One of the guards sauntered over, trying not to appear unsteady on his feet. "Wa.s.ss this?" He stirred the fallen man with his foot.

"I'll tell your commander. Trust me, h.e.l.l want to see this one right away."

The Zhents exchanged glances, then turned away. One turned back, while the other disappeared into the tent.

"Well get Lieutenant Tha.s.s."

"I want to see the commander, not some lieutenant."

"You'll see Tha.s.s. h.e.l.l 'tide who you see next. He'll be here in m'nit." He slumped back down on the cask he'd been sitting on.

The tall man looked beyond the guard tent at the rest of the oasis. It was bustling with activity. A long line of Bedine tribesmen were pa.s.sing buckets filled with sand from hand to hand, supervised by purple-robed Zhents, many of whom bore whips or clubs. The sand was being drawn from a central excavation, perhaps fifty feet wide. Even from a distance, the visitor could see a network of ladders and ropes descending into it. A heavy wooden framework had been erected over it with a wheel to haul up the buckets of sand from the shovels of unseen diggers. The air was full of the groan of the wheel, the creaking of the wooden supports, the moaning of the tribesmen, and the shouts and curses of the Zhents.

A Black Robe with an air of authority strode toward the guard tent, his clothing snapping with impatience. He glanced at the sentries then dealt one of them a slap that spun the man around and knocked him bleeding to the ground.

"Fool! Drunk on duty!"

He lifted a hand and inscribed a gesture in the air. The guard screamed, and his hand came up to one cheek. A thin stream of smoke spurted between his fingers as he shrieked with pain. When he brought his hand down, the visitor could see the raw, red mark of the brand that had been magically inscribed on the guard's skin.

The lieutenant turned his attention to the two men before him, while the other guard splashed liquor on his companion's wound and led him back into their tent."Who are you, and why are you traveling this way? It's prohibited to come near this place, on pain of death. By rights, I should flay the flesh from your bones here and now, but I'm in an exceptionally good mood today, so I'll listen to your story before I kill you both."

The tall man did not back down.

"I think you'll be happy to have custody of this one." He kicked the rec.u.mbent figure before him.

This is Avarilous, a so-called merchant. In fact, he's a spy. He was paid by the Bedine to come here and find out what you're up to."

The lieutenant looked at him in astonishment then burst into a bray of laughter.

"A spy! A nice job he seems to have made of it. What did the Bedine sc.u.m offer to pay him with?

Camel dung? Goat meat?" His eyes narrowed as he looked at Garmansder. "Who are you, and why are you telling me this?"

"I am Garmansder of Luskan. I'm a mercenary, hired by this fool to be his guard. When I found out what he was up to, I thought I'd get a better price from the Zhentarim for his head than anything the Bedine-or he-might pay me." He shrugged. "So here he is for you to play with."

Lieutenant Tha.s.s crouched by Avarilous's head and stared thoughtfully into the merchant's eyes, which were reddened from the blowing sand of the desert.

"So the little Bedine fools are getting worried about what we're doing here," he said, as if to himself.

"Good. Good. Fear will feed on itself. Especially when I send their spy back to them in a basket, or several baskets." He chuckled. "Perhaps they'll pa.s.s on their concerns to the Shadovar, who will be more willing to deal with us.

"What's that?" He bent his ear near Avarilous's cracked, bleeding lips.

"Shadovar... would never... deal with Zhentarim... crush you first." The words dropped like tears in the dust.

The lieutenant chuckled and rose to his feet. "Well see, fool."

He twisted his hand, and Avarilous's body was jerked to its feet. The rope binding the merchant flew from Garmansder's hand to that of the lieutenant.

"Drashka! Get your lazy carca.s.s out here this instant, unless you want to wear your entrails for a necklace!"

From a shelter farther within the encampment, another guard emerged cautiously and saluted. "Yes, sir?"

"I'll take this sc.u.m to Commander Hesach's tent. The commander will want to talk to him in a few minutes, so you'd better have someone bring the instruments. I'll keep an eye on him until Hesach's ready-he's slippery as an eel. And Drashka ..." He tossed the end of the rope to the lieutenant. "I've got my eye on you. You watched those two idiot guards drink on duty and did nothing to stop them. Let me catch that sort of thing again and you'll be scorpion bait!"

Garmansder cleared his throat loudly. The lieutenant glanced at him.

"Ah, yes. Your reward."

Tha.s.s fumbled inside his robe for a minute and produced a pouch, tossing it to the tall man.

Garmansder looked inside it and opened his mouth to argue when he caught the lieutenant's icy eye and thought better of it.

