched them both stagger, but neither fell. Ah, at last! A chance for a real fight. She might get to punch a Thayan, or trade dagger thrusts, and taste real blood.

She shrugged, and took firm hold of her rising blood-lust. That would be fun, yes, prudent, no. In this land of her foes she must strike hard and move on swiftly, before some zulkir could flog two dozen Red Wizards into strik shy;ing at her all at once. After all, she wanted to slay Red Wizards, not despoil the land of Thay and slaughter slaves by the fortress-full.

The Witch-Queen of Aglarond watched the mageling rush toward her and retreated a little way. It would not do to let him know too soon the true nature of the foe he was glaring at with such hatred, not when more Thayans would shortly be all around her.

The air all around her seemed to settle and shimmer. Small, dark objects coalesced out of nothingness on all sides. They were blades. It was a blade barrier!

As the cloud of deadly knives started to whirl around her, the Simbul saw the mageling stagger hastily back. Good. She stood her ground as the blades flashed and whirled, dicing to bloody hash underfoot the boneless puddle that was Azmyrandyr.

"Farewell," she told him mockingly, kneeling down to speak to a staring eyeball as it swirled past. "Only one left, now, of those who dared to strike at my sister in her own palace. You were such a poor challenge, O Azmyrandyr of the Twelve Talons, that I’ll just have to send most of the magically adept-if that's not bestow shy;ing too generous a description-folk in your fortress after you into oblivion. Mystra knows, Alustriel's dis shy;comfort is worth far more than that."

She looked up, and gave the mageling cowering against the wall her best wolfish grin. This Sharran blade barrier was going to save her a lot of blasting spells, and win her some fun at last. It was a good thing, she sometimes thought-and thought now-that these Thayans got so excited in spell battle. None of them had even noticed yet that they were hurling all their fury at a projected image. She had no fear that this spell would harm her real body, standing invisible nearby. Before going into battle here she'd exchanged her spell storing ring for the ironguard ring she now wore. The tress of hair that had carried the latter now held the former until she needed it again, one of many rings dancing about her in her restless hair, awaiting her need.

From the wall, the mageling hurled his own swarm of spellbolts at the Simbul. Ah, well, she could take a lot of those. Sooner or later some Thayan was going to realize she was immune, and spread the word, but that would shy;n't happen until about the time they all learned to work together. In the century to come when that might occur, all of Faerun would have a lot more to worry about than one Chosen's spell immunities.

She sent a smile in the direction of the mageling's fearful face and carefully shaped one of her newer spells. "This," she announced to the gaping Marlus, "is a spell-snaring sphere. Pay attention, now."

Ignoring the battle cries and pounding of booted feet now storming up the passageway, the Simbul stepped back to the wall and spun the sphere around the priest's blade barrier. She strode forward again, into the heart of the whirling steel, to face the onrushing charge.

What she saw down the passageway made her laugh in bitter derision. The priest of Shar had come to a halt to watch the warriors he'd urged forward die. How valiant. How typically brave of clergy the world over.

Her eyes narrowed as the second priest came hurry shy;ing up to stand beside the first. His hands moved speed shy;ily through the motions of a spell she did not know. This could be interesting. Well, it wasn't a battle if she didn't feel pain before it ended.

The armsmen were thundering at her with weapons raised, their armor glowing and sparking with feeble pro shy;tective magics that just might carry them once through the raging knives of the blade barrier… or might not.

She danced from side to side, to keep her secret from that sharp-eyed mageling against the wall for as long as possible, as the warriors rushed at her and began to thrust and hack. Overhead, amid the whirling blades but seemingly unaffected, a dark cloud spun into being. She glanced up, and quickly back at the second priest. Yes, it was his doing. His eyes were intent upon it.

Armsmen grunted and shouted and swung swords. She ducked and danced and snarled at them, as if truly trying to dodge their steel, and looked back up at the low-hanging cloud-oho! This must be the Spider of Shar spell she'd heard of… yes, here came the "legs." It was a small forest of black tendrils. This would last for a while, whipping the mageling, herself, and the armsmen indis shy;criminately. They brought stinging pain, she'd heard, but she knew not how-precisely-they dealt damage.

One of the warriors grew impatient in his frustra shy;tion. Why wouldn't this woman he was hacking fall? He put his head down and charged right through her, passing through her nothingness to crash and clang hard against the chamber wall. The Simbul saw the mageling's eyes narrow.

"Y-yyes!" he cried, pointing at her. "Yon's not the sorcer shy;ess at all, but a-"

The black tendrils closed over his head and twisted it off.

The Witch-Queen of Aglarond whistled and swal shy;lowed, despite herself, as the headless, blood-pumping body staggered forward into the blades and began to slump into bloody nothingness under their butchery. So that was a Spider of Shar.

Tendrils were lashing through her phantom self in angry futility now, and she thought it prudent to stagger, look injured, and to flee-down the passageway, toward the priests-as swiftly as possible.

As she began her falsely unsteady journey, the war shy;riors were making small whimpering sounds, wetter noises, and one or two short, desperate screams as the whirling blades penetrated their flickering, failing defensive magics. Even if one of the clergy tried to bring down the blade barrier now with quelling magic, her spellsnaring sphere would maintain it. She tugged on the sphere in her mind, sawing it from one side of the room-daggers snarled and rang sparks off the stone walls-to the other, where the song of tortured metal was repeated. Along the way, the moving blades brought final doom to the four armsmen dying in the heart of that whirlwind of steel.

Horrible things, blade barriers. Bloodletting waste, she thought, far more grisly than a good, clean fireball.

With that old and sarcastic wizards' dark joke twist shy;ing her lips, the Simbul brought the blade barrier through her phantom self. She gasped and flung up her arms in a fairly impressive feigning of fresh-wounded pain, and thrust it down the passage toward the two priests. Another pair of men had emerged into the far end of the passageway, far behind the priests, and at the sight of them, the Simbul acquired a smile that was even less pretty than the one she'd just been wearing.

Red Wizards, these two, or she'd eat all their fingers, with or without salt. One of them even wore the purple robes and red sash that puppeteers the world over used to let their audiences know "Red Wizard" in a glance.

Ah, now, perhaps this trip was going to be worth leav shy;ing a comfortable throne for, after all.

