Hand of Fire

Narm snatched up their packs and snatched the door open-to stare into the hard-eyed faces of a dozen or more warriors. He barely slammed it again before a crossbow cracked. The quarrel slammed through the closing gap and shivered its way across the room, and Narm was hurled back, the door banging open, under the fury of hard-charging warriors.

Shandril Shessair was waiting for them, spellfire leaking from her eyes and nose as she glared. "Leave me alone!" she howled, slaying them with roaring gouts of flame that seared the passage outside and left small fires raging in its wake. "Just-"

There were angry shouts from the i

Shandril hurled spellfire at them-but her searing flames clawed along something that wrestled with it and withstood it, something that looked like black fire. Open-mouthed, Narm watched jet-black flames rage and snarl in the face of white-hot spellfire. Then a wizard moaned, reeled, and collapsed-as if exhausted or drained, not struck by anything Shandril had sent-and the black flames sank back^

"Shan!" Narm cried, "we have to get out of here! The wall behind us-blast it!"

His raging wife turned with her hair swirling around her like so many eager, licking flames, and the wall obligingly darkened, melted away, and was gone-but her flames were faltering, now,' and in the darkened room beyond were more hard-faced warriors in dark battle armor, with drawn swords and glaives in their hands.

A cascade of lightnings crashed down around them, and Shandril drank them in eagerly, turning with renewed vigor to face the wizards, trying to draw them into hurling more spells-ere she fed a slaying sheet of spellfire at head-level out into the passage and spun around to give the same to the warriors now surging forward to try to clamber through the hole she'd burned into their room.

The boar-like stench of cooked man-flesh was rising around them now, and Narm was crouching at Shandril's feet with their packs in his hands, trying not to hamper her as she turned and spat fire again and again-brief, careful gouts now, trying to preserve what she had left. The passage was afire; there was no going out that way-and the longer she was forced to fight, the less likely stepping into either of the other rooms, wizards and fresh hostile warriors or none, would give them any easy route to escape. That left "The window!" Narm snapped. "Someone's climbing in the window!"

Shandril wheeled around, smoking hands raised to slay once more-only to stop, her eyes caught by a gleaming silver harp badge.

The man holding it was a smiling, dark-haired figure in leathers, wearing a sly expression on his handsome face that reminded her of Torm of the Knights of Myth Dra

"I can think of several," Shandril replied, hurling a tongue of spellfire at a wizard in the next room who'd fumbled out a dagger and was raising it to throw, "but none of them are in Scornubel. Do you-harp alone?"

"Most of the time," the black-haired man replied, giving the two priestesses of Chauntea a crooked smile. "I am Marlel, and I believe I already know both of your names-your real names. I can take you to-'ware behind you, in the passage!" Shandril whirled, blasted, and watched the body of a warrior who'd been carrying a full-sized crossbow along the burning hallway toward them dance headless back into the flames, to fall and be lost, his bow firing harmlessly down the passage. There was a thud and a groan in the distance-hmm, not so harmlessly, after all.

"My thanks," Shandril told the Harper crisply. "Now, can you take us to, say, The Stormy Tankard, on Hethbridle Street?"

"Of course," Marlel told them with a smile. "If you can hold onto a rope, the window awaits."

Shandril gave Narm a shove in the Harper's direction, and after two quick glances into the room of the warriors-where no one moved-and the passage-burning too merrily, now, to fear any arrivals that way-turned to face the wizards once more. One of them was just finishing a spell of hurled fists. Shandril gave him a cold smile and awaited it, spellfire racing up and down her widespread arms-and the wizard promptly fled.

Marlel leaned out the window almost lazily, flung a knife, and there was a short, strangled gurgling sound, followed by the heavy thud of a body ending its fall.

Shandril's body jerked under the first few blows of the mage's spell, and then her spellfire rose bright around her and she sighed almost in rapture as she drank in the magic.

The small fires on her body died away, and she smiled and strode to Marlel, who gave her his crooked smile, indicating the window with a flourish.

"Just a moment," Narm said, and cast his poison-detecting spell on the platters that still steamed on the table mode the shattered door.

The roast boar brought for them promptly glowed bright purple.

Other Lives, Other Dreams

An i

Blorgar Hanthaver of Myratma

Doors Open To All: Forty Winters An I

Year of the Striking Falcon

If The Sun Over Scornubel laid claim to the mantle of "a superior i

Night was falling over Scornubel like a dark cloak spread across a red, starlit sky as Marlel led Narm and Shandril-still in their robes, but fat she-priestesses no longer-in through a side door of the Tankard.

"Wait your turn," a cold voice greeted them sourly, out of the darkness.

"Aye," another voice agreed. "Just stand still and keep shut an' wait."

"Fair evening to you, Tulasker," Marlel said merrily. "As it happens, we're not in the market just now-make way, please, so I can get to Pharaulee and book a room."

"Ho, ho, the Dark Blade of Doom has chosen already, has he?" Shrewd eyes peered at Shandril and Narm in the gloom, and Tulasker added with an unlovely laugh, "Strange tastes for you, Marlel!"

"Not half so strange as what you'll be tasting if you don't roll aside, old blade," Marlel replied lightly.

"Ho ho! And what if I don't?"

"Then, Tulasker, I'm afraid you'll learn firsthand how I came by my rather grand professional title. It will be one of those sharp, painful, and rather final lessons, too."

"Aye, aye, impress us all," Tulasker muttered disparagingly, as he slowly shuffled aside.