Hand of Fire

by Ed Greenwood

  The wizard thumbed open both small coffers. In one were a few hairs he’d watched Shandril snag on a rough wagon-board, before tearing herself impatiently free. In the other were a few Narm had tugged out of his own head with impatient fingers. From them, Aumlar would with a few muttered words spin a darting thing of stealthy silence to race along in the wake of his Doom of Swords spell. It would do the real harm to the lass that some capricious god or goddess had seen fit to bestow spellfire upon.

  “Is it you, Mystra?” he whispered aloud, as he held up a hair in each hand and called the right incantation to mind. “Are you testing us all, once more?”

  Blue fire flashed through the dark corners of his mind, just for an instant, and for the first time in months Aumlar Chaunthoun tasted real fear, like cold iron in his mouth. What else could this be but an answer from the goddess?

  She was watching him, by the Weave!

  “Oh, Mystra,” he whispered, voice quavering, and then found himself casting his second spell before he’d quite decided to start unleashing it.

  He always thought, afterward, that his casting of the dreamwhisper was Mystra’s doing.

  The man who was not Haransau Olimer lifted the bowgun, took careful aim, and waited. The maroon-topped wagon was slowing and slewing around as the carter on the perch fought the reins, snarling horrible curses. In a moment its door-flap would be facing him, and—

  A man’s head thrust out, looking first to the left. The Dark Blade of Doom fired and saw the merchant who was really a Zhentarim turn back to face his deadly dart. The peering face suddenly grew the dart in its nose. Jerking his head back, the Zhent fell back out of view.

  One of the horses reared, and the swearing carter almost fell off his perch. He hadn’t even seen his master die.

  Marlel smiled softly and went back to being patient.

  The dark-robed figure floated up the lightless shaft, paying no heed to the helmed horrors who drifted nearer, coldly flickering black blades extended menacingly before them. Drauthtar Inskirl had not lasted so long in the Zhentarim by being stupid, or easily cowed. When it pleased the gods—or some cruel superior or overreaching underling in the Brotherhood—to hand him death, his passing would befall, regardless of his desires. Wherefore he sought his pleasures where he saw opportunity, holding back nothing for later, and devoted his efforts to being as indispensable as it’s possible for a Zhent wizard to be.

  There was no mage more loyal or as well positioned in the evershifting tides of Brotherhood intrigue as the one now passing through the sudden ruby flare of a last defensive spell and stepping onto a platform high up in the dark and seemingly endless shaft.

  This was not a stronghold known to many outside the Zhentarim, and the man who waited in its more exalted chambers was a mystery even to most of the Brotherhood. Eirhaun had been a trading partner and crony of Manshoon before the formation of the Zhentarim, and he now commanded the shadowy handful of Zhents who watched their fellow members of the Brotherhood for signs of treachery … or drifting overmuch in loyalty toward Bane and his most ambitious priest, Fzoul.

  To speak of the incident that had left Eirhaun with a hand whose fingers were snakes, two empty eyesockets, and an escort of four tiny flying spheres that each sported a single humanlike eye, was to die swiftly and painfully. It had something to do with both Fzoul and Manshoon, Drauthtar knew, but he did as he always did: looked at that eyeless head and spoke to it, as if Eirhaun still had eyes like other men.

  The Maimed Wizard stood in shadow, with four guardian gargoyles crouched on pillars around him, looking like the high arched back of a throne Eirhaun happened to be standing in rather than sitting upon. The hand of hissing snakes waved in greeting. “What news?”

  “Hammantle and Toraunt still wait and watch. They’ve convinced themselves that they tarry out of clever strategy, not out of naked fear of spellfire or the sneaking desire to postpone our wrath as long as possible. I’ve let them spin their own dooms because I’m as interested as they are in the spellstorm that’s going to erupt any moment now in that caravan.”

  “The Cult of the Dragon, the Red Wizards, the Arcane Brotherhood, and half the happy dancing gods and those who revere them are slavering after spellfire,” Eirhaun responded. It was not a question.

  “All of them have gone along on this caravan with the wench who wields spellfire in their midst. If nothing else, we can slaughter a healthy tally of rivals based in and about Scornubel, when the bloodletting finally starts.”

