good sign. It was intact, still holy, and she was being heard.
Which meant she was still worthy of attention.
'Lord Azuth, Guide and Wise One,' she prayed, 'and Great and Most Holy Lady Mystra, Yourself the Greatest of Mysteries, hear me now, I plead. Unworthy I am, unworthy I remain, yet strive to know and obey you both better. Hear my prayer, as I seek to kiss the Weave.'
She kissed her own fingertips, reached out into the darkness, and started to pray as she always had, as if addressing an affectionate mother who was somewhere very close by, just beyond her reach.
As a war wizard, Tsantress had been afraid from time to time and uneasy more times than she could count- but it had been a long time since she'd been as bewildered and at a loss as to what to do. She prayed from the heart, respectful and yet blunt, speaking candidly rather than resorring to the flowery phrases of praise so many Mystran and Azuthan clergy excelled at or even used exclusively before altars.
'Come what may, I remain your servant, Wise One and Mysterious Mother,' she finished, 'and I pray that your own time be bright until next we speak.'
Letting her hands fall into her lap, she sat back, awaiting any sign that might come. She expected none, but it would have been the height of disrespect to assume no response would manifest and rush to rise and depart and go on with mundane things, as if the prayer had been rote duty and not something truly meant.
The altar remained dark, though she sat there for a breath longer than usual. Tsantress sighed, rose to her feet-and became aware that the faint light from behind her, the dim radiance from the forest outside that reached this deep into the cave, had just been blotted out.
'Well, well,' came a cold and familiar voice from behind her. Light blossomed from a torch. 'You're one of the war wizards who helped slay my Jalassa! I remember. Kill her!'
She turned swiftly. Lord Maniol Crownsilver was standing with his arms folded across his chest and a triumphant smile upon his face-and there were three robed wizards standing behind him. Sembian hirelings, by the looks of them.
The three looked reluctant. One of them leaned his head forward and said in the noble's ear, 'Yon's an altar to Azuth and Mystra both. 'Twere-'
The noble whirled around as if they'd slapped him. 'Who's paying you?' he spat. 'Two deaf deities of magic? Or me? Strike her down! '
The harmless spell Tsantress had cast into the altar erupted back out of it, arcing over her head with an angry rumbling that was more felt than heard. It lashed out at the three mages, startling them with its flash of light. Behind them, an ornrion of the Putple Dragons rose up with a stout tree bough in his hands. Tsantress knew him and tried ro keep astonishment at his appearance off her face to avoid aletting the wizards.
Crownsilver saw Dauntless, of course, but so incoherent were his first gabblings of outrage that he warned his three wizards not in the slightest.
Dauntless brought his bough sweeping down, braining one Sembian solidly. That mage toppled silently, out cold. By the time the wizard standing beside him saw his fellow fall and turned, mouth dropping open, to see its cause, Dauntless had his club ready to smash him across the face-and did so.
That mage collapsed into the third wizard, who was already springing back. The last Sembian lifted one hand like a claw, and blue bolts streaked from all his fingertips, lancing into the ornrion and sending him sraggering back, grunting in pain.
Which gave Tsantress more than time enough to hurl herself cm y-rnrnwooa backward until she stumbled into the altar and sat down hard on it, and from that undignified perch unleashed blue bolts of het own.
True to what she'd been told, long ago, the altar she'd so recently made offering and prayer at doubled the strength of her spell, sending a swarm of bright blue missiles racing into the last Sembian mage.
The mage crumpled in silent senselessness, leaving Lord Maniol Crownsilver alone, facing Tsantress and Dauntless.
The noble paled-and darted past Dauntless, seeking to flee the cavern.
The ornrion pounced, dashing Crownsilver to the ground with one blow of his battered tree bough. The nobleman's head lolled loosely, and he joined his three hired wizards in the land of dreams.
Dauntless looked at Tsantress and gravely bowed his head to her. 'Much as I dislike slaying lords of the realm,' he growled, 'this one has brought grief to many. Should I-?'
'No,' Tsantress said. 'That's a temptation always best avoided, I'm afraid. No matter how much I want to say yes.'
They eyed each other in silence for the space of a long breath or two, ere she spoke again. 'Ornrion, I've seen you before. Escorting the Princess Alusair, among other things. What brings you here, clear out of the realm?'
'The orders of Lord Vangerdahast. A task that-if the Knights of Myth Drannor don't seek to turn back into Cormyr-is done.' Dauntless regarded her expressionlessly for another long moment ere adding, 'So, Lady Wizard, command me.'
'IamcalledTsantress,'shetoldhim,gavehimahalf-smile,andadded, 'and I believe I will. Come. Let's see what these Knights of yours are up to.'
Wizard of War Lorbryn Deltalon stopped. He liked the look of this little clearing-and he was more than close enough to the person he was seeking. From here, he couIaIjust smell the woodsmoke of the man's fire.
Taking the palm-sized, enspelled plaque from his belt pouch and tilting it on a handy rock so he could clearly see Laspeera's face and body from the waist up, he strode two paces north to a fallen tree trunk and set up a polished metal mirror angled in the same manner.
Stepping back to make sure he could see both at once, he murmured the incantation, bent his will, and watched himself slowly take on the likeness of the second most powerful war wizard of Cormyr.
He could mimic Laspeera's speech fairly well and her gestures and gait closely. That would have to be good enough.
Should be good enough to fool one war wizard-avoiding bullyblade, who was now encamped alone and brooding just over the next ridge.
Lorbryn collected mirror and plaque and returned them to their pouches. He took up the two clinking sacks he'd brought, smiled- Laspeera's wryly gentle smile-and vanished from the clearing, in the proverbial blink of a sailor's eye.
The feeling of being constantly watched while in Zhentil Keep was something one just had to get used to. Or go mad.
The wizard Targon got that feeling more acutely from time to time and supposed everyone else did, too, but it had long since ceased to bother him.
He was feeling it now. 'Stlarn and blast all,' he murmured, not feeling any real irritation. He'd undressed and sought his bed long before he'd really begun to feel tired. As usual. He still didn't feel tired now.
He would be sleeping alone-also as usual-but was sitting up against a small mountain of pillows, happily immersed in his spell-book. As was his wont of evenings, his favorite part of any day.
Targon never tired of the exciting waking dreams he could conjure up in his mind. He saw himself casting spells, felt-from memory-the magics flowing through him as he worked the magic and then unleashed it, imagined how altering this and adjusting that would affect a spell, and… saw himself hurling it at this foe and then at that, humbling them with a wave of his hand and giving them a superior smile as they gasped and groveled-and died.
Something small and metallic pinged off the bedchamber wall to his left. Startled, he looked up. That had sounded like a ring. He'd once dropped one of his on the tiles outside a spell-casting chamber, and it had sounded just like that. He leaned over, craning his neck to see if there was a ring oh the floor righr now-only to feel a weight on the bed right beside him.
He whirled, heart leaping in fright-and was astonished to see a face he knew bumping noses with him, a mouth finding his. It was Aumrune, one of the wizards under his command, srark naked and-kissing him?
Then something raced from Aumrune's tongue into his mind and revealed itself. Old Ghost was bright and terrible and so mighty that Targon's mind could not even begin to resist.
So Aumrune had not been a lover. Had not even been Aumrune anymore. HadAnd then Targon stopped being
