“Of course,” the Old Man of the Zhentarim said sardonically. “I have been Hesperdan for some centuries now, and intend to go on being Hesperdan for some time to come. But you, Eirhaun: What has befallen you? Who or what laid you so low?”
“Spellfire,” the Maimed Wizard managed to gasp at the figure looming in his swimming sight. “Seek it not!”
Hesperdan smiled down at him and replied gently, “Of course not. I’m not the fool here.” And he turned away.
The Old Man of the Zhentarim was strolling across the chamber as Eirhaun struggled to raise himself on one elbow—arms! He had arms again!—and focus properly.
Strolling, and—gone, in a single step, winking out as if he’d never been there. “Hesperdan?” Eirhaun asked the empty air. “Hesperdan?”
A faint reek clung to the air around him. His own scorched hair and—no. No, ‘twas… pipesmoke.
Now just where, down all the years, had he smelled that pipesmoke before?
THE EYE OF THE DRAGON
Ambreene glanced irritably out the window as she hurried along the Hall of Clouds behind the politely insistent seneschal. Why did Grandmama Teshla want to see her just now?
The deliciously cooling breeze that had slid around Hawkwinter House was dying away. Waterdeep would soon be cloaked in a damp, clinging haze that played Tymora’s happy dance with lightning spells… even if all the household slept, she’d dare not conjure a single spark. Awkward, unpracticed casting was all she could manage.
And another tenday would pass in endless Palace promenades, dull tutoring sessions on the honorable and very long history of the Hawkwinters, and idle chatter with the emptyskulled high ladies who were her sisters’ friends—if such a cold-hearted, scheming, petty lot of catsclaws could truly be deemed the “friends” of anyone.
Another tenday in which Ambreene Hawkwinter, one more society beauty in a city that teemed with superior young she-nobles, would work no more magic of consequence. Ambreene scowled at herself in a mirror as she hurried past It would be so easy to just give in, banishing to memory her secret sessions of sweating concentration and fearfully hissed spells, and just idle her days away, drifting inevitably into the boredom of marriage to the prized lout, dandy, or stonehead of some noble family favored by the Hawkwinters. So gods-be-damnably easy.
She tossed her head and glared at a startled servant as she turned at the end of the hall into Teshla’s Tower and began to climb the spiral stairs to the rooms Grandmama Hawkwinter never left. That ease is why it must never happen, she vowed silently. I will not become another wisp-headed catsclaws—I’ll see Hawkwinter House hurled down into its own cesspools first!
The seneschal came to the door at the end of the worn red shimmerweave carpet and rang the graceful spiral of brass chimes that hung beside it. Unlatching the heavy door, he pulled it wide, stepping smoothly back and bowing to usher Ambreene within.
The youngest daughter of the Hawkwinters strode past him with the absently confident air that made the servants call her the Little Lady Queen of All Waterdeep behind her back, into the dim, quiet apartments that were all the kingdom the once-mighty Dowager Lady Hawkwinter had left.
Priceless glowstone sculptures drifted in slow dances as she passed. Enchanted, glowing paintings of flying elven hunts and dancing lords and ladies displayed endless animations, and a fascinated Ambreene was a good twenty paces into the luxurious chamber when she realized she was alone. There was no trace of the three elderly chamberladies who sat in the lounges on either side of the central bedchamber stair, waiting to be summoned up it into Teshla’s presence. Ambreene glided to a graceful halt amid those empty lounges, uncertain as to what to do next.
An eye winked open in the smooth ivory sphere adorning one bottom stairpost, and a mouth appeared in the other, saying in the familiar dry, waspish tones of Grandmama Teshla: “Come up, girl. I’ve not much time left.”
A little chill arose inside Ambreene at that calm statement. Obediently she set foot on the curving stair. So it was the summons she’d dreaded, come at last. She gathered her skirts and mounted the steps in haste.
She should have visited Grandmama more often and stayed longer, despite the watchful, over-scented old chamberladies with their vague, condescending comments and endless bright, cultured, empty phrases about the weather. She should have told Lady Teshla—who’d dabbled in dark and daring magic in her younger days, they said—about her own fumbling attempts to master magic. She should have…
Ambreene reached the head of the stairs and came to a shocked halt. Grandmama was quite alone, lying propped up on her pillows in bed. She must have sent the servants all away and unbound her hair herself.
A soft-hued driftglobe hovered above the bed and Ambreene could see that Lady Teshla was wearing a black robe whose arms were writhing, leaping flames of red silk—robes better suited to an evil seductress than the matron of one of the oldest, proudest houses in all Waterdeep. She looked dangerous, and the glint in her old, knowing eyes made that seeming even stronger.
Ambreene swallowed. “Grandmama, I came as qui—”
“Swift enough, it seems,” the dry voice said, with just a hint of weariness. “I breathe yet. Stand not there quivering like an unschooled courtesan, girl, but come and give me a kiss—or you may yet be too late.”
Numbly Ambreene did as she was bid. The old arms trembled as they went around her, but the lips were as firm and imperious as always. Ambreene looked into the black, bottomless pools of Grandmama’s eyes—a falcon’s eyes, her father had once called them—and said, “Grandmama, there’s something I must tell you. I’ve been trying to—”
“Weave a few spells,” Lady Teshla finished the sentence, almost impatiently. “Don’t you think I know this, girl? What way does my favorite window face?”
Toward Ambreene’s own bedchamber windows, of course, but…
“I’m glad you used the word ‘trying.’ A right mess you made of the darkshadow cloak,” Teshla said dryly, “but you have all the grand gestures right, girl. Some young blade’U quake in his boots if he ever tries too much at a dance, and you hurl the pig-face curse his way!”
Ambreene flushed in embarrassment. How had Grandmama, shut up in this dim towertop room, seen that? She was sure she’d managed to restore the old warhound’s rightful looks before his frightened yelps had…
The drif tglobe swirled and drew her eyes—and suddenly its heart flashed into a view of distant Castle Waterdeep, from above, as if she were standing atop Mount Waterdeep looking down on it!
“That’s how I see all,” Teshla told her as the scene faded. “Touch the sphere.”
Wonderingly, Ambreene did so. A tingling went through her from her fingertips, and Teshla nodded approvingly.
“The globe will follow you, now. When you go, all the house can think I was just bestowing a little magic on my kin before I went to the arms of the gods. But this is why I summoned you.”
A wrinkled hand moved with surprising speed, drawing up the fine chain that had gleamed down into Teshla’s shrunken bodice for as long as Ambreene could remember, and bringing into view a delicately-worked silvery metal dragon’s head, in profile. Its single eye was a huge, dark, glossy gem of a sort Ambreene had never seen before in a lifetime of watching wealth drift languidly by at feasts and revels. She stared at it… and it seemed to stare back at her.
“What is it?” she whispered as Teshla drew the chain off over her head with arms once more slow and weary, and held it out.
“The Eye of the Dragon, child,” Teshla said softly. “May it serve you better than it did me—and may you use it far more wisely than I did. Take it.”
The youngest daughter of House Hawkwinter swallowed, then lifted her head and calmly reached out for the gem.