"A handless man casts few spells," the Mad Mage laughed cruelly, chopping and slashing. Elminster hissed out a spell as he dodged and ducked, and with a wild, tortured shriek, the sorcerous blade shattered into bright stars of force.

The blast sent him rolling helplessly away, head ringing. El writhed and groaned. For a breath or two the hawk-nosed prince could do no more than lie on the stones twisting in pain.

Ilhundyl shuddered and wrung his hands, willing away the pain the blast had wrought in them. When he'd mastered control of his trembling fingers again, he raised a shield-spell around himself and stalked forward. His lips curved from a thin line of pain into a cold smile of antic.i.p.ation.

When he was close enough to touch the writhing intruder, the Mad Mage carefully cast the most powerful and complex spell he knew-and leaned forward to hook one finger into Elminster's ear.

If the soul-drain succeeded, he would gain all the spells and knowledge this intruder possessed. Entering the helpless man's mind, Ilhundyl bore down through the roiling pain he found there, seeking to find and break this upstart's will. Instead, he felt his probe pounced on and slashed at. He threw back his head, hissing in pain, but did not break the contact.. . yet. It would take hours to memorize this spell again, and if his prisoner died, it would all be for nothing-or if the mage recovered, the fight would begin anew.

Suddenly he was falling, plunging into a dark void in the other man's mind, and out of nowhere and everywhere a blade of white flame was stabbing and cutting him, shearing through his very self. Screaming, Ilhundyl fell away from the sprawled mage, breaking contact. G.o.ds, the pain! Shaking his head to clear it, he crawled away through a yellow haze.

When it cleared, he turned ... and saw Elminster struggling to his own knees, vainly raking through his own gore to recover a ring with fingers that had been chopped away. Angrily, Ilhundyl hissed the words of a short, simple spell and stepped back to watch his foe die.

The spell manifested. Bony claws coalesced out of empty air into sudden, harsh reality, and swarmed over Elminster-a score or more of them, raking and gouging with needle-sharp talons.

Ilhundyl smiled as they did their gruesome work . . . and then his jaw dropped. They were fading away! The claws were ebbing back into the air, leaving the b.l.o.o.d.y wreck of a man still living.

"What befalls?" the Mad Mage angrily asked Faerun at large as he strode forward.

"Doom," said a low voice from behind him. Ilhundyl whirled.

A dark-eyed woman was growing from his own front door, stepping smoothly out of the dark wood to confront him. She was tall and lithe, and wore robes of dark green. Black, liquid eyes under arched brows met his own . . . and Ilhundyl saw his death in them. The Mad Mage was still stammering an incantation when white fire, brighter than anything he'd ever seen, leapt from one of her slim-fingered hands at him.

Ilhundyl stared helplessly at her beautiful, merciless face. And then the roaring flames swept into and through him, and her bone-white face and the sky behind it darkened in his failing gaze.

Through the blood dripping into his eyes, Elminster saw the Mad Mage swept away and consumed in a single roaring moment.

"Wha-What spell was that?" El croaked.

"No spell, but spellfire," Myrjala told him crisply. "Now get up, fool, before all Ilhundyl's rivals arrive to seize what they can. We must be gone by then."

She turned and blasted the Castle of Sorcery with that same all-consuming fire. The Great Gate vanished, and the halls beyond collapsed in flames.

Elminster struggled to his feet somehow, spitting blood. "But his magic! Lost, now, all-"

Myrjala turned back to him. The slim hands that had hurled magical fire an instant before now held a thick, battered old book. She thrust it into Elminster's mangled hands; the pain of the contact nearly made him drop it. "His important work is here-now we must go!"

Elminster's eyes narrowed as he looked at her; somehow her tone seemed different. But perhaps he was just too hurt to hear aright... he nodded wearily.

Myrjala touched his cheek, and they were suddenly elsewhere: an echoing cavern. Fungi on its walls glowed a faint blue and green here and there.

