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  watched the stars for a while, then whispered, "Old Mage, remember when I was young? You used to

  hold me until I fell asleep, and tell me wondrous tales of when Faerun was new. . . ?"

  The old familiar arms went around her, bringing with them the faint reek of old pipesmoke. "Would ye

  like a story now?"

  "Please," she whispered, and covered his hands with her own.

  "Well, now," Elminster said slowly. "Ye see those stars, up there? I recall a time when..."

  Firespark rode on her shoulders as Tessaril walked silently clown the street toward the Tankard. Her

  tressym was restless and ill at ease; it answered her only with a wary little mew when she stroked it.

  The winged cat could smell trouble before she could, so Tessaril went well armed now.

  She'd turned the tower over to her three guests for the night, telling them to get some sleep while she

  went out to 'confer with someone.' All nine of her Purple Dragons were already gathered to guard them,

  and she'd used a sending to call in war wizards from High Horn. That aid would not be here until

  midmorning at the earliest. She herself would sit guard over them until the wizards arrived--once she'd

  told Dunman at the Tankard to alert the local Harpers. If she knew Zhentarim, this night would bring an

  attack from some fell wizard or other.

  Behind her there came a peculiar hissing sound, a groan, and the thud of someone falling.

  Turning. she calmly drew a wand. In the end, until she died or Azoun gave her other orders,

  Eveningstar was hers to defend. Trying to see the cause of the commotion, Tessaril peered back into

  the nightgloom in front of the tower, a bare thirty paces behind her. With one bound, Firespark was

  gone from her shoulders.

  Something small and white floated in the air beside the tower porch. One of her guards lay sprawled in

  the dirt beneath it. As Tessaril stepped forward, raising the wand, the eyes of the floating thing-a

  human skull, by the gods!-flashed, and part of the front wall of tier tower simply vanished with a little

  sighing sound. Lamplight spilled out through the breach, accompanied by frightened curses. The Purple

  Dragons within hauled out blades and peered out into the night.

  A sudden bright bolt of lightning spat from the skull. Trailing sparks, the bolt danced from man to man,

  making each in turn convulse, stagger, and fall. Smoke rose from their armor.

  Tessaril mouthed a curse and triggered her wand. Fire shot through the night, shrouding the skull in

  bright flames. It turned slowly to face her, quivering in the air as flames raced over it. Then its eyes

  flickered, and it spat another bolt of lightning from its bony jaws.

  Tessaril dived to one side, but no one in the Realms could have dodged that leaping lightning. With an

  angry snapping sound, the bolt struck her, and she reeled, gasping, and fell. Her veins crawled. She

  could not breathe. White needles pierced her eyes, and the smell of burnt cloth and hair was strong in

  her nostrils. Only the hard dirt against her check told her she was still alive.

  The bolt that had almost slain Tessaril awoke the slumbering Mirt. He sleepily shuffled out of the

  audience chamber, blade in hand, then skidded to a halt when he saw that the entire front wall of the

  entry hall was gone and that a skull floated in the night outside. Purple Dragons lay sprawled about the

  room amid fallen blades and splintered furniture.

  Mirt snatched up a discarded sword and hefted it to throw. As he moved, the skull turned to confront

  him, fire flashing where its eyes should have been. With a chill, Mirt recognized the same leaping

  flames in its empty sockets that he saw in Shandril's eyes when she was angry. Spellfire lived in this

  undead thing.

  The skull laughed hollowly as it drifted slowly into the room. the twin, coiling flames of its gaze bent

  on hint. "I'm getting much too old for all this," Mirt grunted sourly, squinting up at the glowing skull.

  On the road below, a weak and dazed Tessaril fought her way slowly to hands and knees. Pain raged

  inside her, and from somewhere nearby, she heard a frightened, querying mew. With weary

  detachment, she looked down at herself and saw the cause of her tressyni's alarm: smoke was rising in

  lazy curls front her body. Biting her lip, the Lord of Eveningstar caught her breath, struggled to a

  sitting position, and frowned in concentration to gather her wits for another spell. As she fought to

  make the intricate gestures, she heard and saw the battle above.

