The Temptation of Elminster

Three: A Feast In Felmorel

"And just who," the shortest and loudest of the three gate guards asked with deceptive cheerfulness, "an you?"

The hawk-nosed, neat-bearded man he was staring coldly at…who was standing out in the pelting spring rain, on foot and muddy-booted, yet somehow dry above the tops of his high and well-worn boots…matched the guard's bright, false smile and replied, "A man whom the Lord Esbre will be very sorry to have missed at his table, if ye turn me away."

"A man who has magic and thinks himself clever enough to avoid answering a demand for his name,” the guard captain said flatly, crossing his arms across his chest so that the fingers of one hand rested on the high-pommeled dagger sheathed at the right front of his belt, and the fingers of the other could stroke the mace couched in a sling-sheath on the left front. The other two guards also dropped their hands ever so casually to the waiting hilts of their weapons.

The man out in the rain smiled easily and added, "Wanlorn is my name, and Athalantar my country."

The captain snorted, "Never heard of it, and every third brigand calls himself Wanlorn."

"Good," the man said brightly, "that's settled, then."

He strode forward with such calm confidence that he was among the guards before two hard shoves…from gauntlets coming at him from quite different directions…brought him to an abrupt halt.

"Just where d'you think you're going?" the captain snarled, reaching out his hand to add his own shove to Wanlorn's welcome.

The bearded man smiled broadly, seized that hand, and shook it in a warrior's salute. "In to see Lord Esbre Felmorel," he said, "and share some private converse with him, good lad, whilst I partake of one of his superb feasts. Ye may announce me."

"And then again," the captain hissed, leaning forward to glare at the stranger nose-to-nose, "I may not." Blazing green eyes stared into merry blue-gray ones for a long moment, then the captain added shortly, "Go away. Get gone from my gate, or I'll run you through. I don't let rude brigands…or clever-tongued beggars…"

The bearded man smiled and leaned forward to land a resounding kiss on the guard's menacing mouth.

"Ye're as striking as they said ye'd be," the stranger said almost fondly. "Old Glavyn's a fire-lord when he's angry, they said. Get him to spit and snarl and run ye away from his gate…oh, he's a proper little dragon!"

One of the other guards sniggered, and Guard Captain Glavyn abandoned blinking, startled, at the stranger to whirl around with a snarl and thrust his glare down the throat of a more familiar foe. "Do we find something amusing, Feiryn? Something that so overwhelms our manhood and training that we must abandon our superiors and fellows in the face of danger whilst we indulge ourselves in a wholly inappropriate and insultingly demeaning display of mirth? The guard blanched, and a satisfied Glavyn whirled back to fix the hawk-nosed stranger with a look that promised swift and waiting death hovering only inches away "As for you, goodman… if you ever dare to…to violate my person again, my sword shall be swift and sure in my hand, and not all the gods in this world or the next shall be enough to save you!"

"Ah, Glavyn, Glavyn," the bearded stranger said admiringly, "what flow! What style! Splendid words, stirringly delivered. I'll tell Esbr…the Lord so, when I sit down to dine with him." He clapped the captain on one shoulder and slipped past him in the same movement. The guard captain exploded into red rage and snatched out his weapons to … or, rather, tried to. Somehow, strain and struggle as he might, he couldn't make either mace or dagger budge, or uncross his arms to reach for the short sword slung across his back or his other dagger beside it. He couldn't move his arms at all. Glavyn drew in breath for what would have been a hoarse, incoherent scream, but for…

"My lords, what is all this tumult?" The low, musical voice of the Lady Nasmaerae cut through Glavyns gathering wind and the rising alarm of his fellow guards like a sword blade sliding through silk. Four men moved in silence to place themselves where they could best…that is, without obstruction…stare at her. Slender she was, in a gown of green whose tight, pointed sleeves almost hid her fingers but left supple shoulders bare. A stomacher of intricate worked silver caught the gleam of the dying day, even through the rain and mist, as she turned away slightly in the darkness and worked some small cantrip that made the candelabra in her hand burst into warm flame.

By its leaping light eyes that were dark pools grew even larger, and indigo in hue…indigo with flecks of gold. Lady Nasmaerae's mouth and manner seemed all chaste innocence, but those eyes promised old wisdom, dark sensuality, and a smoldering hunger.

A smile rose behind her eyes as she measured her effect on the men at the gate, and she added almost lightly, "Who are we, on a night such as this, to keep a lone traveler standing in the wet? Come in, sir, and be welcome. Castle Felmorel stands open to ye."

