He shrieked and fell aside, clutching at his sliced-open hand—and El rolled and reached in an awkward crawling lunge across sharp rocks that slid her sword into the throat of the scepter-grabber. As he convulsed, she rolled back again to deal with the stabber.
The rest of the dark elves advanced slowly, still about seven or so strides away. Good. El threw back her head as she hewed down the stabbing drow and screamed in false agony, her voice loud, raw, and shrill.
Then she slumped, down in her hollow with drow bodies all around, lying as if dead—save for the stealthy hand beneath her that slid a scepter from her belt and awakened it. She lay still, waiting, her mouth slack and open. Smarting from half a dozen wounds and the numbing fire of the venom, El watched through slitted eyes as the drow gathered cautiously above her.
Would they come closer to gloat? Or stab down at her face and breast and throat, to make sure?
They did both—and as the first dark sword tips thrust down, El let loose the whirlblade storm.
It was a vicious magic, not all that different from the blade barriers war priests of old were wont to wield, and as its shards of steel started to flash and whirl above her, and drow blood started to spray, El called up swift silver fire to spin a momentary shield over herself. As it closed over her, she flung the awakened scepter up into the storm of conjured steel, an instant before cowering under her silver fire.
A moment later, the world just above exploded with a roar.
The blast was impressive, shaking her like dice in a gambling cup despite the shielding fire. She heard and smelled drow bodies spattering wetly over rocks all around … and when her shield faded and she rolled cautiously over to look up, drow gore dripped down into her face from the tunnel ceiling high above.
She rolled into a crouch, to peer around cautiously. Not a foe remained. Wizard and all, the outcast drow band was no more.
Dead, every last one of them. And all because they hated and feared magic. Or those who misused it against them, like their own priestesses. No one should hate or fear magic.
Ah, El, that would require the Realms to be free of all who use magic to be tyrants over others.
El sighed aloud. Symrustar was right. And how often had he been one of those tyrants, those misusers?
Memories she was not proud of rose in a swift, dark procession …
Wisely, Symrustar kept silent. Rather grimly, El tugged the darts out of herself, then healed her wounds and purged the venom in an agonizing burst of silver fire.
When her helpless gasping and staggering faded, she stumbled on down the tunnel. She was little better than naked now, her leather armor in tattered ruin, and still alone.
Now, now! You do have me, Symrustar reminded her. Nicely done, by the way.
El nodded wearily. She’d made far too much noise and loosed too much magic to tarry; all that tumult would soon bring more formidable Underdark prowlers—or a strong drow patrol, ready for spell-hurling trouble. By then, it would be only prudent to be far away. Up in the sun-drenched Realms Above, for instance.
Limping a little, and rubbing at aches here and bruises there, El trudged along.
This beautiful new dark elf body of yours, Symrustar chided her, you’re not taking very good care of it.
Elminster’s reply was calm, lengthy, and very colorful. It might have made some Moonsea sailors blush, if any of them had been down in the Underdark Shallows to hear it.
Alorglauvenemaus slept more soundly and more often, these days, than in its younger years. It was well and truly ancient now, and knew from its studies and from wyrms it had met—and in some such moots, slain—that these deepening slumbers were the norm for older dragons.
Not that it experienced many interruptions. No visitors reached this cavern beneath a volcano-like hollow hill, in the heart of a fetid swamp filling a narrow cleft between the stony shoulders of adjacent mountains in the Thunder Peaks. No intruder had ever reached its lair, though orcs had splashed into the swamp once, very briefly. Not good eating, but there’d been a lot of them …
It curled its long tongue, trying to remember that taste.
Yes, it so happened that Alorglauvenemaus was awake now—so it was awake a moment later, when an explosive unleashing of magic shuddered through the solid rock beneath its hoard. A blast had befallen several levels beneath its lair.
