Elminster in Myth Drannor

by Ed Greenwood

  The Coronal looked to the Srinshee, who said gently, “Aye, Beldroth. But not yet. Those of us here in the ring must die a little, that the Mythal live. Here is not for you.”

  The elf lord withdrew, looking a little ashamed, and a little relieved. “Join in when the web is spun, and shines out over us,” the little sorceress added, and he froze to hear her every word.

  “If dying’s involved,” an ancient and wrinkled elven lady husked then, stepping out of the crowd with a slow hitch to her step, leaning on her cane, “then I might as well go down at last doing some good for the land.”

  “Be welcome within, Ahrendue,” the Srinshee said warmly. But the guards did not move to clear a way into the ring until the Lady Herald said crisply into their ears, “Make way for the Lady Ahrendue Echorn.”

  Their swords came up, and a murmur rippled across the court, when an elf standing by a far pillar stepped forth and said, “The time for deception is done, I think.” An instant later, his slim form rose a head taller, and grew bulkier around the shoulders. Many in the Court gasped. Another human—and this one hidden in their midst!

  His face was cloaked in conjured darkness; the tense Cormanthan guards saw only two keen eyes peering at them out of its shadow, but the Srinshee said firmly, “Mentor, you are welcome within our ring.”

  “Move, stalwarts,” the Lady Herald murmured, and this time the warriors were quick to obey.

  There was another stir in the crowded hall then, as a line of folk pushed through the assembled Cormanthans. The High Court Mage strode along at the head of this procession, and behind him walked Lord Aulauthar Orbryn, Lord Ondabrar Maendellyn, and a half-elven lord whose cloaked shoulders were surrounded by a whirling ring of glowing gemstones, whom the Srinshee identified in a whisper as “the sorcerer Arguth of Ambral Isle.” Bringing up the rear was the High Lady of Art Alea Dahast, slim, smiling, and sharp-eyed.

  It was becoming crowded in the ring, and as the Coronal embraced the last of these arrivals, he asked the Srinshee, “Is this all Mythanthar needs, do you think?”

  “We await one more,” the little sorceress told him, peering over the shoulders of the guards, and finally rising so as to stand on air above them. Playfully Mythanthar began to tap her toes, until she commenced to kick.

  “Ah,” she said then, beckoning at a face among the gathered citizens. “Our last. Come on, Dathlue!”

  Looking surprised, the slender warrior stepped forth in her armor, unbuckling the slim long sword that swayed at her hip. Surrendering it to the guards, she slipped into the ring, kissed the Coronal full on the mouth, clapped the Srinshee on the arm, and then stood waiting.

  They all looked at each other. The Srinshee looked at Mythanthar, who nodded.

  “Widen the ring,” the little sorceress commanded crisply. “A long way, now, we need as much space again. Sylmae, did you get all the bows brought in here?”

  “No,” the sorceress in the ring replied, without turning. “I got the arrows. Holone got the bows.”

  “And I got some nasty wands,” Yathlanae put in, from her place along the ring. “Some of these ladies were wearing four garters just to carry them all!”

  The Srinshee sighed theatrically, and said to Mythanthar, “Don’t say anything—whatever you’re thinking, just don’t say it.”

  The old mage assumed a look of exaggerated innocence, and spread his hands.

  The little sorceress shook her head and started taking folk in the ring by the elbows and leading them to where she wanted them to stand, until they stood widely spaced in a ring around Mythanthar, facing inward.

  Elminster was surprised to find himself trembling. He shot a look at Nacacia, caught her reassuring smile, and answered it. Then he cast a long look all around the hall, from its floating throne to the gap in the ceiling to the huge, rough sections of toppled, broken pillar and, revealed behind it, the statue of a crouching elven hero who was menacing the Court with his outthrust sword. He stared hard at it for a long moment, but it was just that: a statue, complete with a thin mantle of dust.

  He drew in a deep breath, and tried to relax. Mystra, be with us all now, he thought. Shape and oversee this great magic, I pray, that it be what ye saw so long ago, to send me here.

  The Srinshee drew in a deep breath then, looked around at them all, and whispered, “Let it begin.”