The hawk-nosed stranger bowed his head and smiled. "Lady," he said, "ye do me great honor by thy generosity to a stranger…outpouring, as it is, of a trusting and loving manner that thy gate-guards would do well to emulate. Wanlorn of Athalantar am I, and I accept thy hospitality, swearing unreservedly that I mean no harm to ye or to anyone who dwells within, nor to any design or chattel of Felmorel. Folk in the lands around spoke volubly of thy beauty, but I see their words were poor, tattered things compared to the stirring and sublime vision that is…ye."

Nasmaerae dimpled. Still wearing that amused smile, she turned her head and said, "Listen well, Glavyn. This is how the racing tongue encompasseth true flattery. Idle and empty it may be…but oh, so pretty."

The guard captain, red-faced and still trembling as he fought with his immobile arms while trying not to appear to be doing so, glowered past her shoulder and said nothing.

The Lady Nasmaerae turned her back on him in a smooth lilt that wasn't quite a flounce and offered her arm to Wanlorn. He took it with a bow and in the same motion he assumed the lofty bearing of the candelabra, their fingers brushing each other for a moment…or perhaps just a lingering instant longer.

As they swept away out of sight down a dart-paneled inner passage, the guards could have collet-lively sworn that the flames of that bobbing candelabra winked. That was when Glavyn found that he conic suddenly move his arms again.

One might have expected him to draw forth the weapons he'd so striven to loose these past few breaths…but instead, the captain poured all his energy into a vigorous, snarling-swift, prolonged use of the tongue.

By the time he was finally forced to draw breath the two guards under his command were regarding him with respect and amazement. Glavyn turned away quickly, so they wouldn't see him blush.

The arms of Felmorel featured at their heart a man-timera rampant, and although no one living had ever seen such an ungainly and dangerous beast (sporting, as it did, three bearded heads and three spike-bristling tails at opposing ends of its bat-winged body), the Lord of Felmorel was known, both affectionately and by those who spoke in fear, as "the Mantimera."

As jovial and as watchfully deadly in manner as his heraldic namesake was reputed to be, Esbre Felmorel greeted his unexpected guest with an easy affability. praising him for a timely arrival to provide light converse whilst his other two guests this night were still a-robing in their apartments. The Lord then offered the obviously weary Wanlorn the immediate hospitality of a suite of rooms for rest and refreshment, but the hawk-nosed man deferred his acceptance until after the feast was done, saying it would be poor repayment of warm generosity to deprive his host of a chance to share that very converse.

The Lady Nasmaerae assumed a couch that was obviously her customary seat with a liquid grace that both men paused to watch. She smiled and silently cupped a fluted elven glass of iced wine beside her cheek, content to listen as the customary opening courtesies were exchanged between the two men, down the long and well-laden, otherwise empty candlelit feasting table.

"Though 'twould be considered overbold in many a hail to ask so bluntly," the Mantimera rumbled, "I would know something out of sheer curiosity, and so will ask: what brings you hither, from a land so distant that I confess I've not heard of it, to seek out one castle in the rain?"

Wanlorn smiled. "Lord Esbre, I am as direct a man as thyself, given my druthers. I am happy to state plainly that I am traveling Faerun in this Year of Laughter to learn more of it, under holy direction in this task, and am at present seeking news or word of someone I know only as 'Dasumia.' Have ye, perchance, a Dasumia in Felmorel, or perhaps a ready supply of Dasumias in the vicinity?"

The Mantimera frowned slightly in concentration, then said, "I fear not, so far as my knowledge carries me, and must needs cry nay to both your queries. Nasmaerae?"

The Lady Felmorel shook her head slightly. "I have never heard that name." She turned her gaze to meet Wanlorn's eyes directly and asked, "Is this a matter touching on the magic you so ably demonstrated at our gates…or something you'd rather keep private?"

"I know not what it touches on," their guest replied. "As we speak, 'Dasumia' is a mystery to me."

"Perhaps our other guests…one deeply versed in matters magical, and both of them widely traveled… can offer you words to light the dark corners of your mystery," Lord Esbre offered, sliding a decanter closer to Wanlorn. "I've found, down the years, that many useful points of lore lie like gems gleaming in forgotten cellars in the minds of those who sup at my board-gems they're as surprised to recall and bring to light once more as we are that they possess such specific and rare riches."

A fanfare sounded faintly down distant passages, and the Mantimera glanced at servants deftly dragging open a pair of tall, ebon-hued doors with heavy, gilded handles. "Here they both come now," he said, dipping a whel-lusk, half-shell and all, into a bowl of spiced softcheese "Pray eat, good sir. We hold to no formality of serving nor waiting on others here. All I ask of my guests is good speech and attentive listening. Drink up!"

Side by side, and striding in careful step…for all the world as if neither wanted the other to enter the hall either first or last…two tall men came into the room then. One was as broad shouldered as a bull, and wore a high-prowed golden belt that reached almost to his bulging breast. Thin purple silk covered his might) musculature above it and flowed down corded and hairy arms to where gilded bracers encircled forearms larger than the thighs of most men. Both belt and bracers displayed smooth-worked scenes of men wrestling with lions…as did the massive golden codpiece beneath the man's belt. "Ho, Mantimera," he boomed. "Have you more of that venison with the sauce that melts in my memory yet? I starve!"

