“From anyone else,” he said heavily, refilling them both, “I’d call this deluded raving. A thousand years …” He shook his head. “Yet I believe you.” He said it almost wonderingly and shook his head again as he set a full tankard down in front of the Old Mage. “Say on, please.”
Elminster raised his beer in a silent toast. As the two tankards clinked, he asked the bartender, “Have ye never wondered why, year after year, the cruel mages in Thay, Zhentil Keep, Calimshan, and half a hundred other places don’t destroy half the Realms in spell duels? Or just lead armies to roll over all of ye and meet to hack each other up in the smoking ruins that’re left? Or why those orc hordes out of the northernmost mountains, that cover the land for mile upon mile of grunting goblinkin, don’t just sweep over everyone?”
He drained his beer at single gulp. “Slaying,” he answered himself, “that’s why. Slaying when needful, and only when needful. Some realms have armies to do such dirty deeds. Shadowdale has Elminster.”
Galdus swallowed. “When I was young and thought I could rule the world in just a few years, with just a few more spells, I used to talk about the way of the world and how I’d change it. I think all young wizards do, if they’ve someone to talk to. Later on, I never thought it’d all be for real, or that any halfway sane wizard spoke so, when he grew older.” He shook his head and looked up at Elminster. “I thought they all just got twisted with power and greedy for more, and spent their days selling scrolls for gold or stealing spells from tombs or their enemies, or locked themselves away to go slowly mad making spells to open doors silently, or get wet laundry dry, or open stuck corks in old bottles … or blew themselves and their towers to the skies trying to perfect army-reaving magics.”
“Most of them do just that,” Elminster said softly. “Yet their very self-interest helps the rest of us. They’re turned inward to small things, not trying to change the world, but they’re in the way of conquerors and monsters. Intelligent folk rightly fear that they’ll awaken and do battle if threatened, and beasts find that out the hard way.”
Galdus grunted. “It makes one want to have more to drink, thinking about it.”
Elminster grinned. “A lot of wizards do that, too.”
He straightened in his seat and said, “My thanks for the bitter, Galdus, and the converse. Tis seldom I get to talk so freely to someone who’ll understand, and more seldom yet that I find someone I dare say such things to. All too—”
And then the very air around him danced with blue sparks, and Elminster saw the bartender freeze in mid-step, mouth hanging open to speak, eyes fixed on nothingness. The front door groaned.
Elminster found that he could still move in that surging web of magic—more than he’d ever felt unleashed before—so he turned toward the door to see who’d wrought it. He might as well see whatever god his words had angered, before they destroyed him.
A thin woman in a black gown was just closing the door behind her. She was alone, and her raven-dark hair, red-and-black eyes, and ivory skin made her look like a vampire. Her gait and movements, too, echoed the sultry, almost pouting manner of many she-vampires Elminster had met, but her eyes were somber as she walked toward the Old Mage.
“Your words have saved you,” she said quietly, “and found me the teacher I need—and need to trust. Well met, Elminster.”
“Well met, lady,” Elminster said, bowing to her. “Who are you?”
“Midnight is the name I am known to most by, but you may call me … Mystra. We must talk.”
11
Two Edges to Every Sword Blade
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 18
The three Malaugrym stood waiting like patient statues as Milhvar said, “The Shadowmaster High had great hopes for this project. Try not to let him down. But above all else, we want you back safely. If anything goes wrong—anything—use the power of your belt buckles to get back to us. Even if the foe is under your blade or in your hands, break off rather than be taken—or slain. There will be other forays, and other chances.”
The three kin nodded, and one of them added a visibly nervous swallow. Milhvar did not smile or shrug. If they lived through this, perhaps they’d grow into Shadowmasters of some use. Huerbara almost was already, only her inability to bridle a too-oft-blazing temper holding her back. But Kuervyn and Andraut were nothings, all swagger and undisciplined thrill-seeking. They still found nightly fun in shapeshifting their ways through Faerûnian brothels, and took their greatest satisfaction in leaving without paying!