The whirling blades shrieked and snarled their way along the narrow passage, spitting shards and sparks in all directions. Had her real body not now been tucked prudently into a corner of the chamber where appren shy;tices had recently been acting the roles of the rulers of Nimpeth, the Queen of Aglarond might have suffered some real damage. As it was, she limped and lurched for shy;ward, her face a mask of pain as she clutched at nonex shy;istent wounds in her phantom side, and tried to keep a grin from creeping onto her face as she watched the priests struggle with their obviously meager courage.

It didn't take long for one of them-the one who'd cast the spider spell-to whirl around and flee. The other one acquired a rather sick and wavering smile of confidence as he raised his hands into some rather frantic spell-casting and stood his ground, backing only a single step to strike a more dramatic pose.

The two Red Wizards had stopped to cast ironguard magics on themselves. They glanced down the passage calmly when they were done, then began to stroll unhur shy;riedly toward the fray. Ah, Thayan arrogance…

"The priest wasn't exaggerating after all," Largrond of the Lash remarked. "I must admit I am surprised."

"Not exaggerating?" Ylondan the Tall replied, lifting a hand to make sure his rings were gleaming in their accustomed places. "You think that staggering wreck is the Simbul?" He nodded his head in the direction of the wounded, staggering woman in the distance.

The priest Staenyn came panting past them, his eyes wild. He looked away hastily from the hard glares they gave him-and Ylondan thrust out a boot and tripped him. Staenyn fell hard, but they did not bother to look and see what he did after that.

"Well, whoever she may be," Largrond said with a cold smile, "our duty is clear."

"Yes," Ylondan agreed, glee making his voice rise into oily triumph. "Blast the bitch!"

As if in reply to this, Temple Master Maeldur emitted a brief, brutally cut off bubbling scream as the blades reached him and did their bloody work.

"In case she should be an accomplished mage, and have some spells left," Largrond said, as the two Red Wizards strolled untouched through the shrieking, clanging blades, "I propose we take no chances. I shall cloak her in an anti-magic shell-and you can blast the ceiling above her. The old saying applies, you know."

"'Falling stones humble even the mightiest zulkir'- that one?" Ylondan replied, stepping around the diced carrion that had recently been a temple master of Shar without bothering to really look down, "Or do you mean the one about not hurling meteor swarms when a bolt of lightning will do?"

"The former," Largrond replied, not bothering to turn and look as the blade barrier met a Staenyn who was still groggily struggling to rise, and cut him to shrieking ribbons. "The other one presumes you know precisely what you're facing."

Ylondan swallowed. "I think I do," he said in a far qui shy;eter voice than before, as the blade barrier echoed its furious way on down the passage. His eyes were fixed on the woman they were now rapidly approaching, and his face had lost some of its usual color. "I saw the Simbul once, in battle against… oh, never mind."

He lifted his hands in sudden haste, and began to work a spell with hissing precision, moving his hands just as fast as the casting would allow. Largrond glanced at him, lifted one eyebrow, and matched his colleague's pace.

They were halfway through when the woman they were facing straightened up, crossed her arms over her breast in lazy condescension, and smilingly awaited their spells. Largrond almost faltered when the waiting woman began to laugh at them.

The Red Wizards finished their castings with identical sighs of relief, and Largrond's anti-magic shell promptly flickered into life. As it did so, the laughing sorceress winked out of existence, her mirth cut off abruptly-an instant before the stony rubble crashed down.

"A projected image," Largrond groaned. His words heralded another instant, one in which the falling rubble was translocated onto the heads of the two Red Wizards. Sixty-odd stones that were each half the size of men slammed down to the passage floor amid a lot of lesser rubble, shaking the fortress, causing a partial collapse into the rooms on the floor below, and driving the dust of centuries into the air.

The real Simbul coughed delicately, stepped around the corner, and stood amid the carnage, dusting off her hands. "Stand together in a passageway discussing your tactics against a foe close enough to hear? Idiots," she muttered. "The likes of these want to rule Faerun? Better we give it to the orcs."

It had been a long and howling nightmare of pain, with much lying shivering on cold stone in utter dark shy;ness while half-cooked flesh that glistened and quivered like feast-day jelly shed the dark, dry ashes that had once been skin, and Auvrarn Labraster found new ways to scream.

Now the one who'd brought him here was back. Cool, soothing fingers had touched his eyeballs and banished the swimming haze that had cloaked them since the fire. A flood of sheer, shivering-cold pleasure had washed over Labraster from head to toe, banishing the worst of the pain and restoring to him skin that didn't crumble into ash or stick to anything it touched, and muscles that could move his limbs.

Those chilling but gentle fingers touched his throat. Auvrarn Labraster had a brief glimpse of a ring that looked like the iridescent husk of a long, green beetle, that covered the uppermost joint of a slender male human right hand, and glowed with a green light tinged around the edges with white. The glow extended only a little way, but it was enough to show him a rough, curv shy;ing wall of stone around and above his head. He was, it seemed, lying in a cavern.

Labraster then discovered that he could swallow again, could taste something besides fire for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, and could, in fact, speak. He swallowed several times, trying to shape words through a mouth and throat that seemed horribly dry.

"I owe you my life, good sir," he husked, hearing a voice that at some moments seemed little more than a whistle, and little more than a raw, ragged rattle at others, "and wish to extend to you my thanks."

The response that came from almost directly above him-where the ring-wearer stood, his head beyond Labraster's field of view-was startling. The man with the cool fingers abruptly burst into a loud, canine bark shy;ing.

That barking gave way to liquid laughter, too high and shrill to be comfortably sane, then an almost childlike giggle. It was followed by the calm, matter-of-fact words, "The plume the flagon, but there is in fact no palimpsest at twice the thalers," which in turn gave way to a howl, a rising run of ragged, frantic, and ever-faster panting, then, in a quite different, almost feminine voice: "Come to the stone, and feed."

Those cold hands touched him again, and again as the babbling and barking went on, Auvrarn Labraster lay on his back not daring to move or speak for fear of what those hands, so powerful in magic, might do.

Cold fear rose and danced in his breast and throat, making him sob almost frantically. The man who wore the green beetle ring seemed to grow angry, his yips and shouts rising to a crescendo, then, eerily, he fell utterly silent again.

The hands left him, the green-white glow fading, and time stretched. Labraster had just begun to hope the madman who'd restored him to health had departed when the same cold hands, without warning, touched his knee and the ankle below it.

