Autumn passed, then winter, ending the Year of the Shield and marking the arrival of the Year of the Banner. From time to time, Aeron detected intrusions against the Maerchwood, and he responded to the forest's call. Several times he had to rein in timber seekers or miners who were pushing too far into the wooded hills. Some were amenable to his suggestions and curtailed their efforts voluntarily; others refused to heed him, and he compelled them to listen to his words. On other occasions, Aeron found bands of brigands or raiders lairing in the recesses of the woods, preying on the honest folk who lived along the forest's verge. Fineghal had never moved against these vermin, preferring to leave human affairs to human law, but Aeron saw no reason to allow the Maerchwood to serve as their refuge. He drove them out when he encountered them, or quietly helped the constables or rangers of the neighboring towns to locate the bandits' dens.

As the seasons passed, Aeron maintained his watch on Maerchlin, taking the form of a falcon by day, or an owl by night, and flying over the castle. Aeron had no intention of interfering with Phoros Raedel's rule of Maerchlin, but it seemed wise to make sure he'd know beforehand if the count ever meant to raise his hand against him. Perching on the battlements, he noted who entered and who departed, and sometimes he even listened in on a conversation by clinging to a window ledge.

One overcast summer day, almost a year since his last encounter with Phoros, Aeron approached the castle and sensed something wrong. He circled it carefully, searching for the source of his unease, but everything appeared normal. He drifted in toward the courtyard and suddenly felt an invisible hand shoving him aside, forcing him to flare his wings and wheel awkwardly to one side. What in Faerun was that? he thought.

He circled outward, gliding past the castle. He concentrated on the emanations of the Weave that surrounded the castle and discovered a subtle weave of light and dark doming the entire fortress. At each cardinal point, an intricate rune had been drawn on the battlements, scrawled in rough circles of red paint the size of a small shield. Wards against magic, he realized. But who made them? Since Aeron kept his falcon shape by means of a spell, the wards were sufficient to bar his physical passage. If he released the spell, he could walk right past them . . . but he'd lose his disguise in the process. He orbited the gray tower, thinking.

As he wheeled over the keep itself, he spied a dark figure standing in an open window. It was a thin man, his features obscured by a loose cowl over his head. Aeron slipped a little closer, drawn to the man by an intangible mantle of power that streamed around him. This was the maker of the runes, an adept of no small skill. Aeron peered at him with first one eye and then the other, trying to discern the robed man's features.

Without warning, the dark hood swung his way. He caught a glimpse of a dark, bone-thin face with long teeth bared in a snarl of challenge. At the same time, an electric jolt arrested his heart, seizing him in a fierce contest of will. Aeron reeled and fluttered, trying to break free, the wind howling in his ears as the ground and sky tumbled crazily. He sensed the man below him knotting his fists in the stuff of the castle, gathering magical strength for a fearsome onslaught.

Screeching shrilly, Aeron broke free of the sorcerer's will and arrowed away, regaining his strength and determination as he widened the distance between them. But he could still feel the hateful eyes of the wizard on his back, waiting for him to resume his presumptuous reconnaissance of the castle. Aeron declined the fight, although he didn't feel that the encounter was done until long after the gray towers of Castle Raedel had slipped beneath the horizon behind him.

When he returned to the Storm Tower, Aeron resumed his own shape, stretching his arms and legs. He turned to let himself into the tower's door, but suddenly an odd wind shifted and blew at his back, clutching his cloak. Aeron tensed and whirled, scenting sorcery in the air, a manifestation of the shadow weave that deadened the breeze with a cold, clammy odor. He searched the dark forests nearby for any sign of a foe, but nothing appeared until a small yellow slip of paper blew into sight, scuttling across the ground until it came to a rest right at his feet. With that, the eerie breeze failed.

Aeron stooped down and carefully looked over the paper without touching it. Many deadly spells could be triggered by the simple act of reading the cursed signs. After a moment, he decided that he sensed no magic on the parchment, so he cautiously picked it up and broke the seal. It was a letter, written in a thin and spidery hand:

To my esteemed colleague, the Storm Walker:

Greetings. I have been retained by Lord Phoros Raedel, Count of Maerchlin, to advise him on matters magical and to defend him against the assault or scrutiny of any hostile sorcerers. I should greatly like to meet with you in person and discuss affairs of mutual interest. In the meantime, I must ask you to desist in your surveillance over my lord's lands. He feels that they are adequately looked after.

Your humble servant,

Edias Crow

Aeron shuddered. The parchment felt cold and somehow sinister, as if it had been written with ink made of blood. He destroyed it with a simple cantrip of fire and let the breeze carry the ashes from his fingers. " 'Affairs of mutual interest'?" he muttered, thinking. What was that supposed to mean? This Master Crow had already secured Castle Raedel quite thoroughly against his intrusions. Well, I can't be surprised if I've taught Phoros Raedel to fear wizards, he thought. Of course he'd take steps to defend himself against me.

Absently he let himself into the tower, still considering the day's events. He'd only held his watch over the forest for a little more than a year, but already he sensed that he was falling into the same routine, the same patterns, that had held Fineghal for a thousand years. He was a sentry on a long watch, unconsciously choosing a predictable path. Now something had happened that finally broke the routine, demanding his attention, and he didn't know what to make of it. He started a small fire and settled down in an old wooden chair, listening to the distant roar of the Winding River's rock-strewn rapids and the wind rattling the windowpanes.

Aeron didn't like the feel of Crow's sorcery. Like his own, it was woven of both bright and dark strands, but it seemed out of balance, misproportioned. He wondered if this were normal for a human sorcerer, or if Master Crow had been tainted in some manner similar to Aeron's own battle against the Shadow Stone. "Fineghal, I could use your counsel now," Aeron muttered. The empty tower did not respond.

* * * * *

Aeron weighed Master Crow's request for over a week before responding with a message of his own, naming a time and a place for a meeting more than sixty miles east of Maerchlin. Aeron didn't think Phoros Raedel could lay an ambush capable of snaring him so far from his own lands, and it gave him a chance to prepare the site.

The weather had become still and sweltering in the hot doldrums that fell over the Maerchwood late in the summer. It had never bothered Aeron before, but as he labored to scribe runes and circles around the barren clearing he'd chosen, he became light-headed and queasy, as if a faint odor of death had risen with the heat. The magic he wove felt muddy, indistinct, the Weave of the air, the earth, the living forest slipping through his fingers as if he were a clumsy apprentice all over again. At the same time, the shadow magic that he summoned and shaped seemed almost eager to meet his command, coiling and surging like a restless serpent that tested the bonds of his will.