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.These things I saw, and more—more horrors than I could fit into a hundredgrim tales.I noted them with the sort of wordless, mindless awareness that a rabbit might use to guideits path through a thicket as it flees the fox.Screams filled the city streets, and the scent of death, andthe crackle of fire.Fire.For some reason, a measure of reason returned to me as my benumbed mind took note of the risingflames.I remembered all I knew of sea devils, and how it was said that they feared fire and magicabove all things.That was why I had been chosen for the West Gate, why I had been summoned to thewalls to fight beside the archmage.I possessed a number of fire spells.There was still one remainingto me, encased in a magic ring I always wore but had in my fear forgotten.The building beside me already blazed—I could not harm it more.I tore up a set of stairs that ledto a roof garden, and I could feel the heat through my boots as I ran.The sea devil followed me, itsbreath coming in labored, panting little hisses.When I reached the roof I whirled to face the sahuagin.It came at me, mindlessly kicking asideblackened stone pots draped with heat-withered flowers.All four of its massive green hands curvedinto grasping claws.Its jaws were parted, and blood-tinged drool dripped from its expectant fangs.I would not run.Hughmont—the man whom I had regarded so smugly and falsely—had stood andfought when he had no magic at all remaining.I tore the small ring from my finger and hurled it at thesea devil.A circle of green fire burst from the ring, surrounding the creature and casting a hellish sheen overits scales.From now until the day I die, I will always picture the creatures of the Abyss bathed inverdant light.The sea devil let out a fearful, sibilant cry and dropped, rolling frantically in an attemptto put out the arcane flames.I looked about for a weapon to finish the task.There was a fire pit on the roof, and beside it severallong iron skewers for roasting gobbets of meat.Never had I attacked a living creature with weapons of steel or iron.That is another tale that willremain untold, but by the third skewer the task seemed easier.With the fourth I was nearly frantic inmy haste to kill.The sahuagin still lived, but the green fire encasing it was dying.Suddenly I was aware of a rumbling beneath my feet, of a dull roar growing louder.The roofbegan to sink and I instinctively leaped away—Right into the sahuagin's waiting arms.The sea devil rolled again, first tumbling me over it and then crushing me beneath it as it went, butnever letting go.Frantic as the sahuagin was to escape the fire, it clearly intended that I should end mydays as Hughmont had.Though the creature was quick, the crumbling building outpaced its escape.The roof gave way andfell with an enormous crash to the floor far below.I felt the sudden blaze of heat, the sickening fall.and the painful jerk as we came to a stop.Two of the sea devil's hands clasped me tightly, but the other two clung to the edge of the gapinghole.The creature's vast muscles flexed—in a moment it would haul us both away from the blaze.It was over.No magic remained to me.I was no longer a wizard—I was meat.My hands fell in limp surrender to my sides, and one of them brushed hard metal.It was the sickleblade that had torn Hughmont.I grasped it, and it did not feel as strange in my hands as I'd expected.The sahuagin saw the bladetoo late.I thought I saw a flicker of something like respect in its black eyes as I twisted in its graspand slashed with all my strength at the hands that grasped the ledge.I had no more fire spells, but itmattered not."Fire is fire," I screamed as we plunged together into the waiting flames.Somehow, I survived that fall, those flames.The terrible pain of the days and months that followedis also something that will never be told to my admiring descendants.The man Sydon survived, butthe great wizard I meant to be died in that fire.Even my passion for magic is gone.No, that is not strictly true.Not gone, but tempered.A healing potion fanned the tiny spark of lifein me, and gave a measure of movement back to my charred hands.Khelben Arunsun visited me oftenin my convalescence, and I learned more of the truth behind the great archmage in those quiet talksthan I witnessed upon the flaming ramparts of the West Gate.With his encouragement, now I work atthe making of potions and simples—magic meant to undo the ravages of magic.While there arewizards, where there is war, there will always be need for such men as I.Fire is fire, and it burns allthat it touches.Grandsire, please—what did you do when the sea devils attacked?Someday I might have sons, and their sons will ask me for the story.Their eyes will be bright withexpectation of heroic deeds and wondrous feats of magic.They will be children of this land, born ofblood and magic, and such tales are their birthright.But Lady Mystra, I know not what I should tell them.Originally published in Dragon #282, April 2002Edited by Dave GrossPOSSESSIONSThis is the first and, as yet, the only ghost story I've written.It tells a little about the background ofFarah Noor, a minor character in the Counselors & Kings trilogy.Again, this tale offers a familiarscene through another pair of eyes, as Noor witnesses events related in the novel The Floodgate—events that led to Kiva's madness and her hatred of Halruaa's wizards.It is such a dark tale that some people have had difficulty equating it with the mild-manneredsoccer mom I appear to be.When Dave Gross, the editor of Dragon at the time, asked for a tidbit ofpersonal information to include in a two-sentence author bio, I mentioning that I'd just been asked tofill in for the PTA president of the local elementary school [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]