Shal had spent days scouring the markets and traders' shops of Eveningstar and Arabel, the two towns nearest to the keep of her master, the Great Ranthor of Cormyr. The object of her search was a rare Wa herb, which her teacher refused to find for her. When she finally located the component he claimed made "a superlative dust for incendiary spells," she returned to his keep, where she read and reread the Burning Hands spell and tried for several days to master it. By the fourth day, Shal's hands were the only things blazing after repeated attempts to cast the spell.

"Drat!" she cried, hurling her spellbook and herbal components down in disgust, convinced that it was time for her to move on to another profession. Before her eyes, the handful of herbal dust puffed into a sensational blue cloud, and a vision of Ranthor, her teacher, appeared, besieged by a horde of vicious-looking orcs. The pig-faced creatures were armed with murderous weapons, and they were surging toward Ranthor in a wide band, leaving him no avenue of escape.

Blood and drool dripped from their grotesque mouths. Shal could feel herself being caught up in the vision, could smell the orcs' filthy bodies as they pressed closer, jabbing their jagged swords and knives at Ranthor… at her. She backed away, but the wall that kept her from backing farther also seemed to stop Ranthor. Fear gripped her like a torturous clamp, making every muscle in her body rigid, unresponsive. Sweat streamed down her face, her back, and her breasts. She could no longer control her own breathing, and she knew she was going to die.

At that moment, Ranthor cast the Burning Hands spell. White-hot jets of flame burst from each of his fingertips, blasting the entire horde of orcs high into the air, incinerating each of the creatures they touched. The handful of orcs that landed on the ground alive proceeded to claw, pull, and scramble away from the wizard as fast as they could go, leaving the smoldering bodies of their companions behind them.

"Nice spell, Burning Hands," said Ranthor with a chuckle. "Comes in handy sometimes."

The blue cloud vanished, and Shal saw the discarded components arranged neatly on top of her spellbook…

That had happened more than three weeks ago, and she had mastered the Burning Hands spell the next day. With that one vision, Ranthor had managed to renew her interest, not only in a spell she had given up on, but also in spell-casting in general. Without a single harsh word, he had provided the insight that allowed her to identify which gesture she was performing incorrectly. Ranthor always seemed to have some way to keep her enthusiastic about magic. With subtle encouragement, he could get her dreaming of moving mountains or defeating the numerous monsters that threatened the people of their sparsely populated region.

Whenever she felt discouraged, her old master would remind her of her great promise. Whenever she grew tired of the rigors of memorizing spells or performing the dozens of routine tasks that made up her day, she would receive a magical message from him, reminding her that promise means nothing without diligence.

At the moment, Shal stood on the grounds of Ranthor's keep, struggling with a Weather Control spell he had encouraged her to try once she had mastered the Burning Hands spell. She faced the wind, just as Ranthor had instructed, and tried to visualize it. Her mind pictured the wind as pale, violet-white wisps of cloudlike material, and she imagined herself collecting the wisps within the exaggerated reach of her gesturing hands and molding them into a flat sheet so thin and so swift-moving that it could slice her enemies in two. Next she envisioned a solid wall of force that would push back her opponents. Then a churning funnel cloud that would suck them into its whirling vortex. Finally she intoned the words to the spell, taking care to match the inflection indicated in the runes she had so painstakingly memorized.

Unfortunately, each time she tried the spell, the results were the same. There was no wall of force… not even a good strong gust. There was no cyclone… not even a tiny dust devil. There was just a faint whoosh, and instantly the wind would pass by and out of her reach.

Tired and discouraged, Shal left the wind to its own devices and went inside the tower. She wished Ranthor were present to give her some of his usual valuable advice and support-some clue, anything. She wished, plain and simple, that he was back from his mission so she could stop worrying about him.

The day after Shal had mastered the Burning Hands spell, the same day Ranthor had suggested she try her hand at Weather Control, her master had departed. Shal had been in Ranthor's spell-casting chamber working on a Lightning spell. She knew she wasn't ready yet to attempt the spell outside. She wanted merely to create one little bolt that would arc between the conductor she had positioned on the crux of Ranthor's casting stand and the copper spike she'd fastened to a nearby shelf of components.

She meditated for a moment to help her mind focus, then traced and retraced with her eyes the path that she wanted the lightning to follow. Finally she lifted her hands and spoke, with all the intensity she could muster, the words of the spell. A crystal orb on a nearby shelf of components began to blaze red, growing steadily. With the final word of the spell still on her tongue, Shal screamed for Ranthor, and immediately the lightning began to pulse about the room, rattling the jars of magical components and sending several crashing to the floor. Her aging master rushed into the chamber as fast as his rheumatism-ridden legs could carry him. In one hand, he held a wand, its tip glowing with a molten fire, and in the other, he held a small bag of sparkling dust, no doubt some powerful weapon he had grabbed to use against whatever horror he found in the spell-casting area.

When he entered the room, he found Shal braced against the wall, an expression of stark terror on her face, pointing at the glowing crystal. He took one look and began to laugh, first a light, whispering snicker, then a full belly laugh. "Shal, my student of three years, do you not yet know that wizards use orbs to contact each other? That is simply my old friend Denlor calling me," Ranthor explained, pointing at the crystal. He breathed a single arcane syllable, and the orb rose into the air and began to float toward Shal. Despite her teacher's amusement, Shal could feel the hairs rise on the back of her neck as the glowing orb drifted closer.

"Pick it up, Shal." Ranthor removed the bronze cone from the center of the three-legged casting stand and pointed at the crux where the three legs met and crossed. "Pick it up," he repeated when she hesitated. "Put it here."

Shal expected nothing less than for her fingers to sizzle the moment they made contact with the blazing crystal ball. She reached out gingerly, turning her head aside so she wouldn't have to watch as her flesh melded to its fiery surface. Much to Shal's surprise, the ball was cold to the touch-icy, in fact-and when she did touch it, she felt her body suddenly awash in fear of a different sort. So chilling was the ball's aura that Shal nearly dropped it before she could place it in the ebony stand.

"Watch, and I'll show you how this is done," said Ranthor, his voice still sounding with a hint of laughter. "Not that you should be playing with crystal balls on your own any time soon, you understand…"

He waved his hands over the globe with practiced deliberation, then stepped back with a pleased look on his face as the ball floated to a secure position just a hand's height above the casting stand. "Concentration is the key here, young lady. Concentration, and not letting the crystal ball touch anything before you're completely finished with it.