by Ed Greenwood
“Riluaneth,” El greeted him now, voice level. The glowing blade turned slowly in the air to point at him; Elminster ignored it.
There was a spell the kiira urgently wanted him to examine; a spell Iymbryl had linked with his image of Riluaneth, binding the two together with a surge of anger. El followed its bidding, standing motionless as his burly cousin glided toward him. “As always, Iym,” purred Riluaneth, “you blunder in where you aren’t wanted, and see too much. That’ll get you hurt some day … possibly sooner.”
The glow around the blade faded abruptly, and out of the sudden darkness the blade hissed right at El’s face.
He ducked aside, followed by Riluaneth’s quiet laughter. The sword swooped overhead and raced off into the gloom, seeking its true quarry. The servant sobbed once, utter terror making her too breathless to do more, as the blade raced at her mouth.
Grimly El bought her life at the possible cost of his own. A quick spell plucked the blade out of its flight and wrestled it around to fly away from the elven maiden. Riluaneth grunted in amazement. His hand swept to his belt, to the hilt of the knife he wore there.
Well, a human intruder could do at least one good deed for House Alastrarra this day. El set his teeth and fought off the burly elf’s clawing, clumsy mental attempt to regain control of the blade. The attempt ended abruptly as El lifted the streaking blade a little, over Riluaneth’s drawn dagger, and let it slide through the elf’s midriff.
Riluaneth staggered, doubled over the hilt lodged against his convulsing belly, and clutched at the hilt of his dagger, trying to snarl out some words. The dagger winked as he began the unleashing of whatever fell magic it held. El, not wanting to be caught in something as deadly as it was likely to be, used the spell Iymbryl had intended for Riluaneth the next time there was “trouble.”
The burly elf let out all his breath in a gasp of white smoke, and reeled. More white vapors billowed out of his ears, nose, and eyeballs. Riluaneth’s brain was afire inside his head, something that Iymbryl had predicted, with uncharacteristic dark humor, would be “a swiftly ended blaze, to be sure.”
It was. Elminster barely got out of the way in time as the big, sleek body toppled past him, starting its headlong plunge down the stair. It bounced twice, wetly, on the way down.
Someone screamed at the bottom of the stair. El sorted impatiently through the magics that the gem was proudly displaying, brushing aside images of the deft castings of elves who wore superior smiles, and found what he needed.
A bloodfire spell, to burn away a burly troublemaker to nothing. A pyre without a barge might be the dwarven way, but Elminster had no time to be fussy about such things; already a triple-chiming gong had struck forth a strident chord on the floor below.
Brief brightness told him Riluaneth’s remains had caught fire. El glanced over at the gaming board and found it gone—servant, pieces, and all. He wasn’t the only one in this house who could move swiftly.
He might have been the only human ever to slay an elf here, though. Curses upon all cruel and arrogant bloods. Why couldn’t he have run into Ornthalas in this corridor, and not into more trouble?
Below, the fire died and the blade clanged to the floor. There must be nothing left of Riluaneth now but trailing smoke and ash.
Time for him to be away from here, elsewhere in this grand house. Word of his part in Riluaneth’s passing would spread soon enough. If he could somehow get to the heir first, and pass on the gem …
El bounded through the archway and down the passage beyond, sprinting with a lack of grace that would have raised elven eyebrows, but which certainly covered ground faster than they would have cared to. He snatched open a door and leaped into the high-ceilinged chamber beyond, finding himself in a place of floor-to-ceiling screens of filigree-work and lecterns with animated hands sprouting from their tops—hands that proffered open books to him as he darted past.
The Alastrarran library? Or reading room? He’d have liked to spend a winter here, or more, not dash past things without even looking at th—
But there was another door. El dodged around a floating, reclining chair that looked more comfortable than any other seating he’d ever seen and made a dive for the door handle.
He was still two speeding paces away when the door suddenly swung away from him, opening to reveal a startled elven face now inches from his own! He couldn’t stop or swerve in time …
“He fell right here, Revered Lady!” the dancer gasped, pointing. His oiled body glistened in the flickering light of the brazier-bowls that circled around them both in obedience to the will of the matriarch of House Alastrarra.
