“Enough levity,” Itharr said in quite a different voice, and drew his sword. A moment later he was riding down a green tunnel beneath the interlaced branches of the trees, slowing his mount abruptly and looking warily at the trees ahead. “Lady of the Forest, be with us,” he breathed, knowing an arrow could take him in the face or throat before he even saw it.
He glanced back once. Sharantyr was catching up to him swiftly, her beautiful brown hair flowing free around her shoulders and her blade naked in her hand. Far behind he could see Belkram, head turning from side to side and then twisting to look back the way they’d come, in a steady, watchful cycle.
Knowing just what reckless fools they were, Itharr sighed as he faced the woods and rode on. Ahead, the road dipped to ford a small stream. No—a sagging bridge, gray with age and neglect, sloped across the bright ribbon of water. Past the bridge, the road climbed out into daylight, up the hill.
He expected an attack where prudence forced him to dismount and lead the horse through the shallow waters just above the ruined bridge, but none came. He thought he saw a small dark figure turn and scuttle away through the trees well downstream, but brownies and halflings could almost always be found in country like this, and might well leave a few humans alone.
Or might not, as their inclinations took them. Itharr’s shoulders felt very exposed as he rode up the hill and circled the ruin at a careful trot, seeing his companions come up the hill in turn.
Someone had burned the manor house a long time ago. Roofless walls were all that was left of two barns and the house itself, which had a semicircular flagstone terrace commanding a very pleasant view from the hilltop. Anything with eyes had seen them approach, but the ruins looked safe enough in themselves. Sharantyr was already dismounting to check the corners.
“Human bones here,” she said almost immediately, “and orcs, too. Long dead, and scattered by something that came along later, something hungry that had big teeth.”
“Ah, the expertise of the trained ranger,” Belkram said jovially. “Have you decided on the best place for the horses?”
“Indeed,” Shar told him pleasantly, “but I’m not sure if all three of them’ll fit there; you’d probably struggle and squirm.”
Itharr’s barked laughter spilled out his relief that no attack had come, and it was Syluné’s turn to sigh. “Crude, children … very crude. I’d best come out and look about. I can see undeath and things invisible where you can’t.”
“Please do,” Belkram replied. “Teasing aside, I’ve just as odd a feeling about this too-pleasant place as Itharr.”
The stone seemed to turn over in his pocket, and Belkram felt the softest of breezes against his cheek. “Try to behave while I’m gone,” came a whisper in his ear, and he frowned in puzzlement at the word “gone” until he recalled her first act as Elminster, when coming to a camp: checking the trees all around for spies, brigands, game trails, and the like. He stretched, trying to relax shoulders tight with tension, and looked around the ruin.
The place must have been a cozy house when it was whole, not a grand residence. There were no halls, fore-chambers, or defensive ring walls, just a stout building of rooms opening into rooms. They chose one for the horses and another for themselves, and built a fire as soon as Syluné drifted back unseen to tell them the woods around were safe for as far as she’d cared to look.
Belkram had bent his ear her way in suspicion at something subdued in her tone, but Syluné saw him and said firmly, “Nothing is amiss that need concern you, Belkram. Relax, and have that debate you were so looking forward to. Ill stand watch the night through, if you’ll all sleep clothed—or at least with your boots on—and with weapons to hand.”
“That’s hardly fair to you,” Shar objected, and was rewarded with light laughter.
“Child, I don’t need to sleep anymore … remember?”
“True enough,” Sharantyr conceded. “Well, then, let’s have our tongue-wag now, and stow it all when the food’s ready.”
“Aye, I’ve noticed that works with these two,” Syluné agreed. “Speak.”
“The question,” Sharantyr said promptly, looking to her companions for confirmation, “is whether we’re better off out here in the wilds or back home in Shadowdale, now that the Malaugrym have slain Old Elminster.”
“It’s safer for us back in the dale, surely,” Itharr told the food he was preparing.
“Yes, but if we return there, we’ll bring danger to Shadowdale at the hands of any Malaugrym who show up to attack us,” Belkram put in from where he was seeing to the horses.
