by Ed Greenwood
Erlyn smiled tightly and thrust the wand back into his belt. “Aye,” he added slowly, setting out at a steady pace in the direction of the ruins. “One of many.”
He gestured curtly for the Dreadspells to follow. Reluctantly, they did so. Vaelam stopped to cast a longing look back at the stone slab, and the woods beyond it—and found himself looking right into the coldly smiling eyes and leveled staff of Daluth, who was watchfully bringing up the rear.
Vaelam managed a halfhearted smile, but Daluth’s eyes grew no warmer. The youngest surviving Dreadspell swallowed, turned, and trudged off toward doom.
“Now, this curling of the leaf, on the other hand, tells you that this is a si—”
Starsunder paused in mid-word and straightened up suddenly, almost knocking his head against Umbregard’s. The human mage stumbled hastily back out of the way as the elf threw out his hands.
Still standing dramatically stiff with his arms spread, the moon elf threw back his head and opened his mouth as if trying to taste the sky.
Silence fell. Umbregard watched his statuelike friend for what seemed like a very long time before he dared to ask, “Starsunder?”
“You expect someone else to jump into this body just because I stop moving?” came the mild reproof, as Starsunder turned his head, spun around, and took hold of Umbregard’s arm all in one smooth motion. “Do you know of some body snatching, wizardly peril I’m unaware of?”
“W-where are we going?” Umbregard asked in lieu of a reply, as the slender moon elf practically dragged him around and between trees, dark green half cloak swirling.
“Where we’re needed, and urgently,” Starsunder said almost absently, urging the human he was towing into a trot.
“And where—” Umbregard was puffing now, even though they were descending a fern-covered slope rather than climbing, “—might that be?”
“In a forest almost as old as this one, across an arm of the sea,” Starsunder replied, his voice as calm and his breathing as steady as if he’d been lounging at ease on a giant leaf rather than racing through the woods, leaping fallen trees and roots, and swinging around forest giants. “No place that humans remember a name for.”
“Why?” Umbregard almost shouted, sprinting as fast as he ever had in all his life, with the slim elf still half a stride faster than he and threatening to drag his arm out of its socket.
“Trees are burning,” Starsunder told him with a frown, “suddenly, as if struck by lightning or firestorm, where there’s no storm in the sky to do such harm—and here we are!”
They plunged between two shadowtop trees that seemed perfectly matched, growing not three feet apart—and somewhere in the gloom between a blue haze plucked them and hurled them far away.
Umbregard’s next step was in a different forest—one more dry and empty of calling birds and rustling animals. He gaped and tried to look behind him, but at that moment Starsunder let go of his arm and took hold of his chin. Staring into Umbregard’s eyes from inches away, the moon elf murmured, “Make no unnecessary noise, and don’t call out to anyone you see … even if they’re old friends. Hmmm; especially if they’re old friends.”
“Why?” Umbregard asked, almost despairingly; why had he bothered to learn to speak any other word but “why”?
“You’ll live longer,” Starsunder said, laying two gentle fingers across the human mage’s lips. “That’s why.”
The Phoenix Tower was dark and cool and lonely. With his fortress ringed by thick thorns, jagged rubble, and a break- neck chasm dug by his golems literally as they were falling apart, Tenthar felt secure from intrusion by all save the most persistent adventurers. If any such came calling, he’d just have to be very good at hiding … or dying.
The Archmage of the Phoenix Tower had long ago passed beyond loneliness into boredom—after all, how often can one read old and familiar spellbooks that one dare not try any castings out of? He was tired of trudging down to the cellars in the dark to gobble mushrooms like some sort of tomb beast. For that matter, he was tired of trudging everywhere rather than flying—and never leaving the Tower.
