Hand of Fire ss-3

by Ed Greenwood

  Hanjack Thallowblade, "The Farfaring Minstrel", Why I'll Never Be A Respected Bard, Year of the Leaning Post

  "Behold," Voldovan muttered to Beldimarr. "The only man in Triel we can trust."

  The guard nodded, his weatherbeaten face expressionless, and murmured as softly as any sly courtier, "Pity we can't hire him and leave these others."

  They were looking across the palatial lounge of Dusk-view House at a tall, gaunt man who looked every bit as Realms-worn as Beldimarr. Voldovan had no idea what his real name was, but he'd been a fixture in Triel for thirty winters at least: the local herald, Stormshield. He was here to witness any bonds of hiring Voldovan might arrange with the motley crew of swordsmen gathered in the lounge.

  The caravan master didn't need to look at Beldimarr to know the burly guard shared his assessment of this bunch; gutter-scrapings and broken men. "Loyalty" was a worthless fiction to most of them, whatever words came out of their mouths and no matter what papers they signed. But then, the way things were going, most of them would probably be dead in a day or two.

  Along with the rest of us, Orthil Voldovan thought grimly, as he took the high-backed chair the stone-faced Duskview stewards provided. Beldimarr took up a stance behind Voldovan's right shoulder, arms folded across his chest-and fingers on the hilts of two of the many throwing-daggers sheathed down his baldrics.

  Voldovan tried not to sigh. Some of these men were down-on-their-luck hireswords, but most would be thieves and outlaws on the run from trouble elsewhere. If he was lucky, a few might be caravan guards who'd taken wounds or fallen sick, tarried in Triel, and now needed coin to travel on. He'd no doubt word of "the spellfire-wench" had raced ahead of him, though; word always did whenever cargo or folk of special interest made runs through the Sword Coast backlands.

  Similar whispers had come to Scornubel a season ago, when Duskview House had been built. Word was that Thayans had raised this inn-and someone with more coins than wits had certainly done so, to build such luxury out here in the Blackrocks, on the doorstep of Mad Elvar. That meant, try as he might, Orthil Voldovan would be hiring snakes into his midst.

  Lucky me, Voldovan thought sourly, ignoring the decanter the stewards had placed in front of him in favor of his own belt-flask. He surveyed the uneasily shifting men across the room, chose not to see Stormshield's expectant "Shall we begin?" glance for a moment or two, and thought again about Duskview. The whitedaub ceiling, he noted, was worked into an intricate design of styilized dragons flying in curves and snarling at each other… a design in bold relief that was studded with many cavities. Spyholes, of course.

  This place was a trading center-and to a Thayan, a trading center is also a spying center. There'd been whispers up and down the Trade Way for some seasons now that a Red Wizard was trying to take over the Zhentarim, to win trade riches and a private army, to boot. Duskview would be some other Red Wizard's private road to riches… so anyone offering himself as a caravan guard might well be a warrior in the service of an unseen Thayan.

  Scornubel's muttering mouths were good. They even had a name or two to attach to tales of "Red Wizards skulking hereabouts." Thavaun was one such; Hulrivior another. It might be interesting to get his new hires slightly drunk around a campfire, drop those two names, and see who stiffened and what was said. 'Twas always nice to know who your loyal employees really worked for.

  "Well, let's get started," Voldovan told the room, hoping his words didn't sound quite as sour as he felt.

  "Dear, dear," the soft voice behind the lantern said mockingly, "Elvar would have been horrified."

  The squeaking, chittering rats paid no heed as they swarmed over the sprawled body on the cellar floor. They worked fast; Elvar was down to almost bones now, in most places.

  "Elvar, Elvar, this is all your fault!" the lantern-carrier chided, stepping around the corpse. "All of these oh-so-secure metal-sheathed bins, and stone fitted so carefully. Starve your rats, and you only keep them at their most dangerous!"

  Elvar had been a constant nuisance. It was a wonder one of his exasperated fellow Trielans hadn't brained him with a stool or threshing-flail and brought peace to this backwater long ago.

