Realms of Magic

THIEVES' REWARD

The water of Lake Ashane lay far below Teza's feet, as hard and dark as a sheet of black glass. No wave rippled its smoothness; nothing could be seen beneath its glistening surface to indicate the depth. Not that depth really mattered to Teza. She could not swim, and no one had ever measured the bottomless depths of the Lake of Tears.

The young woman forced her terror back and stared up the length of her outstretched arms to the frayed bit of rope that prevented her from plunging into the lake so far below.

"Please," she whispered in agony. Her arms felt like melting lead, and her body seemed to grow heavier by the second. There was nothing beneath her feet to catch her weight-nothing but air and that terrible fall to the water. Teza stilled a sob. She hated water.

The young woman looked higher into the eyes of the creature who dangled her so carelessly over the edge of the high cliff. He was blacker than night's shadow, hungrier than a shark, and more beautiful than the most exquisite horse Teza had ever seen. Some people said the rare predatory water horses, the aughiskies, did not exist, but Teza would have been delighted to trade places with any of those doubters just to prove them wrong.

A tense stillness closed around her. There was only her hoarse breathing, which rasped like a threnody behind the beating of her terrified heart. She sensed a scream well inside her from the depths of her mind, and it spread outward to her heart, lungs, throat, and mouth until she nearly burst with the primal terror within her.

The aughisky's eyes glowed green with their own cruel fire. Deliberately he shook the rope attached to his bridle. Teza slipped downward. Her face turned white, and her features screwed into a mask of panic.

Suddenly he wrenched the rope out of her hands, and Teza began to fall.

The scream so tightly held burst loose in a horrible, rending shriek of protest. "NO!"

Teza bolted awake to the sound of her own voice. Blackness enveloped her, and she tore frantically at the blanket that covered her head. Panting, wet with sweat, she scrambled out of her rough bed and crouched like a cornered beast by the embers of her campfire.

Close beside her, head hung low to see her, stood the aughisky, blacker than the night around him. His large eyes gleamed a ghastly light, and he watched her with an uncanny intelligence she found disconcerting. He snorted, a noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

"Oh, gods of all!" Teza gasped and collapsed to a sitting position by her fire. She heaped wood on the embers until the flames roared, but the heat and light did little to dispel the cold fear that settled in her bones from that terrible nightmare. It had seemed so real!

What am I going to do? she thought. Over a year ago, she had fled Immilmar with a price on her head and a stolen aughisky in her keeping. Since that time, she had hidden in the wild lands-far from the city she loved and the lake that nourished her horse. They had scraped out a meager living, but Teza was sick of the struggle, and she could see the aughisky was not thriving.

What he felt about their circumstances, she didn't know. She never knew what he was thinking. Teza usually had a close rapport with horses, and she loved this glorious black animal with a passion she had never felt for another beast. But he remained aloof, unfriendly at times, watchful, and distrustful. She knew he could not leave her voluntarily, nor would he really try to drown and eat her because of the spell of binding she had placed on him with a hippomane. Yet he always seemed so cold and distant.

Something cool brushed her cheek. Teza looked up from her fire and saw with dismay snowflakes swirling around her camp. It was early in the month of Uktar, and already winter approached. Winter the year before had been a miserable series of frozen hungry nights and empty hungry days.

She turned to study the aughisky. There were real risks taking a water horse that drowned and ate humans to Immilmar. On the other hand, what was worse? The threat of exposure and imprisonment or the very real danger of freezing if she spent another winter in the wilderness? Her world was the city with its back streets, busy ports, markets, and people to keep her company. Surely her minor crimes had been forgotten by now.

The wind gusted through her camp, driving snow before it with icy-sharp teeth. Teza shivered. "Oh, to Thay with it all. I'm going home!"

Teza! You black-haired catamount! Where have you been?" A long-familiar voice boomed to her over the raucous afternoon noise of the busy tavern.

Teza looked up from a flagon of huild, and a grin spread over her long, swarthy face. "Rafbit!" she exclaimed, acknowledging a friend she had not seen for a year.

She watched with pleasure as a shaggy, slightly disheveled half-elf wove his way through the crowd toward her. Slender as a willow branch and sinuous as a weasel, he always reminded Teza of a cat in the way he could move through a room light-footed, silent, causing barely a ripple in the crowd as he passed. That ability, as well as delicately etched features and blue-black hair, were inherited from his moon-elf mother. His voice, Teza firmly believed, was bequeathed solely by his father, a Rashemi berserker of prodigious skill and temper.

