behind that tree stood on two legs and had several eyes, on stalks.'
'Malaugrym,' Belkram said bleakly. 'Hunting us?'
'Why else would it be here, in the depths of the Elven Court woods, where creatures to devour or hide among are relatively few?' Shar replied. 'Doppelgangers like cities, where there's prey in every alley and folk to hide among on every corner. Of course it's after us.'
'I'm vastly reassured to know we now know what's going on,' Itharr said with a grin. 'I'll be ecstatic if someone details what, by the skulls of the Seven Lost Gods, we do now?'
Behind them, from just about where they'd been peering at the probable Malaugrym, there came a sudden shout of alarm and the sharp 'whump' of a spell-burst, followed by a crackling of brush and somebody crying out an incantation in desperate haste.
'That's easy,' Belkram said with a wolfish grin. He waved a hand in the direction of the commotion. 'We sit and watch.'
Thuruthein Tlar was determined to impress his master. Orth Lantar was the wisest Red Wizard Thuruthein had ever met-and wise Red Wizards guarded and rewarded those who were truly loyal to them, for there was no more rare commodity in all of Thay.
Prestym, Iyrit, and the others were the sort of ambitious, scheming apprentices that surrounded every Red Wizard; a seething mass of fawning back-stabbers who were little better than fodder. Thuruthein suspected Orth Lantar knew their true worth-and probably intended to spend the lives of more than a few of them in his stated attempt to penetrate the ruined elven city of Myth Drannor and find some of its fabled magic. Thuruthein was determined not to be counted among the expendable.
So when three humans in leather armor came skulking around the camp-brigands, for certain-in his watch field and during his sentry duty, Thuruthein knew just what to do.
He'd stood up behind his tree and was aiming the wand very carefully at the face of the woman, humming in anticipation and noting her wild beauty with the briefest of appreciative regret-when he heard the smallest of sounds close behind him and whirled about, heart leaping into his throat.
To see himself grinning back at him! A Thuruthein Tlar with tentacles instead of hands. Those tentacles were stretched out an impossibly long way, like two hungry snakes, so as to be almost around Thuruthein's throat!
Orth Lantar's senior apprentice trembled, swallowed, and fired his wand with commendable calmness-only to have his foe collapse like a felled tree before the spell-burst, falling beneath most of its harm.
It gathered itself and lunged at him with a forest of tentacles.
Backing away in sudden real terror, Thuruthein stammered the most powerful incantation he knew.
The blazing beam of destruction seared the body that so resembled his own almost entirely away to ashes- but something dark and huge and very fast indeed reared up out of the leaves right in front of him, and seven mouths opened hungrily.
Thuruthein had barely time left to scream, 'No! Noooo! I was loyal, Master! I was loyaaaaaah-'
'A loyal Red Wizard's apprentice?' Belkram asked, raising his eyebrows. 'A rare gem indeed!'
'Belt up,' Shar hissed at him, 'and let's get out of here! I don't want to get caught between a Malaugrym looking for us and an angry Red Wizard!'
'You don't?' Itharr asked as they sprinted frantically away through the woods. 'Where's your sense of adventure?'
The map held in midair before him, in the teeth of four floating skulls, was finally beginning to make sense. If one placed the balefire rune in the emptiness within the circle of nine black blades, a sequence of directions was revealed, leading to… what, by the fires?
Orth Lantar's head snapped up from the map as his crystal ball flashed a blinding red and began to shudder, rattling in the carved cup that formed the head of his staff. At the same time, a binding in his mind shifted uneasily-then snapped, flooding his thoughts with a brief, fading pain and a frantic calling…
Thuruthein? By the Seven Serpents! Orth Lantar whirled, snatching up his most mighty wand from the table. 'To me!' he called, and flung up his hand. His most powerful staff was leaping across the tent toward it when he felt an inward tremor, and sighed. His best apprentice was dead.
The staff smacked into his palm, and the Red Wizard spun around again to fix the crystal ball with coldly furious eyes. Under his steady glare the scrying sphere quieted and cleared-and in its depths he saw a wolf lift bloody jaws from Thuruthein's torn face. The creature twisted horribly and become a larger thing, like a bear with four long, spidery arms, shaggy hair, and piercing talons. It raised its head and sniffed the air, gave a horribly human laugh, and shambled purposefully away, not even glancing back at the apprentice's sprawled body and vainly lifted hands.
'An attack that robs me of something so valuable must be swiftly avenged,' Orth Lantar told the nearest skull, 'lest some rival behind it misread it as weakness and send all sorts of petty annoyances in its wake.'
'Swift strikes the avenger, and towers topple toward the sunset,' the skull intoned. The Red Wizard stiffened and stared at it in amazement. He shook his head, feeling suddenly dangerously close to tears. This must be one of Thuruthein's last pranks!
He set the warding rod to guard the magic in his tent from interlopers and shot a last look at the scene in the crystal. Rings winked on his fingers-and he vanished. Four skulls tumbled to the floor, the conjured map fading away to nothingness once more. There came a startled exclamation from the apprentice on watch outside the tent.
'Master?' an anxious male voice called. 'Master?'
At the lack of reply, its owner was emboldened enough to part the tent with the rod that bore the hand of a dead man, and peer within. In eerie silence, four human skulls rose to face him. Radiances deep within the rod on the table and the crystal ball atop its staff winked in unison, faster, and faster…
Prudently, the apprentice withdrew, letting the hangings fall.
'Craven dullard,' one of the skulls murmured as it sank down to the carpets again. Thuruthein Tlar had been busy in the idle time he'd had earlier this day, when the tent was up and his master was busy setting the wards around the camp. Now his time was all gone.
The crystal sphere flashed a sudden scarlet, and another of the skulls began to moan.
'Where, by the beard of Elminster, are we running to, anyway?' Belkram gasped as they topped a rise and headed down a fern-choked gully. 'What makes one part of this old forest any safer than another?'
'Ask her,' Itharr grunted as, side by side, they rounded a riven stump. He jerked his hand back at Sharantyr, who was watching their rear, ready blade in hand. 'She's t-'
The rest of his words were lost in a sudden rush from the side of the gully, a plunging fury of flashing talons and dark hairy bulk and gleaming fangs.
Belkram was thrown off his feet to crash heavily through thorns and dead branches, and heard Sharantyr scream as she charged. He snatched at his blade as something large and dark and hairy clawed him… something that was crouched atop Itharr, raking its talons and surging forward to bite down at the ranger beneath it with a horrible wet crunching sound that made Belkram wince as his blade finally grated free of its scabbard. Too late.
17
Tower of Mortoth, Sembia, Flamerule 30
The fire was so cold, so utterly… cold. Its chill made her limbs tremble, helplessly and endlessly, as it rushed through her and on around the web. Irendue gasped at its icy searing, feeling her teeth chatter uncontrollably as she stared at the all-too-familiar walls and ceiling of the privy chamber… and wished she could die.
The one called Bralatar had promised her death… after he and his companion were finished with her. She