The plum-hued gown she wore displayed every tall, curvaceous inch of Namyriitha Alastrarra from time to time, as portions of it flowed like smoke to wreath this part of her or that part of her in glistening rainbow droplets, and left other parts bare. An expert eye could tell she had no longer been young for many centuries, but few eyes bothered to practice any expertise when faced with such smooth-flowing beauty.
Fewer dared to look her way at all, when her face was as dark with fury as it was right now. “Keep back!” she snarled, sweeping an arm out to reinforce her order. Her gown rose into an elaborate sculpture of rising, interlaced spines standing up from her shoulders, but her hair burst through them now, a sure sign of unbridled rage. A servant whimpered softly, somewhere nearby. They’d only seen her thus thrice before—and each time, some part of the mansion had paid dearly to win her calm.
She wove her magic this time, though, with a few curt words. The sword rose obediently, quivering with the power racing through it, and then set off through the air, point first, up the stair. It would lead her, like a sure-strike hunting arrow, to Riluaneth’s slayer. No doubt his gambling, dark schemes, or philandering had earned him his fate, but no one entered House Alastrarra and struck down one of her own without paying the price, twice over and speedily.
The Lady Namyriitha undid something as she hastened to the stairs, and the lower half of her gown fell away; she kicked it aside and set off up the stairs, bare legs flashing among wisps of patterned lace. Halfway up, her fingers, gliding along the rail, slid through something dark and sticky.
She looked back at the dark blood on the rail without slowing, and then lifted her dripping fingers and looked at them expressionlessly. She made no move to wipe them clean, or to slow her pursuit of the blade cutting through the air before her.
Below, the dancer picked up the discarded skirt uncertainly, and then handed it to a servant and whirled back to the stair to follow the Lady of the House. In his wake, hesitantly, several servants followed.
By the time they reached the landing at the top of the stair there was no sign of Namyriitha or the sword. The dancer began to run in earnest.
El dropped one arm to touch his knee at the last instant, and so it was his rolling shoulder that smashed into the elven servant and the door. Both flew back against the wall of the passage beyond with a mighty crash and rebounded into the passage in Elminster’s wake. The elf sprawled on the furs underfoot in a tangle of limbs and did not move again.
Panting, El caught his balance again and ran on. Somewhere beneath him, the gong chimed its chord again. The passage forked ahead—this mansion was big—and El turned left this time. Perhaps he could double back.
A poor choice, it seemed. Two elves in glowing aquamarine armor were hastening down the passage toward him, buckling on their swords as they came. “Intruders,” El called, hoping his shout was close enough to Iymbryl’s voice to serve. He pointed back the way the guards had come. “Thieves! They ran thence!”
The guards wheeled around, though one gave El a hard, head-to-toe look, and ran back the way they’d come. “At least it wasn’t Lady Herself just making sure we were awake,” El heard one of them mutter, as they raced along the passage together. Ahead was a chamber dominated by a life-sized statue of a gowned elven lady, arms lifted in exultation. On its far side was another stair, curving down. A cross-corr
idor ran out of it, flanked by lounges on which the guards had obviously been reclining. Ornate double doors were along this passage; Elminster chose one he liked the look of, and veered toward it. He was into the passage and only a few running steps from its handles when shouts from the stair told him the two guards had noticed he was no longer with them.
He yanked on the ring handles, and twisted. The doors clicked open, and he whirled inside, drawing them closed as swiftly and as quietly as he could.
When he turned to see what manner of peril he’d hurled himself into this time, he found himself staring at an oval bed floating in midair in the middle of a dark, domed chamber. A leafy canopy floated above it, flanked by several platters carrying an array of fluted bottles and glasses, and a soft emerald glow was spreading across those leaves as the occupant of the bed sat bolt upright and stared at the intruder in her bedchamber.
She was slim and exquisitely beautiful, blue-black hair tumbling freely about her. She wore a night shift consisting of a collar and a thin strip of sheer, gauzy blue-green silk that fell from it down her front—and presumably down her back, too. Bare flanks and shoulders gleamed in the growing light as her large eyes changed from alarm to delight, and she somersaulted from the bed in a graceful sweep of bare limbs to bound forward and fling her arms around El.
