Red Magic

Szass Tam mentally pressed the ghoul for more, and it complied, telling him in detail what the surviving humans, a blond-haired man and a fire-haired woman, looked like. To the ghoul, the centaur appeared much like those who worked on the slave plantations and elsewhere in Thay. The lich didn't find the information especially interesting, assuming that the ghoul described a pair of slaves and their centaur keeper.

But then the ghoul mentioned a shiny chain it saw dangling from the blond man's neck. It was adorned with a polished silver moon affixed to a harp. The jewelry had come loose from under the man's clothing during the fight, and the ghoul noticed it because it disliked silver.

Szass Tam's abandoned his fleshly form as the ghoul continued to describe the unsuccessful battle to the half-listening lich. The lich's eyes, now pinpoints of hot light, stared into the dark corners of the library.

"Harpers," he whispered.

Eight

"Don't!" Galvin admonished, grabbing Bre

"But it itches!" she moaned. "It feels like ants are crawling on my scalp."

Wynter, who led the procession down the road toward Amruthar, paused to watch the scene between the druid and Bre

This was the trio's second day on their journey to Amruthar. Today the sky was filled with cottony white clouds. The centaur was certain a wizard would manage to coax rain out of them sometime before dark, and he was tired of getting wet. He wanted to be in Amruthar by nightfall. In the city, he knew that with only one or two of his gold coins, he could get a steaming feast and a sturdy roof over his head. Wynter was hungry. He was tired of the fruit and nuts Galvin provided. The centaur's cavernous stomach rumbled in response to his thoughts, and he cast his view about the countryside, searching for something else to occupy his mind.

The road narrowed as it wound between young birches, some of them recently planted. Wynter noted that many of the lower branches of the trees had been trimmed to shape them. Ahead, the land changed from flat meadows and landscaped orchards to low rolling hills. Cattle grazed on a rise to the left. Wynter stared at the slow-moving cows and imagined himself eating a thick steak.

His stomach rumbled again, and he turned and concentrated on Galvin and Bre

"It really itches!" Bre

"That's from shaving your head with a sword," Galvin explained.

"You shaved my head," she said tersely. "I only cut my hair off."

"Just don't scratch it," the druid scolded. "If you scratch it, it's going to itch all the more, and you'll leave welts."

"You're enjoying this," she fumed.

"Yes," Galvin answered simply, immediately regretting his response. He started shuffling down the road, hoping the argument had ended.

"Oaf!"

"At least I'm honest." Galvin sighed, wishing fervently he hadn't started the conversation. He picked up the pace, and Bre

"Try being a little more polite and a little less honest."

"I don't want you to stand out. We have to fit in, remember?"

"I know, I know. You needn't talk to me as if I were stupid," she huffed.

"Sorry." Galvin was a little surprised to find himself apologizing for something so trivial. "Besides, if you scratch, you might ruin the barbed whip Wynter painted."

Bre

"We've more important things to do than go shopping," the druid interjected, stopping again and staring into her eyes. He was dreading entering the city, especially a Thayvian one, but he didn't want Bre

"And to do that," Bre

Galvin gave her a puzzled glance.

"Your clothes," she explained. "They're filthy and nearly worn out. I'll pass for a wealthy Thayvian easily enough, but no slave of mine is going to look like a herd of pigs trampled him. We'll get you into some better clothes, but nothing too fancy. And I could use another dress or two. If we have to spend more than one day in Amruthar, we're going to need more than one thing to wear."

Galvin frowned, then brightened. "It's a nice thought, but we haven't enough gold to buy clothes."

"Of course we do. You've got the gold you were going to pay the gnoll spy, and I have more than enough with me." Bre

Defeated, Galvin nodded. She was enjoying this too much, he realized. Once again he envied the centaur; Wynter never had to bother about clothes.

"We have to get to Amruthar before we can do anything," he said, a bit sulkily. "We can't be too far now, can we, Wynter? Wynter?" Galvin glanced up the road, surprised to see the centaur several dozen yards ahead. The druid was amazed that he could become so engrossed in a discussion with the sorceress that he would lose track of what was going on around him.

Turning to face Bre

She started off at a brisk pace to catch up with Wynter, and the druid fell in behind her. Her stamina had increased noticeably during the past few days. Galvin knew her muscles must ache, being unaccustomed to so much traveling, but she wasn't complaining, and she was keeping up. Grudgingly he had to admire her for that.

As the trio crested the first low rise, they saw the walls of Amruthar in the distance. The city sat at the base of three squat hills. Their slopes were covered with small farms and were a brilliant green from the riot of well-watered crops growing there.

Ahead of them on the road, perhaps a mile distant, Galvin noticed a small wagon pulled by a pair of workhorses. The wagon, which must have been from a local farm, was filled with some type of crop.

"We're too far away to see them clearly," Galvin began, "but the walls look massive."

"And it's patrolled by lots of guards," the centaur surmised, continuing to lead the procession closer to the city. He explained that the larger cities in Thay, such as Amruthar, had high, thick stone walls held together with mortar. Smaller cities usually had wooden walls, although some had stone walls if the residents were wealthy and influential. Even the smallest of Thayvian communities had at least a spike-filled ditch surrounding it, and all of them had a guard force. The resident wizards wanted their homes well protected.

"A few walls have spells on them. Eltabar's did when I visited it," the centaur continued. He reminisced about that dark city's invisible, domelike shield. "I was with my father. He said he wanted me to see the city. He had other reasons for going, of course, most notably slave-trading. I had heard about the dome, and I just had to test it out. I picked up a rock and tried to throw it over the brick wall. It bounced right back at me, and I knew the stories were true. My father was angry and never took me there again."

"Fortunate for you," Galvin observed as he sidestepped a deep rut in the road.