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.Shandril peered around the cavern warily, and then shrugged and lifted out the skeletal arm.It dangled limply at the wrist.Small finger bones dropped off into the casket as she raised the arm into better light.Then she saw.Faint scratches caught the light along the arm bone she held—writing of some sort.Shandril peered at it closely for the first time, wrinkling her nose in anticipation of a rotting smell that was not there as she brought the bones close to her face.The writing seemed to be only a single word.But why would someone scratch a word on a bone, then leave it here? What did it all mean?Squinting, Shandril made out the word."Aergatha," she mumbled aloud.Suddenly, she was no longer in the cavern.The bones cold in her hand, she stood somewhere dimly lit and smelling of earth.She could feel cold air moving against her face.Shandril barely had time to scream as cold claws reached for her.Narm, the mage's apprentice, swung his staff desperately, white with fear.The skull-like faces of the two bone devils he faced grinned at him as he backed away, trying to keep their hooks at bay and to flee from Myth Drannor as fast as he could.The devils were making horrible, throaty chuckling noises, tremendously entertained by his struggles.Thunder rolled overhead, and it was growing dark here under the trees.Narm backed away desperately.Thrice they had tried to catch him between them, and only desperate leaps and acrobatics had saved him.By turns they would fade into invisibility, and he would swing wildly at the apparently empty air, hoping to deflect an unseen bone hook swinging for his throat or groin.Once, his staff did crash into something, but the devil seemed completely unaffected when it reappeared, grinning, just beyond his reach.Twice now he had been wounded, and he was nearly blind with sweat.Magic as feeble as his own was useless against these creatures, even if he had been allowed the time necessary to cast anything.Magic had not saved Marimmar.Narm had watched the pompous mage be overwhelmed after a few spectacular spells, then torn slowly apart with those bone hooks—the same bloody weapons that even now were tormenting the two screaming ponies.These two devils were only playing with him.The elf and his lady had given fair warning, and Marimmar had scoffed.Now the Mage Most Magnificent was dead, horribly dead.One mistake, only one, and now it was too late.Suddenly Marimmar's severed head, dripping blood, eyes lolling in different directions, appeared before him in mid-air.Narm screamed as Marimmar's rolling eyes focused on him.The mouth opened in a ghastly, bloody smile, and the head moved toward him.Frantic, Narm swung his staff.The wood cut empty air.The head was gone, gone as if it had never been there.Illusion, Narm realized in helpless anger, as the hissing laughter of the bone devils rose around him.Around him! They had gotten on both sides of him! Desperately, Narm turned and charged at one, swinging his staff wildly, trying to batter it down and win free.It danced aside, still hissing, its scorpionlike tail curling at him.Narm sprawled in the dry leaves and dirt, rolled over, heart pounding, and jumped up to his feet with staff flailing about.He was dead, dead anyway.he'd never escape.if only he and Marimmar had turned back!Then there was a blinding flash and the world exploded.Narm hit something, hard.Putting out a hand, he felt bark, felt his way up the tree, realizing that he still held his staff in the other hand.Abruptly he heard a dry female voice close by."He lives, Lanseril.If your bolt had been a couple of hands closer, mind.""Your turn, remember?" a light male voice replied, pointedly.Then both voices chuckled.Narm blinked his dazzled eyes desperately."Help," he managed to say, almost crying."I can’t see!""Can't think either, if you planned on storming Myth Drannor armed with nothing but a sapling," the female voice said to him and then hissed a word.Narm had the impression that something brightened, suddenly, to his left, and raced off in a spray of separate moving lights.But he could see nothing more—everything looked like a white fog.A hand fell on his arm.He stiffened and swung his staff up."No, no," the male voice said in his ear."If you hit me, I'll just leave you again, and the devils'll have you after all.How many companions had you?""J-just one," Narm replied, letting his arm fall."Marimmar, the—the Mage Most Magnificent." Suddenly Narm burst into tears."I take it that he is no more," the female voice said gently.Ahand took his sleeve, and then Narm was being led rapidly over the uneven leaves of the forest floor."Aye," the man said by Narm's shoulder."I've seen pieces of him.Mixed up with two horses.Can you ride, man?" Insistently he shook the sobbing Narm, who managed a violent nod, and then added, "Good.Up you go." Narm felt a stirrup, and then he was thrust up onto the back of a snorting, shifting horse.Narm clutched the horse's neck thankfully, and from one side heard the female hiss a word that he had heard earlier.The male voice spoke again."Tymora spit upon us, they're persistent! There's another flying at us now! Ride! Illistyl, lead him, will you?" Narm heard a sudden flutter of wings.He struck out at it wildly, blindly, with his staff."Mystra's strength!" the woman said, and Narm was jerked roughly to one side."Strike down Lanseril? Idiot!" A small, strong hand clouted him under the jaw and then jerked the staff from his grasp.Narm heard it clatter against something off to his right."I beg pardon!" he said, clutching the horse's neck as it gathered speed."I meant no harm—devils flying, he said!" "Aye, they are, and we're not—as they say in Cormyr—out of the woods yet, either.It might help if you held the reins and let the horse breathe and turn its head by loosening your hold on its neck," she suggested flippantly
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