Hand of Fire

by Ed Greenwood

  Arauntar took the wizard by the neck even before Thavaun could stiffen. He closed the fingers of one hairy hand firmly around a Thayan windpipe, batting the mage’s frantically darting hands away from belt and pouches with the other.

  Throttling Thavaun slowly, the Harper snarled, “For Orthil Voldovan! For Beldimarr! And—and for Shandril Shessair, damn you and all spell-snakes! I loved that lass! She was worth a hundred Red Wizards, a thousand Thays! She could have ruled all wizards and set the Realms to rights!”

  He paused in mid-bellow and panted, looking around at the crawling caravan-men, who stared back at him with wide, frightened eyes. Arauntar flung down the dead, boneless body and added softly, “Or become the worst tyrant Faerûn has ever known.”

  He sighed, turned to look at the burning wagons, then shook his head. Turning, he walked alone into the night.

  “Like so many other things,” he told the stars, “we’ll never know, now. Another dream snuffed out … and I harp to keep those dreams alight. Fare you well, Shandril Shessair. Rest easy, Bel. Arauntar needs some time alone, now.”

  From where she lay unregarded in the darkness, Alustriel Silverhand lifted her head and through bleeding eyes watched the gruff Harper stalk away. It took her some time to gather strength enough to reach out across Faerûn and say simply, “Sister, I need you.”

  She called on the Weave, and out of a twinkling of tiny stars stepped a buxom figure in dark leathers.

  Storm Silverhand bent over the High Lady of Silverymoon and murmured, “Mystra defend you, Endué. Who did th—oh. Oh, Bright Lady of us all. Shandril.

  She’s …”

  “Gone. Gathered to Mystra,” Alustriel said wearily and pointed past Storm’s knee as the bard knelt to hold her. “Someone else needs you, Sister,” she added, almost fiercely. “Someone you can help more than anyone else in Faerûn. A Harper in need of someone to walk with him for a time.”

  Storm turned and looked along Alustriel’s pointing arm, to where the dwindling form of Arauntar was striding along in the moonlight.

  “My thanks,” she murmured, squeezing the High Lady’s shoulder, and rose to follow the man walking alone into the night.

  As she went, she cast a spell with a few swift, sure gestures, and tiny star-motes were born out of the darkness around her, shaping themselves into a harp in her hands. Its high, clear notes rose in her wake and went before her. Alustriel saw the Harper slow, then turn to see the source of the music.

  He stopped and waited as the tall woman in leathers came striding toward him. Together, walking hip to hip like old friends, they went slowly down into the trees, walking on into the darkness until the harping could be heard no more.

  EPILOGUE

  “Shan! Shan!”

  The wild cry arose in the cold dawn as if from great depths. Asper, blind and still half-asleep, had to lean over the man writhing under blankets she’d laid over him the night before to make sure the shout that had awakened her had come from his throat.

  She stayed to soothe, but Narm Tamaraith sprang to his feet, hurling her aside without even noticing her, to stare wildly around into the mists cloaking the tilted, scorched campground.

  The blackened skeletons of wagons leaned crazily here and there. Off in the distance, at the far corner of the camp, stood two intact wagons and a shifting, snorting group of close-hobbled horses, flanked by sleepy-eyed men who gripped drawn swords and stared back at him.

  Narm’s gaze went reluctantly to where there were no mists, above the rocks, to where a ball of white flame still spun in midair.

  “No,” he whimpered, staring at it, as warm and shapely arms embraced him from behind.

  “She’s gone to Mystra,” Asper said into his ear. “She … spoke of you, ere she died.”

  “No!” Narm screamed. “Noooo!” He burst into tears and wrenched free, running wildly toward the whirling ball of flame.

  “Too high to hurl yourself into,” Asper murmured, pursuing him, “but a nasty fall from those rocks, if you hurl yourself!”

  The young mage promptly stumbled and fell, and she toppled over him. Narm did not rise but lay on his face in a daze.

  He did not know how long it was ere he found his feet again, and cared less, but as Narm sobbed and reached again for the softly spinning flames, a fat, unlovely, and unshaven figure wrapped in a blanket trudged up beside him and laid an iron hand on his shoulder.

  “Nay, lad,” Mirt growled, “don’t. That’s not the way of a hero. Heroes get up and go on, and endure. Heroes remember fallen comrades and try to carry on with what they were striving for, ere they died. Heroes keep at it.”

  Narm stared at him and screamed, “I suppose heroes don’t cry, either?” Tears rose to choke him again, and he doubled over, weeping.

  Mirt plucked Narm off his feet, swaying and staggering a little from the pain and stiffness of his wounds, and hugged him like a bear. “Ah, nay, lad, there you have it wrong again. ’Tis villains who feel no remorse. Heroes cry. Ah, yes.”

  In a tower far from where white flames spun in midair, a Red Wizard passed a weary hand over his eyes and let his scrying-crystal go dark. “So passes the spellfire-witch. Her fate surprises me not—but that she lasted this long does.”

  The dark-robed cleric across the table nodded. “This Year of the Prince has proved eventful indeed for all Faerûn. Let us hope that relative peace will prevail next year. Our prayers seem to indicate thus.”

  “Oh?” the mage asked politely. Privately he thought that priests’ prayers always indicated whatever the priests wanted them to, but he might need the support of this fool Indrel in time to come, so …

  “The signs Lady Shar has sent her holy faithful match what Lord Bane indicates to us,” Indrel of Bane said a trifle stiffly, as if he sensed the wizard’s skepticism. “The gods feel fair Faerûn hath seen troubles enough, and ’tis time for relative quiet. In such calm we can build our might, and be ready to triumph in the next strife—spellfire or no spellfire.”

