Ed Greenwood - Hand of Fire

"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 innocent victims to try to protect against raging spellfire as 'tis."

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 running wild."

"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, running men, or spell-hurling wizards.

What it did have was warm, yielding, gently snoring bodies-or at least one. Sharantyr landed hard atop it, and was aware of a male, human, rather unwashed smell as she sank deep into its source with a crash of snapping branches and sliding boots.

The incoherent oaths of a man jolted awake in startled pain accompanied them both to the ground, as they fell out of the tree together.

Sharantyr landed hard on a particularly unyielding surface of the scenic Blackrocks, and lay there twisting and gasping in helpless agony, her breath driven out of her and what felt like roiling fire in its place.

The man was more fortunate. Tornar the Eye had been sleeping in a tree somewhere in the Blackrocks for safety against marauding beasts-not an altogether successful tactic, it seemed. He did, however, land with one knee atop whatever had pounced on him, and bounced back and away from it, to land on his feet in an angry crouch, blade hissing out.

The moonlight clearly showed him the ranger Sharantyr writhing on the rocks, her face contorted in pain. He stared down at her and slapped at his pouch with an oath. Thin wisps of smoke were rising from it, and when he slapped at it frantically, backed swiftly away from the pain-wracked woman on the rocks, and tore it open, out fell a flaming, sizzling tangle of-hair?

Her hair. Some sort of magic, obviously. He shook it all out, dug fingers in where it had been, and rubbed to make sure no smoldering was left. Frowning, he shook his head and turned back to Sharantyr.

She'd made no move to draw a weapon or do anything more than curl up like a child, clutching her gut and trembling in what seemed to be utter agony. Yet she bled not, nor seemed cut. He frowned down at her, then sheathed his blade, knelt, and put out a cautious hand to where her own agonized hands were clutching.

Sharantyr shuddered, sobbed, and tried to twist away from him, kicking at the rocks beneath her. Tornar winced. He'd seen a man do that, once, while dying with his guts torn out by the horns of an enraged bull. She must be hurt badly…

"Lie still," he hissed, putting a hand on one trembling shoulder. "Easy, there!"