  "All right!" Mirt growled, waving both blades. "Come on, then! Let's be at it!" A voice from his

  memory female, and mocking, but he was damned if he could recall just who, at this tense moment-

  echoed in his head:

  Heroes can't choose which fights they will win. That is why all of them die in the end.

  The light within the skull flickered. The air was suddenly full of the bright, deadly pulses of flame the

  Old Wolf had seen many triages hurl down the years-the bolts that cannot miss.

  So this damned dead thing could work spells. Thanks be to the gods! Mirt held that sour thought as he

  steeled himself against the pain he knew would come, and threw his borrowed sword at the skull as

  hard as he could.

  The bolts struck him, lancing into his body with shuddering pain. As always, their energy made his

  limbs tremble violently. The Old Wolf set his teeth, staggering back under the force of the attack, and

  blinked back tears to see what happened to his hurled blade. It missed, whirling away harmlessly into

  the night as the skull rose smoothly up out of its path.

  Mirt snarled, plucked up a stool from the wreckage nearby, and hurled it at the skull, lurching into an

  ungainly charge in its wake. His eerie foe bobbed again, and the stool hurtled harmlessly past it and

  shattered against a wall. The skull's hollow laughter rang out around the old, wheezing merchant.

  Then the skull spat something at him that glowed with tiny, sparkling motes of light. Panting in his

  haste, Mirt dived aside and rolled on the floor-but not fast enough: some of the spittle struck his arm

  and shoulder.

  Aaargh-acid! Gods, but it burned! Roaring in pain, the Old Wolf twisted on the floor and clutched his

  shoulder. It felt like slow-moving fire was crawling along his flesh: Mirt whimpered at the pain and

  writhed helplessly.

  Unseen, the skull soared past him, heading for the stairs. The grand stair climbed from the entry hall to

  a gallery on the floor above, where many statues stood. Among them were warriors of Cormyr, a

  mermaid rampant upon a wave, and a sleeping dragon. As the skull floated amid these, a dagger

  suddenly spun at it, striking chips from the curved bone of its jaw- before glancing off.

  The lich lord turned menacingly and saw a servantwoman on tire landing, her face white with fear. She

  was frantically trying to raise a sword that was far too heavy for her.

  A tongue of flame slid out of one of the skull's eye sockets, and the woman moaned in fear. She swung

  the sword weakly at the flames, shrank back, and cried, "Tempus aid me!"

  Iliph Thraun laughed aloud and struck at the woman with its whip of flames. She screamed, waving the

  sword ineffectually as the fire raged around her. The lich lord lashed the woman with flames until she

  crumpled and fell, hair smoldering. Then it flew on into the upper levels of Tessarits Tower.

  At the top of the next flight of stairs, Narm and Shandril sat together on a bench, weapons
in hand,

  uncertain of what to do as crashes and cries came up to them from below. At first, they didn't see the

  silently floating skull drifting up the darkened stairs. Then Narm scrambled up with a startled curse and

  hurled a hasty swarm of bright bolts at it.

  Shandril stared at the skull. "What is it?" she asked of the world at large as Narm's missiles hit home.

  Bright pulses struck bone and burst and flared around the skull, but it seemed to ignore them. It opened

  its mouth and spat spellfire at Shandril.

  Narm leapt between Shandril and the reaching spellflames, shuddering as spellfire struck him and

  swirled around his shoulder. The young mage staggered, but the skull rose quickly to direct its stream

  of flames over him-and into Shandril's breast.

  Shandril gasped in surprise. It was spellfire! Then her face hardened, and her eyes and hands began to

  flame. "Yes! Yesss "' the skull hissed, as she hurled the conflagration back at it. Narm lifted a face tight

  with pain to peer at the skull, and he gasped-it was feeding on the spellfire Shan was using on it.