It was all he could do to keep from jumping and let shy;ting out a shriek as the mysterious mage burst into inco shy;herent babbling above him again. Half words, or a fluid tongue that the trembling merchant did not know, gave way to speech startling in its calm clarity.

"There is no dark sun," said the man who wore the beetle ring, "but First-Speaker was even more wrong. Under the sea of sands they wait, beyond all vanquish shy;ing. The dragon stirs, but no sleepers wake. I see that throne emptied. It will all come again. I will be there. The whips of my faithful shall strike. The eyes of my devoted shall see. There is no doom to touch the dark shy;ness I can send. Rend the sacrifices. Rend them now."

The cold hands tightened. Somehow Labraster man shy;aged to keep silent, but he was shaking uncontrollably as the hands clutched him cruelly here, there, and all over. Silence fell again.

Auvrarn Labraster would have prayed fervently-though silently-then, if he'd had any idea which god he should be praying to. Whichever one, if any, who'd have him.

His healer paid him no heed, but threw back that unseen head and howled, the roar deafening in the small, echoing space. Labraster glanced down at himself in the din to make sure he hadn't been given wings, or a tail, or-no. The Waterdhavian who'd spent far too much time as Blandras Nuin closed his eyes firmly and lay back on the stone. If a god-whoever might hear-would just take all of this pain and confusion away. …

A thought struck him that left him cold and cowering indeed. The hands were trailing up and down him again, seeming to caress rather than claw. What if they were the hands of a god?

"And what is your view, Thaltar?"

"Insofar as I'll admit to having formed one, Dlamaerztus, I think it important that all of you know that it's but an immediate reaction-a feeling in the gut, if you will-and not a reasoned and sustainable position."

"Wisdom of Mystra, man, this isn't a debating club," said a third mage at the table disgustedly, as he shook out his sleeves. Despite several hot glares, his next action was to unconcernedly take up his thin, foot-long cigar again from a holder on the shining wood before him that looked like what it was, a petrified human hand cupped eternally in a pose that allowed it to receive stray and weary cigars, pipes, and even writing quills. The mage blew a smoke ring as he sat back in his chair, with the air of a man exhausted from delivering a long and modestly brilliant speech.

"Norlarram," Dlamaerztus said testily, "I don't know why you attend these meetings, given the preparations and defenses we must all make, if you're not prepared to seriously discuss our unfolding plans. I know I don't attend for the pleasure of having you blow cigar smoke into my face all evening."

"No?" Norlarram of the Five Hungry Lightnings returned coolly, another smoke ring leaving his lips. "Why exactly do you attend these gatherings, then, Dlammur? Is it just to keep an eye on the rest of us with shy;out having to spend long afternoons casting eleven sep shy;arate spying spells? I've awaited-nay, anticipated-the bright light of worthy verbal contributions on your part these past four meetings, as you've striven to chide and curb us as if we were children and you our teacher. I find myself, now, still waiting for that brilliance to shine upon us all."

The largest and fattest of the twelve robed men seated around the table rumbled into angry life. "This again! Look, everyone, as we are all Red Wizards, we must all know how to write, and read, and think. We all have ambition, or we'd not be here. We all have far too little time to spare for anything we look upon with pleasure. So I ask the table in general: must we listen, at our every gathering, to idle, cutting witticisms by men who think themselves clever?"

"Or complaints from men who think themselves wiz shy;ards?" Norlarram asked his cigar in arch tones. Someone snorted in mirth, a sound overridden by someone else's growl of anger.

"I can't see, try as I might, how this wrangling and stirring of ill feelings is going to ease-or even permit-our working together," Thaltar observed calmly. "Why don't we simply leave off speaking words clever or oth shy;erwise until Iyrtaryld describes his latest plan? I suspect it is more than just my own view that will be formed, or reshaped, in light of what he has to say."

"Finally something I can agree with," the fat wizard put in quickly. "Belt up, all of you, and give Iyrtaryld our silence to fill."

"With this, I find myself in agreement," a thin, pale wizard whose hair and brows were wintry white said then, turning eyes whose pupils were the yellow of but shy;tercups to look up and down the table. "Give Taryld the floor."

A little silence fell, and into it a soft voice not heard before at this meeting said, "Ahem.. well, now."

Its owner rose and looked coldly around the table. His beard thrust forth into Faerun like an up-curling spike from the point of his otherwise shaven chin, beneath eyes that glittered with malice and restless ambition. "I've worked out the last details of the enchantment that will enable one of us to pass on the burden to the next without letting the magic fall, and so keep the mouth extant as days pass. My trials suggest that the addition of this spell also mitigates any backlashes that may occur when the spell does fail."

"'May occur'? Were there not always backlashes at the end of the spell?" Norlarram asked quickly.

Iyrtaryld shrugged. "More than half the time, but not always."

"And when not, how so?"

"We could find no tactic in the use or handling of the spell to cause, steer, or prevent a backlash. The form, intensity, and even presence of this discharge seem truly random."

"So, behold then. ." the always brisk-some would have said "impatient"-Dlamaerztus prompted.

Iyrtaryld smiled, but no humor reached up to touch his eyes. "Behold, then," he said in coldly satisfied tones, "the Hungry Mouth."

Those last two words triggered an illusion spell the soft-voiced mage had prepared beforehand, showing them a whirling, moving oval construct in the air, a maw hovering above a field. Its compulsion was strong enough to suck up streams of sand and rock dust into itself, though, at a glance they seemed to be flowing the other way, drooling down out of the hungry mouth as it roved almost restlessly up and over a little rise. It drew several startled sheep into itself, whirling them away in a swift, blurred snatching.

"Vast herds of creatures, both wild and shepherded, roam the lands east of Raurin, and beyond that are realms both ancient and rich, whose folk are many. Shrewdly placed, our roving mouth can graze on these at will, delivering to us an endless supply of slaves. We can eat what can't be compelled to labor for us."

"Making us powerful indeed in Thay," one mage mur shy;mured.

"And hence, noticed and inevitably challenged," Nor shy;larram said sharply. "Leaving us to pursue what plan?"

"I would know first," Thaltar put in smoothly, "what will occur if our mouth sucks up an unleashed spell-or a hostile mage able to cast many spells, commencing immediately?"