The ancient black dragon lifted its head in alarm. That had been more than a spell. There was a certain smell …
Alorglauvenemaus thrust its dark horned head down the great cleft at one end of its cavern, the opening to the descending chain of caverns that served it as a toilet, a spittoon, and betimes a vomitorium—for armor causes gut ructions, no matter how steaming-strong one’s digestive acids—and sniffed, loud and long.
Aye. It was. The scent was faint, yet unmistakable, and Alorglauvenemaus had smelled it before. Silver fire, the raw stuff of the Weave, had been unleashed down there.
Which was puzzling, even alarming, given that the Weave had fallen, and its bright goddess with it, some sleeps ago.
The ancient black dragon frowned, shook its head slowly, and let out a deep, cavern-shaking growl that announced to the reverberating cavern walls that it was not pleased to encounter that particular scent. That smell meant trouble.
Yet Alorglauvenemaus knew how to deal with trouble. It drew back its head and spat, letting out a great hissing breath of sickly green acid, a burst that struck foam from the rocks it touched as it bounced and boiled down the long chute of caverns.
As it went, that green, swiftly graying flow hissed and spat and spewed forth many momentary little whirl devils of glowing spume, stuff of the rocks it was eating into; rocks that were already pitted and worn smooth by previous acid spewings.
Three caverns down, the last fading tongue of the acid flowed around a heap of rocks, washing away some of the shoulder of stone they stood on. Almost wearily the heap slumped over the edge, starting to roll and tumble. And awakening a gathering roar as it went on down. In the end, much lower down, it had faded into a small rockslide, but it spilled out of a side cleft in the tunnel almost to Elminster’s feet.
El stopped to let the last stones of the rattling little avalanche roll to their various stops right in front of her boots, rock back and forth, then settle. The faint breeze came down into the Underdark by the same route the rocks had taken.
And it was bearing a sharp, fresh reek. She’d smelled this particular acrid stink before.
Black dragon acid. Spewed by a large elder wyrm.
Elminster sighed. A fell and mighty dragon in her way. Of course.
She went into the cleft and started to pick her way very cautiously upward. The acid was still fresh; she’d have to be careful indeed if she wanted her boots to last for most of the way up, or longer.
The climb looked long and unpleasant, featuring not just acid, but dragon dung. Sighing out a silent curse—why hadn’t Manshoon just obeyed Mystra for once? Or why hadn’t the Lady of All Mysteries dealt with him, or freed her trustworthy El to deal with him?—Elminster found her first sheltering corner of rock, picked her way to it, then looked for the next one.
More offerings from either end of the black dragon could come raging down at her at any time. Which meant prudence must be paramount. Ah, scale the rocks just there, so as to pick her way over yonder, and so on …
Unnoticed by the Sage of Shadowdale’s newfound dark elf body, there was the faintest of stealthy movements by the edge of the cleft.
Even an alert and staring Elminster could have seen no more than a shadow, just for an instant, as someone—or something—melted silently against the jagged cavern wall, well above the smooth, worn path of long ago acid flows.
The lone drow priestess ascending cautiously out of the Underdark had a very patient pursuer.
Lord Constable Farland looked across the table and found a certain grim measure of comfort in the faces staring back at him. He trusted these two men.
Sometimes he wishe
d he could trust anyone else in all the Realms, but thus far, he’d found only these two. His senior constables. Tall, scarred, taciturn Anglur Traelshun, almost a head taller than grim, stocky, cynical Bradraer Delloak. Thank the gods the two were firm friends, because they were both capable men, and would have made deadly enemies for each other, had they been so inclined.
It was hrasted isolated at Irlingstar, perched on a knife-edged stone ridge running west out of Irlingmount, one of the Orondstars. Just “Oronds,” most called them; a cluster of uncharacteristically knife-edged peaks in the Thunder Peaks range, just a little northwest of halfway between the Realm of Wailing Fog and Thunderholme. Only one road reached the castle, and save for striding deep into the Stonelands—not the act of a sane man—it wasn’t possible to stay in Cormyr and yet get so far from the rest of the Forest Kingdom.
