The Stories of Elaine Cunningham

by Elaine Cunningham

  His hands flashed with a wizard's exquisite dexterity, adding a thread here and a new color there. Before long a pattern began to emerge. Glowing, silvery threads connected in a fine web. The fabric between this web, however, remained a dark and indeterminate color, deep as moon-cast shadows. Gnarfling frowned in puzzlement as he noted that Ursault was threading in some mud-splattered crimson. Even this bright color disappeared into the shadowy gloom.

  "What do you make of that?" he demanded.

  "That's the Weave," Ursault replied, naming the web of magic that surrounded and sustained all of Halruaa and, for all Gnarfling knew, the rest of the world as well. "At least, it's Ashtarahh's place in the Weave."

  Gnarfling leaned in and squinted. Sure enough, he could make out the faint outline of the village, as it might appear to a soaring hawk, carved out of the tightly packed web that represented the jungle. Fainter, thinner silver threads connected the fields and buildings, and tiny glowing dots seemed to mill about the open area-an uncanny representation of the market square and the people who readied it.

  This was the first discernible picture Gnarfling had ever seen on Ursault's loom. For some reason that worried him. So did the intense expression on the wizard's face as he tossed colors haphazardly into the pattern, only to have them swallowed by the strange, shadowy void that separated and defined the silvery Weave.

  In short order a small tapestry hung on the loom. Ursault studied the weaving intently, and Gnarfling studied Ursault.

  "You see something, don't you?"

  "Everything," the wizard responded again in wondering tones. "Everything."

  The response was familiar, but there was a new note in his voice, something that sent tiny fingers of cold dancing down Gnarfling's spine.

  After a moment, Ursault moved one hand in a flowing circular pattern. The unseen colors shifted, and a man's face took form in a gap between the glowing silver threads, a face depicted with precision and clarity that the best of Ashtarahh's weavers could not match.

  The man was young and exceedingly lean. His high, sharp cheekbones leaned precariously over the deep hollows below, and the thin black mustache on his upper lip looked as tremulous and impermanent as a perching moth. His face was exceedingly pale for a Halruaan, and a sharp contrast to the feverish brightness of his black eyes.

  "Trouble coming," muttered Gnarfling. He was well acquainted with trouble and plenty familiar with wizards-which, to his way of thinking, were two words for the same thing. "When?"

  In response, Ursault merely shifted his gaze from the loom to the market square.

  The square was filling rapidly. Visiting merchants strolled along the paths, eyeing the tapestries and sampling bits of cheese. The trundle of carts over the corduroy filled the air with a pleasant rumble. Already two of these carts had been hauled off the path to languish by the wheelwright's shop, listing heavily over shattered wheels. A young man stood by one of them, arguing with the apprentices and punctuating his complaints with overly dramatic gestures.

  Gnarfling's eyes went straight to a thin young man, narrowing as they took in the too familiar theatrics. The newcomer didn't have the look of a merchant or artisan. He was tall and thin, not much past twenty summers, and obviously possessed more money than sense. He traveled alone in an expensive covered cart drawn by matched horses. His emaciated form was draped with fine robes of purple-trimmed black, and jewels flashed on his gesticulating hands. All of these things fairly screamed "wizard."

  Even without the trappings, there was an intensity about the newcomer that suggested magic, yet Gnarfling could sense no hint of Mystra's Art about the young man. His nose for such things was as keen as any hound's, and, more to the point, as keen as any magehound's. These instincts, and the permanent disguise offered by his stunted form, had kept him alive for over thirty winters.

  Why then, he wondered, was he so uneasy?

  "He's looking for you," Ursault said, as mildly and as matter-of-factly as if his companion had spoken aloud, "that's why."

  The small man shot to his feet as if he'd just sat on a hedgehog. The sudden movement seemed to draw the newcomer's eyes. Recognition flared in his strangely burning gaze, and for a moment Gnarfling stared into the youth's face like a hare mesmerized by a hawk.

  Then, suddenly, the young man was standing directly in front of Ursault's stall.