"No doubt," Lord Felmorel chuckled. "That venison need not live only in memory longer, but lift the dome off yonder great platter, and 'tis thine. Wanlorn of Athalantar, be known to Barundryn Harbright, a warrior and explorer of renown."

Harbright shot a look at the hawk-nosed man without pausing in his determined striding to the indicated platter, and gave a sort of grunt, more noncommittal acknowledgment than welcome or greeting. Wanlorn nodded back, his eyes already turning to the other man, who stood over the table like a cold and dark pillar of fell sorcery. The hawk-nosed guest didn't need the Mantimera's introduction to know that this was a wizard almost as powerful as he was haughty. His eyes held cold sneering as they met Wanlorn's but seemed to acquire a flicker of respect…or was it fear?…as they turned to regard the Lady Nasmaerae.

"Lord Thessamel Arunder, called by some the Lord of Spells," the Mantimera announced. Was his tone just a trifle less enthusiastic than it had been for the warrior?

The archwizard gave Wanlorn a cold nod that was more dismissal than greeting and seated himself with a grand gesture that managed to ostentatiously display the many strangely shaped, glittering rings on his fingers to everyone in the vicinity. To underscore their moment, various of the rings winked in a random scattering of varicolored flashes and glows.

As he looked at the food before him, a brief memory came to Wanlorn of the jaws of wolves snapping in his face, in the deep snows outside the Starn in the hard winter just past. He almost smiled as he put that bloody remembrance from his mind…hunger, it had been simple hunger for those howling beasts, no better and no worse than what had hold of him now…and applied his own gaze to the peppered lizard soup and crusty three-serpent pie within reach. As he cut into the latter and sniffed appreciatively at the savory steam whirling up, Wanlorn knew Arunder had darted a glance his way, to see if this stranger-guest was sufficiently impressed with the show of power. He also knew that the mage must be sitting back now and taking up a glass of wine to hide a mage-sized state of irritation.

Yet he only had to look at himself in a seeing-glass to know that power and accomplishment of Art lures many wizards into childlike petulance, as they expect the world to dance to their whim and are most selfishly annoyed whenever it doesn't. He was Arunder's current source of annoyance, the wizard would lash out at him soon.

All too soon. "You say you hail from Athalantar, good sir…ah, Wanlorn. I'd have thought few of your age would proclaim themselves stock of that failed land,' the wizard purred, as the warrior Harbright returned to the board bearing a silver platter as broad as his own chest, which fairly groaned under the weight of near a whole roast boar and several dozen spitted fowl, and enthroned himself with the creak of a settling chair and the clatter of shaking decanters. "Where have you dwelt more recently, and what brings you hence, cloaked in secrets and unheralded, to a house so full of riches, if I may ask? Should our hosts be locking away their gem coffers?"

"I've wandered these fair realms for some decades now," Wanlorn replied brightly, seeming not to notice Arunder's sarcasm or unveiled insinuations, "seeking knowledge. I'd hoped that Myth Drannor would teach me much…but it gave me only a lesson in the primal necessity of outrunning fiends. I've poked here and peered there but learned little more than a few secrets about Dasumia."

"Have you so? Seek you lore about magic, then…or is your quest for mere treasure?"

At that last word, the warrior Harbright glanced up from his noisy and nonstop biting and swallowing for a moment, fixing Wanlorn with one level eye to listen to whatever response might be coming.

"Lore is what I chase," Wanlorn said, and the warrior gave a disgusted grunt and resumed eating. "Lore about Dasumia…but instead I seem to find a fair bit about the Art. I suppose its power drives those who can write to set down details of it. As to treasure … one can't eat coins. I've enough of them for my needs, alone and afoot, how would I carry more?"

"Use a few of them to buy a horse," Harbright grunted, spraying an arc of table with small morsels of herbed boar. "Gods above…walking around the kingdoms! I'd grow old even before my feet wore off at the ankles!"

"Tell me," Lord Felmorel addressed Wanlorn, leaning forward, "how much did you see of the fabled City of Song? Most who even glimpse the ruins are torn apart before they can win clear."

"Or did you just wander about in the woods near where you imagine Myth Drannor to be?" Arunder asked silkily, plucking up a decanter to refill his glass.

"The fiends must have been busy hounding someone else," the hawk-nosed man told the Mantimera, "because I spent most of a day clambering through overgrown, largely empty buildings without seeing anything alive that was larger than a squirrel. Beautiful arched windows, curving balconies … it must have been very grand. Now there's not much lying about waiting to be carried off. I saw no wineglasses still on tables or books propped open where someone was interrupted in their reading, as the minstrels would have us all believe. No doubt the city was sacked after it fell. Yet I saw, and remember, some sigils and writings. Now if I could just determine what they mean…."

