by Ed Greenwood
Abruptly something tore through one of her images. Saeraede sat up with a frown, and peered, trying to find out what it had been. The spellsphere abruptly lost its scene of city spires and flapping griffon wings beneath armored riders and acquired the dappled gloom of the forest above her. A forest that held a crouching Elminster, several of her floating faces, and—
Arrows snarled through her conjured visage and the dead leaves beyond, to thud into the forest loam and send Elminster scrambling around the other side of a tree.
Arrows?
“Damned adventurers!” she roared, her cry ringing back to her off the cavern roof, and sprang up from the throne. The spellsphere winked out as it fell, the radiance around the stone seat faded—but she was already whirling up the shaft, her eyes spitting flames of mage-fire. Were a bunch of blundering sword swingers going to shatter her long-nursed plans now?
The fittingly powerful and somewhat attractive Elminster boldly dodged another arrow, hurling himself on his face in wet moss and dead leaves as another dark shaft whined past his ear like an angry hornet and fetched up in the trunk of a nearby hiexel with a very solid thunk.
El scrambled up, drawing breath for a curse, and flung himself right back down on his face again. A second shaft hummed past low overhead, joining the first.
The hiexel didn’t look to be enjoying these visitations too much, but Elminster hadn’t time to survey its sadness—or do anything else but charge to his feet, leap over a fallen tree, and whirl around behind its rotting trunk. He bobbed up into view right away, betting that the two archers wouldn’t have had time to put fresh arrows to their strings just yet. He had to see them.
Ah! There! He loosed a stream of magic missiles at one, then ducked down again, hearing the approaching thud of booted feet running hard in his direction.
It was time to get gone and be blessed quick about it!
He sprinted away, downhill and dodging from side to side, hearing crashing in his wake that heralded the coming of someone large, heavy, armored, and sword-waving. He didn’t stop to exchange pleasantries, but whirled around a tree to let the grizzled armsman have some magic missiles full in the face. The man’s head jerked back, wisps of smoke burst from his mouth and eyes, and he ran on blindly for another dozen paces before stumbling and crashing to the ground, dead or senseless.
“Dead or senseless.” Hmm; ’twould do as a motto for some adventuring bands, to be sure, but …
It was time to circle around and take care of that second archer, or he’d be fleeing through the forest feeling phantom arrows between his shoulder blades for the rest of the day … or until they brought him down.
El trotted a goodly way off to the right and started to work his way back toward the ruin, keeping as low and as quiet as possible. It didn’t matter if he spent hours worming his way closer, so long as he wasn’t seen too soon. He had to get close enough to—
A grim-looking man in leathers, with a bow ready-strung in his hand, stepped into view around a gnarled phandar not twelve paces away. He couldn’t help but see a certain hawk-nosed mage the moment he lifted his eyes from the arrow he’d just dropped. El lifted his hand to shoot forth his last magic missiles spell.
A moment later the archer exploded into whirling bones and fire. El had a brief glimpse of two dark eyes—if they were eyes—in a confused whirlwind of mist. Then whatever it was had gone, and scorched bones were thudding down onto the moss.
The Slayer?
It had to be. The talk had been all of something that burned its victims when it killed; this was it. “Well met,” Elminster murmured to the empty woods, and went cautiously forward. He knew he’d already find nothing but ashes and bones of the rest of the adventurers, but just in case …
Sprawled garments, weapons, and bones were everywhere he looked, as he drew near the overgrown keep. The ruins seemed deserted again. A tense silence hung over them, almost as if something was waiting and watching for his approach. El stole back to the gaps in the wall he’d looked into before. That big chamber, where he’d seen the wardrobes and … a mirror? That would bear another look, to be sure.
He peered very cautiously into that vast room again and met those dark eyes once more, the mist they were at the heart of swirling around a wardrobe as its doors banged open. Then the mist flared into blinding brilliance and he couldn’t see what was taken out of the wardrobe. Whatever it was, the whirlwind spun around and around it, almost as if deliberately hiding it from his view in its bright and chiming tatters, as it sped away across the room. El almost clambered in the gap after it to see better, but paused prudently when the glowing mist did.
