by Ed Greenwood
The room crashed and spun for Mortoth as heavy bodies slammed into him and bowled him over. Suddenly flesh was enveloping him. He struggled, trying to spit out something that was probing into his mouth, and failing.
Lorgyn, his eyes like two copper coins, catching the sun, encased the wizard's head and hands in folds of flesh, invading his mouth with a firm tentacle to keep him from speaking spells, and leaving him only small nose-hole for breathing.
"Do you want the portal right here?" he asked.
Bralatar shrugged. "Why not? We know a way into this room, and I don't want to risk wandering around among waiting spells and enchanted items and possible traps looking for a better place. Get the thing done first."
Lorgyn nodded. "The decision is wise." He held the wizard securely as Mortoth's struggles ceased and his body started to tremble.
Bralatar paced out the space he'd need and began the casting, moving slowly and carefully, his body half voluptuous maiden and half panther. White, cold fire that blazed but did not consume sprang up where he gestured, building into two open rings-both about as far across inside as a man is tall; one horizontal and the other vertical-linked by a webwork of complex lines and runes.
"Place him," he ordered. Lorgyn spun the helpless wizard deftly to a spot where Bralatar bound him about with the same cold fire before Lorgyn released the binding of flesh.
Mortoth blinked. He could suddenly see again and opened his mouth to shout a spell, but found himself staring into a pair of cold, uncaring eyes for just an instant before his vision vanished abruptly. The same white, endless fire that had taken it whirled into his mouth, and all he could do was hum…
Bralatar stepped back with a satisfied air, surveying the magical gate he'd created. The wizard hung spread-eagled and helpless in the upright circle; anyone stepping into the other circle, blazing just above the floor, would set foot in Shadowhome.
To use the other end to come to Faerun, a rival Shadowmaster would have to stand in exactly the right spot in the Castle of Shadows, and utter the secret word Bralatar had bound the casting with. There was a small chance that one of the blood of Malaug might be standing near when the gate formed-it did not become invisible until complete-but in the spot he'd chosen, in a place as large as the Castle of Shadows, it was unlikely.
Necessary though it was if he and Lorgyn were ever to return home, Bralatar had no intention of testing his creation. Each use would drain the wizard of some of his life-energy, and they'd need another magic-wielding being to replace him. Most mortals could power the passage of only four beings before they died, the last life stolen from them to leave behind only shriveled husks.
It was a pity the senior Malaugrym never revealed the locations of the ancient gates in Faerun built or discovered by the early blood of Malaug. Worse still, neither he nor Lorgyn had the use of a scrying portal to search either Shadowhome or Faerun from afar. If there were gates enough and in the right places, they could have avoided this entire undertaking… and left important, bustling little Mortoth of Sembia in peace.
"At least we're putting this wizard to good use, not just slaying him and seizing his magic, as Lunquar did to all the Zhents he could find in the brothels of Sembia."
Bralatar commented, watching cold fire race up and down Mortoth's motionless limbs.
"Lunquar's gathered a lot of magic, don't forget," Lorgyn reminded him.
"Yes, but the risk!"
"The Great Foe is dead! What is to stop us ruling over all?"
"So why did Lunquar counsel us to subtlety?"
"It's his way. Lunquar's always been a fierce loner; he refused to work with Dhalgrave himself, once. He's as bad as Ahorga."
"The probable difference between them is that to get home, Lunquar's going to have to do what we have-or use our gate, at whatever price we set-and old Ahorga can no doubt travel freely back and forth between Shadowhome and Faerun. He must know the old gates and the traps our kin set on them ages ago."
"Are there any gates known to our kin, that we've not trapped?"
Lorgyn shook his lovely blonde head. "Not so far as I know; the doing was deliberate and absolute, to prevent the use of all gates known to us by any being not familiar with our guard spells." The Castle of Shadows, Shadowhome, Flamerule 23
"And we intend to keep things that way," said Amdramnar softly, staring through his hastily cast scrying portal. He'd only caught this utterance and the last few words of something about Ahorga, but it was clear which of the kin were involved: they'd found Bralatar and Lorgyn.
