The floor crumbled beneath Lanaxis's feet, and dark walls of sheer stone rose around him. He felt himself sinking and realized he was descending intothe frozen plain, pulling Bleak Palace and all of Ostoria down after him. Soon, nothing would remain of the empire of the giants except the toppled columns and scattered b.u.t.tresses of their ancient palaces, and for causing that, it seemed to Lanaxis that even the eternal cold of Othea's shadow would never be punishment enough.

Snow began to fall. The flakes were large and heavy, almost like sleet. In the sky, Lanaxis saw, as Dunmore had promised, nothing but cold twilight.

THE WALLS OF MIDNIGHT

Mark Anthony

And with a single spell, Ckai-el-Ckaan forged a tower of shadow from the cold bones of the mountain. He named it Gurthang, which in the old tongue is "midnight," and within its onyx walls he hid away his greatest relic of power, the Finger of Ckai-el-Ckaan. It is written in prophecy that he who tries to climb the walls of Gurthang and fails will lose his life, but that he who tries and succeeds will lose his soul....

From Talfirian Eddas, circa 342 DR The warrior stood before a dark fortress, her indigo gaze calculating, her fine hands resting with easy strength against her hips. Sunlight glanced off her short, pale hair and soaked into the close-fitting black leather she wore.

After a time she swore, her breath conjuring ghosts on the autumn high- country air. The dark fortress soared above the granite walls of the remote mountain basin, a jagged onyx knife biting into a cold, windswept sky. Its outer wall looked as slick as gla.s.s. This was not going to be as simple as she had believed. Yet she had her mission, and she intended to complete it. The warrior's name was Ravendas, and long ago she had vowed to do whatever it took to be strong.

A tenday ago, she had pounded a fist against the gates of Darkhold, the western keep of the Zhentarim, seeking to become an agent of the Black Network. The dark confederation of power-hungry wizards, cruel warriors, and priests dedicated to wicked G.o.ds was constantly scheming to extend its dominion over the Heartlands. Thus the Zhentarim were always seeking likely new recruits eager to advance their lots in life. Deadly-looking guards had taken her inside, and she had been granted an audience wi th Sememmon, the lord of Darkhold.

"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 b.a.l.l.s!" she swore loudly, dropping the hammer and piton to clutch her stinging hand. By all the bloodiest G.o.ds, 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 pinp.r.i.c.ks 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 Gurthangyourself."

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 Heart lands. 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.sage 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.' "

Slowly the mage shut the book. "No one has ever climbed Gurthang. Not in a thousand years."

Ravendas could not suppress a shiver. "Then it's impossible," she whispered.

The mage nodded. "Apparently."

She swore vehemently and stood, pacing about the fire. "Then why would the Zhentarim send two prospective agents here, to prove their worth by attempting a task that mythical wizards couldn't accomplish? It makes no sense!"

"No, it doesn't," the mage said quietly. "Unless they considered these prospective agents a mere nuisance, of no great ability or use. Unless they never had any real intention of allowing them to join the Zhentarim."

Instantly Ravendas knew it was true. The Zhentarim had simply wished to be rid of her. Just like the mage. A nuisance of no great ability.

"We are fools," she spat.

The mage shrugged at this. "Perhaps. But then, the game has not been played to its end." He rose and banked the fire. "It's late. We should sleep."

Ravendas let out a deep breath. She locked away her fury, saving it for the morning light, when it might serve some purpose. She pulled her blanket from her pack and spread it on top of the mage's bedroll. He regarded her in surprise. Yes, she thought, he was indeed handsome.

"It's going to be cold tonight," she explained with a crooked grin. She burrowed beneath the woolen blankets. The mage laughed-the bells again, low and soft-and moved to join her.

The warrior and the mage rose early the next morning to begin the impossible-the scaling of Gurthang. His name was Marnok, and he came from the city of Illefarn far to the north. That much he told her as they broke camp in the steely predawn light.

"I am curious, warrior," he said as they gathered their things. "What makes you think we can accomplish something no other has in a thousand years?"

"Sometimes a rat can find a way into a castle barred against wolves," she replied mysteriously, shrugging her pack onto strong shoulders. "Besides, I'm not willing to let the Zhentarim defeat me. At least not yet. This isn't the first time I've done something others had said was impossible." She fixed him with her night-blue gaze. "Why? What makes you think we can do it?"

"You shall see," was his only answer.

She frowned at this, then set off across the barren, rocky basin, heading toward the beckoning finger of the fortress. The mage followed behind.

"So, am I to know your name or not?" he asked as they scrambled over a jumble of boulders.

"Ravendas."

He paused to look up at her, the cold wind tangling his long, copper-colored hair. "That's not your real name."

She froze without looking at him, then continued on. "It is my real name.

Now. But when I was a child, I was called Kela."

"Why did you take another name?" he asked as they reached the top of the boulder heap.They sat for a moment, catching their breath. The tops of the peaks surrounding the basin looked molten with the first touch of sunfire. "I'll tell you a story, Marnok. My father was a mercenary, one of the proudest warriors be- tween the Sword Coast and the Caravan Cities. Then a woman caught his eye. He married her, and to please her he put down his sword to take up farming. They had two daughters, and I suppose they were happy." She ran a hand through her short, white-gold hair. "Until one day when three brigands rode onto the farm. My father wanted to kill them, but my mother begged him not to resort to violence. So he strode outside to tell the highwaymen to leave.

They just laughed, and while my sister Kera and I watched, they gutted him where he stood."

Marnok regarded her sadly. "I'm sorry."

She laughed, a harsh sound. "Don't be. It taught me something I will never forget. Love shackled my father, made him forget his strength, and he paid for it with his life. That day I vowed I would never be weak like him. So when I was finally free of that house, I took a new name, a strong one. Kela was a child's name. It is notmy name." With that she started down the slope, leaving the mage to scramble after her.

The sun had just crested the eastern escarpment of the basin when they reached the fortress. Despite the new morning light, Gurthang was utterly black, an ancient sentinel keeping watch over the valley.

"All right, Marnok, how do we accomplish the impossible?" she asked.

From one of the myriad pouches at his belt he drew out a small clay jar marked by strange runes. "With this." He broke the jar's lead seal. She could see some sort of emerald green salve inside. "Give me your hands." She held them out, and he carefully spread a thin layer of salve over them. "Now, try to grip the wall."

She glared at him. Did he take her for an idiot?

"Grip the wall, Ravendas," he urged again.

She supposed she might as well discover what game he was playing.

Walking to the wall, she reached out and attempted to grasp the smooth black surface. Her fingers sank into the stone. She recoiled in shock, staring at her hands. Gradually realization dawned over her.

"Where did you get this, Marnok?"

His expression was unreadable. "I have my sources."

She turned back toward the wall and dug her fingers once more into the rock. It was a strange sensation, like plunging her hands into thick, cold mud.

She began pulling herself upward. Why should she wait for the mage, now that she had the means to reach the top herself?

"I wouldn't recommend climbing any higher."

Something in the mage's voice made her halt. She glared down at him.

"Why?"

"Come down and I'll show you."

She paused, thinking. True, there must be some reason Marnok had not simply used the salve himself to climb the wall. She let go and dropped lithely to the ground. The mage was peering into crevices and under rocks, searching for something.

"This will do," he said after a minute.

She approached and squatted down to see what he had found. It was a small, unidentifiable animal, long dead. Its flesh was gone, but dried sinewsbound its bones together. She could see by the worn, flat stubs of teeth in its skull that it had died an old animal. A few ragged tufts of fur still clung to the small carca.s.s.

"If you're hungry, you might want to find something a little fresher," she noted caustically.