  Shandril hurled streams of spellfire at the thing. It chuckled, teeth clattering hollowly. She set her jaw

  and wove the blaze into a bright net of flames, cutting the air with so many arcs of fire that the skull

  could not avoid them.

  The skull plunged into the fiery net and spun there among the strongest flames. Where spellfire touched

  it, the burning fury darkened and died. The residue slid weirdly into the fissures and gaps in the bones-

  all except the eye sockets and gaping mouth, which poured an ever-increasing stream of spellfire back

  at her.

  Spellflames engulfed the girl, raging and roaring. Shandril shuddered under the attack-every inch of her

  seemed to be trembling uncontrollably-and then struggled to advance against the skull's stream of

  spellfire. Her eyes were narrowed to slits, her face contorted with pain.

  "Shan! Nooo!" Narm screamed, but she seemed not to hear. He gulped, took two running steps, and

  leapt, reaching for the skull. His hands slid over smooth hardness and into the eye sockets. There they

  found burning, excruciating pain. Narm threw back his head and howled, as roaring blackness rushed

  up to claim him. Despairing, wreathed in the skull's fire-Shandril's stolen spellfire, Narm fell screaming

  into that onrushing darkness.

  Shandril stared its Narm toppled heavily to the floor, body blazing. His screams ceased abruptly as his

  limbs flopped loosely on the stone. Then he lay very still.

  Silence fell. The skull's attack had ceased even as Shandril's did. In horror, she stared down at her

  husband. The skull glided slowly forward to hang over her. It leered down, glowing, opened its mouth

  in echoing mirth-and then fell suddenly quiet, hangi motionless, its flames flickering and fading

  In a dark room deep in the High Hall of Zhentil Keep, Sarhthor, mage of the Zhentarim, sat at a black

  table and stared at a tiny skull that hovered above it. The skull was carved from human bone-from a

  bone of one Iliph Thraun, lord among liches. Small radiances swirled around it, chasing each other in

  little currents and eddies as Sarhthor bent his will against the far-off lich lord.

  Sweat ran down his face, and his hands trembled as he stared fixedly at the carved skull. Wrestling with

  the cold will of Iliph Thraun across a great and echoing distance, Sarhthor reached deep and found

  strength he hadn't known was there- and held the lich lord from attacking Shandril.

  Weeping, Shandril hurled herself on Narm, as she had done long ago in Thunder Gap. Dragonfire had

  ravaged him then-but this was spellfire. Lips to lips, flesh to flesh, she embraced him frantically,

  pouring healing spellfire into him.

  Above them, the skull quivered, and its eyes flashed flame. Then it shook again, more feebly, and hung

  motionless.

  The door opened suddenly without a knock, and Fzoul Chembryl, High Priest of the Black Altar of

  Bane, strode in. "What are you doing?" he asked coldly.

  The miniature skull sank down to land softly on the table, and a weary Sarhthor looked up at him.

  "Lord Manshoon left this means to compel the lich lord with Art, and gave me orders to use it in his

  absence to prevent the lichnee from passing out of our control," he explained.

  The wizard shook his head and wiped sweat out of his eyes. "I'm not the mage he is-and perhaps I lack

  some detail or secret to make this work, too; I can't seem to contact Iliph Thraun properly. The lich is

  there, all right-but it seems almost as though something greater stands against us, fighting me."

  "Elminster?" Fzoul snapped, wondering who else could be interfering with the skull in Manshoon's

  absence. "Nay, nay; something greater. Bane, perhaps." Sarhthor said that with a straight face but inner

  pleasure; the priests of the Black Altar never like to be reminded of their rebellion against church

  authority-and how the Dark One himself might feel about it.

  "Our Lord?" Fzoul's voice was harsh. He tried to scoff, bit it didn't sound convincing. The two men

  stared coldly at each other for a breath or two.

  Then Sarhthor shrugged, and waved at the miniature skull lying motionless on the tabletop. "Try for

  yourself. My skill is not great enough to know clearly who it is."