It had been sheer chance that he and Argast had passed through the little-used Hall of the Eyes to avoid the well-traveled Hathtor's Gallery. The gate had appeared right in front of them, lines of white fire drawing themselves in the air.
Amdramnar was fast with his magic, but he was more used to hurling slaying spells in haste than spinning a scrying portal at speed. It had taken some time to call up a view of the other end of the unfolding magic.
"So we know of four kin active in Faerun now: Ahorga and Lunquar, operating independently, and these two," Argast mused aloud. "Shall we place a slaying trap on their gate?"
"I think not," Amdramnar replied. "Given the right spell-I'll have find it in my libraries-we can divine the trigger word Bralatar used in the casting. Then it can serve us as a route that Ahorga and the other elders don't know about, if we have to bring someone into Shadowhome undetected."
"A mate, for example," Argast said softly. "Your lady of the sword."
Amdramnar regarded him, unsmiling. "You seek a lady too, I know. With a world open to me, Sharantyr may not be my choice."
If the two Malaugrym who stood beside the scrying portal could have used it to look into each other's minds, they would have seen that Amdramnar burned with the need to have the mortal Sharantyr-and no other-and that Argast had a deeper need. His mother had fled the Castle of Shadows long ago and successfully hid, somewhere in Faerun, from the seeking magic of the House of Malaug. She was then pregnant; Argast son of Halthor must have siblings now. If one could be befriended and manipulated, or bred with… a new dynasty of Shadowmasters could rise to rule the shattered House of Malaug…
But it was very much a good thing that scrying portals-and most other magic, even wielded by kin-couldn't pry at the thoughts of Malaugrym.
"Let us go to your chambers," Argast suggested. "I'll wait without while you prepare your spell, and we can return here without delay."
Amdramnar nodded. He passed a hand across the scrying portal; it rippled and was gone, leaving the Hall of the Eyes dark and apparently empty.
"I have little liking for hunting mage after mage for their magic," Lorgyn said carefully as they stood in the room with the helpless wizard floating between them, "but we should take steps to ensure that this one doesn't have an apprentice or three who'll find and free him."
"Hah-if I know apprentices, more likely they'll slay and rob him, and take away all the magic they can." Bralatar replied.
Lorgyn looked thoughtful. "That brings to mind another thing," he said slowly, frowning. "There have always been rumors that Malaug left powerful magic hidden on Faerun before he came to Shadowhome. It was one of the reasons old Stannar grumbled so much about the prohibition on forays into Faerun. If we can find it…"
Bralatar lifted an eyebrow. "Is that why you ransacked Candlekeep?"
Lorgyn smiled faintly. "You know about that? Aye, but I found nothing there… not even in the minds of the eldest whitebeards. Are Malaug's writings truly lost, or forgotten-or are they just hidden in some grasping wizard's tower?"
"Elminster's tower, of course," Bralatar said grimly. His eyes alight with a sudden dark fire. "And with Elminster destroyed…"
13
Out of the Shadows
Shadows roiled around them, sliding past in an endless murmur of green and gray motes, streaming between the massive stone pillars. Each pillar, some of the kin whispered, held an unfortunate Malaugrym, entombed alive as part of the cr
uel magics Malaug employed. These traitors thus kept the very foundations of the Castle of Shadows from being swept away by shadows.
Argast and Amdramnar both suspected those whispers held truth. There was something eerie about the Undercrypt. One felt the scrutiny of an unseen presence here. As the Malaugrym stood facing each other in the stream of ever-shifting shadows, they could feel it very strongly. Was the watcher all that was left of Malaug himself? If it was the First to Walk Shadows, he must be truly ancient… and he never broke silence or gave any sign that he knew what befell his descendants. Other Malaugrym believed the castle itself was sentient, that the Undercrypt was where it was most truly awake and aware.
"I am ready," Argast announced calmly, "but I have one question: how much greater is the risk to us, traveling to a place neither of us has actually been?"
"Oh, but we have," Amdramnar said with a smile. "That's the beauty of it. Moreover, when we visited, I let fall a focus token there. The risk is vanishingly small."
Argast frowned. "You say I have been to this place?"