“Well, then, what about going to another defensible place?” Sharantyr replied. “One we don’t care about, but which shelters us from brigands, hungry beasts, and other wandering perils—including marauding avatars, I suppose.”
“Umm … got any such place in mind?” Itharr asked, looking up.
Shar shrugged. “My experience of these lands is limited,” she reminded them. “I’m merely suggesting a strategy.”
“What I’d like to know more about is our foes,” Belkram grunted, checking the hooves of a horse who saw no reason for staying in a stony pen when there was a lovely grassy hill out there under the setting sun, and was firmly telling the nearest human its views. “Syluné?”
“The Malaugrym—a race of shapeshifters descended from the sorcerer Malaug, who have traditionally kidnapped women of Faerûn and taken them as mates—dwell in a vast, ever-changing Castle of Shadows on the demiplane of Shadow,” the disembodied voice told them. “Some of them are powerful mages, but none dare to walk Faerûn openly because of Elminster, whom they call the Great Foe.”
“Because he once foiled one of their kidnappings or slayings?” Itharr asked.
“Precisely. Centuries ago, they stole spells and enchanted items from all over Faerûn—competing with each other, I’ve been told—and quite often killed wizards so as to have a free hand in plundering their magic. When they tried to do the same to Elminster, he slew one of them and warned the others present to stay out of our world, but that just made them determined to eliminate him. It’s been a running battle between the Malaugrym and the Chosen down the long years since especially a year back when spellfire appeared in the Realms, in the hands of Shandril Shessair. Elminster and the Simbul between them kept her alive and out of Malaugrym hands, more than anyone else.”
Sharantyr nodded slowly. “I know, now, why the Knights decided to let Narm and Shandril go unescorted, but for Torm and Rathan riding after them.”
“Yes,” Syluné said. “Elminster didn’t want any of you slain by the Malaugrym because you got in their way. The Shadowmasters, as they call their eldest and most powerful, think themselves superior to all folk of Faerûn. We’re cattle, to be slaughtered or stolen from at whim.”
“Charming,” Shar commented, lifting her lips in a sneer. “Remind me, dahlings, to slaughter the cattle out of hand tonight …”
“Now, now,” Belkram said, “don’t give them any ideas. They may well be listening to us now.”
“They probably are,” Syluné confirmed calmly.
“What puzzles me,” Itharr said, “is why they haven’t taken to ruling the Realms long ago. How many of them are there, that a few diligent archmages can stop them? And what else do we know of their powers? What can slay them?”
“We don’t know how many of them exist,” Syluné replied. “As you can appreciate, it’s difficult to do any sort of body count on secretive shapeshifters who’re engaged in intrigues against each other as well as battles with folk of the Realms … except for, of course, a literal body count.”
“Hoo-hah,” Belkram agreed. “So what’s Elminster’s best guess?”
“He thought there were about seventy of any consequence,” Syluné answered, chuckling at the calmly pressed question, “but that’s before the Simbul had her little disagreement with them back at Irythkeep.”
“Killing them,” Itharr said. “Get back to killing them.”
/> “Well, they’re physically very strong—hardy is perhaps a better word; they’d have to be, to change shape so often—and so fare well in falls and the like, though it seems Malaugrym who’ve taken another shape can be slain by whatever would usually be fatal to the shape they’re using. Cut off the head of a Malaugrym horse”—one of the horses lifted its head to give her a hard stare, and Syluné darted over to mindtouch and be sure it was a horse and not something more, before proceeding—“and you’ll slay the Malaugrym, unless it’s moved its vital functions somewhere else by starting to shift into another shape. Apparently they’re suspicious enough of each other to shift body shape all the time, and go about their castle in forms that have several heads, tentacles all over the place, and so on.”
“Definitely charming,” Itharr said. “Go on.”
“They like to take human shape but tend to put their vital functions in unusual body areas, so stabbing one in the eye might not blind it, and there may be no brain behind the eye to harm. Malaugrym who have magic can, of course, hurl spells if need be, in any body shape, and can cast protections on themselves before venturing out, just as human wizards do. They’re also, as far as we’ve been able to learn, immune to all poisons fatal to men.”