All he’d seen of Faerûn these last rides was the view his windows commanded. He lived from dawn to dusk, not daring to frivolously use any of the eight precious candle ends he’d found—he, Tenthar Taerhamoos, who was used to conjuring light as needed, almost without thinking. A light after dark might attract the attention of adventurers or hungry beasts that someone was in the shuttered tower. Not two days ago he’d slammed and bolted the shutters just in time. He’d spent most of the rest of the day crouched behind them, dry-mouthed in fear, listening to an angry peryton flap and slash with its horns at the old wood that he hoped would hold fast.
And if such foes got into the Tower, what could he do? He had no particular strength or skill at arms, and his spells failed him all the time, now—or at least, whenever he didn’t bolster them with the precious power of his medallion, which was growing more feeble with each use.
He’d called on it too often in the early days of this spell-chaos, when he’d been frantic to find out what was happening, and why. Now he was just sitting in the endless gloom waiting for magic to obey him once more—or someone to force their way into the Phoenix Tower and kill him.
Each morning Tenthar went down into the underpantry, cast a simple spell from his memory, and grimly watched it turn the stone walls purple or make them start to melt or be goaded into a mad display of sprouting flowers—or whatever new idiocy struck Mystra’s whimsy that day. Each morning he hoped spells would return to normal and he could begin life as the Archmage of the Phoenix Tower again.
Every day his visit to the underpantry disappointed him.
Every day he grimly climbed back up into the cold and lonely kitchens, boiled himself some beans and cut a little more green mold off the huge wheel of cheese under the marble hood before he climbed the stairs to the big window, to study anew the spell he’d miscast. Every day he grew a little more despairing.
It had almost gotten to the point where, given the right goad, he’d use his medallion to fly away from this place. He could find some distant realm where no one would know his face, seek work there as a scribe, and try to forget that he’d ever been an Archmage and summoned monsters from other worlds.
Aye, for the ghost of an excuse he’d—
Something shattered in the next room; it seemed a dozen bells rang amid the musical clatter of glass. Tenthar was up and through the door in an instant, peering—ah!
The spelltale he’d laid upon the elven tree-gate in the Tangletrees … someone had just used it to travel south to the woods near Starmantle. That was it. He was sick of hiding and doing nothing.
“The elves are on the move,” Tenthar Taerhamoos told the glass shards at his feet grandly. “I must be there—at least I’ll be able to learn as much about this chaos of spells as they do.” He cut himself a large wedge of cheese with his dagger, wrapped it up in an old blanket with his traveling spellbook, and thrust the bundle into a battered old shoulder bag. Settling the blade back in its sheath, Tenthar called up the flickering power of his medallion, and cast a spell he’d had ready for a long time.
“Farewell, old stones,” he told his Tower, casting what might be his last look around at it. “I’ll return—if I can.”
A moment later, the floor where he’d stood was empty. A moment after that, another spelltale shattered in the room where no one was left to hear.
All too often, an archmage’s life is like that.
Excitement burned within her, leaping to the back of the throat she no longer had in a way it hadn’t for years. Gently, Saeraede. Lose nothing now out of haste … you’re centuries past trembling like a maid, or should be.
Like a wisp of dark smoke in the darkness, Saeraede flew up a thin crevice at the back of the cavern, back to the main room above.
She’d prepared this spell long ago, and he’d disturbed none of her preparations. In a trice it was done, gray smoke flowing out t
o settle like old stone over the top of the shaft. Its veil would seem like a raised stone floor to anyone on the surface, the well mouth completely concealed—and her quarry would be trapped beneath its web just as surely as if it was solid stone.
Saeraede gave herself a bare breath of time to gloat before plunging back down through the cold dark stone. Now to let myself be freed by my savior prince … and bring him willingly to the slow slaughter.
She plunged through the cavern like an arrow coming to earth; Elminster frowned and looked up, feeling some magical disturbance—but could sense nothing, and after a long, suspicious time of probing into the dusty darkness, he resumed his cautious advance. That was more than time enough for Saeraede to steal up into one of the runes through the cracked stone beneath, causing it to glow faintly.
