by Ed Greenwood
Shaerl patted his arm. "She told us she was looking forward to your visit, because you had been so noble to her," she said softly. "She spoke of your valor and kindness."
For just a moment, the proud priest looked like a young boy-a young boy on the verge of tears. "She did?" he asked, his voice rising in wonder.
"Yes," Shaerl said, "and I've never known her judgment to be wrong yet. I feel as if you are an old friend."
Argast leaned a trifle closer to Amdramnar and muttered, "She's smooth, this one."
Amdramnar agreed with the slightest of nods, but just then the doors between the audience chamber and the forecourt scraped open and three farm folk came out. "The gods bless him!" the stout old woman in the forefront was saying.
"If he keeps his promise," her hired hand said doubtfully as they went out, not even seeing the two people on the bench.
The old woman turned and poked out a bony finger. "Now ye list and learn, Thurton! If there's one thing this young lord of ours does, it's keep his word! When my man, Undlejack, was still alive, he won a hand of card's off Mourngrym, playin' the night away at the Old Skull, and the lord asked him his price… A new roof, my man says, as bold as anything-'cuz that's what we needed, in truth-an' the next day, gods be blowed if the lord doesn't show up with half a dozen guards, n' do the roof right then! The lord himself, up on our cottage, sweatin' along with the rest of 'em! And when he's done, he asks if we want the fence set straight, seein' as they're here… an' up comes a cart, after, when we're talkin'-and out of it he serves us a feast, an' the neighbors what come to watch, too! Tells us it's no more'n we deserve!"
She turned and marched out of the forecourt, then pivoted back to face the astonished Thurton. "Ye find me another lord anywhere as does that for me-an' others what ain't high and mighty, an' can't do him anything great in return! Ye'll be lookin' from the Sword Coast to the weird lands past Thay, an' not be findin' one, neither!"
Another two dalefolk strode out, one of them weeping, and the other walking awkwardly beside her. "Now, Nan-he can't raise to life someone he can't find! He did say he'd walk you around those laid out in the temple for burial, to see if we can find him. No one could do more."
The next person to come to the door was Mourngrym, his face pinched with sorrow. Shaerl leapt up and threw her arms around him. "My love," she said in a low, tender voice as their arms tightened around each other. He kissed her gently, as if they were alone in the room, before lifting his head and saying, "Shaerl, ask Thurbal to pass the word. No one's seen Aglyn's grandsire since the battle, and Nan's beside herself not knowing. If anyone…"
Mourngrym's gaze fell upon the priest of Tyr, waiting patiently to be introduced, and his face lit up. "Most Holy Arbeth! Be welcome, please, in Shadowdale! I'm sorry I didn't see you at once! Have you eaten?"
"If we could talk for just a few breaths, Lord Mourngrym, I'd be delighted to dine with you and your beautiful lady. I'd hoped also to meet the Lady Storm, but I hear she's… not to be found."
"That is so, I fear," Mourngrym said, "but come in, and we'll talk, the three of us-oh, yes: my lady and I rule as one." The priest's eyebrows were still raised as the doors of the audience chamber swung shut behind the three of them.
"He's a good ruler," Amdramnar said grudgingly.
"All the better for us, then," Argast said. "Let him manage our cattle until we're ready to rule here."
"Our foes the three bold rangers seem to have just departed on patrol… do we chase after them?"
"No, let them go. They'll return to us-and then we'll feed."
"Eat them?"
"Yes-I mean to eat them alive, limb by limb, slowly, while they plead. We'll use our everfire wand to seal the joints and keep them living. They may last several days."
"And then?"
"Then we'll reveal ourselves, and start on the rest of these cattle."
They had just time to fall silent and look as if they'd been that way for some time when a tall, silver-haired figure strode through the front doors, exchanged a salute, a wink, and a blown kiss that left old Guthtar blushing, turned into the forecourt, and strode to the audience chamber doors.
Argast turned. "Ah, my La-"
"Hist!" Amdramnar and Guthtar said together, reaching to silence him. Storm turned, gave them all a cheery wave, and flung the doors wide.