He swept the pouch out of sight and said, "I'd like a bed for the night."

Lieutenant Tha.s.s grunted and turned to the guard. "Drashka, take this fellow and find him a place to sleep, but be sure he's on his way tomorrow at first light." He looked at Garmansder with narrowed eyes. "After all, a traitor might find the habit of betrayal hard to break. Perhaps it might be simpler to return two traitors to the Bedine."

Garmansder shook his head vigorously. "Trust me, my lord. I'm heading west and south for friendlier lands, where an honest mercenary can make a living. I've no desire to get mixed up in the affairs of wizards-whether Zhentarim or Shadovar."

The lieutenant's shout of laughter was tossed over his shoulder as he stalked toward his tent.

Left alone, Garmansder and the guard eyed one another with the cautious looks of two dogs circling before a fight. The mercenary dug into the recesses of his robe and produced a stoneware bottle thatsloshed pleasantly with liquid.

"Raki, lifted from the Bedine. Know somewhere we can share it in peace?"

Avarilous, bound to a crude chair, sat facing Commander Hesach across a rough wooden table.

The Zhentarim commander was stocky, running toward fat. His black robes stretched tight across his ample belly, and his face was pitted and scarred, creased with lines that the harsh candlelight of the tent emphasized. He paced about a table, in the center of which were a variety of implements. Their purpose the merchant needed no one to explain. Despite their disconcerting presence, however, his face was composed, and he spoke calmly.

"I have no objection to telling you what I was sent here to do. After all, the Bedine have no claim to my allegiance beyond what price they offered to pay."

"What price was that?" Hesach snorted.

"A thousand pieces of gold," the merchant said.

The commander snorted in disbelief. "I wouldn't have thought they had anything like that."

Avarilous shrugged. "Raiding against caravans seems to have been successful this season. In any case, I haven't seen a copper from them yet. Perhaps the Zhentarim might find more use for my services.

It would hardly be the first time I've dealt with those of the Black Network."

"Perhaps. Tell me precisely what you were sent to find, and I may consider it. Then again, I may simply agree to give you a quick death and let it go at that."

Avarilous stretched against his ropes and glanced casually around the interior of the tent. It was richly furnished with rugs and tapestries. Hesach lounged near one wall on a richly carved sedan covered in the skins of desert lions.

"The Bedine seem to feel you are looking for an artifact from the Buried Realms. They seem to think you may have found it."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

The commander gave a negligent gesture, and Avarilous's head jerked back as if he'd been slapped.

He shuddered.

"They believe you're trying to build a power base here. Are you?"

"Kindly remember that I'm asking the questions. It will go better for you if you do."

Hesach bit into a pomegranate and let the juice dribble down his chin in a pink stream.

Grinning at his prisoner, he said, The desert rats are more right than they know." He rose and plunged his hand into a silver-bound chest. "What do you think of that?"

In his palm rested a tiny amulet. It seemed, to Avarilous's weary eyes, to twinkle and glitter, almost as if a star had been imprisoned within it.

He said cautiously, "It's obviously magical. What of it?"

"What of it? What of it?" The commander laughed. "You fat idiot, do you know what this is?"

"A magical amulet." Avarilous sounded bored.

"Ha! This amulet would allow me to control the very sands of the desert, to raise them in a storm, to level them in a sheet of sand that could sweep my enemies before it. It would make me master of the desert."

"It would" observed Avarilous, "but it won't. It's chipped and cracked. In that condition, I doubt you'd get more than a handful of copper pieces at any market in Calimport.

"True, fool, but where there's one, there must be more!" Commander Hesach tossed the amulet into the chest and sank back onto his couch. "For years, we Zhentarim have searched beneath these sands for the treasures of Netheril. Now, at last, I've found them!"

"You haven't found anything more than a cracked amulet yet," said Avarilous.

His body was relaxed against the ropes, but his eyes flickered back and forth across the tent as if seeking a means of escape."Not yet, but soon. Soon our diggers will break through into the h.o.a.rd that rests below this place. I will control it. I will rise in power. Even Fzoul Chembryl himself will speak with me, will treat with me as an equal. In time, perhaps even I shall take his place at the head of our order."

His voice had risen in volume, and he was now shouting, flecks of spittle spraying from his juice-stained lips. In full cry, he caught himself and smiled nastily at his captive.

"But you. What shall I do with you?"

Raki is a liquor not for the faint of heart or stomach. Its taste is foul, even to those used to it, and in some parts of Faerun it is used as rat poison. But it does have the virtue of getting one drunk extremely quickly.