  Gnarfling blinked once in surprise, and a few times more to adjust his vision. He instinctively sniffed for the scent of magic, but all he smelled on the newcomer was the cumulative effect of several days on the road: the faint odor of wet cashmere, the musty stench of dirty clothes, and a perfume that smelled of dangerous herbs and pending lightning-a scent no doubt meant to mask the other, more mundane smells.

  "I am Landish the Adept," the young man announced grandly.

  Gnarfling collected himself and folded his stubby arms. "Good for you. Me, I got no business with the outlandish or the inept. You want I should ask around, and see if someone else might?"

  Pure fury simmered in the man's intense gaze, a rage out of scale with the small insult. "Are you certain you have no business with me?" he said meaningfully. "Absolutely certain? Tell me, jordain, what am I?"

  A small sizzle of panic raced through Gnarfling, quickly mastered. Surely this revelation was nothing new to Ursault the All-Seeing, and no one else was close enough to hear the damning secret.

  "What are you?" he echoed scornfully. "The back end of an ox, so far as I can tell."

  The man's eyes narrowed. " 'Outlandish and inept,'" he repeated. "A strange choice of words for someone who purports to be an itinerate field hand."

  Gnarfling stared for a moment, then his shoulders rose and fell in a profound sigh.

  "You're a magehound," he said in disgust. "Well, even a slow and stupid hound sometimes blunders into a vhoricock's nest."

  "A jordaini proverb," Landish said smugly, clearly enjoying himself. "You should guard your words more carefully."

  "Don't see what harm it could do at this point. A magehound," Gnarfling repeated in disgust.

  "No," stated Ursault.

  There was a conviction in that single word that dismissed all other possibilities. Gnarfling sent a puzzled look at the wizard, and was astonished at the simmering wrath in the old man's usually vague, mild eyes.

  "Mirabella," Ursault said grimly.

  The small man's heart seemed to leap in his chest like a breaching dolphin. Mirabella was the woman who'd saved an outcast jordaini babe, one whose stunted form was deemed unsuitable for the rigorous physical training given Halruaa's warrior-sages. But there was nothing wrong with his mind, and the soft-hearted midwife charged with his destruction knew enough of jordaini ways to give him a bit of the training, enough to keep him alert and alive-until now, at least.

  Landish's gaze snapped to the wizard's face and for a moment he looked deeply troubled. His face cleared.

  "Ah. A diviner, I suppose. You see the results of my work, if not the actual workings."

  "Your work? What'd you do with Mirabella?" roared Gnarfling.

  He threw himself into a charge, his stubby hands leaping like twin hounds for the man's skinny throat.

  Then he stopped, stunned by the white, leprous growth that had appeared on his short digits. As he stared, the small finger on his left hand listed to one side, then broke off entirely and fell to the muddy ground.

  "That," Landish said succinctly. "She won't be missed. Just as you won't be missed."

  "Mirabella is not yet dead," Ursault said as he rose to his feet. "She may not die. The old speckled hen, the one destined for the soup pot, is going to lay her first egg since the last new moon. If she lays it in the hencoop, Mirabella will die. If the hen ventures into the gardens, a tamed hunting kestrel will see her and swoop. This will draw the eye of a passing hunting party. They will follow their hawk and find Mirabella. The hunter has a terrible fear of the plague. If he is the first to see the woman, he will flee in panic and the others will follow, ne
ver knowing what he saw. But if his horse throws a shoe-there is a loose nail and the shoe could be lost any time today or tomorrow-his greenmage daughter will be the first to find Mirabella. She can mix the herbs and pray the spells that will cure the woman. The herbs grow near Mirabella's cottage. She may find them, provided that-"

  "Enough!" howled Landish, his dark eyes enormous in his too-pale face. "What madness is this?"

  "He's mad, that's for sure and certain," Gnarlish said, jerking a leprous thumb toward Ursault, "but that don't stop him from being right. His way of telling the future is like throwing a really big fireball-the target can be found somewhere in the big, smoking black hole. If there's anyone left to look for it."

  Ursault turned the loom around, revealing the weaving and the scenes depicted in it. Landish's face was still there, and so was a small, snug cottage, complete with speckled hens and an elderly woman sprawled, facedown and still, in the courtyard. A soft moan escaped Gnarfling.