Elminster stumbled and with an effort caught his balance, cradling the spellbook. "Where-are we?"

"One of my hideaways," Myrjala said, peering around alertly. "This was once part of an elven city. We're deep under Nimbral, an island in the Great Sea."

Elminster looked around and then down at the book in his hands. When he raised his watery eyes to meet hers, they held a strange look. "Ye knew him?"

Myrjala's eyes were very dark. "I know many mages, Elminster," she said, almost warningly. "I've been around a long time . . . and I did not live this long by recklessly challenging every archmage I heard of."

"Ye don't want me to go to Athalantar yet," Elminster said slowly, eyes on hers.

Myrjala shook her head. "You're not ready. Your magic is still unsubtle, brutal, and predictable-doomed to fail when greater force contests against you."

"Teach me wisdom, then," Elminster said, swaying on his feet.

She turned away. "Separate paths, remember?"

"Ye were watching over me," Elminster said to her back, desperately. "Following me ... why?"

Myrjala turned back to him slowly. Tears glimmered in her eyes. "Because ... I love you," she whispered.

"Stay with me, then," Elminster said. The book fell forgotten from his hands, but it took all his strength to stride forward and put his ravaged arms around her. "Teach me."

She hesitated, her dark eyes seeming to look deep into him.

Then, almost shuddering, she nodded.

A dark, triumphant fire rose in his eyes as their lips met.

Mirtul was a dry, windy month in the Year of the Wandering Leucrotta-especially in the hot, dusty lands of the east.

Elminster stood hard-eyed atop a wind-scoured cliff, glaring down at a castle of the sorcerer-kings far below. To reach it, he and Myrjala had ridden for a tenday or more past dead slaves stinking in the sun.

Here at last were their slayers. Through his eagle-eyes spell, Elminster watched b.l.o.o.d.y whips rise and fall in that courtyard, laying open the bodies of the last slaves. All life had fled already, but the sorcerers flailed on, weaving an evil magic with the fading life-forces of the men and women they'd slain.

In anger, El lashed out with spells of his own devising. The magics fell through the air in a bright web, and Elminster stepped off the cliff to follow them. He was striding along on empty air over the castle when it began to topple. He stopped to watch, standing angrily above the dust, screams, and tumult.

Something rose up out of a shattered window, with men in robes riding it. Elminster fired a bolt down to blast them. The enchanted flyer shattered amid explosive brightness; the men on it jerked like flung dolls and fell back into the ruins. They did not rise again. Stones tumbled to a halt, and the rumble of their falling slowly died. When the dust had settled, Elminster turned, face grim, and walked back through the air to join Myrjala on the heights.

Her dark eyes lifted from the ruined castle, and she asked softly, "And was that the wisest, least wasteful thing to do?"

Anger glinted in Elminster's eyes. "Aye, if it'll make the next band of fools think twice about using such fell magic."

"Yet some wizards'll do so anyway. Will you murder them, too?"

Elminster shrugged. "If need be. Who is to stop me?"

"Yourself." Myrjala looked down at the castle again. "Reminds one of Heldon, doesn't it?" she asked quietly, not looking at him.

Elminster opened his mouth to refute her-and then closed his mouth again in silence, watching her step calmly off the height and walk steadily away, treading softly on the air. His gaze fell to the ruin below, and he shivered in sudden shame. Sighing, El turned from what he had wrought-and then looked helplessly down again at the castle. He did not know any spells to put it back up again.

It was a warm night in early Flamerule, in the Year of the Chosen. Elminster awoke drenched with sweat, flinging himself upright to stare with wild eyes at the moon. Myrjala sat up in bed beside him, hair flowing around her shoulders, eyes dark with worry. "You were shouting," she said.

Elminster reached for her, and she folded him into her arms as a mother cradles a frightened child.

"I saw Athalantar," El whispered, staring into the night. "I was walking the streets of Hastarl, and there were sneering wizards wherever I looked. And when I stared at them, they fell over dead ... terror on their faces...."