She slid over to make room for him at the bench near the roaring fire.

"The last time I saw you," he said heartily, dropping down beside her, "you were packing your worldly goods before the Fang found your door. Something about the Huhrong's prized stallion turning up in the Fair Street Horse Market?"

Teza winced. The volume of Rafbit's talk drowned out the voices around them and caused heads to turn their way.

"Whisper, Rafbit," she reminded him.

The half-elf grinned good-naturedly. He was used to such advice. "So where have you been?"

"Living among the wild things," Teza replied. She pulled a long swallow from her flagon to savor the fiery taste ofthejhuild. "By the cloak, I missed that."

"When did you come back?"

The thief did not twitch from her pleasant contemplation of the firewine, but her senses jumped alert. She knew Rafbit well enough to hear the slightly tensed tone in his words. There was more than simple curiosity in his question. She replied casually, wondering what he was about. "About two days ago."

Rafbit lowered his voice even further until he actually reached an undertone. "Teza, you are a gift from Mask! Your return couldn't have come at a better time. How about a job?"

She moved then, deliberately pulling a plate of bread and sjorl cheese closer to break off several pieces. While she ate, she studied the man beside her.

Rafbit was an old friend, not a close one and not one she would willingly trust with her life, but still a friend. Her problem was she could never entirely trust his motives. A streak of self-serving maliciousness ran through his character, and it sometimes landed other people in serious trouble. She stared intently into his face, but all she could see was excited query.

"What sort of job?" she asked mildly.

"Come to my place." He hustled Teza out the back door into the bitter blue twilight.

Winter had come with a certainty since Teza returned to Immilmar, bringing snow and freezing winds. People dressed in layers of wool, leather, and furs and hurried more than normal through the busy streets of the Iron Lord's capital.

The tavern Teza and Rafbit had left was a tiny place tucked away in a back alley in the lowest, dirtiest part of the city. It was a place frequented mostly by patrons who had moved beyond the law and did not wish to be bothered by the guardians of the Huhrong's peace. Thus, it was very unusual to see a horse standing against the wall near the exit. Especially a horse of such magnificence and color.

Rafbit's eyes widened when he saw it, and he chuckled. "You're slipping, Teza. Inside taking your ease when this gorgeous animal is out here looking for a new master."

"He's not looking for a master," Teza said dryly. "He's looking for a meal."

"A meal? That horse doesn't look hungry. I've never seen a beast look as healthy as that one." He walked toward the black animal slowly but confidently.

Teza agreed. To her relief, the aughisky had flourished since they returned to the environs of Lake Ashane, and now his glossy sable coat and perfect conformation made him an eye-catcher in a city where most of the horses were short, shaggy work beasts. Already several of her competitors had disappeared. "Be careful," she added, a warning to both the half-elf and the aughisky.

Rafbit reached out to clasp the horse's bridle, the only tack he wore, but the aughisky flung his head away. His long teeth shone against his black muzzle, and his eyes glowed with a strange greenish fire.

Rafbit fell back, swearing. "Gods, what that beast needs is a tenday with a horse-breaker."

"No," Teza sighed. "All he needs is understanding." She whistled softly. Prancing and snorting in the cold air, the water horse came immediately to her side.

Rafbit was astonished. "He's yours? Where on Toril did you get such as him?"

"I earned him," Teza said, smiling in memory of the Witch of Rashemen and the tricks they had played on each other.

"Well, I've never seen anything like him!" the half-elf marveled. "Will you sell him?"

The young woman put her arm around the horse's neck-a caress he rarely seemed to like-and answered shortly, "No."

Rafbit nodded once, but his eyes strayed to the horse often as he led Teza and her aughisky to a ramshackle building near the warehouse district by the busy docks. He ushered her into his quarters, stoked the fire in his brazier, and came arrow-straight to the point.

"I am organizing a thieves' guild in Immilmar, and I need a second officer I can trust."

Teza couldn't have been more surprised if he had asked her to marry him. "A guild!" she snorted. "In Immilmar? The Huhrong would have you hanging in the gibbets in days."

Rafbit's gem-blue eyes sparkled with excitement. "Not necessarily. What a guild needs to survive in a city like this is subtlety, patience, and a careful hand to control the thieves and their activities."