  "You named yourself an Adept," Ursault said to Landish, "and so you are. You are a Shadow Adept, though this is not known to your master, the necromancer Hsard Imulteer. You intend to ambush and destroy your master, but fear that your growing powers will give you away before you are strong enough to prevail. Desiring to test your shields, you prayed to dark Shar, the goddess of shadows and secrets, and she led you to a hidden jordain. You wished to see if a jordain could perceive your true nature, and you believed that my friend here presented a small risk. Obviously he is gifted at perceiving magic in others, or how would he evade the magehounds for these many years? If he had been able to perceive you for what you are, what harm could come of it? He could not accuse you without also giving himself away."

  The young man's face paled to a papery gray. "This is not possible. No one could know these things!"

  "They don't call him Ursault the All-Seeing for naught," Gnarfling pointed out.

  Landish began to pace. "Yes, I have heard that name," he muttered in a distracted tone. "A wizard who sees so many possibilities he cannot discern the truth. Paralyzed, driven mad, finally fleeing into a hermit's life. Seeing all, knowing all-the possibilities are staggering!"

  Gnarfling began to see where this was headed. He'd met wizards before who believed they were the exception to every rule, magical and otherwise.

  The Shadow Adept stopped before Ursault and fixed his intense black gaze on the older wizard's face. "You can see all possible futures-including those influenced by practitioners of the Shadow Weave. This is a great gift, my friend!"

  "Gift, or curse?" said Ursault softly. "It is difficult to say."

  Landish shook his head vigorously. "Halruaa is famed for wizardry, but few know of the Shadow Weave. We who are blessed by Shar can move in secret."

  "But as you gain power, your ability to perceive the workings of Mystra diminish," Ursault concluded. "You may be hidden from wizards, but their ways, in nearly equal measure, are hidden from you."

  "You grasp the salient point," the young Adept said, nodding approvingly. "Clearly, you do not want this gift and-forgive me-you have not proven strong enough to handle it. It has become a burden, one I would gladly lift from you."

  "A little knowledge," cautioned Ursault, "is a wonderful thing."

  Landish let out a sardonic chuckle and dismissed this notion with a wave of one skinny hand. "Come, let us make a bargain. I will give you the herbs needed to cure your short friend and the old dame who raised him."

  "No deal," said Gnarfling sternly. "Ursault already knows what herbs are needed. He can find them himself, no help from you."

  "Of course he can find them, and of course he can cure you and the old woman-'if this, and if that,'" mocked the Adept. "And let us not forget 'unless this and the other.' Count your fingers-how many remain? Are you willing to trust your life and the woman's to a mad old wizard, and the whims of fate?"

  "Same question, back at you." The small man folded his arms. "That mad old wizard could just kill you and have done with it."

  "No," said Landish smugly, "he couldn't."

  The wizard considered this claim for a moment, then agreed with a grim nod.

  "You see? This discussion is a mere formality. I could simply take this man's powers from him. He knows this, and he knows how. It would be easier for me, and far more pleasant all around, if he yields them willingly."

  "Mageduel," Ursault suggested. "Take the three of us to Mirabella's glen, and you and I will do battle for the title of All-Seeing."

  "Done!" the Adept said gleefully.

  He stepped behind the wizard's stall and conjured an oval portal, gleaming with dark, purple-black light. He made a mock-courtly gesture for the others to precede him.

  Gnarfling charged through the portal and hit the ground running. He bolted toward his foster mother, dropped to his knees, and gently turned her over with hands that felt strangely numb. He recoiled in grief and horror at the ravaged mess the Adept's spell had made of her face. He lifted one hand to stroke the old woman's hair away from her eyes, and grimaced at the sight of his own hand. He didn't look much better off.

  He looked to the center of the courtyard. The wizards faced each other, an expression of intense concentration on each face as they attuned themselves to each other and to their competing Weaves.

  A sly smile crossed Gnarfling's face as he perceived the wizard's stratagem: an Adept of the Shadow Weave would have little power in a mageduel arena.