It lingered in the farthest, darkest corner of the room for a moment, hovering above what looked like a well, then plunged down into that ring-shaped opening and out of sight.
“Ye want me to follow, do ye?” Elminster murmured, looking at the well. He glanced around the room, taking in the peeling mirror, the row of wardrobes—the open one holding an array of feminine apparel—the lounge, and the rest … then walked straight to the well.
“Very well,” he said with a sigh. “Another reckless leap into danger. That does seem to be what this job most entails.”
And he clambered over the edge of the well, dug his hands into the first of a row of handholds in the stone and tapped with the toes of his boots for another, found it, and started down. He might need his hellbent flying spell for getting back out again.
She laid out the three gowns on the stone at the bottom of the shaft as gently as a nurse stroking a sick child, and as gently set loose stones from the rubble over them. The exacting effort cost her much energy, but she worked swiftly, heedless of the cost, and darted away before her quarry got to the top of the shaft to look down.
A moment later she was sinking into one of the runes that sustained her, hiding her misty self entirely. She had been hungry too long, and the incessant chiming was even getting on her nerves.
Brandagaeris had been a mighty hero, tall and bronzed and strong; she had fed on him for three seasons, and he had come to love her and offer himself willingly … but in the end she had drained him and gone hungry again. That was her doom; once her own body had fallen to dust, what remained was a magic that needed to feed on the living—or dwell within, and necessarily burn out the innards of a young, strong, vital body. Brandagaeris had been one such, the sorcerer Sardon another … but somehow mages, clever as they were, lacked something she craved. Perhaps they had too little vitality.
She hoped this Elminster wouldn’t be another such disappointment. Perhaps she could win his love, or at least his submission, and not have to fight him long to taste what power a Chosen held.
“Come to me,” she whispered hungrily, her words no more than the faintest of sighings above the deep-graven rune. “Come to me, man-meal.”
Seventeen
A FINE DAY FOR TRAVEL
Travel broadens the mind and flattens the purse, they say. I’ve found it does rather more than that. It shatters the minds of the inflexible, and depletes the ranks of the surplus population. Perhaps rulers should decree that we all become nomads.
Then, of course, we could choose to stay only within the reach of those rulers we favor—and I can’t conceive of the chaos and overburdened troops and officials that would be found in any realm in which folk could choose their rulers. Thankfully, I can’t believe that any people would ever be crazed enough to do that. Not in this world, anyway.
Yarynous Whaelidon
from Dissensions of a Chessentan
published in The Year of the Spur
“You’re doing just fine, brave Uldus,” Dreadspell Elryn said soothingly, prodding their trembling guide with the man’s own sword. Brave Uldus arched away from the blade, but the noose around his neck—held tight and short-leashed in the fist of Dreadspell Femter—kept him from entirely missing its sharp reminder. Dreadspell Hrelgrath was walking along close by, too, his dagger held ready near the ribs of their unwilling guide.
Choking around his noose, Uldus assured him that it was, oh, yes, Dread Lord, indeed it was, may the Nightbringer strike me down now if I lie, and all the watching gods bear witness—
Femter didn’t wait for Elryn’s sign this time before jerking the noose tight enough to cut Uldus off in mid-babble. The guide silently clawed at his throat, stumbling, until Femter relented enough to let him breathe again.
“Iyrindyl?” Elryn asked, without turning his head.
“I’m watching, Dread Lord,” the youngest Dreadspell replied eagerly. “The first sign of walls or the like, I’ll cry hold.”
“It’s not walls I’m seeing,” the deep drawl of Dreadspell Daluth put in, a few strides later, “but an elf—alone, and walking with a drawn sword in his hand, yonder.”
The Sharran priests stopped, unnecessarily clapping their hands over the mouth of their guide, and glared through the trees. A lone elf looked back at them, disgust written plain on his face.
