Hand of Fire

Oh, he could see why they wanted this wand, all right. He didn't want to use it too often, lest there be some limit to the fires it held… particularly if he used it all before getting away from these doggedly pursuing men. His feet felt like two heavy-laden coffers, his lungs burned, and he was starting to slip and stumble. He had to catch his breath, win time to rest Blarrrgh! Besmer fell on his face, slid to a stop and hopped upright again, his ankle shrieking protest. He hobbled on, downslope, and had to look back. One of them was cresting the height he'd just left already, teeth bared in an angry grin.

Tymora claw Beshaba for me now! Nothing could stop that man from catching him before he reached the bottom of the slope. Besmer assumed a look of despair, drew the wand and held it concealed, close to his body. He waited until the man's thudding boots were growing loud behind him, then whirled, said the word, and pointed.

The blast of flame snatched him back off his feet and hurled him away, head ringing and half-blinded. He'd seen the man's agonized, spreadeagled body outlined by fire, ere he'd been whirled away, but… 'twas done.

Shaking his head to clear it, Besmer got up and stumbled on, never seeing the dark, wraith-like cloud descending out of the sky behind his shoulders.

Waterdeep had been glorious, a feast of magics, and Evaereol Rathrane had grown strong enough to manifest hands that could snatch and hold and carry. Greatness soon to come was more than a dream now.

Yet he still dropped things from time to time, and found it easier by far to drift along as a shifting, shapeless cloud, as he was drifting now, excited by his whelmed power but wary. The world had changed much since his days in Jethaere.

These humans would have marveled at Jethaere of the Towers, and might well have been less arrogant than to call their crowded, stinking harbor-huddle a "City of Splendors," but they rolled in magic-magic so carelessly and lavishly used as to seemingly be held of little value.

Yet Waterdeep had not been an unguarded treasure-house. Rathrane still shuddered at the remembered pain of its wards and leaping enchantments and the spells hurled by furious mages who saw him and lashed out without a moment's hesitation. Flames too bright and too close still burned more than they succored.

He'd fled from pain, lashed and hooked and scorched, out over wilderlands once more, drifting on from where a frantic flight from guardian-gargoyles had taken him in the painful aftermath of his last and worst attempt to snatch magic in Waterdeep. Wizards of Jethaere would never have spun spells in such a rough-and-tumble way, nor spent so much Art for clawing guardian beasts. Would every last mage's tower be girt with such fearsome sentinels as well as the more subtle, exacting, and expected wards? Such fastnesses should be out here, yes, far from Magic blossomed below, bright and sudden, and the shadowy thing that had been Rathrane of Jethaere smiled an unseen smile and sank swiftly toward that beckoning glow.

Mhegras of the Zhentarim groaned as he swam out of darkness and blinked awake. He lay still and silent on his back, hearing little rustlings in tangled and interwoven branches above him. He was weak and sore, and when he strove to lift a hand, it was some time before his quavering fingers rose into view. "Bane preserve me," he whispered hoarsely, watching them tremble.

"Pray indeed to our Dark and Dread Lord," a familiar voice said sourly from close by, "for by his will we're delivered from death." Sabran, no doubt lying here too. Those Harpers, a grip like iron…

Mhegras thrust away that frightening memory with a whimper, and weighed the priest's words. Bewilderment came. "H-he took direct interest in us?"

"Nay," Sabran snarled in low tones, "the spell that brought us back was mine, cast beforehand at the cost of a life for each of us, lives provided by those two idiot weavers in the squeaking wagon. Great Bane granted that spell to me. I didn't think much of your protective magics-rightly, as it turns out."

Mhegras scowled and tried to sit up. There was a moment of trees and sky whirling around, sickening weakness, and… he was lying on his back again, looking up at the sky, with fresh aches, and mists drifting through his thoughts. His neck…

He moved his head a little, to make the pain go away, but it got worse. He groaned again.

"Wait," Sabran hissed, "and be glad those two Harpers just broke our necks and threw us down in this ditch, that they didn't go chopping pieces off us or looting our pouches. If you give my magic time to finish its work, you'll be able to walk. If we can find something to eat, we'll soon feel as if nothing happened to us."

Mhegras felt his fingers itching. When he lifted them into view, he saw that they were twitching uncontrollably. Marvellous for casting spells! He let his hands fall back, clawed the ground beside him in sudden fury, and a

They were coming for him now, and the sky was darkening strangely ahead, almost as if it was growing greedy, long-fingered hands, reaching for his wand!

Besmer stumbled back as the armored men came lumbering down the hillside with growls of triumph and was struck by a sudden, chilling thought: What if that merchant had been a wizard, after all? Was this his ghost, come to claim his wand back?

Gods, yes! He could see a dark face, now, two dark twinkling stars of eyes in a shadowy head that had no jaw, on shoulders with no chest below, only a cloud of swirling shadows and those two reaching arms…

Screaming, Besmer Altuth thrust his wand forward and gave the wraith fire-flame that dwindled to nothing!

The wandfire disappeared as fast as it erupted, hissing to silence as the wand sputtered and the tingling cloud of shadows settled over Besmer like descending nightfall.

Despairingly Besmer waved the wand like a blade, slashing at shadows, and spat out its word for fire again and again. Nothing happened, as the first swordsman's slashing blade took Besmer's dagger out of his hand along with two fingers, and the man's second blow brought Besmer more pain than he'd ever felt before.

He lost the wand during his helpless, agonized stagger, trying to drag out his sword with his other hand even though he knew the life was leaking out of him. The blade had gone right through him, down low on his right side, and Another ru

The thunder of hooves faded as Arauntar and Beldimarr spurred forward, scouting ahead for a campsite. Darhabran Windhome watched them go, spat thoughtfully to one side, and told the man on the perch beside him u

Orthil Voldovan refrained from snapping something sarcastic. Windhome was old and loyal, a good man, and was carrying his wounds better than many guards far younger. All day the old guard had worked the reins of this mismatched team of beasts expertly with no betrayal of his pain but the odd grunt or growl, and kept the battered wagon on the much-rutted road.

He leaned closer to the caravan master now and muttered, "Master, wouldn't it be best if we just put a knife in the lass right now?"

He did not have to say who "the lass" might be.

"Don't think I haven't considered it," Orthil grunted. "If we didn't need her fire to defend us on the run past Dragon-spear, I'd do it right now."

"We can't trust her!"

"I know, but we have to-unless you can grow me a dozen crossbowmen and two dozen good swordsmen, all of them in quarrel-proof armor and on quarrel-proof horses!"