Dead growth, the pair of them. Milhvar let nothing of this judgment show as he told them all to willingly draw at least a drop of their own blood with a talon, claw, body spur, or other part of their own shape, and signaled the team of Shadowmaster mages to begin weaving the cloaks.
He’d deliberately woven the chain of interlocked spells to be more complex than it need be, take longer—and require more mages—than it needed to, and to be more than a little unstable. He’d no wish to unleash an army of unbeatable flamebrains like Kuervyn and Andraut on Faerûn or anywhere else.
When the long chanting and gesturing was done, and a shimmering and dark singing in the air above the three told him the spell-cloaks were done, he stepped forward and added the “secret spell” that linked each magical construct to its wearer, through the drop of blood. This false enchantment added nothing useful to the process, but kept Milhvar essential to the crafting of every spell-cloak of the Malaugrym. A useful, if dangerous, status to hold.
But then, there were no safe positions to hold in the ranks of the blood of Malaug. Milhvar lifted his lip in a mirthless grin at the thought—and seeing this, Kuervyn toppled over, fainting dead away.
Milhvar laughed aloud as he strode toward the fallen Malaugrym, ignoring the smoking glare Huerbara gave him. There were still amusements to be found, if one waited patiently for them. It would be funnier still if these three went into Faerûn and found Elminster waiting for them. Perhaps he could arrange it sometime.
* * * * *
Daggerdale, then Myth Drannor, Kythorn 18
The face bending over her was a ghostly mask. “Shar,” the familiar voice said kindly in her mind. “Shar, awaken. Quietly, lass. There is a deed you alone must do.”
“Syluné?” she whispered.
“As always.” The voice was warm and reassuring. Shar sat up and looked around at the blue, moonlit dimness. One of the horses shifted slightly, but the two Harpers lay still, breathing softly, a blanket thrown over each of them. Syluné stood beside her, a pale wisp of shifting nothingness in the night, like the memory of a white flame. Something called in the woods off to the north, something small and mournful that she didn’t recognize. Shar laid aside her blanket, took up her blade—its grip cold and hard, bringing her fully awake—and got up as quietly as she could.
The ghostly figure beside her reached out, offering something to her. A ring. “Put this on.”
Shar did so, her fingers tingling as they touched what was left of the Witch of Shadowdale. Syluné smiled at her reassuringly. “Come.”
“I don’t know why I do these things,” Shar breathed as they walked west into the woods. “I get into more trouble …”
Syluné, her bare feet walking in utter silence an inch or so off the ground, turned and smiled at her reassuringly. Shar rolled her eyes in response but followed, blade at the ready.
Far, far away ahead of her, a wolf howled. It was answered, from somewhere much nearer, off to the left. Shar shivered and cast another look all around her at moonlit Daggerdale. She must be crazy, to follow a ghost into the woods, away from their camp. She looked back at it searchingly, half-expecting to see another ghostly form standing guard over it while some false shade led her to a horrible, lonely doom.
“Be not afraid,” Syluné said softly, as if reading her mind. “Just go well out into that meadow, there, and touch the ring with your free hand.”
Sharantyr looked ahead at the moonlit clearing and then back at the g
hostly face beside her. “Will I see you—and Belk and Itharr—again?” she asked.
Syluné smiled. “Of course. We all need to get a lot more work out of you yet.”
Shar made a face. “Of course,” she replied, a grin playing about her lips. “Silly of me …”
“ ’Twas, yes.”
Shar shook her head at that, lifted her hand in salute—Syluné returned it—and walked away into the meadow. The moonlight was bright on the grass, and the night was very beautiful. Shar looked around at it, drew a deep breath, and smiled. Some folk never get to see this.
Syluné’s voice came to her, as if borne on an unseen wind. “Plant your blade in the ground before you touch the ring. Don’t take it with you.”
She found a spot she liked and stopped, planting her booted feet firmly. Then she looked back over her shoulder. Syluné was still standing there, a frozen flame floating in the nightdark under the trees.
Shar took another deep breath, thrust her sword upright into the turf, watched moonlight gleam down its length—and laid her fingers over the ring.
