“You’d better get used to battle, Kern,” Anton warned the young man gravely. “I have little doubt that this was only the first in a wave of attacks. Someone wants the Hammer of Tyr very badly, and they’re going to do whatever it takes to get it. I imagine that even now our mysterious foe is enslaving more fiends from the nether worlds.”
Listle sighed deeply. “The poor fiends.”
Kern gaped at her. “ ‘The poor fiends?’ ” he practically choked. “What on Toril are you talking about, Listle?”
“They didn’t ask to be summoned and enslaved,” the elven illusionist said indignantly.
“Listle, they’re fiends,” Kern retorted in disbelief. “They’re evil.”
“How do you know all of them are really evil?” Listle demanded, hands on her hips. “Maybe some of them have been ordered to attack us against their will.” She fidgeted with the shimmering ruby pendant hanging at her throat.
Kern shook his head in amazement. What had gotten into the foolish elf? “Believe me, Listle, only an evil wizard would have summoned them. So they have to be evil.”
“Is that so?” Listle said scathingly. Her silvery eyes were blazing. She spun around and flounced right through a wall of solid basalt. Kern could only gawk after her in bewilderment.
“What’s the matter with her?” he asked in a wounded voice.
Shal regarded her son seriously, then sighed. “You’re very pigheaded, Kern.”
“Kern didn’t do anything wrong,” Anton protested. “Listle was talking nonsense.”
The red-haired sorceress rolled her eyes. “Men!” she exclaimed, as if that were explanation enough. Kern, Tarl, and Anton wore looks of confusion.
“Oh, quit gaping like that,” Shal snapped. “There are some things men never seem to learn.”
The looks of confusion grew even worse. Shal smacked a palm against her forehead. “Never mind!” she said in exasperation.
With a groan, Shal left the three men and went in search of her apprentice. She finally found the elf in an unlikely place—sweeping the floor in Shal’s own spellcasting chamber. It wasn’t a task the elf generally volunteered to do. She must be upset, indeed, the sorceress thought.
After a long moment, Shal spoke gently. “Kern can be a bit stubborn, can’t he?”
Listle looked up from her work in surprise. Then she nodded, sighing. “You can say that again.”
Shal smiled fondly. “He’s his father’s son in that regard. But he didn’t mean to upset you, Listle. You know that, don’t you?”
The elf nodded. “I know, Shal. And I’m not mad at him, really.” A faint, impish smile touched her lips. “Well, not much anyway.”
Shal laughed at this. She took the broom from Listle’s hands and sat the elf down in a chair. Then she brewed a pot of herbal tea over a small brazier and poured two cups full of the steaming, fragrant liquid.
Shal sat and regarded her apprentice thoughtfully for a moment. The truth was, Listle was almost as much a mystery to the sorceress as she was to Kern. The elf had shown up at the tower two years before, wanting to learn the craft of magic, and Shal did not have the heart to turn her down. Besides, Shal had sorely needed an apprentice to help out around the laboratory, and Listle had proved to be both a quick study and a hard worker, if a bit unpredictable at times.
Yet after two years, Shal knew little more of the elf than she had been told that first day. Listle’s homeland was Evermeet, the land of the silver elves far across the western Sea of Swords, but she spoke of her past rarely. And Shal was not the type to pry.
Listle broke the silence. “Shal, tell me how Tarl first brought the Hammer of Tyr to Phlan. He had a difficult time, didn’t he?”
The sorceress stared in surprise at Listle’s unexpected question. Then she nodded. Sometimes the best way to forget your own troubles was to listen to someone else’s. She sipped her tea, thinking.
“It was more than thirty years ago,” Shal began. “Tarl had just become a cleric of Tyr—under Anton’s watchful eye, of course—and he journeyed with a dozen of his brethren to Phlan. Their mission was to deliver the Hammer of Tyr to the temple that had just been built here, and to join the few clerics already in residence. You see, in those days, most of the ancient city of Phlan lay in ruins, overrun by creatures of evil. Only a few sections, small bastions of light and order, were civilized. As they arrived at the outskirts of the city, the clerics were attacked by the undead of Valhingen Graveyard.” Shal shook her head sadly. “Of the newly arrived clerics, all but Tarl and Anton were killed, and a dread vampire stole the hammer.”