"Yes. We stood in the sky hurling spells down at the Great Foe and the three rangers with him when they were encamped in a ruin, and-"
"There? The ruin?"
"It's as good a place as any," Amdramnar said. "Close to places we've viewed, but in the wilderlands. We're not likely to be seen arriving, nor be swiftly called upon to shift shape or act at being something we're not-until we choose to do so. Let us smell and feel Faerun first."
A faint smile crossed Argast's face. "Good points, all. Let us be going, then. I have waited a very long time for this."
"I, too," Amdramnar said, and reached out his hand to touch Argast's shoulder. He spoke a single word, there was a momentary falling, spinning sensation-and they were suddenly standing in the long grass of upland Daggerdale, with the ruins of Irythkeep around them.
"See how easy it is?" Amdramnar said, shaking his head. "It seems incredible that all of our clan has been kept from this for centuries, for fear of one old man!"
A helmed head promptly bobbed into view above a section of crumbling wall, and a voice roared, "Enemy mages! Strike-strike to slay, for the greater glory of the Dead Dragons!"
The two Malaugrym exchanged startled looks, then ducked away in opposite directions as a ball of flame hissed through the air, divided into two smaller balls, and chased them.
"By the blood of Malaug, who've we stumbled into this time?" Amdramnar snarled, somersaulting over a jagged wall and falling down the steep drop-off beyond with a jolt that rattled his very teeth. A moment later, there was a flash and a ground-shaking roar. The fireball struck the wall and blew it apart; it promptly toppled, burst, and plummeted down on top of him.
The furious Malaugrym grew one long leg and leapt-crazily off-balance-from under a huge pile of rubble that thudded into the turf where he'd lain a moment before.
He landed, rolled, and came up facing back where he'd been, in time to see a large war bird that must be Argast flap into view, rising sharply. A robed man who bore a gleaming staff stood on the edge of the drop-off. As Amdramnar hastily backed away, the man discharged the staff, spitting a beam of flame at Argast that scorched him all along one flank and startled him into a fall.
Another man took up a dramatic stance, a wand raised in his hand. He peppered Argast with magic missiles, sending him down to a hard landing on the rubble pile.
Argast got up shrieking in fury, but his Art was feeble. He could do little against wizards of power. He fled desperately downhill, changing shape into a large, bounding jackrabbit for greater speed-and outrunning a web of crimson bolts from the staff.
Very soon Amdramnar fetched up beside Argast, his eyes blazing. "Somewhere quiet in the wilderlands? By the fist of Malaug, what're the cities like?"
"Someone else must have decided this ruin would be quiet and secluded, too-or they wouldn't be so eager to throw away powerful magic on two men they haven't even spoken to yet," Amdramnar said calmly. "Let's withdraw."
"There seems little point to it," Argast said grimly, pointing at another swarm of bright bolts headed their way: magic missiles, unavoidable and painful. "Who are the Dead Dragons, anyway? An adventuring band? Some of the Great Foe's apprentices, out for some fun?"
Amdramnar suddenly chuckled. "No, I think they're some sort of cult that were always bothering the Great Foe… idiots who worship skeletal undead dragons."
Argast gave him a disbelieving look, but gritted his teeth as the swarm of magic missiles struck home, hurling them both onto their backs in the grass. "Let's move out of sight," he said, sounding sick. "That hurt." Keeping low, they crawled over a ridge and became two wolves, trotting in a wide circle around the ruin.
"Shall we go elsewhere?" Amdramnar asked.
"Revenge first," Argast said in iron tones. "No one should try to slay Malaugrym out of hand and get away with it!" They trotted on. "So what does worshiping undead dragons have to do with hurling spells at everyone you glimpse?"
Amdramnar shrugged. "They seize treasure to offer dragons," he said slowly. "Perhaps they thought we were thieves come to take it."
"They walk around heavily laden with killing magic all the time?"
"Perhaps the Shadowmasters High were not such fools as we thought to ban entry into Faerun," Amdramnar said mildly.
"Bah! Bralatar and Lorgyn still live-and have done well here. If those two overconfident lackwits can thrive in Faerun, we certainly can!"
