Hand of Fire

"Well met," the shadow murmured, bending down to wipe the blandreth clean on dark robes. "Rejoice in the holy thought, priest, that you are but the latest victim of the Dark Blade of Doom."

Marlel snorted in wry amusement at his own ridiculously overblown words and started to nudge the corpse off his wagon with the toe of his boot. He thought better of it and left the Zhent lying with one arm dangling over the edge, to discourage others from seeing the dark wagon entrance as a handy refuge..

With his horses gone in someone's dark necromancy and slaughter everywhere, it was a good time for Marlel to lie low, awaiting a better, later chance at snatching spellfire. He dragged Olimer's most comfortable seat to a better location for watching the battle outside the wagon," uncorked another bottle of Olimer's best firestorm, and sat down to enjoy the rest of the show.

"Are you well, lord?"

Aumlar Chaunthoun bit back a sudden wild urge to shriek at the man-of course he was a dolt; he was a Zhentilar guardsman, wasn't he?-and said curtly, "I fare very well, and require only privacy. Just the two of you see to keeping everyone out of this wagon, so that interruptions disturb me not!'

He lay back down on his improvised bed of blankets and closed his eyes again, trying to pay attention to the whispering thoughts in his mind. His spell seemed to be yielding snatches of both Narm's and Shandril's thinking, but with all mind-images, the remembered faces and places and what items looked like, leached out…

Drifting down to the murmuring… yes, here…

[elation] Mystra's blessing flowing back into me need it soon sure [alarm] what if it drowns my control, takes me over? what then? Oh gods what then?

[contentment] Shan happy again even in all this just to hold her just to feel her close warm soft that lovely smell love you lady love you

[worry] less control each time now but they don't stop attacking they'll never stop attacking

[apprehension] she's tense again she's worrying I wish she'd rest easy but no mayhap she feels something I can't knows something's coining feels a foe near "Shan?"

The mageling was speaking again-and as dreamwhispers always did, the mind-murmurs went thunderous, echoing, and distorted when someone spoke aloud. Aumlar winced and tried to endure through the shouting without letting go his attention and losing hold of the interwoven thoughts.

Bah! He'd lost them again. His spell wasn't ended, but he'd fallen out of the right reverie, his awareness thrust back to the here and now of Aumlar Chaunthoun lying flat on his back in this wagon, with spells still whistling and roaring and bursting outside, men screaming, and a single floating eye regarding him from the darkness above, near the wagon ceiling. A floating eye staring at him?

Aumlar thrust himself up, snatching at the hilt of his best enspelled dagger, trying to reach the spying orb before it -winked out, that white glistening regarding him one moment and utterly gone the next, the gloom of the wagon roof unbroken again, defying him with its own dark mockery.

Panting with fury, his dagger drawn with no one to thrust it into, Aumlar glared around at the empty darkness, saw nothing at the entrance but the lazily leaning shoulders of his two helm-headed guards, and slashed wildly at the air where the eye had been, knowing as he did it that his attack was futile. He should burrow into his lockchest, get out the right tome, and cast a tracing spell-but 'twas already too late, and he'd have to let the dreamwhisper go, and…

"Blood of Mystra!" he cursed, snatching up his blankets and stalking to a far corner of the wagon, in case whoever had been spying on him sent a spell from afar to stab down at where he'd been lying. Who could it have been, anyway?

Hmmph! In this caravan, who couldn't it have been?

Shaking out his blankets in a savage temper, he kicked aside chests and coffers to clear space enough to lie down again, wondering darkly just which rival might be lurking near. Perhaps if he spun a spell-disguise and got himself to somewhere safe where he could watch who came calling on this wagon while still listening to the thoughts of the spellfire-wench and her ma There was a sudden flash from the wagon entrance, a high, thin scream, and the head of the worst dullard of his two guards came bouncing wetly down the wagon toward him.

With a snarl of revulsion and fear Aumlar whirled to face – the light, springing sideways out of long habit as he did so.

His feet came down in a hard yet slippery confusion of chests and coffers even as his shoulder slammed bruisingly into the wagon side-but the stabbing blade of shimmering magic drove through nothing but air where he'd been and faded before it could sweep sideways and reach him.

His attacker cursed softly and asked, "You weren't particularly fond of these Zhentilar, were you? I'd hate to upset you unduly, Chaunthoun. Your clear head and unfettered judgment are such assets to Manshoon's little Brotherhood of tail-biting vipers."

The somehow familiar voice came from behind a slowly advancing wall of drifting silver sparks, a spell every bit as deadly as the spellblade that had slain the guards. Aumlar eyed its inexorable promise of doom and sighed. He should know that voice.

The lure he'd prepared to overwhelm Shandril Shessair had to be used now, on this more immediate foe-or there wouldn't be another night or day beyond that, or any more of either days or nights, for Aumlar Chaunthoun. Oh, Blood of Mystra indeed!

He murmured the word that sprang the trap, sprang back across the wagon, and in midair said aloud, as recognition came to him at last: "Pheldred!"

"In full glory! Well met again, Aumlar, after all these years. I've come to pay you back for maiming me."

"Of course-if you can," the Zhentarim told his unseen attacker calmly. "It must be hard to win respect in the ranks of the Red Wizards when your arms keep changing into manacles. My best curse; how did you manage to break it?"

"The same way you set it. The hard part was finding what fiend you'd bound into it and by what names I could command it. I went through years of torment for that, Aumlar. Now, so will you!"

"I think not," the Zhentarim snapped, as the first of his wands rose into view and fired, its burst shredding Pheldred's deathwall spell and revealing the floating man behind it. Dark hair, glittering black eyes, dark maroon robes, two plain finger-rings of course, a dagger and a whip thrust through a richly made belt… nothing unexpected there. Good; the Red Wizard was right inside the wagon. He could feel those crackling shieldings around Pheldred, so they couldn't be illusory. Right in-as the old, old saying put it-the very jaws of his trap.

Aumlar smiled as wands that obeyed his will rose into view on all sides of the Thayan, and began to fire.

Shields flared instantly into wailing brightness around the floating wizard, who sneered. "Really, Aumlar, is that the best you can do? I expected rather more than this from such a widely feared flower of the Zhentarim!"

A shield failed with a sound like shattering crystal, followed by the one beneath it.

Aumlar spread his hands and replied mockingly, "Pray accept my apologies, Pheldred. These feeble efforts of mine were intended to punish but not slay a young lass untutored in magic. If you'd a

The Thayan snarled, his dark eyes snapping with anger, as his third and fourth shieldings collapsed. His hands were moving in the gestures of a spell Aumlar didn't recognize, but the Zhentarim did not intend to stand still and be blasted. He started to clamber and walk through the scattered goods along one wall of the wagon, aiming to get around Pheldred to the entrance, where he could control when his unwanted guest departed. With even a shred of blessing from Mystra, he could end this menace from his past without even losing his dreamwhisper spell, and The Mystra he'd just cursed. Umh. Ah, well…