Realms of infamy

anything she did not like. She sheathed her sword and slung her pack over her shoulder.

'Lead on, mage.'

It was full dark by the time they reached a small hollow protected by a granite overhang. The mage spoke a word of magic, and a neatly laid fire burst into crimson flame. At least he could do that much, Ravendas thought grudgingly In the golden light, she could see that he was handsomer than she had thought, his nose long and straight, his jaw prominent beneath a few days' growth of coppery beard. As she watched, he began fashioning a stew of jerked venison, raisins, and sun-dried tomatoes. Neither spoke as they ate, huddled close to the fire. A thin, sharp crescent of moon rose above the far peaks. When they finished, the mage took her bowl and put away the remaining food. He sat down across the fire from her.

'They sent you here, didn't they?' he asked. 'They gave you a mission to prove your worth, just like they did me.' Gold flecks danced in his green eyes. 'The Zhentarim.'

She wondered right then if she should kill him. Perhaps the Zhentarim had sent them both here to see who was the stronger. If so, she intended to win. Her hand strayed toward the eating knife at her belt.

A half-smile touched his lips. 'Feel free to kill me, warrior. Of course, know that if you do, you will never discover the way to climb the walls of Gurthang yourself.'

Ravendas could only laugh. The mage was young, yes, but he was clever. 'And I suppose you would tell me if you knew?'

'Only fate can say,' he said mysteriously, drawing a deck of cards from a leather pouch at his belt. He shuffled them deftly with uncallused hands.

'Draw three.' He fanned the cards out before her. 'Set them face down before you.'

'I'm a little old for card games,' she noted acidly, but did as he asked.

'This is your past,' he said, turning the first card. The Empress of Swords. A spark of magical blue light shimmered about the outline of a stern woman standing before a dark, broken landscape, a red-tinged sword in her grip. 'A woman of ambition wields death to gain what she desires.'

Ravendas nodded. The card suited her well enough When she was seventeen, she had left her home and journeyed to Baldur's Gate, where she joined the city's elite guard, the Flaming Fist. Within five years, she had risen high in the Fist. But Baldur's Gate was just one city. The Black Network wove its dark webs across all the Heartlands. That was why Ravendas sought to join the Zhentarim. One day she intended to stand mighty among them.

The mage continued. 'This is the path you now tread.' He turned the second card. The Scepter. Again, blue light flickered over the drawing. The mage's eyes met hers. 'You seek great power for yourself, at any cost.'

She simply shrugged. She did not need a wizard's trick to tell her something she already knew.

'And this is your fate,' the mage said, turning the third card. She reached out and snatched it from him before he could look at it. She'd had enough of this game.

'I make my own fate,' she said flatly, shoving the card into a pocket of her leather jerkin. He nodded, but she could see a strange curiosity in his expression.

'All right, apprentice, you've had your fun,' she growled. 'Now, tell me what you know about Gurthang.'

He stood to retrieve a book from his pack. It was bound in timeworn leather, its pages yellowed and cracked with age. 'This tome contains fragments of a lost cycle of epic poems, the Talfirian Eddas,' he explained. 'The eddas tell many legends of these mountains, and of the now-vanished people who once dwelt here, the Talfirc. Unfortunately, Talfir, the language this was penned in long ago, is a forgotten tongue. I've been translating it as I journeyed, but it has been tedious work. Only today did I reach a passage that concerned the sorcerer Ckai-el-Ckaan.'

Ravendas leaned forward eagerly. 'What does it say?'

The mage opened the ancient tome to a place marked with a black ribbon. 'It tells many things. But perhaps most importantly, it tells that we are not the first to attempt to gain entrance to Gurthang.'

'What do you mean?'

The mage's expression was grim. 'The last fragment I translated tells how, in the centuries after the fortress was raised, many tried to climb Gurthang's walls.' He bent his head to read the strange, spidery script on the page before him. 'To the sorcerer's keep they journeyed, the walls of midnight to climb: Kaidel the Ancient, Sindara of the Golden Eyes, and Loredoc who slew the great wyrm of Orsil. One by one they came, and one by one they perished. For thus speaks the prophecy of Ckai-el-Ckaan, that no one hero will ever be great enough to scale the walls of Gurthang.''

Slowly the mage shut the book. 'No one has ever climbed Gurthang. Not in a thousand years.'

Ravendas could not suppress a shiver. 'Then it's impossible,' she whispered.

The mage nodded. 'Apparently.'

She swore vehemently and stood, pacing about the fire 'Then why would the Zhentarim send two prospective agents here, to prove their worth by attempting a task that mythical wizards couldn't accomplish? It makes no sense!'

'No, it doesn't,' the mage said quietly. 'Unless they considered these prospective agents a mere nuisance, of no great ability or use. Unless they never had any real intention of allowing them to join the Zhentarim.'

Instantly Ravendas knew it was true. The Zhentarim had simply wished to be rid of her. Just like the mage, A nuisance of no great ability.

'We are fools,' she spat.

The mage shrugged at this. 'Perhaps. But then, the game has not been played to its end.' He rose and banked the fire. 'It's late. We should sleep.'

Ravendas let out a deep breath. She locked away her fury, saving it for the morning light, when it might serve some purpose. She pulled her blanket from her pack and spread it on top of the mage's bedroll. He regarded her in surprise. Yes, she thought, he was indeed handsome.

'It's going to be cold tonight,' she explained with a crooked grin. She burrowed beneath the woolen blankets. The mage laughed-the bells again, low and soft-and moved to join her.

The warrior and the mage rose early the next morning to begin the impossible-the scaling of Gurthang. His name was Marnok, and he came from the city of Illefarn far to the north. That much he told her as they broke camp in the steely predawn light.

'I am curious, warrior,' he said as they gathered their things. 'What makes you think we can accomplish something no other has in a thousand years?'

'Sometimes a rat can find a way into a castle barred against wolves,' she replied mysteriously, shrugging her pack onto strong shoulders. 'Besides, I'm not willing to let the Zhentarim defeat me. At least not yet. This isn't the first time I've done something others had said was impossible.' She fixed him with her night-blue gaze. 'Why? What makes you think we can do it?'

'You shall see,' was his only answer.

She frowned at this, then set off across the barren, rocky basin, heading toward the beckoning finger of the fortress. The mage followed behind.

'So, am I to know your name or not?' he asked as they scrambled over a jumble of boulders.

'Ravendas.'

He paused to look up at her, the cold wind tangling his long, copper-colored hair. 'That's not your real name.'

She froze without looking at him, then continued on. 'It is my real name. Now. But when I was a child, I was called Kela.'

'Why did you take another name?' he asked as they reached the top of the boulder heap.

They sat for a moment, catching their breath. The tops of the peaks surrounding the basin looked molten with the first touch of sunfire. 'I'll tell you a story, Marnok. My father was a mercenary, one of the proudest warriors between the Sword Coast and the Caravan Cities. Then a woman caught his eye. He married her, and to please her he Put down his sword to take up farming. They had two daughters, and I suppose they were happy.' She ran a hand through her short, white-gold hair. 'Until one day when three brigands rode onto the farm. My father wanted to kill them, but my mother begged him not to resort to violence. So he strode outside to tell the highwaymen to leave. They just laughed, and while my sister Kera and I watched, they gutted him where he stood.'

Marnok regarded her sadly. 'I'm sorry.'