Ed Greenwood - All Shadows Fled

Briefly he wondered if he should watch over his lady, to see that nothing ill befell her in the Cavern Perilous, a vast cave in the heart of Mount Waterdeep, which they used when working magics that might prove damaging to the surroundings. Nowadays, with magic gone wild, Khelben thought sourly, just about any spell could prove damaging to the surroundings.

He'd barely had that thought when the air across the room shimmered and sparkled. His beloved smiled at him as she crossed the room, a stone in her hands, the black spatters of long-dried mushroom clear upon it.

With a smile, Khelben bounded up out of his chair, feeling the familiar excitement of the chance to work truly new magic.

Then he saw the brightness of unshed tears in Laeral's eyes, and looked a wordless question at her as he came forward, arms out to hold and comfort her.

His lady sighed as she came into his embrace. "I wish Elminster were still with us. Even more than holy Mystra, his presence-gruff ways and all-made me feel all was right in Faerun, underneath the troubles of the day." Elven Court woods, Flamerule 30

"I'm sure I saw someone walking through the trees just about… here," Shar whispered. The three rangers crouched together amid a close-grown stand of massive dark trunks-shadowtops that had stood on this slope for nigh a thousand years.

"What sort of someone?" Itharr asked her. "Human?"

"A youngish man, in robes, going from down there, along this slope, toward somewhere that way. I think he was on his way back after a call of nature."

"On his way back to a camp, or a halted group of wayfarers," Belkram mused. "Either way, we'd best be cautious when going where this knave you saw was headed, for fear of being seen by a sentry-or blundering into the heart of a group of foes."

Sharantyr laid a silencing hand on his arm and pointed back the way they'd come. All three strained to see and hear something. After a moment, Itharr caught sight of a furry animal moving away and said reassuringly, "Badger… a big one, but a badger."

"That's not reassuring," Shar said, her face inches from his, "because I saw it, too… and what I saw go behind that tree stood on two legs and had several eyes, on stalks."

"Malaugrym," Belkram said bleakly. "Hunting us?"

"Why else would it be here, in the depths of the Elven Court woods, where creatures to devour or hide among are relatively few?" Shar replied. "Doppelgangers like cities, where there's prey in every alley and folk to hide among on every corner. Of course it's after us."

"I'm vastly reassured to know we now know what's going on," Itharr said with a grin. "I'll be ecstatic if someone details what, by the skulls of the Seven Lost Gods, we do now?"

Behind them, from just about where they'd been peering at the probable Malaugrym, there came a sudden shout of alarm and the sharp 'whump' of a spell-burst, followed by a crackling of brush and somebody crying out an incantation in desperate haste.

"That's easy," Belkram said with a wolfish grin. He waved a hand in the direction of the commotion. "We sit and watch."

Thuruthein Tlar was determined to impress his master. Orth Lantar was the wisest Red Wizard Thuruthein had ever met-and wise Red Wizards guarded and rewarded those who were truly loyal to them, for there was no more rare commodity in all of Thay.

Prestym, Iyrit, and the others were the sort of ambitious, scheming apprentices that surrounded every Red Wizard; a seething mass of fawning back-stabbers who were little better than fodder. Thuruthein suspected Orth Lantar knew their true worth-and probably intended to spend the lives of more than a few of them in his stated attempt to penetrate the ruined elven city of Myth Drannor and find some of its fabled magic. Thuruthein was determined not to be counted among the expendable.

So when three humans in leather armor came skulking around the camp-brigands, for certain-in his watch field and during his sentry duty, Thuruthein knew just what to do.

He'd stood up behind his tree and was aiming the wand very carefully at the face of the woman, humming in anticipation and noting her wild beauty with the briefest of appreciative regret-when he heard the smallest of sounds close behind him and whirled about, heart leaping into his throat.

To see himself grinning back at him! A Thuruthein Tlar with tentacles instead of hands. Those tentacles were stretched out an impossibly long way, like two hungry snakes, so as to be almost around Thuruthein's throat!

Orth Lantar's senior apprentice trembled, swallowed, and fired his wand with commendable calmness-only to have his foe collapse like a felled tree before the spell-burst, falling beneath most of its harm.

It gathered itself and lunged at him with a forest of tentacles.

Backing away in sudden real terror, Thuruthein stammered the most powerful incantation he knew.

The blazing beam of destruction seared the body that so resembled his own almost entirely away to ashes-but something dark and huge and very fast indeed reared up out of the leaves right in front of him, and seven mouths opened hungrily.

Thuruthein had barely time left to scream, "No! Noooo! I was loyal, Master! I was loyaaaaaah-"

"A loyal Red Wizard's apprentice?" Belkram asked, raising his eyebrows. "A rare gem indeed!"

"Belt up," Shar hissed at him, "and let's get out of here! I don't want to get caught between a Malaugrym looking for us and an angry Red Wizard!"

"You don't?" Itharr asked as they sprinted frantically away through the woods. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

The map held in midair before him, in the teeth of four floating skulls, was finally beginning to make sense. If one placed the balefire rune in the emptiness within the circle of nine black blades, a sequence of directions was revealed, leading to… what, by the fires?

Orth Lantar's head snapped up from the map as his crystal ball flashed a blinding red and began to shudder, rattling in the carved cup that formed the head of his staff. At the same time, a binding in his mind shifted uneasily-then snapped, flooding his thoughts with a brief, fading pain and a frantic calling…

Thuruthein? By the Seven Serpents! Orth Lantar whirled, snatching up his most mighty wand from the table. "To me!" he called, and flung up his hand. His most powerful staff was leaping across the tent toward it when he felt an inward tremor, and sighed. His best apprentice was dead.

The staff smacked into his palm, and the Red Wizard spun around again to fix the crystal ball with coldly furious eyes. Under his steady glare the scrying sphere quieted and cleared-and in its depths he saw a wolf lift bloody jaws from Thuruthein's torn face. The creature twisted horribly and become a larger thing, like a bear with four long, spidery arms, shaggy hair, and piercing talons. It raised its head and sniffed the air, gave a horribly human laugh, and shambled purposefully away, not even glancing back at the apprentice's sprawled body and vainly lifted hands.

"An attack that robs me of something so valuable must be swiftly avenged," Orth Lantar told the nearest skull, "lest some rival behind it misread it as weakness and send all sorts of petty annoyances in its wake."

"Swift strikes the avenger, and towers topple toward the sunset," the skull intoned. The Red Wizard stiffened and stared at it in amazement. He shook his head, feeling suddenly dangerously close to tears. This must be one of Thuruthein's last pranks!

He set the warding rod to guard the magic in his tent from interlopers and shot a last look at the scene in the crystal. Rings winked on his fingers-and he vanished. Four skulls tumbled to the floor, the conjured map fading away to nothingness once more. There came a startled exclamation from the apprentice on watch outside the tent.