Hand of Fire

"Sharantyr!" Shandril cried, leaping out of the wagon in a halo of snarling spellfire. "Are you hurt?"

"I-I'll live," the ranger managed to reply, going to her knees. "I think."

Arauntar was pounding toward them across the camp, sword in hand and an endless bellow calling guards to him as he came. Several had heeded and were following him, but reluctantly and at quite a distance.

Behind Shandril, however, was a sight that shook Sharantyr more than anything she'd ever seen before. The screaming darkness was man-shaped, now, and thrice as tall as the wagon. As she watched, it grew swiftly larger, looming like a shadowy giant. Shuddering and writhing, it grew ever darker and more solid. It was drinking the spellfire that Shandril had hurled!

"Shan!" the ranger screamed, pointing. "Behind you!" The maid of Highmoon turned, saw, and pointed both her hands at the shadow-thing like a wizard gleefully hurling his first lighting bolt.

As Shandril poured spellfire into the looming giant in an eye-searing white storm that shook the very air it tore through, Sharantyr saw that the young woman's teeth were clenched, and her face was as white as bone. Fine fury, yes, but how could the lass prevail against something that could feed on spellfire?

Pain crashed over the ranger in a fresh wave, and she lost all sight of false Voldovans, ru

The ground was shaking so violently now that the ranger started to tumble from side to side, ending up on her back- in time to see the night sky split apart with spellfire.

Flames were arcing all over the camp as Shandril lashed out. "Die!" she spat. "All of you! Die and leave us all be! Touch not Sharantryr and Arauntar and my Narm! Leave us alone!"

Laeral gasped and swayed. An anxious apprentice dared much to reach out and touch her-then held the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, cradling her awkwardly as if she might shatter or burst in a fury of rending spells. Other apprentices in that chamber of Blackstaff Tower saw and fell silent, staring in awe.

"Lady," the daring apprentice asked, "are you-well?"

"Back," Laeral said urgently. "Maratchyn, leave go, for your own safety!"

The youth did so, to stare at her anxiously from a few paces away. Laeral waved at him. "Get all enchanted things out of this chamber," she gasped. "Go!"

Apprentices stared an instant longer, then hastened to do her bidding… save Maratchyn. He stood by, hands raised to-he knew not what. Catch her if she fell?

He saw Laeral steady herself, clench her fists as if to fight down pain or nausea, and straighten. "Yes," she whispered, nodding to empty air. "Yes, sister, I feel it too."

The apprentice's stare widened as a ghostly face started to form in the air facing Laeral. He'd seen Alustriel, High Lady of Silverymoon, a time or two before and knew very well who he was looking at. She gave Maratchyn a wink of recognition as she grew more solid. He swallowed. She knew him? Oh, gods…

"Her spellfire must be out of control," Alustriel said simply. "This could be the end."

Laeral nodded. "We must be there. Can you-?"

Alustriel smiled thinly. "If this continues, a Weave-field between us will serve to scoop enough of this wild, spilling-in-all-directions energy to strengthen me fully and take us all to Shandril."

"All?"

"Bring Mirt and Asper, as well as the both of us-but leave yon handsome apprentice behind. I've a feeling we'll have enough i

Laeral gave the overbold Maratchyn a warning look as she replied, "I can feel one such right from here, now. Mother Mystra, but her spellfire's strong!"

"You feel one who needs protection? Who?"

"Sharantyr of Shadowdale-sorely wounded, too." Alustriel nodded. Her ghostly face tightened, gasped at the ceiling, and then said, "Ahh, better. Almost whole. Sister, farspeak Mirt and Asper. 'Tis less than kind to snatch folk half across Faerun without warning, and we want them properly clad and armed."

Laeral's lips twisted in a wry smile. "If there is such a thing as 'properly clad and armed' for attending a battlefield where spellfire's ru

"You could wear Khelben," Alustriel suggested lightly, her words only half-teasing.

The Lady Mage of Waterdeep smiled and shook her head. "He's needed more here keeping Waterdeep in order-and I'd not want to place him among so many foes of Art. Not for his protection, but for theirs. He's all too apt to smite first and show mercy later."

Alustriel nodded. "lean feel Sharantyr now. She's in bad shape. We'd best not wait longer to translocate her, but we need an anchor point that won't land her among foes."

"If it's only to be for a short time," Laeral replied, "we can just send her back to where she last relieved herself, on the trail. She walked, remember?"

"Haste matters most," Alustriel agreed, and her phantom face seemed to blaze more brightly.

Maratchyn watched in silent awe. The two Chosen of Mystra must be snaring raging spellfire energies and using them to teleport this distant Sharantyr person from wherever she was to an unknown anchor point-waste or discarded hair or the like that had once been part of her own body.

He shivered at the very thought. "Dangerous" was too mild a word. Why, th "Done," Alustriel said calmly. "She lives. Are Mirt and Asper ready?"

"More so than I’ll ever be, I think," Laeral replied and turned to give Maratchyn a jaunty wave.

Her hand was still moving in that wry gesture when she vanished. Alustriel's ghost-face winked out in the same instant, leaving the apprentice blinking at where they'd been.

Maratchyn was still' drawing breath and trying to remember every last nuance of tone and look exchanged by his Lady Teacher and the High Lady when there was a sudden crackling of the air behind him, a presence that made him turn quickly.

The Lord Mage of Waterdeep was standing in the nearest doorway, in his customary black robes and with no less than three scepters of power clutched in one of his hands. The other held a quill pen from which a single drop of ink dripped-iridescent green-gold ink, Maratchyn couldn't help but notice, as it splattered in all directions.

The Blackstaff did not appear to be in the best of moods. He fixed the lone apprentice with a very direct stare, and said, "I feel very great disturbances in the Weave, and Art surges through this chamber far more strongly than my wards should allow. Master Maratchyn, have you any explanation for this? Should I be wary of your great powers of mischief or despairing of your clumsiness… or merely demanding the utmost of your no doubt finely honed powers of observation?"

Maratchyn swallowed. "I-ah-the Lady Alustriel, Lord Khelben. She appeared, conferred with the Lady Mage Laeral, and-well, they departed together. She said there was no need to involve you."

Khelben's eyes narrowed. "So glib, Master Maratchyn? I fear I'm going to have to visit your memories directly and see and hear just as you did. You may well be telling the truth, but you must admit that it sounds a mite… farfetched."

"No disagreement there, Lord!" Maratchyn replied, heartily and meant it.

Spellfire blinded Sharantyr and turned blue-a rushing blue fury that flashed through her, spun her head-over-heels, and whirled her up into its flood. The ranger felt herself plucked up from the grass nigh Shandril, and hurled somewhere far, far away. Somewhere that had something to do with a bloody lock of her own hair..,

Suddenly she was elsewhere-an elsewhere that had moonlight and many tree branches, but entirely lacked spell-fire, lanterns, wagons, ru