Hand of Fire ss-3

by Ed Greenwood

  The old man ascended the lightless shaft like a racing wind, hurling aside shield-spells and helmed horrors alike, and sprang into the midst of the startled gargoyles before the mage with serpent-fingers and floating eyeballs could do more than snatch up a long, dark-spired scepter with a heartfelt curse.

  "Hesperdan, you-" the Maimed Wizard began, but whatever colorful description Eirhaun had intended to snarl was lost in the flash and roar of spellfire leaping up the shaft, tumbling helmed horrors into smoke and shards, and stabbing into the shadows.

  A blue-white web of force suddenly glowed around Hesperdan, and the spellfire that clawed at it rebounded across the room at the wizard with the scepter.

  His shielding was a thing of mingled crimson and emerald fire, and it wrestled desperately with the spellfire. The scepter smoked and burst apart, followed into oblivion by two rings that took Eirhaun's hissing snake-fingers with them. Spellfire scorched and sizzled about the walls, shattering pillars and gargoyles alike, then faded and fell back down the shaft.

  The two wizards looked at each other-Hesperdan's cold and dark smile meeting the glare of the Maimed Wizard. The older wizard had deflected the spellfire that sought his life at Eirhaun Sooundaeril, who'd in turn thrust it aside into the walls of his stronghold. That massive peak of stone was old and huge and girt with many spells, but there was no one and nothing it could deflect spellfire into.

  Wherefore cracks had already appeared in the walls and the vaulted ceiling, and the floor beneath the two men was shuddering and starting to move. Explosions rumbled far below, and ravaged stone screamed like a man in anguish. A chasm opened in the rippling floor between the two wizards.

  Stone fell away with a rush and a roar. Hesperdan and Eirhaun the Maimed stared at each other across the gulf as rooms fell away beneath them, one after another, crashing down into the dust and screams below.

  "Oh, dear," Hesperdan remarked mildly. "I do believe your stronghold is collapsing."

  The Maimed gathered the spell around him that would whisk him away and replied menacingly, "We will meet again, Old Man."

  Hesperdan smiled again. "Indeed. I'm counting on it."

  He vanished an instant after his longtime foe-but just before the shattered floor he'd been standing on cracked and fell away with a roar.

  Shandril went to her knees as she wept, spellfire raining down with her tears. More spellflames raced along her arms to roll away into the night. "Oh, Mystra, aid me!" she cried.

  "Shan?" a voice as grief-ridden as her own asked her, from very close by. "Is there anything I can do?"

  Asper was also on her knees, facing Shan across smoking ash from about an armslength away. Shandril stared at her in horror.

  "Get away!" she snarled. "Go from here before I burn you, too!"

  "No," Asper told her, her face white with fear but her voice firm. "My Mirt lies wounded behind me. I'll not leave him. I'm his only shield against-oh, Shan-against spellfire!"

  Shandril burst into fresh tears, shook her head, got up, and fled blindly into the night.

  Men cowering amid the smoke watched her go, a stumbling, sobbing figure wreathed in flames, who left blazing footprints behind her.

  She stopped atop a bare knob of rock on the edge of camp, and there turned, tears glimmering in her eyes and splashing in flames to the rocks below. On a curl of spellfire like dragons' breath her voice rolled softly back to Asper: "Farewell!"

  Asper stood up and reached out to her. "Shan, no!"

  "No?" Shandril cried wildly. "I've killed Narm! My man is gone, dead by my hand! Dead by this cursed spellfire that feels so good!" She shook her head, flames swirling in her hair, and sobbed bitterly. "Beldimarr too, and the Lady Laeral, and dozens more! I slaughtered them all! Everywhere I go, people die-and still wizards keep trying to get their hands on this fire inside me! One day they might succeed in taking it-and what then? Shandril Shessair causes the rest of Faerun be swept away?"

  "Shandril, 'tis not your fault!" Asper cried, taking a few reluctant steps closer.

  "Nay? I say it is," Shandril howled, her eyes two flames. "And I am done with slaying, done with fear and running and fighting, done with it all!"

  She threw back her head and told the stars, "Gorstag, forgive me… Mystra, take me!"

  Drawing in a deep breath, she gave Asper a little wave and a half-smile, and went to one knee. Propping both elbows on her raised knee, she put her fingers in her mouth-and fed herself spellfire.

  There was a. moment of silence, then a trembling-a shuddering of earth and air and blood pounding in the ears that began as a sound so low it shook bones rather than being heard, but built swiftly to a din greater than any dragon might make.

  No one could stand or wage war or be heard in that trembling tumult. All over that bloody field men fell, tumbling helplessly, and lightning snarled out from the lone lass on the rock, playing like restless blue snakes from blade to shield and back again, until men threw away their swords or tore off their armor, to lie wincing, cowering, and wondering when they would die. Asper fell, tried to get up again, and found herself once more on the ground, one shoulder to the scorched earth. She kept her eyes on Shandril all the while, and it was as she was rolling over onto her stomach again that she saw the maid from Highmoon rise up into the air, trembling in the thrall of the furious white stream of spellfire leaking from her mouth to roil around her as she went on feeding it to herself.

  Perhaps forty feet off the ground her hands fell away from her mouth as she stared at the empty air beside her and gasped in wonder, "Narm? M-Mystra? Gorstag?"

  And then Shandril exploded, in a burst of radiance so bright that Asper saw nothing for days afterward.

  "Oh, lass," the High Lady murmured. "You saved him and healed him, and never knew. He but collapsed from the pain and lives yet. Unlike you."