Rafbit was a burglar, and a good one, who had never been directly linked to any of his successful crimes. But the leader of an organized den of thieves? It made Teza laugh. "Subtlety? Patience?" she mocked. "From you?"

Her friend grinned, unoffended, and leaned toward her. "That's why I need you. I have talked to most of the thieves in Immilmar, and they are interested, but I need someone to help organize the guild and its functions; to set up a system of rewards, opportunities, and arbitration. To find safehouses, set a watch on the guards, select suitable targets…"

"And what are you going to do?" Teza interrupted sarcastically. "Count your percentage?"

"Well, of course, any member will have to pay dues for guild services. But there will be plenty of work for two."

Teza had to admit she was intrigued. An organized thieves guild would be an advantage to the city's popula tion of rogues… unfortunately… "There is still the Iron Lord. He will not tolerate organized crime in Rashemen."

"He will if the organization does not flaunt its presence. We will keep the guild small, make it open only to those who can prove their worth."

"Now, how are you going to do that?" she demanded.

"A test of skill. Any thief regardless of age, sex, or origin can join as long as he or she can pass a test."

Teza's eyes narrowed. "Does that include me?"

"Umm… yes," Rafbit hesitated. "It's only fair."

Teza jumped to her feet. "You ask me to join your little light-fingered squad, but you expect me to prove my worth?" she cried, her voice rising dangerously with every word.

"A mere formality!" Rafbit hastened to calm her. "It's really only to reassure our patron. He should be aware of your value to the guild. Just as I am."

The horse-thief stilled, her long legs apart, her arms crossed. "Patron?" she growled.

"Yes! He is our key to success. A judicial authority with a penchant for collecting rare gems. In exchange for any 'collectibles' we might find, he will be our ears and eyes in the Iron Lord's court."

Teza's glance narrowed in speculation. "I want to meet him first."

Rafbit shook her hand. "Done."

The meeting went better than Teza had anticipated. For one thing, she didn't really expect there to be a patron. But two days after Rafbit's invitation, she and the half-elf met a short, powerfully built man cloaked in rich snowcat furs and quiet self-importance.

The official acknowledged her identity with a lift of his thick eyebrow. They talked briefly. The man and Teza examined each other from head to boot, and both were satisfied with what they saw.

When the meeting was over, Teza turned to Rafbit. She was still wary of his motives in this venture, yet the pres ence of a patron in the Huhrong's courts put a different light on the matter. She was willing to take the next step and see what happened.

"What is the test you had in mind for me?" Had she not been watching her step in the muddy snow, she might have seen Rafbit's mouth move in the quick, hungry grimace of a stoat on the hunt.

"It's simple really. I have a customer who lost a particular item and is willing to pay for its recovery."

Teza did not accept other people's use of "simple" without explanation. "What, exactly, and where is it?"

"A book. In the library of Lord Duronh."

Teza stopped in midstride. "Are you serious? A book? That's ridiculous. I'm a horse-thief! You're the burglar."

"If you are going to be my officer," Rafbit explained patiently, "you need to excel in many skills. Your ability to steal anything four-legged is legendary. So is your talent with disguises. You've also been known to pick pockets, purses, and bags. But can you break into a house and steal something useful? That is your test."

Teza, ignoring the flattery, conceded he had a point. Yet she couldn't help asking, "Who's testing you?"

To her surprise, Rafbit's pale face turned whiter and the gleam went out of his eyes. "I have already been tested," he growled, and he would not say any more.

That was why, three days later, in the deep of a cold, still night, Teza rode the aughisky into the quiet streets of the city. She breathed a silent prayer to Mask, the god of rogues and thieves. Her enterprise that night would be to the god's advantage, so she hoped he was paying attention.

He had certainly helped in one fashion. A dank, thick fog rolled over the city from Lake Ashane, turning the darkness into a solid mass. Only the aughisky, bred in the black waters of Ashane, seemed at home in the dense wet air. He picked his way unerringly through the streets at Teza's direction, past the Huhrong's towering palace, and into the gentle hills of the wealthier section of the city, where the houses were larger and surrounded by their own ornate walls.

The water horse turned at Teza's cue onto a path that led between two high walls and down a steep bank to a river. The river was a small one that wended its way to Ashane from the east, just slow enough and deep enough for pleasure craft. Many of the houses built along its bank had docks or boathouses.