There was a general murmur, out of which the voice of Dlamaerztus rose like a trumpet. "So the naysayers begin to chisel away at this brightest of our dreams again, being anxious here and cautious there, querying and caviling, rushing ev-"

"In spellcrafting," the fat wizard said loudly, his voice rolling over the rising torrent of contesting voices like a great wave, "those who are not anxious, cautious, and querying are soon known as 'the dead.' "

"Shadow of Shar!" someone snarled. "Are we to be list-"

There was a sudden groaning of grating, shifting stone, and the table in their midst heaved up into the air.

Wizards shouted and scrambled to find a grip on something or just to stay more or less upright as chairs tumbled and clattered, and the stone floor surged up in a gray wave before breaking into fragments.

A furious Dlamaerztus pointed at the fat mage and screamed, "Quaerlesz, this is your doing!" From his pointing finger sprang a sudden flurry of blue-white, streaking bolts.

Even as the spellbolts struck some sort of unseen bar shy;rier around Quaerlesz and burst into bright flares of nothingness, the air filled with deadly outbursts of slay shy;ing magic.

Cones, rays, and volleys of conjured bolts stabbed out, crisscrossing and annihilating each other amid tumbling showers and sprays of spell sparks. Red Wizards, it seemed, were a less than trusting breed.

In the heart of this magical conflagration, great stony fists-looking for all the world as if they were an out shy;growth of the floor of fitted stone blocks-thrust up through the table, trailing splinters.

A head that had no features save a gaping slash of a mouth followed them into view as the room shook and shuddered, hurling the battling mages off their feet. As they rolled and sprang up and ran, the stony shoulders of the rising colossus heaved as its arms bent in huge, swing shy;ing punches-and crashed down through robes and the frantically-sprinting flesh beneath, dashing out screams and life together into bursts of blood. Crushed bodies splattered their innards over the cracking, tilting floor.

"Dlamaerztus," Thaltar gasped aloud, identifying the sleeve and convulsing hand protruding from one dark sea of blood. He turned his head, saw, and added in a voice only slightly unsteady, "Norlarram-and all his complaints."

Around him Red Wizards shouted and took stands, weaving spells in frantic haste. Those fists fell like ham shy;mers again, smashing fat Quaerlesz like an egg and narrowly missing Iyrtaryld. Thaltar saw the creator of the hungry mouth spell somersaulting helplessly through the air as the floor beneath his boots shattered under that ponderous blow.

It was methodically crushing wizards with its fists. Thin, pale Olorus was the next to fall, as the colossus ignored lightning playing around its bulk and spellbolts streaking into it.

Amid the screaming, Thaltar dodged a rolling piece of table, slipped and almost fell in the pool of gore spread shy;ing from the bloody pulp that had been Quaerlesz, and dodged past chairs dancing in the aftershocks of the latest blows. Riven wood, spilled blood, and desperately running men were everywhere.

A few frantic moments later, another blow fell-so close behind his heels that he felt the graze that peeled the leather of his left boot away from the skin beneath. Thaltar looked down at it as he staggered, fighting to regain his balance. That seemingly doomed struggle ended when he lurched against a doorframe.

He spun around and through the curtained doorway into the relative shelter of the chamber beyond. The black fire he'd called up flickered and spat around his fingers. It would take him but moments to finish the spell, spin around again, and shatter the magic that had given brief but deadly life to the colossus.

Thaltar lifted his eyes as the curtains swirled away, to make sure no menace within was waiting to attack him when he turned to strike down the colossus. Even a cow shy;ering guard with a dagger was deadly when driven to lash out at anything in wild fear.

Instead of a white-faced, staring armsman, he found himself face to face with Quaerlesz-standing whole and unharmed in all his fat, side-whiskered magnificence. Their eyes met, and Thaltar smiled, nodded-and as the fists of the colossus thundered down again in the room behind him, said the last three words of the incantation as if they were a polite greeting.

For once he did not have to hurl the lance of black fire that formed between his cupped palms. It came into being with its tip only a finger's width from the false wizard's breast. When Thaltar willed it to strike, it burst right through the mage-almost eagerly.

As it was supposed to do, it left its black flame behind as it burst. The ravening flames raged briefly through a succession of magical shields surrounding the false Quaerlesz, but their owner merely murmured some shy;thing that sounded almost calm from within the inferno.

Thaltar sprang back, seeking the edge of the archway with one outstretched hand, in case the murmuring was the weaving of a retaliatory spell he might be able to elude, and watched anxiously as black flames bit through a spell-spun disguise into the real body beneath. The real Quaerlesz was a sprawled mass of splintered bones, pulped flesh, and blood in the room behind him, so who was this?

It would almost have to be the caster of the colossus. An ambitious mage acting alone, or the agent of a zulkir? Was their hungry mouth scheme known to the truly powerful, or was this the first of their moots yon unknown foe had stumbled upon?

Thaltar put a hand to his sash and clamped his fin shy;gers onto a certain symbol emblazoned there. His lips could now unleash no less than six hanging battle spells, a single word for each, in case this foe should prove to be a mage still capable of magical battle. The dark flames were dying down, now.

Thaltar's eyes widened. Could it be? The blazing, col shy;lapsing body before him was sagging to its knees, scorched silver tresses of hair writhing and flailing it from knees to elbows. Both body and hair were shuddering and twisting in pain, and this must be, could only be-

The Witch-Queen of Aglarond!

As more crackling, darkening hair fell away, Thaltar saw clearly the convulsed, agonized form within, and knew wildly rising excitement. More than satisfaction, this was triumph!

As the flames died away from everywhere but her throat, the Simbul stared at him, her face creased with pain. Speaking would be an agony for her. Speaking incantations correctly would have to be the reward of a fiercely fought victory over pain.

Thaltar was under no such hindrance. He hissed a certain word, then gave her a tight smile. The air around her was full of glistening, eel-like flying serpents, their fangs grotesque, curving things that slashed, struck, and whirled to slash again.

She covered her face with her hands, and Thaltar saw her body quiver as his cloud of fangs did its work. Some mages preferred variants that gave the air a swarm of bony, disembodied jaws, but this was, somehow, more impressive, more… satisfying.

Watching warily, the Red Wizard gave her a good long time to suffer, then said another word that brought a silvery sword fading into being, floating not far away in midair with no hand to wield it. A sword that moved by itself at his behest, and under his will turned its point a little to the left-and promptly thrust into her.

