The Best of the Realms, Book II

BLOODHOUND

It had taken the Master’s little flying eyes half the day to find her.

Tace tried not to smile into their reproving glares as she uncurled herself from the shaded corner she’d found, where the bases of two stone wind-spikes sprouted from one end of a tower balcony. The eyes hovered right in front of her face, angry and unblinking. She tucked the two curved pieces of glass she’d been peering through to magnify distant things—scraps purloined from the floor of the Master’s workchamber—into one of the many pockets of her dusty, clinging leathers, stretched, and murmured, “I come, Master.”

The breeze hissed past her ears as Tace ran lightly along the balcony and sprang into the air at its far end, leaping across emptiness some hundreds of feet above the dusty stone courtyard that ringed the tower to the round brass window she’d left open. She knew it was sturdy enough to take the weight of Maelarkh Throon’s youngest and most slender house slave. Catching its swing-bar with deft fingers, Tace pulled hard, swinging herself feet-first back into Ironwind Tower.

A last, wild glimpse of sun-drenched, rocky Thayan highlands flashed past her gaze, then she was landing on the smooth tiles hard enough to bruise her feet in her soft shoes, but bouncing forward to— feel fingers as cold and hard as iron dig into her shoulder.

“Tantaraze,” Old Sameera said in slow, scandalized outrage, “work is not to be hidden or run from. Slaves live to work. Slaves who do not work do not continue to live!” Old, iron-taloned fingers shook Tace like a dusty cloak.

“This,” Sameera snarled, “you know full well, wherefore my words are wasted, so I’ll let my goad speak for me and just say this: Run to the master, who awaits in his spellchamber! Run just as fast as you can!”

Tace sprang forward in a wild leap the moment Sameera’s grip loosened, but she knew the red fire of the goad’s barbed lashes would crack down her back and behind before she could get quite clear—and they did, sending her staggering. Sameera had been flogging slaves for a long, long time.

The slavemother’s satisfied hiss followed her around the first bend of the passage, the bend that hid the rude “dig my dung” gesture Tace made back at Sameera, and also hid her shoulder-wrigglings to loosen and soothe the goad-fire.

Not from the Master, of course. The flying eyes were darting along by her shoulders as Tace raced. Like a quiet little wind she ran, ducking low at every turn and leaning so close to the crimson and goldglimmer wall hangings that they rippled with the haste of her passage.

She feared the Master, of course, and in a curious way, although she knew full well that she could die at his whim and that he was by far the most dangerous and powerful person in his tower, she also liked him.

More than that: He liked her… or at least was amused by her, and let her tease him, just a little, or betimes steal a sweet tart from the hearthside platters without informing Sameera.

And Tace knew his hot-eyed guards did not touch her, for all her youth, because—and only because—the Master had ordered it so.

Fire flared from some of the rippling goldglimmer as she raced closer to the spellchamber, and the razor-jawed heads of tiny dragons curled forth from the hangings to snap and dart barb-tipped, poisoned tongues at her. Tace avoided them almost scornfully, hurling herself into a roll at one point so as not to slow her storm wind pace. Maelarkh Throon was, after all, a Red Wizard of Thay, and as the saying went, “Death comes for all who cross a Red Wizard, or dare to keep one waiting.”

The doors rolled back into mists at her approach, so Tantaraze bounded, somersaulted, and sprang forward high and wild into a lasting, racing roll that brought her to the very feet of her Master. There she threw herself to the gilded mosaic tiles, lips to his slipper and branded bottom thrust high for chastisement, as she’d seen his pleasure-lasses do when they’d done something to set them weeping with fear and left his face dark with anger.

Maelarkh Throon chuckled above her, then asked almost gently, “And do you truly think there is any place in my tower you can hide from me. Little Dancing Spider?”

“No, Master. Your magic sees all and commands all. Moreover, I am bound to you by something almost as powerful.”

“Oh?” The wizard’s voice went soft, and Tace knew that what she said next was very important.

“By my love for you, Master. Wherefore I would never try to hide from you.”

“Prettily said, my Swiftfalcon. Very prettily. Almost you sound like a rarautha.” A courtesan. Well, Tace had no interest in mixing dusted-gold scents to go beneath her breasts and wherever her limbs bent, nor in wearing elaborately-filigreed, pierced, and upwired gowns with chime-bells or without. Nor did balancing full goblets on her breasts and undulating across a room to piping music seem more alluring than ridiculous, but she could dance for her Master, if that’s what he wanted.

“Though your nether end is pleasant enough, I grow tired of addressing it. Rise, Little Imp, and look at me.”

Tace obeyed as gracefully as she knew how, surging up to her feet to stand with hands clasped behind her, as Sameera had taught her.

Tall and handsome as ever, the Master was smiling at her. She dared to smile back.

Though he was said to be a powerful Red Wizard, Maelarkh Throon never wore red. Whenever Taze had seen him, he’d always been clad in black boots or slippers and sweeping black robes with tight sleeves and cutaways that left his bronzen chest, with its tattoos and many talismans on fine gold chains, bare. That’s what he was wearing now as he towered over her, whatever magic he’d been doing with the Vaedren just finished or momentarily left incomplete. Its gems winking and gleaming, the wristlet floated behind the Master, spinning slowly in midair as it floated above a slender pedestal Tace had never seen before, with spell-smokes curling around it.

Slender and agile, the Master of Ironwind Tower cut a striking figure. Everything about him was alert, awake, and sharp.

His hair was jet black, its edges cut into dagger-sharp swashes and points and its flow brushed straight back and kept that way with sarradder oil. As usual, Tace could smell the quace and lemons of that oil from this close. Throon’s forehead was high, his eyes very large and a deep, striking golden in hue, like those of a falcon, and the brows above them were fierce, tufted into points. His black beard curved into its usual blade-sharp point, and his ring-adorned fingers were long and thin. His fingernails had been cut to razor-points in the manner affected by many Red Wizards to show that they need not sully their hands with work and, Tace had overheard Rauksoun say once, to arm themselves with deadly painted-on poisons with which to doom a foe with a mere scratch.

He tossed his head as if aware of the awe in her scrutiny, and strode toward the arch that led into the next tharm, the golden threads of the warding-sigils woven into its curtain flaring briefly at his approach. “Come, Little Imp.”

The Vaedren drifted after the wizard and Tace scampered right behind it, knowing the curtains that could kill would draw aside for it and let her into the Master’s library.

Tall and bronzen, black robes swirling, Maelarkh Throon swept into the tharm both he and his youngest house slave loved the most, of all the grandtharms in Ironwind Tower.

Its shelves rose like so many pillars, guardian spells crackling unseen before the wizard’s pacings. Rows of mauve, dark purple, and darker green fabric spines, as soft as fur, met Tace’s eager gaze, but the shelves hid the metal corners and clasps she knew each book sported.

Most of the tomes were tall and narrow rectangles, their pages of spell-hardened hide guarded with metallic ink glyphs. The Master had once indulgently told Tace that those glyphs were meaningless writings—poetry, quotations, or just gibberish—inked over the real contents of each book. The glyphs would turn invisible for a time if touched while the right word was spoken, or by a finger wearing the correct enspelled ring. If a glyph was touched otherwise, its magic would slay. Some of the glyphs did other things to those disturbing them, though the Master never specified just what.

Maelarkh Throon drew on the special glowing gloves he always wore to handle books and selected one of his most valued tomes.