Lord Duronh's residence had one, too, although the lord had gone one step further. He had dug a cavern into the high bank below his house and built a dock for his crafts, where they were protected from all but the most frigid weather.

Teza thought this underground boathouse would be her best entrance into the house. Any guard left standing over one small back door on a night like this would not be expecting trouble.

As silent as a black shadow, the water horse carried her downstream through the fog to the broad opening of Duronh's boathouse. Teza shuddered at the sight of that dark river lapping at her knees, but the aughisky made no attempt to drop her or carry her into deeper water. He worked his way around the lord's small boats and deposited Teza on the wooden dock. With a sigh of fervent relief, she patted him and eased farther along the dark dock toward what she hoped was the stairs.

The darkness was absolute in the cavern, so Teza silently opened a small bag she wore buckled around her waist and pulled out her most useful thieves' tool: a pair of night glasses. She had bought them from a wandering wizard for a horrendous sum, but they had paid her back a hundredfold with their usefulness. She slid them on, and immediately the night slipped into focus. Although the glasses made everything look red, their vision was remarkably clear.

Swiftly she found the stairs leading to the rear of the house and mounted them to the entrance. The door was a heavy affair of oak and iron, but its lock yielded easily to the pick Rafbit had loaned her. Just inside, she saw the first guard leaning against the wall. As she had hoped, he dozed over his weapons.

Teza drew another useful item from her belt pack: a small circle of fabric permeated with a fast-acting sedative. She rubbed a little spit into the cloth to activate the drug and, before it could affect her, stuck it to the skin of the napping guard. In seconds he slumped into a deeper sleep.

From there, the rest of the job was easy. A friend of Raf-bit's had told Teza the floor plan of the house, enabling her to slip through the night-darkened halls, past two more guards, to the second floor, where the library stood at the end of a long corridor. Teza's glasses saw nothing amiss. No watchdogs, no statues enspelled to shout an alarm, no traps, nothing. Lord Duronh must not consider his books very valuable, Teza told herself.

Her suspicions proved correct when she entered the library. It was a small room-cold, damp, and musty. Sheets covered the furniture, and the books were layered with dust.

Teza wasted no time. She knew the book she needed was tan-colored, fairly large, and labeled with a wizard's rune on the spine. Silently she ran her eyes along the shelves lining the walls, along row after row of old manuscripts, scrolls, and bound books. Half an hour later, she found the one she wanted, crammed on a bottom shelf beneath a stack of moldy vellum sheets.

Teza pulled it out and nearly dropped it in surprise. It was much heavier than she had expected and was bound with something much smoother and softer to the touch than leather. She hefted it. It seemed to be the right book. It had the sigil on the spine and the tan-colored binding. It must have belonged to a wizard at one time, but what was it doing here, and what was so important about it that someone would pay to have it stolen?

Teza tried to open it, but discovered something else very odd. Someone had attached hair to the book from top to bottom along both edges of the cover. The hair was then braided, tying the book closed to casual view. The braid lay soft under Teza's fingers, as soft and fine as human hair.

Without quite knowing why, Teza grew angry. She began to have the feeling Rafbit had not told her every thing she ought to know about this book. She tucked the tome under her arm and fled noiselessly back the way she had come, to the cavern where the aughisky waited for her.

She had planned to meet Rafbit and his customer before dawn, but first, she told the water horse to take her to her bolt-hole. The hole, nothing more than an abandoned shack at the edge of the city, was her hiding place in time of need. Obediently, the aughisky carried her to the old hut. As she dismounted, he neighed impatiently and slammed his hoof on the frozen ground. Teza knew the signs. He was hungry.

"Wait," she asked. "I will be quick. Then you may go."

Carrying the book, she slipped into the old shack. Her cold fingers fumbled with the flint and steel over a lamp she had left there. When the flame was burning, the woman laid the book on her lap and carefully began to unbraid the hair. In the light, she could see now the hair was red, a deep coppery hue that gleamed in the lamplight. Softly it flowed through her fingers until the book fell open on her knees.

Teza stared in delight. Full-length illustrations, beautifully illuminated with delicate traceries, bold colors, and bright gold leaf, covered each page. There were no words or letters or even runes, only exquisitely detailed pictures.

Teza turned the thick pages to the beginning. She could not read, yet she did not have to to understand the story. The pictures portrayed a romance between a lovely red-haired woman and a dark-haired, serious-looking young man. They met in a garden of peonies and roses, and the illustrations continued their tale in a series of scenes from a dance, a hunt, and a picnic, as the couple's passion grew deeper.

