Hand of Fire

by Ed Greenwood

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

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

  “No,” Bradraskor said slowly. “No, I don’t think I want to die badly enough for that.”

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

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

  Tornar waited. Something always did.

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

  Tornar turned, excitement stirring in him. “And so?”

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

  Tornar matched the Master’s smile and asked, “What about Andor?”

  “You mean the shapeshifter who’s posing as Andor?”

  Tornar the Eye stiffened. “What?”

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

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

  The Master of the Shadows nodded. “The one who’s now posing as Andor saw to that.”

  “And how—?”

  “Do I know this? Someone saw Ornrim’s neck being broken.”

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

  Tornar’s lip curled. “You’ve found a noble who can be trusted?”

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

  “Tessaril Winter of Eveningstar?”

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

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

  5

  FALLEN BY THE WAYSIDE

  Ah, yes, spellspun gates. Portals, some call them. “Death-doors” is the term I prefer. The reason? Well, each step through one is a step closer to the time when your death is standing waiting for you on the other side—with a big cold grin on its face and a sword in its hand you’ll have no time nor chance to avoid. ’Tis like any adventuring life, but shorter.

  Bharajak Steelshar, Warmaster For Hire

  from a lecture at The Swords Club in Elturel

  Year of the Bright Blade

  “As I see it,” Hlael said gloomily, “we’re doomed if we face spellfire—and just as doomed if we fail and our superiors hear of it. Unless we can change our shapes and hide so well as to never be traced or found—or win spellfire for ourselves, and with it remove every last one of our superiors from the unfolding tapestry of life without anyone else in all Faerûn seeing or guessing that we have spellfire … we’re dead men. Somehow neither of those events seems very likely.”

  “Enough,” Korthauvar Hammantle snapped. “Move carefully, as we agreed to do, avoid mistakes, and see what befalls. Slowly and carefully, not like the ever-growing army of fool-headed magelings all falling over each other to impress Manshoon! Some of Fzoul’s upper-priests have been working on tasks he set them for years and have thus far accomplished nothing that the rest of us can see—and yet live still and hold their places in councils!”

  “Places we’ve never been offered,” Hlael returned, slamming shut a spellbook in a momentary show of anger.

  “Hlael! Bane take you! You’ve enough gloom in you for any dozen old men in a tavern! Have we not woven a splendid plan—brilliant enough to please old Iceglare himself? Have I not just recast no less than four spells of power and had all of them work successfully? Just one more, and we’re on our way!”

  “Hear my joy and rejoicing,” Hlael Toraunt of the Zhentarim told the ceiling, quiet sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

  Korthauvar gave him a glare as hot as any red dragon’s baleful regard, and lowered his head once more to the old and crumbling grimoire in front of him. Its theft had cost six men their lives—blood well spent, as far as he was concerned, and what use had those dolts of Candlekeep for such lore anyway? ’Twas not as if they ever used it for anything useful … Now, if this incantation was twisted thus, and that awakening borrowed from the farscry spell crafted by Ilibrin of Old Impiltur, so—he scribbled a few notes and circled the word haethin; ’twould be necessary to work that into the unfolding of the enchantment, after the charge to … yes …

  He read over his notes, rewrote them into something formal, nodded in satisfaction, and began to gather candles, several powders, two small stones he’d carried in a pouch whilst teleporting, and another, slightly larger piece of stone that had once formed the threshold of a gate in Teshwave. This should work. It might fail against certain gates, depending on the portal enchantments, but should do no harm in any event.

  “Hlael,” he said gently, “I believe we’re ready. Read you this.”

  The shorter wizard shook himself all over, perhaps to hide a shiver. He stepped forward, read Korthauvar’s newly drafted incantation in frowning silence, then nodded. “After the third candle?”

  “Yes. Shall we?”

  Hlael nodded again, and the casting began. Quiet, careful, and slow-paced the spell-weaving went, as the two wizards spread powders in a careful design around three closed circles. Placing the fragment of former threshold in the central one, they took up positions on either side of it, in the outermost circles, held up their written incantations, and began to chant—at first in unison, then in turns.

  “Haethin drur athaumalae, ringra don.” With a flourish Korthauvar finished, drawing his hand gracefully closed. In slow magnificence, his newly crafted magic spread out from his circle, along the pattern of powders.

  Hlael breathed a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction as the spellglow rose around them. “Well done,” he said, and meant it. Blood of Bane, five new magics crafted in a day! All of them cobbled together from existing spells, to be sure, but nonetheless newly honed and focused, like tools no one had ever made before, forged from chisels by a blacksmith to do specific tasks.

  Korthauvar beamed like a lion that has made a kill he’s hunted for a whole season, his smile bright in the gloomy chamber, and spread his hands.

  “Now let us see what we shall see,” he said delightedly. “This may all be so much wasted time, but I can’t think Lady Lord Winter would dare to send the wench and her bumbling mage of a man right into our clutches in the Stonelands, or through Tunland, alone—or even risk them on a caravan to Amn or Iriaebor, where they know our watch is vigilant.”