Which was why the Crown’s most secure prison was there, and not inside the walls of Sharran-infested Wheloon. The nobles in the cells at Irlingstar could birth no end of trouble if they were closer to other Cormyreans—folk in need of coins and susceptible to whispered threats, promises, and sly dealings.
“You’re no more mages than I am,” Farland said wearily, “but have you found any sign that the wards have been breached?”
They both shook their heads, wasting no words. They never did.
More than century ago, the infamous Royal Magician Vangerdahast had cast the first wards at Castle Irlingstar. With stark and strong magical barriers renewed annually ever since, this normally invisible dome of magic hampered most spells within Irlingstar, preventing translocation and scrying into and out of the fortress. Although the Spellplague had clawed at Irlingstar’s wards, they had survived, and remained crucial in preventing wizards hired by noble families from breaching the castle’s security at will.
“Right,” Farland said grimly. “You know what you have to do.” He got up, ending the meeting. The two senior constables made for the door.
Traelshun would rouse the few guards who’d been off-shift and asleep when Avathnar had been murdered, and Delloak was off to the gatehouse to order the wagon drivers to depart immediately, taking their wagons to Immerford to fetch fresh food. He was to ride ahead of them, to be Farland’s messenger to the nearest king’s lord—Lord Lothan Durncaskyn at Immerkeep—to report the murder and request war wizard reinforcements, for the inevitably difficult investigation. Mind-reaming, now that it so often left both interrogator and suspect drool-witted, was a thing of the past. Solving crimes was once more a process of threatening, peering, and cajoling—and given Irlingstar’s current roster of resentful, sneering, sophisticated, and very capable noblemen—the castle’s handful of weary duty war wizards were going to need all the help they could get. The sooner they got started …
Farland descended the back stair that would take him to the mages’ room. Well, they’d have to wait some days, as it was. Immerford, still growing visibly with every passing summer, was one of the newest settlements in Cormyr, centered on the ford where the East Way crossed the Immerflow. But the countryside betwixt here and where Lord Durncaskyn sat in his bright new castle of Immerkeep was hard country indeed, deep swamp wherever it wasn’t knife-sharp rock ridges cloaked by thick, dark, wolf-roamed forests. There wasn’t a fenced clearing between Immerford and Irlingstar, farm or ranch, because Cormyreans weren’t fools enough to try farming or steading there.
Durncaskyn wasn’t going to be pleased at Delloak’s report, but then Durncaskyn never was. Dragon in the sky, Irlingstar’s five duty wizards of war were probably going to be irked, too, but he could do nothing about that.
To say nothing of Irlingstar’s own all-too-superior mages, who’d be scared and therefore even harder to deal with than usual …
Farland reached the bottom of the stair, stepped through the archway, turned right—and stopped.
A long, wet tongue of fresh blood ran out into the passage right in front of him.
It was coming from under the door of the ready room into which the bedchambers of the war wizards all opened.
“Saer mages?” he called sharply.
The ominous silence continued unbroken.
Swallowing a curse, the lord constable of Irlingstar drew his sword and flung open the door, taking care to keep his feet out of the blood.
Even before it swung wide, he knew what he was going to find.
CHAPTER
NINE
LORD DURNCASKYN Is UNHAPPY
On his best days, the king’s Lord Lothan Durncaskyn of Immerford was a difficult man, gruff and cynical. On his worst days, he was as irritable and sharp-tongued as an aging, surly, and sarcastic retired Purple Dragon veteran whose many ill-healed wounds made him limp and ache during his every waking moment might be expected to be.
This was turning into one of those worst days. Lord Durncaskyn was not happy.
The messenger from Irlingstar had just departed. A constable of the rare, utterly trustworthy sort; Durncaskyn had believed his every word. Wherefore Immerford below his high windows was afire with the unpleasant news that the kitchen staff at the prison castle—Immerfolk, every one of them—had been murdered. Foul murders that cried out for justice. So of course, the gods having the twisted senses of mirth they did, Durncaskyn couldn’t render the aid he was obligated to—Hells, that he ached to.