Listle drew her knees up to her chin, caught up in the tale. “You were in the city then, too, weren’t you, Shal?”
The sorceress nodded. “I had come by means of a wishing ring, in hopes of finding what had become of my master. I had the good fortune to meet Tarl, as well as our closest friend, the ranger, Ren o’ the Blade.”
She shook her head, smiling fondly at the memories of her first adventures with Tarl and Ren. “Together, the three of us discovered that the leader of the city’s Council of Ten was in league with an evil dragon, the Lord of the Ruins. As it turned out, the councilman was responsible for the death of my dear master, who had stood in his way, as well as the death of Ren’s beloved Tempest, a thief who had stolen the magical ioun stones the dragon needed to control the pool of radiance that lay in the ruins. Together, we managed to defeat both the council leader and the dragon. Then Tarl fought the vampire in Valhingen Graveyard. With his faith in Tyr, he was victorious, and regained the hammer.”
Shal set down her empty teacup. “With the hammer resting on the altar in the temple of Tyr, it wasn’t long before the city began to grow and prosper. More and more of the ruins were rebuilt, the monsters driven away. Phlan was truly restored, and it was the hammer’s doing.”
Listle nodded in understanding. “But with the hammer gone …”
“The process is reversing itself,” Shal said grimly. “Eventually, Phlan will again become the ravaged place it was for so many centuries.”
Listle’s eyes went wide. “What are we going to do, Shal?” she asked breathlessly.
Shal tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I think I know someone who just might be able to help. The prophecy spoke of a magical pool somehow being involved in all of this, didn’t it?”
Listle’s head bobbed. “That’s right. ‘The twilight pool.’ ” She frowned, her bottom lip jutting out. “Whatever that is.”
Shal laughed. “Well, there’s only one expert on pools that I know of. Perhaps I should pay her a call. Come, let’s go tell the others.”
The sorceress bent over a small iron caldron hanging above a flickering fire. The special brew had to be exactly right. There was no margin for error. She pulled a few dried leaves from a leather pouch at her belt. Carefully, she crumpled them into the bubbling contents of the caldron.
The sorceress shivered, drawing her heavy sheepskin coat more tightly about her shoulders. The autumn air of the glade was chill with the coming winter. All around her, leaves fluttered down, mantling the ground with a crisp, crackling blanket of russet, crimson, and tarnished gold. Squirrels chattered in the branches of the ancient oak and ash trees that surrounded the clearing. The sorceress cocked her head, trying to listen to the small animals. After a minute she gave up. All squirrels ever seemed to talk about were acorns.
The sorceress sprinkled a pinch of black powder into the caldron. Close, very close, she thought. But not yet. She couldn’t risk any mistakes. She leaned back against a fallen tree trunk to wait and think. She was a woman who prized patience. Patience was the key to the greatest magic.
The sorceress was clad in deerskin breeches, a thick wine-colored tunic of fine wool, soft but remarkably tough boots of wyvern leather, and a heavy cloak of forest green, its weave so tight rain dripped right off it. It wasn’t a wizard’s typically gaudy garb, but it suited her perfectly.
All in all, there was a rather ageless qualit
y about the sorceress. Her long, chestnut-colored hair was marked only by a single, rather dramatic streak of gray. At first glance the sorceress might have seemed a woman barely past her third decade, but there was a wisdom in her deep green eyes that was strangely at odds with her youthful appearance. And anyone versed in the magical arts who observed the sorceress at her craft would have realized instantly that she had far too much power to be as youthful as she appeared.
In truth, the sorceress was well over a century old.
Once, she had lived an entire lifetime as an ambitious mage, doing whatever she could to acquire more and more magical power. It was an ambition that ultimately had led to disaster. She had sought to exploit a legendary pool of radiance to make herself the greatest wizard in Faerun. But her ego had proved her downfall. She had not been able to control the chaotic enchantment emanating from the pool of radiance. She was blasted into unconsciousness, and when she awoke, she found herself no longer an aged wizard, but a young woman once again. All her skills as a sorceress were gone.
