"That's one word for it. Then two old friends turned up just in time to save my life. It turned out they'd come to ask for my help, and I said no."

Jet beat his sable wings and climbed higher. "I'm not surprised. You always say no to me."

"Because you always ask to eat horses that don't belong to us. But Bareris and Mirror-" His words caught in his throat as death appeared in the east.

He thought immediately of the curtains of blue fire the Spellplague had sent sweeping through the land, but this was different and worse. This force was invisible, but he could tell from the swath of devastation that it stretched at least as far as the eye could see. And it left nothing but dust in its wake.

The brown, snow-capped peaks of the Tannath Mountains crumbled. The countless trees of the Yuirwood bowed as a great wind caught them and stripped them of their leaves, and then they dissolved. To the north, the advancing line of obliteration drank the waters of the Sea of Dlurg. The water that had yet to disappear surged as though eager to meet its end.

But strangely, all the annihilation happened quietly. The raging winds didn't tumble Jet across the sky, nor did Aoth choke on billowing dust. Because, he realized, this wasn't really happening. Not yet.

"What's the matter?" asked Jet.

"Take a look." Employing their mental link, Aoth allowed his mount to see what he was seeing.

Just in time to witness the destruction of Veltalar. The decaying slums of the old city, the wide boulevards and lofty towers of the new, and the green stone Palace of the Simbul itself broke apart with as little fuss as the mountains and forest had.

A second wave of destruction swept out of the east, cutting deeper into the ground that the first one had already scoured to bedrock. Aoth thought of concentric ripples spreading out from a pebble tossed in a pond, and then the vision ended as suddenly as it began.

"Wind and sky!" said Jet. It was the first time that Aoth had ever heard him sound shaken. "What was that?"

"The call to arms," said Aoth. "Damn it to the deepest Hell!"

Some of the members of the Simbarch Council were human; some, slender elves with pointed ears, vivid green eyes, and a lack of facial hair; and some, mixtures of the two. All were proud aristocrats and accomplished spellcasters, which didn't keep them from eyeing a pair of undead strangers with a certain wariness. They tried to hide it, but every bard learned to size up an audience.

One of the elves, her long tresses shimmering black and her skin nearly as white as Bareris's own, gave Aoth a cool stare. "Captain, when you asked for a meeting, we didn't realize you intended to bring such… unconventional companions along with you."

"I know, Lady Seriadne," Aoth replied, "just as I know that here in Aglarond, you mistrust the undead. To tell you the truth, my life has given me abundant reason to mistrust most of them myself. But Bareris Anskuld and Mirror are old comrades of mine. I vouch for them, and you need to hear them. They've come to warn us all of a terrible danger."

"All right," said a human with a neatly trimmed gray goatee, who wore mystic sigils subtly incorporated into the complex beadwork pattern adorning his doublet. "Let's hear it."

Peering up at the simbarchs seated along the two tiers of their gleaming oak dais, Bareris told his tale with all the eloquence he could muster; but even so, skepticism congealed in every face. He felt a desperate urge to use magic to sway his listeners, but he knew the attempt could only lead to disaster. It was inconceivable that fifteen strong-willed folk wise in the ways of sorcery would all succumb to his spell, and those who retained clear heads would likely realize what he'd tried to do.

Maybe, he thought, Aoth can convince them. He's a living man with a good reputation, and they evidently trust him. They wouldn't have hired him otherwise.

But in fact, the warmage's testimony didn't help. Indeed, when he described the vision that had overtaken him while he was flying above the city, it paradoxically seemed to reinforce the simbarchs' judgment that Bareris's story was nonsense. Bareris gathered that Aoth had never before told them about his augmented sight and, glowing eyes or no, it seemed suspicious that he claimed such a miraculous ability only now, when necessary to buttress his argument.

"So that's how it is," Aoth finished. The flat note in his voice revealed that he, too, realized they'd failed to convince. "Bareris and Mirror asked me to commit the Brotherhood of the Griffon to their cause, but we all know that one company of sellswords has no hope of stopping Szass Tam's scheme. The armed might of Aglarond, however, is a different matter."

The mage with the gray beard-whose name, Bareris gathered, was Ertrel-made a spitting sound. "When the lich made himself sole ruler of Thay, the East trembled. Everyone expected him to launch wars of conquest against his neighbors. But it never happened. Instead, he contented himself with making his own people's lives miserable and with building gigantic monuments to himself, and thank Sune for it. I can't think of anything stupider than provoking him now that he's finally lost interest in plaguing us."

"Lord Ertrel," said Bareris, "with respect, I explained: those 'monuments' are the structures Druxus Rhym sketched in the book."

"Yes," Ertrel said, "you did. But I fancy I'm a reasonably learned mage, and the ideas in your odd little book seem like so much gibberish to me."

Other simbarchs murmured in agreement.

"You just skimmed a few lines," Bareris said, "while you listened to me talk at the same time. Perhaps if you truly studied the volume, you'd feel differently."

Ertrel shrugged. "I doubt it."

"My lords," said Aoth, "I share your skepticism that any mortal, or any creature born mortal, could bring about the end of all things. It's a ridiculous notion on the face of it. But unlike you, I know Szass Tam-"

"Knew him a hundred years ago, you mean," another human simbarch interjected.

"-and I promise you, he's the one person in Faerun arrogant and selfish enough to try, if he believed he'd emerge from the holocaust greater than the greatest god. And even if his experiment fails utterly, what will that matter to us if it kills us all in the process?"

"As you prophesy it will," Seriadne purred.

"Yes. I told you: I saw it happen."

"That must have been quite a spectacle."

Aoth took a deep breath. "You don't believe me?"

"Here's what I believe: The rivals Szass Tam drove out of Thay settled in the Wizard's Reach, territory that rightfully belongs to Aglarond. We of the council think it's time to reclaim it and have hired you to help us.

"But perhaps," the black-haired elf continued, "we should have looked elsewhere for additional swords and spears. Because you too are a Thayan in exile, aren't you, Captain? In fact, if the stories are true, the zulkirs would never even have reached their new home if you and Bareris Anskuld here hadn't played a crucial role in defeating the armada that pursued them over the sea."

"Our old loyalties," said Aoth, "have nothing to do with the current situation. We both left the service of the zulkirs a long time ago."

"But what if you're feeling nostalgic," Seriadne asked, "or the zulkirs simply promised you more gold than we did? Then you might concoct a tale to convince us to change our plans. If it worked, it would be an elegant solution. After we smashed our army to pieces against the rock that is Thay, we wouldn't be able to mount an invasion of the Reach for a good long while."

"I give you my word," said Aoth, "it's not like that."

"I hope not," Ertrel said. "As sellswords go-which isn't far in this regard-you have a reputation for honest dealing. Can we take it, then, that you still intend to abide by the pledge you gave us?"