The Simbul stiffened as the sword faded away into drifting, dying sparks, its work done. Her tattered black gown was wet with dark blood in many places, now, and acquired the blue halo-glow that Thaltar had been awaiting. He almost gasped his relief aloud. The sword's gift, the halo was the visible manifestation of a lasting spell field she'd have to struggle against even to unleash the simplest spell. She was his plaything, now, helpless meat on a swift road to death.

Behind Thaltar, in the shattered chamber where twelve proud and nigh-fearless Red Wizards had been sitting around a table such a short time ago, the colossus had fallen silent. Thaltar grinned, like a skull showing its teeth.

"So this is the mighty Simbul," he mocked her. "Oh, pray excuse me, most arrogant lady, the Simbul, of course."

She turned her back on him without a word or sound, and he felt exultation turning to rage. Thaltar Glaervar would break this bitch-queen, make her scream and sob and plead as she wept, on her knees and-but no. He'd not let anger master him. Careful and wary must be his way now, or he'd do something that would let her win free, to be his doom, now or in some day to come. He must be very careful.

Thaltar's next spell merely called a steel-barbed slave whip to his hand. He'd keep his attacks to the purely physical, and give her no chance to twist or send back his magic, or through it lash out with a spell of her own. He cast a quick glance behind him into the ruined meeting chamber, to make sure none of his fellow conspirators were creeping up behind him right now, but saw nothing there beyond death and destruction. The heavy silence of the dead ruled. If any of his colleagues lived, they lay senseless or had fled. His triumph would be a very pri shy;vate one, not something that would raise Thaltar Glaer shy;var to fame, but not something that would make him a target for every wary zulkir or mage of Thay desiring an enhanced reputation, either.

He turned back, smiled at the huddled woman, and struck.

Had she been standing slightly differently than before, and looking a trifle different, too? No matter. The first bite of the long-spiked lash spun Thay's most hated foe around and tore down one of her arms, away from her face. Blood trailed from her trembling fingertips, and their eyes met, for just a moment.

"Long have you harried us," he told her. "Slaying and terrorizing us, frustrating our plans. I should make you suffer in torment for longer years, kept powerless to work magic or anything else by maimings and amputa shy;tions. I believe I will-after I see you crawl to me and plead. I shan't know you mean it, of course, unless you leave a blood-trail on that journey, so-"

The second bite of the lash was around her legs just below the knees, pinning them together then hauling back herd. Her feet were jerked from under her, and she fell to the floor, landing on both knees. Her body swayed and almost toppled, shuddering from end to end with pain that she did not voice.

She dared not. The last, hand-sized remnant of black flame was centered on the Simbul's mouth. Should she open it to speak or utter an incantation or even to sob, it would dart within, searing tongue and throat and more, and leave her straining to breathe, let alone defend her shy;self with magic.

"A step too far," Thaltar murmured, taunting her as he-as well-nigh every Red Wizard-had often idly dreamed of doing. "One step … and doom. You shall not escape me, lady. No legendary power can save you now. No bard's embellishment can deceive me or my spells. You are but a reckless-lone-sorceress, who for too long has struck like a vulture against my kind when we are weary, or hurt, or unprepared. Against a Red Wizard ready for battle, you fall with an ease that invites con shy;tempt."

He struck again, the lash laying bare her flank this time, blood spattering the floor in its wake. "Have my contempt," he told her almost gently. "You disappoint me. No sneaking spells to win your freedom while I gloat, no last-second divine defenses? It's all bardic tales, isn't it? All so much empty boasting."

He whipped Aglarond's silent queen until the lash began to shed its spikes, one of them flashing past his forehead a little too close to his own eyes. She was a blood-drenched, trembling thing by then, hunched over on knees and elbows. He stepped forward to kick her hidden face-then, at the last moment, drew back, sudden fear flooding his mouth with a taste like blood-iron. No! He must not give her an opportunity to touch him directly. She might be waiting for just such a chance to confer some horrible magical doom on her tormentor. Yes, her tormentor! Who'd have thought Thaltar Glaervar would be the one to bring the Simbul of Aglarond, Chosen of Mystra and most deadly of the Seven Sisters, to her knees?

Thaltar stepped back a safe distance, held the drip shy;ping lash in his hands, and wove a spell with careful pre shy;cision before letting go. The blood drenched whip rose under the bidding of his will, drifting through the air like a snake that could fly, and slid around the shaking woman gently, almost caressingly, looping about one of her wrists before swooping back to her waist.

He'd feared she might struggle, or manage somehow to unleash a spell that would come cracking across the all-too-little space between them to harm him, but the Simbul cowered, face hidden behind her hair, as Thaltar guided the spell-animated lash to bind her hands tightly to her sides, loops of it keeping her fingers forcibly splayed and held down tight against her thighs.

When the binding was complete, the Red Wizard let out another long sigh of relief. Pinioned as she now was, even a circus acrobat would find it hard to cast spells of consequence, or even to reach out to deliver magics to a tormenting wizard.

Now it was time to break some bones.

He could lift his captive now by casting his usual com shy;bination web of telekinesis and levitation spells on the lash and not the woman herself, and still move her about just as if he'd dared to work magic directly on her body. With unhurried care Thaltar Glaervar cast the spells he'd need, drew in a deep breath, checked again behind him, then lifted the limp Queen of Aglarond into the air.

She hung there with her ruined hair hanging down over her face, blood drooling down to the floor from beneath it. Thaltar looked at her and found himself laughing, deep chuckles of glee that rose up and burst forth wildly. He had done it! He had humbled the one person to ever dare stand alone against the Red Wizards of Thay!

"Yes!" he cried in ringing triumph, and slammed her into the nearest wall. There were solid thumps as her shoulders struck and her legs and head flailed, but the only sharper, cracking sounds he heard were of plaster shattering, as the sculpted flowers that wall was deco shy;rated with paid the price of their unexpected admirer's arrival.

Thaltar tugged at the lash with his mind, bringing the Simbul back to a jerking halt in midair. Her legs dangled loosely. He drew back his lips in a less than pretty grin, and slammed her back against the wall once more. Plas shy;ter clattered in earnest this time, flowers raining down in rubble to the floor as the bound queen rebounded from the wall, twitching and trembling.

