As her gaze cleared, she saw a man sitting at a table in front of her — a stout, fussy-looking man with a wispy beard. He seemed to be alone in this gloomy, bare stone room. Alone until she arrived. He was looking irritably over his shoulder at her, a shoulder that bore the purple robes of a war wizard of Cormyr. The flickering blue radiance — the only light in the room-was coming from a thin, gleaming long sword floating horizontally in the air in front of the wizard.

Shandril let her eyes close to slits and her chin fall to her breast. After a moment, the wizard shrugged and turned back to the floating blade. Murmuring something to himself, he reached toward the blade and made a certain gesture. Blue lightning crackled suddenly, coiling and twisting along the gleaming steel like a snake spiraling around a branch. Then there was a brief, soundless flash, and the reaching, blue-white tongues of lightning were gone. The wizard nodded and wrote something on a piece of parchment in front of him.

Then he tugged at his beard for a moment, spoke a single, distinct word Shandril had never heard before, and made another gesture. This time there was no response from the magical blade. The wizard made another note.

Delg squinted up at the Purple Dragon commander. "In a breath or two, I'll tell you all that," he said, "if you've time to listen by then. There's near thirty Zhentilar riding on our heels, they'll be here very soon."

The commander stared at him, saw that he was serious, and said, "Zhentil Keep? Twill be a pleasure, Sir Dwarf, to turn them back." He made no move to call his men to arms, but nodded his head at the guardhouse into which Shandril had been taken. "So speak, what befell?"