  Such attempted public services would now be perils faced by the lantern-carrier in his new spell-guise of Elvar the Grainlord. Spellfire had brought too many busy rivals into Triel, and if one of them had slain Elvar openly, the uproar would have upset a lot of things. Wherefore bringing Elvar down here and smashing in the back of his head with a handy blandreth-the things were everywhere, filled with cellarcap mushrooms to soak up moisture that might spoil a single grain of Elvar's precious hoard-had at last become the best thing to do.

  Elvar was going to mellow in the days ahead, the man with the lantern decided, as he proceeded to the farthest corner of this deepest granary. Settling on fewer gods to circle between, and becoming less of a wild-eyed annoyance to all. Make him respected somehow, as he openly groomed a successor who just might be ready by the time an unfortunate accident took Elvar from the Trielans he guarded so carefully. Yes.

  Now it was time to lure away the one called Beldimarr with a false Harper message, so the plot at hand could proceed. Spellfire was too useful to let slip by. The gods don't hand out chances to rule the world all that often.

  An eye drew back from a hole in the floor of a dark room sporting many such holes. Its owner rose and stepped through a shimmering of the air where magic made a wall of silence. Beyond was a pleasant upper room where the day could be seen drawing down through large arched windows, and many tall-fluted goblets and decanters stood handy on glossy tables nigh high-backed, comfortable chairs.

  "Seen enough?" a buttery voice purred, from the depths of one such ornament of furniture.

  The reply was equally nonchalant. "My, my. Sit here athwart this muddy wagon road, and all Faerun comes to you. All we need do is close our hands around this prize."

  "As Xatholont once said, that's more easily resolved than accomplished," the buttery voice observed. "Of course. Are you ready?"

  "Doubt me never," was the reply. "Master Voldovan is about to be very surprised."

  "'About to be'?"

  "Rightabout-now."

  "Douse that fire!" Arauntar ordered gruffly out of the darkness.

  Narm and Shandril came out of their doze flinching, and Shandril's surprise made momentary tongues of flame flare from her fingertips.

  "We didn't hear you coming," Narm yelped, as he bent hastily to their fire-bucket.

  "Evidently," the guard said in dry tones. " Tis a good thing I'm not a spellfire-seeker with a blade ready in my hand, aye?"

  "Aye," Shandril agreed wearily, stirring the ashes with a stick as Narm poured. "We were just finishing eating."

  "You snore loudly for folk caught feasting," the Harper commented, squatting beside them. "I'm glad you got some rest, because I'm falling- on-my-face weary m'self, an' one o' you might want to be awake once I'm in my dreams-for yer own safety, if you catch my meaning."

  Shandril cast a quick look across the field. Campfires winked and snapped among the dark wagons, outlining the dark, placid shapes of the hobbled horses, who stood like an army in the empty, unlit center of camp. "I'm growing very tired of always awaiting the next attack," she said quietly.

  "Hunh. Fd've thought you'd be used to it, by now," the Harper said gruffly, holding a hand out over the smoking coals to judge their remaining heat. He shook his head at what he found and captured Shandril’s stick to spread them out.

  The maid from Highmoon shook her head silently, then laid it down on her thighs. She sat with her hands clasped under her knees, looking into the night, as silence stretched. Arauntar was just about to rise and depart when she murmured, "Has this been a particularly bad run, Arauntar?"

  The guard grinned. "Particularly bad? No. Particularly bad is when no one makes it, and they find yer gnawed bones on the road later. Call it somewhat bad. More brigands than usual, more trouble in the wagons…"

  "Tha
nks to me," Shandril said softly.

  "Thanks to a lot o' greedy men hungry to steal something not their own, an' too fool-headed to know what danger they put all Faerun in, by trying," Arauntar told her firmly. "You didn't ask to have spellfire, now, did you?"

  "No," Shandril replied, in a voice they could barely hear. "No. All I wanted was a little adventure."

  "Ah. An' that we gave you, in a generous ladling!"

  Narm snorted. "Like stew?"

  "Like stew, lad; served up fast an' hot, an' burns if yer not careful!" The Harper spat thoughtfully into the coals and added, " Tis the best time of year for making this run, actually. In winter, the howling storms and grinding ice shut down sailing, so someone always tries to make the high-coin runs through the worst of the snows, after the mud has hardened, see?"

  "And wind up frozen, or eaten by wolves?"

