Hand of Fire

Startled eyes stared at her, eyes bulged, and lingers clawed at the tightening cord. A knee shot up desperately between her legs to strike her armored codpiece with numbing force. Numbing for the thief, that is. A loop of her cord captured his knife-wrist even more tightly than it held his throat, and after a moment of frenzied and futile struggle, he sagged limply in her grasp. He was helpless, and they both knew it.

"My delight is so sharp and swift, good sir," the lady ranger continued sweetly, "because you're going to take me to see Belgon Bradraskor-or the Master of the Shadows, if you prefer his, ah, professional title."

The thief s pleading eyes managed to convey even deeper desperation, and he clawed and wrenched at her arms in vain. This shapely woman was much stronger than she looked… and much stronger than he was.

Sharantyr gave him another, almost impish smile and tweaked the cord she was holding to remind him wordlessly that she knew just how much air he was getting and could cut off his supply-and his life with it-at any time.

"I don't want to hurt you," she told the strangling man, "and I don't want to harm Belgon. In fact, if you give him my name, I believe he'll be pleased indeed to see me. Now, can you take me to him, or are you… expendable?"

By a swift and rising series of panting sobs and nods the thief managed to convey his ability and deeply earnest willingness to guide this woman, whom blades couldn't touch, anywhere she pleased, this very moment, and to any number of Masters of Shadows she might care to see.

Sharantyr smiled still more broadly and did something to his wrist that made his fingers burn and his knife clatter to the ground. "Remember," she purred, making it clink on the cobblestones with the toe of her boot, "that I could have slain you and did not. I want no further unpleasantness between us. Consider me a mistake who decided to be merciful to you."

He nodded, eyes very wide, and she slipped around behind him like a graceful ghost and tightened the stonemaiden around his throat in a slip-knot, so that it made a leash. She slipped another of its cords around one of his legs below the knee and let it hang loose. If he tried to run, it could be pulled tight to trip him in an instant.

"My name is Tessaril Winter," she purred. "What's yours?"

"Ta-Taber, 1-lady."

The cord around his neck tightened suddenly, leaving him with no air at all. He sobbed, reeled as the night grew darker around him… then the cord loosened, and he could breathe again.

"No, no," that gentle voice said, deep with sadness and disappointment, "I want your real name."

"B-Besmer, lady."

"Lady-?"The cord twitched, warningly.

"Lady Winter!" he said hastily. "Lady Tessaril Winter."

"That's much better, Besmer," the lady behind him said approvingly. "We both grow older, though, and so doth the night-a night I could be spending with my friend Belgon."

"Y-yes?"

"Guide me," she breathed into his ear, and the thief shivered, swallowed, then started to walk, slowly and carefully, down the alley-only to be brought to choking heel.

"No," the purring voice of the ghost-lady said into his ear, "take me another way. I don't fancy this particular alley."

Slowly and very carefully, Besmer turned around, his captor turning with him like a soft-footed shadow, and asked in a tremulous voice, "Did you want to go by Rat Stair, Lady Winter, or Baluth's Hole-or do you know some other way?"

"The Hole, I think," Sharantyr told him pleasantly. "Rat Stair reminds me of all the rats I've eaten, some of them alive and uncooked, and almost all of them without sauce."

The thief caught in her cords shivered again, and started to walk very slowly and carefully across Scornubel.

Seeing Folk Who Are Hard To Get To See

When dealing with trade-rivals or slaughtering ruling dynasties, start at the top. "Tis more dangerous, but a lot more entertaining for bystanders-and will earn you an enviable reputation. Remember: Men stand back to gaze at those they admire but leap forward to aid those they respect (or, to use a more blunt word, those they fear).

Brathmur Engelstone, Sage of Saerloon

One Trail Chosen: A Path Through Life

Year of the Highmantle wS-she wants to see the Master," Besmer quavered to the man who'd stepped suddenly into their path with a drawn sword in his hand, in this narrowest of dark and dripping passages. Most of Scornubel was dusty and dry, above and below ground, but this underway ran very deep, doubtless skirting an underground spring. Sharantyr had begun to think her unwilling guide just might be leading her on a needlessly extended tour of Scornubel's darker ways-but the smell of fear was strong on him, and he seemed almost as terrified of the man now standing in front of him as of the lady behind who could strangle him in a moment or on a whim.

The sentinel said nothing and evidently needed no light to see. His response to Besmer's words was to thrust his blade, lightning-swift, under the thief's arm-straight into the woman standing behind him, who presumably held the other end of the strangling-cord that was around Besmer's throat.

Into and through her it went, as if she was made of smoke. The sentinel uttered a startled grunt and slashed about in her with his steel, just to make sure, but he might have been cleaving empty air.

"When you're finished," Sharantyr told him pleasantly, "I'd like to see Belgon. Perhaps I'll have time to play at blades with you later."

The man with the sword frowned at her over Besmer's shoulder, then asked, in a voice rough with disuse, "You know him?"

"For an answer to that, why don't you give him my name and see his reaction?"

"And what," that rough voice asked heavily, "might that name be?"

The cord twitched around Besmer's neck, and he squeaked hastily, "Winter! The Lady Tessaril Winter!"

The man gave the thief a hard look and the woman behind him an even harder one. Then he stepped back into the side-passage he'd erupted from. Behind he left the flat words, "Wait here-or die."

"Well, Besmer," Sharantyr said brightly, "we've been left with a choice. Would you prefer to tarry? Or choose death?"

"Arauntar," Shandril murmured as a familiar form stalked past her wagon, "where's Narm?" The much-scarred veteran guard cast a look at Sarlor, Tarth, and Mulgar- who'd turned suspiciously to watch and listen, their hands going to their swordhilts-then looked back at Shandril and said, "He hit his head. Narbuth's tending him."

"No," the maid from Highmoon said flatly, lifting one of the coffers with flasks painted on it. "I'm tending him. Take me to him now or bring him to me."

The three guards stepped menacingly nearer, and she turned her fierce look on them and asked, "Well? What are you waiting for? Bring me my husband!"

"We don't take orders from you, fire-witch," Sarlor snapped, drawing his sword slowly and holding it up so she could see the torchlight glimmer along its edge. "You do as Orthil told you to, or-"

He was suddenly gazing into two eyes that blazed with tiny flames. "Or you'll do what, sir?" Shandril asked softly. "The man who stands between me and my Narm can expect to be ashes in a very short time. If none of you swaggering blades will bring me my Narm, go and get Orthil Voldovan, and I'll see if I can make him more reasonable. Or I could just go do a little wagon-searching of my own, gentle sirs- and any man who tried to stop me wouldn't have to worry about brigands on the morrow… or ever again."

"Keep back, witch!" Mulgar snarled. The three guards hastily retreated, swords flashing up to menace her, and glanced this way and that for shields-or any handy cover.

"Sit you here, lass," Arauntar growled. "I'll go fetch Narm or Orthil for you. There's no need for flames or anyone hurt."