Others might have quit, given up. But she had been granted a chance to live again, and she did not intend to throw away such an opportunity. Realizing the perilous nature of the magical pools that were concealed throughout Faerun, she had vowed never to rest until she found and destroyed them all. She had begun her magical studies anew. This time she had not sought power only for power’s sake, but instead to combat the force of the pools. Over the course of the last thirty years, she had destroyed more than a dozen of the treacherous pools. Even so, her quest was far from over, if ever it truly would be.
Now she tended to the steaming caldron, adding a few more odds and ends from the numerous pouches strung along her belt. In her concentration, she did not hear the faint crackling of leaves in the trees behind her.
A pair of golden eyes gazed at the woman from the shadows of the forest. A lithe, tawny shape slunk between the trees, drawing closer to the glade. A stray beam of amber sunlight filtered its way through the branches above, briefly illuminating the stalker. It was a great cat, its muscles rippling under its smooth pelt. A beautiful creature, its buff-colored fur turned to a rich brown around its paws, muzzle, and the tip of its tail. Its eyes winking like green-gold gems, the cat’s long whiskers twitched in anticipation. Its sensitive nose had caught the scent of the woman in the glade. A low rumble vibrated deep in the cat’s throat.
The great cat padded to the edge of the clearing. The woman was no more than a dozen paces away, her attention focused on the fire. The feline’s mouth opened slightly, revealing two stilettolike canines. It extended its razor-sharp claws as it crouched down, tail swishing, ready to pounce. It watched its prey, calculating the force necessary to land directly on the woman’s back, and then—
“I know you’re there, Gamaliel,” the sorceress said in an amused voice. “I can feel your hot breath on the back of my neck.”
With a groan, the great cat flopped down onto the leaves.
You’re no fun, Evaine, the cat’s pompous voice spoke inside the sorceress’s mind.
“On the contrary,” Evaine replied smugly as she turned around, “I think I’m heaps of fun.”
She scratched the dejected-looking cat behind the ears. Gamaliel managed to resist her efforts for several seconds before desire got the better of him. He let out a deep, rumbling purr of pleasure, then rolled over, paws in the air.
“Let me guess,” the sorceress mused. “I’m supposed to rub your tummy, is that it?”
Oh, wise wizard! came the reply. Your amazing powers of deduction truly astound me. Surely no other mage in Faerun can possess the intuition to rival your own!
“Flattery will get you everywhere, Gam,” Evaine laughed. She began digging her fingers into the thick pelt covering the cat’s chest. Gamaliel’s green eyes closed until they were thin, gleaming slits. He began purring like an oversized kitten, which was pretty much what he looked like at the moment.
However, Evaine knew that looks could be deceiving. Over the years, the claws safely sheathed in Gamaliel’s big, soft paws had ripped the life from countless enemies. Evaine had never met a warrior more ferocious or more deadly in battle than her great cat companion, and she rather doubted she ever would. Still, right now he was looking awfully cute—and somewhat silly. His rough, pink tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth.
I never look silly, came the testy reply to her thoughts.
The great cat was Evaine’s familiar, so of course her mind and his were inextricably linked. Her first familiar, a snowy white owl, had died long years ago, during one of her quests to vanquish a magical pool. That had been a devastating blow. Evaine didn’t know if she would ever have recovered if Gamaliel hadn’t come along. Every mage, even the lowliest hedge wizard, needed a familiar—even if only a simple lizard or spider—but Evaine was lucky to have one such as Gamaliel. He was more than her protector. He was her truest friend, and she loved him dearly.
As well you should.
“You don’t have to be so conceited about it.”
I’m not being conceited, Gamaliel protested. I’m lovable, and you love me. What’s wrong with that?
Evaine tried to think of a witty reply, but nothing came to mind. “Here, Gam,” she said finally, getting up to stir the contents of the bubbling caldron. “I want you to taste this.” She used a wooden spoon to scoop up some of the curious liquid. Flecks of herbs drifted on the surface.
Gamaliel’s pink nose wrinkled. Do I have to? I really don’t want to be metamorphosed into a toad, you know.
“Don’t be such a baby, Gamaliel. Besides, it isn’t a magical potion. It’s soup. Your favorite kind, even—rabbit, with thyme and fennel.”
Why didn’t you say so?