“Oh, dearest brother!” she breathed, staring up into his eyes. “You’re back, and whole! I had the most terrible dream about you dying!” She bit at her lip, and tightened her arms around him as if she’d never let him go. Oh, Mystra.
“Well,” Elminster began awkwardly, “there’s something I must tell you …”
With a boom, a door on the far side of the room burst inward, and a tall, angry-eyed elven maiden clad in a similar night shift stood in the doorway, conjured fire blazing around her wrists. Behind her crowded guards in glowing armor, the falcon sigil of Alastrarra on their breasts, and the winking lights of ready magic flickering and racing up and down the bared blades in their hands.
“Filaurel!” she cried. “Stand away from yon imposter! He but wears our brother’s shape!”
The elven maiden stiffened in El’s arms, and tried to draw back. El clung to her as tightly as she’d clutched him, uncomfortably aware of the sleek softness of the body pressed against his, and murmured, “Wait—please!” With one sister held against him, the other might not be so quick to blast him with spells.
Her arms quivered with rage as she lifted them to do just that. She paused, seeing that she’d endanger Filaurel. But if she dared not hurl magic just yet, there was no such constraint on her tongue. “Murderer!”
“Melarue,” Filaurel said in a small voice, trembling against Elminster’s chest, “what shall I do?”
“Bite him! Kick him! Let him have no time to work spells, while we come at him!” Melarue snarled, striding forward.
Another door boomed, and its thunder was out-shouted by a magically augmented voice uttering a clear, crisp command. “Be still, all!”
The room fell silent and motionless, but for the heaving bosom of Filaurel, pressed against the one who held her.
And for the sword, gliding smoothly through the air at Elminster. It rose, above the head of the elf maiden, until all it could imperil was the tense face of the false elf, who watched it slide straight for his mouth, nearer … and nearer …
Beyond it stood an elven matriarch in the upper half of a courtly gown, her face calm. Only her snapping eyes betrayed her outrage, as she stood with her hands raised in the gesture that had accompanied her order. A lady used to her will being absolutely obeyed within this House. This must be the Lady Namyriitha, Iymbryl’s mother.
El had no choice—call on the gem, or die. With an inward sigh he awakened the power that would turn the sword to flakes of rust, and then dust ere it hit the floor.
“You are not my son,” the matriarch said coldly, her eyes like the points of two daggers as she locked gazes with Elminster.
“But he wears the kiira,” Filaurel said, almost pleadingly, staring up at where it glowed on the brow of the one who held her—the one who felt like her brother.
Namyriitha ignored her younger daughter. “Who are you?” she demanded, gliding forward.
“Ornthalas,” Elminster said wearily. “Bring Ornthalas to me, and ye shall have the answer ye seek.”
The lady matriarch stared at him, eyes narrow, for a long, silent time. Then she whirled, exposed lace swirling about her legs, and muttered orders. Two of the guards bent their heads and turned, holding their blades high to ensure they harmed no one in the crowd of bodies, and slipped out the door. Though he could see little of their departure, El did not think they were heading for the same destination.
The tense silence that followed did not last long. As the guards behind Lady Namyriitha spread out into an arc on both sides of her and put away their swords to pluck out hand darts instead, Melarue led her own guards forward to ring Elminster about completely.
“Revered mother,” she said, spellflames still chasing each other in circles about her wrists, “what danger do we now dance with? This impostor could be spellbound to slay at all costs—a sacrifice whose body holds magics mighty enough to blast us all, and this house asunder around us! Dare we bring the heir of Alastrarra here, into the very presence of this—this shapeshifter?”
“I am always aware of the perils awaiting us all, Melarue,” her mother said coldly, not turning her head to take her eyes off Elminster for a second, “and have spent centuries honing my judgment. Never forget that I am head of this house.”
“Yes, mother,” Melarue replied, in a respectful tone that twisted just enough in weary exasperation that El almost smiled. It seemed humans and elves were not so very different at heart after all.
