Free Pool of Twilight by James M. Ward, Anne K. Brown Page B

wave of attacks. Someone wants the Hammer of Tyr very badly, and they’re going to do whatever it takes to get it. I imagine that even now our mysterious foe is enslaving more fiends from the nether worlds.”
    Listle sighed deeply. “The poor fiends.”
    Kern gaped at her. “‘The poor fiends?’ ” he practically choked. “What on Toril are you talking about, Listle?”
    “They didn’t ask to be summoned and enslaved,” the elven illusionist said indignantly.
    “Listle, they’re fiends,” Kern retorted in disbelief. “They’re evil.”
    “How do you know all of them are really evil?” Listle demanded, hands on her hips. “Maybe some of them have been ordered to attack us against their will.” She fidgeted with the shimmering ruby pendant hanging at her throat.
    Kern shook his head in amazement. What had gotten into the foolish elf? “Believe me, Listle, only an evil wizard would have summoned them. So they have to be evil.”
    “Is that so?” Listle said scathingly. Her silvery eyes were blazing. She spun around and flounced right through a wall of solid basalt. Kern could only gawk after her in bewilderment.
    “What’s the matter with her?” he asked in a wounded voice.
    Shal regarded her son seriously, then sighed. “You’re very pigheaded, Kern.”
    “Kern didn’t do anything wrong,” Anton protested. “Listle was talking nonsense.”
    The red-haired sorceress rolled her eyes. “Men!” she exclaimed, as if that were explanation enough. Kern, Tarl, and Anton wore looks of confusion.
    “Oh, quit gaping like that,” Shal snapped. “There are some things men never seem to learn.”
    The looks of confusion grew even worse. Shal smacked a palm against her forehead. “Never mind!” she said in exasperation.
    With a groan, Shal left the three men and went in search of her apprentice. She finally found the elf in an unlikely place—sweeping the floor in Shal’s own spellcasting chamber. It wasn’t a task the elf generally volunteered to do. She must be upset, indeed, the sorceress thought.
    After a long moment, Shal spoke gently. “Kern can be a bit stubborn, can’t he?”
    Listle looked up from her work in surprise. Then she nodded, sighing. “You can say that again.”
    Shal smiled fondly. “He’s his father’s son in that regard. But he didn’t mean to upset you, Listle. You know that, don’t you?”
    The elf nodded. “I know, Shal. And I’m not mad at him, really.” A faint, impish smile touched her lips. “Well, not much anyway.”
    Shal laughed at this. She took the broom from Listle’s hands and sat the elf down in a chair. Then she brewed a pot of herbal tea over a small brazier and poured two cups full of the steaming, fragrant liquid.
    Shal sat and regarded her apprentice thoughtfully for a moment. The truth was, Listle was almost as much a mystery to the sorceress as she was to Kern. The elf had shown up at the tower two years before, wanting to learn the craft of magic, and Shal did not have the heart to turn her down. Besides, Shal had sorely needed an apprentice to help out around the laboratory, and Listle had proved to be both a quick study and a hard worker, if a bit unpredictable at times.
    Yet after two years, Shal knew little more of the elf than she had been told that first day. Listle’s homeland was Evermeet, the land of the silver elves far across the western Sea of Swords, but she spoke of her past rarely. And Shal was not the type to pry.
    Listle broke the silence. “Shal, tell me how Tarl first brought the Hammer of Tyr to Phlan. He had a difficult time, didn’t he?”
    The sorceress stared in surprise at Listle’s unexpected question. Then she nodded. Sometimes the best way to forget your own troubles was to listen to someone else’s. She sipped her tea, thinking.
    “It was more than thirty years ago,” Shal began. “Tarl had just become a cleric of Tyr—under Anton’s watchful eye, of course—and he journeyed with a dozen of his brethren to