Hand of Fire

by Ed Greenwood

  The stone-faced man nodded at another mage, who went swiftly to the door, unlocked it, and ushered in a man who was smiling.

  The flame above the table danced a handspan or so in his direction, and seemed to flare a little brighter. “You would be Marlel,” said the Highest in a dry voice. “The Dark Blade of Doom.”

  Marlel sat down in the seat of the man who’d been sent to fetch him, leaving that mage hovering uncertainly, and replied, “Every man in my profession needs a more memorable name than the one given at birth. Just as you are now ‘Highest’ and less often ‘Hulrivior.’ ”

  There was a sharp intake of breath around the table, but the voice from the flame seemed almost amused as it said, “You learn what you must, I see. How is it that you became interested in me and found your way to this table?”

  “I suspect I’m the most capable survivor of Voldovan’s caravan who might be induced to work with … you of Thay. I was personally known to one of your mages here in Triel, from, let us say, ‘earlier escapades.’ Coin has changed hands, and I fear I’ve clean forgotten whatever former reason or alliance I may have had for accompanying this particular string of wagons and suddenly come to the conclusion that, for the good of all Faerûn, no less a capable mage than a Red Wizard should command spellfire.”

  “Commendable,” the Highest commented. “How, in your incisive, professional view, should we of Thay come to possess spellfire?”

  “By using me to strike at the right time and in the right manner,” Marlel replied, lowering his voice and leaning forward over the table. Most of the other men seated there did the same, eager to hear whatever secrets he was obviously about to unfold. “And,” he said, opening his hand, “there’s this.”

  Something small and gemlike gleamed in his palm—for the instant before Marlel’s smile widened, and he flung the small something right into the flame, hurling himself and his chair over backward in the same motion.

  The room exploded in streamers of white fire, and the man called the Dark Blade of Doom rolled away from the table and up to his feet with a wand in his hand while headless bodies were still reeling at the table and other men were screaming and clutching at sightless eyes.

  Coolly he used the wand to blast faces and hands wherever he saw them, ridding the room of foes who could do him harm. Patiently he waited for the smoke and the afterimages still dancing before his own eyes to clear.

  The flame above the table was gone, and if his little secret had worked as it was supposed to, the Red Wizard Hulrivior, wherever his smoking body might now be, was “Highest” no more.

  Marlel smiled softly down at the last two Thayans still living, as they writhed on the floor, staring first at the smoking stumps where their hands had been, then at the man who’d dealt them such maiming.

  As their curses faded into weary groans, he announced, “I did forget to warn you of one little matter: I’d already met with a Red Wizard, one who pays rather better than Highest. Please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding, and the mess. I confess I care little about acting so boldly or being seen as treacherous, but coins guide the Dark Blade of Doom. As I don’t expect to live very long to enjoy them, I seek to please myself, day by day. Slaying a room full of rivals and cruel mages … now that pleases me.”

  He aimed the wand at his wounded audience and triggered it again.

  “Well, now!” Korthauvar Hammantle said, as the scrying magic faded and he sat back to grin at his fellow Zhentarim. “This is rich!”

  “Yes,” Hlael agreed, shaking his head, “but how did Marlel get yon magic? And stay alive to make an agreement with anyone?”

  “Ah,” said a soft voice from the shadows behind them. “That would be my doing.”

  Korthauvar and Hlael froze, suddenly ice-cold and dry-mouthed. They knew that voice even before the old man in the dusty maroon robes and the long-pointed shoes shuffled forward into the light: Hesperdan!

  Korthauvar was still trying to swallow as the old wizard smiled and added, “Now, I think, it’s time for you to stop watching and to go and fetch me spellfire. There’s no need to farspeak Drauthtar or delay any longer. Just go and do it.” He raised a bony, green-veined hand in which a strange scepter glowed and flickered, and whispered, “Now.”

  It was bright and cloudless as they left Triel, but the Trade Way seemed deserted. As the creaking, groaning wagons rolled on, Voldovan eyed every bush and nearby crag suspiciously—as Narm and Shandril knew all too well, for they sat on the perch beside him, guiding the beasts of his wagon. As the hours passed without incident, the caravan master grew more tense and wary rather than less so. When they stopped to water the beasts and refill skins at a roadside stream, he was almost dancing with tension.