Elminster stopped in front of it and stared at the unfamiliar curves and crossings. He didn’t recognize any of these sigils. They looked both complex and old, and that of course suggested lost Netheril … or any of a score of its echoes, the fleeting realms that had followed its fall, with their self-styled sorcerer-kings; if any of the rotting old histories he’d read down the years had it right.
Only this one was glowing. El stared at it intently. “Sentience slumbreth here,” he murmured, “but whose?”
Only silence answered him. The last prince of Athalantar acquired the ghost of a smile, sighed, and cast an unbinding.
The quiet echoes of his incantation were still rolling back to him from the walls all around when a ghostly head and shoulders erupted from the pale starry glow of the rune.
The eyes were dark and melting flecks in a head whose long and shapely neck yearned up from shoulders of striking beauty. Long hair flowed down over lush breasts, but it seemed his unbinding could free no more of this apparition from the grip of the now pulsing rune.
“Free me!” The voice was a tattered whisper, sighing from a lonely afar. “Oh, if the kindness and mercy of the gods mean anything to you, let me be free!”
“Who are ye?” El asked quietly, taking a pace back and kneeling to look more closely into the ghostly face, “and what are these runes?”
Ghostly lips seemed to tremble and gasp. When her voice soared out once more, it held the high, singing note of one who has triumphed over pain. “I am Saeraede … Saeraede Lyonora. I am bound here, so long I know not how many years have passed.”
At the last few words, she seemed to grow dimmer and sank back into the rune as far as her shoulders.
“Who bound ye here?” Elminster asked, casting a quick look at the empty, watchful darkness all around. Aye, that was it; he could not shake the feeling that he was being watched … and not merely by the dark and spectral eyes floating near his feet.
“I was bound by the one who made these runes,” the whispering shade told him. “Mine is the will and essence that empowers them, as the seasons pass.”
“Why were ye bound?” El asked quietly, staring into eyes that seemed to hold tiny stars in their depths, as they melted pleadingly into his.
Her answer, when it came, was a sigh so soft that he barely heard it. Yet it came clearly: “Karsus was cruel.”
The eyebrows of the last prince of Athalantar flew up. He knew that name. The Proudest Mage of All, who in his mad folly had dared to try to seize the power of godhood and suffered everlasting doom.
The name Karsus meant peril to any mage of sense. Elminster’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped back and forthwith murmured a spell. Bound spirit, undead, wizardly shade or living woman, he would know truth when she spoke it—and falsehood. Of course, this Saeraede was likely to have been a sorceress of some accomplishment, perhaps an apprentice or rival of Karsus, for her to have been chosen for such a binding. She would know he’d just cast a truthtell.
Their eyes met in shared knowledge, and Elminster shrugged. She would answer as truthfully as she could, concealing only by her brevity. Like dueling swordsmen, they’d have to weigh each other’s words and fence carefully. He cast a spell he should have used before entering the shaft, calling up a mantle of protection around himself, and stepped forward again.
Unseen beyond the faint shimmer of his mantle, fresh fury flared in eyes watching from the deep darkness at the back of the cavern.
“What will or must ye do, if freed?” El asked the head.
“Live again,” she gasped. “Oh, man, free me!”
“What will freeing ye do to the runes?”
“Awaken them once each,” the ghostly head moaned, “and they’ll then be exhausted.”
“What powers have the awakened runes?”
“They call up images of Karsus, who instructs all who view them in ways of magic. Karsus meant them for the education of his clone, hidden here.”
“What became of it?” El asked sharply, hurrying to hear her answer as the truthtell ran out.
Dark, star-shot eyes stared steadfastly into his. “When awareness returned to me after my binding—a long time had passed, I think—I found it headless and wizened on the throne. I know not how it came to be that way.”
His spell had failed before the second word had left those phantom lips, but somehow El believed her.
“Saeraede, how do I free ye?” he asked.
“If you have a spellquench or another unbinding, cast it upon me … not on the rune, but on me.”