Even if he hadn’t handled it so reverently, Tace knew how much he treasured it by its intricate lock, and because its pages were of polished electrum, the writings etched and stamped therein, with illustrations cut with acids to yield iridescent hues.

It was a book she’d seen before, not so long ago, when—.

“You, Little Imp,” the Master said gently, “took the opportunity to hang head-downward from above yon window arch two days back, and tried to read this tome while I had it open. Yes, I did see you. Now tell me. When you gazed on these pages, what did you see?”

Standing facing him, Tace licked her lips and knew by the warm rushing feeling in her face that she was blushing, but wasted no time with half-truths. “Runes I could not read, Master. They twisted as I looked at them, as they always do, and—”

“Ah. As they always do.’ My Swiftfalcon, am I going to have to have you blinded? Or just flogged raw?”

Tace trembled, and the wizard waved a dismissive hand between them and said, “No such nonsense. Not this time. Say more. The runes twisted and—?”

“N-nothing, Master. I could not read them. They gave me a head-pain and forced my eyes away to… look at other things.”

The wizard nodded. “Yet you stayed up there, Little Imp. Did you try to look at the pages again?” “I—I did.”

“And then?” he asked swiftly.

Tace shrugged. “I felt… warm. Like there was a fire in my head. I saw things, like windows opening in darkness, but they all faded right away, before I could really see anything.”

“Ah,” was all the Master said then, and turned away.

He waved a hand, and there was a sudden fire in Tace’s forehead and her right buttock, where her brands were—a fire to match the small flame dancing above the back of the Red Wizard’s hand.

Flames that, as she watched, took on the shape of her brands: a “Z” with outward-pointing arrows of flame floating above and below its two crossbars.

She was burning…

She bit her lip and trembled with the pain, staring at the dancing reflections on the Master’s bronze skin, striving to remain still and silent as sweat drenched her and … the flames died away.

The pain faded with them, and he closed the book, nodding as if that brief magic had told him something, and put it back in its place.

Then he drew off his gloves, leaving them on his lectern. Their g\aws flowed down over the lectern and became invisible, leaving them just… gloves.

Tace knew that he needed them to handle most of the books because of the talisman he never took off—except in the spellchamber. That little star next to his skin made things of metal fall right through him, which was why almost every drinking-goblet, bowl, spoon, fork, or knife in Ironwind was not of metal, but of carved bone or fire-hardened, worked wood.

Smiling faintly, the Master came toward her.

“Mmaster,” she whispered, fear rising to become a cold flame in her every bit as searing as the heat of his magic had been, “I—I—”

“Hush, Little Imp,” he said softly. “I come not to punish, but to learn truth. Stand very still.”

He loomed over her, closer than he’d ever been. Tace could smell him, a dusky scent mingled with the familiar hair-oil. Above her trembling head, the wizard murmured something.

Then, without warning, he thrust two of his long fingers up her nostrils. They reeked of spicy smoke and Tace almost choked.

His other hand was suddenly a claw around the back of her neck, holding her against his probing fingers, not letting her pull away … and something like blue-white fire, only gurgling like rainstorm water gouting out of an Ironwind waterspout, was racing through her head.

She screamed, or thought she did, as the library swam and tilted around her.

As if someone had heard her, golden radiance blossomed in the soft gloom of the library as warding-spells parted and their curtain with them—and Varlbit, her Master’s younger apprentice, was striding through them with a message scroll in his hands and a puzzled frown on his face.

His eyes fixed on her and widened—then Tace was stumbling as the Master turned to face his arriving apprentice.

Who gaped at him and blurted, “I–Is this not a good time, Master? Should I return later?”

* * * * *

“So, Sir Zhent,” Storm said in a voice as cold as the steel against his throat, “you will make demands of me in my own cucumber patch now, is that it?”

The warrior felt the cold prickling of his own enchanted steel, choking him as he tried to swallow.

Fear, rage, and incredulity warred and wrestled in him: This woman should not have the strength to hold him back! The magic on his blade should slice her weavings like cobwebs—else that snakeguts priest of Shar had lied to him!

Lied.

Well, of course.

“Have you any last words?” the Bard of Shadowdale murmured, her hand tightening around his neck. Steel to slice his throat in front, her fingers like stone talons behind …

Whimpering, the Zhentarim shuddered in her grasp, teeth chattering.

“Can you give me good reason not to end all your deeds now? ” she asked softly, her blood still running down her breast in streams from the slashes he’d dealt her at his first strike.

Nuthland of the Zhentarim met her eyes almost pleadingly, and managed to firmly shake his head. “N-no,” he managed to gasp. “At least I can speak truth to you… Lady. Let it be quick, if you can find any mercy.”

“That much,” Storm Silverhand said softly, “and more.” She flung the blade of Shar high into the air and watched it dissolve in a flurry of blue stars and flames as the waiting spirits of Mystra and Azuth savaged it together. “No steel shall shed your blood.”

Her fingers tightened and his neck broke with a wet crunch. His head lolled, eyes going dark.

Wearily the lady bard embraced the body, calling up the sacred silver fire to sear away any contingencies or death-magics that might have been cast on the Zhent slayer to endanger her or Shadowdale around her.

Her blood snarled and scorched up into sickening blue fire as those flames did their work. Storm clenched her teeth against brief agony, then flung her head back and gasped in relief as it slowly died, leaving her clutching a cooked, smoking, claw-fingered corpse.

Someone cleared their throat behind her, nervously.

Storm whirled around, her smock ashes upon her and the Zhentarim literally crumbling in her grasp. She gazed into the face of Sorele, the egg-seller from Thorm Arthauvin’s farm up the road, with a full basket of great brown freshlaid.

The plump little maid was trembling in… fear? Awe?

Sorele stared wide-eyed at the skull-like, flopping face of the Zhent, then backed up at Storm’s frown, and grinned weakly.

“Is this not a good time, Lady? Should I come back later?”

* * * * *

At the sound of their voices, Tantaraze froze, or tried to. Her shudderings, however, refused to stop.

The Master had done no more to her but dismiss her curtly, but his magic had left her numb and tingling, trembling uncontrollably on the verge of a helpless flood of tears.

She’d fled through the tower like the wild wind she was, seeking one of her best hiding places. She was sweating so hard on that run that her bare feet kept slipping and she’d nearly tumbled to her death getting out a particular window and up onto the roof above.

Nearly.

Now she was wedged comfortably in the largest roof downspout, its smooth, shaded stone close and reassuring around her. Bone dry of course, after days of drought. Tace huddled in it, trembling and shuddering. It was that spell. It was doing something to her… still doing something to her, long after the Master had ended it, taken his scroll, and started talking to Varlbit.

Varlbit was talking now, not with the Master, but with the Master’s oldest apprentice, Rauksoun.

Tace hated them both, but where Varlbit was merely vicious, the not-yet-Red-Wizard Rauksoun was … a cold, patient blade awaiting a chance to slay his Master and take all Ironwind for himself.

The Master knew it, of course, and his smile was especially soft when he talked with Rauksoun, but—

What had he done to her? Oh, she belonged to Maelarkh Throon, and he could cook and eat her on a whim if he wanted to. Twasn’t that. She liked him, knew he liked her and also knew from slave-talk that most others in Thay had it far worse, but… this magic had awakened something that Tace was sure the Master hadn’t noticed or intended.

Something she’d best keep hidden from him and from his apprentices, too.

They must be in the chamber just beside her, the buzzard-cote at the very top of this westernmost side-spire. But what would those two highnoses be doing in such a cramped, dung-stinking place?