The Red Wizard peered at the spreading cracks his work had made, then at the floating, dripping bundle, and brought them together again. Cracks widened, slabs of painted wall slid toward the floor, and his human hammer looked a little more shapeless. He'd best stop while she still lived, or her passing would be too easy. Thaltar Glaervar would lose himself magical power he might be able to harness, a victim whose torment he could really enjoy whenever he needed to, and some shy;thing worth a lot should he ever desire-or need-to bargain.

Just once more! The Red Wizard turned the Simbul in the air until she was horizontal, feet toward the wall. Her brain mattered, but a sorceress who couldn't walk would be all the easier to keep biddable. The legs dangled, not held by the lash, but if he just guided a loose end of it. … One was hanging down. It must have already started to come undone in the fury of striking the wall. He could bring her legs up and around in a spiral, thus, and they could serve to make her a ram. Yes, he'd hear bones splinter, and perhaps a scream from those stubborn lips, at last.

Thaltar drew in his will, then hurled his human mis shy;sile at the exposed timbers and rubble where she'd struck before. Perhaps she'd even pierce the wall, and he could leave her hanging head down as a trophy whilst he collected scrolls and wands to have magic enough to defend himself again.

The Simbul smashed into the wall with a crash that shook the room, and the Red Wizard heard the grisly splintering sounds he'd been waiting for. He also heard the clatter of the rubble that filled the wall inside the plaster falling away, tumbling into the room beyond, and carrying a certain limp, wet bundle with it. With a groan, a lot of wall fell away, and Thaltar blinked through rising dust at a gaping hole where an ornate wall of sculpted flowers had been not so long before.

Light was coming through that opening, and he heard a man's voice call a question.

Another male voice, curious and much closer, replied, "The gods know! A woman, I think, or was. There's some shy;thing abou-Wait, she's moving!"

"What's that around her?"

"Rope of some sort-no, it's a slave whip. She was bound with it. Look out, she's trying to get her hands on something!"

"Shall I-?"

"Not yet. If this is a spell duel, and we interrupt, we'll be stepping into a feud between masters of power-zulkirs, perhaps. No, let's just"-Thaltar heard the sounds of feet scrambling amid loose stone-"get away from here."

By then, he'd climbed rubble himself, to the lip of the hole in the wall and a vantage point from whence he could look into the next room. Another meeting chamber, furnished with another vast, dark polished table, many high-backed chairs, and two apprentice mages whose faces told their excited bewilderment to the world. They were staring up at Thaltar, but he ignored them. They'd recognized him and wouldn't dare send any spells his way, no matter how much they'd have preferred not to be recognized. They were nothing. He had something more important to look at.

She was lying on her back in a fall of rubble, with the half-buried lash fallen away from her, and Thaltar could see the fire of furious, pain-wracked eyes through the tangle of dust-caked silver hair that cloaked her face. Her eyes fixed on him.

The Simbul was awake, aware, and struggling feebly with smashed, bloody, trembling hands to draw forth a wand from a crosswise sheath hidden beneath her breasts. She'd already got it out, and was turning it.

In a sudden panic, Thaltar Glaervar cast the mighti shy;est spell he knew, hurling a meteor swarm into the face of the sorceress and hurling himself headlong backward, away from the hole in the wall.

Better the Simbul than himself as a trophy corpse-and one could always find more apprentices. The room he'd peered into exploded with a roar that hurled the ruined wall right at him, shook the building, and brought down ceiling plaster here and there.

Thaltar struck the floor, skidded along on his shoul shy;ders, and somersaulted over backward, calling on one of his rings.

He was just in time. The wall of force flickered into being just as the first hurtling stones reached it. Despite knowing the magic had turned aside arrows, hurled pikes, and even a charging horse on previous occasions, Thaltar backed away, flinching, as a deafening barrage of stone struck it. When the silence fell and the room stopped rocking, he launched himself grimly into a run, sprinting around one end of his spell-spun barrier, head shy;ing for the foe he'd just crisped.

He had to be sure. He had to know she was dead, or at least still his captive, not escaped to creep into his night shy;mares from now on, as he awaited the day the Simbul would smilingly spring the trap that would visit her revenge on the Red Wizard who'd hurt her so.

Thaltar clambered over loose, shifting stone in claw shy;ing haste, climbed into the eddying smoke and dust, and peered into the open area beyond. He could see nothing yet, and waited tensely, listening to stone creak as it cooled.

His hands were raised and another battle spell was ready in his mind, but if he should need that, it was more than likely he'd be turning to flee as swiftly as he'd ever run in his life, from one cache of magic to another, snatching up what he'd need to keep himself alive against a wounded and raging Witch-Queen of Aglarond.

Time stretched; stillness gathered. It was dark in the chamber beyond. Reluctantly-for doing so would betray his presence and whereabouts-he cast a dancing lights spell high and far, to shine down on the settling soot and dust. The room seemed ash-cloaked and lifeless.

Heart sinking, Thaltar Glaervar waited with increas shy;ing foreboding to see what his spellblast had wrought. Wisps of smoke were drifting lazily up from charred fin shy;gertips at the back of the chamber, but that cooked corpse was almost certainly one of the apprentices.

A part of the distant rear wall sighed into collapse then, and the sudden movement brought fear's icy clutch to Thaltar's heart. The Red Wizard tensed anew when there came groans from under and behind that wall, but they were male voices.. and they were too far away to be what concerned him. He was seeking something much nearer, in the scorched stones just below where he crouched.

It was a long time before the air was clear enough to see what he'd been peering at so intently. The headless, ashen form of the other apprentice, leaning against the rock where it had been driven by the blast, became visible first.

He peered, ducking his head to see better. Sitting on its back facing him, just about there, should be-if the gods smiled-what was left of the Simbul…

Smoke drifted away with almost taunting lassitude, then was gone.

The impatient Red Wizard found himself staring at a figure of ashes. Smoke still curled up from the feature shy;less, hairless figure; he knew that at a touch the charred remnants of flesh would fall away from the bones beneath, and the bones in turn collapse.

But one smoldering arm still held a wand aloft. It was unmarked by fire, and therefore almost certainly still magically potent, and it was pointed at him.

Thaltar left a frightened little gulp in his wake as he ducked down his side of the rocks, sliding helplessly for a few seconds. He lay there panting for a moment or two, staring up at the scorched ceiling, and in his mind saw again the utter ashen ruin of the body.

No, the Simbul was dead. No will or wit remained to trigger that wand. He told himself that several times on his careful clamber back up the scorched rocks, to look down again. Everything was as it had been. The smok shy;ing, ashen form with the wand in its hand had not moved.