  "Or buried alive by a blizzard, yes. Even if every wolf falls over dead an' the sun shines an' there's no bad ice an' the snows are shallow-an' they never are-deepwinter runs are hard. You have to take along so many archers, an' so much food and firewood to keep 'em alive that it's hard to turn much coin."

  Arauntar shifted, spat into the fire again, and added, "The ore raiding bands and packs o' hungry wolves are always bad, so skimping on archers dooms you… and even.then, if the winds pick up and blizzards come, wolves an' ores come charging at you out of driving, blinding snow or sleeting ice when you can't see in time to take 'em down with a bow."

  Narm chuckled. "Any more cheer?"

  "Aye," Arauntar replied dryly. "In such cold, even a minor wound can mean yer death."

  "Charming. So this run's a frolic?"

  "Pretty well. If we could just afford a dozen loyal mages, an' ferret all the worms out o' our wagons, an' use yer spellfire as our 'big lance' when raiders come in strength, 'twould be a stroll up to Waterdeep."

  "If is such a backbiting word," Shandril observed sourly, watching the man yawn. "You should get some sleep, friend Harper."

  Arauntar gave her a sharp look. "None of that naming- not even at a whisper!" He yawned again, rose and stretched, glanced at the stars, and growled, "Yer right, though. Bed for me. Inside, now. Wagonboards slow down crossbow bolts an' hurled daggers alike."

  He took two long strides away into the night, then turned and added, "Go nowhere alone." Shandril lifted a hand to signal she'd heard, and the guard waved back and went off across the field.

  Narm and Shandril watched him go until the night swallowed him and glanced at each other-and promptly yawned in unison.

  "Inside, pretty boy," Shandril ordered with a grin. "First watch for me."

  "I'd argue," Narm mumbled, swinging himself up into the wagon, "but I'd be asleep before I reached the end of a sentence. You heard the man: Inside with you, daughter of Dammasae!"

  "You just want the bed warmed," his lady said fondly, joining him inside.

  "Me? Sole surviving apprentice of Marimmar the Magnificent?" Narm protested in mock innocence.

  "You," Shandril confirmed, taking the stool beside the bed where she could face the door and sitting down carefully on a rough piece of armor she'd found. She'd have to trust in its discomfort to keep her awake. By the gods, lives sometimes clung to such small, simple things.,

  The stars were beautiful overhead, the night clear and cold. Good; its bite should help to keep her awake.

  Sharantyr trudged along the Trade Way alone, walking as quietly as she could. The caravan had probably made Triel by nightfall. She'd catch up to them in another day. Of course, that just might be too late.

  The Knight of Myth Drannor was still entertaining that heartening thought when something dimmed the stars above. She blinked, knuckled her eyes to clear the weariness that must be clouding her vision, then stepped back in sudden alarm.

  Something like a great net of shadows was settling silently over her! Sharantyr sprinted out from under it and veered toward the nearest tree, snatching out her blade as she ran. That tree was in a ditch, and as her boots slithered downslope, she risked a look back. It was flying after her, right enough!

  Heedless of what might be waiting, the ranger burst through a tangle of small, thorny branches and ducked around the trunk of her chosen tree, crouching low and then stabbing up with her blade as the stars dimmed around her.

  No smell, no sound-she was cleaving nothing. A nothing that tingled and thickened around her, roiling around… her backpack, bulging with the three glowing blades!

  Sharantyr slipped out of its straps, swung it off her shoulders, and in the same sweeping movement flung it back toward the road, into the starshine. It bounced to a halt, the… presence with it.

  Yes, the cloud was thickening around those three hilts. Some sort of blade-phantom slain by the blades long ago? Or a creature bound to them by magic, that departed to hunt but must return?

  She peered at it as she came out from behind the tree, one hand on Lhaeo's gems and the other holding her sword ready. The shadow-thing looked vaguely manlike, or rather like a grotesquely huge cloak that coalesced into a shadowy smudge of a head, above quite solid-seeming shoulders and hands… hands that were busy at the lacings of her pack.

  She slashed through those arms, and her blade slowed as if ploughing through wet mud, but aside from the shadowy head turning briefly toward her with a decidedly malevolent movement that turned into a brief lean forward, as if it had detected something of interest, there was no reaction. The arms continued their work, uncut and apparently unaffected. Sharantyr circled quickly around the shadow-thing, struck by a sudden thought, and drew back her sword, holding out Lhaeo's bag in front of her instead.