"That's Lady Storm!" Guthtar snarled in a whisper. "Never stop her going anywhere!" By common accord, the three guards had moved hurriedly to look through the closing doors-in time to see Storm, with a joyous laugh, sweep the justicar of Tyr up into the air as if he was a boy, then bring him down to her lips.
"Ye gods," Argast said, for Guthtar's benefit. "Guarding folk around here's going to be a lot more interesting than I'd dared hope!"
"A lot more fun, too," Guthtar whispered hoarsely, and trotted back to his post.
The two Malaugrym exchanged glances. These folk of Faerun seemed to care for each other a lot more than any of the blood of Malaug ever had… and laughed a lot more, too…
Tower of Mortoth, Sembia, Flamerule 29
Cold fire flickered, and Irendue was free of the endless nothingness and blinking away tears to stare into the darkly handsome face of one of the cruel shapeshifters… a human face whose eyes were two dark flames.
Irendue swallowed as he took her hand and lowered her gently to the privy chamber floor. The air was cool on her bare skin. She shivered as the monster smiled at her.
"You won't hurt me?" she pleaded, voice quavering despite herself.
"Not yet, Lady." He drew her firmly out of the room, past the humming lines of white fire that held the suspended bodies of the master and her two fellow apprentices.
"My name is Bralatar," he said as he guided her into the study and sat her in the master's chair. Once she was seated, two tentacles slid gently around her wrists, and another captured both of her ankles, but their coils held her loosely, almost gently.
"What do you want of me?" she whispered. "And where is… the other one?"
"Not far away, exploring this impressive estate," Bralatar replied, "but we can speak more freely later… after you've shown me how to do a certain something with this."
He held up Mortoth's crystal ball. The glossy sphere, larger than a man's head, shone back the fire of his eyes. His smile was not a pleasant thing to see.
"You won't hurt me?" she pleaded, trembling under his tentacles as she fought for calm.
The Malaugrym smiled softly. "Not yet, so long as you are obedient, Lady… not yet." Blackstaff Tower, Waterdeep, Flamerule 29
"1 understand Storm's concern about their living on to rise behind her and slay again after the battle seems won," Khelben muttered in exasperation, "but when one uses Mystra's fire on anything, not a lot is left to work with!"
"Alassra turned a dozen or more Malaugrym into mushrooms at Irythkeep," Laeral reminded him, "and they fell from a height to shatter on rocks. Surely some residue remains there, however small, that we could use…"
"Then go to the Cavern Perilous and cast whatever is needful to bring some of that residue here!"
Laeral glided close to plant a fond kiss on the ear of the lord mage of Waterdeep as he stood staring and sweating into the heart of a slowly spinning magical construct in the air before him. She left the chamber.
The construct wavered, billowed varicolored smoke, and collapsed, flying apart into spreading motes of dust and light. Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun gave the scattering residue his best scowl, sighed, and strode to his favorite armchair. For more than a day now, with Laeral at his side, he'd been working feverishly on a spell to trace Malaugrym or prevent them from shapeshifting freely… preferably both.
He sipped at the elverquisst in his glass, turning it slightly so that the flecks of gold in the smooth, iridescent heart of the ruby liquor sparkled in the light of Laeral's latest spell-a spell that conjured a ring of dancing radiances that looked like candle flames.
Briefly he wondered if he should watch ove
r his lady, to see that nothing ill befell her in the Cavern Perilous, a vast cave in the heart of Mount Waterdeep, which they used when working magics that might prove damaging to the surroundings. Nowadays, with magic gone wild, Khelben thought sourly, just about any spell could prove damaging to the surroundings.
He'd barely had that thought when the air across the room shimmered and sparkled. His beloved smiled at him as she crossed the room, a stone in her hands, the black spatters of long-dried mushroom clear upon it.
With a smile, Khelben bounded up out of his chair, feeling the familiar excitement of the chance to work truly new magic.
Then he saw the brightness of unshed tears in Laeral's eyes, and looked a wordless question at her as he came forward, arms out to hold and comfort her.