"You saw no fiends?" Arunder was derisive…but also visibly eager to hear Wanlorn's reply. The hawk-nosed man smiled.

"No, sir mage, they guard the city yet. 'Twill probably be years, if ever, before folk can walk into the ruins without having to worry about anything more dangerous than a stirge, say, or an owlbear."

Lord Felmorel shook his head. "All that power," he murmured, "and yet they fell. All that beauty swept away, the people dead or scattered … once lost, it can never be restored again. Not the way it was."

Wanlorn nodded. "Even if the fiends were banished by nightfall," he said, "the place rebuilt in a tenday, and a citizenry of comparable wit and accomplishments assembled the day after, we'd not have the City of Beauty back again. That shared excitement, drive, and the freedom to experiment and freely reason and indulge in whimsy that's founded on the sure knowledge of one's own invulnerability won't be there. One would have a players' stage pretending to be the City of Song, not Myth Drannor once more."

The Mantimera nodded and said, "I've long heard the tales of the fall, and have even faced a fell fiend-not there…and lived to tell the tale. Even divided by their various selfish interests and rivalries, I can scarce believe that so grand and powerful a folk fell as completely and utterly as they did."

"Myth Drannor had to fall," Barundryn Harbright rumbled, spreading one massive hand as if holding an invisible skull out over the table for their inspection. "They got above themselves, you see, chasing godhood again … like those Netherese. The gods see to it that such dreams end bloodily, or there'd be more gods than we could all remember, and none of 'em with might enough to answer a single prayer. 'Sobvious, so why do all these mages keep making this same mistake?"

The wizard Arunder favored him with a slim, superior smile and said, "Possibly because they don't have you on hand to correct their every little straying from the One True Path."

The warrior's face lit up. "Oh, you've heard of it?" he asked. "The One True Path, aye."

The mage's jaw dropped open. He'd been joking, but by all the gods, this lummox seemed serious.

"There aren't many of us thus far," Harbright continued enthusiastically, waving a whole, gravy-dripping pheasant for emphasis, "but already we wield power in a dozen towns. We need a realm, next, and…"

"So do we all. I'd like several," Arunder said mockingly, swiftly recovered from his astonishment. "Get me one with lots of towering castles, will you?"

Harbright gave him a level look. "The problem with over- clever mages," he growled to the table at large, "is their unfamiliarity with work…not to mention getting along with all sorts of folk and knowing how to saddle a horse or put a heel back on a boot or even how to kill and cook a chicken. They seldom know how to hold their drink down, or how to woo a wench, or grow turnips … but they always know how to tell other folk what to do, even about turnip-growing or wringing a chicken's neck!"

Large, hairy, blunt-fingered hands waved about alarmingly, and Arunder shrank away, covering his obvious fear by reaching for a distant decanter. Wanlorn obligingly moved it nearer to the mage but was ignored rather than thanked.

Their host cut into the uncomfortable moment by asking, "Yet, my lords, True Paths or the natures of wizards aside, what see you ahead for all who dwell in this heart of far-sprawling Faerun? If Myth Drannor the Mighty can be swept away, what can we hold to in the years to come?"

"Lord Felmorel," the wizard Arunder replied hastily, 'there has been much converse on this matter among mages and others, but little agreement. Each proposal attracts those who hate and fear it, as well as those who support it. Some have spoken of a council of wizards ruling a land…"

"Ha! A fine tyranny and mess that'd be!" Harbright snorted.

"…while others see a bright future in alliances with dragons, so that each human realm is a dragon's domain, with…"

"Everyone as the dragon's slaves and ultimately, its dinner," Harbright told his almost-empty platter.

"…agreements in place to bind both wyrm and people against hostilities practiced on each other."

"As the dragon swept down, its jaws gaping open to swallow, the knight stared into his doom, shouting vainly, 'Our agreement protects me! You can't…' for almost the space of three breaths before the dragon gulped him up and flew away," Harbright said sarcastically. "The surviving folk gathered there solemnly agreed that the dragon had broken the agreement, and the proposal was made that someone should travel to the dragon's lair to inform the wyrm that it had unlawfully devoured the knight. Strangely, no one volunteered."

Silence fell. The hulking warrior thrust his jaw forward and shot the wizard a dark and level gaze, as if daring him to speak, but Thessamel Arunder seemed to have acquired a sudden and abiding interest in peppered lizard soup.