  “We?”

  “Mhegras and Sabran, riding a wagon together; the ever-capable Aumlar—”

  “Unh, that one. Trouble ahead for us all if he gets it.”

  “Spellfire?”

  “Of course. Who else?”

  “Praulgar, posing as a pot-seller, and the usual three or four magelings out to make a name for themselves.”

  “And your intention is?”

  “To watch and wait even as Hammantle and Toraunt do, goading them into action if the Cult or the Thayans or someone else gets spellfire—and in the meantime do nothing. There’s nothing to report, so I’ve kept silent.”

  “I shall do the same. Until something befalls to shift who holds power, spellfire and otherwise, there’s no need to inform Manshoon. Those who come to the notice of our Dread Lord are wise to do so only in ways that please him.”

  Drauthtar inclined his head. “Indeed. I have no other news.”

  “And I, no orders for you at this time. You have leave to depart.”

  Drauthtar bowed his head again, and turned to go. He took two steps, then looked sharply to his right, to where the shadows were deepest. There had been the slightest of flickers—

  “You’re alone, Eirhaun?” he snapped, turning to face the disturbance. “No other mages?”

  “None. Who could cleave all these shieldings? I was warned of your approach a dozen times, as you ascended.” The Maimed Wizard strode forward, frowning in alarm even as his disbelieving denials rang out. His gargoyles sprang into the air, to swoop where he was heading.

  “Arrsarundae!” he snapped.

  Obediently the air shimmered and burst into brightness as a magical field collapsed, flooding the chamber with the harsh white light of its slow dying.

  A figure stood revealed beyond it, man-shaped and robed—and hidden again in an instant, as Drauthtar and Eirhaun both furiously snarled out incantations and moved their hands in lightning-swift gestures, hurling deadly magics at the intruder.

  Scores of tiny fireballs whirled to assail that mysterious target, dozens of lightning bolts leaping past them or stabbing through them in an unleashing of fury that would have been fool-work indeed to loose in even the stoutest of castles, had Eirhaun’s dozen shieldings not been there to shape and contain their destruction.

  As it was, the room shook, dust showering down, and an entire row of flagstones heaved and rippled as if some giant mole were racing along beneath them. Ears were smitten with the shrieks of shieldings torn asunder, gargoyles were hurled away like leaves flung along in a gale to be shattered and broken on far walls, the very air crackled and scorched the skins of the two wizards … and when the smoke and stones had fallen away, the mysterious intruder stood unscathed.

  Unscathed, and stepping slowly forward, smiling.

  “Hesperdan!” Drauthtar spat, rage still his master.

  “The same,” replied the feeble old man with that amused look that Drauthtar knew so well. He was clad in the dusty maroon robes he always wore—perhaps the only clothes he had—and the same long, pointed, ridiculous shoes. They seemed relics of another age, just as the Old Man of the Zhentarim was. Our Old Mage. Not for the first time, Drauthtar wondered if Hesperdan and Elminster were cousins, brothers, or even one and the same man …

  That thought always made him shiver, and he shivered now. Hesperdan strolled unconcernedly between Drauthtar and Eirhaun, giving them both the same patronizing smile, and the Maimed Wizard said heavily, “You heard all the words that
passed between us.” Again, his words were not a question.

  “Of course.”

  “W-what will you tell Manshoon?” Drauthtar dared to ask.

  “Nothing. I, too, enjoy a good spellstorm.”

  A little silence followed his reply, until Eirhaun asked almost reluctantly, as if fearing the answer he’d receive: “How did you pass and hide from my shieldings?”

  “Ah, yes. A fair question. When you can answer it for yourself, you’ll finally be competent to perform the scouring-the-Brotherhood duties you’ve taken upon yourself, Eirhaun Sooundaeril. I hope that competence comes soon, Eirhaun. More than that, I hope it comes in time.”

  Drauthtar told himself to remember Eirhaun’s family name, which the Maimed Wizard never used and he’d never known. Hesperdan took another step and was abruptly not there, gone as if he’d never been present.

  Drauthtar stared at the empty air that had held him, then at the scorched walls and sprawled dead gargoyles. He said feelingly, “I hate that man.”