  Yet no crossbow quarrels came humming out of the Blackrocks, and no beasts pounced, called, or even showed themselves on the heights. Once a merchant thought he saw the tiny shape of a dragon aloft, flying very high, but when he shouted and pointed, no one else caught sight of it.

  “Dragons,” Orthil Voldovan growled, caressing the already glassy-smooth bone hilt of his handy belt-dagger with white-knuckled hands. “That’s all I need!”

  Just after the sun had started its long descent, they passed another caravan heading the other way—a fast-moving group of uniform wagons guarded by hard-eyed men in chainmail, all in matching hats and surcoats. Voldovan raised a hand in salute as they thundered past and growled, “Costers!” into the dust-cloud they left in their wake, as if it was the dirtiest oath imaginable.

  The dust got into everything. Shandril’s hair felt like the gnarled roots of some dead, dried-out plant. It left everyone coughing and spitting, but when they rumbled clear of it the road was as deserted as before, and Arauntar blew a horn-call announcing his intention to pick up the pace. Voldovan merely nodded, and slowly, wagon after wagon, drovers using their whips, reins, and voices got their beasts up to a near-gallop.

  Once more they bounced and thundered along, rocking dangerously, until Shandril shouted to the caravan master, “Is this prudent? You remember what happened last time!”

  “If we’re attacked, lass, ’twon’t matter how fast we’re going … might even make a few brigands think twice about daring to dispute with us,” was the reply.

  As the day wore on, the wheels turned, no misfortune fell, and it seemed as if Arauntar had been wise … for as the shadows grew long and the sun glimmered low behind distant crags, the veteran guard blew another, triumphant horn-blast, signaling all to slow, and turned his wagon up a side-trail onto a large, tilted plateau.

  “This’ll be where that coster run broke camp, this morn,” Voldovan growled in satisfaction. “We’ve made good time!”

  Narm and Shandril exchanged glances and smiles—wry grins that told each other wordlessly that they were both expecting more trouble in the night to come. The wagons around them seemed to hold an endless supply of bold men seeking spellfire.

  Voldovan evidently thought so too. His first words as he swung down from the perch to see to the horses, before Narm could rise to help him or Shandril slip out the other side to chock the wheels, was “Try to stay out o’ trouble this night, the pair of ye, hmm? I’ll be sleeping first watch, and would appreciate yer keeping the slap’n’tickle and hurling of spells and cooking folk alive with spellfire to a minimum, hey?”

  Narm and Shandril traded more glances, in which eyes were rolled expressively.

  The dust cloud ahead was coming her way, fast.

  Sharantyr watched it with narrowed eyes, then sighed, hurried down into the deepest part of the ditch, and flattened herself against the ground in the lee of a large rock. A coster caravan, coming fast. They’d ride her down with barely a shrug or put a quarrel through her at first sight for fear she might be some brigand lure.

  The cloud grew, and with it a rumble that swiftly grew louder, shaking the ground her cheek was pressed against. She closed her eyes against the dust and waited for the din to simply pass over and leave her—in the dus
t, of course. She’d be choking on it for some time, as she walked in the wake of the hard-driven wagons.

  “Shan, Shan,” she asked the stone in front of her wryly, “couldn’t you just have settled down in Shadowdale and endangered us all there?”

  Then the Knight of Myth Drannor shut her mouth tight, for the storm was upon her. Close by her head plunging hooves and wheel after wheel thundered, the tumbling dust so thick that it stung her skin, the rattling of loose cargo and wagon-chains briefly deafening. The tumult lessened as it left her behind, roaring on south toward Triel.

  She’d almost caught up to Voldovan there but she’d had to get water and walk far enough beyond Triel that the inevitable lurking outlaws wouldn’t decide she’d be easy prey while she slept. When at last Sharantyr found bare rock to leave the road on and cover beyond, she simply had to sleep.

