Crown of Fire - Ed Greenwood [27]
"Is it working?" Shandril asked. The young man and the dwarf traded looks and shrugged in unison.
"I don't feel we're being watched anymore," Delg said. He turned to Narm. "Best study your spells, lad, while I get a meal ready."
Shandril sighed, relaxing, and then walked a few paces away. She found some bushes and a comfortable mosscovered stone, and sank down thankfully. Yawning, she rubbed at her shoulders and aching feet. Then she stiffened. There was a tiny fluttering inside her; spellfire tingling faintly… building again.
She bent her will to calling the inner fire up, feeling it surge and roil about within her. When Shandril felt ready, she stood and hurled a tongue of flame between the two trunks of a forked duskwood tree.
They smoked and creaked in the heat, but neither burst into flame.
Pleased, she threw spellfire again. This time her target was a small cluster of leaves: could she burn them off their branch without disturbing other leaves nearby? The cluster flared and was gone; a few flames flickered and then died in their wake. Shandril frowned; she'd burned more leaves than she'd meant to.
None of the three travelers saw the medallion begin to smolder. When the next burst of spellfire lashed out at a small patch of toadstools, the medallion pulsed with momentary fire. Drifting smoke showed that only a blackened patch remained where the toadstools had been; the medallion melted into a tiny remnant that crumbled and fell apart, unseen.
When next spellfire licked out in a curving arc this time, reaching around behind a stout treemalevolent eyes were watching, as before…
"Watch well," Gathlarue said softly, looking into the glowing crystal, "and remember-this is not a fire spell. The maid's fire cleaves all spell barriers we know of and will scatter any wall of fire you or I might raise."
Mairara lifted an eyebrow. "I find it hard to credit that wench with wits enough to stand up to any mage of skill."
"She is said to have forced Lord Manshoon himself to flee," Tespril whispered. Her eyes were large and very dark; Gathlarue was pleased to see that at least one of her apprentices was smart enough to be scared.
She stretched, then favored them both with a smile. "We shall watch and learn much more before we move against Shandril ourselves."
She ran her fingers idly through a lock of Mairara's long, glossy black hair, and as its owner smiled at her, sat back from the crystal and told Tespril, "Order our evenfeast brought to us, here. Tonight we'll have rare entertainment to watch; the main troop of Zhentilar are to try their luck at capturing Shandril.
The idiot sword-swingers are such crude fumblers they've been assigned one of Fzoul's best priests in case they should kill Shandril by mischance."
The apprentices laughed merrily, and Tespril bowed and hastened away to give the orders.
"Lady," Mairara whispered, bending over her mistress, "is this spellfire really so much more powerful than the spells of, say, a pair of capable archmages?"
"Watch," Gathlarue murmured at her senior apprentice. "Watch what befalls tonight, in my crystal… and govern your own mind in the matter."
Mairara nodded, somber eyes on her, and then looked up swiftly as Tespril returned.
"The men are taking bets on how this night's battle will turn out," the younger apprentice said, chuckling. "They want to know who commands the Zhentilar."
Gathlarue smiled. "Karkul Memrimmon leads," she said. "A great beast of a man who fights with spiked gauntlets, and never stays out of the fray."
"You've met him, Lady?" Tespril's tone was teasing, her eyes bright.
"I kept well out of his reach," Gathlarue told her. "He's the sort who'd get thrown out of taverns I wouldn't go into…"
Spellfire crackled satisfyingly around the stump. Shandril watched a small thread of smoke curl up from the bark, and she nodded, satisfied. She could