Just when their presence had been demanded to see into these killings at Irlingstar, his best wizards of war were busy elsewhere. Off north, looking into reports of lawless men raiding caravans along the Moonsea Ride—brigands who must be lairing somewhere in the headwaters of the Immer, which made them Durncaskyn’s problem. He only had the one competent team, six tested mages led by the capable and well-respected Brannon Lucksar. The junior team, three jack-dancing idiots led by that utter fool Vandur, were …
Durncaskyn’s lip curled. He couldn’t call to mind a word bad enough for them. “Bumblers” was too polite and harmless, by far. “Realm-wrecking disasters” groped closer, but—
The unexpected knocking on his office door that erupted then was a sudden thunder of blows. By the sharpness of those sounds, the din was almost certainly being made by metal-shod canes … three or more of them.
Durncaskyn cast his gaze at the ceiling and waved his hands in an exasperated “What next?” flourish, but of course the gods failed to answer. This was shaping into a “worst” day, indeed.
“It’s unlocked,” he called. “Enter!”
The door was flung open, and the owners of those loudly peremptory canes crowded into the room. Seven good burghers of Immerford, men he knew well, to his cost. One glance told Durncaskyn their mood: furious because they were frightened and just bristling for a fight.
The king’s lord of Immerford kept from rolling his eyes only with firm effort. Gods, if they’d only sent their wives, instead …
“Well?” the boldest—Harklur, the vintner, as usual—snapped, “What’re you doing here?”
Durncaskyn quelled an inner sigh and gave the wine merchant a polite smile. As always, the same script. Dutifully, he said the words expected of him.
“This is, as it happens, my office,” he explained gently. “ ’Tis where I’m expected to be, much of my working time. So delegations of honored citizens such as yourselves know where to find me.”
“I mean,” Harklur snarled, “why are you still just sitting here, when honest Immerfolk—defenseless wives and daughters!—have been murdered in their beds by foul young lordlings bent on rape and pillage and … and bloodshed?” As he wound down, the vintner’s faltering words were bolstered by nods and supportive murmurs from the other six pillars of Immerford.
“King and court expect me to remain at my post,” Durncaskyn replied, “particularly in times of crisis. Which this most undoubtedly is, considering that before Constable Delloak brought me the terrible news from Irlingstar, I had three other major troubles to deal with, one of which you gentlesirs are all well aware of.”
“Never mind that!” Harklur sn
apped, only to be drowned out by two of his fellow burghers, both bursting out at once.
“My daughter’s best friend is dead, and I want to know just what—”
“Who’s keeping the peace up in Irlingstar, anyhail, and what’s to stop these foul murderers from just sweeping down our way, hey? I demand to know—”
My, but they were truly upset. Not one of them had bitten on his bait, and asked the details of those two troubles he’d told them they didn’t know about. Right, then; ’twas “treat with deserved respect” time.
Durncaskyn stood up, planting both hands on his littered desk—and then grandly swept his papers aside in both directions to whirl to the floor.
“Gentlesirs,” he barked, “I’m glad you came to see me. Your concern heartens me, as it would any true servant of Cormyr. Please come around my side of the desk, and behold this map with me.”
There were wordless murmurs of excitement and mollification as the burghers hastened to crowd around. Harklur and Mrauksoun still looked angry, but the rest were bright-eyed. Worked every time.
“Here we are in Immerford,” Durncaskyn told them, pointing but taking care not to plant his finger on it. They’d want to peer close, trying to pick out their own homes on those intricately drawn streets. “Right in the center of it all.”
He moved his pointing hand. “There’s Castle Irlingstar, hard by the frontier. Very difficult country between us, you’ll see. A determined man or a small band might struggle through, but if an army tried, we have a tenday’s warning, or even more.”
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