Hand of Fire

by Ed Greenwood

  The tallest brigand was looming over Shandril. Narm cast a quick glance at him and saw that a sword had long ago left a long, disfiguring white scar across the man’s face. From brow to cheek it ran and had turned the eye it crossed much larger and darker than the man’s other eye—which was cold, steady, and a deep brown in hue.

  Shandril went to her knees—in reverence, it seemed, rather than fear, and stared up into those mismatched eyes with an expression of awe on her fat and weathered face.

  “The man with different eyes!” she gasped. “At last!”

  The brigands frowned at her in unison. “What foolery’s this?” the second one snapped.

  “You are the one foretold,” Shandril said, in a voice that trembled with excitement. “I must aid you in any way I can!” She fumbled with the thin purse at her belt, got it undone, and thrust it up at him. “Take all I have, Exalted One!” she pleaded, reaching up for him with trembling fingers—as Narm hastily went to his knees beside her. “Take me!”

  “Exalted One, eh?” the brigand growled slowly, and then his teeth flashed in a wondering grin. “Well, then.”

  He pointed at Shandril’s bodice, and the fat priestess hastily started to tear it open, tugging at its laces. The brigand went to his own knees, reaching for her.

  Narm hesitantly reached out for the man, too—only to earn the curt command, “See to my fellows. Surrender yourself to them!”

  Grinning, the other two brigands loomed over Narm. “Turn around, you ugly sow,” the third one said. “On your knees, mind! I don’t want to have t—”

  Shandril judged them close enough. At last. She smiled up into the face of the brigand with the mismatched eyes—and blasted him to scorched, tumbling bones.

  The other two brigands barely had time to snarl out startled oaths before they lacked heads to say anything with at all. Smoking, the headless corpses reeled back and toppled away from Narm.

  “Shan,” the young wizard murmured urgently, as he shrank away from loosely bouncing brigand boot heels. “Your seeming … ’tis gone. I can see … the real you.”

  “I know,” Shandril sighed, “but it couldn’t be helped. These damned robes’ll fall right off me now, too.”

  Narm frowned. “The ferry’s only a hill or so away, and Tess—Lord Tessaril warned us how lawless Scornubel was.”

  “I’m not walking in there barefoot and naked,” Shandril told him, “and priestesses of Chauntea don’t keep slaves.”

  Narm frowned again, trying to hunt down memories. Shandril watched them pass like shadows across his face and kept silent.

  “But,” her husband said slowly, remembering, “they do penances. I’ve seen them and asked why. For acts of waste and carelessness, like campfires that they let get out of control to scorch plants and trees and all.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Your spare tunic—you can see through it if it’s pulled over your head, yes?”

  “So I go hooded, forbidden to speak, and you carry a switch to strike me if I do,” Shandril said slowly. “I saw a priest of the Mother punished like that, once. His hands were tied to his body, the rope crossed around and around him, with flowers and seed-heads stuck through it.” She nodded then grinned suddenly. “Well, I wanted adventure. Let’s get behind yon rocks, out of sight of the road, and do it. Collect their knives and purses—oh, and their belts. These damned boots won’t stay up now that my legs are their proper size again. I’ll start picking wildflowers.”

  Narm rolled his eyes. “Don’t you trust my taste in colors?” he replied mockingly.

  “You,” Shandril told him severely, holding together the remnants of her homespun Chauntean robe as it fell off her shoulders once more, “spent far too much time in the company of one Torm. A clever tongue is not the prize feature you seem to think it is.”

  Narm grinned, opened his mouth to replay—then flushed at whatever thought had leaped into his mind.

  Closing his mouth again hastily, he turned to the bodies of the brigands, where flies were already buzzing.

  “That’s better,” Shandril told him, trudging for cover in boots that were already wadding shapelessly down around her ankles. “That’s much better.”

  3

  THE SUN OVER SCORNUBEL

  Lawless places all have a particular smell. ’Tis the mingled scents of blood and everything else that can be made to flow, spew, or spill out of a man, plus the stench of rotting corpses and long-moldering bones—and the stink of fear.

  Unpleasant, but familiar soon enough, and I’ve come to appreciate the honesty of this “lawless smell.” After all, ’tis no more nor less than the aroma of life.

  Rathrol of Scornubel

  Merchant Lord of Sebben

  Wheels That Groan, Purses of Gold

  Year of the Weeping Moon

  “Pinch my nose,” Shandril hissed. “Pinch it, or I’ll sneeze!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Shandril rolled her eyes, strode past the fat priestess of Chauntea, and gave “her” a most unladylike tug at the ample hill of flesh where the homespun robe curled around one hip.

  “Come on,” Shan ordered, from beneath her hood. “We’ll have plenty of opportunities to be unwelcome just a few paces from here. In among all the buildings, where I don’t feel quite so watched.”

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

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

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

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

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

  His voice almost sounded like someone else.…

  Tessaril’s eyes narrowed, and she took a swift step back. “Azoun?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “By Boldovar’s bloody beard!” the King snarled. Things began to move swiftly again before Tessaril’s eyes. Very swiftly.

  Bottles and platter thumped to the furs, swords flashed out, and men leaped forward through a fresh, whirling forest of tentacles. Tessaril ran after her wand—straight at the shapeshifting monster—and she had a glimpse of Azoun snarling and batting away swarming tentacles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Tessaril gave him a crooked smile, and said softly, “She’s half Faerûn away from here by now, my Dragon—and that’s all I’ll say.”

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

  “Azoun,” Tessaril murmured, “hold me. Please. Just hold me.”

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

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

  “The river’s just back there,” Narm suggested slyly.

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

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

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

  “Well, there’s washing hanging, out behind—bedlinens,” Narm replied. “I saw it a few paces back … and smell the food?”

  “Well, then, why are you holding me back?”

  “Do priestesses of Chauntea use inns or just sleep in the fields? And—your penance?”

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

  “And if I refuse?”

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

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

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

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

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