Ursault the All-Seeing, and no one else was close enough to hear the damning secret.
'What are you?' he echoed scornfully. 'The back end of an ox, so far as I can tell.'
The man's eyes narrowed. ' 'Outlandish and inept,'' he repeated. 'A strange choice of words for someone who purports to be an itinerate field hand.'
Gnarfling stared for a moment, then his shoulders rose and fell in a profound sigh.
'You're a magehound,' he said in disgust. 'Well, even a slow and stupid hound sometimes blunders into a vhoricock's nest.'
'A jordaini proverb,' Landish said smugly, clearly enjoying himself. 'You should guard your words more carefully.'
'Don't see what harm it could do at this point. A magehound,' Gnarfling repeated in disgust.
'No,' stated Ursault.
There was a conviction in that single word that dismissed all other possibilities. Gnarfling sent a puzzled look at the wizard, and was astonished at the simmering wrath in the old man's usually vague, mild eyes.
'Mirabella,' Ursault said grimly.
The small man's heart seemed to leap in his chest like a breaching dolphin. Mirabella was the woman who'd saved an outcast jordaini babe, one whose stunted form was deemed unsuitable for the rigorous physical training given Halruaa's warrior-sages. But there was nothing wrong with his mind, and the soft-hearted midwife charged with his destruction knew enough of jordaini ways to give him a bit of the training, enough to keep him alert and alive-until now, at least.
Landish's gaze snapped to the wizard's face and for a moment he looked deeply troubled. His face cleared.
'Ah. A diviner, I suppose. You see the results of my work, if not the actual workings.'
'Your work? What'd you do with Mirabella?' roared Gnarfling.
He threw himself into a charge, his stubby hands leaping like twin hounds for the man's skinny throat.
Then he stopped, stunned by the white, leprous growth that had appeared on his short digits. As he stared, the small finger on his left hand listed to one side, then broke off entirely and fell to the muddy ground.
'That,' Landish said succinctly. 'She won't be missed. Just as you won't be missed.'
'Mirabella is not yet dead,' Ursault said as he rose to his feet. 'She may not die. The old speckled hen, the one destined for the soup pot, is going to lay her first egg since the last new moon. If she lays it in the hencoop, Mirabella will die. If the hen ventures into the gardens, a tamed hunting kestrel will see her and swoop. This will draw the eye of a passing hunting party. They will follow their hawk and find Mirabella. The hunter has a terrible fear of the plague. If he is the first to see the woman, he will flee in panic and the others will follow, never knowing what he saw. But if his horse throws a shoe-there is a loose nail and the shoe could be lost any time today or tomorrow-his greenmage daughter will be the first to find Mirabella. She can mix the herbs and pray the spells that will cure the woman. The herbs grow near Mirabella's cottage. She may find them, provided that-'
'Enough!' howled Landish, his dark eyes enormous in his too-pale face. 'What madness is this?'
'He's mad, that's for sure and certain,' Gnarlish said, jerking a leprous thumb toward Ursault, 'but that don't stop him from being right. His way of telling the future is like throwing a really big fireball-the target can be found somewhere in the big, smoking black hole. If there's anyone left to look for it.'
Ursault turned the loom around, revealing the weaving and the scenes depicted in it. Landish's face was still there, and so was a small, snug cottage, complete with speckled hens and an elderly woman sprawled, facedown and still, in the courtyard. A soft moan escaped Gnarfling.
'You named yourself an Adept,' Ursault said to Landish, 'and so you are. You are a Shadow Adept, though this is not known to your master, the necromancer Hsard Imulteer. You intend to ambush and destroy your master, but fear that your growing powers will give you away before you are strong enough to prevail. Desiring to test your shields, you prayed to dark Shar, the goddess of shadows and secrets, and she led you to a hidden jordain. You wished to see if a jordain could perceive your true nature, and you believed that my friend here presented a small risk. Obviously he is gifted at perceiving magic in others, or how would he evade the magehounds for these many years? If he had been able to perceive you for what you are, what harm could come of it? He could not accuse you without also giving himself away.'
