path at your peril!' The lie came to her in an easy rush, and she found herself quivering with excitement and anger. No one was going to stop her, not even Lord Piergeiron himself! Grandmama was her only real friend-and Ambreene had no intention of losing such a precious thing, whatever Teshla might think of the time left to her…
A few breaths ago, Ambreene Hawkwinter had been powerless to do anything about Grandmama's slow wasting. But that was before the Eye of the Dragon had come into her hand.
It was beautiful, yes-so beautiful! — and a thing of power, besides. But what were those things, set against the warmth and wisdom of Grandmama, there to laugh with Ambreene, chide her, and teach her the ways of spells and men and Waterdeep itself?
In all the city, men said, there was no mage as mighty as Khelben Blackstaff. If he could make the dead live and gods whole, he could surely restore one old woman! He would want this Eye of the Dragon, and doubtless do such a small and kind service in return for it.
Briefly Ambreene thought of how powerful the Eye might make her, and how slow her mastery of magic was sure to be without it… but no. Without Grandmama's direction and teaching, she might never learn to wield even the pendant, let alone spells of her own!
She strode down the street as folk stared at the speeding driftglobe and the red-faced old seneschal puffing along after her. A dozen smirking, hastily assembled Hawkwinter armsmen completed the train. Ambreene didn't care. She needed only her eyes to head for the dark and distant needle of Blackstaff Tower.
Every child in Waterdeep knew it; the home of a man whose spells were mighty enough to hurl back liches, mind flayers, and beholders all at once, and whose stern justice frightened even proud heads of the richest noble houses. Ambreene quailed inwardly as she marched along. But she was a Hawkwinter, on a truly noble mission-and Ambreene's name might well some day ring down the streets of Waterdeep as grandly as that of Khel-ben Arunsun. She lifted her chin and strode on without slowing… and behind her, the seneschal rolled his eyes and wheezed along. Fear was on his face as she passed into the shadow of Blackstaff Tower.
A single taper flickered in Ambreene's bedchamber as she shot the door bolt into place with steady hands. She hurried to the dusty space behind her wardrobe, where her few scraps of magic were hidden.
She almost made it. Two paces shy of her secret place, hot tears of rage and grief burst forth, blinding her. She blundered forward, sobbing, until she ran into the wardrobe's polished side and raised trembling fists to strike it, again and again, heedless of the pain.
Khelben had granted immediate audience, and hope had soared like a flame within her until the moment
Ambreene had given him her name. He looked at her gravely and uttered words that would burn in her brain forever: 'Teshla Hawkwinter? No, child. Not that one. She knows why, and has accepted her death… and so must you.'
That was all he would say, despite tearful pleadings. At last Ambreene rose from her knees, lifted her chin, turned in silence, and left, unheralded. Khelben didn't even look up from his papers as she went out!
She stumbled away, the seneschal and guards treading close around her but not daring to speak. At home, the folk were as white faced as she was, and silence reigned over Hawkwinter House, save for muffled weeping behind closed doors. The dowager Lady Teshla Hawkwinter was dead.
The priests of half a dozen temples murmured and chanted around the high-canopied bed. Ambreene wasn't even allowed in to see what was left of her Grandmama- sleeping forever now, a small and shrunken thing in the great spill of silken pillows-until the haughty strangers were done.
Her father was there. He said her name once, gently, and reached for her-but Ambreene stepped around him and looked upon the Lady Teshla alone and in silence. When she had turned to go, her father had signed to the servants not to follow, and for that gentle mercy she must remember to thank him when she could. But not now. Oh, not now.
She drew herself up in the darkness, her throat boiling with an anger that made her want to scream and rake herself and break things. She hissed in a voice that fought hoarsely through tears, 'I will make you pay for her death, oh great grand Lord Mage Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun. Ambreene Hawkwinter will make you plead for aid as I pleaded… and I will show you the same mercy you showed me. This I swear.'