  In the excitement, no one in all that vast hall noticed something small and dark and dusty crawling among them, humping and slithering like some sort of inchworm as it made its slow way out across the bloodstained floor of the chamber—heading steadily for the ring.

  Within the ring, Mythanthar spread his hands again, eyes closed, and from his fingers thin beams of light forged out, silent and slow, to link with each person in the ring. He murmured something, and the watching Cormanthans gasped in awe and alarm as his body exploded into a roiling cloud of blood and bones.

  Elminster gasped, and almost moved from his place, but the Srinshee caught his eye with a stern look. He could tell from the tear that rolled down her cheek that she’d not known Mythanthar’s spell required the sacrifice of his own life.

  The cloud that had been the old mage rose like smoke from a fire, and became white, then blinding. The white strands still linking it to the others in the ring glowed with fire of their own.

  White flames like tongues of snow soared up to the riven ceiling of the Chamber of the Court, as the bodies of all in the ring suddenly burst into white fire.

  The Cormanthans crowded into the hall gasped in unison.

  “What is it? Are they dying?” the Lady Duilya Evendusk cried, wringing her hands. Her lord put his own hands on her shoulders in silent reassurance, as Beldroth leaned toward her and said, “Mythanthar is dead—or his body is. He will become our Mythal, when ’tis done.”

  “What?” Elves were crowding forward on all sides to hear.

  Beldroth lifted his head and his voice to tell them all, “The others should live, though the spell is stealing something of the force of life from all of them now. They’ll begin to weave special powers—one chosen by each—into it soon, and we’ll start to hear a sort of drone, or singing.”

  He looked back up at the rising, arching web of white fire, and discovered that tears were streaming down his face. A small hand crept into his, and squeezed reassuringly. He looked down into the eyes of an elf-child he did not know. Her face was very solemn, even when she was smiling back up at him. He squeezed her hand back in thanks, and went on holding it.

  In a little glade where a fountain laughed endlessly down into a pool of dancing fish, Ithrythra Mornmist straightened suddenly and looked at her lord.

  His scrying-globe and papers tumbled from his lap, forgotten, as he stood up. No, he was rising off the ground, his eyes fixed on something far away!

  “What is it, Nelaer?” Ithrythra cried, running over to him. “Are you … well?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lord Mornmist gasped, his eyes still fixed on nothingness. “Oh, gods, yes. It’s beautiful … it’s wonderful!”

  “What is it?” Ithrythra cried. “What’s happening?”

  “The Mythal,” Nelaeryn Mornmist said, his voice sounding as if he wanted to cry. “Oh, how could we all have been so blind? We should have done this centuries ago!”

  And then he started to sing—an endless, wordless song.

  His lady stared at him for some minutes, her face white with worry. He drifted a little higher, his bare feet rising past her chin, and in sudden fright she clutched at his ankles, and clung.

  The song washed through her, and with it all that he was feeling. And so it was that Ithrythra Mornmist was the first non-mage in Cormanthor to feel what a mythal was. When a servant found them a few minutes later, Lady Mornmist was wrapped around her lord’s feet, trembling, her face bright with awe.

  Alaglossa Tornglara stiffened and sat up in Satyrdance Pool, water streaming from her every curve. She said to the servant who knelt beside her with scents and brushes, “Something�
�s happening. Can you feel it?”

  The servant did not reply. Tingling to her very fingertips now, the Lady Tornglara turned to speak sharply to her maid, and stared instead.

  The lass was floating in the air, still bent forward with a scent-bottle in her hand, and her eyes were staring. Tiny lightnings flickered and played about them, and darted in and out of her open mouth. She started to moan, then, as if aroused, and the sound changed to a low, wordless, endless song.

  Alaglossa started to scream, and then, as the servant—Nlaea was her name, yes, that was it—started to drift higher, she reached out to take hold of Nlaea’s arm.

  The servant who heard the scream and sprinted all the long way through the gardens fetched up panting at the pool, and stared at them both: the floating servant and the noble lady who was staring up at her, eyes wide and fixed on something else. They were both nude, and moaning a chant. He looked at them in some detail, swallowed, and then hastened away again. He’d be in trouble if they came back from that humming and saw him staring.