Wanlorn looked up at his host, aware of the Lady Felmorel's continuing and attentive regard, and said, "For my part, Lord, I believe another such shining city will be a long time in coming. Small realms, defended against orcs and brigands more than aught else, will rise as they have always done, standing amid lawless and perilous wilderlands. The bards will keep the hope of Myth Drannor bright while the city is lost to us, now and in foreseeable time to come."

"And this wisdom, young Wanlorn, was written on the walls of the ruined City of Song?" Arunder asked lightly, emboldened to speak once more, but carefully not looking in Harbright's direction. "Or did the gods tell you this, perhaps, in a dream?"

"Sarcasm and derision seems to run away with the tongues of wizards all too often these days," Wanlorn observed in casual tones, addressing Barundryn Harbright. "Have you noticed this, too?"

The warrior grinned, more at the wizard than at the hawk-nosed man, and growled, "I have. A disease of the wits, I think." He waved a quail-lined spit like a scepter and added, "They're all so busy being clever that they never notice when it strikes them personally."

In unspoken unison both Harbright and Wanlorn turned their heads to look hard at the wizard. Arunder opened his mouth with a sneer to say something scathing, seemed to forget what it was, opened his mouth again to say something else, then instead put a glass of wine up to it and drank rather a large amount in a sputteringly short time.

As he choked, burbled, and wheezed, the warrior reached out one shovel-sized hand to slam him solidly between the shoulder-blades. As the mage reeled in his seat, Harbright inquired, "Recovered, are you…in your own small way?"

Into the dangerous silence that followed, as the wizard Arunder struggled for breath and the Lady Nasmaerae lifted a hand both swift and graceful to cover her mouth, Lord Esbre Felmorel said smoothly, "I fear you may have the right of it, good sir Wanlorn. Small holds and fortified towns standing alone are the way of things hereabouts, and things look to stay that way in the years ahead…unless something befalls the Lady of Shadows."

"The Lady…?"

"A fell sorceress," the warrior put in, raising grim eyes to meet those of the hawk-nosed man.

Lord Esbre nodded. "Bluntly put, but yes: the Lady of Shadows is someone we fear and either obey or avoid, whenever possible. None know where she dwells, but she seeks to enforce her will…if not to rule outright…in the lands immediately east of us. She's known to be… cruel."

Noticing that the wizard seemed to have recovered, Lord Esbre sought to restore the man's temper by deferring to him with some joviality. "You are our expert on things sorcerous, Lord Arunder…pray unfold for us whatever of import you know about the Lady of Shadows."

It was time for fresh astonishment at Lord Esbre's feast table. Lord Thessamel Arunder stared down at his plate and muttered, "There's no…I have nothing to add on this subject. No."

The tall candles on the feast table danced and flickered in the heart of utter silence for a long time after that.

A dozen candles flickered at the far end of the bedchamber like the tongues of hungry dragon hatchlings.

The room was small and high-ceilinged, its walls shrouded in old but still grand tapestries that Elminster was sure hid more than a few secret ways and spy holes. He smiled thinly at the serenity awaiting him, as he strode past the curtained and canopied bed to the nearest flame

"Wanlorn am I," he told it gently, "and am not. By this seeming, in your service, hear me I pray, 0 Mystra of the Mysteries, O Lady most precious, 0 Weaving Flame." He passed two fingers through the flame, and its orange glow became a deep, thrilling blue. Satisfied, he bent forward over it until it almost seemed as if bed draw the blue flame into his mouth, and whispered. "Hear me, Mystra, I pray, and watch over me in my time of need. Shammarastra ululumae paerovevim driios."

All of the candles suddenly dimmed, sank, guttered, then in unison rose again with renewed vigor, building like spears of the sun to a brighter, warmer radiance than had been in the room before.

As warm firelight danced on his cheek, Elminster's eyes rolled up in his head. He swayed, then fell heavily to his knees, slumping forward into a crawling posture that became a face first slide onto the floor. Lying senseless among the candles, he never saw the flame spit a circle of blue motes that swirled in a circle around him and faded to invisibility, leaving the candle flame its customary amber-white in their wake.

In a chamber that was not far away, yet hidden down dark ways of spell-guarded stone, flames of the same blue were coiling and writhing inches above a floor they didn't scorch, tracing a sigil both intricate and subtly changing as it slowly rotated above the glass-smooth stones. They licked and caressed the ankles of their creator, who danced barefoot in their midst as they rose and fell around her knees. Her white silk nightgown shimmered above the flames as she wove a spell that slowly brought their hue up into her eyes. It spilled out into the air before her face like strange tears as the Lady Nasmaerae whirled and chanted.

The room was bare and dark save for the spell she wove, but it brightened just a trifle when the flames rose into an upright oval that suddenly held the slack face of the hawk-nosed Wanlorn, sprawled on the stones of his bedchamber amid a dozen dancing candles.

