Elminster in Myth Drannor

by Ed Greenwood

  There was another ripple of alarm in the Court as the lords once again pulled aside their robes to reveal stormswords; Alais shrugged. Seven swords faded into view in the air in front of her, hovering with their points toward the elven lords, and then vanished again. She paid them no attention, and went on, “From what I have seen, the humans have their own feuds, and are much disorganized, as well as being what we might call undisciplined and untutored in the ways of the forest. Yet they outnumber us already twenty to one and more. Far more humans have swung swords in earnest than have our People. They swarm, and fight with more ruthlessness, speed, and ability to adapt and change in battle than we have ever known. If they invade, lords, we shall probably manage two or four victories, perhaps even a decisive slaughter. They will manage the rest, and be hunting us through the streets before two seasons are past. Please believe me now; I don’t want the realm to feel the pain of your believing me only as you die, later.”

  She continued, “ ‘To those who, hearing me, then say: ’Then let us fare forth now, and smite all human realms, that they can never raise armies against us,’ I say only: no. Humans invaded will unite to slay a common foe; we shall be slain outside our realm, only to leave it undefended when the counterstrike comes. Moreover, anyone who goes to war with humans makes lasting enemies: they remember grudges, lords, as well as we do. To strike at a land now, even to humble it, is to await its next generation, or the one after that, to come riding back at us for revenge—and humans have a score or more generations for each one of ours.”

  “Will you accept, lords,” the Coronal asked mildly, “the testimony of our Lady Herald? Do you grant that she is probably right?”

  The three lords shifted uneasily, until Urddusk snapped, “And if we do?”

  “If you do, lords,” Alais replied, startling everyone save the Coronal by her interjection, “than you and our Coronal stand agreed, both fighting to save Cormanthor. Your shared dispute is only over the means to do so.”

  She turned again to face the throne, and the Coronal thanked her with a smile and gestured her dismissal. As she floated past the three lords, he spoke again, saying, “Hear my will, lords. The Opening shall proceed—but only after one thing is in place.”

  The silence, as everyone waited for his next words, was a tense, straining thing.

  “My lords, you have all raised just and grave concerns over the safety of our People in an ‘open’ Cormanthor. Inviting other races in without the elves of Cormanthor having some sort of overarching, pervasive protection is unthinkable. Yet this cannot be a protection of mere law, for we can be swamped and unable to muster blades enough to enforce our law, precisely as if we made war. We do, however, still outstrip humans in one area, for a few more seasons at least: the magic we weave.”

  The Coronal made a gesture, and suddenly several of the courtiers glowed with golden auras, up and down the hall. They glanced down at themselves in surprise, as their fellows drew back from them. The Coronal pointed at them with a smile, and said, “Elves who have the means to do so, or the skill, have always crafted, or hired others to craft for them, personal mantles of defensive magic. We need a mantle that will encloak all of Cormanthor. We shall have such a mantle before the city is laid open to those not of pure elven blood.”

  Lord Urddusk sputtered, “But such a thing is impossible!”

  The Coronal laughed. “That’s not a word I ever like to use in Cormanthor, my lord. ’Tis almost always a swift embarrassment to whomever utters it!”

  Lord Haladavar leaned his head over to the ear of Lord Urddusk and murmured, “Be at ease! He says this so he can retreat from his plan with dignity! We’ve won!”

  Unfortunately, the Lady Herald seemed to have left some trace of her voice-hurling magic behind, for the whispered words carried to every corner of the chamber. Lord Haladavar flushed a deep, rich red, but the Coronal laughed merrily and said, “No, lords, I mean it! Opening we shall have—but an Opening with the People well protected!”

  “I suppose we’ll now waste the best efforts of our young mages on this now, for the next twoscore seasons or so,” Lord Malgath snapped.

  The flash of one of the old-fashioned little globes known as “come hither” signals spilled forth among the courtiers then, and everyone looked to see its source. As a buzz of conversation arose and Lord Malgath’s comment hung unanswered, the Lady Herald cut through the gaping ranks of well-dressed elves like a wasp seeking to sting, and caine at last to an aged elf in dark, plain robes. She smiled, turned to face the Throne, and announced, “Mythanthar would speak.”