  She was still weary now, but she was no longer staggering and finding her eyes drooping shut at every third stride. It would be so easy to just lie here, and sleep …

  Aye, and be dined upon by the first night-prowling beast that followed her scent along the road.

  With another sigh the ranger rolled over and up—and found herself staring at the still-quivering wreckage of a freshly crashed wagon. A wounded horse was thrashing in the road, others were trying to kick their way clear of their harness and away from the bodies of their dead fellows, and the brigands who’d wrought this were darting down from the rocks a dozen strong, or more.

  “Kisses upon you, Tymora!” Sharantyr gasped. She’d been only a few strides from walking right under their noses—and by the looks of all the coster outriders sprawled in the road with quarrels standing up out of their backs, she’d have died wearing enough bolts to look like a porcupine.

  Three surviving outriders were spurring desperately past her and away, one wearing a quarrel in the shoulder. The brigands wasted no time chasing them. They were already swording the kicking, twisting horse that had gone down—and the drover struggling to get out from under a tangle of harness beside it, too.

  Other brigands plunged into the wagon and came out again with blankets and cloaks to toss over the heads of the horses they judged salvageable. There was a brief tumult of wrestling with frightened beasts, swearing, rolling away from deadly hooves … then the hooded horses quieted down to stamping and snorting where they stood, still harnessed. The brigands got down to serious looting. Nigh everyone charged into the wagon, and there were crashings, blows, and shouts of pleased discovery. Sharantyr sidled up behind the one man still outside and hastily ducked away behind the horses when he finally decided to turn and look down the road to make sure no one was coming back from the caravan for their missing wagon.

  Calmly, as if she’d every right to be there, Sharantyr cut horse after horse out of harness, taking calm measure of each as she did so. When she’d settled on the one that looked the strongest, she sprang up onto its back. As it reared and bugled its surprise, she plucked the cloak from over its head and dropped it over the astonished face of that last brigand, following it with a hard kick to his jaw that almost unhorsed her. She got a good fistful of mane, and as the horse reared again she kicked out at other horses. One promptly bolted, and that set them all off, Sharantyr using her utmost strength to get the head of her chosen mount around the way she wanted it to go.

  By the time the brigands inside the wagon had finished shouting profane queries and emerged from their plundering, Sharantyr of Shadowdale was riding hard along the road. North, in pursuit of Shandril Shessair—and spellfire.

  It had evidently been years since this large thunderhooves had felt a rider on its back, and though she undoubtedly weighed less than the wagons it pulled, she was less than welcome. It tossed its head and tried to reach around and bite her almost ceaselessly as the hills rose and fell beneath its hooves. Its ungainly gait started out weary and progressed through plodding to staggering until eventually Sharantyr tired of its plaintive snorting and tottering progress and swung herself down from its back.

  She patted its flank as it tried a half-hearted kick in her direction and told it, “Sorry, old bones. Take your ease … until the wolves find you, I guess. Still, you’d soon be roasting over a brigand fire if you weren’t free now.”

  She ran a few steps to get clear of its hooves and teeth, then resumed walking.

  When the ranger glanced back at it, the wagon-horse gave her a choice look and started plodding along after her. Sharantyr smiled, grinned, and led the way. North, toward spellfire—and trouble, if she knew anything about Shandril.

  The horse sighed heavily, saving her the trouble.

  The merchant who was really a Red Wizard knew he was working alone now, and the farther he got from Triel, the less aid he could call on. The time was as right as it would ever be. He also knew just which of the guards hired in Triel could be relied upon to see nothing when he emerged from his wagon at night to cast a spell, such as the one he was weaving now.

  The plateau resembled a gigantic tilted coin, high side nigh the road and low side to the west, so all he’d had to do was get himself to the row of rocks overlooking the road and the slumber-gas created by his spell would drift down over the entire camp. Sleeping men stop few wizards, and men unable to awaken stop even fewer. Put a dagger through the right throats, and spellfire might be his very soon.

  “Asarandu,” he said carefully, ending the incantation, and spread his arms wide. From them flowed a greenish, purplish gas, billowing like smoke from a quickening fire, but heavy, tumbling to the ground in front of him. It built back up to above his head before it started to drift west, downslope, toward the wagons.

