by Ed Greenwood
His limbs trembled uncontrollably; it was all he could do to stay on his feet. He shook from shock and pain, he knew, but also from fear.
Fear of the doom he’d so narrowly escaped. That awful pull of the Abyss… the bone-melting tugging that awakened yearnings he’d never thought he could feel, never dreamed of.
He could have been mind-ruined, or worse: snatched away to the Abyss forever, fair Cormyr and all his schemings lost to him in an instant, even the knowledge that he was Ghoruld Applethorn, and could work with the Art, torn from him.
He fumbled for the healing potions on their shelf, found them, and-wishing some of them were strong drink instead-started frantically uncorking and quaffing.
“What’s going on? ” Jhessail hissed, as the Knights cowered. Everything above them shook as if angry gods were beating on it with great clubs. Another shower of dust and small stones pelted down on and around them.
Florin shook his head, having no answer to give her. Pennae and Laspeera clung to his arms as he crouched over them, trying to shield them and knowing how useless his gallantry was. If the ceiling came down, they’d be entombed together, to gasp out their last breaths in the crushing dark…
The air around them felt alive. Crackling with unseen sparks, slithering and coiling restlessly.
“Magic,” Pennae muttered, sounding disgusted. “But whose? And what?”
“Orders, Lady?” Dauntless growled, as if seeking reassurance. Tight-lipped, Laspeera merely shook her head.
As they all felt a sudden, horrible tugging, a compulsion that clawed at them and awakened a yearning to rise and drift up, up-Doust arched his back under Islif’s hands, and groaned like a man lost in lust-a restlessness raged inside everyone, that made Jhessail whimper, and Pennae and the ornrion whisper soft curses.
All around the Knights, the darkness started to glow, radiances that outlined doors and formed great nets and curtains, like sparks frozen in the air.
“What-what is it?” Dauntless mumbled, eyes wide in wonder.
“Magic-all the magic that’s down here, old wards and preservations and portals, too-shining forth,” Laspeera said slowly. “But what could
…?”
She fell silent in startled awe as lights kindled deep in the stone walls around them, illuminations to match the Dragonfire illusion before them.
Nine swords, vertical with hilts uppermost, were glowing deep in the rock… and drifting soundlessly forward, through it, out into the air above them.
And from the illusory treasure, the nine glowing guardian swords drifted to meet them, right above the heads of the crouched and kneeling Knights.
Met, and then the illusions slowly faded into the nine swords that had come out of the stones. They promptly brightened into dazzling brilliance.
Laspeera, Dauntless, and the Knights of Myth Drannor all gaped up at this magnificence-deadly though it probably was-a mere handspan above their noses.
Then there came a great groan from overhead, a deep, thunderous complaint that heralded doom. As they tensed, huddled together, the Oldcoats Inn slowly, ponderously, and inescapably… collapsed onto their heads.
Chapter 16
THE HIGH PRICE OF ENTERTAINMENT
Some kings delight in seeing traitors die
Writhing in torment as the realm watches
And many subjects cower, not daring to decry.
Some wizards delight in enspelling all foes
Bringing down the nastiest dooms they can hatch
Twisting men into monsters in agonized throes.
But wise bards and sages turn away, grim
From such gloating; for the unfolding past tells
The high price of such entertainment a-glim.
Ambauree of Calimport, The Vizier and the Satrap: Twenty Tales of Foible published in the Year of the Highmantle
M any a shocked and staring eye in Halfhap saw the great black whorl erupt out of the walls of the Oldcoats Inn. Spitting black lightning, it spun slowly, like a gigantic drain of black swamp water being emptied, carrying the upper floors of the inn atop itself like a great cracked cap before it started to spin faster and faster, tightening in on itself until…
It vanished, the upper floors of the inn crashing down upon the ravaged ground floor, so that all collapsed into tumbling, smoking rubble.
The very air above Halfhap tingled, winking with half-seen sparks and shadows that echoed the turning of the vanished whorl for a few long, silent breaths ere fading.
Leaving the town gaping in stunned silence at the heaped rubble that had been the Oldcoats Inn, a great cloud of dust hanging thickly above it.
They did not have to regard unadorned rubble and slowly drifting dust for long.