Then the atmosphere of the pictures changed. The drawings became harsher; the colors shifted to hues of red and black; the expression on the lovers' faces turned to anger and sadness.

Teza sat enthralled by the drama unfolding on her lap. She was so engrossed, she did not immediately notice what began to happen. As she studied one picture of the man and the woman in a gloomy room, the figures shifted slightly on the page. The man's face turned down into a scowl, and the woman took a step back.

Teza suddenly gaped. Before her eyes the small painting of the man strode forward and viciously backhanded the woman. She fell backward against a stone wall.

Teza's fingers tightened on the cover. "You nasty little-" she began, without realizing what she was talking to. Then the tiny woman climbed to her feet. She wiped blood from her mouth, tore a ring off her finger, and flung it at the young man. No words were spoken, but Teza could see the fury on the woman's face, and the devastation on the man's. The painted lady turned to leave, when in one swift movement, the man grabbed her long, braided hair. His hands lifted in a strange movement, his lips mouthed silent words, and in a brilliant flash of silver light that made Teza blink, the woman disappeared. When Teza looked again, the young man was alone, standing as still as before and holding a large tan book.

"What is this?" Teza muttered irritably. She flipped back to the other pages, but none of the remaining pictures moved. Finally she turned past the man and his book to the last page. The last illustration was the strangest of all. In the upper left was a small portrait of the woman, her oval face filled with pleading and her large green eyes brimmed with tears. The center of the picture revealed the book with its binding of red hair unbraided. A dagger pierced the pages, and blood dripped off the binding. At the bottom right, another portrait of the woman showed her joyfully happy.

A horse-thief though she was, Teza was not stupid. Her mind leapt to the obvious conclusion that the lady in the pictures had been transformed into a book by a wizard, and that book was the very one she was holding. That would help explain the red hair and the odd binding of what felt like human skin. What it did not explain was what Teza should do with it now.

If she understood the last picture correctly, a way to free the trapped lady was to open the book and stab it with a dagger. Simple enough. Yet what would that accomplish? Would the knife free her or kill her? And who was she? Why did she make her lover angry? Did she deserve to be transformed, or was her punishment cruelly unjust?

Teza didn't know, and there weren't nearly enough answers in the book. Should she trust her first instincts and break the spell, or take the book to Rafbit and his customer? And for that matter, Teza thought, her anger stirring again, who was this customer, and what did he want with this specific book?

Teza had the distinct impression she was being used, not tested, and she resented it. The job had been easy, even for her, but she was the only one taking the risks, and Rafbit probably figured she was too illiterate to be interested in a book. Maybe he didn't know what was in it either.

She quickly made up her mind to take the book to Rafbit. "But that loud-mouthed half-breed better have some answers," she muttered as she blew out her lamp.

Teza gently closed the book, leaving the hair unbraided, then mounted the aughisky and rode to find her friend at the agreed meeting place near the docks. The water horse, impatient to be away, cantered rapidly through the fog-hung streets, and his green eyes glowed like lamps in the night.

As they neared Immilmar's port facility, with its maze of storehouses, taverns, merchant offices, and docks, Teza slowed the horse to a walk. He moved quietly along the deserted roads to the last pier in the harbor. The air hung thick and heavy with the odors of wet timbers and rotting trash, and the watery smells of Lake Ashane.

Teza gripped the book tightly under her arm, where it remained hidden by her cloak. There was no tingle of magic power to this book, no inherent feeling of a human presence beneath the binding of skin and hair, but Teza sensed somehow that the lady of the book was still alive, trapped in an inanimate form and able to reveal herself only by the beautiful illuminations in her pages. Perhaps she was even aware of what was going on. Teza had always been a firm believer in freedom-particularly her own-and the woman's plight stirred her heart.

At that moment, she spotted a tiny light glowing in the shadow of a shed at the base of the last pier. The light blinked three times in the arranged signal. The aughisky walked toward it, his legs stiff and his nostrils flared. He was so close to the water, his entire body trembled.

Teza ran a hand down his silken neck. "A few minutes more, my beauty," she whispered.

Teza!" Rafbit's voice echoed out of the darkness.

The horse-thief winced at his volume. "I'm here," she called softly.

The half-elf s lean form and a second taller figure stepped out of the shadow. "Do you have it?" Rafbit questioned. His voice sounded strung tight with tension.