The Lady of Felmorel beheld that image and sang something softly that brought the half-lidded eyes of the sleeping man closer, to almost fill the scene between the racing flames. "Ooundreth," she chanted then. "Ooundreth mararae!"

She spread her hands above the flames and waited for them to well up to lick her palms, bringing with them what she so craved: that dark rush of wit and raw thought she'd drunk so many times before, memories and knowledge stolen from a sleeping mind. What secrets did this Wanlorn hold?

"Give me," she moaned, for the flood was long in coming. "Give… me …"

Power such as she'd never tasted before suddenly surged through the flames, setting her limbs to trembling and every last hair on her body to standing stiffly out from her crawling, tingling flesh. She struggled to breathe against the sudden tension hanging in her body and the room around her, heavy and somehow aware.

Still the dark flood did not come. Who was this Wanlorn?

The image in the loop of flame before her was still two half-open, slumberous eyes…but now something was changing in those encircling flames. Tongues of silver fire were leaping among the blue, only a few at first, but faster and more often, now washing over the entire scene for a moment, now blazing up brighter as the wondering dancer watched.

Suddenly the silver flames overwhelmed the blue, and two cold eyes that were not Wanlorn's opened In their midst. Black they were, shot through with twinkling stars, but the flames that swam from them like tears were the same rich blue as were spilling from Nasmaerae's own.

"Azuth am I," a voice that was both musical and terrible rang out of the depths of her mind. "Cease this prying…forever. If you heed not, the means of prying shall be taken from you."

The Lady of Castle Felmorel screamed then…as loud and as long as she knew how, as blue flames whirled her off her feet and held her captive and struggling upright in their grip. Nasmaerae was lost in fear and horror and self-loathing, as the blue flames of her own thought-stealing spell were hurled forcibly back through her.

She shuddered under their onslaught, fell silent as she writhed in helpless and spasmodic collapse, then howled with a quite different tone, like a lost and wandering thing. All the brightness had gone out of her eyes, and she was drooling, a steady stream plunging from the corner of her twisted mouth.

The eyes that swam with stars regarded the broken woman for several grim moments, then spat forth fresh blue flames to enshroud her in a racing inferno that raged for only moments.

When it receded, the barefoot woman was standing on the stone floor of the spell chamber, her fiery weavings shattered and gone. Her nightgown was plastered to her body with her own sweat, and her hands shook uncontrollably, but the desolate eyes that stared down at them were her own.

"You are Nasmaerae once more, your mind restored You may consider this no mercy, daughter of Avarae. I've broken all of your bindings…including, of course, the one that holds your Lord in thrall. Consequences will son be upon you, 'twould be best to prepare yourself."

The sorceress stared into those floating, starry eyes In helpless horror. They looked back at her sternly and steadily even as they began to fade away, dwindling swiftly to nothingness. All of the magical light in the chamber faded and failed with them, leaving only emptiness behind.

Nasmaerae knelt alone in the darkness for a long time, sobbing slightly. Then she arose and padded like a wan-eyed ghost along unseen ways she knew well, feeling turns and archways with her fingertips, seeking the sliding panel that opened into the back of the wardrobe in her own bedchamber.

Thrusting through half-cloaks and gowns, she drew in a deep, tremulous breath, let it out in a sigh, and laid her fingers on her most private of coffers, on the high, hidden shelf right where she'd left it.

The maids had left a single hooded lamp lit on the marble-topped side table, the needle-slim dagger caught and flashed back its faint light as she drew it forth, looked at it almost casually for a moment, then turned it in her hand to menace her own breast.

"Esbre," she told the darkness in a whisper, as she drew back her hand for the stroke that would take her own life, "I'll miss you. Forgive me."

"I already have," said a voice like cold stone, close by her ear. A familiar arm lashed out across her chest to Intercept the wrist that held the dagger.

Nasmaerae gave a little startled scream and struggled wildly for a moment, but Lord Esbre's hairy hand was as immovable as iron, yet as gentle as velvet as it encircled her wrist.

His other hand plucked the dagger out of her grasp and threw it away. It flashed across the room to be caught deftly by one of the dozen or so guards who were melting out from behind every tapestry and screen in the room now, unhooding lanterns, lighting torches in wall sconces, and moving grimly to bar any move she might make toward the door or to the wardrobe behind her.

Nasmaerae stared into the eyes of her lord, still too shocked and dazed to speak, wondering when the storm of fury would come. The Mantimera's eyes blazed through a mist of tears, burning into her, but his lips moved slowly and precisely as he asked in tones of quiet puzzlement, "Self-slaying is the answer to misguided sorcery? You had a good reason for placing me in a spell-thrall?"