There came a flash of white light, a winking that left in its wake a stout, bearded man who bore a great gem-headed staff. His robes were black, with a great baldric of interlaced purple dragons, and his face was grim and terrible.
Vangerdahast stood in the heart of the rubble and turned slowly, peering all around. Then he laid the fingers of one hand over the dragontail ring he wore on the other and called, “Laspeera? Laspeera! ”
Silence fell; he cloaked himself in it and awaited an answer.
That did not come.
After a long and silent time the Royal Magician of Cormyr shook his head sadly and said to the empty air, “I fear we’ve lost her, Beldos. She’s under half a building, right in front of me, and not moving or answering.”
He threw back his head, and the watching folk of Halfhap could see that his face was wet with tears.
Suddenly someone else appeared, standing in the street in front of the Oldcoats front arch, on cobbles that had been empty a moment earlier.
The few Zhentilar who’d been standing uncertainly around a wrecked coach stepped hastily back, straightening to attention with terror on their faces. Ignoring them, the tall, darkly handsome wizard impatiently waved a hand and murmured something-banishing the cloud of dust in an instant.
Vangerdahast whirled around, black robes swirling, and the staff he raised glowed with threatening magical fire. “Begone!” he thundered. “This is Cormyr. You shall not prevail here! Get you hence, Lord of the Zhentarim!”
Manshoon merely sneered at him, causing some of the Zhentilar to chuckle-but their lord went abruptly expressionless when a long arm sent Vangerdahast staggering aside, and the owner of that arm stepped forward.
Few in Halfhap had ever seen Khelben ‘Blackstaff’ Arunsun, but there was little doubt as to who they were staring at, when they beheld a wizard as tall as a black pillar, with what could only be the Blackstaff floating upright in the air above his head, pulsing menacingly.
Khelben glanced at Vangerdahast. “Put that toy away,” he said quietly, lifting a finger to indicate the gem-headed staff.
Without waiting for a reply, he turned to Manshoon. “Well? We both know you’re a fool, but here and now you can answer a question you and I have both been pondering for some time: Just how much of a fool are you?”
Manshoon raised his right hand-and a ghostly arc of beholders appeared above his own shoulders. The watchers all gasped, though they could clearly see sky through the gently writhing tentacles and bodies of the floating eye tyrants.
“I guess,” the Master of the Black Brotherhood said silkily, “we’re just going to have to see.”
There came a sudden thunderclap of magic that shook the sky, staggered Manshoon and Khelben-and made the folk of Halfhap gasp anew. The Blackstaff, the ghostly beholders, and all the staring Zhent warriors were simply… gone.
“So it’s come to this? ” a disgusted voice asked, from just behind Manshoon. “Spell-slinging in the streets?”
The Lord of the Zhentarim hastily sprang away from that voice and spun to face it-in time to see Elminster shaking his head, and wearing the face of an elder priest saddened at discovering novices indulging in sinful foolery.
“Spell-slinging in the streets,” Elminster added sadly, “is
my style, gentlesirs. Ye are all supposed to be ‘grander,’ more puissant, more mindful of the implications of what ye do, more… mature.”
“Pah! Goddess-lover!” Manshoon hissed, fear and hatred making his words spittle.
Elminster shrugged and hissed back in perfect mimicry, “Lover of none but self!”
Khelben had been gaping up at the empty air where the Blackstaff had been. He now lowered his gaze to ask Elminster in a voice more dumbfounded than angry, “How did you do that?”
Elminster acquired an impish grin. “ ’Tis called magic.”
Khelben glared at him. “Where is it? I can’t feel the link! Where’s my staff? ”
“Waiting for ye at home,” Elminster replied mildly. “Ye should join it.”
“Leave, all of you!” Vangerdahast cried, stepping forward and brandishing his staff. “ I hold sway in Cormyr, and this soil is under the protection of the Purple Dragon! Leave! Depart! This-this is not done!”
Khelben, Manshoon, and Elminster all regarded him with silent scorn, and Vangerdahast swallowed, shrank a step or two back, and cowered.
“We’ll speak of this later,” Khelben said coldly to Elminster-and vanished.