Teza hesitated answering until the aughisky stopped about five paces away from the two forms. The intense darkness that shrouded the bay and the pier around them was so black Teza could barely make out Rafbit's face. She could see nothing of the person beside him. "Who is your companion?" she asked, stalling for time.

"The customer," Rafbit snapped. "Do you have the book?"

The woman stared at her friend. His white skin glimmered, as pale as a winter moon, and the hand that held the tiny lamp shook perceptibly. His eyes looked everywhere but at her. An alarm went off in Teza's head. "I have a book," she replied carefully. "But can your customer identify it so we all know the book is the right one?"

The stranger spoke then. "It is large, heavy, bound with a braid of red, and bears the sigil of the Wizard Ashroth." His words were colder than ice and deep with menace. "Dismount and give me the book," he charged.

Almost against her will, Teza slid off the aughisky, compelled by the powerful voice. "What do you want with this book?" she hissed.

The lamp in Rafbit's hand flared to a brilliant star, throwing a veil of light over the three people and the horse. As the stranger strode forward, the sudden glow exposed his clothes as robes of crimson red.

Teza backed up against the aughisky, appalled. A Red Wizard of Thay-one of Rashemen's bitterest enemies and he was standing brazenly on the docks of the Huhrong's own city.

"The book is mine!" the Red Wizard snarled viciously. "Stolen from me nearly thirty years ago. I traced it at last to Lord Duronh's library, and if you have it now, you will give it to me before I flay you alive."

Teza's eyes narrowed. She could see the wizard's face now, lean as a wolfs, gray and cruel, but with the same dark intensity as the young man in the book. She recognized immediately the man who had raged at his lover enough to strike her and then imprison her in a book.

The young thief felt her blood begin to burn, not only at the danger of facing a Red Wizard and the ferocious pos-sessiveness he exuded but at Rafbit as well. Her friend had betrayed her, and from the shifting look of his eyes, he had done it deliberately.

Teza thought no more about her decision. With the swiftness of a practiced pickpocket, she pulled a slim dagger out of her boot, drew the book from her cloak, yanked it open, and stabbed the blade deep into the pages.

The wizard roared with rage.

A pool of blood welled up over the wound. Almost immediately, a bright silver beam flared up from the book, followed by another and another until the tome resembled a starburst. Momentarily dazzled, Teza dropped it on the muddy ground and fell back in astonishment.

"No!" shrieked the wizard. He raised his hands to countermand the dissolved spell, but he was too late. The cover of the book began to expand. Pulsating with its silver light, it stretched taller and taller until it reached the height of a full-grown woman. The red hair cascaded down her shoulders. Her face resumed its shape, as lovely and as young as the portrait in the book.

A frigid draft from the lake swept around the docks, swirling the fog. The silver light faded. The lady of the book stood before the three people, proud and fierce. Blood trickled unnoticed down her shoulder. She flung Teza's dagger at the wizard's feet.

"How dare you," she breathed in a voice thick with contempt. "How dare you think to possess me!"

Stunned and mute, Teza stared from the woman to the wizard. They were glaring at each other, so totally absorbed in their confrontation they did not acknowledge anyone else.

"Kanlara!" the wizard said, more a moan than a command. "You are mine. I loved you."

"Loved!" the woman mocked. "You didn't love me. You wanted to own me, to add me to your collection of assets." She stepped away from him, her pale robes glimmering in the lamplight. "You took me by surprise once, but never again. I have had thirty years to think about you, and now that I am free, I will take my revenge as best I can. I am not powerful enough to defeat you or kill you, but I can leave you, totally and with joy. Think of me often, Ashroth, loving other men and giving myself to someone other than you. You are pathetic to think you can own a woman like me." Flinging that last insult in his face, she formed a spell as adroitly as the wizard had and vanished before his eyes.

"NO!" the wizard shrieked again. "Kanlara, don't leave me now! I just found you!" His voice echoed over the bay.

Only a cold stillness answered his despairing cry.

Before Teza could move, the wizard turned on her. "You loathsome little meddler!" He swung his hand in her direction.

Teza saw the burning ball of magic flying not toward her but at her beautiful aughisky, and she leapt in front of his chest. The sphere struck her in the stomach like a solid missile and slammed her to the ground. The power sank through her skin, down into her muscles, stealing her strength and her ability to move. She lay in the icy mud, stunned.

