Dawnbringer: A Forgotten Realms Novel by Samantha Henderson Page A

shoulder and saw Gareth, his arms piled high with prickly deadwood, standing by thehalf-completed fire pit. A log rolled off the top of his burden. He cursed and turned toward them, laughing. The grin froze on his face when he saw them together, and he turned away suddenly. The wood falling on the ground made a sound like the clatter of sticks on a stretched hide being beaten to make soft leather.

     
    Gareth and Jandi stood on top of the Fist while Ivor and the phlegmatic donkey kept watch at the base. Jandi drew her cloak closer around her body and shivered. The autumn wind moaning across the Fist’s flat surface was chilly.
    “I didn’t leave Bane’s city to sojourn in Bane’s gravel pit,” she grumbled, kicking a pebble over the side. It bounced several times against the side of the monolith, making a clacking sound every time it hit. Far beneath them, she saw Ivor’s head turn to follow the sound.
    “It’ll be a paradise by the time we’re finished with it,” Gareth proclaimed, hopping down from a knot of stone and examining the half-illegible characters carved at its base. “Is there any magic left here, from who—or what—went before? We don’t want any residual Power to clash with your Art.”
    As she had done several times on the hike up the stairs that curved between the cone and its parent mountain, she closed her eyes and held out her arms, elbows at her sides and palms up. She inhaled deeply, and Gareth heard a gentle humming, although she didn’t seem to be producing the sound herself.
    Jandi opened her eyes. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Possibly an echo in the depths. It’s hard to avoid any trace of magic. Creatures magical by nature pass by, and always leave some kind of trail, no matter how faint. I would be more suspicious of a place completely clean of magic—it takes an effort to burn an area clear. There’s nothing here that would interfere with my overlay.”
    “Well, then, what’s stopping you?”
    The young mage glared at the grinning ex-pirate and reached into the bag slung across her shoulder. “Nothing,” she said. “But you’ll need to give me the Key.”
    Gareth pulled the torque from his upper arm, where it had nested the night before. Jandi had found a spot clear of rocks and sat cross-legged.
    Jandi placed the Key cautiously on her lap and took a clean glass vial from her pack. She held it in her right hand and drew her small blade with her left.
    “Give me your hand. I’ll need some of your blood. Oh, please!” She laughed as he flinched back. “I know you’ve had worse fighting. You’ve shed more blood while shaving!”
    “That was due to ill-intentioned folk, or an accident,” he said. “I’m not accustomed to having those who are supposed to be working for my benefit stabbing me with their little knives.”
    Imperiously she gestured with bottle and knife, and he sighed.
    “Which hand?” he said.
    “The one you would hold a key with, if you were unlocking a door.”
    He kneeled and extended his right hand. She held the bottle close alongside while she sliced deeply across thepad of his forefinger. Thick blood welled, and she filled the small bottle quickly.
    “Sorry,” she said, giving him a sympathetic smile.
    He stood and wrapped the small wound in the tail of his shirt. “It is what it must be,” he said.
    She sheathed the knife and took the Key in one hand, the glass vial filled with scarlet in the other. Her eyes closed, and the sigil on her cheek glowed briefly with the strange green light associated with her Art.
    He retreated to sit on a nearby rock and reached in his own pack for a skin of ale. He watched as Jandi’s breathing slowed, the time between her inhaling and exhaling uncomfortably long. Minutes stretched to an hour and he finished the skin, wishing he’d brought another and wondering if anything was going to happen.
    Then he saw the tiny green sparks hovering around her body like fireflies. Thicker and brighter they