His lady sighed as she came into his embrace. "I wish Elminster were still with us. Even more than holy Mystra, his presence-gruff ways and all-made me feel all was right in Faerun, underneath the troubles of the day." Elven Court woods, Flamerule 30
"I'm sure I saw someone walking through the trees just about… here," Shar whispered. The three rangers crouched together amid a close-grown stand of massive dark trunks-shadowtops that had stood on this slope for nigh a thousand years.
"What sort of someone?" Itharr asked her. "Human?"
"A youngish man, in robes, going from down there, along this slope, toward somewhere that way. I think he was on his way back after a call of nature."
"On his way back to a camp, or a halted group of wayfarers," Belkram mused. "Either way, we'd best be cautious when going where this knave you saw was headed, for fear of being seen by a sentry-or blundering into the heart of a group of foes."
Sharantyr laid a silencing hand on his arm and pointed back the way they'd come. All three strained to see and hear something. After a moment, Itharr caught sight of a furry animal moving away and said reassuringly, "Badger… a big one, but a badger."
"That's not reassuring," Shar said, her face inches from his, "because I saw it, too… and what I saw go behind that tree stood on two legs and had several eyes, on stalks."
"Malaugrym," Belkram said bleakly. "Hunting us?"
"Why else would it be here, in the depths of the Elven Court woods, where creatures to devour or hide among are relatively few?" Shar replied. "Doppelgangers like cities, where there's prey in every alley and folk to hide among on every corner. Of course it's after us."
"I'm vastly reassured to know we now know what's going on," Itharr said with a grin. "I'll be ecstatic if someone details what, by the skulls of the Seven Lost Gods, we do now?"
Behind them, from just about where they'd been peering at the probable Malaugrym, there came a sudden shout of alarm and the sharp 'whump' of a spell-burst, followed by a crackling of brush and somebody crying out an incantation in desperate haste.
"That's easy," Belkram said with a wolfish grin. He waved a hand in the direction of the commotion. "We sit and watch."
Thuruthein Tlar was determined to impress his master. Orth Lantar was the wisest Red Wizard Thuruthein had ever met-and wise Red Wizards guarded and rewarded those who were truly loyal to them, for there was no more rare commodity in all of Thay.
Prestym, Iyrit, and the others were the sort of ambitious, scheming apprentices that surrounded every Red Wizard; a seething mass of fawning back-stabbers who were little better than fodder. Thuruthein suspected Orth Lantar knew their true worth-and probably intended to spend the lives of more than a few of them in his stated attempt to penetrate the ruined elven city of Myth Drannor and find some of its fabled magic. Thuruthein was determined not to be counted among the expendable.
So when three humans in leather armor came skulking around the camp-brigands, for certain-in his watch field and during his sentry duty, Thuruthein knew just what to do.
He'd stood up behind his tree and was aiming the wand very carefully at the face of the woman, humming in anticipation and noting her wild beauty with the briefest of appreciative regret-when he heard the smallest of sounds close behind him and whirled about, heart leaping into his throat.
To see himself grinning back at him! A Thuruthein Tlar with tentacles instead of hands. Those tentacles were stretched out an impossibly long way, like two hungry snakes, so as to be almost around Thuruthein's throat!
Orth Lantar's senior apprentice trembled, swallowed, and fired his wand with commendable calmness-only to have his foe collapse like a felled tree before the spell-burst, falling beneath most of its harm.
It gathered itself and lunged at him with a forest of tentacles.
Backing away in sudden real terror, Thuruthein stammered the most powerful incantation he knew.
The blazing beam of destruction seared the body that so resembled his own almost entirely away to ashes-but something dark and huge and very fast indeed reared up out of the leaves right in front of him, and seven mouths opened hungrily.
Thuruthein had barely time left to scream, "No! Noooo! I was loyal, Master! I was loyaaaaaah-"
"A loyal Red Wizard's apprentice?" Belkram asked, raising his eyebrows. "A rare gem indeed!"
"Belt up," Shar hissed at him, "and let's get out of here! I don't want to get caught between a Malaugrym looking for us and an angry Red Wizard!"
"You don't?" Itharr asked as they sprinted frantically away through the woods. "Where's your sense of adventure?"