Teza saw the wizard raise his hand again, but Rafbit caught it. For a moment, she thought he was going to help her. Then he said, "Not here. The guard is already roused."

The wizard's hand dropped. He, too, heard the signal horns of the nearest guard unit. "Put her in my boat, then. I'll dispose of her later."

The half-elf did not move. "What about my payment?" he asked nervously.

"Payment?" retorted the wizard, seething with scorn and bitter fury. "You failed me. Be thankful I do not treat you with the same punishment I shall give her!"

Rafbit's blue eyes darkened with anger, but he was too fearful to argue. "Then I claim her horse as my recompense."

A knowing smile flitted over the wizard's face and was gone. "Take it and go. It is all you deserve."

Rafbit nodded once. He reached hesitantly for the augh-isky's bridle, and this time the black horse remained still, the green fire dampened in his eyes. Rafbit grinned. He leaned over Teza and stared into her pain-filled face. "Sorry, old girl. The guild could have used you," he muttered. "Unfortunately, I needed the money more." He swiftly mounted the water horse and trotted him away.

Teza watched them go, her eyes full of tears. She felt a hand grasp the front of her clothes and haul her off the ground. The magic blast, whatever it was, had left her paralyzed, and she could do nothing as the wizard dragged her down the dock and dumped her unceremoniously into a boat. The boat was small but long and lean, double-ended for maneuverability and rigged with both sails and oars.

From her position on the floorboards, Teza heard the wizard snap a command. Silent oarsmen moved the boat away from the docks and into the expanse of Lake Ashane.

Teza lay still, feeling distinctly sick. Her stomach roiled with the motion of the boat and with an abject terror that went beyond fear of the Red Wizard. She was in a boat over water and over the black depths of the lake. Her mouth went dry; her body began to shudder uncontrollably. She could move her fingers now, perhaps a sign that the magic was wearing off. But it didn't fade fast enough.

The wizard, his lean face taut with impotent rage, loomed over her. "I would take you to Thay and make you suffer a hundred deaths for what you have done, but I must find Kanlara and bring her back."

"Why?" Teza managed to croak. "She doesn't love you. Let her go." It was a terrible effort to talk, yet anything was better than thinking of the water.

The wizard yanked her upright, his hands like iron on her shoulders. "You of all should understand. You keep an aughisky, a creature incapable of love. Yet you love it. You leapt in the way of my spell to protect it."

"A bad decision," Teza conceded.

"Almost as bad as freeing my betrothed." He wrenched the young woman to her feet where she stood, sick and dizzy, her eyes screwed shut.

"Lord," a voice called urgently from the bow.

The wizard ignored it while he studied Teza intently.

"Lord! Come see," the voice cried again. "We're being followed by a witch-ship."

A flash of hope opened Teza's eyes. The witch-ships that roamed the vast Lake of Tears were pilotless boats created by the powerful sisterhood of witches to protect Rashemen from predation from Thay. The witch-ships could unleash monstrous beasts, poisonous gases, or any number of defensive spells, and were extremely difficult to evade. The Red Wizard visibly blanched when he heard the warning.

For just a second, Teza thought he might forget her, and she could crawl out of sight while he dealt with their pursuer. Then her feeble hopes imploded into panic.

The wizard, his expression a mask of fury, picked her up bodily and threw her overboard.

Teza had time for one frenzied scream before she crashed into the dark water. Icy blackness closed over her. She scrabbled frantically to bring her head up, but her body was still partially paralyzed from the magic. She could only feebly thrash as her water-soaked clothes dragged her deeper.

She opened her eyes. Above, she could barely make out the lighter surface of the lake, where air and life lay only a few strokes away. Below lay death in the eternal dark at the fathomless bottom of the lake. Teza tried to struggle upward again, only to feel herself sinking farther toward that abyssal pit. Her lungs burned now; the air in her body was almost gone. Water pressed against her as if seeking a way into her nose, mouth, and lungs, seeking to drag her down faster. The blood roared in her head. She felt so weak.

"No!" she cried silently with every shred of her resistance. "Help me!"

Then, from somewhere out of the lightless depths, something moved toward her. She felt a large shape glide past her, and before she could understand what it was, a heavy, tight grip settled on her right shoulder.