“He’ll be at least another bell working that spell! We have that long.”

Varlbit’s voice held anger, and he was panting almost as hard as Tace was. She threw her head back and fought to slow her breathing, trying hard to be quieter.

“So talk,” Rauksoun murmured calmly.

“That little klareen Tantaraze! She was in the library with Throon just now, and had somehow convinced him to mind-bond with her! She’s trying to ensorcel him!”

“Calm yourself, Varl.” Tace could hear the superior smile in Rauksoun’s voice. “I know better —and you should.”

The tingling in Tace became a momentary jab of pain— someone had worked a spell, very close by—then died away almost to nothing. There came a flash of radiance through a chink in the downspout stonework, a glow that did not fade.

Tace peered through the tiny hole and found herself staring at—herself. Or rather, a glowing image of herself, floating in the empty air outside the low arched windows of the cote. Standing upright, looking just as she did in the Tower mirrors—and revolving slowly to show both back and front.

Bare, of course, as she always was. Dusky skin, bony slim, with all her ribs showing and her hip bones sticking out like wings. Long, long legs; large red-brown eyes; copper hued hair cut short to show the Master’s brand on her forehead, the same brand as she wore on the right cheek of her behind … aye, there. And when she grew older and her head was shaved, would also wear it on her back and face—the right cheek, again…

” ‘Swiftfalcon,’ he calls her, or ‘Imp,’ or ‘Little Dancing Spider.’ Worry not, Varl: she’s his plaything, not his lover. Fleet of foot, full of too much mischief and even more curiosity… could turn into a good sneak-thief, yes. And you know as well as I do that she has too smart a tongue in her head for any slave.”

“Exactly! What’s so special about her? That’s what I want t—”’

“And you shall. Varl, Throon purchased this Tantaraze when she was a pewling babe. He bought her because his spells showed him she had a natural aptitude for magic.”

“A sorceress! But of course! Don’t you see? She’ll be his lover, his bride, inherit his Art instead of us—”

“Varl, be still. Look at her! She’s no particular prize right now, and could have grown up to be the ugliest sow this side of far Calimshan! Throon could have his pick of sevenscore spell-witches at any MageFair, right? Yes?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“But nothing. Listen and learn. Now, this little Tace has been trained to be a ‘fetch this, hold this, keep quiet about this’ servant, and told this sort of service will continue if she doesn’t misbehave enough to be slain, maimed, turned into an experiment, tossed out of Ironwind to fend for herself, or just sold.”

“Yes,” Varlbit said, a little sullenly. “And so?” “And so everything changes when her moonbleeds begin. It always does.” “Yes, but—”

“Yes but Throon has had a fate in mind for this one since he bought her! She’s going to be ‘bloodhound’ to him.”

“And taught magic as his apprentice, hrast it!”

“True, but not as we’re taught magic. Varl, don’t you know what bloodbinding is? She’ll be an utter mind-slave. Throon will be able to ‘ride her mind,’ sharing her thoughts and controlling her body at will, whenever he desires.”

Tace stiffened, suddenly as cold as the winter winds. So that was why Sameera had been watching her so closely, and sniffing at her.

Oh, gods! She had to get out of here, away from Ironwind! She had to take herself to where the Master could never find her!

But where? By all the Watching Gods, where?

She clawed her way up out of the downspout in silent haste, so frantically that her fingertips left bloody smudges on the stones. She was trembling again, shaking like a banner snatched by a rising wind.

Across many roofs rose another side-spire of Ironwind, and Little Trapped Tantaraze raced toward it, scrambling up and around and over, going to where she could perch and think.

Or try to think of what she could not see just now: a way out. A way out.

* * * * *

“But enough of that scrawny little doomed one,” Rauksoun said dismissively, spell-floating on his belly above the dung. “She’s nothing, but there are some important things you should know.”

Varlbit licked dry lips. “What things?”

“Do you know what the Vaedren truly is?”

“Some sort of beast, spell trapped inside that wristlet. It gives the thing sentience, limited, I think, but enough to control the power-gems Throon has been enspelling. He’s trying to augment it right now.”

Rauksoun nodded. “You’ve read the right books. Good. I don’t know what manner of creature a ‘Vaedren’ is, or was, but I doubt it matters anymore. Throon devised the wristlet himself and it’s been his portal passkey for years. This last season, though, he seems to have fallen in love with the thing.”

“Meaning?”

Rauksoun shrugged. “He’s getting restless, perhaps?” “No,” Varlbit snapped, “I mean, fallen in love with it how?”

“Ah. All it used to do was allow its bearer to sense nearby portals and to make them operate safely, without knowing

their specifics, but these last few months he’s given up just storing spells in its gems and started infusing it with additional powers.”

“How do you know this?”

“I keep my eyes open, Varl, and my brain working—little things you should have mastered years ago.”

The younger apprentice hissed in anger, but said only, “Suppose you tell me what you’ve so keenly seen and reasoned about these ‘additional powers,’ then.”

“Throon’s worried about what might happen to him if an unfamiliar portal takes him to a place of great danger or hostility—a frigid ice waste, say, or somewhere unknown in the Underdark, or the depths of the sea. To protect himself against such places, he’s been trying to augment the Vaedren to enable him to take the shape of certain formidable beasts.”

“The monsters he’s been summoning and slaying?” “Those very beasts, yes.”

Varlbit studied the older apprentice, eyes narrowing. “We’ve always been something of rivals, Rauk. So why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m worried about the skins of everyone in Ironwind Tower. The Master isn’t training either of us swiftly enough, and never instructs those new so-called ‘prentices at all! Old Tharlund just shuffles down to them with our old workbooks and leaves them to try those spells on their own! Throon spends all of his time cooing over the Vaedren, when he should be crafting deathwhirls by the dozen, so we’ll both have something to hurl when the attacks come!”

“Attacks?”

“Varl, are you stone-blind and brainless? Who do you think Throon’s greatest rival is?”

“Oh. Rundarvas Thaael, of course.”

“Brilliant. Astoundingly perceptive. Wonderful! So, have you spent a single spell farscrying Thaaeltor this last, say, year or so?”

“You know I haven’t,” Varl said grimly. “What’re they up to?”

“I don’t know, because Thaael has trebled his wards and

thrown up spellscreens and linked guardian beasts to them, so my every probe gets me a mooncalf—or worse—coming for me, right back down the line of my spell! Now, doesn’t that worry you?”

Varl swallowed. “Y-yes. Thaael swore to slay the Master ‘soon,’ and that was a year ago.”

“Indeed,” Rauksoun agreed bitterly. “And right now, as we float here whispering at each other, Maelarkh Throon is down in that spellchamber gaining darkvision—darkvision!—for his precious Vaedren, when he should be arming Ironwind Tower!”

* * * * *

The portal flashed, purple radiance flickering over Maelarkh Throon’s face. He smiled, hands still raised in the last gesture of his spell, and watched it flash again. There…

Down a long spiral of crawling purple lightnings it was coming, racing at him out of the depths of his portal, ensnared by his reaching spell from the cold lightlessness of the Underdark and snatched here, right into— his ready spellweb, flaring now into fiery life as the lurker plunged into it, beating its great stonelike flaps furiously, writhing like a netted manta ray. Doomed already.

