– and gazed upon the naked form of a vremyonni, held spread-eagled by four obsidian chains that pulsed with a baleful green light. The Old One was ancient even by the standards of his brotherhood. Deeply weathered flesh sagged on the wizard's decrepit bones, drooping toward the floor like melted candle wax. Faint tufts of silver hair sprouted from the creased lines of the man's skull; only his thickset eyebrows and flowing white beard bespoke the Rashemi blood beating sluggishly within his chest.

He stirred at Yulda's approach, gazing up at her with eyes that still shone brilliant gold, despite his treatment. The witch nearly stopped in her tracks. Power resonated from him, sharp and bright, so different from her own magic. She felt a wave of desire crest over her all at once-wild and desperate. With an iron discipline honed by nearly a century of study, the hathran mastered her body's need.

The Old One was dangerous still. His lore was deep; it burned within him, the very animating force that pumped each beat of his ancient heart. It had taken all of her cunning to lure the wizard into her trap and overwhelm his arcane defenses. She would not falter now and allow a single misstep to ruin her plan-not when she was so close.

"Have you reconsidered my offer?" Yulda asked in a voice not far from the purr she had offered her telthor companion earlier.

The vremyonni ignored her, staring steadily into her eyes.

"Where is the boy?" he asked at last, his deep, rumbling bass echoing in the frigid cave.

"The boy?" she replied with little comprehension-then she remembered the wizard's pupil, a lad of less than twelve summers, with soft, smooth skin and golden hair. "Ahh… I remember now. He's dead."

The news seemed to deflate the vremyonni even more than his cruel bonds. The Old One bowed his head, but Yulda stepped forward and pulled the sagging wizard's head up violently to face her.

"I will have your secrets, old man-and those of your pathetic brotherhood." She nearly screamed the last words.

He gazed at her for a few moments then said softly, almost whispering, "Before I will betray the very oaths that give me life, I would see the face of my captor."

Yulda stepped back as if struck. No one gazed upon the naked face of a hathran, least of all a man, yet her path these past decades had led her far beyond the ways that blinded her tradition-bound sisters. Reaching carefully, almost tenderly, up to her mask, the witch slowly removed it, revealing the weathered lines of her own countenance. She watched as the Old One's face changed-first in disbelief at the moment of recognition, then in horror as his gaze fell upon the gaping hole where Yulda's left eye should have been, a hole that now pulsated with an obsidian energy that seemed to draw the very light of the cavern into it.

"You…" the Old One stammered. "What have you done?"

The question hung in the air between them, and for a single moment Yulda felt free of the compulsion that had driven her for nearly half a century. The horror of her own actions came alive within her and cried out for justice. Here was an open door, an opportunity to step from her treacherous path.

The moment passed.

With a snarl, the hathran threw her white mask to the floor and shattered it with a single stomp of her booted foot.

"I have done what I must," she finally answered the vremyonni's question. "Now," she asked almost sweetly, "what will you do for me?"

"I will never betray the oaths of my brotherhood," the Old One said, "especially to a durthan pawn."

At that, Yulda laughed, a terrible sound, like the cawing of a crow.

"Do you think I have anything to do with that dark sisterhood?" she asked at last, nearly spluttering as she tried to catch her breath. "The durthan are nothing more than toothless crones. They scurry and scuttle in the shadows of the Erech Forest, clutching their little secrets and spinning webs of intrigue like bloated spiders, too full of themselves to realize true power.

"No," the witch continued, drawing blood as she ran a sharp nail down the Old One's gaunt cheek. "I am far more than wychlaran. I am free-and nothing will stop me before I have worked my will upon the world."

"Then I am truly sorry," the vremyonni replied. "The freedom you have is a terrible burden. Who can survive it?"

The Old One's words were spoken mildly, but their sorrowful tone awoke a fierce flame within Yulda's heart. Who was this broken wizard, this man, to feel sorrow for her? She turned from him and with a single shout sent an arcane message spinning across the breadth of Rashemen to the one person she trusted. The witch's forces would begin to gather. Her time was at hand.

"If you will not offer me the power that I seek," Yulda said fiercely as she returned her attention to the captive wizard, "then I will reach into your very heart and rake for it."

Quietly at first, and then with greater intensity, the witch gave voice to the spell that had taken her eye to learn. Black power billowed from her ruined eye socket like smoke, forming a cloud that gathered around the chained Old One. A final shouted incantation sent the cloud rushing at the chained wizard with enough force to extinguish the guttering torches. The cave plunged into darkness as the Old One's screams kept company with the night wind.

In deep winter, night in the Icerim Mountains lasted a very long time indeed.

The Year of the Lion

(1340 DR)

Aelrindel watched as the river burned.

He stood utterly still beneath the arching canopy of leaf and branch, caught in that silent space between breaths, that moment when life and death cease their endless dance, poised in a single embrace-watching.

Flaming wrecks of wood and iron floated aimlessly across the river's broad back, caught in its bloodied current. Thick plumes of oily smoke rose from the shattered hulks like incense to a dark god, their black and terrible shapes bruising the soft spring sky. On the far bank, obscured by the columns of smoke, trebuchets and small catapults stood in various stages of disarray-the castoff toys of a malicious giant. Everywhere, the bloated bodies of the dead and dying bobbed sickeningly in the water as a shadowed convocation of crows cawed raucous symphonies before plunging downward to feast.

Aelrindel watched it all with eyes that had gazed upon a hundred mortal lifetimes of joy and sorrow, had witnessed the world's fragile beauty suspended on a single silken strand of time, spinning out across the ages on an unending pilgrimage-and refused to look away.

"Animals," a voice to his left barked, interrupting Aelrindel's sorrowful reverie. "Filthy barbarians, that they would kill and leave their dead to rot in the sun." The words were harsh, sharp edged despite the lilting, cadence with which they were delivered.

The golden-maned elf turned a thin, angular face toward his companion, squinting almond-shaped eyes against the rapidly brightening day. The exclamation hung in the cool morning air. He heard the anger in his friend's voice-and more. The weight of history pressed down upon their hearts, of centuries spent in war and strife with the humans in this part of Faerun. Even though an uneasy peace had reigned for nearly as long, the memory of sword and steel, wrack and ruin, lay across a generation and more of his people. Anger, sorrow, and bitterness-for the bright weavings of the Tel'Quessir cast into shadow, the songs stilled, and if he was honest with himself, for the extinguishing of human life-clung to the spirit of his people like a feeding wraith.

"Peace, Faelyn," he said at last, placing long, graceful fingers upon his companion's shoulders. "We are here as eyes and ears, not swords."

Faelyn scowled, but held his tongue. The elegant, angular cast of his features was sharper than Aelrindel's, more severe, like blades cutting through the air. Faelyn wore his thick, raven-black hair pulled back in the style of the laeriaen, bound with the finely wrought silver clasp that identified him as a bladesinger.