Teza felt too far beyond her strength to struggle against this new terror. If some creature of Ashane was going to devour her, let it do so quickly and end her fear. But the thing did not rend her immediately. It hauled her upward, and just before Teza passed out, her head broke the surface. She drew in a great gasping breath of air, then struggled, thrashing wildly at the painful grip on her shoulder.

The thing let go of her. Teza started to sink again, and in her panic she grabbed at the large dark thing beside her. Wet hair met her fingers, the long, streaming mane of a horse, and she held on to it with all her might.

The head turned toward her. A green fire flickered in the eye that regarded her.

"You glorious creature," Teza sobbed into his neck.

The aughisky waited patiently in the cold water while the woman worked her way onto his back. Then he swam slowly toward the distant shore, his ears cocked back to listen to Teza's sobs.

At last, he clattered up the rocky bank to a patch of thick grass. Teza pried her fingers out of his mane and rolled off onto the blessed ground. For a while, she simply lay on her back and stared up at the aughisky. He was watching her, too, but the animosity she had always seen before was gone. Perhaps, she marveled, a creature who could not love could at least learn not to hate.

She finally worked herself upright and very slowly pulled on the aughisky's leg until she could stand. Although the wizard's magic had at last worn off, she had never felt so weak, dizzy, and deathly cold.

"There you are!" a woman's voice suddenly called.

Teza looked around. To her surprise, the night was fading to a pale watery dawn, and out of the lightening mist came a tall, beautiful, red-haired woman.

"Knowing Ashroth, I thought he might dump you once the witch-ship caught up with him."

Teza's mouth fell open. "You knew about the ship?"

"Of course." Kanlara smiled with the pleasure of a satisfied cat. "I may not be powerful enough to defeat a Red Wizard, but the Witches of Rashemen are. I warned one I still knew in Immilmar." She came forward with a dry cloak, peeled off Teza's wet one, and helped her into the thick warm folds. "I'm sorry," she said at last. "I didn't get a chance to say thank you for releasing me. That took a lot of courage."

Teza leaned against the water horse, too tired to reply.

The wizard woman crossed her arms and looked at her thoughtfully. "I hoped to reach you before Ashroth did anything rash, but the aughisky was faster, thank the gods."

Teza's hand ran lovingly down the horse's elegant neck. "He saved my life," she whispered. "He didn't have to. If I died, the bond of the hippomane would be broken." She grinned suddenly and said to the horse, "I wonder where Rafbit is. Stuffed under some sunken rock more than likely. You came so fast you, didn't have time to eat him, did you?"

He tossed his mane and snorted a reply.

Abruptly Teza reached up and unbuckled the throat latch of the bridle on his head. The aughisky stilled, his wild eyes fastened on Teza. Gently she pulled the straps over his head and drew the bit out of his mouth. "I release you freely," she announced. "The spell of the hippomane is nullified."

The water horse stared at her. Then he reared, his hooves flashing over her head. Quick as an eel, he turned and plunged into Lake Ashane. He neighed once before the dark waters closed over his head and he was gone.

Teza watched him go. With a sigh, she flopped to the grass and drew the cloak tightly about her. She shivered. "Now what?" she murmured.

Kanlara smiled and sat down beside her. "Well, I need a place to stay."

Teza glanced at the woman. Even after thirty years as a book, Kanlara seemed very close to her own age. Still the woman was wizard-trained and, by her speech and looks, nobly born. "I'm a horse-thief," she said.

"I know," Kanlara said simply, "and you saved my life. I could use a friend right now."

Teza looked out over the lake, now gray and pearl with dawn's coming light. She thought of Rafbit's treachery and the aughisky" s last act of loyalty. Her lips formed a smile. "I could use a friend, too." She rose unsteadily to her feet. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in helping me form a thieves' guild would you?"

Her companion stood, too, her red hair as long and thick as Teza's dark mane. They stood eye to eye for so long Teza grew certain Kanlara would refuse.

Then the wizard woman replied, "I have been a book stashed away in a moldy old library for so long, I think dust has settled in my brain. I want to do things, I want to travel, I want to experience life again. I suppose Immil-mar is as good a place as any to start. Then who knows, maybe you'd go on a dajemma with me?"

Teza's eyes widened with delight. A dajemma was an expedition taken by Rashemen's young men, a journey through the world to manhood. Females did not usually go, and certainly not ones in their midtwenties. But why not? A dajemma, an adventure, a journey. Call it what you will, Teza thought, it would do.

"I know where to find some good horses." She grinned.