“So what is poisonous to a Malaugrym, I wonder?” Belkram asked softly. “There must be something.”
“There is,” Syluné confirmed. “The touch of silver in their blood—so on a blade, for instance—is corrosive to all of their tissues it reaches.”
“It would have been useful,” Itharr said quietly, “to have known this a little earlier.”
“My apologies,” Syluné said. “You are right, and right to be angry. We—Elminster, of course—didn’t want you to alert the Malaugrym to a possible deception when we rode out, by demonstrating that you knew all about them. He’s … he can be ruthless too, in his own way.”
“We know that,” Sharantyr said with feeling. “Believe me, we know that.” The two Harpers laughed easily.
“Ah, Shar, ’twas a grand adventure that befell us in the High Dale!”
“You had each other,” Sharantyr pointed out. “I was paired with Elminster.”
“There’re ladies across Faerûn who’d swoon for a chance to be where you were,” Belkram reminded her.
“Right, you can call some of them in next time … but enough,” Shar said briskly. “We’ll trade salacious stories another time. Correct me, please, if I err in the following admittedly brief analysis. We have a handful of half-spent magic items and Syluné’s wisdom and watchfulness to use against an unknown number of powerful shapeshifting wizards who come from another plane … and presumably can flee back there, out of our reach, whenever they desire.”
“No, I think you’ve said it pretty well,” Belkram agreed. “Despite our cause being heroic and our hearts pure, we’ve been very lucky to survive thus far. Sooner or later, if they bother with us, we’ll be caught and overwhelmed … as we almost were before the Simbul showed up.”
“As we were, I must remind everyone, by nothing more than hobgoblins,” Itharr put in soberly. Then he laughed, a sudden light dancing in his eyes. “Why not take the battle to this mysterious castle hideaway of the Malaugrym? If we’re dead anyway, what’s to be lost? Why not take some of them with us?”
“Spoken like a true Harper,” Belkram agreed.
“Spoken like a true idiot,” Sharantyr retorted.
“There is often a great similarity, yes,” Syluné said diplomatically, and they all chuckled. After a moment of silence, an owl hooted somewhere off in the woods, and Itharr asked, “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Who’s for attacking this castle on the morrow?”
“Are you crazy?”
“Why don’t you sleep on it until morning, all of you?” Syluné suggested. “We can talk again then, when there isn’t food spoiling.”
“Itharr!”
“Sorry!” Itharr promptly burned his fingers at the fire, nearly dropped most of the food into the flames, and gave vent to almost as many colorful suggestions as were offered to him.
The scorched rabbit was, surprisingly, very good.
* * * * *
Hawkgauntlet, Kythorn 18
Across the gloomy taproom of the Hawkgauntlet Arms, the balding bartender stared at Elminster and slowly grew pale. “Burn them alive?” he gasped. “Right … here?”
“Would ye prefer I did the deed?”
Galdus gulped. “I’d prefer … it didn’t happen at all.”
Elminster nodded at him. “I hear ye,” he said softly. “I’ll take them far away instead. If I leave them nearby—believe me—ye’ll have them back here soon, carving up thy folk, looting thy tavern, and then going on to the next place.”
Galdus nodded. “No doubt. Yet if you burn them here, I’d have to move on myself. I couldn’t walk past their ashes every morn … I just couldn’t.”
The Old Mage nodded. “I understand,” he said quietly. “So be it.” He murmured something and waved a hand, and the struggling brigands were suddenly gone.
“Are they … dead?”
“Not yet. If they behave, not for many years yet. But I’m afraid I don’t expect them to behave.”
The bartender gulped. “I … ah … you have my thanks, friend.”
“Fair fortune follow thee and thine,” Elminster said in formal reply. Then he smiled, went to the bar, and extended his hand.
Galdus took it. “Thanks for saving our lives—myself and the wife and the three lasses the other side o’ that door, my two daughters and one I hire in. Thanks for the magic, too.”