He would have its darkvision, its flight, and the stonelike appearance of its hide, in that order. He murmured the word that linked him with the spellweb so he could set it to work—and start feeding…

* * * * *

“He’s drunk on sucking that beast dry,” a coldly gloating voice observed, “and sees nothing else.” “Is our time come at last, Master?” “It is. You know what to do.”

The apprentice nodded, swallowed, and carefully began a much-practiced spell.

Rundarvas Thaael smiled and waved his second apprentice forward. And his third, fourth, and fifth. There were many portals to subvert and alter, and such things took time. Hasty work is always sloppy work.

* * * * *

The wristlet glowed warmly against his skin. Throon smiled and reached with his mind into its familiar surging glows, seeking flight…

And finding it. Ahhh.

As the Master of Ironwind Tower settled gently down onto the stones at the far end of his spellchamber, some of the magics of the spellweb started to sing eerily.

He frowned. No power surge should—.

But no matter. ‘Twould be the work of but moments to sweep those spells into smooth dissolution, using the Vaedren to drink their roilings and prevent a hundred-odd small magics through Ironwind from being shattered or twisted into unstable untrustworthiness, then—

[brightflash]

Faerun exploded raw around him.

“Yes!” Thaael exulted and without pausing a moment, snapped, “Now, don’t stop to watch your work. Twill be many, many breaths ere you’ll be able to see anything useful anyway, after a portal-blast!”

He strode excitedly across a room alive with the surging sparks of aroused Art, his paunch wobbling. “We overwhelmed it very handily, so Throon’s stunned or worse, but his wards are probably triggering already.”

Stopping beside the rays of thrumming white light that were stabbing from every fingertip of his most competent apprentice, he gestured grandly at that unfolding magic.

“Behold. Join to Ahraul’s spell, now, all of you. Yon portal is Throon’s weakest. It must be forced wide, and the beast thrust through! Then we’ll see blood wash the walls of Ironwind Tower!”

Maelarkh Throon screamed, or thought he did, in the white blinding dazzle that was all he could see.

There was still smooth stone under his boots, but otherwise he might just as well have been staggering through the heart of a fire that neither seared nor cooked, but brought him utter silence and nothing to see but an endless white void.

A strange discordant sound rose out of nowhere, swimming and warbling eerily to draw seemingly louder and nearer, and reveal itself as several excited men’s voices chanting incantations. The words, like the voices, were unfamiliar, but that cadence was unmistakable, and Throon could judge from syllables that the unseen chanters were working a spell together that had something to do with portals…

Haularake! He had to see!

He tried to work one of the most powerful spells he knew—one of the most prized secrets of the senior Red Wizards—to return his body to what it had been before the blast. Tamtornar’s Rendever snuffed out great handcounts of spells from memory in an instant and succeeded only slightly more often than it failed, but now, as always when a desperate mage tried it, it could mean the difference between oblivion and survival.

His unheard tongue seemed made of thick mud, and his unseen fingers were both numb and heavy … the spell… could he… by all the…

The Vaedren! If he called on the Rendever stored within it—

* * * * *

The impenetrable pearly void flickered, faded, and began to darken. Maelarkh Throon tried very hard not to sob in relief. The spell-chant seemed to be coming from that direction, and seemed also to be rising to a conclusion—a triumphant conclusion, blast it!

Even as some darkness returned to his vision, and glimpses of his spellchamber with it, laced with drifting smoke, there was a fresh burst of brightness, laced with a shattering roar. A tremor shook the room, almost tossing the Master of Ironwind Tower off his feet.

Sparks were flooding forth from that conflagration and dying almost as soon as Throon saw them, only to be supplanted by more motes surging from behind. The motes surged from the widening, angrily glowing maw of what had been his least stable portal, the one he’d planned to gird with at least two more forcebrace spells before using again. Something, no, someowe, using magic as powerful as his own had seized control over that warp-way and was widening it, either to force something gigantic through it or to ensure that something unwilling could be thrust through it, struggling, and not be harmed in the passage.

Throon called on the Vaedren to drink the energies of his spellweb, collapsing it in dangerous haste, because just now, taking the slow, careful, usual way of dismantling the webwork of magics was undoubtedly far more dangerous. Something large and dark was already looming up in the widening maw of the portal, something batwinged and shambling, as large and as gnarl-muscled as an ogre, its dark-rimmed eyes flashing with unfriendly menace, and a writhing forest of what looked like hungry red sucking worms where its belly should be.

Throon had seen such beasts before, both deep in the Underdark and in tomes where a long-ago sage’s odd sense of humor had caused him to label such creatures “ineffable horrors.”

Ineffable, indeed. Hungry and hostile, quite evidently. Already the thing was erupting out of the portal, trembling with the pain of brushing against surging energies in its haste to pounce on the lone Red Wizard standing before it and begin feeding.

The Master of Ironwind Tower calmly lashed it with the raw powers of the collapsing spellweb, searing the beast so that it shuddered and trailed both stinking smoke and fluids leaking from bubbling skin. But it spread its great hands wide to grapple and crush, and continued lumbering toward him.

Throon slashed at it again, unleashing all the spellweb energies in a great burst that momentarily blinded him and hurled his foe away.

Yet when the dazzle faded from his eyes and the last sparks winked out in the air around Throon, the horror still stood, its breast gaping open and most of its tentaclelike sucking intestines dangling in sizzling ruin.

It had been driven against the far wall of the room with some force… but now peeled itself away from those stones with an audible sucking sound, leaving patches of scorched hide behind, and came lumbering toward him again.

* * * * *

“Not so swift, Throon,” Rundarvas Thaael snarled into his scrying orb, baring his teeth in an unlovely smile. “You’ll not escape that easily.”

He turned to a third portal, now gaping open under the combined efforts of three sweating apprentices and carefully cast a spell through it that consumed two tiny vials of liquid. The first to wink out of existence contained some of the purple-green ichor of the ineffable horror, but the second was one he’d treasured for years, containing as it did four precious drops of blood spilled long ago by a certain young and ambitious Red Wizard by the name of Maelarkh Throon.

“Let what afflicts one afflict the other,” he murmured, turning back to his orb to see if the bloodlink had worked. The next damage the Master of Ironwind Tower dealt to the Underdark monster should also be suffered by Throon himself. Or to put it another way, this should be good…

* * * * *

Dust both rained and reigned in the halls and tharms of Ironwind Tower. The screams had ended, but curses could still be heard amid the rebounding echoes of the turret-shaking blasts that had raised the blinding cloak of dust through whose gloom many folk were scurrying.

Most of them were servants busily fleeing out and down, seeking the lower shauls, but a handful were Throon’s apprentices.

They came rushing the other way, hurrying to the Master’s spellchamber.

Not one of them really expected to reach it in time.

* * * * *

Maelarkh Throon cursed as he felt his hands begin to boil. The hulking horror was lurching forward at him despite its obvious pain and this new pain of his own could mean only one thing. Some of the Art lashing and surging around the riven chamber must be a bloodlink spell, cast from afar on him.

To bind him to the monster now shambling forward to slay him, no doubt, so that any harm he dealt it would also be visited on him.

That left him with only his hands, and any knife he could snatch, against its great reach and corded muscles. Which meant that the Master of Ironwind Tower would die in agony, sucked bloodless, long before the larger, stronger ineffable horror perished.

