"I shouldn't have opened my mouth," the girl replied. "Let's get his damned rock and get back inside. It's freezing out here!"

The sky was overcast, and the hilltop was dark. Once they left the warm yellow circle of light spilling from the windows of the Students' Hall, they could barely see their hands in front of their faces. "You know he's going to send us back at least three or four times before he gets tired of this game," Melisanda barked.

"I know. Might as well get it over with." Aeron blundered toward the skirt of rubble that surrounded the monolith, visible only as an ebon shadow in the darkness. Even with his keen elven vision, he could scarcely make out where they were going. He stumbled over some unseen obstacle on the ground and fell to his hands and knees. "Ouch! Wait a moment, Melisanda. I'll make some light."

Her teeth chattered from somewhere nearby. "Good idea. I can't see a thing."

Stone grated on stone in the darkness. A rasping growl cut through the wind's howling from somewhere ahead. Aeron suddenly felt colder, as if a ghostly hand had brushed his heart with an icy touch. He slowly rose, peering into the night. "Melisanda? What was that sound?"

Her voice was startlingly near. "I don't know. You'd better summon your light," she whispered.

Aeron nodded. He started to weave the spell, but he heard the sound of a man's voice. Something slid in the rubble. Then the sensation of magic at work tugged at Aeron's body, the powerful and desperate jolt of a mighty spell worked in haste.

Ahead of them, a brilliant flash of ruby light speared through the night, illuminating the scene. Kneeling in the apron of debris at the tower's foot, a brown-robed master with a dun hood confronted an awful beast, a doglike thing the size of a small horse. Its mouth gaped open with a double row of teeth, one set vertically across its nightmarish maw. The master's spell launched a lance of energy at the creature, a fiery bolt searing Aeron's eyes and charring stone, but the flame splashed from the beast's flanks harmlessly. As the brief flare of light died away, the creature crouched and leapt with impossible speed. The master's scream rang through the darkness as night cloaked the scene again.

"Aeron! Your light!" cried Melisanda.

Abandoning subtlety, Aeron barked the brief syllables of the dweomer. With his hands, he wove a bobbing sphere of wizard light and cast it into the air, to hover a few feet ahead of them. A globe of eerie blue radiance brightened the night. Aeron shuddered in horror; the dog-thing had the master in its jaws, splintering bone and rending flesh. The dying man groaned and wheezed, pushing weakly at the creature's black snout.

"By the gods," Aeron murmured. Although every bone in his body ached with the desire to flee, he forced himself forward two steps and raised his hands, considering which of the spells at his command to employ. As he watched the scene in sick horror, he noticed an odd metallic gleam on the creature's foreleg. A strange silver band graven with twisted runes was clasped to its dark flesh. He pushed the odd bracelet to the back of his mind and started to speak the words for fire hand. He had to do something, even though it was clear that nothing could aid the master.

Melisanda caught his arm and dragged him back. "No, Aeron! It's too late for him."

"We've got to help him somehow!"

The Vilhonese girl shook her head. "It wasn't even fazed by the best spell a master could throw. The only thing we could do is get killed. Come on! We'll get help!"

Numbly, he nodded assent. They backed away quickly, stumbling across the loose stones of the tower's wreckage. Aeron could not wrench his eyes away from the terrible scene before him; the creature was tearing the master to pieces. "What in Faerun is that thing?" he stammered.

"I have no idea. But I recognize the master. That's Raemon, the High Master of Abjuration."

"Not anymore," Aeron gasped. Suddenly he tripped over an unseen stone beneath his feet and fell heavily. Rubble grated and clattered over the bitter shrieking of the wind. He scrambled to his feet, bruised and a little embarrassed, but the monster's great head swiveled from its grisly work, two small, squarish ears quivering and twitching, its nostrils flaring. It doesn't have any eyes, he noted in surprise. Then he realized that the creature could hear quite well. It sniffed and took a tentative step toward them.

"Aeron," Melisanda whispered. "It's got our scent."

"Be quiet. It can't see us," he said softly. The bitter wind gusted, wracking him with cold, and he realized that the howling gale was the only thing standing between the two of them and an unpleasant death. They were downwind of the creature, and even with its unnaturally acute senses, it could barely make them out. Aeron stood slowly, trying not to jostle the loose rubble any more than he already had, but small stones clicked and scraped beneath his feet.

The creature snarled into the night and bounded in their direction, leaping from spot to spot as it tried to flush them out. Melisanda started to bolt, but Aeron caught her arm in an iron grip. He pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered, "If we move, we're dead. Don't make a sound."

Sniffing and growling, the horrendous creature tracked back and forth across the rubble, swinging its great dark head from side to side as it cast about for some hint of their location. Aeron could feel Melisanda shaking like a leaf in his arms. For a long moment, the thing seemed to stare right at them, only a dozen paces distant, and then, with an angry snort, it broke away, bounding back to the place where Master Raemon lay. With deliberate care, it rooted through the splintered wreckage of the wizard's body, as if to make absolutely certain that no possible spark of life remained. Then, its work done, it bounded off into the night, vanishing like a shadow.

The supernatural chill, the cold presence, faded away like a memory of pain. Aeron gasped for air and dragged Melisanda into motion. "I think it's gone. Come on."

Staggering against the freezing winds, they headed toward the flickering yellow lights of the hall. Although Aeron couldn't feel the creature nearby, his shoulder blades itched, anticipating the pounce of black claws from the flickering shadows. "What was that thing?" Aeron asked again, muttering to himself.

"Some kind of fiend, I think," Melisanda replied. "If Dalrioc had sent us out a few minutes earlier, it might have come across us instead of Master Raemon."

They darted up the steps to the Masters' Hall and battered their way inside. In a matter of minutes, they gathered a half-dozen masters and a handful of students, including Telemachon and Oriseus. Although several of the wizards viewed the novices with extreme skepticism, their obvious fright carried their story for a moment, and the procession started out into the cold.

"There had better be something truly horrifying out here," one of the masters stated as they returned to the scene. "If I've been dragged out into a night like this for a prank, the two of you will wish you'd never been born."

Telemachon remained silent, but Oriseus spoke up. "I suspect that even the most addlepated novice would have more sense than that. But we shall see."

Several of the masters created powerful spheres of brilliant mage light, driving away the darkness as they approached the ruins with deliberate caution. Aeron's heart sank. There was nothing there, no trace of the monstrous creature he and Melisanda had seen! He could feel the eyes of the masters turning toward him. "The two of you will have a lot of explaining to do," one said ominously.

"Wait," said Telemachon. He directed his light at the rubble. A tatter of red fluttered in the wreckage. The masters fell silent as the mangled corpse of the Master Abjurer appeared. Perversely, his face was untouched, staring sightlessly into the ebon sky.