  Now, if the wind would just hold off and none of the guards not already in his purse raised the alarm too soon …

  He strolled back to his wagon as if nothing was amiss—and indeed, to his lungs there was no spell-spun gas at all—and waited there, drawn dagger hidden in his sleeve. No one cried out, no errant breeze arose. This was going to work!

  A guard took two bored steps away from a wagon, then crumpled and fell headlong to the ground. Over yonder, another.

  Yes. Soon, now …

  Two guards turned their heads, hearing the thump of another hitting the ground. They peered, shrugged and sagged in unison, muttered banter forgotten.

  The wizard stepped cautiously to where he could look across the camp. The spellfire wench was in Voldovan’s wagon, and it sported four guards at its corners, one of them taking Red Wizard coins.

  There was no point in slitting throats here, there, and everywhere across the caravan. The two head guards and Voldovan himself should be his first victims, then anyone not asleep or trying to cast a spell—Shandril’s mate last, in case he should be needed as a hostage to her good behavior.

  One of the guards by the wagon fell over, then another. The third asked them sharply what was wrong before falling on his face, so walking openly across the field toward that wagon might not be the brightest tactic, now.

  Ah, but who was left?

  The Red Wizard drew in a deep breath and started on his journey, heading for another wagon well off to one side. From there he could turn toward the one he sought. As he went, he kept a sharp watch for other men on the move in the spell-smoke. The camp was entirely enveloped by his magic now.

  He reached the wagon—dark, still, and silent, with three bodies sprawled about its perch amid dragon-droon cards scattered where they’d fallen from nerveless hands. He recognized a guard who’d been along since Scornubel. Not one of the two battered veterans, but a longtime rider with Voldovan. He drew the man a new smile across his throat, stepped hastily back to keep clear of the welling blood, wiped his dagger on the man’s jerkin, and went on.

  On toward Voldovan’s own wagon, where spellfire waited. Along the way he passed a fallen guard who’d been hired in Triel—not one loyal to Thay, but who’d probably not leap to defend a caravan patron in battle, either—and left the man lying, unharmed. He might not have very long to stri
ke if someone had resisted his spell or shaken off its effects. Some folk always did.

  His spell had driven down the last of the dew, and the trampled grass was wet and slippery underfoot. The Red Wizard walked as carefully and quietly as he knew how, dagger hidden in his sleeve again, hardly daring to hope it was going to be this easy.

  Yet no one stirred as he reached the first of the guards and turned the man over with his foot. The man of Thay. He went to the next and slit that guard’s throat with quickening excitement. Now, around to the front … spellfire must lie less than a dozen feet away, his for the taking.

  “A spell, yes, but what? Not a cloudkill, surely!” Korthauvar frowned, peering over the rocks.

  “Whatever ’tis, I’m not letting it touch me,” Hlael muttered. “Not while I have the means to break—ho! Look there!”

  “Falling … dead or asleep,” the taller Zhentarim said slowly, backing away from the rocks. “Slumbering men are easy enough to slay … and we could walk right in and take spellfire, with all of them snoring.”

  “Someone’s trying that already and will be ready for us or anyone,” Hlael hissed fiercely, “and that’s if yon spell doesn’t take us down!”

  He retreated until he stood in a clear, level area on the very lip of the drop to the road below. There he shook out his sleeves and announced, “Stand back, Kor. I’m going to break that spell. Look, it’s spilling over the rocks at us already!”

  Korthauvar nodded. “Do so, without delay, or spellfire may be snatched from under our very hand after all.”

  Hlael nodded grimly. “Not something I’d like to have to explain to Hesperdan, if he isn’t watching us right now.” He raised his hands, and began his casting.

  “He is,” Korthauvar of the Zhentarim muttered to himself, casting a quick look around at the night. “Oh, he is.”

  The dagger plunged in, the Red Wizard winced and pulled, and another throat bled. He shuddered. A good fireball, now, or lightning to hurl men shrieking, left them just as dead, but not this … this … boarlike butchery …