Already his arms were growing heavy, and his tongue thickening. The Vaedren burned on Maelarkh’s wrist, and with a hiss of satisfaction he sank into that pain, seized on it, and rode it down into the tireless blood-red throb of linked enchantments…

If Thaael had cast the bloodlink using old Omslauvur’s incantation, it could be shattered thus…

The Vaedren’s surge was as fierce as he could make it; the bloodlink was already heavy upon him. For more than a moment Maelarkh Throon staggered blindly through a wild chaos of bursting radiances, sickening surges, and ear-clawing shrieks as enchantments sliced at each other, crashed into entanglements, bit, melted, sheared, and spilled Art wildly in all directions.

His limbs were heavier, his shoulders broader, and his balance different. Maelarkh Throon tried to curse, but found that his voice had become deep and somehow liquid.

He’d twisted the forming bloodlink, not smashed the spell—so while there was no link between the ineffable horror and himself, there was also no longer any difference in their shapes.

The Vaedren on his wrist was the only way any of his apprentices could recognize the Master of Ironwind Tower now. From batwings to writhing intestines, Maelarkh Throon was every lumbering inch an ineffable horror.

* * * * *

“Hrast!” Rundarvas Thaael slammed his fist down on the spellbook floating before him, sending it swooping away in a tinkling of clashing metal pages to crash into the bookshelf it had come from. “How did he do that? Surely that silly bracelet can’t—”

He threw up his hands to wave away the rest of his useless question, whirled around in a vicious whirring of robes, and snapped to his apprentices, “You and you—through the portals! Get into Throon’s spellchamber and slaughter both beasts. It matters nothing to me if you can see that wristlet clearly on one of them and not the other. He may be able to trade places with the Underdark creature! Go!”

Though Ahraul was one of the most able apprentices of Thaaeltor, his master hadn’t ordered him to plunge through a warp-way into Ironwind. He itched to do so, to slay then plunder. Yet he knew better than to utter a sound just now— as Rundarvas Thaael whirled around, paunch wobbling, and said gleefully, “Be ready. I shall watch what befalls in Ironwind—and you shall be my lightning, striking in a trice at my command!”

Ahraul inclined his head in a solemn nod, but Thaael had already spun back to stare into his scrying orb, so as not to miss an instant more. He was leaning forward like a hunting beast straining at the leash, hungry to pounce and plunder Ironwind of spellbooks and the like, the moment battle was done. A moment later, a sound arose from deep in his throat.

The Master of Thaaeltor had started to growl.

The horror was coming for him, seared chest and all.

Maelarkh Throon did not stay to greet it. Hastening across the room as swiftly as his unfamiliar body allowed him, the Red Wizard touched a certain sequence of widely separated tomes, ignoring the flaring radiances of magic that arose angrily from them, and stepped back as a section of shelving flung itself open, swinging wide like a door.

Wood groaned and splintered as broad shoulders struck them. Throon hissed in pain, wrenched himself around sideways, and kept going into the secret passage beyond, a scant breath before the air in front of the shelves grew a sudden forest of stabbing blades.

Robed men were racing out of the glowing maws of his ruined portals now, and hurling far more fearsome spells. Lightnings clawed and crackled along the shelves, causing wardings on many books to flare up into angry little whirlwinds. The air acquired many tiny black stars that blossomed into blind teardrops with energetically snapping jaws. More than a few of these vanished in puffs of smoke at the touch of ruby lances of deadly force, rays that found no Maelarkh Throon to rend.

One book burst into flames and another flashed as its shield spells sent the ray that had touched it racing back at the apprentice of Thaaeltor who’d cast it.

And somewhere beyond a door close by, Rauksoun was standing in an alcove murmuring words he’d never have dared use if all was well in Ironwind Tower, incantations that used the secret names of lesser apprentices that only they and the Master were supposed to know.

Words that sent orders crashing iron-strong into their minds as they came racing, commands that sent them fearlessly into the spellchamber to hurl spells of their own heedless of the danger.

That very bold fearlessness sent the ‘prentice called Yaus down to death before he’d taken more than three steps and forced Belarl to expose himself to the spell that tore the flesh from his face and throat and left him gurgling and dying, starved of air.

Yet that same boldness forced the spellblast that slew Kelsyn of Thaaeltor, and a breath later Urlaunt and Larass Haun, too, ere sending Elskryn Marthel, Thaael’s newest and now-favorite apprentice, reeling into the jaws of a tome-spell that rendered him boneless.

Helplessly he slumped to the floor, a shapeless mass of flesh that roiled vainly in an endless attempt to breathe, let alone move … thrashings that soon weakened into feebleness.

By then Rauksoun had run out of apprentices to send to their dooms, and the spellchamber glowed with awakened spells that made it a deadly place indeed—but two handcounts of apprentices that the distant Rundarvas Thaael had angrily ordered through the portals into Ironwind were dead or worse and a mere handful had managed to reach the passage Thaael had seen his transformed foe plunge through.

Throon’s waiting traps made their numbers shrink fast, and some of the survivors abandoned pursuit of the monster wearing the enchanted bracelet and made their own ways across Ironwind Tower, slaughtering every living thing they found.

Gutless fools! No more discipline in them than the pleasure-wenches he’d taught to conjure handfire! Who, come to think of it, were about all the apprentices he had left, except…

With a snarl of exasperation, Rundarvas Thaael ordered Ahraul into the fray.

* * * * *

Tace knew not what the little room had been intended for, but she was almost certain its existence—not just its purpose—had been forgotten long ago.

It was deep in the storage chambers at one end of Ironwind: a long stone room bare but for empty, sagging storage cupboards, a thick carpet of dust, and a decaying couch. Tace had found it because some fading spell caused this particular tharm to kindle its own faint glow of light whenever she entered it. Its lone door had a bar so stout she could barely lift it, to keep the world out until she wanted to step into it again.

She didn’t know if she ever wanted to do that.

When she flung herself down on the couch to whimper and wonder what to do, the ancient thing promptly collapsed with a dry little groan, pitching her onto the floor.

Where Little Trapped Tantaraze sat and sobbed quietly, mind whirling but empty of answers.

Where could she go? Where?

The magic of Red Wizards could reach everywhere, and— There was a flash and a bang from high on the wall above her, and Tace screamed, just for a moment, as she flung herself away from… one of the storage cupboards.

She knew it was empty. She’d checked all of them, scores of times, but one of its doors was now gaping open crazily, a few tiny motes of restless light winking and dying along its edges.

She’d felt Ironwind shudder earlier, and heard many later, fainter spellbursts, one of them only a few breaths ago. Someone was making war with spells, war that the Master couldn’t quell. If the gods truly smiled on Tantaraze, he just migh—

The cupboard fell off the wall with a long groan, then came a crash that sent Tace right across the room and halfway up the far wall. It split apart in a confusion of crumbling boards as she watched, and something gleaming came rolling out of it.

The Vaedren.

Shining as it came toward her…

She stared at it, mouth going dry. Had the Master somehow traced her here? Was it going to keep rolling, right up to touch her and visit some horrible magic on her? Was—…

The air suddenly pulsed and pounded, making Tace wince.

Not from the wristlet, which was settling into a circling stop on the floor, not far from her, but from the door. The only door. Swiftfalcon, earn your name! Tace flung herself forward—too late.

By the time she skidded to a halt, she was almost embracing the sudden, swiftly-widening whorl of racing sparks.

Out of nowhere it had grown to fill that end of the room, barring her way out. She’d seen the Master create such a thing before, and knew all too well what it was: a portal was forming in her not-forgotten-enough room, right between her and the door.

As she stared, it flared to the height of the largest ornate arches in Ironwind’s grandtharms, crackling along the ceiling, and vomited forth something out of nightmare.