“Oh, aye,” Elminster said, and leaned forward to touch the old man’s shoulder.
Galdus stiffened. “What did you do?”
“You have a year, now, of taking no harm from slung stones and fired arrows and cutting blades of iron and steel. A year, mind. Use it well to make the folk who’re going to be fleeing here from Westgate in the months ahead respect ye.”
Galdus tried to smile. “Those brigands … You have to slay like that often?”
“All the time,” Elminster said simply. “Today’s been quite a busy day for it, but yestereve was worse.” He turned toward the door.
“Is all this slaying the price of becoming an archmage?” Galdus asked from behind him, almost whispering.
“Nay,” Elminster said, fixing him with tired eyes. “This is the price of keeping the Realms alive. I’ve been paying it for more than a thousand years.”
Galdus paled again but held up a hand to stop Elminster’s departure. He drew two tankards of bitter from a keg and wordlessly slid one across the bar. Elminster took it, and from his empty hand a stack of gold coins slid onto the polished wood.
“ ’Tis free, El!” Galdus said almost angrily, looking down at the coins, then up at the Old Mage, and then down at the coins again, mouth dropping open.
“Ye have two daughters to raise, and maybe three, if the year ahead is cruel to the parents of the other,” El said. “Put those away—bury ’em in a pot nearby—and ye’ll have what ye need, later on.” He grinned suddenly. “Perhaps even enough to rebuild that outhouse.”
Galdus turned very red and then, a long moment later, grinned back.
“Right, then,” he said, carefully taking up the coins. His hands trembled slightly as he put them in a sack and tied it at his belt. Then he took a pull at his tankard and looked at Elminster with almost pleading eyes.
“I’m a fool for asking this,” he said quietly. “You could burn this place down, and me with it, probably by uttering a single word.”
El inclined his head in a slow nod. “But ye’re a man and were once a mage, so ye’ll ask.”
Galdus grinned slowly, shook his head, and said, “Yes. Well … Right, then. Why is all this killing necessary?”
Elminster shrugged. “Because I haven’t yet succeeded in talking anyone to death.”
“What?”
“I can’t get folk to agree wi
th others in peace. Always swords, spells, poison, or just fists come out … and are used.” He sipped thoughtfully at his beer and said, “For several hundred years I tried to forge treaties here and handshakes there across Faerûn, and trust rulers to keep ’em. Some did so for as long as a year or two, seldom more.”
He stared into his beer and added, “I grew tired of threatening and pleading, over and over again. Folk lied to me, smiled, and laughed at my back the moment I’d left. So I did what I had to: told folk clearly what the price’d be if they didn’t keep peace in this or that way they’d agreed to. And I made them pay the price when I had to. Sudden respect, or sudden death, was the result. Some folk learned, and that won us peace enough for humankind to rise above scrabbling in the dirt to feed ourselves between goblinkin raids and monster attacks.”
El drained his beer. “So men grew rich, and arrogant, and spread across Faerûn, making me wonder if I’d really done wrong, as the glorious old peoples, the elves and the dwarves, grew few and hunted. I started to worry about having to slaughter entire realms of men to keep us from laying waste to all Toril, burning down every tree for fuel, and eating all else, and finally each other—and then starving in the desert we’d left, dying off with a world wasted.”
Galdus stared at him, swallowed beer without tasting it, and waved at him wordlessly to continue.
“I needn’t have worried,” Elminster went on, rubbing his sharp nose and looking off into the distance. “Humankind took advantage of its power and leisure to go to war with itself … and still does, year after year. I sometimes wonder if they’ve managed this any better, in other worlds where there are men, elsewhere in the multiverse.”
The Old Mage fixed Galdus with calm eyes. “My job now—with the other Chosen, and the Harpers I helped found, and all the rulers I can dupe or threaten or bargain with—is to keep wars small and the real villains in check so that little folk, like thy family, can grow just a little better off year by year.”
Galdus finished his own beer and held out his hand for El’s tankard.
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