Thaltar let out a long sigh of relief, then cast a careful spell. When he used its magic to whisk the wand away, the hand that had gripped it crumbled into drifting ash. He brought the wand to a gentle landing not far from his foot, in a cleft where it couldn't possibly roll to touch him, and cast another spell.

A storm cloud of flickering purple darkness came into being above the ashes, and at his soft command, burst into a brief rainfall-a torrent that crashed down on the ashes that had once been the Simbul. The hissing and bubbling was almost deafening. Thaltar watched the sitting figure slump to ashen bones then to nothingness, and kept on watching until the acid of his spell had eaten its way deep into the stones that had underlain the destroyed sorceress, and the hissing was done.

Only then did he look down at the wand. He watched the motionless stick of wood for a long time before he bent, snatched it up in triumph, and cried forth a shout that echoed back from the battered walls and ceilings around, "And so at last the Witch-Queen is laid low!"

The other ring on his finger winked, and he was gone from that place, ignoring the groans of dying Red Wizards.

The sphere of crystal floating over the table winked and sparkled into life. Sixteen people sat straighter in their chairs and tried to look impassive. Eleven of them shook out the sleeves of their purple, red-sashed robes, and two of them ran nervous hands over their black skullcaps and squared their shoulders so that the purple Eye of Shar on their breasts hung unwrinkled. Rings winked and glittered up and down the table like votive temple candles flickering in a breeze.

The sphere flashed again, as if in a signal, and one of the two women at the table leaned forward and said calmly, "Let us begin. We face a problem that, if unat shy;tended, will perhaps soon be a crisis. Two of those absent this night will never sit at this or any other table again. Roeblen and Azmyrandyr are dead."

There was a stir around the table, murmurs of excite shy;ment that stilled as the woman spoke again.

"They were destroyed, we believe, by the spells of the Witch-Queen of Aglarond, and we must assume that these murders were more than her long-running cam shy;paign to rid Faerun of all Red Wizards. They may be just that, but we here must for our mutual safety take the view that they are blows struck deliberately at us-just as when Dove Falconhand of the Seven Sisters appeared far from her usual haunts to slaughter many of our dark elf allies in Scornubel, where Qilue Veladorn also struck out at us, shortly thereafter. Qilue was soon afterward seen in Skullport with her sister Laeral, spying on some of our operations. This was barely a day before one of our number was hampered in his activities in Silverymoon by another of the Seven, the High Lady Alustriel. Significantly, the operative in that case called upon the services of three Red Wizards to aid him in battle against the Chosen. Roeblen and Azmyrandyr were two of those mages."

Eyes up and down the table strayed to where Thaltar Glaervar sat, looking as impassive as he knew how. Many knew who the third mage was, and would now be wondering…

"The link that fires our suspicions," the woman con shy;tinued, "is that the operative who so narrowly escaped Alustriel in Silverymoon was almost slain by spells that destroyed the home in which he was living in disguise, shortly after several witnesses saw a silver-haired woman-and I need hardly say that silver hair is a dis shy;tinctive mark of the Chosen-on the premises. This befell not long before the deaths of Roeblen and Azmyrandyr."

The speaker paused, then, but no one murmured any shy;thing into the tense silence that cloaked her glancing up and down the table, and finally up at the globe hanging above them. Her dark eyes flashed with excitement as she leaned forward still more, placing her elbows on the table, and added, "Wherefore we are gathered to warn all, and discuss what should best be done to counter future attacks upon us by the Chosen. We know not the extent of their knowledge of us, but again, for safety's sake, must assume that they know all." Her gaze flicked up and down the table again ere she added the formal phrase, "Let one speak now who brings wisdom to the matter at hand."

One of the Red Wizards seated near to her stirred and said, "If the Seven know less than all about us, one here at this table stands in the greatest danger. Protecting him with our risen power, in a covert trap, would seem to be our logical course."

The wizard did not bother to look at Thaltar, but heads turned to regard him up and down the table.

The woman met Thaltar's eyes, and said gravely, "Lord Skloon uses the word 'logical,' and I find myself in no disagreement with that. How do you feel about living, for an indeterminate time to come, in the midst of battle-ready colleagues who must needs watch your every move if they are to protect you?"

Thaltar shrugged. "If it is needful, Speaker Amalrae," he said calmly, "I have no particular objection. I fill chamber pots in the usual manner, I live a relatively quiet life of study, and as all here know, Red Wizards have no secrets."

This deadpan sally was received around the table with an amusement that could be felt more than heard. Thaltar leaned forward as Amalrae had done, and added quietly, "I do think it may be needful-and that the Red Wizards of Thay have been handed an opportunity this day that the gods themselves could not have bettered. An opportunity all of us here at this table share."

"How so?"

"I speak of an opportunity to unleash magic as we never have before, against foes we know are coming. A chance to rid Faerun forever of annoyingly meddlesome women with silver hair."

Another wizard frowned, and said in a deep voice, "How can you be so sure that we can know these foes will come to a specific place or time?"

Thaltar Glaervar turned cool eyes to meet those of the deep-voiced wizard and replied, "Lord Harkon, they will come to me-wherever I am, and soon, in fury unmatched. We must be ready for them, or this opportunity is squan shy;dered."

Harkon raised his eyebrows and said, "You presume overmuch as to your own importance, methinks. Why 'they'? Why not just the Simbul, the only one of the Seven to consistently hunt Red Wizards-the only one of the Seven to thus far act against the Red Wizards among us?"

Thaltar allowed a smile to cross his face for the first time at that meeting as he rose and replied, "I have good reason to believe that we shall shortly be entertaining more of the Seven than we might wish to, and that the Simbul will not be among them. Perhaps I do flatter myself, Lord Harkon, but I think I am now sufficiently important to be noticed by Chosen of Mystra all over Toril. I've just come from one of my abodes, where I found it necessary to replenish my spells. That necessity arose in an incident wherein I procured this."

From the flaring sleeve of his robe Thaltar shook out a wand, and set it gently on the table.

"Before you ask why I'm showing you a wand that to the eye resembles many another," he continued, "I must tell all here that bare hours ago this wand was aimed at me by the Witch-Queen of Aglarond herself."

His gaze swept the table. Every eye was fixed on him, and the room was utterly silent. For the first time ever, he had the full attention-and respect-of the gathered cabal.

