'To be accepted into the Zhentarim, you must first prove your worth," Sememmon had spoken from the gloom of his subterranean council chamber. He had given her a task: journey deep into the Sunset Mountains, to a tower called Gurthang, and return with a magical object imprisoned there, the Finger of Ckai-el-Ckaan.
Now Ravendas reached out to touch the cold, black stone of the fortress. It felt strangely smooth against her fingers, almost oily, though it left no residue on her skin. The wall's surface was flawless, without cracks or wind-worn pock marks. Gurthang itself was starkly simple in design. A circular curtain wall a hundred feet high surrounded the central tower-a sharp, jagged splinter of obsidian that seemed to pierce the sky.
Ravendas bit her lip in a frown. The absence of any handholds was going to make this difficult. However, she had come prepared. Shrugging her pack from her broad shoulders, she pulled out rope, pitons, and gloves. She held one of the steel spikes against the wall, then hefted a small sledge, striking the spike hard to drive it into the stone.
"Malar's balls!" she swore loudly, dropping the hammer and piton to clutch her stinging hand. By all the bloodiest gods, that had hurt. She examined the wall. Her blow had not left so much as a scratch.
Laughter rang out like a bell tolling on the cold mountain air.
With feral grace Ravendas drew her sword. The sun had slipped behind the western rimrock of the basin, and she gazed into the gathering gloom. How had someone come upon her unaware?
"You'll have no need of that sword," a voice called out, echoing off the boulders all around.
Ravendas did not lower the blade. The deep blue shadows swirled beside a granite outcrop. A man walked toward her, clad in a purple cloak, holding a gnarled walking staff. By the pouches, feathers, and animal claws dangling from his belt, she could see he styled himself some sort of mage. However, given his obvious youth, she doubted he was a wizard of much worth.
"You might not want to make a habit of spying on people," she snapped. "Unless you're curious to learn what a sword sliding through your guts feels like."
He bowed gracefully in apology. "And you might not want to make a habit of battling stone walls," he replied. His voice reminded her of a lute. "Unless, of course, you believe your head to be harder than the rock."
Ravendas scowled. Suspicion left a metallic taste on her tongue. "So, apprentice, have you stolen your master's spell-book and slipped away from his tower before your seven years were up?"
The mage's clear green eyes danced with mirth. "On the contrary, my seven years are long past and well served." The two stared at each other. Wind whistled forlornly over jagged stone. "So," he said finally, "they sent you here, too?"
Her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
He shook his head in lieu of an answer. "I have a camp nearby. There's a fire waiting to be lit."
Ravendas gazed at him critically, then shrugged. Night was falling. Already she could see a few pinpricks of starlight in the slate-blue sky. A fire would be welcome. Besides, she knew she could simply kill him if he tried anything she did not like. She sheathed her sword and slung her pack over her shoulder.
"Lead on, mage."
It was full dark by the time they reached a small hollow protected by a granite overhang. The mage spoke a word of magic, and a neatly laid fire burst into crimson flame. At least he could do that much, Ravendas thought grudgingly In the golden light, she could see that he was handsomer than she had thought, his nose long and straight, his jaw prominent beneath a few days' growth of coppery beard. As she watched, he began fashioning a stew of jerked venison, raisins, and sun-dried tomatoes. Neither spoke as they ate, huddled close to the fire. A thin, sharp crescent of moon rose above the far peaks. When they finished, the mage took her bowl and put away the remaining food. He sat down across the fire from her.
'They sent you here, didn't they?" he asked. 'They gave you a mission to prove your worth, just like they did me." Gold flecks danced in his green eyes. "The Zhentarim."
She wondered right then if she should kill him. Perhaps the Zhentarim had sent them both here to see who was the stronger. If so, she intended to win. Her hand strayed toward the eating knife at her belt.
A half-smile touched his lips. "Feel free to kill me, warrior. Of course, know that if you do, you will never discover the way to climb the walls of Gurthang yourself."
Ravendas could only laugh. The mage was young, yes, but he was clever. "And I suppose you would tell me if you knew?"
"Only fate can say," he said mysteriously, drawing a deck of cards from a leather pouch at his belt. He shuffled them deftly with uncallused hands.
"Draw three." He fanned the cards out before her. "Set them face down before you."
"I'm a little old for card games," she noted acidly, but did as he asked.
"This is your past," he said, turning the first card. The Empress of Swords. A spark of magical blue light shimmered about the outline of a stern woman standing before a dark, broken landscape, a red-tinged sword in her grip. "A woman of ambition wields death to gain what she desires."
Ravendas nodded. The card suited her well enough When she was seventeen, she had left her home and journeyed to Baldur's Gate, where she joined the city's elite guard, the Flaming Fist. Within five years, she had risen high in the Fist. But Baldur's Gate was just one city. The Black Network wove its dark webs across all the Heartlands. That was why Ravendas sought to join the Zhentarim. One day she intended to stand mighty among them.
The mage continued. "This is the path you now tread." He turned the second card. The Scepter. Again, blue light flickered over the drawing. The mage's eyes met hers. "You seek great power for yourself, at any cost."
She simply shrugged. She did not need a wizard's trick to tell her something she already knew.
"And this is your fate," the mage said, turning the third card. She reached out and snatched it from him before he could look at it. She'd had enough of this game.
"I make my own fate," she said flatly, shoving the card into a pocket of her leather jerkin. He nodded, but she could see a strange curiosity in his expression.
"All right, apprentice, you've had your fun," she growled. "Now, tell me what you know about Gurthang."
He stood to retrieve a book from his pack. It was bound in timeworn leather, its pages yellowed and cracked with age. "This tome contains fragments of a lost cycle of epic poems, the Talfirian Eddas," he explained. "The eddas tell many legends of these mountains, and of the now-vanished people who once dwelt here, the Talfirc. Unfortunately, Talfir, the language this was penned in long ago, is a forgotten tongue. I've been translating it as I journeyed, but it has been tedious work. Only today did I reach a passage that concerned the sorcerer Ckai-el-Ckaan."
Ravendas leaned forward eagerly. "What does it say?"
The mage opened the ancient tome to a place marked with a black ribbon. "It tells many things. But perhaps most importantly, it tells that we are not the first to attempt to gain entrance to Gurthang."
"What do you mean?"
The mage's expression was grim. "The last fragment I translated tells how, in the centuries after the fortress was raised, many tried to climb Gurthang's walls." He bent his head to read the strange, spidery script on the page before him. "To the sorcerer's keep they journeyed, the walls of midnight to climb: Kaidel the Ancient, Sindara of the Golden Eyes, and Loredoc who slew the great wyrm of Orsil. One by one they came, and one by one they perished. For thus speaks the prophecy of Ckai-el-Ckaan, that no one hero will ever be great enough to scale the walls of Gurthang.'"