head:
Heroes can't choose which fights they will win. That is why all of them die in the end.
The light within the skull flickered. The air was suddenly full of the bright, deadly pulses of flame the Old Wolf had seen many triages hurl down the years-the bolts that cannot miss.
So this damned dead thing could work spells. Thanks be to the gods! Mirt held that sour thought as he steeled himself against the pain he knew would come, and threw his borrowed sword at the skull as hard as he could.
The bolts struck him, lancing into his body with shuddering pain. As always, their energy made his limbs tremble violently. The Old Wolf set his teeth, staggering back under the force of the attack, and blinked back tears to see what happened to his hurled blade. It missed, whirling away harmlessly into the night as the skull rose smoothly up out of its path.
Mirt snarled, plucked up a stool from the wreckage nearby, and hurled it at the skull, lurching into an ungainly charge in its wake. His eerie foe bobbed again, and the stool hurtled harmlessly past it and shattered against a wall. The skull's hollow laughter rang out around the old, wheezing merchant.
Then the skull spat something at him that glowed with tiny, sparkling motes of light. Panting in his haste, Mirt dived aside and rolled on the floor-but not fast enough: some of the spittle struck his arm and shoulder.
Aaargh-acid! Gods, but it burned! Roaring in pain, the Old Wolf twisted on the floor and clutched his shoulder. It felt like slow-moving fire was crawling along his flesh: Mirt whimpered at the pain and writhed helplessly.
Unseen, the skull soared past him, heading for the stairs. The grand stair climbed from the entry hall to a gallery on the floor above, where many statues stood. Among them were warriors of Cormyr, a mermaid rampant upon a wave, and a sleeping dragon. As the skull floated amid these, a dagger suddenly spun at it, striking chips from the curved bone of its jaw- before glancing off.
The lich lord turned menacingly and saw a servantwoman on tire landing, her face white with fear. She was frantically trying to raise a sword that was far too heavy for her.
A tongue of flame slid out of one of the skull's eye sockets, and the woman moaned in fear. She swung the sword weakly at the flames, shrank back, and cried, 'Tempus aid me!'
Iliph Thraun laughed aloud and struck at the woman with its whip of flames. She screamed, waving the sword ineffectually as the fire raged around her. The lich lord lashed the woman with flames until she crumpled and fell, hair smoldering. Then it flew on into the upper levels of Tessarits Tower.
At the top of the next flight of stairs, Narm and Shandril sat together on a bench, weapons in hand, uncertain of what to do as crashes and cries came up to them from below. At first, they didn't see the silently floating skull drifting up the darkened stairs. Then Narm scrambled up with a startled curse and hurled a hasty swarm of bright bolts at it.
Shandril stared at the skull. 'What is it?' she asked of the world at large as Narm's missiles hit home. Bright pulses struck bone and burst and flared around the skull, but it seemed to ignore them. It opened its mouth and spat spellfire at Shandril.
Narm leapt between Shandril and the reaching spellflames, shuddering as spellfire struck him and swirled around his shoulder. The young mage staggered, but the skull rose quickly to direct its stream of flames over him-and into Shandril's breast.
Shandril gasped in surprise. It was spellfire! Then her face hardened, and her eyes and hands began to flame. 'Yes! Yesss '' the skull hissed, as she hurled the conflagration back at it. Narm lifted a face tight with pain to peer at the skull, and he gasped-it was feeding on the spellfire Shan was using on it.
Shandril hurled streams of spellfire at the thing. It chuckled, teeth clattering hollowly. She set her jaw and wove the blaze into a bright net of flames, cutting the air with so many arcs of fire that the skull could not avoid them.
The skull plunged into the fiery net and spun there among the strongest flames. Where spellfire touched it, the burning fury darkened and died. The residue slid weirdly into the fissures and gaps in the bones-all except the eye sockets and gaping mouth, which poured an ever-increasing stream of spellfire back at her.
