She felt the hot embrace of lovers, the cool stone and the smell of dust and metal as it shaped by his will, the merry drumbeat of her hooves beneath her at full gallop, chasing after Karnoth in the Courting Herd… More than a thousand minds pressed upon her, but Tsarra focused on one thing she knew very well-Khelben's voice. This place is nigh-timeless, but to force her to relive a thousand lifetimes to understand is too much. Tsarra had never before heard Khelben plead. Only in his own memories did he defer to anyone's authority. Her senses were awash with hundreds of smells, tastes, touches, and voices, but she clung to his words. Do not sacrifice who she is for what you need! It is within your power to overwhelm her, possess her, and have her act out your will as a puppet. Do so and you do not realize your dreams or those of your protege Oacenth. You only repeat the sins you fled from. Do not become Vyshannti! What scared Tsarra the most was the immediate stillness. No memories, no senses, nothing. She saw the three selu'kiira of the grand mages hovering nearby, the faces and bodies of their bearers hidden from her. She sensed their shame, their anger, and their fears, knowing everything hinged on what happened next. She needed to learn what was expected of her, what they all needed… but to ask them for information was too overwhelming. Tsarra smiled as she realized the solution. Khelben? I need you to help me speak with Danthra. If everyone can focus on her and send her energy, we can guide her visions toward what we need to know. Is that possible? More than possible, and an ingenious solution that had escaped me. Khelben beamed broadly, and the sparkling crowd returned as the mood lightened. Khelben faced her and the three kiira floated down to form a straight line between Tsarra's kiira and Khelben's forehead. Smaller lights glistened off the gems and Tsarra heard the three speaking all around her. Apologies, Autumnfire. We have been of singular mind Longer than an age. We have forgotten that not All minds are ours to use at our will and for our Purposes. Let us make amends and work together As friends, not as subjects. Friendship, too, is a magic and one we needs foster Anew. Let us speak with the Dreamer and see What she sees, and from there, we shall seek The final remnants of our realmthe seeds of our future. The seeds of everyone's future.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Feast of the Moon, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) Tsarra smiled as she hugged the sparkling form of Danthra the Dreamer, who kissed her cheek and promptly dissipated into the sparkling void of the sharnform. Why can't she stay with us, Khelben?

She'll only distract you now and pull your attention away from where it needs be. She will be there when you need her, as will all here.

Now, all fears allayed? Tsarra smiled. All the old ones, aye. It's the new ones that are crowding in now. As with all things-you reach the end of your climb to understanding and you find yourself at the bottom of an entirely new slope invisible from below. One of my mentors said it's the tree you can never stop climbing. The fall would kill you once you'd climbed high enough, so it's best to focus on going farther. So let's keep climbing, then. How long has it been since we left the Eightower? Not even a half-bell. Remember that we communicate far more swiftly enmind than we do in mundane ways. Now, the sharn have their abilities to slip through the ethereal and broach nearly any protections or barriers. Focus on watching the Gathering, Tsarra, and participate where you can. Every chance to work cooperatively will help you in the working to come in a few hours. I need to converse more with the grand mages. With that, Khelben's presence drifted away.

Tsarra turned her attentions outward, again trying to see through the multitude of eyes of the sharn. She realized that the sharn had always been one form that budded off a seemingly separate form that remained part of the collective group mind. She saw through three different forms at once and marveled at how much more vast it was to see through seven or more eyes at once to take in each scene. She settled into hunting mode, and a number of centauran minds and a few dwarves sparkled in around her, all of them focused on the gathering of other hidden remnants of Miyeritar. She smiled, understanding all of them enjoyed the hunt. Tsarra opened her eyes and let her sharnsenses scan the Realms. Tsarra understood that, like the items and relics they had collected thus far, there were shards and pieces of Miyeritar all across Faerun, hidden away by accident or design. Very few were whole items, and fewer still held enchantments from that time. What she did know is that the sharn were awake to their true purpose. The last time the sharn acted with such focus of purpose was to construct the Sharnwall around the Phaerimm of Anauroch. Most often, magical fields or internal conflicts among their groupmind made the sharn act unpredictably or madly. The sharn tracked by scent and by magic, and everything they sought had a shared scent. Every single thing exposed to the Killing Storm brought down on Miyeritar by the Vyshaanti of Aryvandaar was touched by a singular magic unused since then. Thus, everything held a scent, even after all these millennia and even if forged or changed anew. All those touched by that magic reacted to the storms engulfing the Sword Coast and much of the rest of Faerun.

Depending on its location, items rattled or hummed or vibrated or sparked in relation to the storms and the rising magic involved within them. A belt buckle here that was once an ore-laden rock on the High Moor hummed curiously, its Sembian wearer thought, though he fainted dead away when the sharn stuck its head and arms through its portals to claim its prize. Tsarra felt the cold as a sharn materialized in an ice cave far to the northeast to snatch a small broken dagger from the ribcage of its victim, who lay embedded in the glacial ice. Tsarra actually felt the sting of many magical missiles when a sharn infiltrated a meeting of the Arcane Brotherhood, smashing its meeting table to bits to claim the carved wood tile at the table's heart. She heard the snores and smelled the peaty breath of a green dragon as a sharn quietly pulled fifteen seemingly random coins out of a rather proud treasure hoard. Each time a sharn reclaimed an item, it was drawn into the sharnform, but then Tsarra felt a shifting and the item was almost immediately dropped out onto a wet and storm-blasted heath she had never seen, save in Danthra's vision. Each item, with or without any power of its own, needed to be in place for the rituals to come. Luckily, none of them were dropped near the vicinity of any of the others, so no additional lightning bolts crackled to life to reveal the items' existence there. Every time Tsarra tried to focus on the pattern they were putting in place, the collective's attention moved on to the next item. Only once did Tsarra pull the collective sharn's attention toward the storms overhead, and they all saw their enemy. The Frostrune flew standing atop the base of his pyramid, the point blasting the ground below with eldritch lightning and power. The four corners of the pyramid also connected to the storms by four constant streams of lightning linking to the clouds. She ached to lash out at him, using her new connections to the sharn to attack, but calmer voices prevailed around her. Soon. Soon. He still has one last role to play here. Tsarra accepted that and shifted her focus to an even darker place-a web-covered crypt, where their sharn encountered resistance. A vampire held fast to a metal-shod tome, blasting the sharn back with effective spells of black fire. Stranger still, she recognized him-Asraf yn Malik el Kahaman yi Manshaka. She asked the collective for help, and she willed two of the sharn hands to trace glowing sigils in the air. Once she completed the star-enclosed scroll mark of the tel'teukiira, the vampire stopped and stared. Tsarra spoke and her words came out in the hollow voice of the sharn, "The Blackstaff has need of that, but you have his gratitude for being an able guardian. A reward shall be forthcoming." She reached out, snatched the tome with three claws, and pulled the book into the sharn as it dematerialized and returned to the central form. Tsarra helped reclaim more than a dozen items in this manner, everything from a vambrace off a suit of armor in Dhedluk to a dungsweeper's shovel from Arabel, until they finally encountered two places even the sharns' magic could not penetrate. Khelben? Grand Mages? Tsarra and a number of her fellow hunters asked to the collective. We've found most of the remnants and delivered them into place. Priamon is nearly at Malavar's Grasp. There are only two things that are not in place-and when we push against the magic screening these places, the mark of the Blackstaff flickers to life in silver flames. Ah. Tsarra, it is our time to leave the collective then. Hopefully, this was enough of an education to guide you through the working we have later today. That's the one thing I don't understand. I saw myself at the center of a great working, but I didn't see you. Why didn't I see you there?