  “A gate or portal, of course,” Hlael agreed, “but of those that she might possibly send them through, we’ve only used three—and I know there are that many again in Suzail and Marsember, probably one in the King’s Forest, and two or even as many as six in Westgate or thereabouts. If she didn’t go through w
ith them, we can’t trace them even if they dance back and forth through one of our three.”

  “So we look at the three we can, and hope she did. If we find nothing, it’s back to spies and farscrying—for a month or two, if it takes that long. It’s not as if we dare turn to anything else, unt—there! Hah! First blood, first try! Tombgate!”

  Hlael shook his head in delighted disbelief. It had been long odds, indeed, with them able to trace so little—only gates he and Korthauvar had passed through, and only Tessaril Winter because they had some of her blood from clothing cut off her by a Zhentilar warrior who’d tried to slay her while she was riding the roads, and failed. And yet—and yet, by Bane and Mystra both!

  The most recent passage through Tombgate had been by three living creatures, one of them Tessaril.

  “Narm Tamaraith and Shandril Shessair,” Korthauvar said slowly. “It must be!”

  “So we—?”

  “So we make sure, if we want to keep our heads. Scornubel is the place to look, if they are the two we seek—but first to make sure of that. The same blood will serve us, if we use that spell you traded to me last year …”

  “To eavesdrop on Lady Lord Tessaril Winter,” Hlael said smugly. “Let me cast this one; your weavings so far this day must’ve impressed Divine Mystra herself!”

  He opened his spellbook, plucked up the stained scrap of undertunic that was their link to the distant Cormyrean officer, and cast his spell. Almost immediately he reeled back, wincing, as the scrying smoke that had begun to rotate around him roared up in a sudden flash of light and vanished.

  “She’s with the King,” he said grimly, “and has strong shielding spells up around them both.”

  Korthauvar’s grin was not quite a leer. “Exchanging state secrets, no doubt.”

  “So do we wait for them to finish? He might tarry for the morrow or even longer!”

  The taller Zhentarim shook his head, stroking the daggerlike edges of beard that ran sleekly along the edge of his chin to end in two tufts. “We gamble,” he said slowly. “Yonder I’ve a tallchest full of unwashed tankards, bloodstained dressings, and scraps of clothing, hacked-off scraps of leather war-harness. Kindly avert your eyes.”

  He strode to one of several looming tallchests of dark wood on the far wall, touched it in certain places while mumbling certain things, and stepped back as its door swung open. A row of shallow drawers was revealed; he slid open the fourth, selected three scraps of cloth, and said, “These belong to Highknights who almost gave their lives for their King but escaped us. I only hope one of them is with Azoun now—and that if he is, he knows something useful. Surely Lady Winter couldn’t just slip off to take two people through a gate without a Highknight noticing—prying is what they do.”

  Hlael worked his spell again, and the whirling smoke promptly rolled up the wall that he was facing, scattered wild twinklings and swirlings of all hues of light, and twisted into a dark, moonlit sight of booted feet lit at ankle height by shuttered lanterns. The lanterns were set in a ring on weed-choked, now trampled ground, and the unmistakable sound of picks and shovels striking buried stones rang out repeatedly.

  “Quietly, blades, quietly! You want an admiring audience?”

  “The sentinels will signal if anyone draws close enough to hear,” someone replied disgustedly. “If your shovelwork is so much quieter, you’re welcome to wield this shovel.”

  “We’ll need those stones piled, after, to keep the wolves from digging him up. Pluck them aside,” a low voice growled.

  “Wolves? What’s to keep curious villagers from having a look? Lads at play, and suchlike?”

  “Old Meg’s ghost, and fear of the wild things of the Stonelands—Zhent wizards, and the like.”

  Korthauvar and Hlael exchanged unlovely grins.

  “Old Meg?”

  “A local witch, or so folk hereabouts think. Her hut was about four strides that way, and in Eveningstar they’ll swear to you that the whole gorge is haunted, this spot right here worst of all!”

  “Don’t start,” another of the Highknights said disgustedly, dumping another shovel-load of dirt beside his lantern. Next to that light sat a small brazier, also hooded, where a fitful fire licked up from charcoal. “You can tell us all what horrible things she’ll do to us when we’re done and emptying flasks back at the Lady’s Tower.”

  “I know why the King comes up here,” a new voice said, from the other side of the deepening grave, and waited for the various grunts and chuckles to rise and then die away again, “but why now? He was ah, entertaining those four sisters from Tantras not two nights ago and seemed quite taken with them, too—and they with him. Why this sudden run right the way up the kingdom into the cold shadow of the Stonelands, to Tessaril’s arms? Is she that good?”

  There were just a few chuckles this time and one firm whisper: “Yes.”