  The shadowy head lifted sharply, turning to follow her hand as she circled. The ranger's eyes narrowed, and she sprang back.

  As the wraith turned once more to her pack, tugging out a sword so its bright glow flooded the night, Sharantyr carefully loosened the strings of her precious bag and felt inside for the stones she needed: the two sharp ones.

  She let them prick her fingers, to make sure, carefully drew them forth, and closed the bag. The shadow-wraith had laid its hands on two swords, and their glows had promptly died, their radiance roiling briefly up its arms. Those shadow-arms grew darker and more substantial as the glows faded-and it was already tugging forth the third and last blade.

  Sharantyr drew in a deep breath, strode forward until she held a gem on either side of that shadowy head and shoulders, and said carefully, "Varouth."

  A whirlwind of tiny spitting lightning bolts erupted from the gem in her left hand and streaked to the gem in her right, racing through the shadow-wraith. Lightning whirled around that second gem and snarled back, brighter and stronger.

  The shadow-wraith sat bolt upright and trembled, growing darker and more solid with alarming speed as the lightnings raced through it again, back and forth, so swiftly now that they formed a continuous, crackling line of gnawing, spitting energies.

  "Yes!" a faint, echoing voice seemed to whisper from all around her. "Yesssss!"

  The figure rose slowly in height, and Sharantyr rose with it, until she was standing upright with her arms raised, behind a dark, cloaked figure that trembled in time to her lightnings, shuddering and growing steadily more solid.

  It started to groan, in a deep, seemingly male voice, then shuddered and convulsed, hunching its arms in. It seemed held upright by her lightning when it would rather have shrunk down and nursed pain. The groans rose into sobbing cries, babbled words that might have been curses or frantic incantations. They became screams, wild high shrieks that echoed back from the stars.

  Sharantyr held her two gems firmly, sudden sweat drenching her, and the wraith rose in a crackling cloud of racing lightnings before her, shouting, "No! Too much! Too much!"

  Heat beat at her face. The wraith howled and turned its ghost of a face toward her, wild-eyed, but its shape was collapsing back into a thing of rushing, swirling darkness. Sprays of lightning raced within it, whirling inside the shadow-bulk
that flung out frantic arms or branches in all directions, stabbing at the night in agony as it started to whirl and tumble and spin, brightness glowing inside its gloom. A fireball with dark, ragged edges tore free of her resonating field of magic and raced blindly away across the sky, howling in mad pain.

  Sharantyr held out her two gems for a long time as their lightning died to a faint, crackling blue thread, and let her gasps return to calmness. The shadow-thing did not come back, but the night-chill returned.

  "Well," she told the stars at last, quelling the magic of the gems before they were entirely exhausted, "live another night in Faerun, see another mystery. Build a shining collection. Now, I wonder if the gods answer them for us, when we die?"

  The stars overhead ventured no opinion. Sharantyr smiled, unsurprised, as she stowed the gems, reclaimed her pack-the blades were crumbling already, and she tossed their hilts into the ditch-and resumed her walk.

  Narm sprang up from his stool and sniffed. There it was again.

  Smoke, very close by… woodsmoke. There was a hiss and crackle, like the sound he'd made dousing their embers. Someone had sloshed water on flames, to put them out-but quietly, with no shouts nor running feet… and very nearby.

  The smell was strong now, and his view of the stars out the front of the wagon increasingly hazy. Water to quench flame, or to make more smoke!

  Narm shook Shandril awake, muting her sleepy question with a firm hand. "Fire," he murmured in her ear. "Our wagon, I think, and set by someone waiting outside."

  Shan took his hand away and murmured back, "We're being smoked out?"

  Narm nodded, and she purred, "Crouch low by the entrance. Do nothing until I shout your name or someone comes inside."

  Narm nodded again and did as he was bid. In his wake, Shandril went flat to the floor, hoping no one outside was planning to crawl around and thrust a blade up through the floorboards.

  The wood was hot. No blades would come from beneath. There must be a fire there. Very soon, the floor would burst into open flame with a roar, and consume them and the wagon together, unless…