Myrjala held him and said calmly, "It sounds as if you're ready for Athalantar at last."

Elminster turned to look at her. "And if I live through purging it of magelords-what then? This vow has driven me for so long ... what should I do with my life?"

"Why, rule Athalantar, of course."

"Now that the throne comes into my reach," Elminster said slowly, "I find myself wanting it less and less."

The arms around him tightened. "That's good," Myrjala said quietly. "I've grown weary waiting for you to grow up."

Elminster looked at her and frowned. "Outgrowing blind vengeance? I suppose ... why go through with it all, then?"

Myrjala looked at him steadily in the darkness, her dark eyes large and mysterious. "For Athalantar. For your dead mother and father-and all who lived and laughed in Heldon before the dragon came down on them. For the folk in the taproom of the Unicorn's Horn, and those in Narthil . . . and for your outlaw comrades who died in the Horn Hills."

Elminster's lip's thinned. "We'll do it," he said with quiet determination. "Athalantar shall be free of magelords. I swear before Mystra: I'll do this or die in the trying."

Myrjala said nothing as she held him, but he could feel her smile.

Fifteen.

AND THE PREY IS MAN.

In mighty towers they quake with fright for the man who kills mages is out tonight.

Bendoglaer Syndrath, Bard of Barrowhill, from the ballad Death to All Mages Year of the Bent Coin Eleasias was a wet month that year. On the fourth successive stormy night, Myrjala and Elminster were thankful to duck out of the rain into a tavern on a muddy back street in Launtok.

"That's the last of the Athalantan envoys put to flight. Their masters have certainly noticed us by now," Myrjala said with some satisfaction as they settled into a corner booth with their tankards.

"On to the magelords, then," Elminster said, rubbing his hands together thoughtfully. He leaned forward. "Ye've warned me often against charging in with fireb.a.l.l.s blazing in both hands ... so do we spread a few rumors of plots and unrest, sit back in hiding, and let them kill each other for a while, trying to see who'll sit in the best spell-tower?"

Myrjala shook her head. "While we sat, they'd destroy Athalantar along with each other." She sipped her ale, winced, and gave the tankard a dark look. "Besides, that'd work only if we'd destroyed the most powerful archwizards, the leaders of the magelords . . . thus far, we've only foiled the buffoons and the most reckless fools."

"What next, then?" Elminster asked, taking a deep drink of ale.

Myrjala arched one shapely eyebrow. "This is your vengeance."

Elminster set down his tankard and licked foam from the beginnings of a mustache. Myrjala looked amused, but her companion was intent on his thoughts.

"I never thought I'd feel this," he said slowly, "but after Ilhundyl and those slave-sorcerers . . . I've had a bellyful of vengeance." He looked up. "So how should we work it? Attack Athalgard, trying to slay all the magelords we can before they know a foe's come calling?"

Myrjala shrugged and told her tankard, "Some folk get a thrill out of destroying things. With most, the delight fades quickly. The G.o.ds don't suffer the others to live all that long-if a mage goes about just hurling spells, he eventually runs into someone else doing the same thing, with just a few more spells up his sleeve."

She lifted her eyes to meet Elminster's. "If you tried a hurl-all-fireb.a.l.l.s attack on the magelords, bear in mind how much countryside you'd destroy-and all of it'd be Athalantar, the realm you're fighting for. They won't all obligingly challenge you one after another, each one politely awaiting his turn to die."

Elminster sighed. "Stealth and years in the doing, then." He sipped from his tankard. "So tell me how ye think we should go about this. Ye're the elder of us two; I'll do as ye say."

Myrjala shook her head. "It's past time to think for yourself, Elminster; look at me as your teacher no more, but an ally in your fight."