A moment later, Elryn snarled, “Attack!” and the Sharrans surged forward, Elryn and Daluth standing still to hurl spells. They saw the elf sigh, take off his cloak and hurl it high over a tree branch, then turn to face them, crouching slightly. “Damned human adventurers!” he cried. “Haven’t I killed enough of you yet?”
Ilbryn Starym watched the wizards run toward him—charging wizards? Truly, Faerûn was plunging deeper into madness with every passing day—took up the blade that was battle-booty from the last band of fools, and said a word over it. When he threw it like a dart at the onrushing men, it glowed, split into three, and leaped away like three falcons diving at separate targets.
At the same moment, a tree just behind the line of running wizards turned bright blue and tore itself up out of the earth with a deafening groan, hurling earth and stones in all directions. Someone cursed, sounding very surprised.
An instant later, a sheet of white lightning broke briefly over the running mages, and a man who seemed to have a noose around his neck convulsed, clawed at the air for a few moments and shrieked, “My reward!” and fell to earth in a twisted heap. The wizards ran on without pause, and Ilbryn sighed and prepared to blast them to nothingness. His three blades should have done something.
One of the running mages grunted, spun around, and went down with something glowing in his shoulder. Ilbryn smiled. One.
There was a flash, someone cried out in surprise and pain, and the three remaining wizards burst through the still-shimmering radiance and came on, one of them shaking fingers that trailed smoke. Ilbryn lost his smile. Some sort of barrier spell, and it had taken both of his other blades.
He raised his hands and waited. Sure enough, now that they were close enough to him that the army of Ilbryn and the army of half a dozen mages could count each other’s teeth, the panting wizards were coming to a halt and preparing to hurl spells at him.
Ilbryn cloaked himself in a defensive sphere, leaving only a keyhole open for his next spell. If his measure of these dolts was correct, he’d not have overmuch to fear in this battle … even with the wizard who’d taken his blade slowly crawling to his feet and the two who hadn’t come running strolling slowly closer in the distance.
Abruptly the air in front of Ilbryn’s sphere was filled with blue flowers, swirling about as they drifted to earth. An elf mouth crooked into a smile. By the startled oaths coming to his ears, that hadn’t been supposed to happen. Perhaps he was caught up in some school of wizardry’s battle test of the inept apprentices. He waited politely to see what else would come his way.
A moment later, he blinked with new respect. The earth was parting with a horrible ripping sound, between the boots of one of the mages—and racing toward Ilbryn, zigzagging only slightly as it came. Trees, boulders, and all were hurled aside in the chasm’s swift advance, and Ilbryn readied his lone flight spell, just in case. He’d have to time this just right, collapsing the sphere and bounding aloft more or less in one smooth sequence.
The chasm swerved and snarled on past, trailing the awed yells of a wizard who seemed astonished he’d cast it. Ilbryn’s eyes narrowed. What sort of madmen were these?
Well, he’d wasted more than enough time and magic on them already. He hurled a quick spell of his own out of the keyhole, and stood watching as the trunk of the shadowtop he’d shattered, a goodly distance above the wizards, spun about almost lazily, then came crashing down.
Wizards shouted and hurled themselves in all directions, but when the dancing, flailing branches receded to a shivering, one man lay broken like a discarded doll under a trunk ten times his girth.
Ilbryn risked another spell through the keyhole. Why not a volley of magic missiles? These idiots seemed almost like bewildered actors playing at being mages, not foes to fear at all.
He hoped, a moment later, that he hadn’t just given the gods some sort of awful cue.
“If Mystra is dead, what’s helping his spells?” Dreadspell Hrelgrath snarled, puffing his way back to where Elryn stood watching, cold-eyed.
“Whatever god of magic elves pray to, dolt,” Daluth answered—an instant before blue-white bolts of force came racing their way.
“Back!” Elryn snapped, “I don’t think these can miss, but back, anyway! This is costing us too much!”
