"Tycho!" shouted Ong.
Tycho whirled around. The fat dragon, wearing his human shape once more, stood in the door of the tavern, flap clutched in his hand, and women crowded behind him.
All of them were momentarily frozen by the sight of the flames rising in the tent.
To lose either women or tavern, Ong had said, would be condemnation. Tycho's music might not have been strong enough to harm the dragon directly, but that didn't mean it couldn't affect him in other ways.
"How about one last song, Ong?" Tycho yelled. He reached inside himself and sang, light ripples of music that hissed and crackled on the air. He sang to the fire.
From within the flames, something answered. Glowing embers rose and shifted like eyes, staring first at Tycho then shifting to Ong. Flames gathered together into a form the size of a child and tendrils of fire reached out. Ong's eyes flashed with anger.
"A fire elemental? You attack a lord of water with a puppet of fire?"
The elemental's tendrils brushed the walls of the tent, which burst into flame. It moved across the carpets and they too burned.
"Who said I was attacking you?" called Tycho. He spun around and plunged through the flap into the back of the tavern. "Now, Li!" he screamed.
Over the crackle of flames and the howls of the dragon, Tycho heard cloth tear as Li opened a rip in the wall of the tent. The fire gave him just enough light to see. He dived through the tavern's new door hard on Li's heels, and kept running-
"Are you sure that will get us enough time?" Li gasped as they raced through the rain.
"Ask me again after we've made it out!"
Behind them, women were shouting and Ong was roaring. A strange liquid rush rumbled through the night, followed by the long hiss of an extinguished flame. Tycho bent his head and ran harder.
The caravan that came straggling along the Golden Way in the morning light was a good deal more subdued than the one that had entered the oasis the night before. All eyes turned-some with wary suspicion, some with outright fear-to the two figures that waited in the meager shadow of the marker stone. Li nudged Tycho as the caravan approached.
"Mother of dogs!" he breathed.
Tycho looked where the Shou pointed.
Chotan and Ibakha rode alongside the caravan-on Li's and Tycho's horses. As they drew close to the marker, they jumped down, letting the horses walk on their own. Both women glared at the men.
"We have a message for you," growled Ibakha. She flung a Tuigan knife into the ground at Tycho's feet. "Ride the Wastes with care."
Tycho swallowed and said, "Is that a message from Ong?"
"No," said Chotan. "It's a warning from the Tuigan."
"And Ong?" asked Li.
"He sends his respect for your fast thinking-and reminds you that even exiles have friends." The grin she gave them was vicious and eager. "Enjoy Shou Lung, Faroon. You ride with a dragon's attention now."
They turned and walked back down the trail toward the oasis. Li and Tycho stared after them.
THE PRISONER OF HULBURG
Richard Lee Byers
1 amp; 2 Mirtul, the Year of Rogue Dragons
His leather cloak rattling in the cold night wind, Pavel Shemov hurled his god-granted power against the pale, twisted things hovering around the sailboat. First, assuming them to be a product of sorcery, the priest tried to wipe the gaunt, translucent figures from the air with a counterspell. Next, suspecting them to be spirits of the dead, he tried to burn them away with a blaze of conjured sunlight.
Nothing worked. Every second, more phantoms oozed into view, whispering obscenities, pawing at their prey. At first, Pavel had been unable to feel their touch. Then it had become a slimy brushing. Soon, he reckoned, the specters would be substantial enough to hurt a person.
The three-man crew realized the same thing, and panic-stricken, yammered and flailed ineffectually at the phantoms.
A child-sized figure among the humans, Will Turnstone shouted, "Ignore them! Put in to shore!"
The halfling might as well have been a mute for all the good his exhortations did. An apparition raked at Pavel's forehead. The attack stung, and blood dripped down into his left eye. Across the deck, specters ripped the flesh of sailors, or assailed the boat itself, clawing at the timbers.
"Dive overboard!" Pavel shouted.
It was their only chance. He cast about for Will.
Swinging his curved, broad-bladed sword, the half-ling slashed one glimmering assailant to fraying ecto-plasmic tatters and sidestepped the talons of another. He was holding his own, but it couldn't last. There were just too many phantoms.
Pavel dashed forward, snatched up his friend, and leaped over the side. As he splashed down in the frigid waters of the Moonsea, he invoked the magic of his enchanted cloak.
The folds of the leather mantle expanded into rippling, pulsing wings to propel him through the depths like a manta ray. He could breathe like a fish as well. The water was cool in his lungs.
Will squirmed in his grip, pointed upward, and he realized that though he could breathe, his comrade couldn't. He surfaced warily, but found he'd swum far enough to evade the apparitions. They remained intent on the sailboat and its immediate vicinity.
Pavel carried Will on to shore, then swam back to look for the sailors. By then, the wraiths had disappeared, and unfortunately, the mariners and boat had, too. Nothing remained but drifting planks and other flotsam.
Will crouched and hid in the shadow of a stand of brush, then waited, shivering, his heart still pounding, for Pavel to return. At last the lanky, handsome cleric reared up from the shallows and waded onto the pebbly strand.
Will was relieved to see his friend, but it wouldn't do to show it. It would violate the spirit of their perpetual mock feud.
The half ling straightened up and sneered, "Nice job out there on the boat. It's good to see your magic is as useful as ever."
Though plainly upset at the slaughter of the crew, Pavel made the effort to answer in kind: "At least I had sense enough to flee when the situation became hopeless. What were you trying to accomplish by standing and fighting? That was idiotic even by your standards."
"The spooks piled on me-obviously, they knew which of us posed a threat to them-and I had to cut my way clear. You might want to fix that scratch on your brow before what passes for your brains leaks out."
"Right. I forgot all about it."
Pavel recited a prayer to his patron deity, Lathander, lord of the dawn, sketched a sacred symbol on the air, and his hand glowed with a red-gold light. He touched it to the cut, and the wound closed.
Will ripped up some grass and wiped his exquisitely balanced hornblade, as such oversized halfling swords were called, and asked, "So what happened out there?"
"I don't know," Pavel admitted. "Obviously, something uncanny attacked us, but it didn't feel like conventional magic, or spirits, either."
"Which leaves…?"
The human shook, his head and answered, "At this point, all I know is, we've seen how the Zhentarim are destroying 'unlicensed' ships and caravans."