As if that had been a cue, Manshoon strode forward. “One Chosen of Mystra flees the field,” he sneered. “Does the other self-styled servant of the Goddess-such empty titles may scare children, but they are naught but words, old man, and you know it as well as I do-care to match spells with me?”
Elminster regarded the fingernails of his left hand, and said mildly, “Ye have thirty-nine spare selves in stasis, but two are damaged. If ye inhabit them, ye’ll go insane, trapped in a body that obeys ye not, and leaves mastery of any magic beyond ye.” He looked up. “Two chances, out of thirty-nine. Ah, but which two?”
Idly stroking his beard, he started to stroll closer to Manshoon. “There’s no way for ye to tell, without stepping into the abyss that awaits ye.”
He was almost within Manshoon’s reach now, and still stepping closer. “Or shall I change those odds? Damage another-or another dozen? Or all of them?”
“You bluff!” the Zhentarim snarled.
“No. I promise.” Elminster unconcernedly turned his back on the tall Master of the Black Brotherhood, and started to stroll away again. “Just as my title is not a fiction, Manshoon, neither is what I say of thy clones. It alarms ye that I even know their number. Shall I now recite exactly where each is hidden-whilst my Art carries my words to the ears of every last Zhentarim and Banite of thy Brotherhood, from the High Imperceptor to the novice Brother Thanael, who trembled through his blood-oath to join ye but two nights ago? Shall I tell Fzoul the wordings of thy pacts with the eye tyrants — all of them, even that which involved thy mating with-”
“ Enough! Speak no more! Be still!”
“Easily enough done, if ye quit this place and work no magic nor scheme directly against Cormyr, its Royal Magician, its rulers, or its territory. Seek to subvert or bring about the death of an Obarskyr, Manshoon-or do anything more in Halfhap-and I will deal with ye. Permanently.”
He turned to face the Zhentarim once more, smiling, and added softly, “Thy schemes entertain all Chosen, but we can find others to afford us such entertainment. Mystra can show us everything. So think on this calmly, and as the merchants on thy own docks say: ‘consider well, and cut thy losses.’ ”
Manshoon snarled wordless fury, spat in Elminster’s direction, and vanished.
Leaving Vangerdahast and Elminster looking at each other.
“What…” The white-faced Royal Magician of Cormyr swallowed hard, ere he managed to whisper, “What dare I say to you?”
Elminster lifted one bristling eyebrow. “Ye could try the two most appropriate words in all Faerun, lad: Thank ye.”
“Thank ye-you,” Vangerdahast whispered, so softly that his voice was almost soundless.
Elminster clapped him on the shoulder like a kindly old uncle. “Now, was that so hard? Ye’d best leave this place and get back to work: ye have a worm in thy bosom to find and slay. Ah, before ’tis too late, as the bards say.”
“A-a worm? You know who the traitor is? ”
“ ‘Traitors are,’ ” Elminster corrected kindly-and vanished.
Leaving Vangerdahast to stare at where the Old Mage of Mystra had been standing and let loose a string of heartfelt oaths that made the Purple Dragons now hastening up to him grin in admiration-and the wealthiest Halfhap merchant’s wife hurrying up behind them drop her jaw in scandalized outrage.
She was just drawing breath for her first blistering words when the Royal Magician’s gaze fell upon her.
“Later,” he snapped, before she could say a word. Then he, too, was suddenly gone.
A raging Manshoon appeared at the center of the magnificent dark star carpet in his bedchamber, strode across the room like a storm wind, and slammed his fists into the splendid wood panelling beside the door as if trying to batter it right through the stone wall behind it, out into the passage beyond.
“Entertainment?” he roared. “ I’ll show him entertainment!”
Whirling around, he stalked back across the room to his spellbooks, viciously backhanding The Shadowsil out of the way as she came hurrying through a side-door, worry on her face and a wand ready in her hand.
Snarling, Manshoon jerked down one heavy tome, and then another. They thundered down onto his polished desk, he flung them open-and stepped back in horror as a body appeared out of nowhere, sprawled faceup atop them.