A great, hulking monster strode unsteadily into the room. The ragged, scorched remnants of batwings protruded from slashed and burned shoulders wider than the couch had been. Two eyes blazed at her out of a face that was little more than a hood of flesh, above a forest of snakelike, reaching tentacles—glistening, hungry things that protruded from its belly. Huge, gnarled hands and forearms reached for her— Tace screamed again, trying to climb the wall without turning her back on the thing.

It was coming for her, dragging itself across the room on its knuckles, limping and lurching with the pain-wracked, uneven gait of the clearly wounded. Tiny lightnings leaped and crackled across its brown-green hide as it came, and Tace saw that they were playing about the hilts of daggers that had been thrust deep into it, very recently.

One great, long-nailed hand reached out…

Not for her, but for the Vaedren. Clawing it up awkwardly, the monster flung it at Tace.

Trembling, mutely terrified, she caught it purely out of habit.

The creature waved a finger at her menacingly.

Tace clung to the Vaedren and mewed in fear. It was smooth and heavy and warm, and she found herself sobbing.

The great misshapen beast plunged that finger down to its wounds, then to the flagstones, to scratch aside the dust in a bloody trail that formed —letters!

The thing was writing a word on the flagstones in front of her, and that word was… Avenge!

Tace stared down at it, then up at that fearsome face.

That fierce stare burned into hers and those huge hands moved with careful, reassuring slowness, pointing at the Vaedren then at her wrist.

“Ace,” it rumbled, in a bubbling ruin of a voice.

Tace took a step back, lips trembling. “Mmaster?”

The great ugly head nodded.

“Master Throon?”

The monster before her shuddered all over, as if struggling to—to—just for a moment, Tantaraze saw its flesh flow and change, collapsing into something much more slender. Then the great shoulders shrugged and the beast gestured again for her to take up the Vaedren and put it on her wrist.

The great bulk sat down, pressed both hands to its face, and drew them away slowly, arms trembling as if with great effort.

And the lower half of that face twisted, dwindled, and became a human mouth and jaw… a mouth that Tace found horribly familiar.

“Saraebo,” that mouth said softly as one long arm reached out to touch the wall beside Tace.

And she was sure.

She’d heard Master Throon murmur that word betimes, when locking or unlocking doors in Ironwind. It was the word that commanded all—when he used it, at least. He took care his apprentices never heard it unadorned with a lot of gibberish and fancy gestures.

The solid stone wall opened like a curtain drawn back, and her transformed Master waved at her to enter the dark passage waiting behind it.

Tace hesitated. This could be a prison, a place to wall her away until whatever troubles were raging were done, and he could—

“Quickly!” Throon hissed, as there was a sudden stirring in the air and the closed and barred stone door she’d come in by started to glow and bulge. “Those who hunt me are here! Go, Little One—and in years to come, when you stand tall and proud in the Red Brethren, remember this day and the ‘prentices of Rundarvas Thaael—and think of some way to avenge me!”

A great force struck the stone door with strength enough to make the very floor buck and heave under them, the stones all around ring and rumble, and dusty rubble cascade down in torrents.

“Haste!” Throon snapped at her, fingers dwindling into something closer to his own, and shaping the air in the intricate gestures and poses of spellcasting. He started to chant the phrases of a magic Tace had never heard before, one that turned some of the dust around him crimson and brought it streaming toward him in smokelike, racing fingers.

Another spell-blow smote the door, branding momentary cracks of blinding glow across her gaze and sending tiny bolts of lightning aimlessly through the air to fade away before they struck anything.

Maelarkh Throon finished his incantation with a last triumphant word and spread his hands. From them a white radiance raced outward, forming a milky wall across the tharm from wall to wall, with Tace and the passage on one side of it, and Throon and the cracked, bulging door on the other.

“Go, Little One,” he cried, “and be safe this day, when—”

Then the world lashed out, deafening and blindingly bright, and that milky wall went hard and black.

Black oblivion, utter silence, gentle sensation of falling…

Her very ears seemed to be screaming, Tace thought dully. She realized she’d been flung shoulders-first into the wall behind her then along it to crash into the corner, which she was now sliding down.

And the ceiling, she saw in utter terror after movement overhead made her look up, was falling after her…

Terrified, Tace leaped for the passage, scarcely realizing the Vaedren had somehow found its way onto her wrist and tightened there as if it had been made for her.

The great crash at her heels snatched her up and flung her down the dark way gaping before her like a boneless ball, and she never knew that the flaring glow from her wristlet was the Vaedren reassembling her shattered skull and lesser bones,

again and again, as she crashed into stone walls and around corners and down unseen stairs, glancing off pillars and carvings and the bloody, bone-studded remains of beings not fortunate enough to be wearing a Vaedren, until…

All Ironwind, Delhumide, great Thay itself, and the overarching sky of Faerun obligingly went away…

* * * * *

She was lying in darkness, surrounded by the faint glow of the Vaedren on her wrist. All around her doors were sliding open and hidden ways revealing themselves and the glows behind them going out. Which meant one thing: the Master of Ironwind Tower was dead.

And even if Rauksoun and the others had been slain too, their slayers were stalking these halls now. Or if they’d all perished fighting Maelarkh Throon and his traps and ‘prentices, someone would come to plunder and slay. And that someone would be a Red Wizard, or several of them, who would slaughter a lone slave lass without a moment’s thought, if she were lucky.

She had to get out;

She had to get far from Thay, had to—the spellchamber, where the portals were! Yes! Even if they went straight to another wizard’s tower, they were her only way out of this one, and all the vultures and worse whose eyes must be turning to it already. She had to get to the Master’s spelltharm.

Before someone—or something—got to her.

* * * * *

“Well?” Rauksoun’s voice was as cold and sneeringly confident as ever.

“I know we’ve shattered all of Thaael’s spying spells and spun a ward that’ll hold against his scrying for a day at least. I think we’ve found and slain all those he sent.” That voice belonged to Varlbit, and he sounded more exhausted than exultant.

“Well done. Thank you, faithful Varl,” Rauksoun said,

softly and sardonically. There was a wash of light that made the Vaedren flare on Tace’s wrist, followed by a sob that might have been her own, and she knew Varlbit Dauroethan was no more.

That “we’ve” meant he’d probably been leading the Master’s novices againstThaael’s apprentices, and they were dead now, too.

She’d be next, if she didn’t move just as quietly as she knew how. With infinite care Tace rose, turned, and stepped back from the archway she’d been creeping toward.

“Halt, whoever you are!” Rauksoun’s voice was sharp. “The magic you carry will begin to consume you, very soon now, unless I cast the right spell on it, to render it safe! Stop where you stand, and wait for me.”

Tace ducked along the next passage. It ran along the back of the spellchamber and was now littered with rubble, waist-deep in several places where the spellchamber wall had been blasted out into it.

Rauksoun must have some way of detecting the Vaedren without knowing what it was or who bore it. Which meant she could only hide from him by abandoning it or getting onto the far side or into the heart of a powerful, active spell.

And with the Master dead, the only such magics nearby would be the portals in the spellchamber, her destination anyway. If they were gone, she was… doomed.

Something large and loud slithered and roared triumphantly in the spellchamber and she heard Rauksoun’s startled curse.

Then he snapped out a swift spell and lightnings were slashing everywhere. Tace flung herself down between two toppled stone blocks as bolts sizzled and arced wildly and whatever had roared in triumph bellowed in pain.