“And if I lack such magics?”
Those dark eyes flickered. “Stand over me, so that your mantle touches the rune, and I am within it. Then cast a magic missile, and let its target be the rune. In what follows, you should be unharmed—and I, freed. Be warned: ’twill cost you your mantle.”
“Prepare thyself,” Elminster told her, and stepped over her.
“Man, I have been waiting for an age, it seems; I am well prepared. Touch not the rune with your boots.”
The last prince of Athalantar made sure his feet were clear of the glowing sigil, and made a careful casting. Blue-white radiance surged around him, roiling and tugging, the rune beneath him flared to blinding brilliance, and he heard Saeraede gasp.
Her breathing was ragged and swift as she surged up into the collapsing mantle beside him. As El stepped back, he saw wild delight in her face. All of the magic seemed to be rushing into her, and with each passing moment she grew more solid … more substantial. Her flickering, wraithlike form grew whole and acquired a dark gown. She was broad of shoulders, slim-waisted, and as tall or taller than he; her hair was an unbound, waist-length flow of velvet black, her brows startlingly dark tufts above eyes of leaping green. Her face was proud and lively—and very, very beautiful.
“Hail, savior mage,” she said, eyes glowing with gratitude, as the last fires of magic fled into her. A single tongue of flame escaped from between her lips as she spoke. “Saeraede stands in your debt.” She hesitated, reaching out one slender hand. “May I know your name?”
“Elminster, I am called,” El told her, keeping a careful pace out of reach.
“Elminster,” she breathed, eyes sparkling, “oh, have my thanks!”
She hugged herself, as if scarcely believing that she was whole and solid once more—and stepped forward off the rune. Her feet seemed to have grown spike-heeled, pointed black boots.
The moment she moved off it, the rune erupted. A column of white fire burst up from it, twice the height of a man, and smoke surged out in all directions from its snarling. Elminster took a pace back, eyes narrowing—and something unseen in the darkness of a deep crevice stirred and made as if to spring forth … but remained where it was, not all that far from the mage’s unsuspecting back.
“Saeraede,” El snapped, keeping his eyes on the unfolding magic, “what is this?”
“The magic of the rune,” she replied, smiling at him. “Karsus prepared it to impress intruders. ’Tis harmless, a parade of illusions. Watch.”
She turned to look at the column of flame, folding her arms, mild interest on her face. As she did so, the surging smoke seemed to freeze and thicken.
Saeraede stood calmly watching, and El, struck by a sudden thought, glided to her elbow and indicated the empty throne. “Will ye sit, lady?”
Saeraede gave him a dazzling smile, raised a hand in wordless thanks—not quite touching him—and sat upon the throne. No change in it, or her, was apparent to El’s intent eyes. Hmmm, well. Nothing learned there.
As Saeraede crossed her legs and leaned back in ease upon the stone seat, the column of flame grew a face—a youthful face ringed by tousled hair and the stubble of a beard aborning, its eyes two points of blazing gold. They were fixed on the throne, and when Elminster swung his left arm in a sudden, wild flourish, the eyes did not move to follow it.
The air in the cavern was suddenly alive with a singing tension. The proud mouth opened, and the voice that issued from it crashed and rolled like thunder through Elminster’s mind as well as through the cavern. “I am Karsus! Behold me, and fear. I am The Lord of Lords, a God Among Men, Arcanist Supreme. All magic is my domain, and all who work it or trifle with it without my blessing shall suffer. Begone, and live. Tarry, and the first and least of my curses shall begin its work upon you forthwith, gnawing memories from your brain until naught is left but a sighing shadow.”
Elminster looked sharply at Saeraede at those last words, but she sat calmly watching as the hair on the flaming head spat a halo of lightning out to the runes, the echoes of its mighty voice still rolling around the cavern as they faded, leaving it shaking and dust-ridden. They burst into showers of sparks and fell, taking the illusion of the arch and its wall with them.