“Don’t you know what this is?” she snarled, tugging on the chain again.
The wizard nodded. “The Eye of the Dragon,” he said calmly. “It’s been years, lass, since I’ve seen it. Well, well…”
“Years?” Confused, Ambreene could barely get the word out through lips that were suddenly twisting and slipping… her face and body were sliding back into their true shape!
The craggy, bearded face so close to hers was melting and shifting too… and when Ambreene saw what it became, the color fled from her face and her teeth began to chatter in terror.
She’d seen the Old Mage of Shadowdale only once, but the wizard they called Elminster was unmistakable. He grinned at her. “If ye’d live a little longer, lass,” he said gently, “never try to bosom thy way up to the real Khelben. He’s not that trusting, know ye … after all, he’s had several centuries of comely wenches trying that sort of thing on him, and most of them were his apprentices.”
“But…how…”
“Khelben had to hurry back to Blackstaff Tower to work on some Harper business begun here tonight,” the Old Mage explained. “Both he and Laeral felt your probing spells— really, lass, take a little more care with such things, eh?—so he called me in to do a little impersonation in case any other Harpers came to report… or ye decided to do something spectacularly stupid.”
“And was what I did so stupid?” Ambreene asked with menacing softness, her hands twisting the chain until it cut deep into his throat.
Elminster smiled unconcernedly, and chucked her under the chin as if she were a small girl. “Well, ‘twas certainly spectacular…” he murmured, and added, “Iwouldn’t wear a gown like that.”
He bent his head to her bodice, and peered. “Ah, leaping dragons… Thayan work; very nice.”
Ambreene thrust herself against him, hooking her legs around his and pressing as much of herself against Elminster’s body as she possibly could. She put her head over his shoulder and dug her chin down with bruising force, holding him with all the strength in her quivering body.
“Now,” she said into his ear, “any harmful spell you work on me will hurt you as well. Khelben wronged my Grandmama and my family; my revenge was for him. But your magic will serve me just as well, giving me spells enough to destroy him another way. Can you feel the memories leaving you?”
“No,” Elminster said lightly. “I know how to make the Eye work as its creator intended it to. I’m giving ye only the memories I want ye to have… and keeping them, not letting them drain away.”
Ambreene drew back her lips in a disbelieving sneer. “And just how can you do that? Lady Teshla could not, and the Eye hasn’t shown me any way to wield it thus! What makes you such an expert?”
Gentle mirth glinted in Elminster’s eyes as he said mildly, “Why, lass, I created the thing in the first place. In Myth Drannor, ‘twas… in my spare time.”
Ambreene shook her head derisively, but said nothing. He was so calm. What if it were true?
Then she gasped and stiffened as the world around her vanished in a flood of memories not her own. Vivid images, all around her as if they were befalling here and now, and she were living them…
She was dimly aware that her nails were raking someone’s back, that he was growling protestingly, and that there was a sudden strong smell of pipesmoke, but…
She was standing on the deck of a storm-tossed ship, watching as a grandly-robed man turned his back on his son—who laughed and hurled a bolt of lightning with both. hands that cut his father’s body in two and sent the front of the ship boiling up into flames…
Then she was in a bedchamber where a man was pinned to a door with a sword, his lifeblood a spreading puddle on the floor, and gasping, “Why, Maruel? Why have you done this?”
“Because I want to,” the breathtakingly beautiful woman on the bed said to him with a sneer that matched Ambreene’s own, “and at last have the power to. I am the Shadowsil, and from now on I will take what I want, not beg for it!” She raised her hand and waved casually, and the long blade slid out of the man all black with his blood. He crumpled to the floor, gasping, “But I loved… you…”
“And what is that to me, fool?” she laughed. Then the scene was whirled away and Ambreene was somewhere else again.
A tower where a woman wept with smoke curling away from her empty hands and ashes all around her, while a man sat on empty air not far away and said, “And so your trick has come around to visit itself on thee. Well done, Alatha—oh, well done indeed!”
The woman’s raw howl of grief whirled Ambreene away into a scene of a sorceress betraying her tutor, then another ambitious magistress turning to evil and mistakenly slaying the man she loved…
“All of these happened, lass, and I was there to see them,” Elminster told her gently. “Have ye such a hunger to join them?”
Ambreene wept and tried to pull away from him, shaking her head and straining to think of things of her own choice … but her thoughts were dragged ruthlessly back into the whirlwind of revenge, grief, and evil until she was babbling…
“Gods! Oh, gods, stop! Have mercy!” she sobbed.
“Better mercy than ye planned to show Khelben, I hope,” the Old Mage said grimly, and abruptly she was seeing a young lass clad only in long, luxurious hair who knelt amid glowing, floating symbols, in a chamber whose dark walls winked with stars.
“Who—?”
“A lady in Myth Drannor, crafting the first foresight spell,” Elminster replied. Abruptly the spell poured into Ambreene’s own mind, writing itself in runes and whirling concepts of fire. She gasped, gagged, and moaned as her mind stretched dizzily. A very bright light seemed to be rushing through her, and…
“Note that this magic allows thee only to see what lies ahead for others. If thy mind can encompass it and ye stay sane, ‘twill become thy most useful tool—and thy great burden,” Elminster said, as she blinked and saw his face again in the moonlight, inches from her own.
Gentle hands put the Eye of the Dragon into her hands. “Now… about that kiss…”
Ambreene wept as warm lips brushed hers tenderly and that old, wise voice said, “Thanks for the memories.”
Then the old wizard turned away in the moonlight, as she stared after him with eyes that streamed the tears of a thousand years. Elminster strode across the garden and as he went, his battered old boots left the dewy grass and trod on air. Up on emptiness he walked, as if the starry sky were his own private staircase, up over the garden wall and on, over the rooftops of the city.
When she could see him no more, Ambreene looked down at the pendant in her hands. Suddenly it spoke with Elminster’s voice and she nearly flung it down in startlement.
“Ah, lass,” it said, “be not downcast, for ye heard a-right, what they say about wizards. Put this on whenever ye need to talk to me … or to Khelben. He’s waiting for ye to come and see him.”
And from that day until the day the gods willed that Ambreene Hawkwinter die, long years later, the pendant never left her breast.
NOTHING BUT TROUBLE
Mother Teshla’s Turret Club for Adventurers was currently the most cozy gathering place for “lads and lasses of the sword” in all the fair city of Waterdeep. Its rooms were crowded with comfortable old chairs to sink into and handy tables to put your boots up on, and there was good wine, better beer, and hot, dripping butter-and-bacon sandwiches to consume. There were even eels in honey sauce. Still slithering, of course.
It would be nice to see Teshie again, after all this time. A certain far-too-generous mage of Shadowdale had chosen a good place for their meeting. Now, if Khelben didn’t get wind of any of this until they were done, things would be just fine. If not…
Mirt the Moneylender shrugged. Disaster would come. He’d learned there was little one could do beyond frantic scrambles to get out of its way. Whatever befell, he’d see Teshie again.