Spellflames engulfed the girl, raging and roaring. Shandril shuddered under the attack-every inch of her seemed to be trembling uncontrollably-and then struggled to advance against the skull's stream of spellfire. Her eyes were narrowed to slits, her face contorted with pain.
'Shan! Nooo!' Narm screamed, but she seemed not to hear. He gulped, took two running steps, and leapt, reaching for the skull. His hands slid over smooth hardness and into the eye sockets. There they found burning, excruciating pain. Narm threw back his head and howled, as roaring blackness rushed up to claim him. Despairing, wreathed in the skull's fire-Shandril's stolen spellfire, Narm fell screaming into that onrushing darkness.
Shandril stared its Narm toppled heavily to the floor, body blazing. His screams ceased abruptly as his limbs flopped loosely on the stone. Then he lay very still.
Silence fell. The skull's attack had ceased even as Shandril's did. In horror, she stared down at her husband. The skull glided slowly forward to hang over her. It leered down, glowing, opened its mouth in echoing mirth-and then fell suddenly quiet, hanging motionless, its flames flickering and fading.
In a dark room deep in the High Hall of Zhentil Keep, Sarhthor, mage of the Zhentarim, sat at a black table and stared at a tiny skull that hovered above it. The skull was carved from human bone-from a bone of one Iliph Thraun, lord among liches. Small radiances swirled around it, chasing each other in little currents and eddies as Sarhthor bent his will against the far-off lich lord.
Sweat ran down his face, and his hands trembled as he stared fixedly at the carved skull. Wrestling with the cold will of Iliph Thraun across a great and echoing distance, Sarhthor reached deep and found strength he hadn't known was there- and held the lich lord from attacking Shandril.
Weeping, Shandril hurled herself on Narm, as she had done long ago in Thunder Gap. Dragonfire had ravaged him then-but this was spellfire. Lips to lips, flesh to flesh, she embraced him frantically, pouring healing spellfire into him.
Above them, the skull quivered, and its eyes flashed flame. Then it shook again, more feebly, and hung motionless.
The door opened suddenly without a knock, and Fzoul Chembryl, High Priest of the Black Altar of Bane, strode in. 'What are you doing?' he asked coldly.
The miniature skull sank down to land softly on the table, and a weary Sarhthor looked up at him. 'Lord Manshoon left this means to compel the lich lord with Art, and gave me orders to use it in his absence to prevent the lichnee from passing out of our control,' he explained.
The wizard shook his head and wiped sweat out of his eyes. 'I'm not the mage he is-and perhaps I lack some detail or secret to make this work, too; I can't seem to contact Iliph Thraun properly. The lich is there, all right-but it seems almost as though something greater stands against us, fighting me.'
'Elminster?' Fzoul snapped, wondering who else could be interfering with the skull in Manshoon's absence. 'Nay, nay; something greater. Bane, perhaps.' Sarhthor said that with a straight face but inner pleasure; the priests of the Black Altar never like to be reminded of their rebellion against church authority-and how the Dark One himself might feel about it.
'Our Lord?' Fzoul's voice was harsh. He tried to scoff, bit it didn't sound convincing. The two men stared coldly at each other for a breath or two.
Then Sarhthor shrugged, and waved at the miniature skull lying motionless on the tabletop. 'Try for yourself. My skill is not great enough to know clearly who it is.'
Sarhthor took care to hide all signs of his inward smile as Fzoul silently but savagely spun around and stalked out.
The lich lord hissed suddenly, and its eyes lit with flame. Freed of the restraint from afar, it sank down to bite into Shandril's shoulder as she lay atop her husband. The spellfire that blazed from her pulsed and flickered as the skull began to drain her, hauling energy out of her reluctant body slowly at first, and then with greater speed.
A grim and blackened Thrulgar burst into the room then, at the head of a handful of white-faced but grimly loyal Evenor farmers. They clutched pikes and pitchforks, and sleepiness battled horror in their eyes as they stared at flying skull.
By then, the lich lord was strong enough to rise from Shandril and lash out with rays of stolen spellfire. The