  “No,” the Maimed Wizard said slowly, “you don’t, and neither do I. No one in the Brotherhood quite dares to hate Hesperdan, I think. We all fear him too much for that.”

  The dark cloud whirling above them suddenly sharpened and grew still darker. Shandril could see that it was now a forest of dark swordblades, all pointing straight down at the ground, and all whirling in swift spirals, like a hundred corkscrews.

  Nay, swiftly descending spirals! Like a patiently settling mist, the cloud started to descend, draining itself away into all those swords. In a rising, discordant singing, they loomed larger and longer and darker, whirling nearer …

  Men were shouting or crying out in frantic fear or cursing—Shandril could hear Orthil Voldovan, and Arauntar, and Beldimarr all gasping out floods of words that were cruel, colorful treasures of invective—and Narm was desperately muttering an incantation, trying to weave a counterspell when there was no time left to cast anything.

  Shandril summoned up a last surge of spellfire to cleave this death that was reaching for them. As the flames started to flow, an old and coldly amused voice arose out of them, saying quite distinctly, “I hope that competence comes soon, Eirhaun. More than that, I hope it comes in time.”

  Mystra’s doing? Who was speaking, and who was Eirhaun?

  Shandril shook her head. There was no time left to wonder, no time to do anything more than nod at the aptness of the mysterious words, and gather her paltry remaining spellfire, and wait for just the right moment as the dark blades came whirling down.

  14

  FIGHTING FOR LIFE IN HAELHOLLOW

  Fight, little fools! Mount your wars and raise your towers and make your chases. I like to taste well-marbled meat when I’m crunching your bones.

  Hamairathgauraundon, High Wyrm of the Crags

  Words Spent On Little Fools: Instructing Humans

  Year of the Watching Helm

  The cloud resolved itself into a dark, glittering forest of swordblades, spinning point-first down in deadly spirals.

  “No!” Korthauvar Hammantle shouted. “Don’t slay her, you fool!”

  “Who—?” Hlael snapped, leaning forward to see, but Korthauvar gave him no answer. The taller Zhentarim was too busy leaping to his feet and casting the strongest shielding spell he knew, as fast as his fingers could fly and his lips gasp out the incantation.

  “No!” Hlael said, face paling, as he realized what Korthauvar was going to do. “You can’t—”

  Korthauvar could, and did. He hurled his spell into the depths of the crystal, even as Hlael threw himself and his chair over backward, scrambling to get clear before—

  The crystal exploded in a bright roar of force and tinkling of razor-sharp crystal shards that peppered the walls like hard-driven hail before raining down all over the chamber.

  Korthauvar lowered both his hands, seeming not to see that they were streaming blood and bright with glistening shards in a score of places. He’d shielded his face and throat, and that was all that mattered. “Hlael,” he muttered, “get up. It’s your turn to weave a farscrying. We’ve got to see what happened. I saw her face—she knew she hadn’t enough spellfire left to disrupt that spell.”

  “She had enough to defend herself, surely,” Hlael protested, clambering up from behind his chair.

  “Yes, but she has her husband to think of and the two guards she healed earlier. She dotes on folk so easily, remember.”

  Hlael sighed. “She’s young.”

  “Aye, and she’ll die that way, right soon, if we don’t cast just the right spells,” Korthauvar declared, striding over to his scattered heap of spellbooks. “Now spin me that farscrying! I have to see what happened—now!”

  Hlael nodded hastily, shook himself, and started to stammer out the spell. Korthauvar growled out wordless frustration and started flipping pages of the oldest, most powerful spell-tome he owned. Unless he was mistaken, Haelhollow was boiling with a storm of spells right now that would make a mistake at a MageFair look like a mere trifle!

  The sky low over Haelhollow erupted in a sudden bright conflagration. Boiling brightness tore apart the dark cloud of descending blades like bright lantern beams slicing through nightgloom. Lightning bolts sprang out of that roiling, spraying here and there among the wagons. Men screamed as they stiffened in death, outlined in blue fire with every hair on their bodies standing out like bristles. Corpses toppled, trailing plumes of smoke, unregarded in the shout-filled confusion of tiny, dying lightnings crackling across the ground like restless claws, spiraling swords fraying away into drifting plumes of smoke, and spheres of snarling flame bouncing and tumbling out of the sky.