Garmansder and Drashka staggered out of the shadow of the tent against which they had been sitting and came into the afternoon sunshine, casting long shadows across the desert. The air was still warm, but a chill wind was beginning to blow, portending the bleak night to come.

Drashka flung an arm around Garmansder's shoulders.

"So. Wha'sh a fine fellow like you doing working for a ... a shpy? Coo'nt you tell something was wrong with him? I mean ..." He stopped, turned, and vomited copiously before resuming his speech as if nothing had happened. "I mean wha's he doing wandering around in the middle of the desert? Din't you ever ask?"

Garmansder swayed slightly. "He was paying good gold. A mercenary never asks. Not if he wants to keep being a mershenary." He laughed inanely. "I mean, if it comes to that, what're you doing working for the Zhents out here in the middle o' nowhere?"

Drashka looked around carefully and put a finger against his lips. "Shhh. It's ... a ... secret!" He nodded impressively. "Wanna know what it is?"

Garmansder shook his head. "Nah. Better not tell, if it's a secret and everything."

"Right. Right. All right, I'll won' tell you." He grabbed Garmansder's arm. "I'll show you."

The two men made their way across the camp to where the scaffolding loomed over the excavation.

Activity around the site had ceased, and as the evening grew darker, a few torches flickered around the site, making the gloom seem even blacker. Here and there, campfires glowed. The Bedine had been herded by their Zhentarim overseers back to some unseen camp, but in the distance the two men could hear the unearthly wails of their singing. The sound floated over the desert and hung like crystal in the dark air.

Drashka made his way unsteadily to the edge of the excavation. A flimsy rail ran between the wooden uprights that held the scaffolding in place, and a few torches on long poles thrust into the sand illuminated the scene. The lieutenant staggered, and Garmansder grabbed his arm.

"Careful. You wanna fall?"

Drashka considered the question for a moment then shook his head. "You fall in there, you'd have a long time to think before you bit the bottom. Lissen!"

He groped for a loose stone and dropped it into the pit. Both men held their breaths until at last, far away, magnified by the walls of the shaft, they heard the distant thunk! of stone on stone.

Garmansder nodded, impressed. "So wa.s.sit all "bout?" He leaned against an upright and took another draught of raki.

Drashka gestured toward the pit. "We're lookin' for magic. Magic stuff from Netheril. You know.

Stuff they lost when the cities fell down and th' empire crashed."

"So?" The mercenary held out the bottle to his companion. "Everbody knows that stuff was lost a long time ago. Why d'you think you can find it now?"

" 'Cause we already found part of it." Drashka swigged from the bottle and snickered. "We already found stuff, and we're gonna bring up more stuff. Magical stuff."

Garmansder snorted. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"Maybe you'd like to see it." Drashka straightened up and hurled the raki bottle into the pit. Itsmashed against the far side, and the fragments fell into the gulf.

"Hey!" cried the mercenary. "There was more in there!"

"That's all right." The guard's voice was strong, without a trace of slurred, drunken speech. "You can go after it."

He lunged forward with the speed of a striking snake. One hand thrust against the mercenary's shoulder, shoving him back into the blackness beyond the upright. Garmansder shouted, as one hand darted up to clutch at a dangling rope. He swung out and over the pit, then back, landing farther around the rim, some ten feet from where he'd started. A sword was already glittering in his hand when he landed.

Drashka stared then laughed. "I see I wasn't the only one pretending to drink that rot gut." He drew his own blade and stepped forward.

Garmansder retreated cautiously around the pit, his eyes on his opponent's sword. Drashka came on, slashing, his blade whistling through the night air. The guard thrust savagely, and the mercenary, barely avoiding being spitted, stumbled and struck against the rail. The wood shattered, and Garmansder, with a cry, fell sideways into the pit.

With a yell of triumph, Drashka rushed to see the body of his foe hurtling downward. Then he staggered back, blood spurting from a long cut along his cheek. The mercenary was clinging with one hand to the support timbers that lined the side of the pit. In the other hand he still held his sword.

His muscles bulged and he gave a groan of effort as he pulled himself one-handed from the darkness. He heaved his torso onto solid ground and rolled sideways as Drashka struck at him. The soldier's blade left a trail of red in the sand as it slashed across Garmansder's ribs.

The mercenary rolled to his feet. With his free hand he grasped a torch and threw it.

The flames touched and ignited the guard's flowing robe. He tried to beat out the fire with one hand, but it engulfed him. Shrieking, he dropped his sword, whirling, staggering. The sands gave way under his feet and he fell into the darkness. Garmansder could see the sides of the pit lit by the flames as Drashka, still screaming, fell and fell, until there was a faint crash, then silence.