  He shook his head more than once, on his way back to his watering. Pleasure spells were certainly becoming powerful things these days …

  Galan Goadulphyn cursed and felt for his daggers. Just his luck—within sight of the city with all the dwarven gems his boots could hold, and now a patrol was bearing down on him! He looked back at the trees, knowing there was nowhere he could hide, even if he’d been swift enough to outrun them. Gleaming-armored bastards. With weary grace he straightened out of his footsore shuffle and affected a grand manner.

  “Ho, guardians! What news?”

  “Hold, human,” the foremost armathor said sternly. “The city will be open to you at highsun tomorrow, if all goes well. Until then, this is as far as you go.”

  Galan raised an incredulous eyebrow, and then doffed his dirty head scarf. The strips of false, straggly haired sideburns he was wearing came off with it—rather painfully.

  “See these?” he said, flicking one of his ears back and forth with a grubby finger. “I’m no human.”

  “By the looks of you, you’re no elf, either,” the armathor said, his eyes hard. “We’ve seen dopplegangers before.”

  “No wife jokes, now,” Galan told him, waggling a finger. That got him a dirty look (from the armathor) and some chuckles (from the rest of the patrol). “You mean they’ve finally got that mythal thing working? After all these years?”

  The guards exchanged looks. “He must be a citizen,” one of them said. “None else know about it, after all.”

  Reluctantly the patrol leader snapped, “Right—you can pass. I suggest you go somewhere you can bathe.”

  Galan drew himself up. “Why? If you’re going to let humans in, what does it matter? Hmmph. You’ll be telling me dwarves have the run of the city, next!”

  “They do,” the armathor said, grinding out every word from between clenched teeth. “Now get going.”

  Galan gave him a cheery wave. “Thank you, ‘my man,’ ” he said airily, and flicked a ruby as big as a good grape out of the top of his right boot, to the startled guard. “That’s for your trouble.”

  As he walked on into the city, Galan whistled happily. The gesture—gods above, the looks on their faces!—had been worth one ruby. Well, half a ruby. Well … was it too late to go and steal it back?

  The essence that was Uldreiyn Starym rose up the thin line of flame his careful spell had birthed, touched the web of white fire, and allowed himself to be swept into the growing web of magic. Power surged through him. Yesss …

  As he flashed along its strands, he deftly spun himself a cloak of fire from a gout of flame here, a strand shaved there, and a node robbed of a flicker of force as he flashed past.

  He was just possibly the most powerful worker of magic in all Cormanthor—and if doddering Mythanthar could weave this, then the senior Lord Starym could ride it, and cloak himself in it, and conceal who he was as he rode the glistening white strands across the city and down, down to the gaping hole in the roof of the Court.

  His body was still slumped in his chair, at the heart of his dragon-guarded speculum in the tallest tower of House Starym, the one that stood a little apart. Leaving it behind made him vulnerable—not that these rapture-mazed weavers would notice him until he did something drastic. Which, of course, is what he was here for.

  A child could ride a spun spell, once shown how, but he wanted to do more than just ride. Much more. In a world where such as Ildilyntra Starym died and foolish puppies like Maeraddyth had to be kept alive, one had to make one’s own justice.

  He was plunging down, now, moving as fast as he dared. They were all standing together, and he had to strike the right one without any delay, or risk being sensed by that little shrew the Srinshee or perhaps one of the others he did not know.

  Ride the white flames—an exhilarating sensation, he admitted—down, down to … yes! Farewell, Aulauthar!

  His passing saddens us greatly, Uldreiyn thought savagely, as he hurled the full force of his will, bolstered by a burst of the white fire, against the timid, carefully perfectionist mind of his chosen victim. It crumbled in an instant, bathing him in chaotic memories as he wallowed and thrust ruthlessly in all directions.

  The watchers in the Court saw one of the living pillars of white flame waver for a moment, but witnessed no other sign of the savage spell attack that burned the brain and innards of Lord Aulauthar Orbryn to ashes, leaving his body a mindless shell.