There was a wink, and the world changed. She was standing in a smaller, darker glade, dim blue moonlight filtering down to her through the tangles and mossy boughs of huge, gnarled trees much older than the woods she’d left in Daggerdale. It smelled … like the Elven Court woods, near Myth Drannor.
She looked around, not moving. Mosses glowed eerily here and there, and the trees stretched away into utter darkness all around. She was in the heart of a large forest.
Something winked, softly, between two trees. She stared at it, shifting slightly to get a better view, and obligingly it drifted nearer, sparkling as it came.
A will o’ wisp, beautiful but deadly. Her hand went to her empty scabbard and then drew back. She hadn’t a hope, even with her sword. Scrabbling after daggers and boot-knives just didn’t seem worthwhile. She hoped Syluné hadn’t made a mistake, and that her awakener had been Syluné. Could a Malaugrym take a ghost shape?
Why not?
Too late to wonder now. The will o’ wisp, blue-white and awesomely beautiful, shone like a little star in front of her. “Take out thy dagger,” it said, in soft, feminine tones.
Shar stared at it for a moment and then did so, never taking her eyes from the floating sphere of light.
“Follow,” it said softly, and retreated across the clearing the way it had come. Shar did so, casting a quick glance around as she crossed the damp, fern-studded ground. There was no sign of other life.
The wisp was hovering above a tangle of brambles. “Cut away enough to pass,” it told her, “and go down.”
“Go down?” Shar asked, but there was no reply. She went to her knees and sawed at the thorny branches obediently, laying them aside in a neat pile as she cut herself a tunnel. Beyond, there seemed to be an emptiness in the gloom. Before Shar could will her enchanted dagger to glow and give her light to see by, the wisp drifted silently over her shoulder. Its radiance showed her a hole in the ground, half-covered with fern root creepers. She drew them aside and stared at worn stone steps and darkness beyond.
Shar wiped her dagger on her thigh and sheathed it—the wisp bobbed approvingly—and put her legs forward, onto the steps.
Then, cautiously, she shifted forward, holding on to the edges of the hole, and began to descend. The wisp drifted past to hang just in front of her, lighting her way down those old stone steps … down a dozen feet and more, then turning to the right—to avoid the roots of a huge duskwood she’d seen, Shar judged—and plunging down more steeply, another eight steps, before opening out into a damp, stone-floored chamber.
A tomb. A stone coffin stood on a bier before her, almost filling the room. Around it, the walls were of cracked and fallen tiles, unadorned squares that bore no inscriptions, scenes, or heraldry to tell her who was buried here. Their smooth run was broken by the roots that had dislodged some of them.
Bones littered the floor beyond her boots, scattered human bones. She could see at least three skulls, and there were probably more around the back of the coffin. Adventurers had come here to plunder, and met some sort of doom.
Shar drew back onto the lowest step. The will o’ wisp winked sharply beside her. “Lift the lid and take the sword within.”
Shar tilted her head to look obliquely up at the beautiful sphere. “It’s not a good thing, to disturb the dead.”
She shivered suddenly, her words taking her back to someone else speaking that same phrase—a cold, cruel voice offering a mocking warning not to try to flee through a crypt in the Underdark.
And suddenly, as the memories so often took her, she found herself back in that glow-cavern with the barbed lash curling fire about her bare thighs, trying not to scream as she heard the dreadful promises spoken so softly and lovingly by the priestesses who wielded such whips, the loving daughters of Lolth with their crazed plans.
The plans that had kept her alive. Long after they’d broken her, making her crawl to kiss their booted feet at a gesture or command, posing herself to accept the lash automatically when they appeared, they kept her alive. Kept her alive for their darkest plan after they’d slain men who could give them greater pleasure—slain them by flogging the skin right off them and then exchanging their whips for long flails with barbed iron bars, or whips with hissing, hungry living serpent heads, to work on the fleshless, moaning shapes that remained.