The young man's face paled to a papery gray. 'This is not possible. No one could know these things!'
'They don't call him Ursault the All-Seeing for naught,' Gnarfling pointed out.
Landish began to pace. 'Yes, I have heard that name,' he muttered in a distracted tone. 'A wizard who sees so many possibilities he cannot discern the truth. Paralyzed, driven mad, finally fleeing into a hermit's life. Seeing all, knowing all-the possibilities are staggering!'
Gnarfling began to see where this was headed. He'd met wizards before who believed they were the exception to every rule, magical and otherwise.
The Shadow Adept stopped before Ursault and fixed his intense black gaze on the older wizard's face. 'You can see all possible futures-including those influenced by practitioners of the Shadow Weave. This is a great gift, my friend!'
'Gift, or curse?' said Ursault softly. 'It is difficult to say.'
Landish shook his head vigorously. 'Halruaa is famed for wizardry, but few know of the Shadow Weave. We who are blessed by Shar can move in secret.'
'But as you gain power, your ability to perceive the workings of Mystra diminish,' Ursault concluded. 'You may be hidden from wizards, but their ways, in nearly equal measure, are hidden from you.'
'You grasp the salient point,' the young Adept said, nodding approvingly. 'Clearly, you do not want this gift and-forgive me-you have not proven strong enough to handle it. It has become a burden, one I would gladly lift from you.'
'A little knowledge,' cautioned Ursault, 'is a wonderful thing.'
Landish let out a sardonic chuckle and dismissed this notion with a wave of one skinny hand. 'Come, let us make a bargain. I will give you the herbs needed to cure your short friend and the old dame who raised him.'
'No deal,' said Gnarfling sternly. 'Ursault already knows what herbs are needed. He can find them himself, no help from you.'
'Of course he can find them, and of course he can cure you and the old woman-'if this, and if that,'' mocked the Adept. 'And let us not forget 'unless this and the other.' Count your fingers-how many remain? Are you willing to trust your life and the woman's to a mad old wizard, and the whims of fate?'
'Same question, back at you.' The small man folded his arms. 'That mad old wizard could just kill you and have done with it.'
'No,' said Landish smugly, 'he couldn't.'
The wizard considered this claim for a moment, then agreed with a grim nod.
'You see? This discussion is a mere formality. I could simply take this man's powers from him. He knows this, and he knows how. It would be easier for me, and far more pleasant all around, if he yields them willingly.'
'Mageduel,' Ursault suggested. 'Take the three of us to Mirabella's glen, and you and I will do battle for the title of All-Seeing.'
'Done!' the Adept said gleefully.
He stepped behind the wizard's stall and conjured an oval portal, gleaming with dark, purple-black light. He made a mock-courtly gesture for the others to precede him.
Gnarfling charged through the portal and hit the ground running. He bolted toward his foster mother, dropped to his knees, and gently turned her over with hands that felt strangely numb. He recoiled in grief and horror at the ravaged mess the Adept's spell had made of her face. He lifted one hand to stroke the old woman's hair away from her eyes, and grimaced at the sight of his own hand. He didn't look much better off.
He looked to the center of the courtyard. The wizards faced each other, an expression of intense concentration on each face as they attuned themselves to each other and to their competing Weaves.
A sly smile crossed Gnarfling's face as he perceived the wizard's stratagem: an Adept of the Shadow Weave would have little power in a mageduel arena.
Indeed, a dazed expression crossed the Adept's face as he ventured into the older wizard's convoluted mind. His feverish eyes started to dart about, as if tracing the paths of a hundred startled ground squirrels.
Landish pulled himself together with visible effort and said, 'As you yourself observed, I am apprentice to a powerful necromancer. There is still enough of Mystra's art remaining to me to vanquish you, old man. Surely you