  Now he was part of the weave at last, part of the eager flow and growth of new powers. Orbryn had been crafting the part of the future Mythal that identified creatures by their races. Dragons were to be shut out, were they? Dopplegangers, of course, and orcs, too.

  Well, why not expand on Aulauthar’s excellent work, and make the Mythal deadly to all non-pureblood elves? Deadly by, say, highsun tomorrow. Dearly though he’d have loved to slay that pollution Elminster, awakening the power now would smite down two more of the weavers of the Mythal—Mentor and the halfblood—and would mean his own certain detection. And after Uldreiyn Starym was dust, they’d simply spin another Mythal to replace the one he’d shattered.

  Oh, no, best to bide a bit; he had much grander plans than that.

  This outstrips everything but knowing the love of a goddess, Elminster thought, as he soared along pathways of white fire, feeling power surge through him. With every passing instant the grandeur grew, as the Mythal expanded in size and scope. Half a hundred minds were at work, now, smoothing and shaping and making it all larger and more intricate; cross-connected here and augmented there, and …

  Elminster stiffened, where he was floating in the web, and then whirled through an intricate junction and turned back. There had been sharp, very brief pain and a flash of intolerable heat, followed by a whiff of confusion. A death? Something had gone wrong, something now concealed. Treachery, if that’s what it was, could doom the Mythal before it was even born.

  It had been a long way back, down and deep. Gods, were they under attack, back in the court? As he descended, his mind flashed out to touch that of Beldroth, part of the expanding web now, humming as he floated just clear of the ground, a wide-eyed child floating with him. People all around were murmuring and drawing back from him warily, but there was more wonder than hostility. No, the guards stood watchfully, but peace held in the Chamber of the Court.

  So where, then … ?

  He sank down warily, to where the web was anchored, heading for the elves. The High Court Mage was fine, as was Alea Dahast, an—no! There! An awareness that did not belong to Lord Aulauthar Orbryn had peered at him along the white fire, just for a moment; a sentience whose regard had been anything but kindly.

  The work the false Orbryn was doing on the Mythal was tainted to destroy all non-elven! This must be why he was here, what he’d spent twenty years working toward! To stop this treachery! Be with me now, Mystra, El thought, for now I strike for thee.

  And riding a plume of white fire, Elminster arrowe
d down into what had once been Lord Aulauthar Orbryn, and lashed out at who he found there.

  The wave of white fire rolled through the ruins of what had once been Orbryn’s mind, and El drew back from it a little. The mental bolt that would have impaled him flashed out and missed. The body around them shuddered under its searing impact.

  Snarling silently, Elminster struck back.

  His bolt was rebuffed by a mind as strong and as deep as his own. An elven elder with whom he’d never brushed minds. A Starym? El sped sideways along the lines of fire, so that the next strike—and his counterstroke—both tore through the construct the false Orbryn had woven, wrecking it beyond repair. The Mythal would not now slay non-elves, whatever else befell.

  That left nothing to shield Elminster Aumar. The next thrust from the mighty mind he faced pierced and held him no matter how hard he thrashed, bearing down with mindfire.

  Red pain erupted, and with it memories began to flow as they were lost, crashing over him one after another in a racing, confusing flood. Elminster tried to scream and break away, but succeeded only in spinning himself around, still transfixed on the shearing probe that was boring deeper and deeper into him.

  He saw his attacker for the first time. Uldreiyn Starym, senior lord and archmage of that House, sneering at him in serene triumph as he yielded that identification to the tortured mind he was sundering …

  Mystra! Elminster cried, writhing in agony. Mystra, aid me! For Cormanthor, come to me now!

  The human worm was dying, thrashing, weeping for his god. Now was the time; the others would sense something amiss soon enough. Uldreiyn Starym lashed out at Elminster one more time, and then drew back long enough to work the magic that would call his body to himself, to cloak the weakness of his disembodied mind and give him the means to really strike out, if he had to leave this web under the weight of many aroused attackers. There! Done. Exultantly, he surged back to the attack, stabbing again at the shuddering, tumbling human.