  Sarhthor took care to hide all signs of his inward smile as Fzoul silently but savagely spun around and

  stalked out.

  The lich lord hissed suddenly, and its eyes lit with flame. Freed of the restraint from afar, it sank down

  to bite into Shandril's shoulder as she lay atop her husband. The spellfire that blazed from her pulsed

  and flickered as the skull began to drain her, hauling energy out of her reluctant body slowly at first,

  and then with greater speed.

  A grim and blackened Thrulgar burst into the room then, at the head of a handful of white-faced but

  grimly loyal Evenor farmers. They clutched pikes and pitchforks, and sleepiness battled horror in their

  eyes as they stared at flying skull.

  By then, the lich lord was strong enough to rise from Shandril and lash out with rays of stolen spellfire.

  The sudden flames hurled the men to blazing and broken deaths against the walls of the room.

  Weeping amid the dying shouts and screams. Shandril lay sprawled atop Narm, feeling spellfire

  flowing steadily out of her. Twisting feebly, she tried to gather her will but could not stop the flow. The

  skull was draining her with frightening speed. A bright path of radiance, spellfire being sucked out of

  her forever, now linked her with the grisly thing as it floated low overhead, chuckling. Shandril

  struggled to pull free by willing a sudden surge of spellfire into the bone thing. It hissed at her in anger

  but the steady flow of its draining continued, and the fire within her was fading fast.

  Narm lay lifeless beneath her. Shandril stared up at the grinning skull, and cold fear crawled along her

  spine. The only way to stop this skull slaughtering everyone in this town-in Cormyr, and even in

  Faerun-was to cut off its supply of spellfire.

  And the only way to do that was to end her own life. Shuddering, Shandril crawled toward a dagger,

  fallen beside Thrulgar' s hand. The lich's spellfire suddenly flailed her as the skull realized her intent. It

  wanted all she had; she must not die yet. Tears nearly blinding her, Shandril gripped the weapon and

  slowly, determinedly, brought it to herself. Would dying hurt much? She swallowed, shut her eye
s

  against sudden tears, and pressed the keen, cold edge against her throat....

  The roar of spellfire that rose around her now was deafening. numbing; it shook her like a leaf.... Could

  she complete the task? Angry spellfire thundered around her. Tears sizzled on her cheeks as the white

  heat dried them. She felt a sudden, chilling jab at her shoulder: the skull had set its teeth in her again. In

  the storm of flames, Shandril struggled on, trying to die....

  Fourteen

  SKULL UNLAID FORBEAR THEE

  When death comes unlooked for, it finds a way into the strongest fortress. It does no good to set extra guards al the gates.

  Asargrym of Baldur's Gate

  A Merchant Master's Life

  Year of the Blue Flame

  "Ah, now we come to it, lass; 'tis time."

  "Time for what?" Storm Silverhand had been drifting off pleasantly to that place of dreams where gods whispered to mortals. Elminster had finished his tale, and the stars still glimmered watchfully overhead.

  "For ye to guard me - remember, ye came on this ride to guard me?"

  Storm rolled over and smiled sleepily at him. "I still can't imagine what I can protect you against that you can't guard against better yourself."

  Elminster patted her bare shoulder affectionately and said, "Stand guard over my body while I go dreamweaving."

  "Dreamweaving? You?"

  "I know no better way of putting ideas into the minds of sleeping folk to sway them into doing certain things without clumsy coercion or betraying my hand in it."

  Storm nodded, stretched, and got up, shrugging on her leatherjacket. "I knew it was too soon to take off my boots," she said sweetly, stepping back into them with a sigh.

  Elminster waved a hand. "Ye won't need them-who's to see thy bare feet, out here in the night?"

  Storm smiled. "The ones who'll be attacking, of course."

  Elminster shook his head at that, and smiled. "Ah, ye al-"

  Then he broke off, swayed, and turned to her, his face suddenly grim. "I must attend to things, it seems," he said, snatching up his staff.

  "Shandril?" Storm asked, her long sword already in her hands.