She was to be bred to a spider. A giant, hairy spider whose limbs bore barbs and saw-edges, whose bulk almost crushed her when they’d experimented, lashing its mandibles together with their whips to keep it from beheading or slashing open the pale-skinned victim chained beneath it, slick with sweat and fear, writhing helplessly.
A spider whose spell-twisted brood would have hatched in her paralyzed body and eaten her from within to nourish themselves into life as manspiders—“biddable driders,” as one priestess had called them, her face alight with excitement at the thought. Manspiders who could serve as loyal, intelligent fighting steeds for drow warriors paired with them, in a war against rival drow cities deep in the lightless Underdark.
Sharantyr shivered again, recalling days of pain and humiliation, and nights of eerie terror, as the glowing, gelatinous fungi had crept slowly down the stone walls where she lay chained by the throat to a huge ring in the wall, bedded on hard, sharp human skulls, and flowed over her, their translucent pseudopods covering her with glistening slime as they lapped at her wounds and body openings, healing and cleansing her, absorbing her wastes and blood and energy alike, leaving her too weak to work toward any escape.
The touch of jelly or jam on her skin still left her drenched with sweat, and quivering with fear—and excitement.
“Trust me in this, and do as I bid.” The voice was musical and assured, almost amused. Shar closed her eyes. “Trust me” had been one of the taunts used by the priestess with the strongest liking for her pale-skinned human prisoner. Trust me.
Shar opened her eyes deliberately, swallowed, and stared at the winking globe of light. “Who are you,” she asked softly, “that I should trust you?”
“Mystra,” came the soft reply, and it seemed that an echo arose from that softly spoken name and rolled across the chamber to recede into vast distances, as if they stood in an immense void and not a small tomb smelling of damp earth and the roots of the forest above.
Shar shuddered. Syluné, she complained in her mind, what have you gotten me into now?
The wisp drifted closer, and the echoes seemed to roll and thunder again in the distance. “Well?” it asked, its voice a sudden challenge. “This is no drow trick.”
Shar shuddered; it must be reading her mind. Oh. A goddess. Of course it could. She could. Shar shook herself, smiled, and stepped forward. “Why didn’t you say so?” she asked almost petulantly, as she laid her hands on the cold, crumbling lid and shifted it aside.
Stone grated, and Shar peered cautiously into the darkness within, but the wisp flashed across the chamber to ha
ng where she needed light. The coffin held heaped dust and a wild-weave of cobwebs, but no body that she could see. A scabbarded blade lay in front of her, shrouded in dusty gray webs. Without hesitation she reached in and took it.
A cold tingling ran up her arm, and fear awoke to accompany it. What if the blade turned her into some sort of monster or visited a curse on her? What if—Enough, she told herself firmly, stowing the blade under her arm to free her hands for replacing the lid.
The wisp seemed to bob approvingly again, but as she turned toward the stairs, it flashed through the air to block her path. “Draw the blade,” it told her.
Shar nodded and held the scabbard out horizontally before her, drawing the sword slowly. It was a magnificent, gleaming long sword, curved more than was the fashion in the Dragonreach lands. The hilt, grip, and blade seemed to be all of one piece, polished mirror bright and glossy smooth. As it came free of the scabbard, the sword awakened with its own blue radiance, a light that grew and grew until it blazed.
“This is yours to bear, Lady Knight,” the wisp told her.
Shar turned it slowly, feeling its weight, and replied feelingly, “An honor.”
“Indeed.” The wisp sounded a little amused. “You may not always feel so. You hold a weapon against the Malaugrym. Return to your camp, and in the morning go down to the bridge that Itharr mistrusted so. There draw this blade, and it will show you a gate that will transport you to the plane of shadows where the Malaugrym dwell. When drawn, this sword will show you all gates nearby, and work them for you if you will it so. Take your companions and go and slay Malaugrym for me.”
Shar took a pace away from the wisp to gain room, and swung the blade experimentally. It hummed as it cut the air, and a delighted smile came to her face. What a magnificent weapon! It matched her as if made for her, and its rippling weight made her feel like a dashing young hero, the excited girl she’d once been when she first sought adventure, long before she’d ever seen the endless Underdark … or drow.
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