Gamaliel lapped the soup off the spoon with his big tongue. Suddenly a faint, shimmering light surrounded the cat. His tawny pelt began to undulate as his form started to change. In a blink, the great cat was gone. In his place was a handsome man, a tall, wild-looking barbarian. He sat cross-legged on the ground, holding the wooden spoon, clad in a buckskin coat and leggings trimmed with beadwork and fringe. A broadsword was belted at his hip, and his long tawny hair was tied back from his angular face by a leather thong. He regarded Evaine with glittering green eyes.
“It’s easier to eat soup when you can hold a spoon,” he offered by way of explanation. “Otherwise you tend to burn your tongue.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Evaine laughed as she dished up two bowls of the steaming liquid.
Gamaliel was a shapeshifting cat, and as such he could opt for human form any time he wished. Generally, he preferred to be a great cat, but sometimes he liked the option of fingers.
The two friends ate their lunch, then Gamaliel helped Evaine gather her things. She had ventured into the forest that day to find a few herbs for her magical spells. But already the autumn day was drawing toward evening, and the golden beams of sunlight were fading.
“Let’s go home, Gam.”
Instantly, the barbarian’s form blurred. A moment later the great cat bounded ahead through the trees, scouting ahead for danger. Protecting his mistress was Gamaliel’s sole concern.
The sun was setting in a sea of bronze clouds as Evaine and Gamaliel stopped before a seemingly impenetrable thicket of brambles and thorny bushes. It looked as if anyone who tried to force their way through the overgrowth would be taking a gamble.
“Gate!” Evaine intoned, lifting one hand in an intricate gesture.
There was a rustling as the brambles parted to either side, forming a walkway. Gamaliel ambled through, and Evaine followed. The thorn bushes immediately closed behind her. Wizards were secretive by nature, and did not generally leave their dwellings undisguised.
Beyond the hedge was a circular clearing in the midst of a grove of tall, majestic ash trees. The far side was bounded by the steep face of a hill. A waterfall tumbled down granite boulders to splash into a small pool of frothy water. Countless droplets caught and refracted the last ligh
t of the sun, glistening like diamonds on fire. On the edge of the pool sprawled a long, low, rambling log house. It was a comfortable and inviting place, not at all the usual wizard’s domicile. Evaine had never much cared for towers and such. They were stuffy in summer, freezing in winter, and tended to dampness, which meant books often fell prey to mold. Most of the wizards Evaine had encountered in her time lived in towers simply because they thought that was what wizards were supposed to do, not because they cared for tower life.
Despite its rustic appearance, Evaine’s home was as well guarded as any wizard’s. The rough logs were not hewn from mundane trees. Rather, they were iron-oak trunks, felled by magic, for no axe could do more than scratch them. The large windows were not ordinary glass but thick plates of steel which Evaine had made magically transparent. The poppies and chrysanthemums that bordered the walkways were bright and lovely, but each had been conjured of magical energy. They emanated a powerful protective ward around the house. Any creature of evil that tried to set foot inside would be burned to ashes.
Inside the house, Evaine spread the herbs she had gathered on a large oaken table and began sorting them. Gamaliel curled up by the hearth for a nap. He considered the bearskin rug before the fire his throne.
The house’s main peak-roofed room was comforting in its clutter. Books weighed down pine shelves. Intricate, faded tapestries and animal pelts covered the walls. A stuffed, somewhat moth-eaten owlbear lurked in a corner, and a huge dwarven war drum served as a table for a scattering of elven runestones. Two overstuffed leather chairs, worn and comfortable with use, dominated the center of the room beneath an ornate chandelier imported from the southern empire of Calimshan. In all, it was an eclectic but hospitable room that spoke not so much of far travels as it did of frequent homecomings.
Evaine paused in her work, reflecting on the objects in the room. Most of them were souvenirs of her quests to destroy pools, she realized. In fact, she couldn’t think of a single possession that she had acquired on a pleasure trip, or that a friend had given to her as a gift. She allowed herself a sigh. She wasn’t sure why, but somehow the thought made her a little sad. Hunting down and destroying magical pools had been her whole life these last thirty years. It was a critical mission, but sometimes it made her feel just the slightest bit lonely.
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