“Please believe,” El said to the elf maid in his arms, “that I mean no harm to you, or to House Alastrarra. I am here because of a promise I made, upon my honor.”
“What promise?” Lady Namyriitha asked sharply.
“Revered Lady,” El replied, turning his head to her, “I shall reveal all when what I must do is done—it is too precious a thing to endanger with dispute. I assure you that I mean no harm to anyone in this house.”
“Surrender unto me your name!” the matriarch cried, using magic on the last word to compel him. El shook like a leaf in the thrall of her power, but the gem steadied him, and Mystra’s grace kept him standing. He blinked at her, and shook his head. There was a murmur of respect from the ring of warriors, and Namyriitha’s face tightened in fresh anger as she heard it.
“I am come,” a deep yet musical voice said from the doorway. An old elf stood there, clad in the cape and robes usually affected by human archwizards. The falcon device of the house was worked into the sash he wore, repeated many times, yet El knew this was no servant. Rings gleamed on his ancient fingers, and he bore a short wooden scepter in his hands, its sides carved with spiral grooves.
“Naeryndam,” the matriarch said curtly, nodding her head in Elminster’s direction, “deal with this.”
The old elf met El’s gaze, and his eyes were keen and searching. “Unknown one,” the elven mage said slowly, “I can tell ye are not Iymbryl, of this House. Yet ye wear the gem that was his. Think ye that possession of it gives ye rightful command over the kin of Alastrarra?”
“Revered elder,” El replied, bowing his head, “I have no desire to command anyone in this fair city, or do any harm to ye or thy kin. I am here because of a promise I made to one who was dying.”
In his arms, Filaurel started to shake. El knew she was weeping silently, and automatically stroked her hair and shoulders in futile soothings. The Lady Namyriitha’s mouth tightened again, but Melarue and some of the warriors looked more kindly upon the intruder in their midst.
The old elf nodded. “Thy words ring true. Know, then, that I am going to cast a spell that is not an attack, and conduct thyself accordingly.”
He lifted his hand, made a circling motion, spread and crooked two
fingers, and blew some dust or powder over his wrist. There was a singing in the air, and the warriors on all sides hastily fell back. The singing air—some sort of spell-barrier, El guessed—ringed him around closely.
He merely nodded to the old elf mage, and stood waiting. Filaurel was crying openly now, and he swung her fully against his chest and murmured, “Lady, let me tell ye how thy brother died.”
There was suddenly utter stillness in the room. “By chance I came upon a patrol Iymbryl was part of, in the deep wood—”
“A patrol he led,” Lady Namyriitha almost spat.
El inclined his head gravely. “Lady, indeed; I meant no slight. I saw the last few of his fellows fall, until only he was left, beset on all sides by ruukha, in numbers enough to overwhelm his spells, and mine own.”
“Your spells?” she sneered, her tone making it clear she doubted his words. Filaurel’s face, however, wet with tears, was raised and intent on his every word.
“As I fought my way to him, he was pierced through by a ruukha longfork, and fell into a stream there. My spells took us both away from our foes, but he was dying. Had he lived longer, he could have been my guide to bring him hence. But he had time only to show me that I should put the kiira to my brow before he failed … and was gone to dust.”
“Did he say anything?” Filaurel sobbed. “His last words: do you remember them?” Her voice rose in anguish, to ring in the far corners of her bedchamber.
“He did, Lady,” El told her gently. “He cried out a name, and that he was coming at last to its owner. That name was … Ayaeqlarune.”
There was a general groan, and both Melarue and Filaurel hid their faces. Their mother, however, stood like white-faced stone, and the old elf mage only nodded sadly.
Into this grieving swept new arrivals, slim and straight-backed and proud. Rich were their costumes, and haughty their manner, as they came in at the door and stood staring: four she-elves and two much younger maids, with a proud, youthful elven lord at their head. El recognized him from the gem-visions, though there was no floating chair nor tree-pillars and sun-dappling here. This was Ornthalas, now heir—though he did not yet know it—of House Alastrarra.