  The three lords frowned in puzzlement as the courtiers burst again into excited whispers, but the Coronal made the gesture for silence. When it had fallen, the Lady Herald touched the old mage with her sleeve, and by her magic his thin, quavering voice rang clear to every corner of that vast hall. “I would remind Cormanthans of the ‘spell fields’ I tried to develop from mantles, for use by our war captains, three thousand years agone. Our need passed, and I turned to other things, but I know now what direction to work in, where I was ignorant before. In elder days, our magic weavers could easily alter how magic worked in a given area. I shall craft a spell that does the same, and give Cormanthor its mantle. From end to end of this fair city there shall be a ‘mythal.’ Give me three seasons to get started, and I shall then be able to give thee a count of how many more I shall need.”

  There was a momentary silence as everyone waited for him to say more, but Mythanthar waved that he was done, and turned away from the herald; the Court erupted in excited chatter.

  “My lord,” Lord Malgath snapped, approaching the Throne and raising his arms in his anxiousness to be heard (overhead, the Srinshee aimed two scepters at him, her face set and stern). “please hear me: it is imperative that this ‘mythal’ deny the working of any magic by all N’Tel’Quess—in fact, by all who are not purebloods of Cormanthor!”

  “And it must reveal to all the alignments of folk entering it,” Lord Haladavar said excitedly, “to protect us from the shapeshifting beasts and all who dare to impersonate elves, or even specific elven lords!”

  “Well said!” Lord Urddusk echoed. “It should also, and for the same reason, make invisible things visible at its boundaries, and prevent teleportation into or out of it, or we’ll have invading armies of adventurers in our laps every night!”

  Nearly every elf at court was crowding forward now, bobbing their heads, waving their arms, and shouting their own suggestions; as the din mounted, the Coronal finally spread his hands in resignation and pressed one of the buttons set deep in one arm of the Throne.

  There was a blinding brilliance as the Coronal’s lightshock wave took effect. It kept almost everyone from seeing the dagger hurled at the Coronal from the ranks of courtiers. That blade struck the field created by the scepter in the Srinshee’s left hand and was transported to an empty storage cellar deep under the north wing of the palace.

  It also had its intended effect: everyone except the Coronal on his throne staggered backward, stunned into silence.

  Into the gentle moaning sounds that followed, as folk fought to clear the swirling lights from their eyes, the ruler of all Cormanthor said gently, “No mythal can hope to include every desire expressed by every Cormanthan, but I intend that it act on as many as are possible and tenable. Please make all of your suggestions to the Lady Herald of the court; she will convey them to the senior mages of the court and to myself. Mythanthar, have my deepest thanks—and my hopes that all Cormanthor will soon echo that thanks. It is my will that you craft an initial version of your mythal—no matter how incomplete or crude—as soon as possible, for presentation to the court.”

  “Revered Lord, I shall do so,” Mythanthar replied, bowing low. He turned away again, and high above him, the Srinshee’s eyes widened. Had there, or had there not, been a circle of nine sparks around the old mage’s head, just for an instant?

  Well, there was none to be seen now. Face thoughtful, the Srinshe
e watched him totter toward one of the tapestries, face thoughtful. Her eyes widened again an instant later—and this time one of the scepters in her hands leaped slightly as it hurled forth magic.

  The old mage passed out among the tapestries, and Oluevaera was pleased to note that two of the Coronal’s best young armathors fell into place before and behind him, wearing ornamental half-cloaks that her mage-sight could see were generating a metal-warding field between them. Mythanthar’s own mantle should take care of any hurled spells, and he should soon stand in his own tower again, unharmed, now that the first opportunistic attack on him had been foiled.

  The Srinshee watched grimly as a courtier in a plum-colored tunic, whose name and lineage she did not know, sagged back against a wall, staring down at his hand. His face was white and his mouth was gaping in soundless shock.

  Her aim had been good; that hand was now a withered, clawlike thing mottled with age … and too weak to hold the deadly triple-bladed dagger that lay on the floor beneath it.