  The brightness overhead died away swiftly, lashing out in a few parting surges. Floods of ruby and blood-pink radiance washed over trees and wagons and running men, and left strange things in their wakes.

  One stunted tree tore itself up by the roots and spiraled up into the sky every bit as enthusiastically as the vanished spell-blades had been coming down. Another turned to ice and promptly began to shed branches in singing, bouncing clatterings. A third became water, crashing to the ground in a foaming flood that spat short-lived, licking flames at the air as it drained away. A wagon turned bright green and glowed. The trader on its perch stared down at his green-glowing hands in disbelief, then fled in howling terror.

  Like a frantic wind he raced past a merchant frozen forever in mid-stumble, a motionless body turned to something akin to sparkling stone. It changed again as Shandril scrambled up to stare at it, becoming a man-shape made of coiled and hissing groundsnakes.

  The pillar of writhing, thankfully harmless creatures promptly collapsed into slithering chaos, causing several guards to snarl fearful, astonished oaths and flee from the wriggling, hurriedly dissipating groundcarpet of snakes.

  “Down, Shan!” Narm snapped, catching hold of Shandril’s arms, hurling himself to the floorboards and swinging her up and over him as he fell. With a startled mew she tumbled into the depths of the ready-wagon as the perch exploded into deadly splinters and sight-searing brightness. Narm bounced down the wagon on his back and elbows, lacking the breath to even hiss curses, as the spell that had sought their lives died away—and the wagon was rocked by another blast that was very loud and very near.

  Something bloody that had been alive a moment ago tore through the fabric above the wooden wagon-sides and on out through the cloth on the other side of the ready-wagon, slowing not a whit.

  “What—?” Shandril demanded a little dazedly, as she slithered down a collapsing heap of tarpaulins and small kegs of axle grease, to join Narm on the littered floor. “Who’s trying to kill us now?”

  “Nay, nay—who’s not trying to kill us now?” Narm snapped, cradling her in his arms. “They’ve all gone battle-crazed out there! I don’t know who tried that spell of blades or who broke it with that cloud of lightnings that went all wild, but every last merchant with a wand and every hiddencloak wizard in this caravan is trying to deal
death this very Mystra-blessed moment!”

  A weird high singing sound was rising over his words, pierced by many screams and shouts, and through the gaping hole where the perch had been Shandril saw an entire wagon whirling up into the sky. Vicious cracklings and flashes of light marked the unleashings of other magics all around them, and the thuds of running boots sounded on all sides, peppered with oaths and the occasional clang of sword upon sword.

  “Narm,” Shandril said, struggling free of her husband’s grasp, “I’ve got to see.” She rolled over beneath him to crawl to where the perch had been.

  “Nay, lady love,” Narm protested, catching her by the elbows and throwing his full weight onto her back, to pin her to the floorboards again, “stay down, and quiet—and mayhap alive, hey?”

  Shandril sighed, growled at him, shook her head to get a tangle of hair out of her eyes, and said firmly, “Look, every last masked Zhent wizard along on this run knows exactly which wagon we’re in, and—”

  The world erupted just outside to their right, and the ready-wagon was suddenly turning over around them, raining down rope-ends and hand-kegs and any number of small, hard, pointed things on Narm and Shandril as they shouted, tried to catch hold of each other, and—

  Another blast drove away all vision for a moment, brightness flaring blindingly before their eyes. Shandril’s ears rang. Narm was shouting something, but she couldn’t tell what.

  She shook her head, still seeing nothing but brightness as the ready-wagon landed with a bone-shaking crash, bounced, bounced again to the sounds of things breaking, and rocked to a halt on its side. Every last loose thing inside the wagon crashed teeth-numbingly down to its own resting-place, Narm and Shandril included.

  Resting places that would last only until the next spell-blast. Bursts of magic and shouts were still raging outside as Shandril blinked her way back to seeing things … she hoped. She shifted gingerly amid the heap of tumbled and broken gear and couldn’t help but moan in pain. Were her left shoulder and right thigh shattered or did they just feel that way?