Hand of Fire

Sharantyr caught it and told Rathan, "I wish, just for once, he'd let someone else's will prevail. When he awakens, tell him I'm sorry for doing this… but this matters much to me: not just the doing of it, but undertaking it by myself. The days and months and years pass, and I wither in his shadow."

The priest nodded. "I understand just what you mean," he said, "and will tell him. Tymora and all the other benevolent gods watch over thee, Sharantyr-and come back safe to us."

The lady ranger put the skull into her belt pouch, adjusted the slender long sword that rode on her hip, and looked up at him with a sigh, then a rueful grin.

"Well," she replied, "I suppose there's always a first time."

"Better?" Narm asked, as he tightened the ropes around her arms again.

"Much," Shandril said, and kissed his cheek as he bent past her. Narm gave her a grin-it made Thaerla of Chauntea's face wrinkle up like a benevolent toad-and said, "I'm not sure how you're going to like sitting there watching me eat and drink when you can't have anything."

Shandril stiffened. "I'd forgotten that," she said slowly. "Narm, I've got to eat. I-won't they bring food up to us, here?"

"I'll go see."

"No, we'll go see. I'm not parting from you, not even for a moment. This is Scornubel-anything can happen."

Thaerla of Chauntea's smile was decidedly wry this time. "Try that last sentence of yours again, and put the word 'Highmoon' in place of 'Scornubel.' Then try it with 'Shadowdale.' 'Waterdeep' has a nice ring to it, too."

"Hush! That's not fu

Cautiously Shandril pulled on the door-ring, and even more cautiously peered out. The passage beyond was empty. It ended in a short flight of steps leading down onto a landing that overlooked the forehall of the i

"That was simple enough," Narm said, going straight to the window to test its frame of iron bars-old and rusty, but solid. "I'd rather stay right here until late morning on the morrow, and go seeking the Tankard and our caravan-master then."

A short, choked-off scream came in the window, and he gestured ruefully in its direction. "The local sights seem- well, a trifle too exciting."

"I hate this place," Shandril said softly. "A whole city full of folk being brutal to each other, cheating and threatening and coercing…"

Narm shrugged. "So we get away from here as soon as Orthil Voldovan will take us-and go straight to Water-deep, another den of harmony, fresh air, and public safety."

"Stop it," his lady whispered fiercely. "I'm serious, Narm. What if someone drugs or poisons our food? 'Twouldn't surprise me!"

Thaerla of Chauntea raised one chubby but triumphant finger. "Ah, there I can be of some service. Jhessail taught me a very rare spell that reveals taints and poisons to a mage-as purple glows."

"And if you cast it, there goes your disguise, just as my spellfire shattered mine," Shandril muttered into his ear. "Leaving us for all the world to see in the heart of this-this city of thieves, slavers, and brigands!"

Narm sighed. "So what would you have me do? Let you faint of hunger?"

"Narm," Shandril said in a low whisper, "I don't know. I haven't known 'the wise thing to do' since I first left Highmoon… and I don't seem to be getting any better at it. I-"

There was a sharp rapping at the door. Narm clapped a hand over Shandril's mouth for a moment and slid aside the little window shutter, asking in Thaerla of Chauntea's sniffiest voice, "Yes? You disturb us at prayer for a good reason?"

"You ordered evenfeast for two," a flat, unimpressed voice replied, "and I've brought it. Still interested?"

"Ah, now. That's different," Thaerla replied, unbolting the door again.

A hard-eyed guard entered, a loaded hand crossbow aimed at the ceiling and his other hand hovering above the hilt of his blade. Behind him came two chambermen in the maroon-and-gold uniform of the i

As they did so, the other guard came into the room, drew the door closed, and leveled another hand crossbow at Shandril-as the first guard brought his crossbow down to menace Narm, and the two chambermen lifted the domes away from their platters to reveal small plates of roast boar on skewers-and cocked hand crossbows of their own. With swift deftness they removed wooden safety catches, laid darts into tracks, ready to fire, and pointed their weapons at the two priestesses.

"W-what is the meaning of this?" Thaerla of Chauntea quavered in outrage.

"It means," the first guard said pleasantly, "you're both going to get down on your faces on the floor in front of us, with no hurlings of spellfire or anything else-or well see if someone can wield spellfire with two crossbow darts in her throat. Or eyes, perhaps,"

"Down!" one of the chambermen snarled, gesturing with his crossbow. "On the floor now!"

"Which one of them is the spellfire wench, do you think?" the other guard muttered. "We could kill the other one and-"

Slowly the hooded, penitent priestess wavered uncertainly to her knees, and then down. After a swift glance at her, Thaerla followed, murmuring, "ChaunteadeliverusChaunteasaveusChaunteakeepandpreserveusyourfaithfulservants-"

"Silence! She's a god, so she's heard you. Now, enough!" the second guard snarled, stepping forward to aim his crossbow at Shandril's hooded head from only a few feet away. One of the chambermen did the same. The other two thrust their bows almost into Thaerla's face, and the priestess ended her supplication with a sort of peeping sound and sank floorward.

The spellfire came without warning, roaring forth with enough fury to snatch all four men off their feet and drive them, shattered to pulp, into the wall behind them-in the scant instants before that wall disappeared, and startled faces gaped at Shandril from the room beyond.

The owners of those faces promptly screamed, clawed aside their prop and bolts, and fled. Shandril rose with her face white and set but her eyes dark and terrible with rage.

From the window came a burst of fire and flame that flung iron bars like kindling into the room, to crash and bounce and roll. Shandril caught a glimpse of two faces outside, glaring in at her with expressions that were less than friendly-and as they aimed wands in through the roiling smoke and crumbling hole that had been the window, she gave them spellfire, blasting much of that wall away. uS-shan, easy" Narm hissed, still on his knees. "This building might come down on us if y…"

"So get us out of here," she said in a voice that trembled with rage. "Right now I just want to lash out at anyone in this Nine Hells of a city!"