Nasmaerae opened her mouth to plead, to spill forth desperate lies, to protest that her deeds had been misunderstood, but all that came out was a torrent of tears. She threw herself against him and tried to go to her knees, but a strong hand on her hip held her upright When she could form words through the sobs, it was to beg his forgiveness and offer herself for any punishment he deemed fitting, and to…

He stilled her words with a firm finger laid across her lips and said grimly, "We'll speak no more of what you have done. You shall never enthrall me or anyone else again."

"I…believe me, my Lord, I would never…"

"You can't, whatever you may come to desire. This I know. So that others may also know it, you shall try to place me in thrall again…now."

Nasmaerae stared at him. "I…no! No, Esbre, I dare not! I…"

"Lady," the Mantimera told her grimly, "I am uttering a command, not affording you a choice." He made a gesture involving three of his fingers, all around her, swords grated out of scabbards.

The Lady Felmorel darted glances about. She was ringed with drawn steel, the sharp, dark points of well-used war swords menacing her on all sides. She saw a white-faced Glavyn above one of them, trusty old En-art staring grimly at her over another. Then she whirled away, hiding her face in her hands.

"I…I… Esbre!" she sobbed. "My magic will be shorn from me if I…"

"Your life shall be shorn from you if you do not. Death or obedience, Lady. The same choice warriors who serve me have, every day. It comes not so hard to them."

The Lady Nasmaerae groaned. Slowly her hands fell from her face and she straightened, breathing heavily, her eyes elsewhere. She threw back her head to look at the ceiling and said in a small voice, "I'll need more room. Someone pluck away this rug, lest it be scorched." She walked deliberately onto the point of someone's sword until they gave way before her and she could get off the soft, luxurious rug, then turned to face back into the ring and said softly, "I'll need a knife."

"No," Esbre snapped.

"The spell requires it, Lord," she told the ceiling. "Wield it yourself, if it gives you comfort…but obey me utterly when I begin the casting, lest we both be doomed."

"Proceed," he said, his voice cold stone again.

Nasmaerae strode away from him until she stood in the center of the ring of blades once more, then turned and faced him. "Glavyn," she said, "bring my lord's chamber pot hence. If it be empty, report so back to us."

The guard stared at her, unmoving…but spun from his place and hastened to the door at a curt nod from Lord Felmorel.

While they waited, Nasmaerae calmly tore the soaked nightgown from her body and flung it away, standing nude before them all. She stood flatfooted, neither covering herself modestly nor adopting her usual sensual poses, and licked her lips more than once, looking only at her lord.

"Punish me," she said suddenly, "in any other way but this. The Art means all to me, Esbre, every…"

"Be still," he almost whispered, but she shrank back as if he'd snapped a lash across her lips and said no more.

The door opened, Glavyn returned bearing an earthen pot. Lord Felmorel took it from him, motioned him back into his place in the line, and said to his men, "I trust you all. If you see ought that offers ill to Felmorel, strike accordingly…both of us, if need be." Bearing a small belt knife and the pot, he stepped forward.

"I love you, Esbre," the Lady Nasmaerae whispered, and went to her knees.

He stared at her stonily and said only, "Proceed."

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath and said, "Place the pot so that I can reach within." When he did so, she dipped one hand in and brought it out with a palmful of his urine. Letting her cupped hand rest on the floor, she held out her other hand and said, "Cut my palm…not deeply, but draw blood."

Grimly Lord Felmorel did as he was bid, and she said, "Now withdraw…pot, knife, and all."

As he retreated, the guards grew tense, waiting to leap forward with their steel at the slightest sign from Lord Esbre. As her own dark blood filled her palm, Nasmaerae looked around the ring. Their faces told her just how deeply she was feared and hated. She bit her lip and shook her head slightly.

Then she drew in another deep breath, and with it seemed to gain courage. "I'll begin," she announced, and without pause slipped into a chant that swiftly rose in urgency and seemed fashioned around his name. The words were thick and yet somehow slithering, like aroused serpents. As they came faster and faster, small wisps of smoke issued from between her lips.

Suddenly…very suddenly…she clapped her hands together so that blood and urine mixed, and cried out a phrase that seemed to echo and smite the ears of the men in the chamber like thunderclaps. A white flame flared between her cupped palms, and she lifted her head to look at her lord…only to scream, raw and horrified and desperate, and try to fling herself to her feet and away.

The star-swirling eyes of Azuth, cold and remorseless, were staring at her out of Lord Felmorel's face, and that musical, terrible voice of doom sounded again, telling her, "All magic has its price."

None of the guards heard those five words or saw anything but grim pity in their Lord's face, as the Mantimera held up a hand to stay their blades. The Lady Felmorel had fallen to the floor, her face a mask of despair and her eyes unseeing, dying wisps of smoke rising from her trembling limbs…limbs that withered before their eyes, then were restored to lush vitality, only to wither again in racing waves. All the while, as her body convulsed, rebuilt itself, and shriveled again, her screaming went on, rising and falling in a broken paean of pain and terror.