  Indeed, a dazed expression crossed the Adept's face as he ventured into the older wizard's convoluted mind. His feverish eyes started to dart about, as if tracing the paths of a hundred startled ground squirrels.

  Landish pulled himself together with visible effort and said, "As you yourself observed, I am apprentice to a powerful necromancer. There is still enough of Mystra's art remaining to me to vanquish you, old man. Surely you foresee this."

  "It is a possibility," Ursault admitted, "but only one of many."

  The younger man sniffed. "A cube, fifty paces on all sides. I could manage more, but the smaller the arena, the swifter my victory."

  "As you wish." Ursault smiled faintly. "And in defiance of the rules, you may take your spellfilcher gem into the arena with you."

  He did not point out that the man was intending to do precisely that, but the meaning was there all the same. Landish's face flushed at this gentle rebuke, but he spun around and began to stalk off his portion of the arena. Ursault did the same. A translucent, faintly glowing red cube began to take shape around them, growing on all sides as they moved farther apart.

  "Just let him rob you and be done with it," muttered Gnarling. "That'll serve him right and fair."

  Landish began to mumble the words of a spell. A brilliant golden flame erupted from the ground before him. Bright droplets turned into insects-deadly magical fire gnats whose touch could raise blisters and whose bite could set living flesh aflame.

  A faint blue mist surrounded the older wizard as the glowing insects swarmed in. Each one met the aura with a faint, sharp sizzle and flared out of existence.

  Tremors shook the ground as invisible fingers of necromantic magic reached deep into the soil. The clearing stirred, and small puffs of dirt and sod exploded upward as long-dead bones fought their way into the light. The older wizard countered with a quick gesture, then he clapped his hands sharply together. A thunderous rumble echoed through the clearing and the old bones shattered to dust.

  On the battle raged, and each spell Landish cast was anticipated and countered. The young man's thin, wolfish face contorted with rage, and he hurled his remaining spells one after another, so quickly that spell and counter-spell seemed to follow each other as quickly as two sword masters' thrusts and parries.

  So intent was Gnarfling on the battle that he did not at first notice the glowing gem on the Adept's hand. A large amethyst, brilliant purple, was taking on light and power with each of Ursault's counterspells.

  "The spellfilcher gem," he muttered, cursing Landish as a cheat
and coward.

  The light intensified until it filled the arena and spilled out into the clearing. Finally Ursault collapsed, falling to one knee and drawing in long, ragged breaths. As Landish has promised, the process of taking his magic from him had not been easy or painless.

  The Adept stood triumphant in the eerie light. The hand bearing the glowing gem was fisted and held high, and his eyes shone with the bright, multifaceted dream that was his future.

  Gnarfling eased Mirabella from his arms and went over to haul the old wizard slowly, painfully to his feet.

  "You shoulda thrown the fight," he grumbled.

  "And willingly pass this curse to another, even such a man as this?" Ursault shook his head.

  "You knew he was going to win, though."

  "It was a possibility. One of many."

  With Gnarfling's help, the wizard made his way over to Mirabella. After a moment he shook his head. "She needs more help than I can give her."

  The short man sat back on his heels and considered the tangled tale Ursault had told earlier. "If that and if this," he mused.

  He leaped to his feet, went to the hencoop and kicked it resoundingly. Half a dozen hens exploded from it, squawking in protest. One old biddy scurried into the field.

  Landish's howl of protest cut through the clearing like a machete. Even before he looked up, Gnarfling knew what he would see.

  The small form of a kestrel circled against the clouds. Within moments the hawk went into a diving stoop, tempted by the plump, slow-moving meal below.

  The rumble of horses' hooves turned thunderous as the hunting party burst from the forest and onto the old corduroy path. Gnarfling blinked in surprise at the size of the entourage: at least six wizards, plus squires and a plain-faced young woman in simple tunic and trews. That would be the greenmage.

  Her gaze fell upon the old woman, and she let out a small cry. A bolt of lightning sizzled toward her-and was stopped just short of a strike by an answering bolt flaring from one of the mounted wizards. The hunters spurred their horses toward Landish. They dismounted and began to circle the young adept.