Realms of Valor

turned to water. He looked down at the sword in his hand, sharp and wicked, slicked with blood. For so long the blade had been his life, everything that he was. Now it had failed him. He had nothing left.

No, he told himself, that wasn't true. Remembered words echoed in his mind. You possess something else, Tyveris, something she does not. But what had Mother Melisende meant? Understanding washed over him, accompanied by a wellspring of fear that eddied darkly in his chest. He pushed that fear aside as best he could. He knew what he had to do.

The sword slipped from his fingers to clatter against the stone floor. He sank to his knees before Kelshara.

'The cards never lie,' she purred. 'You truly are no warrior.' She picked up the sword in both hands. 'You are nothing.'

Tyveris did not look at her. Instead he clasped the ancient quill still tucked into his belt. He had heard the loremasters at the abbey calling upon the power of their god before. He knew that, sometimes, there was great magic in those prayers. Still, he was no priest. He could only hope that Oghma would hear his words anyway.

With a look of animalistic exultation, Kelshara lifted the sword. 'All men die,' she said coldly.

Tyveris gripped the holy relic. 'I have faith that you will help me, Oghma. Grant me your protection.'

As Kelshara raised the sword to strike, a blue nimbus sprang to life about the relic in Tyveris's hand. He felt a warmth touch his heart. The soft illumination enshrouded him like a cloak. It brightened, deepened. He rose to his feet, new vigor flowing through his veins. The necromancer stared at him, the fear finally clear in her violet eyes. He was stronger than she had ever imagined.

'I've won, Kelshara,' he said solemnly. 'Give me the Tear, and I-'

His words trailed off as the blue nimbus surrounding him flared. A thin, gossamer tendril uncoiled itself from the magical aura, reaching out for Kelshara.

'No!' the sorceress cried out, backing away, her voice trembling with revulsion. The sword dropped from her hands and clattered to the floor. 'The deathmirror beetle should only link us in pain!'

She shrank back from the divine aura, step by step, but the blue glow steadily followed her. Finally she backed up against the ledge of the chamber's arched window. The tendril of holy light coiled about her like a shroud. 'It's burning me!' she screamed. 'Help me! Someone please help me!'

'I will help you, mistress,' a wet, bubbling voice croaked. Toz pulled himself slowly to his feet, the knife still lodged in his chest. He grinned, his jagged teeth stained dark with blood. 'I am your servant, after all.'

With a cry that might have been sorrow as easily as rage, the kobold lunged at the sorceress, grasping at her with gnarled hands. Entangled in a fatal embrace, the two tumbled backward over the window's ledge.

Kelshara shrieked. 'But I am going to live forev…' Her cry ended abruptly.

The necromancer's life had ended. But her magic had not.

The tendril of azure light still linked her to Tyveris, reaching him from outside the chamber's window. Even as he watched, a darkness seemed to climb up the shimmering rope like a sinewy viper as black as midnight. It was the final culmination of her spell. Death had taken Kelshara. Now it was coming for him.

The darkness snaked toward him along the tendril, closer, no more than an arm's length away. One touch, and Tyveris knew that he would die. But how could he fight death itself?

It will protect you in the dark days to come.

There was no time to think about it. Gripping the quill tightly, Tyveris thrust his fist toward the thread of darkness.

'In the name of Oghma, be gone!' His voice boomed through the chamber.

Blue light flashed, and thunder shook the tower to its very foundation. The magic was shattered. Shards of azure and onyx flew in all directions. Then came silence. Tyveris blinked. Both the dark and light tendrils were gone. The ancient quill lay in his hand, looking dull and quite mundane.

Tyveris shook his head in wonderment. His body ached terribly, but he was alive. Carefully he tucked the relic back into his belt. He turned and walked slowly from the chamber, leaving his bloodstained sword where it lay on the floor. The weapon had failed him. His faith had not.

He made his way down the stairs and into the night. The storm had ended, and the moon was out, casting its silvery light over the new layer of snow that cloaked the ground, making everything seem somehow fresh and pure.

He found Kelshara and Toz among the rocks in the desolate courtyard, their twisted bodies covered in a burial shroud of windblown snow. The Tear of Everard lay in the necromancer's outstretched palm, unblemished and perfect.

Tyveris bent down and picked up the shining jewel from Kelshara's cold grip. Neither the sorceress's dark magic nor the fall from the tower had damaged the Tear. Just more proof of Oghma's divine presence in the world, Tyveris decided, and he headed off into the night.

When Tyveris finally reached the abbey on a bright winter's afternoon, he found the gates open wide. It looked as if all the loremasters had gathered in the courtyard to greet him. He swung down from the pretty black palfrey, grinning foolishly at them all. The news of his battle with Kelshara-and his recovery of the Tear-had obviously proceeded him.

'Welcome home, Loremaster Tyveris,' Mother Melisende said, her eyes sparkling brightly. 'Welcome home.'

THE FAMILY BUSINESS

James Lowder

'There's a rider coming,' the Shadowhawk hissed, his breath turning to steam in the chill midnight air. 'You remember what I told you? You get 'alf of what we pinch from the bloke, right?'

'Yes,' the young boy replied meekly. He picked at the loaf of stale bread jutting out of the small pack at his feet, then looked up at his father. With wide brown eyes, he pleaded to be released from the frightening task that loomed before him. In reply, the Shadowhawk frowned and pushed his son through the tangled hedgerow separating them from the road.

Artus Cimber tumbled through the thorny branches, recently laid bare by the first blustery days of winter. As he stood and brushed off his threadbare tunic and breeches, he looked into the darkness down the packed dirt trade road. In one direction the way ran empty and arrow-straight much farther than the boy could see, almost until it reached the peaceful hamlet of Irath. In the other, it made a gentle curve around a tree-lined hill before striking north toward Waymoot. There wasn't the slightest hint of a horseman from either direction.

How can Father tell someone's coming? Artus wondered. I can't even see as far as I can throw a stone.

The boy glanced up, only to find the moon hidden behind iron-tinged clouds, swollen with snow. To one side of the trade road, past the thorny hedgerow, trees hunched like sleeping giants on a hill. On the other, fallow fields stretched for miles. Lights shone in the windows of a farmhouse, nestled atop a faraway ridge, but they appeared as tiny, flickering pinpoints. Artus would have mistaken them for fireflies, had it been summer.

'Not enough light to see anything,' he whispered and tugged at his mask. After adjusting the tattered strip of cloth around his eyes, he squinted into the darkness once more.

Curiosity quickly overcame the boy's fear as he tried to puzzle out just how his father had detected a rider. He cocked his head and listened for the telltale sounds of hoof-beats on the frozen ground. An owl hooted occasionally from a branch high on the hillside. At the farmhouse, a dog barked at some annoyance, yelping and whining in fits. But those were the only sounds on that lonely stretch of road- though the young boy's heart was pounding so hard he wondered childishly if someone might hear it, too, if they listened hard enough.

Artus pressed a hand to his chest, hoping to muffle the hammering. Of course it wouldn't stop. He softly cursed his fear, but choked on the words; if he spoiled the job by making too much noise, his father would beat him for certain. There was nothing the Shadowhawk cared about more than his work, and Artus was suddenly petrified at the prospect of failing him.

Scoril Cimber was the most famous highwayman in the kingdom of Cormyr, known as the notorious Shadowhawk. If Scoril himself were to be believed, that fame extended throughout the disparate countries and