  “I must confess I am still gloating about the success Duilya enjoyed,” Alaglossa Tornglara confided, the moment they were out of hearing of their servants. The two parties of uniformed retainers carefully set down the purchases made by their lady masters at the side of the street, and stood patient guard over them.

  “They’ll not all be that easy, I’m afraid,” the Lady Ithrythra Mornmist murmured.

  “Indeed; have you seen the Lady Auglamyr? Amaranthae, I mean. She was as still and silent as a statue today; I wonder if the wooing of a certain High Court Mage is troubling her.”

  “No,” Ithrythra said slowly, “it’s something else. She’s worried for someone, but not herself. She barely notices what she’s wearing, and sends Auglamyr pages scurrying on dozens of seeking errands, by the hour. She’s lost something … or someone.”

  “I wonder what can have befallen?” Lady Tornglara breathed, a frown drawing down her beautiful features into solemnity. “This must be something serious, I’ll be bound.”

  “Intrigues in the streets, now, is it?” The voice that hailed them was almost exuberantly arrogant; Elandorr Waelvor, flower of the third elder House of the realm, was gleeful about something.

  He was resplendent in a jerkin of black velvet trimmed about with white thunderbolts, and a cloak of rich purple with a magenta lining swirled about his shoulders and gleaming black thigh-high boots as he advanced upon them. His slim, elegant fingers bristled with rings, and the jeweled silver scabbard of his sword of honor was so long that it slapped at his ankles with every step. The two ladies watched him strut, their faces expressionless.

  Elandorr seemed to sense their unspoken disapproval; he lowered his brows, clasped his hands behind his back, and started to circle them.

  “Though ’tis refreshing to see the younger, more vigorous houses of Cormanthor grow into taking an interest in the doings of the realm,” he said airily, “I must caution you ladies that overmuch talk about affairs of import would be a bad, nay, a very bad thing. It has recently been my painful duty to ah, curb the behavioral excesses of the wayward Lady Symrustar, of the fledgling House of Auglamyr. You may have heard something about it, borne on the lamentable winds of gossip with which our fair city seems so intolerably afflicted … ?”

  The upward, inquisitorial rise of his voice, and his lifted brows, urged a reply; he was momentarily disconcerted when both ladies silently arched scornful eyebrows of their own, locked gazes with him, and said nothing.

  His eyes flashed with irritation as he spun away from the weight of two level stares, swirling his cloak grandly. Then Elandorr put his hand to his breast, sighed theatrically, and turned back toward them. “It would grieve me deeply,” he said passionately, “to hear the same tragic sort of news mooted about the city concerning the proud ladies of Mornmist and Tornglara. Yet such misfortunes can all too easily befall any elven she who doesn’t know her proper place, and now keep to it—in the new Cormanthor.”

  “And which ‘new Cormanthor’ would that be, Lord Waelvor?” Alaglossa asked softly, wide-eyed, two fingers to her chin.

  “Why, this realm around us, known and loved by all true Connanthans. This realm as it will be in a moon or so, renewed and set back on the proper path that was good enough for our ancestors, and theirs before them.”

  “Renewed? By whom, and how?” Ithrythra joined in the dumbfounded game. “Coyly gloating young lordlings?”

  Elandorr scowled at her, and drew his lips back from his teeth in an unlovely smile. “I shan’t forget your insolence, ‘Lady,’ and shall act appropriately—you may assure yourself of that!”

  “Lord, I shall await you,” she said, dropping her head in deference. As she did so, she rolled her eyes.

  With a growl, Elandorr swept past her, deliberately extending his elbow to strike her head as he did so—but somehow, as she swayed out of his reach, he found himself bearing down on the back of a servant who had appeared out of nowhere to attend to the Lady Tornglara. Elandorr cast an angry look around and saw that servants of both ladies were closing in around him, eyes averted from him but with daggers, goads, and carry-yokes in their hands. The scion of the Waelvors snarled and quickened his pace, striding out of the closing press of bodies.

  The servants crowded in around both ladies, who looked at each other and discovered that they were both dark-eyed, quick of breath, and flaring about the nostrils. The tips of their ears were red with anger.