"Talking wolves?" A man's voice said from behind them. "Shapeshifters, more likely! "Ware a trap!"
Without bothering to look around, the two Malaugrym broke into a run. The fireball, when it came, exploded just above their heads.
Somewhere in the red, roaring inferno of the fireball's fringes, Argast fetched up very hard against a boulder and felt many things snap. He saw Amdramnar hurtle helplessly past, turning over and over in midair, so racked with pain that he was losing wolf form. Tentacles and a misshapen gray mass wobbled and thrashed the air just before he landed in a cloud of dust.
"A fireball!" snapped the first voice they'd heard. "They must know we're here! Attack!"
As the two Malaugrym lay in pain among the smoldering grass, forty or more mages and warriors boiled up over a ridge ahead of them and raced past, to the place whence the fireball had come. The sounds of battle arose from thereabouts.
When Argast had fought down the pain and shifted shape into something resembling a long-limbed crocodile, he moved hastily away. He was just in time. A whirling cloud of flashing blades suddenly twinkled into being above the rocks where he'd lain, clanging and crashing off stone-then turned into slowly drifting white butterflies. Not far away, they heard someone curse all gods and wild magic.
Amdramnar managed to slither to where Argast lay panting. "What befalls?" he hissed.
"The dragon idiots were waiting for these others, and thought the fireball cast at us was an attack meant for them. They rushed the ambush they were planning and are attacking here and now. Who these others are is yet beyond me; you're supposed to be the expert on Faerun!"
Amdramnar winced. "Truly said. Let's try to work our way over to the ruins. From that higher ground we can look back at the fighting."
"And get attacked by all the dragon worshipers who aren't quite so eager to get killed as these here are," Argast said sourly. "I await the experience with eager glee."
"Ah, be easy! Magic's starting going wild here anyway-see those blades turn to butterflies?"
"I'm not overwhelmed with joy," Argast said coldly, "at the prospect of starting my exploration of Faerun as a butterfly! Or as anything else twisted or shackled by sorcery, strange as it may seem!"
"I'll admit my idea of coming to Irythkeep has turned out badly," Amdramnar replied quietly, "but we've seen a wand and a staff in use already, and magic is a large part of what we came here for. Why flee from it now that we know what we face? Why, they're busy battling each other!"
As he spoke, lightning cracked
into the sky, split apart into three bolts with a spectacular crash, and leapt to earth, one striking quite close. Their hair rose, and their bodies tingled.
Argast said dryly, "That's why. Have you experienced enough yet? Can we go somewhere safer?"
"The ruins," Amdramnar insisted, "where we first appeared-if these Cult of the Dragon fools were preparing an ambush, they must be camped there. It's the only landmark in this stretch of country; the people they're fighting must have been planning to camp there, or at least use it to keep on the route they intended, and pass close by."
"What shapes do you suggest we take? Fireballs, so we can pass unnoticed, perhaps?" The sarcasm in Argast's tone was venomous; it was clear he suspected Amdramnar of having deliberately sent him into danger.
"Trust me, Argast," Amdramnar said firmly. "This fray was not of my doing. I've been hurt as badly as you. We'll both be spending some time healing. We'll need a large blood meal as fuel for it, too."
"What if we bite unknowing into a wizard and trigger nasty contingency spells?" Argast said warily. "What then?"
"We're a long way out in the uplands; they probably all came here on horses," Amdramnar replied patiently. "Now let's move… looking like horses ourselves might not be a bad idea. Someone might try to catch a horse, but they're hardly likely to waste a fireball killing it!"
"Now you speak wisely," Argast said, beginning the shift into equine form. Amdramnar sighed in relief and did likewise. He had begun to fear there was some sort of curse afflicting this foray into Faerun.
They trotted in a very wide route, keeping to easy ground and almost out of sight of the ruined keep to be sure of avoiding the attention of anyone who might have a spell to hurl. They approached the ruins in the lee of a stand of trees, and made their hooves soft and pliable to keep as silent as possible. When they were near enough to hear voices and see men moving, they began to graze, drifting slowly around into view, hoping they'd be taken for mounts belonging to the camp.