Tace risked a swift glance through the rent wall.

Something lizardlike but as large as one of the flickering portal-mouths was dying messily on the floor in a tangle of 3 spasming scaly legs, lashing tale, and curled tatters that had! probably been wings. It had obviously come out of one of the three portals still flickering and pulsing in the spellchamber, and Rauksoun stood warily in front of those portals with an intricately-shaped metal rod in his hands, spell-glows playing gently about its many barbs, spires, and flanges.

She ducked down swiftly, but not before he saw her, and it was only because she kicked out against one block and flung herself up, out, and sideways that she didn’t melt into nothingness along with the stones that had sheltered her, in the roaring magic that howled through the gap in the wall and gnawed deep into the far wall of the passage, obliterating everything in its path.

The bolt was fierce but short-lived, and in its wake Rauksoun chuckled coldly.

“You’re swift, little witch, I’ll give you that. What is it you’re carrying? The Vaedren? Did Throon trust you once too often, and end up murdered by you for his troubles? Hey? Or did—”

He broke off to curse again and cast another hasty spell. It seemed Varlbit’s ward did nothing to stop Thaael from sending monsters through the portals.

This might be her only chance.

Tace risked another look through the larger, still-smoking gap in the wall, and saw something smaller than the last beast flying at Rauksoun, thrashing a long, whiplike tail and beating wings like those of a great bat. It was doomed the moment his blossoming spell washed over it, but that just might give her time to…

She sprang over stones, kicked herself to the wall, clawed her way along it like a desperate spider, and was landing in a hard, bruising roll behind a portal even before she heard Rauksoun’s angry roar.

As the flying monster died in a burst of flames that rocked the room with angry echoes, Tace let her roll carry her back to her feet, and stumbled the few strides she needed to thrust one foot over the humming threshold of a portal. Its magic tugged at her, circling endlessly past and through her, setting her flesh to tingling and trembling, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.

The portal clawed at her, seeking to pluck her away to wherever its other end was—but Tace had the Vaedren off her wrist and held back out of the portal.

“You little fool! Give me that!”

Rauksoun’s voice was furious, but also high with fear.

“N-no,” she managed to reply, almost retching in terror as he came striding, hands raised like claws.

She’d overheard a little about portals, down the seasons— mainly when the Master was giving Rauksoun warnings about them.

Wherefore she knew that if he kept his senses, he’d dare not hurl spells at her while she stood in the portal-mouth, or even try to slay her with hurled blades for fear of ruining the portal, twisting it into a wild vortex of magic that would widen and roam Ironwind, devouring all—or having her spilled blood attract one of “the great cruising monsters of the Darkness Between.”

She shuddered again, at the thought of a monster slithering up suddenly behind her, out of the portal…

Rauksoun made a swift circling gesture with his rod and the Vaedren’s glow kindled. Desperately Tace took a step back into the humming maw around her, hoping that her arm was just long enough to keep the Vaedren out, and so prevent the warp-way from claiming her.

“You’ll die, little fool!” Rauksoun shouted at her, waving the rod like a reproving finger. “You’ll take yourself to midair, high above a mountain peak, to tumble to your doom, or into the fishtangle webs of a water-spider cave deep in the Sea of Fallen Stars! Stop! Stop! Such magic must not be trifled with! You but doom yourself!”

“You’ll doom me if I stay here!” Tace shouted back.

Rauksoun leered. “Life as my slave would not be a bad thing,” he said in a suddenly gentle purr, spreading his hands. “Or perhaps… life as my queen?”

Why, the worm! Did he truly believe she was so simple-witted?

“Hah!” Tace spat at him, more angry than afraid. “You’ll kill me the moment you get this—” she waved the Vaedren “—out of my hand!”

She whirled around with fresh resolve, and the portal brightened around her as she forced herself to stride forward into its gathering roar.

“No!” Rauksoun shouted from very close behind her. “You goto your death!”

Windstorms above! He must be running like a gale to try to snatch her!

“I go to a better place than this!” Tace cried back as the way took her. It seemed that a hundred lightnings were snarling out of the air around her to race through her, and she knew her hair was standing straight out from her head like the spines of a wind-weed.

Wide-eyed, almost choking on her fear, Tace rode that bright torrent into the unknown.

Something sliced sickeningly across her back, and she whirled with a shriek. One of Rauksoun’s arms was clawing at her, his dark sleeve protruding from a whorl of surging magic. But his fingertips were growing shiny, sharp, and impossibly long.

As she watched, they lengthened into claws as long as her entire arm, reaching spiderlike for her face to rake and slash again. Tace backed away, moaning in fear, and brought up the Vaedren like a shield.

The whirling energies seemed to follow it, and she stared at them, then at the glowing metal and did what she’d heard the Master tell the ‘prentices to do with the little glow-lanterns they’d fashioned under his direction: stare at the metal and will yourself down, down into the magic …

It was like a warm, stirring golden sea shot through with racing white threads of force, threads that bent around the Vaedren and seemed to shy away when she did this.

Which meant that if she did that—.

There was a moment filled with Rauksoun’s shriek of agony and the rising roar of the whirling portal—then both were cut off, as if by a slamming door, and she was alone in darkness with only the Vaedren’s glow to show her the severed claws falling past her.

They landed on nothing, but went on tumbling softly beneath her feet, away into unknown nothingness beneath her.

She had snuffed the portal like a candle, leaving herself feeling sick and empty inside… and very much alone.

Fear was the familiar taste flooding her mouth as Tace clutched the Vaedren and stared all around. The darkness was brighter, somehow, off in that direction, so she went that way.

Then the unseen floor beneath her feet was gone and she was falling endlessly through blue mists shot with wisps and bubbles of silver and dark shadows… falling…

Slowing… more and more slowly Tace fell, until there came a time when she stopped flailing and whimpering, and tried to walk.

She was still sinking through nothingness, but it seemed to be a nothingness she could walk on.

Tantaraze the Little Imp strode boldly on, treading on sinking nothing, and praying to all the gods that the last words she’d shouted at Rauksoun would turn out to be true.

* * * * *

Abruptly there was soft, rustling unevenness beneath her and dappled light around her, and much more rustling, laced with music of idly-plucked strings. Sunlight was lancing through more leaves than Tace had ever seen in her life, in a place of many, many trees and green growing plants. Plants were everywhere except right in front of her, where there was a forest pool of clear water.

Reclining in it was a woman wearing only a magnificent mane of long, silver hair, with a harp floating in the air above her, its strings quivering. They were thrumming into silence now, but there’d been no hand to play them, with the woman only looking up at the instrument. It now floated smoothly out of sight behind some bushes, and the silver-haired woman was regarding Tace curiously.

“Well, now, who might you be? And what magic are you carrying?”

Tace stopped, clutching the Vaedren and not knowing what to say. The woman in the pool seemed to be alone, and there were no clothes in sight, though there was a narrow path winding off into the bushes on the far side of the pool. Herb bushes that looked to have been deliberately planted and tended.

The woman was waiting patiently, with a pleasant half-smile on her face.

“I’m Tace—Tantaraze,” Tace blurted, “and this is the Vaedren. It was given to me by my Master, before he died.”

The silver-haired woman lifted an eyebrow, and it seemed to Tace that slight sadness touched her eyes. “Well met, Tace. I am Storm Silverhand, and this around us is my farm. Would it trouble you overmuch to share your master’s name with me and the manner of his passing?”