Elryn’s prediction proved to be right; none of the bolts missed. The Dreadspells grunted and staggered their ways back through the trees, hoping the elf wouldn’t bother to follow them.
“Femter?” Elryn snapped.
A head snapped up. “I’ll be all right, the next time the power surges into us,” Femter replied grimly. “Some sort of magical blade. Can’t use my arm, though.”
“Our guide—dead?”
“Very,” Femter said shortly, and there were a few dark chuckles.
“Iyrindyl?”
“Down. Forever. Half a tree fell on him.”
Elryn drew in a deep breath and let it out in a ragged sigh, very conscious of the unseen eyes of Darklady Avroana upon him. “Right—consider that fiasco our first battle-practice. There’ll be no more charging into any fray. From now on, we creep through these woods like shadows. When we find the ruin, we wait for the Weave to feed us once more, then—and only then, even if it takes all night—we advance. Out in these woods, only the Chosen really matters to us, and I’m not going to be caught off-guard again.”
“That’s a good plan,” Ilbryn agreed sarcastically, as he let his clairaudience collapse, said farewell to the idiot wizards and their chatter, and cast the guidance spell that would take him to these ruins they’d been heading for. He bid it seek out man-touched stone, in any mass larger than four men—which should eliminate tombstones and the like—and in this general direction …
Almost immediately he felt the pull of the magic. Ilbryn followed it obediently, striding off through the woods along an invisible but unwavering line. Ah, but magic could be useful at times.
It had been cold and dark in Scorchstone Hall for many years. Too cold for the living.
A skeleton threw back the shutters of one window to let the sun in and went back to a table where a spellbook lay. Sitting down carefully in the stoutest chair left in the Hall, the skeleton took up the tome, clutched it to its ribcage with both bony arms enfolded around it, and called on the power of the spell it had cast earlier. The power that let it speak.
It said only two words, firmly enough that they echoed back from the dark corners of the room. “Mystra, please.”
Blue-white fire burst forth from the book. The skeleton almost dropped the book in surprise, its bony fingertips clawing at its covers, as the flames that burned nothing washed over its bones, racing from the book to … her.
Sharindala shuddered
as blue-white fire ran up and down her limbs, leaving something in its wake. She stared down at her glowing bones in wonder, then back at the book, feeling something rising in her throat.
Baerdagh stiffened at the sudden sound that came through the trees, and almost dropped his walking stick. He turned, to be absolutely sure that the faint weeping was coming from Scorchstone.
It was. In the very heart of that ruined mansion, a woman was sobbing—crying as if she’d never find breath to speak again. In dark, haunted Scorchstone, where the skeletal sorceress walked.
Baerdagh broke into a frantic shuffle, heading for the Maid—where strong drink, and plenty of it, would be waiting.
“Along here, it should be,” Beldrune said, as they came around the bend and almost rode down an old man with a walking stick, who looked to have just taken up trotting, and was wheezing loudly to let the world know. “There! Up ahead, on the left—the Fair Maid of Ripplestones. We can get a good meal there, and decent beds a few doors on, and ask in both places about where Elminster’s been hereabouts. I know he likes to look at old mages’ towers.”
“And their tombs, too,” Tabarast put in. “It’s been some years since I stopped here, but old Ralder, if he’s still alive, used to roast a mean buck.”
The down-at-heels Harper with the pale brown hair and eyes, riding between them, nodded pleasantly. “Sounds good,” was all he said, as they slowed their horses at the ramshackle porch and rang the gong that would bring the stable boys.
An old man sitting on a bench deep in one corner of the porch looked at them sharply—especially at Tabarast—as they strode inside. After a moment, he got up and drifted into the Maid on their heels.
It seemed Caladaster was hungry enough for a second earlyevenfeast this day. By the time Baerdagh came puffing up to the front door of the Maid, Caladaster was sitting with the three horsemen who’d almost ridden him down as if they’d known each other for years.