Her last words seemed to echo around her, and Ambreene shivered suddenly and clung to the wardrobe for support. So this was what it felt like to swear a death oath. And against the most powerful archmage in all
Waterdeep, too. She sighed once, and then hurried to the door. She must get Grandmama's spellbooks and magic things before some maid spirited them away to make fair coin, and they were lost. The Lady Ambreene Hawkwinter had much work to do…
A month later, Ambreene stood beside the wardrobe and looked at herself in her glass. A gaunt, hollow-eyed maid with white skin and dark, burning eyes gazed back at her. She knew the servants whispered that her wits had been touched by the Lady Teshla's death, but she cared not a whit.
Ambreene was almost ready. Mastery of all the spells in Teshla's books-her books, now-might take years, but the Eye of the Dragon shone openly on her breast, and at night quivered warmly against her skin, whispering to her in her dreams.
All too often the night visions it sent drifted away in smoky tatters, but when her will was strong enough to hold steady to them, they showed her how to command the pendant to take memories… and to yield its memories up, like the scenes acted out at revels.
As Grandmama had warned, the Eye could drink thoughts-and when she got the right chance, she'd use it on Khelben, to steal his magic. Then she would be a great sorceress, and he'd be left a shambling, slack-jawed idiot. A fitting fate, she thought… until that dark day when the pendant showed her why he'd refused to keep Grand-mama alive.
Ambreene saw how it all had happened, saw it through the Eye.
Teshla had been a lush, dark beauty in her youth, all flashing eyes, flowing raven hair, full cruel lips… and a proud and amoral spirit. Many men longed for her, but she saw them as passing fancies to be duped into making her richer and more powerful. She professed undying love for one wizard-but in her bed, the Eye pressed between them by their bodies and her mouth entrapping his-she drained all Endairn's magic away, becoming a mage of power in one night.
With her newfound arts, she chained the emptied mage in a dark cellar, bound in spell-silence, and set forth to lure the most cunning merchant of the city to wed her.
Horthran Hawkwinter was rich indeed. She did not refuse his shower of coins, but it was his wits she truly wanted, his judgment of folk and knowledge of their pasts, schemes, alliances, and abilities. It was his wits she took on another night like the first, in the very bed he had given to her, the bed in which she was to die. The confused Horthran had been confined to his chambers from then on, visited by Teshla only when she wanted an heir, and then another child in case misfortune befell the first.
Ambreene shivered as the Eye showed her infant elders set aside in a nursery. Meanwhile, Teshla clawed and carved her subtle way to dominance, making the Hawkwinters a grand and respected house in Waterdeep.
She wept when the Eye showed a bored Teshla bringing together her husband and the mindless wizard and goading them into fighting each other for her amusement. They both died-sharing a look of heartfelt gratitude as they stared into each other's eyes and throttled each other.
That look troubled Teshla, even after she had the bodies burned and the ashes scattered at sea by a Hawkwinter ship. Eventually her nightmares about it frightened her servants so much that they called in the Lord Mage of Waterdeep. Khelben stripped away all her spellbooks and things of power except the Eye and left her alone in her turret room. The look he gave her as he departed haunted Teshla almost as much as the dying looks of Endairn and Horthran.
Over the long years, Teshla built up her magic again, scroll by scroll, her coins reaching where she could not, to win for her-often with bloodied blades-magic she dared not seek openly. Her son and heir, Eremoes, grew into a man of wisdom and justice under the best tutors the Hawkwinter coffers could buy. There came the day when he returned to Hawkwinter House with a new and beautiful wife, the sorceress Merilylee Caranthor of Athkatla.
Seeing her mother clearly in the memory-visions, Ambreene watched numbly as the Amnian woman sought Khelben's protection against the Eye. Cloaked in his spell, she tried to seize Teshla's magic for her own.
The sorcerous attack on Hawkwinter House left no trace of his beloved Merilylee, slew half his servants, and razed the upper floors of the family mansion. Eremoes always thought this destruction the work of a rival house, not