Though it had the semblance of an intact corpse, The Shadowsil’s gasp told Manshoon he wasn’t imagining what he’d just noticed. The dead man’s head, torso, arms, and legs were all neatly arranged, in their proper places, but were in fact severed, separate pieces, all slowly oozing dark gore all over his most precious grimoires. He’d already recognized the face. Himself.
As Manshoon stared down at his clone, its lips moved and Elminster’s voice issued from them, saying, “Aye. Entertainment.”
The air was thick with dust, and the coughing, choking Knights, Laspeera, and a tattered and dusty Dauntless all lay in a heap, entangled with each other. The ceiling no longer groaned and shivered into shards-but it now hung just above them, nowhere more than waist-high, held up on the points of nine floating, glowing swords.
Pennae eyed the Dragonfire swords longingly. They were so close that she could easily have stroked the golden sheen of three of those blades from where she lay. Yet it was obvious that trying to take even one might well cause a collapse, and death for everyone.
She sighed. “ Now what?”
Half-pinned beneath her, Florin lifted a long arm to point down their low-ceilinged prison at one of the doorways that had been outlined in sparks by the awakening of the Dragonfire magic. It was the only portal not now walled away by rubble, and it continued to twinkle, wavering slightly as they stared at it.
“We take the only way out,” the ranger-Knight said, “and hope for the best.”
Jhessail shuddered. “And if it leads into somewhere alive with snarling beasts? Or wizards hurling spells at us?”
Florin shrugged. “I haven’t avenged Narantha yet,” he said softly. “So I cannot die. Wherefore, if you keep behind me, you should be safe.”
Jhessail stared at his eyes and shivered.
Florin looked up and down the tangle of Knights and Crown folk, and pointed again at the portal. “I say again: we chance the portal. Now.”
“And we don’t even touch any of those swords,” Islif added, looking at Pennae. “Not one, and not even for an instant. So shift your selves carefully. Let’s move. ”
“Our holynoses?”
“Drag them. Gently.”
Semoor groaned theatrically. “Oh, yes. ‘Drag me. Gently.’ Wonderful. ”
“Upon second thinking,” Islif said, “bring Doust and leave the noisy one behind to guard these valuable magic swords. We should be able to return in a year or so. He won’t lack for entertainment, nor starv
e; he can chew on his own words.”
“Drag me please, ” Semoor pleaded, quickly.
“Aye, I’ll drag you,” Dauntless growled. “Lady Mage?”
Laspeera had seemed senseless, but her eyelids fluttered as he shook her gently. “Lady Laspeera? Lady of the war wizards?”
She gasped, opened one eye, winced and gasped again, and finally murmured, “I–I’ll be all right. My head… someone just cast spells, up above us, that smote my head like a hammer.”
“Oh?” Semoor asked brightly. “You’ve been smitten with hammers before?”
“Yes, Holy Wolftooth,” Laspeera replied, “I have. If it’s a sensation you’re seeking to know firsthand, I’m sure Ornrion Dahauntul can oblige you, when we reach a place that has a hammer.”
“And room enough to swing it,” Dauntless grunted, as they crawled down the chamber, clambering through the rubble until they could pass-one by flaring one-through the waiting portal.
Dauntless found himself at the rear of this undignified journey, with his leathers in tatters and all trace of anything that might have been deemed a Purple Dragon uniform all but gone. Though he was behind everyone, Laspeera turned in front of the portal, frowning, and waved him through.
He hesitated. “Lady? Is this wise?”
“Disobeying my orders?” she muttered, eyes catching fire. “No, not wise at all, Ornrion Dahauntul!”
He nodded, bowed his head wordlessly, and crawled past her into the waiting, silent fire.
Laspeera sighed and shook her head. It was by merest chance she’d happened to remember the potions. Gods above, was this the beginning of getting old?
No matter. That could be worried about later. Right now, she had to crawl back, paw around in the rubble to find them, and bring them along.
“Doing what is needful and best for the realm,” she murmured, smiling wryly. “Just as I do every day.” She winced her way over some knee-jabbing fragments of stone. “Well, ’tis a life.”
With one arm cradling potions, she turned once more to face the waiting portal, crawled a little way, and then stopped and looked longingly up at the nearest Dragonfire sword, floating so near, its glowing point so close overhead.