Hand of Fire

A blue-white web of force suddenly glowed around Hesperdan, and the spellfire that clawed at it rebounded across the room at the wizard with the scepter.

His shielding was a thing of mingled crimson and emerald fire, and it wrestled desperately with the spellfire. The scepter smoked and burst apart, followed into oblivion by two rings that took Eirhaun's hissing snake-fingers with them. Spellfire scorched and sizzled about the walls, shattering pillars and gargoyles alike, then faded and fell back down the shaft.

The two wizards looked at each other-Hesperdan's cold and dark smile meeting the glare of the Maimed Wizard. The older wizard had deflected the spellfire that sought his life at Eirhaun Sooundaeril, who'd in turn thrust it aside into the walls of his stronghold. That massive peak of stone was old and huge and girt with many spells, but there was no one and nothing it could deflect spellfire into.

Wherefore cracks had already appeared in the walls and the vaulted ceiling, and the floor beneath the two men was shuddering and starting to move. Explosions rumbled far below, and ravaged stone screamed like a man in anguish. A chasm opened in the rippling floor between the two wizards.

Stone fell away with a rush and a roar. Hesperdan and Eirhaun the Maimed stared at each other across the gulf as rooms fell away beneath them, one after another, crashing down into the dust and screams below.

"Oh, dear," Hesperdan remarked mildly. "I do believe your stronghold is collapsing."

The Maimed gathered the spell around him that would whisk him away and replied menacingly, "We will meet again, Old Man."

Hesperdan smiled again. "Indeed. I'm counting on it."

He vanished an instant after his longtime foe-but just before the shattered floor he'd been standing on cracked and fell away with a roar.

Shandril went to her knees as she wept, spellfire raining down with her tears. More spellflames raced along her arms to roll away into the night. "Oh, Mystra, aid me!" she cried.

"Shan?" a voice as grief-ridden as her own asked her, from very close by. "Is there anything I can do?"

Asper was also on her knees, facing Shan across smoking ash from about an armslength away. Shandril stared at her in horror.

"Get away!" she snarled. "Go from here before I burn you, too!"

"No," Asper told her, her face white with fear but her voice firm. "My Mirt lies wounded behind me. I'll not leave him. I'm his only shield against-oh, Shan-against spellfire!"

Shandril burst into fresh tears, shook her head, got up, and fled blindly into the night.

Men cowering amid the smoke watched her go, a stumbling, sobbing figure wreathed in flames, who left blazing footprints behind her.

She stopped atop a bare knob of rock on the edge of camp, and there turned, tears glimmering in her eyes and splashing in flames to the rocks below. On a curl of spellfire like dragons' breath her voice rolled softly back to Asper: "Farewell!"

Asper stood up and reached out to her. "Shan, no!"

"No?" Shandril cried wildly. "I've killed Narm! My man is gone, dead by my hand! Dead by this cursed spellfire that feels so good!" She shook her head, flames swirling in her hair, and sobbed bitterly. "Beldimarr too, and the Lady Laeral, and dozens more! I slaughtered them all! Everywhere I go, people die-and still wizards keep trying to get their hands on this fire inside me! One day they might succeed in taking it-and what then? Shandril Shessair causes the rest of Faerun be swept away?"

"Shandril, 'tis not your fault!" Asper cried, taking a few reluctant steps closer.

"Nay? I say it is," Shandril howled, her eyes two flames. "And I am done with slaying, done with fear and ru

She threw back her head and told the stars, "Gorstag, forgive me… Mystra, take me!"

Drawing in a deep breath, she gave Asper a little wave and a half-smile, and went to one knee. Propping both elbows on her raised knee, she put her fingers in her mouth-and fed herself spellfire.

There was a. moment of silence, then a trembling-a shuddering of earth and air and blood pounding in the ears that began as a sound so low it shook bones rather than being heard, but built swiftly to a din greater than any dragon might make.

No one could stand or wage war or be heard in that trembling tumult. All over that bloody field men fell, tumbling helplessly, and lightning snarled out from the lone lass on the rock, playing like restless blue snakes from blade to shield and back again, until men threw away their swords or tore off their armor, to lie wincing, cowering, and wondering when they would die. Asper fell, tried to get up again, and found herself once more on the ground, one shoulder to the scorched earth. She kept her eyes on Shandril all the while, and it was as she was rolling over onto her stomach again that she saw the maid from Highmoon rise up into the air, trembling in the thrall of the furious white stream of spellfire leaking from her mouth to roil around her as she went on feeding it to herself.

Perhaps forty feet off the ground her hands fell away from her mouth as she stared at the empty air beside her and gasped in wonder, "Narm? M-Mystra? Gorstag?"

And then Shandril exploded, in a burst of radiance so bright that Asper saw nothing for days afterward.

"Oh, lass," the High Lady murmured. "You saved him and healed him, and never knew. He but collapsed from the pain and lives yet. Unlike you."

The Weave flashed and shook itself, as if rid of a great burden. Alustriel Silverhand, weeping with grief and pain amid leaping tongues of silver fire, let go her shielding spells at last.

In Shadowdale, Elminster looked up sharply from an old map as Mourngrym frowned across the table at him and Illistyl and Jhessail winced in unison and grabbed for the backs of chairs, for support. "She's gone," the Old Mage said slowly, shaking his head. "She lasted longer than I'd ever thought she would."

Torm's eyes narrowed. "Who?"

"Shandril," Rathan said heavily, and reached for a decanter. "Gathered, as the gods gather us all."

"Mystra preserve her," Jhessail gasped, and threw back her head as if starving for air. A single tear fell like a wet star on the map before her. Torm reached out a finger and drew a prayer-rune with it, right across the face of Elminster's map.

Mourngrym waited for the Old Mage to erupt, but no storm came. Elminster merely shook his head again, looking off into a distant otherwhere that only he could see, and murmured, "Mystra will provide."

"Sharantyr?" Florin asked quietly, from his end of the table.

The Old Mage almost smiled. "Someone else has already provided for her. Someone who could teach Torm, here, a thing or two."

"What's wrong, Tess?" the Purple Dragon asked, coming awake in an instant and reaching for her with one hand and his ready sword with the other.

Tessaril Winter trembled under his touch like a little girl, and he swiftly wrapped a comforting arm around her smooth curves. "I know not, King Azoun," she said formally, her voice empty and despairing. "I only know someone has died-and in dying, reached out to me."

"Who?" the king of Cormyr asked softly, enfolding her in his arms.

Tessaril whispered, "She. Young, and of great power… it can only be Shandril Shessair. She never made it to Silvery-moon, after all." She swallowed. "Oh, Az-hold me."

"I will," Azoun said gently, not bothering to point out that he already was. Kindness is a rare quality in a king, understanding another, and caring a third. Tessaril lay still and thought on all three, and her eyes filled with tears.

"At least I have you," she whispered, and the Purple Dragon's answer was a simple whisper.

"Yes."

They lay together in silence for a long time before his Lady Lord of Eveningstar twisted free of the royal grasp and of her bed in one smooth movement, to stand bare and magnificent in the moonlight.