  The Weave flashed and shook itself, as if rid of a great burden. Alustriel Silverhand, weeping with grief and pain amid leaping tongues of silver fire, let go her shielding spells at last.

  In Shadowdale, Elminster looked up sharply from an old map as Mourngrym frowned across the table at him and Illistyl and Jhessail winced in unison and grabbed for the backs of chairs, for support. "She's gone," the Old Mage said slowly, shaking his head. "She lasted longer than I'd ever thought she would."

  Torm's eyes narrowed. "Who?"

  "Shandril," Rathan said heavily, and reached for a decanter. "Gathered, as the gods gather us all."

  "Mystra preserve her," Jhessail gasped, and threw back her head as if starving for air. A single tear fell like a wet star on the map before her. Torm reached out a finger and drew a prayer-rune with it, right across the face of Elminster's map.

  Mourngrym waited for the Old Mage to erupt, but no storm came. Elminster merely shook his head again, looking off into a distant otherwhere that only he could see, and murmured, "Mystra will provide."

  "Sharantyr?" Florin asked quietly, from his end of the table.

  The Old Mage almost smiled. "Someone else has already provided for her. Someone who could teach Torm, here, a thing or two."

  "What's wrong, Tess?" the Purple Dragon asked, coming awake in an instant and reaching for her with one hand and his ready sword with the other.

  Tessaril Winter trembled under his touch like a little girl, and he swiftly wrapped a comforting arm around her smooth curves. "I know not, King Azoun," she said formally, her voice empty and despairing. "I only know someone has died-and in dying, reached out to me."

  "Who?" the king of Cormyr asked softly, enfolding her in his arms.

  Tessaril whispered, "She. Young, and of great power… it can only be Shandril Shessair. She never made it to Silvery-moon, after all." She swallowed. "Oh, Az-hold me."

  "I will," Azoun said gently, not bothering to point out that he already was. Kindness is a rare quality in a king, understanding another, and caring a third. Tessaril lay still and thought on all three, and her eyes filled with tears.

  "At least I have you," she
whispered, and the Purple Dragon's answer was a simple whisper.

  "Yes."

  They lay together in silence for a long time before his Lady Lord of Eveningstar twisted free of the royal grasp and of her bed in one smooth movement, to stand bare and magnificent in the moonlight.

  "Where-?" Azoun asked, hefting his sword.

  Tessaril turned from a jewel-box on her dressing table with a pendant in her hand. As she held it out, the great jewel seemed to glow slightly. "I must tell Fee without delay," she explained almost apologetically. "She'll have felt my- my upset, and be lying awake now, wondering."

  "Filfaeril? Are your two minds often linked, when you and I are together?"

  Tessaril smiled a little sadly at him. "I would consider it treason on my part if they were not," she said quietly. "We also talk often with this."

  She heard his sigh as she bent over the jewel, and turned her head again to add, with a thin half-smile, "And yes: often about you."

  Azoun lay back with another sigh and told the moonlit ceiling, "I might have known."

  Lord Manshoon stopped in midstride, the whirling magic that had brought him to this chamber in Zhentil Keep still dwindling behind him, and snapped, "Send for the priests! Something has happened-something that has made the Weave itself tremble!"

  As wizards scrambled to do his bidding, he murmured, "So if the wench is dead, who has spellfire now?"

  In the Stonelands a cool breeze was quickening, but despite the leaves it rustled and the branches it bent, a swirl of ashes rose and stood against it in the air, whirling up briefly into a shape that might have been an armored dwarf.

  The shape turned, peering northwest over the puddled flow of stone that had once been a spire called Irondrake Rock as if straining to see something. No one was there to see the ashen phantom, and after a time it collapsed with a sigh and was gone again.

  Peace returned to Delg's Dell, though the breeze blew no more that night.

  Oprion Blackstone looked out of a high window in a certain tower of Zhentil Keep and murmured, "Another scheme fallen to ashes. Manshoon will send his spell-dogs to summon us to parley. What would happen, I wonder, if, I simply refused to come?"

  "We'd slay you, of course," a deep, wet voice said from the air outside a moment before its owner drifted into view from around the tower's curve. "Many humans are that stupid, of course, but I was hoping we'd weeded out the worst dolts already."

  A second beholder shuddered as it drifted after the first. "One human she," it said, "and so much slaughter of our kind. It will be long before I rid myself of that memory."

  The priest carefully made no comment about seeing the cobbles below awash in beholder blood. He was in no hurry to follow Shandril Shessair into the waiting arms of the gods.

  A scrying-spell collapsed back into the surrounding shadows, and a slender hand put down a goblet. "Well, that was spectacular," its owner said calmly. "Perhaps the younglings will return from their misadventures, now that their prize is gone."

  "I think not," another voice replied. "Once freedom is tasted…"

  Into that place of shadows burst the sudden light of a spell, bringing back those very tasters of freedom far more swiftly than even the most optimistic elder had hoped.

  "By the blood of Malaug in us!" one newly returned Malaugrym burst out excitedly, tendrils snaking out toward a handy decanter. "Did you see?"

  "We did," the owner of the goblet replied politely.

  "Indeed," the second elder agreed, holding up another goblet in a hand that shook more than slightly.

  The Red Wizard Thavaun let his spell-guise fall away. Caravan Master Orthil Voldovan would be needed no more.

  Surveying the smoking ruin of the camp, he drew in a deep breath and hissed, "So much for spellfire. Well, at least I'm still alive."

  "Not for more than a breath longer!" came a growl of doom from right behind him.

  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 Faerun 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 Faerun 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, Endue. 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 Faerun. 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 Faerun. 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 Faerun 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!"