It had been a mistake, aye, but-a firespitting wand that anyone could use! How often in a life did one get the chance to snatch one of those?
Perhaps just once, if those bully-blades caught up to him. Pounds of heavy armor they were wearing, and still closing! Catching up despite the miles he'd loped, then walked, and now staggered since stabbing the merchant.
Most traders had guards who were only too glad to plunder the baggage and be gone when you slew their masters, but… most merchants didn't wander the Chionthar-bank trails with wands thrust through their belts, either.
He didn't need to see the face of the Master of Shadows to know all too well that the lady with the sword-gods, what a beauty! — had been right. He had to get out of Scornubel in haste or die.
Following the Chionthar couldn't get him lost but wasn't a road the Master's Eyes could ride swiftly along, seeking him. West it led, to Baldur's Gate, where he could take ship for Water deep to hide amongst the throngs.
Besmer knew better than to take a barge downriver. If he was spotted, signals could race to Scornubel and back, and his execution could be ordered without any warning to him.
What he hadn't known better than to do was put his dagger through the throat of that boastful merchant, after the man's pack-train had come out of nowhere to the pool Besmer was drinking from. Who'd have thought a dead man could command such loyalty?
Perhaps they just wanted the wand as much as he did. 'Twas a beautiful thing, a massive and smooth-wrought metal grip that fit the hand beautifully, mated to a jewel-studded carved wood shaft. As he staggered on, his hand went to its reassuring comfort time and time again. More like a royal scepter than a wizard's wand. Those were usually plain sticks of wood, but this gaudy thing was real enough. He'd seen that merchant blast a boar and clearly heard the muttered word that unleashed a ball of fire. It had streamed across the pool, trailing sparks, and cooked the boar before it could even begin its charge.
A dinner none of them would ever enjoy, now. He'd had the man's throat open and the wand in his own hand in a trice and been off through the tall grass before a single bodyguard had even shouted. They'd set off after him like hounds, not hesitating a moment, and not giving up as the miles passed and hills rose and fell under their boots.
None of them had turned back even after he'd given the two swiftest the wand they so wanted-or at least its fireballs, two air-shattering blasts that turned hard-striding men to whirling ashes. The surviving bodyguards had been careful to keep well apart from each other after that.
He touched the wand again. He'd never had magic at his command before, and gods, now he knew why wizards swaggered so! What power! Look at someone, point your wand, say a word, and wham! Knight or lord, priest or mage, they went down, gone in smoke at your whim.
Oh, he could see why they wanted this wand, all right. He didn't want to use it too often, lest there be some limit to the fires it held… particularly if he used it all before getting away from these doggedly pursuing men. His feet felt like two heavy-laden coffers, his lungs burned, and he was starting to slip and stumble. He had to catch his breath, win time to rest Blarrrgh! Besmer fell on his face, slid to a stop and hopped upright again, his ankle shrieking protest. He hobbled on, downslope, and had to look back. One of them was cresting the height he'd just left already, teeth bared in an angry grin.
Tymora claw Beshaba for me now! Nothing could stop that man from catching him before he reached the bottom of the slope. Besmer assumed a look of despair, drew the wand and held it concealed, close to his body. He waited until the man's thudding boots were growing loud behind him, then whirled, said the word, and pointed.
The blast of flame snatched him back off his feet and hurled him away, head ringing and half-blinded. He'd seen the man's agonized, spreadeagled body outlined by fire, ere he'd been whirled away, but… 'twas done.
Shaking his head to clear it, Besmer got up and stumbled on, never seeing the dark, wraith-like cloud descending out of the sky behind his shoulders.
Waterdeep had been glorious, a feast of magics, and Evaereol Rathrane had grown strong enough to manifest hands that could snatch and hold and carry. Greatness soon to come was more than a dream now.
Yet he still dropped things from time to time, and found it easier by far to drift along as a shifting, shapeless cloud, as he was drifting now, excited by his whelmed power but wary. The world had changed much since his days in Jethaere.
These humans would have marveled at Jethaere of the Towers, and might well have been less arrogant than to call their crowded, stinking harbor-huddle a "City of Splendors," but they rolled in magic-magic so carelessly and lavishly used as to seemingly be held of little value.
Yet Waterdeep had not been an unguarded treasure-house. Rathrane still shuddered at the remembered pain of its wards and leaping enchantments and the spells hurled by furious mages who saw him and lashed out without a moment's hesitation. Flames too bright and too close still burned more than they succored.
He'd fled from pain, lashed and hooked and scorched, out over wilderlands once more, drifting on from where a frantic flight from guardian-gargoyles had taken him in the painful aftermath of his last and worst attempt to snatch magic in Waterdeep. Wizards of Jethaere would never have spun spells in such a rough-and-tumble way, nor spent so much Art for clawing guardian beasts. Would every last mage's tower be girt with such fearsome sentinels as well as the more subtle, exacting, and expected wards? Such fastnesses should be out here, yes, far from Magic blossomed below, bright and sudden, and the shadowy thing that had been Rathrane of Jethaere smiled an unseen smile and sank swiftly toward that beckoning glow.
Mhegras of the Zhentarim groaned as he swam out of darkness and blinked awake. He lay still and silent on his back, hearing little rustlings in tangled and interwoven branches above him. He was weak and sore, and when he strove to lift a hand, it was some time before his quavering fingers rose into view. "Bane preserve me," he whispered hoarsely, watching them tremble.
"Pray indeed to our Dark and Dread Lord," a familiar voice said sourly from close by, "for by his will we're delivered from death." Sabran, no doubt lying here too. Those Harpers, a grip like iron…
Mhegras thrust away that frightening memory with a whimper, and weighed the priest's words. Bewilderment came. "H-he took direct interest in us?"
"Nay," Sabran snarled in low tones, "the spell that brought us back was mine, cast beforehand at the cost of a life for each of us, lives provided by those two idiot weavers in the squeaking wagon. Great Bane granted that spell to me. I didn't think much of your protective magics-rightly, as it turns out."
Mhegras scowled and tried to sit up. There was a moment of trees and sky whirling around, sickening weakness, and… he was lying on his back again, looking up at the sky, with fresh aches, and mists drifting through his thoughts. His neck…
He moved his head a little, to make the pain go away, but it got worse. He groaned again.
"Wait," Sabran hissed, "and be glad those two Harpers just broke our necks and threw us down in this ditch, that they didn't go chopping pieces off us or looting our pouches. If you give my magic time to finish its work, you'll be able to walk. If we can find something to eat, we'll soon feel as if nothing happened to us."
Mhegras felt his fingers itching. When he lifted them into view, he saw that they were twitching uncontrollably. Marvellous for casting spells! He let his hands fall back, clawed the ground beside him in sudden fury, and announced harshly, "When I get my hands on that Arauntar, he'll wish nothing happened, too-for the few moments I give him, before my conjured brainbore-worm burrows into one of his eyes and starts gnawing his brain!"