the battle in the hands of his younger brother-a boy of nimble mind, to be sure, but cursed with a body too thin and frail to ever bear the burden and glory of Tyr's service.
But if a quick mind was all he had, he would use it as well as any warrior his weapon. A simple resolve, perhaps, but it struck Dag with the weight and force of prophecy. For just an instant, the forgotten years rose up before him. Dag understood what he had only sensed the first time he'd lived through the raid: this moment's insight would shape and define his life. Then, suddenly, the years receded, the adult was gone. But resolve calmed the child, focused him.
Again Dag tugged at the ring. Finally it came free from Byorn's finger. Dag's first thought was to bolt into the woods with it, but he knew instinctively that such sudden and obvious movement would draw attention to him. He could not outrun the men and their horses. He dared not keep the ring with him, for he would surely be captured sooner or later. What, then, was he to do with it?
The answer came to him in the form of a single, crimson leaf. It floated down, drifting as gently as a newly freed soul, and came to rest on Byorn's torn jerkin. Dag swallowed hard at the sight of the terrible wound, and he jerked his gaze upward, in the direction from which the leaf had come.
There was a knot in the tree. A small one, but sufficient to his purpose. Dag slowly rose to his feet, hardly daring to breathe.
'There's another one! And he's got the look of the paladin about him, too!'
It took Dag a moment to realize that the man was talking about him. Once, long ago-just yesterday, just this morning, less than an hour ago! — he would have been thrilled to his soul by any comparison to his famous father. Now all the raider's words inspired was a terrible, burning rage.
His mother and two of his little sisters were dead. Byorn was dead, and Dag had been left alone to finish a task that should never have fallen to any of them. His father should have been here. But he wasn't. He wasn't. What good could there be in any man if he was never there, not even when his own children were in grave danger?
Dag heard the crescendo of running feet behind him. Inspiration came like a jagged lightning flash, and he acted on it at once. He flung himself at the tree and thrust the ring into the knot hole. He did not move away, but clung to the tree as if it were his mother. Terrified sobs shook through him, though his eyes were dry and his fear now completely overshadowed by cunning.
Let the men think him a foolish child, mindless with grief and terror. Their opinion would not alter his fate. They would take him away, but at least the ring would be safe.
The ring.
Dag Zoreth slammed back into the present, as suddenly as if he had been jolted awake from a nightmare involving a long, terrifying fail.
Every muscle in his body screamed with pain, but he hardly noticed the physical agony over the fresh torture of remembered grief. Several dazed moments passed before he realized that his hands were bleeding, his fine clothes muddy and torn. He must have moved through the village in concert with the Cyric-given dream, tearing at the gods-only-knew-what in his remembered attempt to dislodge the window shutter, crawling through the wild tangle that had once been a garden in a desperate struggle to reach his long-dead brother.
'I moved through the dream,' Dag murmured, suddenly understanding the practical implication of this. He raised his eyes, fully expecting to see a spring canopy of gold-green oak leaves overhead.
There was no oak tree, but the silvery leaves of a pair of aspens fluttered nervously in the quickening breeze.
A quickening breeze. Dag took a long breath and considered the subtle, acrid scent borne on the wind. Yes, it would rain soon, one of the quick, violent thunderstorms that he had so loved as a child. Even then, Dag had reveled in the power and drama of those storms, shrugging off any thought of the destruction that they all too often left behind.
A thunderstorm! Inspiration struck again, and Dag began to tear at the vines and brambles before him. In moments, he had uncovered a blasted, blackened stump. Shards of an ancient tree lay nearby, and weirdly shaped mushrooms grew from the black powder of rotted limbs. It was the very oak tree Dag sought, struck by lighting many years ago and burned nearly to the ground.
The ring was not easy to find amid the ruins of the tree. As Dag searched, the gathering storm swallowed the sun and deepened the shadows that shrouded the clearing.
Dag's horse whinnied nervously. The priest ignored these warnings. Rain began to pelt down as his searching hands raked through the debris, and soon the forest around him shuddered with the force and fury of the storm. Another man might not have found the ring at all, but it seemed to call out to Dag, urging him on.
He reached for a clump of mud and crushed it with his fingers. He felt something hard, and caught a glimpse of gold. Eagerly he reached for the small wineskin attached to his belt and poured the contents over the encrusted band- barely noticing the sting when the wine met his battered skin. He scrubbed the band clean on his ruined tunic and rose to his feet, his family treasure tightly clutched in one triumphant, bleeding fist.
Dag examined the ring by the light of another livid flash. Arcane marks scored the inside of the band. He had seen the marks once as a child and had assumed they were only a design. Now he could read the cryptic runes: When three unite in power and purpose, evil trembles.
Three, Dag mused. He knew of only two rings. As the pattern took shape in his mind, he began to understand why Malchior, his mentor, was suddenly so interested in Dag's family history. It seemed likely to Dag that his childhood memories of the rings' importance were based on more than legend. If Malchior was nosing about, there was real power to be had. Luckily the old priest knew nothing about the ring. Or perhaps he did; few high-ranking members of the Thentarim were known for altruism. Surely Malchior did not go through the trouble of seeking out Dag's lost past, and the location of his birth village, just to put his former acolyte's mind at ease. Well, be that as it may, Malchior would not find him a docile tool, nor would power of any sort leave Dag's hands without a bloody struggle.
Dag started to slip his family ring onto his index finger, as Byorn had once worn it.
Pain, quick and bright and fierce, lanced through him. Astonished, Dag jerked off the ring. He dashed his rainsoaked hair from his eyes and held the ring out at arm's length, gazing at it with a mixture of puzzlement and reproach. He was a descendant of Samular-how could the ring turn on him?
The answer came swiftly, borne on a wave of fierce selfanger. He should have seen this coming. He should have known this would happen. The ring had probably been blessed, consecrated to some holy purpose in which he, Dag Zoreth, could have no part. Samular had been a paladin of Tyr; Dag Zoreth was a strifeleader, a priest of Cyric.
On impulse, Dag took the medallion from around his neck, a silver starburst surrounding a tiny, carefully sculpted skull. He undid the clasp with fingers made slippery by mud and rain and his own blood, and then he slipped the ring onto the chain. He did up the clasp and put the medallion back in its proper place over his heart. The ring was hidden securely behind the symbol of Cyric.
Let Tyr-if indeed the god of justice condescended to observe someone such as Dag Zoreth-make of this what he willed.
Dag whistled for his horse and stiffly hauled himself up into the saddle. The return trip would have to be swift, for he could not wear the ring for much longer. It burned him now, even separated from his body by layers of purple and black garments and a light vest of fine elven mail. But there was another who would wear the ring for him, someone as innocent as he himself had been on that long-ago day, when an oak tree had wept crimson leaves over Byorn, the last worthy son of Tyr's paladin.
Worthy or not, Dag fully intended to use the ring. After all, he was of Samular's bloodline. He would reclaim his heritage-in his own way, and for his own purposes.
TWO
There were other fortresses in the city of Waterdeep that were larger and more impressive, but Blackstaff Tower was without doubt the most secure and unusual fastness in the city.
Danilo Thann was a frequent visitor to the tower, and had been since Khelben Arunsun took him under his
