Spellfire

It did not matter now. Shandril wanted only to know how to escape. She lay huddled under the edge of a slab of stone carved with a very beautiful scene of mermaids and hippocampi, now forever shattered. Her large boots were rubbing her calves raw as they flapped at her every step, and her borrowed blade was too heavy for her to lift quickly in a fight- Against these devils, she dared not try to fight. Not even the whim of Tymora could save her against even one amused devil, and one devil could call, given time, on all she had seen here. She shuddered at the thought, and it was a long time before she dared leave the shelter of the stone slab.

The sun cast long shadows as the day gave way to dusk. Grimly, Shandril knew she had to act soon, or be trapped in the ruins after dark. She set off past more cracked and tumbled buildings, dreadfully afraid she might be moving aimlessly in circles, merely postponing the inevitable.

The ruined city seemed endless, though she saw more trees among the stones than she had earlier. Perhaps I am nearer the edge of the ruin, Shandril thought hopefully. She sighed and looked all around cautiously for perhaps the thousandth time. It was then she saw them.

In a place of tilted piles of stone, where all the buildings had toppled and fallen, there stood two figures confronting each other across a wasteland of rubble. A sharp-eyed man in wine-red robes stood on the cracked base of a long-fallen pillar, facing a tall, slim, cruel-looking woman in purple standing on what was left of a wall.

“Die, then, Shadowsil,” the man said coldly, and his hands moved like coiling snakes. Shandril crouched low and kept very still.

The woman’s hands were also moving. Shandril wondered briefly if everyone in all Faerun would arrive in Myth Dra

From the man’s hand burst sparkling frost, a white cone that spread, roaring as it closed on the beautiful woman. She stiffened, arms shining with frost, but already from her hands four whirling balls of fire had burst forth, flashing through the fading cone of frost, trailing winking sparks.

Shandril scrambled on hands and knees around the pile of rubble and behind the corner of a building that wasn’t there anymore. It was well she did so, for an instant later there was a flash of flame and a roar, and a wave of intense heat passed over her face.

When she peered cautiously around the rubble again later, the man was gone. There was a large, blackened area on the rocks, and the woman in purple was walking triumphantly across mountains of jagged stone to where her foe had stood. The cracked stone creaked as it cooled; the woman turned on her heel to stare levelly all around. She saw Shandril’s head immediately and stared. Shandril scrambled hastily back to the corner again and fled down a ruined street. At its end she ducked around a corner, blood hammering her brain in fear. Biting her lips to silence her panting, she dared not believe she had escaped so easily.

Suddenly, the air before her shimmered and the lady in purple stood before her. “Who are you, then, little one?” she asked softly; Shandril shivered. The lady was very beautiful. “I am Symgharyl Maruel, called The Shadowsil”

Shandril held her blade up in silent answer. The lady mage laughed, and her hands moved deftly. Shandril rushed at her, but knew before she started that the woman was just too far away. She was staring in fear and anger at the mage, still yards distant, when her limbs locked in mid-stride and she froze helplessly.

The purple robes swished nearer. The lady undid a rope from around her waist as she approached.

Tymora, aid me, Shandril thought desperately as the mage placed the rope gently around the wrist of the hand in which the immobile, straining thief held the sword. She looped it also about Shandril’s neck, drawing it tight across her throat, and said, “ Ulthae-entangle.” The would-be thief s scalp prickled in horror as she felt the rope slithering of its own accord across her skin, tightening about her arms and neck and knees, pi

At least, Shandril thought, that means she’ll take me out of here… although with the luck Great Lady Tymora has shown me thus far, devils will show up to slay her, leaving me as a ready meal for anything that happens by. She had a brief memory of the thing in the well, and shuddered… and then, in sinking horror and despair, found that she could not shudder. Her own body was her prison.

Symgharyl Maruel jerked on the rope that bound her, and Shandril fell over helplessly to crash upon the broken stones that had long ago been a pleasant winding lane of the City of Beauty. The side of her face scraped painfully on the rock, grit making her eye water, and her blade fell out of frozen fingers. It was left behind as the lady in purple dragged her away.

“I don’t know who you are,” Symgharyl Maruel said with lightly mocking malice to her helpless bundle between tugs which bumped Shandril silently over the jagged, heaved stones. “You remind me of someone… you may well be the one those stone-heads of Oversember let slip away. Are you, hmmm? The girl who was with the Company of the Bright Spear, but whose name did not appear on their charter? You’ll tell me, girl. Yes, you’ll tell. Their lost one or not, the Cult will value you highly for your blood, dear, if you are a virgin.” Again the tinkling, mocking laughter. “But you shall be my present to Rauglothgor in any case. So pretty…”

Shandril could not even weep.

Narm took his leave of the two knights on the forest trail where he and Marimmar had met the elf and his lady. Narm was surprised to see who stood in the very same place they had, though: the two ladies who had been in the i

To his surprise, they both smiled at him with careful eyes. The younger of the two clasped his arm and said, “Yes, we’ve met. At The Rising Moon in Deepingdale, although you were under the heavy eye of-was it your master of the art? A strict man.”

Narm nodded. Yes, Marimmar had been that.

The silver-haired bard also remembered the young man now that Sharantyr had placed him. Torm rapidly explained Mourngrym’s decision to let Narm into the city. They shouldered their bags and harp and took their leave with the horses and mules.

As they mounted, Storm leaned down and said to Narm, “Until next we meet. I think our paths will cross again soon, good sir. Fare well in Myth Dra

“Will you go into the city after all?” Torm asked, after they had watched the ladies disappear amid the trees.

“Yes,” Narm said, gri

“May Tymora smile upon thee, then,” Rathan grunted. “With being such a fool and all, ye’ll need the full favor of the Lady’s luck to see even this day out. Don’t forget how to run for thy very life, now. The devils are the ones with wings.”

“Most of them,” Torm agreed with a smile. “Though they can be hard to see if blood is pouring into your eyes.”

“Aye, that is very true,” Rathan agreed gravely. Narm gri

The ruined city of Myth Dra