El looked at her grave expression, nodded slowly, and said, "Ye're right, as always. Well... if we're to avoid huge spell-battles, magelords must be lured into situations where we can fight them alone and they won't be able to call on all their fellows for aid. We'll have to lay some traps-and if just the two of us go up against them, sooner or later we will end up in a mighty spell-contest. If we and the magelords both hurl flames at each other, there's going to be a fire."

Myrjala nodded. "And so?" she asked quietly.

"We need allies to fight with us," El said, "but who?" He stared at the table in frowning silence.

Myrjala took up her tankard again and stared thoughtfully at her reflection in it. "You've said more than once you wanted fitting justice to befall the magelords," she said carefully. "What could be more right than calling on the elves of the High Forest, and the thieves in Hastarl, and Helm and his knights? 'Tis their realm you're fighting to free, too."

Elminster started to shake his head, then grew very still, as his eyes slowly narrowed. "Ye're right," he said in a small voice. "Why am I always so blind?"

"Lack of attention; I've told you before," Myrjala said crisply-and when he looked at her in irritation, she grinned at him and extended gentle fingers to stroke one of his hands. After a moment, El smiled back at her.

"I'll have to travel about the realm cloaked in magic and speak to them," he said slowly, thinking it through, "because they know ye not." He sipped ale again. "And as a magelord may notice me and 'tis never wise to reveal all one's strengths too soon, ye'd best stay out of sight."

The dark-eyed sorceress nodded. "Yet in case the magelords come down on you in earnest, I'd best accompany you-in other shapes than my own, of course-to fight at your side if need be."

El smiled at her. "I'd not want to be parted from ye now, to be sure. Should we try to raise the common folk of the realm to our cause?" Then he answered his own question. "Nay, they'd flee before the first spell hurled against them, and once roused would strike out blindly until as much ruin is spread across the realm as if enraged magelords were using spells without restraint . . . and whether we won or lost, they'd die by the hundreds, like sheep led to slaughter."

Myrjala nodded. "You were first trained in magic by the elves ... they would seem the most important allies to gain."

El frowned. "They use their magic to aid, nurture, and reshape, not to blast things in battle."

Myrjala lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "If all you're seeking in allies is folk to stand beside you and add battle-spells to your own, much of the realm will be riven in the struggle. You need to find folk with strengths you lack ... and their decision to aid you or not will shape everything; you need to know if they'll stand with you before you contact the others. Moreover, you know where to find the elves ... with less likelihood of a mage-lord watching than in Hastarl or the Horn Hills."

Elminster nodded. "Good sense. When should we begin?"

"Now," Myrjala replied crisply.

They traded grins. A moment later, two tankards settled onto an empty table. The tavernkeeper, frowning anxiously, hurried over to the sound-and glumly collected the two tankards from the bare board. They rattled.

He peered in. A silver coin lay at the bottom of each. He brightened, shrugged, and tipped the coins, sticky with beer-foam, into his hand. Juggling them, he headed back for the bar. These wizards' coins'd spend as well as any . . . and as fast, more's the pity....

El stopped when he came to the little knoll in the heart of the High Forest, knelt and murmured a prayer to Mystra, and then sat down on the flat stone beside the little pool. Almost immediately his spell-shield flickered as something unseen-an elf, no doubt-tested it, seeking to learn who he was. El stood, looking around at the duskwood, shadowtop, and blueleaf trees that pressed close about the knoll. "Well met!" he called cheerfully and sat down again.

In patient silence he waited, so long a time that even an elf could grow restive. From the gloom beneath the trees strode a silent elf in mottled green, a strung bow in his hand. His face was still, but his eyes were not friendly.

"Magelords aren't welcome here," he said, setting a shaft to his bow.

Elminster made no move. "I am a mage, but no magelord," he replied calmly.

The elf did not lower his bow. "Who else would know of this place?" As he spoke, seven more elven archers stepped out of the trees all around the knoll. The points of their aimed arrows glowed a vivid blue-too much magic for even the strongest shield to withstand.