Ed Greenwood - Arch Wizard

The scarred Aumrarr shrugged. "Your work in this isn't done. That which you were intended to affect hasn't yet arisen."

"Can I have that in plain tongue?" Gar growled weakly, glaring up from the flagstones by her feet. "Ye sound like a sly merchant trying to sell a new cure-all-ills ointment! Plain talk, wingbitches! Plain talk!"

"You need not fight, for this one," Dauntra told him, waving at the stair-hutch. "If the Falcon smiles, no Tesmer will even see you."

"Nor any of their guards," Juskra added.

Iskarra put her hands on her hips, disbelief large on her face. "You want their riches," she said almost primly, "and daren't risk your own precious necks going down in there to steal it. So the traps are? And the guards?"

"There are none," Juskra said flatly. "Nor do we need their riches; we wingbitches have always had more than enough coin to buy the best spies. Which is why we know there are spells waiting all down that stair that will cry out when Aumrarr-or lorn, for that matter-come too close. Hence your present usefulness."

"Tesmers shorn of their ready wealth," Dauntra added calmly, "are Tesmers looking over their shoulders for thieves, or assassins following where the thieves came in knowing so much. They are also Tesmers now lacking coin enough to work certain mischiefs better not promoted. Whereas Garfist and Iskarra enriched are… Garfist and Iskarra enriched."

Garfist shook his head. "Were either of ye priests, in younger days?" he asked sourly, finding his feet unsteadily and not shaking off the swift assistance of his lady. "Such verbiage!"

"I can be blunter," Juskra said with the faintest of smiles, her voice dry. "Both of you are thirsting hard to be free of us and everyone else who's been chasing you and forcing you to do this and that. You want food, rest, and riches."

Garfist and Iskarra both nodded.

Juskra held up her hand to show them her ring again; the glow had quite fled from it. She drew it off and put it carefully into Garfist's hand. "You awaken it by thinking of a vivid sunrise. It should work twoscore times more. It belonged to an Aumrarr who's now too dead to feel the lack of it. I give it to you freely."

He glared down at it, then lifted his glare to her. "So just what're ye playing at, hey?"

"If you do this thieving for us," she replied, "and come back up these stairs, we'll fly you safe out of here. To a ruin-an Aumrarr wingbitch ruin no others dare approach, though none of us are left to guard it now-where we can all rest. Then come the next day, aloft again and on to an inn in Galath we know, where you can have all the food and drink you want, and no one will ask who you are or who you may be running from. Safe we'll take you, just as I've promised; no treachery and no lies."

Dauntra nodded, and the battlescarred Aumrarr spoke again.

"We'll swear this by any bindings you desire; we want to know you as friends, henceforth."

"Because ye'll be needing us again, in time to come," Gar growled.

Juskra did smile, this time. Sweetly. "Of course."

The mountain shuddered again, a deep, teeth-jarring rumbling that was loud and long. As its din deepened, rocks as large as human heads came crashing down in a hard rain from above, amid the usual dust and grit.

None of Narmarkoun's undead shrieked or cried out. Without the Master to empower them to do otherwise, they remained mute.

Yet their agitation was clear to each other by the ways they stiffened and hastened to vantage points in the great open interior of Closecandle, to peer in all directions to try to see what was happening.

Solid stone rocked beneath them, under heavy blows. In the great central well-shaft where Narmarkoun was wont to ride his greatfangs up into the chill mountain sky or come plunging down out of it to thunderous landings, a jutting balcony cracked off the wall and fell. One of the Master's favorite playpretties clung silently to its sheared-off fragment of railing, staring all around in wild despair, as she plunged to shattering oblivion below.

Another balcony cracked and crumbled away, spewing smaller stones down the shaft. Then, quite suddenly, there was no room for more stone to fall down that great opening, as huge scaled bodies burst into view from below, thrusting upwards wedged together and struggling, each one furious to get to the light first. Huge claws raked the ancient stone walls as if they were made of butter, and wings strained to find space enough to unfurl.

The eldest and strongest of the greatfangs suddenly prevailed, clawing its way up the surging body of the rival it was wedged against. Kicking off from its rival's head, it took wing in a great bound up the shaft.

Wings clapped wind in their wake, a blast of air that made a great roaring bellow of exultation ring deafeningly around the shuddering shaft as the greatfangs tasted freedom, climbing fast into the sky.

The second greatfangs raced up the shaft after it, and then the third, as Narmarkoun's undead watched.

Not knowing what to do, with the Master absent and sending no commands, they stood mute and helpless, doing nothing more than staring, as every last greatfang soared up out of Closecandle and flew away.

All in the same direction, long necks stretched out in raging haste.

Amteira drifted for a long time in dreams laced with the ever-present gentle rustle and earthy smells of the Raurklor. They were cold dreams, full of shivering, and frantic dreams, too, often bursting into desperate running. Barefoot, through the woods, sometimes as a doe, betimes human, and from time to time as stranger things… but always female, always bare-skinned, and always fearful.

Abruptly she came awake, huddled on her side on a bed of blackened stone shards. Lifting her head, she found it to be part of the great boulder she'd prayed on. The rest of it, riven into chunks great and small, lay all around her. She was cold.

Yet even as she stood, shivering, she cared nothing for that discomfort. The Raurklor was all around her, vast and wonderful, and she stared at it in awe, seeing it keenly for the first time.

Many, many smells cradled her and nigh overwhelmed her. The normal smells of a forest, it seemed, but she'd never before really noticed them all. Always, before, one scent-the smoke of a fire, or the sharp tang of bruised piney needles, the rotting-leaf mud of the rain-drenched Raurklor or the simmering growing smell of a hot forest day-had dashed aside all others and been all she really recognized. Now, though…

Abruptly Amteira became aware that her bare skin was now adorned with many patches of moss, and they felt a part of her, not something distasteful she should claw off as swiftly as she could.

More than that; she could feel the air around her through them. Feel it moving far more sensitively than before, every eddy and gust, subtle shifts in warmth and moments of chill.

She stood up, and abruptly knew something else. Turning her head, she nodded, certain of it. There was running water over there , though she couldn't see it-and yonder, too, though much farther off.

She felt part of the woods, now, rather than an intruder in the endless green vastnesses.

What had happened to her? This moss, her smelling and feeling… could this be the Forestmother, answering her prayer?

Amteira, will you serve me, or die?

The great, boomingly-soft voice in her head seemed as dark, tall, and terrible of power as a Stormar wave, about to crash over her and carry her away.

"F-forestmother?" she blurted out, more than a little afraid.

I am more than that, and less, but you may call me that.

"Call you-? Uh, I… I will serve you. If you'll have me."