  “As will others who oppose us,” the Red Wizard pointed out, recalling something about the next prophecy of Alaundo having to do with “gods walking among men.” “Peace, you say?”

  “The Lord Bane says,” the priest said firmly, “and you would do well to remember that—” His voice deepened into solemn thunder, and the mage joined in, to chant with him in unison: “The Lord Bane sees all and guides us unerringly!”

  “To supremacy,” the priest added, completing the holy saying alone. He looked curiously across the table to see why the Red Wizard had fallen silent and saw the mage frowning, gaze fixed on the dark sphere of crystal.

  “Spellfire,” the Red Wizard whispered, remembering what the scrying-sphere had just shown him. “I’d give a lot to be able to wield power like that.” He lifted his gaze to fix the priest with eyes that blazed with dark fire and added, “You might tell Lord Bane that.”

  Staring back at him, the priest suddenly shivered.

  Alustriel looked up, caught the distant Harper’s “safe ahead” wave, and saluted him with a wan smile. The stealthy ring of Harpers had been riding guard around them for days now, keeping distant and often hidden in the surrounding trees.

  She traded glances with Mirt and Asper. Silence reigned, and none of them felt like breaking it—not with Narm riding uncaring in their midst, little more than a grief-ridden shell of a man.

  The dark and endless High Forest lay close by to the east. They were still some days shy of Silverymoon, where the High Lady intended to give Narm Tamaraith a new face and a new name.

  If he lived to desire either. He’d refused to eat or drink these past three days and sagged loose-limbed in his saddle, held there only by the harness Mirt had rigged. Narm rarely looked up, and when he walked, stumbled along like a man near collapse.

  “If we have to start changing him,” Asper murmured to her man, as their mounts slithered down a treacherous slope and they watched Narm’s head bounce and loll, “ ’twill be your turn, m’lord.
”

  “If we have to start changing him,” Mirt replied, “I move we send him into spellsleep, lash him to a horse like a grainsack, and gallop the rest of the way. I grow weary of this.”

  “Easy, Old Wolf,” Asper whispered reprovingly. “How would you feel, if you lost me?”

  “Like tearing apart half Faerûn barehanded,” Mirt growled. “I’d do it, too, not drift off into don’t-care land.”

  Alustriel sighed. “Water ahead, says the Harpers’ handtalk. We should rest the horses.”

  The water proved to be a tranquil little pool where a brook slithered down rocks and paused before vanishing through more rocks into a cascade they could hear rather than see. Asper steadied the silent Narm as he knelt, lapped up water, then plunged in both his hands and washed his face.

  He looked up, met Asper’s smile with a twisted half-smile of his own, water running off his chin, turned, and sprinted for the rocks at the bottom of the pool.

  “Narm!” Asper snapped, whirling to run after him. “Narm!”

  A Harper sprang out of the trees, racing along the rocks, but the young wizard was faster. He bounded over the ridge and hurled himself into the air beyond without a sound.

  Asper heard the thud of his body striking rock below and came to a halt on the edge of the cliff, breathing heavily. “Alustriel,” she said grimly, “I’m sorry. I—I failed you.”

  “No,” the High Lady replied softly, squeezing Asper’s arm as she strode past. “Narm failed himself.”

  Alustriel looked down at the crumpled form on the rocks below, saw it groan and move, sighed, and stepped out into empty air.

  Asper made a startled, wordless sound behind her as Alustriel plunged down. Her descent was swift, but her landing feather-soft.

  “That was foolish,” she said tenderly, kneeling beside the sprawled mage. “You might have killed yourself.”

  “I’m trying to,” he gasped bloodily, not turning his head. “I don’t want to live. Just leave me.”

  “No, Narm Tamaraith,” the High Lady said firmly, “I’ll not do that. I think you’ll want to live again.”

  Silver fire crackled from her fingertips, and she touched him where his bones were shattered.

  Narm jerked and shuddered under that healing yet searing touch, then stiffened and gasped, “S-shan?”

  Out of the silver flames washing through him a ghostly face had arisen. It became a very familiar head and shoulders … and Shandril smiled at him.

  Narm never even noticed Alustriel slipping away or that he was crawling forward on arms and legs that had been snapped like twigs but moments before. He reached out through sudden tears. “Shan?”

  Shandril smiled at her man. “Yes, Narm, love. ’Tis me. By Mystra’s will I can be wherever spellfire or silver fire is awakened.”

  Narm sobbed, still reaching for her, knowing there was nothing he could hold or caress, but wanting—wanting so much to—

  “Mystra brought me to Gorstag, across all the miles betwixt here and the Rising Moon,” Shandril told him softly, “and promised me I could whisper to you whenever I desired. All’s right for me now, and I want it to be right for you, too.”

  Narm swallowed. “How can that be?” he wept. “Without you?”

  “Listen to me, beloved,” Shandril told him, drifting nearer. “I want you to do something for me. I need you to do it for yourself.”

  “What?” Narm whispered, trying to touch her.

  “Find the right girl, get married, and have a long and happy life, as far away from adventure as possible.”

  Narm shook his head, smiling bitterly, his face bright with tears. “How by all the gods will I ever know who the ‘right girl’ is? You were the right girl!”

  Shandril smiled a little sadly, and replied, “The one you’ll be happy with, my spell-lion.”

  Narm shook his head, lips trembling. “What if she’s another shapechanging monster, or I’ve just chosen wrong?”

  “Well, then,” Shandril told him softly, “I’ll just have to come back and haunt you.”

  She drifted up and kissed him, then—a cold, cold tingling that crackled like spellfire against his lips—then was gone. He was staring at empty air, blinking away fresh tears.

  He rode alone, silent all the rest of that day, and cried into the firelight that night. Three different hands silently reached out to comfort him but said not a word to disturb his memories.

  Narm remembered that, too, down the passing years.

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