  “A dangerous foe, and now one fully aware of you, Ithrythra,” Alaglossa said in soft warning.

  “Ah, but look how much he blurted out about someone’s future plans for the realm, because he lost his temper,” Ithrythra replied. Then she looked at the servants all around them both and said, “I thank all of you. ’Twas very brave, walking into our peril when you could—should—have stayed safely away.”

  “Nay, Lady; ’twas all we could do, and still know any honor in our days,” one of the older male stewards muttered.

  Ithrythra smiled at him, and replied, “Well, if I ever act so rude as yon lordling, you’ve my permission to toss me down in the mud and use that goad of yours a time or two on my backside!”

  “Best forewarn your lord of his arrival, though,” Alaglossa put in with a smile. “This man’s one of mine!”

  A general roar of mirth erupted, in which all joined—but then died away slowly as, one by one, they turned and looked along the street to discover that Elandorr Waelvor hadn’t walked all that far off after all. He obviously thought that their laughter had been at his direct expense, and was standing looking at them all with black murder in his eyes.

  Lord Ihimbraskar Evendusk floated at ease several feet above his own bed, naked as his birthing day, smiling at his lady like an admiring young elven lover.

  Lady Duilya Evendusk smiled back at him, her chin resting on her hands, and her elbows resting on the same empty air. She wore only fine golden chains studded with gems; they hung down in loops toward the bed below.

  “So, my lord, what news today?” she breathed, still delighted that he’d hastened straight home to disrobe after Court emptied—and that he’d reacted with delight, and not irritation, to find her waiting in his bed. The ceremonially ignored bottle of tripleshroom sherry was still on the floor where she’d ordered it set; Duilya doubted her lord had touched a drop since seeing her drain one such bottle. She wondered when—if—she’d ever dare tell him about the magic her lady friends had worked, to enable her to do that drinking.

  “Three senior lords,” her Ihimbraskar told her, “Haladavar, Urddusk and that serpent Malgath, came to Court and demanded that the Coronal reconsider the Opening. They wore stormswords, and threatened to use them.”

  “And do they yet live?” Duilya asked dryly.

  “They do. Eltargrim chose to view their weapons as ‘errors in judgment.’ ”

  Duilya snorted. “The enemy armathor gasped out blood as my error of judgment took him through the vitals,” she declaimed grandly, waving a hand. Her lor
d chuckled.

  “Wait, love, there’s more,” he told her, rolling over. She shrugged at him to continue; her hair slid down over her shoulder and fell free.

  Ihimbraskar watched her tresses spread and swing back and forth as he continued, “The Coronal said their concerns were valid, had his Lady Herald scare us all with tales of the battle-might of humans, and said the Opening will go ahead eventually: after the city is cloaked in a huge spellmantle!”

  Duilya frowned. “What, old crazed Mythanthar’s ‘mythal’ again? What good will that be, if the realm is open to all?”

  “Aye, Mythanthar, and it’ll give us control over what these nonelven intruders do, and what magic they work, and what they can hide, by the sounds of it,” her lord said.

  Duilya drifted closer, and as she reached out to stroke his chest, she added softly, “Elves too, my lord—elves too!”

  Lord Evendusk started to shake his head dismissively, then froze, looking very thoughtful, and said in a small voice, “Duilya—however have I kept myself from utter stupidity, all these years I ignored you? Spells can be crafted to work only on creatures of certain races, and to ignore others … but will they be? What a weapon in the hand of whoever is Coronal!”

  “It seems to me, my lord,” Duilya said as she rolled over to rest the side of her face against his and fix him with a very solemn eye, “that we’d better work as hard as we can to see that Eltargrim is still our Coronal, and not one of these ambitious ardavanshee—in particular, not one of the oh-so-noble sons of our three highest houses. They may consider humans and the like no better than snakes and ground-slugs, but they look upon the rest of us elven Cormanthans as no better than cattle. The Opening will make them scared for the security of their lofty positions, and so, ruthlessly desperate in their acts.”

  “Why aren’t you a court advisor?” Ihimbraskar sighed.

  Duilya rolled over atop him and said sweetly, “I am. I advise the court through you.”