Ed Greenwood - Arch Wizard

"Holy Forestmother," she murmured, thrusting out her hand to put her fingers firmly on the moss.

She caught her breath and almost pulled them back again; the moss was warm where it should have been cold, dry where it should have been damp with dew. The doing of the goddess, or-ah. The heat of her own body. She'd been lying on it, of course, warming it with herself.

Smiling at her apprehension, the last of the Hammerhands sat up straight, looked to the stars and then down at the deepest, darkest trees around her, and firmly began a simple, respectful prayer.

"Forgive me what I have done in harm to the Raurklor and all forests," she whispered. "Guide me in what I should do henceforth. Show me some sign, to make me believe and heed."

The world exploded.

Amteira's ears rang and seemed to split under a great cracking sound, even as the darkness was lost in a blinding white flood of light.

In the whirling silence, she found herself on her back on the rock, staring up at what was crackling down out of the clear and starry night sky.

A lightning bolt as thick as an ancient tree, that was stabbing down into the boulder. The great rock that was shaking under her, a great numbing shuddering that-

Ended in a great shriek of riven stone.

I can hear.

As Amteira thought that, she was hurtling through the air, tumbling over and over amid dark shards of rock.

All of us, being hurled into-what had Jaklar so often said? Oh, yes: oblivion.

In the blinding light rose darkness. Dimly Amteira Hammerhand clung to one fading thought.

So there is a Forestmother.

Velduke Darendarr Deldragon strode along his high battlements, restless and not knowing why. Spread out below him, Bowrock stood tranquil in the moonlight, a light glimmering here and there among its roofs and towers. Modest when considered by an eye that could at the same time gaze upon his castle, yet far more prosperous than most places in Galath-or even the Stormar cities, with their reeking backstreets and grasping, desperate rib-daggers. Gaunt and starved and glaring out at the world with no hope.

"There's none of that here," he told the night aloud, in almost fierce satisfaction, his words startling one of his sentinels into stepping out of his embrasure to peer along the wall to see who'd spoken.

Deldragon gave the man a nod and smile, pausing in his striding where the moonlight would fall full on his face and front, so he'd be recognized. And so he was; the man gave him a hasty salute and stepped back again.

Deldragon felt his smile widening; he strode forward again, heading for the corner, still far ahead, where this great keep ended and the wall-walk turned down its end wall for a few paces, ere sloping down to a lower, newer hall that ran on to the two turrets all Bowrock liked to gaze upon of nights like this one, when they stood awash in moonlight. He-

Faltered and almost stumbled. Why had his mind been suddenly full of blue skin with scales, skin covering an arm that might have been his own?

What could possibly bring such a scene into his mind, and so vividly? A spell, sent from afar? A whim of the Falcon, or some malicious Stormar god he'd never heard of? A wizard nearby, dreaming?

He knew of no wizards in Bowrock right now, mind, but that stood as nothing beside such a vivid mind-seeing, aye? Most hedge-wizards strode through life grandly proclaiming their magic to all, to make themselves seem mighty where the truth was far feebler, but real wizards-not just the fabled Dooms, but all their apprentices, and the sorcerer-lords across the Sea of Storms, too-could hide what they were, if they cared to.

All contentment gone, Velduke Deldragon stood in the moonlight frowning, wondering what to do. What could he do?

Was this a deliberate warning, or the Falcon's way of alerting him to a hidden menace? Blue scaled skin should tell him something, remind him of someone, but he couldn't-couldn't-had never known, his mind told him coldly.

He stared at nothing, seeing a blank stone wall and emptiness beyond in his mind. The empty field or chamber was its old, old way of telling him he knew nothing at all about something-but the stone wall was how he'd always known he was forgetting something. A broken down, ruined stone wall, under an open sky, but this was inside, a tall and strong barrier in front of his nose.

Something was being hidden from him. By whom, and how, he had no idea, but the very thought frightened him, leaving him shivering.

"Lord?" the sentinel asked hesitantly, from just behind him. "Are you-is aught wrong?"

Deldragon lifted his head, set his jaw, and snapped, "No. Not yet."

He spun around, barely seeing the man, only vaguely aware that his sudden movement had made the man dip his spear menacingly and then hastily raise it again with an apologetic mumble.

Instead, he was seeing himself in bright armor again, riding among the tents of a great encampment. Inspecting an army; his army. His knights were coming forth from the tents to salute him, his men looking up at him with smiles on their faces, all the might of Bowrock arrayed across a great meadow and filling it…

"Yet I know what I must do," he heard himself telling the guard, not really knowing why, and seeing no foe or battlefield. "We must ready ourselves for war. All Bowrock must stand prepared to fight."

The sentinel said not a word, but the moonlight was on his face, and Deldragon could read it well enough.

"Yes," he said wryly, knowing his lips were twisting. "Again."

Rod found himself falling gently down through a red mist, a mist of flowers-flowers? — to stand before a stone gate he'd never seen before, in a misty forest. It was a gate with a fortress behind it, and warm firelight was flooding out around the chinks in the old and ill-fitting wooden doors of that keep. Doors that were suddenly guarded by nude women holding drawn swords. Women bare from the throats down, who had the dark, menacing helmed heads of Dark Helms.

"Who are you?" they challenged him, stepping forward to point their glittering blades at him.

"Rod Everlar," he replied, bubbles flooding out of his mouth. Had they heard him?

"I thought so," the foremost said fiercely, and tore off her helm. It was Taeauna, but she thrust her thumbs under her chin and peeled the flesh up and off, too, in a drifting mist of blood, to reveal-

The mouthless face of a lorn.

The other guards all laughed, and it was the shrill, cruel mirth of women who hated him.

"What is this place? Who's lord here?" he asked quickly, as they all started toward him.

"Zundarl rules here. We kill you in his name," was the smugly chanted reply.

Zundarl? Who the hell was Zundarl?

Not a name he knew, nothing of his writing, but "hell" was familiar enough. Hell meant a great dark gulf, and despairing shrieking from shattered skulls that still had eyes, staring redly at him as he fell into it, joining the general plunge down to-

Land lightly on his feet, on a high platform of stone, a great slab that shuddered under Rod's boots with the deep, approaching roar of the great winged beast that had just landed. The clap of its great wings set his red cloak-red cloak? Where'd he acquired a red cloak? — to swirling, buffeting him with gusts of wind that made him stagger. Cloak flapping, he hastily drew his sword, and had to thrust it far out into the air, just to hold his balance.

That blade was in his left hand, suddenly, and there was a quill pen in his right, a great white plumed feather larger than any he'd ever seen before, trimmed to a point that dripped dark red blood.

No, streamed dark red blood, in a constant welling that came from nowhere he could see. No feather could hold that much gore…