The map held in midair before him, in the teeth of four floating skulls, was finally beginning to make sense. If one placed the balefire rune in the emptiness within the circle of nine black blades, a sequence of directions was revealed, leading to… what, by the fires?
Orth Lantar's head snapped up from the map as his crystal ball flashed a blinding red and began to shudder, rattling in the carved cup that formed the head of his staff. At the same time, a binding in his mind shifted uneasily-then snapped, flooding his thoughts with a brief, fading pain and a frantic calling…
Thuruthein? By the Seven Serpents! Orth Lantar whirled, snatching up his most mighty wand from the table. "To me!" he called, and flung up his hand. His most powerful staff was leaping across the tent toward it when he felt an inward tremor, and sighed. His best apprentice was dead.
The staff smacked into his palm, and the Red Wizard spun around again to fix the crystal ball with coldly furious eyes. Under his steady glare the scrying sphere quieted and cleared-and in its depths he saw a wolf lift bloody jaws from Thuruthein's torn face. The creature twisted horribly and become a larger thing, like a bear with four long, spidery arms, shaggy hair, and piercing talons. It raised its head and sniffed the air, gave a horribly human laugh, and shambled purposefully away, not even glancing back at the apprentice's sprawled body and vainly lifted hands.
"An attack that robs me of something so valuable must be swiftly avenged," Orth Lantar told the nearest skull, "lest some rival behind it misread it as weakness and send all sorts of petty annoyances in its wake."
"Swift strikes the avenger, and towers topple toward the sunset," the skull intoned. The Red Wizard stiffened and stared at it in amazement. He shook his head, feeling suddenly dangerously close to tears. This must be one of Thuruthein's last pranks!
He set the warding rod to guard the magic in his tent from interlopers and shot a last look at the scene in the crystal. Rings winked on his fingers-and he vanished. Four skulls tumbled to the floor, the conjured map fading away to nothingness once more. There came a startled exclamation from the apprentice on watch outside the tent.
"Master?" an anxious male voice called. "Master?"
At the lack of reply, its owner was emboldened enough to part the tent with the rod that bore the hand of a dead man, and peer within. In eerie silence, four human skulls rose to face him. Radiances deep within the rod on the table and the crystal ball atop its staff winked in unison, faster, and faster…
Prudently, the apprentice withdrew, letting the hangings fall.
"Craven dullard," one of the skulls murmured as it sank down to the carpets again. Thurut
hein Tlar had been busy in the idle time he'd had earlier this day, when the tent was up and his master was busy setting the wards around the camp. Now his time was all gone.
The crystal sphere flashed a sudden scarlet, and another of the skulls began to moan.
"Where, by the beard of Elminster, are we running to, anyway?" Belkram gasped as they topped a rise and headed down a fern-choked gully. "What makes one part of this old forest any safer than another?"
"Ask her," Itharr grunted as, side by side, they rounded a riven stump. He jerked his hand back at Sharantyr, who was watching their rear, ready blade in hand. "She's t-"
The rest of his words were lost in a sudden rush from the side of the gully, a plunging fury of flashing talons and dark hairy bulk and gleaming fangs.
Belkram was thrown off his feet to crash heavily through thorns and dead branches, and heard Sharantyr scream as she charged. He snatched at his blade as something large and dark and hairy clawed him… something that was crouched atop Itharr, raking its talons and surging forward to bite down at the ranger beneath it with a horrible wet crunching sound that made Belkram wince as his blade finally grated free of its scabbard. Too late.
17
All Too Much Magic
Tower of Mortoth, Sembia, Flamerule 30
The fire was so cold, so utterly… cold. Its chill made her limbs tremble, helplessly and endlessly, as it rushed through her and on around the web. Irendue gasped at its icy searing, feeling her teeth chatter uncontrollably as she stared at the all-too-familiar walls and ceiling of the privy chamber… and wished she could die.
The one called Bralatar had promised her death… after he and his companion were finished with her. She could still feel the cold slime of his tentacles slithering into her ear and out her nose, and the casual way in which he'd pointed out, as she gagged and wept, that simply expanding his tentacle at this moment would cause her head to explode like a rotten fruit, giving him his most favorite of meals… still-warm human.