Prophet of Moonshae

strange encounter. 'Arrows from an unseen foe … hounds that emerge from the mist to harry but not attack … a dragon that bursts from the ground. And now, see? Our quarry has evaded us.'

'Aye,' agreed Brandon, with a surly look toward the trail. He had watched with bitter anger the flight of the four Ffolk, first when the ambush had been revealed and then when the great serpent had chased them into the distance. The northmen column, on foot, stood little chance of catching the fleet riders. 'Well, with any luck, they're dragon food by now.'

He turned back to his old teacher. 'Were any of our men hurt?' he asked.

'None.' The veteran shook his head. 'Mayhaps that's the strangest bit of all. These devil dogs swarm all around and make the noise of a pack on the blood trail, but then they leave us alone.'

'What orders now?' inquired Knaff, fingering his huge double-bladed axe. Brandon knew the man still longed to avenge the death of his son.

'We'll scatter into small bands and scour the highlands before we go through the pass. It may be that we can meet some of those Ffolk-if any of them escaped the dragon, that is.'

'I'm thinking that stranger things have happened,' Knaff agreed sourly. 'It wouldn't surprise me to find all four of them curled up as guests in the beast's lair!'

Brandon laughed. He realized it was for the first time since the ambush. But the humor died bitterly in his throat. Their mission was far from complete and even farther from success. Everything that had occurred merely added to the mysteries surrounding them.

Sometime soon, he knew, they would have to find some answers.

The High Queen of the Moonshaes looked like a pale shadow of herself. She lay in the great bed, buried beneath a mountain of quilts. Her long black hair sprawled across the downy pillows, tangled and thin and damp with perspiration. Above her hovered two clerics of Chauntea. They had worked their healing magic to no avail and now resorted to prayer.

But even these beseechments for divine intervention brought no succor to the Lady Robyn. Indeed, she scarcely had the strength to open her eyes for more than a few moments at a time, and she had not spoken for more than a day.

Abruptly the door burst open and the Princess Deirdre stalked into the room.

'Go, you charlatans! Leave my mother to herself for a few moments!' she snapped, her voice low but the anger in her tone still apparent. The two clerics scuttled from the door, their hands passing through rote gestures as if to ward away any insult to their deity.

'Mother.. can you hear me?' Deirdre sat on the bed and took her mother's hand, noting its cold, clammy feel.

Robyn's green eyes flickered open. For a moment, they held fast to her daughter's face and then widened in… what? Deirdre wondered. Was it concern? Fear?

Then the lids drooped, half-closing, and the princess didn't know if her mother remained conscious or not.

Once, two nights earlier, Robyn had shown an abrupt and dramatic recovery. She sat up and spoke with the cleric who had been tending her, and the High Queen had seemed in good spirits. But by the following morning, she had again lapsed into this profound lethargy.

Abruptly the daughter arose and left the room, closing the door softly behind her. She found the clerics and bade them keep watch outside of Robyn's door. Then Deirdre strode purposefully to the library that had become her nearly constant abode.

She felt a torrent of emotion at war within her. Guilt and anxiety were there, brought about by her mother's condition. But beyond these, dwarfing them in its all-consuming power, Deirdre felt the power of raw, unleashed ambition. All the years of striving in her sister's shadow, of dwelling in a castle where she was subject to the king and queen's wishes, welled up in an explosion of envy. And now no one could command her otherwise.

Once inside the library, she raised the wicks of several lamps, giving her bright light for her reading.

But Deirdre bypassed the musty tome-Azouns: the Kings of Cormyr-in which she had been immersed. Instead, she reached for a dark scroll tube, one that Malawar had indicated to her that she should approach with caution and respect. Indeed, her mysterious visitor had instructed her not to read it for some time, warning that although it contained the keys to great power, it also offered its user deadly risks.

Nevertheless, the time she desired such power was now. Callidyrr Castle sprawled around her, and within its walls, there was none to challenge her, to interfere with her pursuits. Could that power aid her mother? Perhaps. The fact that it could aid Deirdre herself was to the princess a more compelling motivation.

And the power she desired, Deirdre knew, lay in the hands of the gods. The scroll in her hands gave her the means to reach those gods.

Reverently she removed the tight leather cap from the end of the scroll's ivory container. Withdrawing many sheets of fine vellum, she spread the tissues on the table, between the flames of her bright lanterns.

She began to read. At first the words seemed to dance on the pages before her, swimming just beyond her grasp, always tantalizing her with the promise of knowledge and, more importantly, power.

But then she began to assert her mind, to seize each word, each phrase, and wrest from it the dark truth lying therein. One by one the sigils yielded to her tenacity, and slowly the web of might began to grow around her.

Page after page she read and set aside as she reached for the next. Each seemed to leave her more vital, more alive than she had ever been before. She did not know the source of this power, for the symbols lay as a screen between the reader and the god. They passed knowledge and subtly influenced her mind, while their maker remained secret.

In the background of this tapestry of words, unsensed by Deirdre but very much present-and very much pleased-lurked the dark and looming might of Talos, the Destroyer.

Musings of the Harpist

Newt! I wish I could describe the emotions that his appearance brings to me. He is a courageous little fellow and as bright and cheerful as ever. He knows deep secrets of the isles-witness the Tomb of Cymrych Hugh as one example-and he seems to be genuinely fond of the princess.

Why, then, am I so worried?

11

The Beneficence of Cymrych Hugh

Danrak pressed cautiously through the sodden, barren woods. His steps rustled the dead twigs littering the ground, but he knew total silence was impossible in a thicket such as this. Short stalks bristled with dry, leafless limbs, and withered branches lay everywhere underfoot.

Normally such conditions would have held Danrak motionless-at least, until he had carefully studied the terrain. But so great was his current compulsion that he ignored his usual precautions in his urgency to reach the place that beckoned him. Around him stretched the wasteland of Myrloch Vale, a place of swamps and fetid fens, of dead trees and restless, prowling packs of firbolgs. Dire wolves, too, roamed here, and had made Danrak's life a nightmare of constant flight and eternal vigilance.

Yet he had sworn an oath to stay here, and so he would! More than twenty years earlier, he and many other young apprentices had joined the ranks of druidhood. They hadn't been ready to participate in the battles against darkness that had then raged in the vale, so the Great Druid had sent them to places of safekeeping.

Danrak had gone to the idyllic valley of Synnoria, home of the Llewyrr elves. These secretive folk had treated the human as one of their own, and the apprentice druid had learned skills of survival, stealth, and combat. The Llewyrr even allowed him to ride the sleek white horses, among the finest war-horses in the Realms, that were