  “No, Regrar, this can’t be just the King in rut! He was frowning and tossing back his head the way he does when there’s something troublesome on his mind, all the way up here. If I’m ever to do a decent job of guarding the Dragon, I have to know a lot more than I do now. Is this usual? Does he drop everything and come riding up here often?”

  “Often enough, lad, often enough—and Daervin here isn’t the first of us to be buried in this gorge, either—though there’s never been any hint of shapeshifters before! Yet you’ve seen things clear enough. Azoun comes to Tessaril often, not just for her arms and her bed but as we do when we seek out old friends, men we trust, to rest easy and talk over our cares and the ongoing ruin of Faerûn, and put our feet up. This ride, now, was a little different; something was eating at him. Forold?”

  The low voice spoke again. “I spoke with Delmar, one of our eyes here. Vangerdahast came to Eveningstar and met with Tessaril. All manner of striding monsters and strange apparitions were seen around Eveningstar in the hours following his arrival—and they were hunted down by the Royal Magician when he came out of the Lady’s Tower again, and blasted to dust and smoke.”

  “Old Vangey didn’t look any too happy, if y’ask me,” another Highknight muttered.

  Forold growled a wordless agreement and asked, “Isn’t it deep enough yet? We’re not digging a well, you know—and Daervin’s a little past complaining!”

  “Patience, old blade,” Regrar grunted, as a shovel rang off a rock. “Slow going, this end: Mother Chauntea left all the rocks from yon fields right here, it seems.”

  “Well, lad,” Forold continued, “No sooner had Vangey taken himself off back to Suzail in a cloud of spellsmoke, with a face like old sour iron, then Tessaril was seen leading two fat priestesses of Chauntea—strangers, not seen in Eveningstar before, nor arriving, either—a little way up Eveningstar Gorge. She returned alone.”

  “And?”

  “And promptly went to her chambers, where she cast a strong magic that involved murmuring a message over something very small that vanished when the spell was done.”

  “Sending a token afar, with a message on it.” They could all hear the frown in Regrar’s voice. “A report to the King?”

  “Nay, we were already a-horse and on the way,” another Highknight said grimly. “She was reporting to someone else.”

  “The Zhentarim?” Regrar asked. “Renegade nobles of the realm?”

  “She’ll bear watching, will our Tessaril,” Forold said calmly. “Anyone bedding the King must know far more than she should. I’ve been suspicious of her for some time. All these Harpers who come tramping through here—she certainly doesn’t report their visits officially.”

  “How do you know that?” Regrar protested, grounding his shovel and leaning on it. “There’s nothing more official than telling the King directly, and if all they were doing was cuddling and cooing, what did he need the map for? Even our Dragon must do something besides rutting and hoisting goblets—he likes women who can talk and have wits to match his own, or better!”

  “Bah, she doesn’t talk policy and make reports!” said anoth
er voice. “The woman’s a snake!”

  Another Highknight who’d been silent until now spoke up. “Whether she is or she isn’t, I know what the spell was about, and the priestesses. She took them to the Tombgate and sent someone else a skull-token that will take them to its far end.”

  “She’s setting up some sort of meeting there,” Forold said thoughtfully, “but why?”

  The flames of the brazier suddenly blazed up green, then white and purple, growing brighter. “Blood of the Dragon! Someone’s scrying us!” Regrar snarled. “Where’s that War Wizard? Get him, quickly!”

  Korthauvar looked sharply at Hlael, who hastily hissed a word and slashed his hand through the smoke in front of him. In a matter of moments the scrying-spell collapsed, the smoke fading to half-seen curls … then nothing.

  The two wizards exchanged glances. “The Tombgate,” Hlael murmured. “Old Hesperdan will know where it leads, if anyone outside Candlekeep does.”

  “If Hesperdan doesn’t,” Korthauvar said grimly, “Tessaril Winter does.”

  Stiff and uncomfortable in ill-fitting, much-mended leather armor and trying hard to look like the seasoned guards they weren’t, Narm and Shandril exchanged brief glances through the slits in their cavernous helms and shifted their crossbows to more comfortable positions on their shoulders.

  “More comfortable” was a laughable term, given the bone-jarring bouncing and pitching of the laden wagons crashing up, over, and through ruts. They both stood on high platforms that jutted out around the drovers’ heads—platforms they shared with lumpy sacks and bundles that had been lashed down with enough ropes and straps to make them resemble the web-bundled prey of some very energetic spider.

  Around them, half-hidden by the thick dust, Voldovan’s real guards raced about on their leaping, plunging mounts, holding their saddles easily amid the tumult and glaring hard-eyed at everything and everyone. Orthil’s caravan was just leaving Scornubel—and the guards wanted very much to leave the city’s grasping hands and swift swindles behind. Twice Narm saw blades half-drawn warningly as local lads raced in to snatch at things or men pushing carts tried to get in the way of the caravan—whether to steal, stage an accident, or try to trade, he could only guess.