Thaltar drew in a deep breath and told them, "Alone I contended against her, and alone I prevailed. I have slain the Simbul. Colleagues of Thay, Aglarond is ours!"

His words brought instant uproar. Thaltar permitted himself a real smile amid the din, as he saw just what he'd expected to see on the faces of his fellow Red Wiz shy;ards: wary disbelief, wonderment, and the dawning of sudden hope, even glee. The scrying globe overhead flashed as it rolled over to allow the being staring out of its depths to better examine the wand.

Thaltar had suspected that producing the wand would result in a rolling away of the mask of mists that had always cloaked the features of the man in the globe. He wasn't disappointed. Peering up through his own eye shy;brows as he tried to keep his head tilted down, he saw the globe shimmer and clear, then beheld an elderly man seated at a table. Eyes that snapped with alert intelli shy;gence peered out of the globe. Thaltar saw long white hair and a bald-crowned head, gaunt features, and hands clasped on the table in the foreground. On one finger of those hands was a long, iridescent green ring that looked like the carapace of a beetle.

It was rare for the man in the sphere to speak, but he did so now, in a voice that was cold with misgiving, and sharp with alarm. "What magic do you awaken in the wand now, Red Wizard?"

Thaltar's gaze fell to the wand. As if mocking him, it winked once, then flashed forth a beam of soft green radiance-a beam that passed between two shouting, scrambling wizards of Thay to strike the wall of the meeting chamber, and there splash and spread out in all directions, curving along the walls and floor to cloak them in its glow with astonishing speed.

Thaltar stood frozen, a strange foreboding growing within him, but the other fifteen people in the room worked frantic magics, or made for the doors-only to find them already blocked by a glowing green field that seemed to be made of nothing at all… and yet resisted their every weapon, bodily charge, and spell.

Thaltar almost reached out to snatch up the wand, then drew his hand back. As he backed away from where it lay, the sphere above it flashed again then went dark, leaving behind only a single parting comment: "Fool!"

The glowing field had become an unbroken sphere within the chamber, a humming presence that crowded the folk of the cabal around the table and lifted their boots from the floor with its crackling force, enclosing them.

The beam ended, and Thaltar took an uncertain step back toward the wand-only to recoil as it boiled up into an all-too-familiar shape that stood barefoot atop the table in a garment that was more black tatters than a gown, and smiled coldly at him then around at the assembled folk of the cabal.

"Thay's perennial problem," the Simbul sighed in mock sorrow, turning with her open hand outstretched to indicate the assembled conspirators. "Such an over shy;abundance of Red Wizards, and such a shortage of people fit to be called human."

She shook her head and let her hands fall to her hips-only to vanish, an instant later, in the white, roil shy;ing heart of an inferno of spells.

Wizards all around the chamber hurled their most potent-slaying magics. In the instant before a ricochet shy;ing beam of slicing force took him in the chest and hurled him back into oblivion with one last scream, Thaltar saw something boiling up, like a whirling tor shy;nado, from where the queen of Aglarond had been standing. It seemed to flow up into the glowing field and merge with it, rippling outward as unleashed death raged beneath it. Fire and lighting snarled around the table, which caught fire and burst into flaming splinters in two short instants, and men screamed as they melted into skeletons and were swept away.

Then the slower spells-the fireballs and bursting spheres and gigantic, disembodied hands-took effect, their blasts raging around a glowing sphere that the few surviving eyes in the chamber saw flicker, darken, and grow holes here and there-holes that grew swiftly larger, as the sphere seemed to melt. One Red Wizard was on his feet and thrusting at the glowing field with his dagger. It seemed to darken and give way where he stabbed most energetically.

Hope rose in Speaker Amalrae and in Lord Skloon as they wove magics with hands that trembled with pain, seeking only to shatter this prison woven by the Simbul, and escape.

The holes closed again as the sphere tightened, glow shy;ing brightly once more as it swept the three people in whom life still flickered together into a huddled, snarling group.

"A prismatic wall!" Lord Harkon shouted, his voice high with fear as he flung down his dagger and gestured. "Cast thus, to cut through this-this-"

Words failed him, and he hurled himself into frantic casting.

Skloon glanced up at his fellow lord in grim, head-shaking despair, knowing only too well what was coming. The spells he and Amalrae had woven were going to manifest, rebound from this astonishing field, and strike back at them. It wasn't anti-magic, now, so what was it? A pocket of the stuff the Weave was made of? But that was all so much bardic nonsense, fables told to apprentices as a reason for the limits to the Art that no one understood. Looking into Amalrae's eyes, he could see that she knew their doom too.

"Mystra," he quavered, calling aloud in prayer to the Lady of Mysteries for the first time in long, long decades, "be with us … please?"

"And have mercy," Speaker Amalrae moaned, putting her arms around Skloon in a last embrace that overcame hatred and rivalry. It is never easy to die alone.

There came the flash and roar they'd been dreading, and the three conspirators were hurled together to tumble helplessly around the dwindling sphere as magic clawed and seared, tearing Amalrae apart and burning Skloon into a husk.

Drenched in the Speaker's blood, Lord Harkon rose grimly with his bare hands glowing a bright amber hue. "So much for the mercy of Mystra," he snarled. "She helps those who help themselves!"

He moved his hands as if he were gripping a great sword. His prismatic wall flashed into existence, then, rippling in the air before him in the shape of a sword. Even if his two rivals had lived, the time for secrets was past. This was his greatest innovation, and it just might cut a way to freedom.

Lord Harkon roared his defiance and hacked at the glowing field. It darkened and withdrew a little from his conjured sword, and he slashed again with the prismatic blade.

The glowing field rippled like a sail around him, and seemed to collapse. With a wild, wordless cry of exulta shy;tion, Harkon flailed at it with his blade.

It was gone from above him, dwindling into a snake-like mass that rippled in the air, danced around his blade, and surged down the wizard's throat like a ribbon snake.

Harkon barely had time to choke before the glowing thing expanded, bursting him apart like a ripe tomato. Amid his spattering blood the feebly-glowing, snakelike thing wavered upright in that chamber of death and became the Simbul once more. She was bleeding from many small wounds, and reeled as she stumbled to a wall, leaning against it for support.

"Elminster," she murmured, throwing back her head to gasp out the words she needed to say. "Come. Please."