Restlessly, Bane turned toward the sun, corpses shifting under his black boots, and spun himself homeward through the shifting voids, back to the body that grimly paced the Cold Castle. Ethereal mists whirled briefly around him, and then he was striding again along the windblown battlements, looking far out over bleak Acheron. Magic, aye. Always it came back to that, and to her.

Mystra, the Lady who was magic. He must possess her, rule her-or destroy her-to gain true mastery of magic. But how? Many webs he'd spun to take her- some still hung waiting, even now-but the very power he sought warned her and shielded her, time after time.

In the ashen failures of his last few attempts, she'd even laughed at him. Bane whirled with a roar of sudden fury, there on the battlements, and drove his fist through a stout merlon, smashing it to stony rubble that rattled and sprayed down over his startled and fearful minions in the courtyard below. If only it had been her laughing face! The Overgod take her! She -

Bane froze in sudden thought, and a slow, dark smile spread softly across his angry face. Aye, let the Overgod take her.

Memories that were dim even for him flickered briefly, and he felt the stirrings of excitement. It might well work.

Yes. It was high time for the overproud, overreaching gods to be cast down again.

The Plane of Acheron, and a forgotten ruin in the Savage Frontier backlands, Mirtul 29

Cold laughter rang out through the castle, and scurrying servants of Bane paused in their scuttlings long enough to shudder before they hastened on again. Such sounds boded ill for all.

Still smiling like a wolf rising in bloody satisfaction from a fresh kill, Bane spun himself away from cold Acheron once more, heading for Toril. Of course.

Even gods need a playground. Because Faerun was Mystra's, he had made it his — as had, increasingly, the others. The Dark One cloaked himself in shadows and sought the throne he liked to sit in, deep in the riven ruins of the once-proud city of Netheril.