The guards stared down at her writhing body in shocked silence until the Mantimera spoke again.

"My lady will be abed for some days," he said grimly. 'Leave me with her, all of you…but summon her maids-of-chamber hence to see to her needs. Azuth is merciful and shall be worshiped in this house henceforth."

Somewhere a woman was twisting on a bare stone floor, with leveled swords all around her in a ring and her bare body withering in waves as she wailed … elsewhere motes of light, like stars in a night sky, were whirling in darkness with a cold chiming sound … there followed a confusing, falling instant of mages casting spells and becoming skeletons in their robes as they did so, before Elminster saw himself standing in darkness, moonlight falling around him. He was poised before a castle whose front gate was fashioned in the shape of a giant spiderweb. It was a place he knew he'd never been, or seen before. His hands were raised in the weaving of a spell that took shape an instant later and spell blasted apart the gate in a burst of brilliance. The light whirled away to become the teeth of a laughing mouth that whispered, "Seek me in shadows."

The words were mocking, the voice feminine, and Elminster found himself sitting bolt upright at the fool of his unused bed, cold sweat plastering his clothing to him.

"Mystra has guided me," he murmured. "I'll tarry no longer here, but go out to seek and challenge this Lady of Shadows." He smiled and added, "Or my name isn't Wanlorn."

He'd never unpacked the worn saddlebag that carried his gear. It was the work of moments to make sure no helpful servant had removed anything for washing and he was out the door, striding briskly as if guests always went for late night walks around Castle Felmorel. Skulking is for thieves.

He nodded pleasantly to the one servant he did meet, but he never saw the impassive face of Barundryn Harbright watching him from the depths of a dark corner, with the faintest of satisfied nods. Nor did he see the moving shadow that slipped out from under the staircase he descended to follow him, bearing its own bundle of belongings.

Only a single aged servant was watching the closed castle gate. El peered all around to make sure guards weren't hiding anywhere. Seeing none, he hefted the doused brass lantern he'd borrowed from a hallway moments ago, swung it carefully, and let go.

The lamp plunged to the cobbles well behind the old man, with a crash like the landing of a toppling suit of armor. The man shouted in fear and banged his shin on a door frame trying to get to his pike.

When he reached the shattered lantern, limping and cursing, to menace it with a wobbling pike, El had slipped out the porter's door in the gate, just one more shadow in this wet spring night.

Another shadow followed, conjuring a drift of mist to roll before it in case this wandering Wanlorn looked bad for pursuit. The briefest of flashes marked the casting of the shadow's spell…but the servant with the pike was too far away to notice or to have identified the face so fleetingly illuminated. Thessamel Arunder, the Lord of Spells, had also felt the need to suddenly and quietly take his leave of Castle Felmorel in the middle of the night.

The lantern was a bewilderment, the limp painful, and the pike too long and heavy, old Bretchimus was some time getting back to his post. He never felt or heard the chill, chiming whirlwind that was more a wind than a body, more a shadow than a presence, and that, drifting purposefully, became the third shadow that evening to pass out the porter's door. Perhaps it was just as well. As he leaned the pike back against the wall, its head fell off. It was an old pike and had seen enough excitement for one evening.

Torntlar's Farm covered six hills and took a lot of hoeing. Dawn saw Habaertus Ilynker rubbing his aching back and digging into the stony soil of the last hill…the one that adjoined the wolf-prowled wood that stretched all the way to Felmorel. As he did every morning, Habaertus glanced toward Castle Felmorel, though it was too far away to really see, and nodded a greeting to his older brother Bretchimus.

"Yourn the lucky one," he told his absent brother, as he did each morning. "Dwellin' yon, with that vast wine cellar an' that slinking silkhips Lady orderin' y'about, an' all."

He spat on his hands and picked up his hoe once more in time to see a few stray twinklings in the air that told him something strange was arriving. Or rather, passing him by. An unseen, chiming presence swept out of the trees and across the field, swirling like a mist or shadow, yet curiously elusive…for no shadow could be seen if one stared right at it.

Habaertus watched it start to snake past, pursed his lips, then, overcome by curiosity, took a swipe at it with his hoe.

The reaction was immediate. A sparkling occurred in the air where the blade of the hoe had passed through the wind, loud chiming sounded on all sides, then the shadowy wind overwhelmed Habaertus, howling around him like a hound closing on a kill. He hadn't even time for a grunt of astonishment.

As a wind-scoured skeleton collapsed into dust, the whirlwind roused itself with another little chorus of chimings and moved on across Torntlar's Farm. In its wake a battered hoe thumped to the earth beside two empty boots. One of them promptly fell over, and all that was left of Habaertus Ilynker fell out and drifted away.