Tace sighed, looking behind her and seeing nothing but trees. She glanced swiftly around for places to run or other people, but saw only a rabbit loping past in distant trees, downslope. She drew in a deep breath, met those disconcertingly warm eyes, and said steadily, “My master was Maelarkh Throon of Ironwind Tower—and he … he was hunted down in Ironwind this day by wizards from Thaaeltor and maybe by some of his own ‘prentices, too. He—he died helping me escape from a store-tharm, and told me to avenge him.”

Storm nodded. There was clear sadness in her eyes, now. “Do you know how to use it to do that?”

Tace stared at her. “Why do you want to know? ” she asked softly, trying to judge which tree she could best leap behind, if it came to that.

Something that was not quite a smile touched Storm’s lips.

“Easy, Tace, I’m not hungry to snatch your bauble from you. As to the why, I knew Maelarkh Throon rather well, once. He will be missed. Now stop looking for escape-runs and tell me which you’d rather have first. Warm soup? Cool wine? A soak here in the pool with me? Or somewhere soft to sleep on, and a door you can close against the world until you’ve rested?”

Tace knew her mouth had fallen open, but… but…

She sat down in a sudden heap on the moss at the edge of the pool and peered into the water. “Is it—deep?”

Storm looked her up and down. “About up to your chin, I’d say, unless you go in yonder, where it’ll come to about the bridge of your nose.”

Tace looked longingly at the pool, and in a sudden whirlwind dipped fingertips into it then snatched them right back.

“No, ‘tis not full of beasts waiting to drag you down, and I’m not one such either,” Storm told her.

“You know magic,” Tace said, almost accusingly.

“Some,” Storm replied, with what might have been the faintest of sighs. “You joining me?”

Tace hugged her knees and murmured, “No.”

“Have you decided what you want to do?”

Tace looked away into the trees. “No.”

Storm nodded. Her tresses curled briefly around her ears, as if with a life of their own, and without reaching a hand to anything she rose straight up out of the water, dripping.

Tace stared at her as Storm turned slowly. Not a gesture nor so much as a whisper of an incant… and now the water on that sleek and shapely skin was simply—gone. The dripping had stopped. Unconcernedly bare, Storm trod air over to the path, looked back, and asked, “Coming? Soup’s ready, and fairly decent tea, too.”

Tace swallowed, met those strange eyes—at times they seemed very blue and at other moments blue-white, or even as silver as a sword blade—then nodded and hastened around the pool to follow.

She hadn’t gone more than six strides along the path when the air around her suddenly sang with half-seen silver and sizzling white threads. The Vaedren tugged violently at her arm then shot away from her, shrieking sparks. Storm whirled around, hands on hips, to stare narrowly at her.

Tace froze as the threads faded away, heart pounding.

Storm glanced at the Vaedren, spinning in midair, and as if obeying her, it floated back to Tace’s wrist.

“I’m sorry,” the silver-haired woman said softly, “but I had to be sure no tracing magics had been cast on you.”

Trembling, Tace managed to make her voice calm. “And?”

“None any longer.”

Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath and reminding herself that speaking in anger would probably get her swiftly killed, she asked, “What spell did you just use on me?”

“None. I called up a tangle of the Weave. Interesting wristlet you have there.”

Tace clapped her hand to it, mouth going dry. “So what are you going to do to me now?”

Storm’s smile was sad. “You’re not in Thay now, lass, and here you’re no one’s slave. I’m going to feed you and get a bed ready for you then ask you foolish questions until you fall asleep from boredom. On the morrow you can do pretty much whatever you want to do, and the day after that, too, and so on, until you’re ready to choose a new life. I believe I can keep coming up with impertinent questions that long. Will that be all right?”

Tace looked at the bare, silver haired woman, bit her lip—then, helplessly, started to laugh.

Storm smiled, glided forward to slip an arm around the Little Imp of Ironwind, and asked, “Are you very attached to this Vaedren?”

Tace stopped laughing. “Oh. You want it, then, in payment for—”

“No, nothing of the kind. I want it out of here. Your M—Maelarkh left it unfinished, and it’s been twisted into something quite dangerous since. If I promise to help you avenge him—and I can be very dangerous, I promise you— will you let me examine it thoroughly then get rid of it?”

Tace blinked and clapped her hand over it again. “I—”

“Is it really that reassuring? Or just the only thing of his you have to cling to, and something of power that has served you in getting here?”

Tace nodded slowly, not knowing what to think of this warm, quick-witted, powerful woman. “I don’t want to let it go,” she admitted, “but I… yes, I’m scared of it.”

Storm swung an idle hand and the air was suddenly full of Weave-threads again, bright and racing. “Just toss the Vaedren gently up into the air,” she murmured, and without really knowing why, Tace found herself doing so.

White threads lanced in at it from all sides, in a whirlwind that flashed silver and blue and silver again, then— froze.

Black lines like glistening leeches appeared in the air around the wristlet, lines that flowed into intricate shapes, like characters in some unknown but flamboyant language, then froze, too, to hang all around the Vaedren.

Storm stepped slowly around the floating wristlet, peering at one dark squiggle after another. Then her eyes narrowed and she asked the air above them, “High One, is this sigil yours?”

IT IS.

Tace had barely heard of the god Azuth, but every whispering echo of that calm but great mind-voice chanted his name, over and over.

Without thinking she sank to her knees, quivering in awe and wonder.

Storm, amazingly, seemed as calm as ever. “Have I your permission to twist this and change this, so as to…?”

MAKE THIS BRACELET A WINDOW INTO THE MIND OF THE ONE WEARING IT?

“Yes,” Storm replied, sounding as impish as a certain Tace knew how to be.

Not that Tace realized that until much later. Azuth’s mind-chuckle had thrust her to the brink of gasping ecstasy, in which she was only dimly aware that she was lying on her face on the path, drooling on some very soft moss.

She never saw that Azuth’s divine mirth left even Storm Silverhand shuddering, with mouth open and eyes half-closed.

WHY NOT?

Collecting her wits with an effort, Storm caught a handful of silver threads and did some weaving all around the Vaedren that never quite touched the wristlet but made it flicker, flow, and change just the same.

WELL DONE. WHERE SHALL I SEND IT?

Tace had recovered enough by then to see Storm’s impish smile as the silver-haired lady tossed her head and shared a mind-image of an intended recipient Tace did not recognize with the thrilling Presence Tace didn’t quite dare to look toward.

And the Weave flashed, spun, and whirled the Vaedren away.

* * * * *

It was the habit of Fzoul Chembryl, on pleasant summer evenings when the distasteful work of the day had been wearying but was done, to stroll for a few stolen moments of solitude in his private garden.

It was more a time to collect his wits than to take pleasure in the deserted loveliness around him. The servants had carefully gone hours before, and several spells were hard at work keeping all lesser life at bay until the master of the Zhentarim took his leave.

He unstoppered the tiny vial of rubythroat he intended to drain as he stood on the little bridge over the lilypond, in his usual toast to himself, then stopped, peered, and frowned.

There was a metal ring lying in the shallow water beside the bridge—a very large ring, made for a wrist rather than a finger, that definitely hadn’t been there a few breaths back, when he’d first crossed the bridge.

And more than that, although Fzoul was quite sure that he’d never seen this particular adornment before—had in fact never seen anything unexpected in his lilypond before— it seemed so familiar, somehow.

Fzoul knew quite well how deadly a failing curiosity was, and yet…

His hand went out, drew back for a moment, then stretched forth again. And yet…