Sirana was resting in her chamber after sending Hoag off on his errand, lost in daydreams of power and vengeance and on the verge of drifting into an exquisite slumber.
Suddenly, she felt hostile energy attack the intricate tapestry of warding enchantments she had woven around her spellcasting chamber. Her smoldering eyes flew open, and she leaped to her feet.
The voice seemed to roar in her mind, ancient and powerful. It came to her across a vast distance, but Sirana reeled beneath its thunderous force all the same.
She could feel the enchantments that cocooned her chamber waver. Fear clutched at her heart, and she cursed herself inwardly. She should have been expecting some onslaught.
A terrible blast of pure energy shredded the last of the chamber's defenses, knocking Sirana to her knees. Fighting panic, she did her best to absorb the virulent forces. To her amazement, she found the will to resist.
She staggered to her feet. This morning such an attack would have burnt her to cinders. She must have usurped more power from Slayer than she had imagined. Her far-off foe would not get another chance to strike. Closing her eyes, she launched a barrage of her own against her unseen assailant. She was rewarded by a howl of pain that she heard mentally. That would buy her a little time.
With a single word of magic, Sirana propelled her spirit from her body. She had learned to travel astrally from her mother, and nowadays did it as if it were second nature. She seemed to rise up through the ceiling, then high into the sky above, all the while trailing a twisted silver thread that kept her spirit in contact with the corporeal form that remained behind in her subterranean chamber.
The land rushed by in a blur beneath her. In moments, she approached a line of high, knife-edged peaks: the Dragonspine Mountains. She plunged down into a chasm of darkness. In less than an eyeblink, her spirit journey ended.
Sirana snapped her astral fingers. Light flared into existence all around her, revealing a huge cavern. She stood at the edge of what appeared to be an underground lake. Its surface was a dull, steely color, its waters strangely thick and turgid. But then, this was no ordinary pool. It was a pool of twilight, a source of powerful and forbidding magic.
'Why have you dared to attack me?' Sirana demanded.
Something stirred beneath the leaden waters of the pool.
The guardian.
Sirana considered her reply carefully. She didn't have the slightest idea what the true nature was of the creature trapped within the pool, but she did know that it was treacherous and deadly. It had nearly slain her the day she had finally located the pool after years of searching. Yet Sirana was nothing if not cunning. She had adopted a sympathetic tone with the guardian of the pool, that day months ago. Lonely after centuries of isolation, the guardian had listened to her soothing promises. She had struck a bargain with the creature. If the guardian infused her with magical energy from the pool, making her the most powerful wizard in Faerun, she would endeavor to free it from its watery prison.
Of course, Sirana had absolutely no intention of fulfilling her side of the bargain. The only way to free the guardian, she had learned, would be to trade places with it, and she was hardly going to condemn herself to such a fate once she had gained the hammer. No, she was destined to become a goddess! But the guardian need not know that. It must believe that she intended to liberate it. Otherwise, the guardian would never consent to help her carry out her grandiose ambitions.
'Of course we have an agreement,' Sirana said finally, choosing her words carefully. 'I have not forgotten that, even if you have.'
'It is not enough!' Sirana clenched a fist, baring her white teeth. 'You must give me strength enough to defeat my enemies. That is our pact.'
'Leave Phlan and the hammer to me,' Sirana snapped. 'That is none of your concern. Now grant me more of the pool's power, or-'
'Or suffer the consequences.'
Chanting a harsh incantation, Sirana pointed a finger at the stalactite-covered ceiling high above. Abruptly, one of the massive limestone stalactites broke free. Glowing red-hot, it plunged into the pool. The dusky waters closed around it without so much as a splash or sizzle. But a cry of pain rose into the air of the cavern.
She continued her chant. Another molten stalactite plunged into the pool, then another, and another. Each of them sank below the surface without a sound, but Sirana knew they were striking the unknown creature concealed below, burning into its flesh.
Sirana chanted on. A veritable rain of searing stalactites cascaded down on the pool.
This last was little more than a guttural whisper. Sirana halted her chanting. The molten rain of stone ended.
'That's better,' she murmured condescendingly.
A small glass vial rose up out of the pool, separating itself from the thick fluid with a sucking sound.
Sirana closed her astral fingers around the vial. 'I knew you would come to your senses, guardian,' she said. With a flick of her wrist she transported the vial back to her spellcasting chamber. 'I trust you will not try anything so foolish again. I will free you when I have gained my revenge, and not a moment before. Is that clear?'
Sirana smiled, an expression of sublime evil. 'Good. I'm so glad we understand each other.' Without another word she dispatched her astral body. It soared up out of the chamber and back toward Phlan.
If Sirana had stayed just a moment more, she might have noticed several bubbles rising to the dull surface of the pool, breaking with a thick, wet noise that sounded uncannily like laughter.
Once more Sirana reclined on the black velvet lounge in her private chamber. It was verging on midnight, and she was weary. Astral travel was terribly draining, and the confrontation with the guardian of the pool had consumed most of her considerable reserves of strength. But she could not rest, not if she was going to find that damnable Hammer of Tyr.
She gazed at the vial in her hand. Faint sparkles of light seemed to drift through the thick, metallic-looking fluid within. She briefly considered summoning Hoag. The guardian of the pool could have given her the vial as a trick; it might be poisonous. To find out, she could command the hamatula to taste it. But she didn't want to take the risk of giving the fiend greater power. 'Let's be done with it,' she said finally.
She lifted the vial to her lips and drank down the oddly warm, steely tasting liquid.
Fire coursed through her veins.
Choking in pain, Sirana fell from the lounge. Her perfect alabaster flesh darkened in hue, becoming a rich bronze color. Two flecks of silvery light ignited in her dark eyes. Writhing on the floor, she swore. What a dolt! She should have suspected a trick. She should have readied a spell of transference so that she could escape this now- doomed body to possess another.
'I cannot die like this!' she croaked, her face twisted in agony. 'Not yet!'
