by Ed Greenwood
“What happened at Thundarlun?” The voice was calm and level.
“Zhentilar troops, on horses, attacked us at Thunder Gap. We—escaped them, and got as far as the guard post at Thundarlun before they caught up with us. Their arrows killed all the soldiers and the war wizard there. They set fire to houses and threatened to burn all the village if I did not come out to them. So I did.” Shandril paused for a moment, and then added simply, “When they were dead, we took what food and drink we needed from the guard post, and went on.”
“You slew them all?”
“You know what I bear,” Shandril said sharply, more cold anger in her tone than she really felt.
“I do,” came the voice. “I do not question your words, but I must know if any Zhentilar still ride free in eastern Cormyr.”
“All that I saw are dead,” Shandril said wearily, “but again and again they find me with magic—as you have done. Zhents may listen to us even now; I feel they are near.”
“How many did you kill? And how many soldiers of Cormyr did you see dead in Thundarlun?”
Shandril fought down sudden tears, struggling to speak. Her voice, when it came, was a fierce whisper. “I don’t count the dead any more, wizard. I can’t bear to!”
“Have you heard enough?” Narm could no longer contain his anger; his shout echoed back at them from the nearest trees.
“Peace, lad!” Delg said gruffly, and tromped closer to the floating light. “As near as I can tell,” he told it without introduction, “Shan burned about a score from their saddles at the Gap. That many and a dozen more at the hamlet where we fought. I saw near two dozen more Purple Dragons lying dead there. And I have a question for you, wizard: Is it Azoun’s will that we pass freely through Cormyr, or are we going to have to fight every soldier and war wizard we meet? Tell us now—or that’s just what we’ll have to do, for the sake of our own hides.”
The light shimmered. “I cannot speak for the king,” it said, after some hesitation.
Delg bent closer. “He’s there with you, though, listening, isn’t he?”
A heavy, waiting silence hung in the glade after those words, and the light slowly grew brighter.
Then a new voice spoke from it, younger and more melodic—and yet somehow heavier with authority. “I am. I have heard of you, sir, and have heard now three voices speaking; how many of you are there?”
Delg said promptly, “I’m no longer young enough to willingly wear the cloak of a fool. Would you make true answer, in our place?”
“I understand,” the king’s voice replied. “There is a harp rhyme, known to some, that begins with the words ‘I walked in the woods and dreamt I felt the kisses of maidens’—do you know it?”
“I do,” said Delg roughly, breathing hard. Narm and Shandril were both aware that a great tension had suddenly fallen from the dwarf. “The song is well chosen. I’ve heard harps, more than once. You have good taste in ballads.”
“Thank you,” said King Azoun, and they could tell he meant it. Shandril also sensed more than one meaning lay behind those two simple words—something only Delg would understand. She glanced at the dwarf, but he had turned to peer alertly into the forest about them, his battered, bearded face expressionless.
The king went on. “Word has come to me of all of you, then. Shandril, know that Cormyr has no designs upon your powers or person. Yet, I warn you never to forget this: whatever the challenge, I will keep peace in my realm, no matter the cost. My knights and armsmen will do what they must to defend the good land and folk of Cormyr. We will not seek you, or offer war to you and yours. Pass in peace—and let us hope that we can one day meet openly, as friends, and give no thought for battle or danger.”
“Pretty speech,” Delg grunted, in a low voice.
Shandril rushed to cover the dwarf’s words. “I—I thank you, Your Highness. I mean no harm to any in Cormyr, and—I hope to know you as a friend, too.” She paused for a moment, and added, “I’m growing impatient for the day when, gods willing, it won’t be a dangerous thing to be my friend.”
The light drifted a little closer to her, sparkled, and then drew back. “If it’s any strength to you,” the king’s voice said gently, “I have known that same feeling. Gods smile on you, Shandril of Highmoon. You have our blessing to pass through our land.”
“My thanks,” Shandril replied. “Farewell.”
As she spoke, the light was already dwindling and fading. She watched until she was sure it was gone before sighing her relief.
Narm turned to embrace her, smiling, but she thrust him aside and ran. She managed to get several strides away before she fell on her knees and emptied her stomach into the moss and dead leaves.
Delg stalked over to stand above her heaving shoulders. As she choked and sobbed, he said dryly, “Perhaps it’s a good thing we didn’t seek the palace in Suzail straight off to have audience with the king. His carpets might not be overly improved by your visits.”
Shandril choked and shook and then found herself laughing weakly, still on hands and knees.
“Shan! Shan? Are you all right?” Narm asked fearfully.
Shandril felt the forest damp beneath her palms and the searing ache in her ribs. Despite it all, she smiled.
“I think I am. Yes.” She reached out, got a hand on Delg’s belt buckle, and dragged herself upward. The dwarf stood like a rock as she climbed up him, hand over hand. Upright, she steadied herself, wiped at her mouth, and then brushed some errant hair out of her face. She saw a smile playing at the edges of his lips.
“Thanks, Delg,” Shandril said to him and hugged him. “I’m right glad you’re with us.” She stepped into the shady gloom of night under the trees, and they saw her eyes catch flame for a moment before she added softly, “I’ll be happier still when we reach Silverymoon and the safety and teachings of Alustriel.” Spellfire danced in her hands for a moment before she added in a frightened whisper, “Help me get there—before the Zhents make me too accustomed to killing.”
“Have they begun?” There was cold amusement in Lord Manshoon’s voice as they turned through an archway guarded by two stiffly alert guardsmen.
“Of course,” Sarhthor replied. “Some took bold leave of me, with grandly sinister half-promises and hints of dark plans. Others simply slipped away.”
Together they stepped into a large, empty chamber, then turned sharply right into a dark alcove. Its dusty, cob-webbed back wall was an illusion; as they strode through it, Sarhthor added, “You know they’ve started, Lord. Once you spoke of spellfire, you could have forbidden them to seek it—and still they’d have tried. Magelings who last this long are ruled by their lust for power, however much they might pretend to command wisdom and shrewd reason.”
The two archwizards squeezed past a motionless golem and strolled down the dark passage beyond it to a featureless door. Sarhthor drew it open, and Manshoon strode through, his black cloak swirling about him.
The room beyond was small. Two closed doors faced them, and in the center of the room stood a wooden plinth; on it lay a small gold key. Manshoon ignored all these features, turning sharply left to a door beside the one through which he had entered. He strode forward as if that dark wooden door did not exist—and as the toe of his boot touched its surface, he vanished, leaving Sarhthor alone in the room.
The Zhentarim archmage carefully closed the door they had entered through and looked around the room. Death awaited those who touched the key or the other two doors, he knew—for he had helped arrange it so. Smiling faintly, he followed Manshoon.
One of his boots left the floor in that dark room deep inside Zhentil Keep as the other clicked down onto glass-smooth marble in a grand, high-vaulted chamber in the heart of the Citadel of the Raven. It took hurrying warriors two days or more to make the trip they’d just covered in a single step. Sarhthor hoped it would never be necessary to reveal the existence of the magical gate to the Zhentilar. They’d not be pleased, and he hated unnecessary violence.
Manshoon stood impassively and dispassionately regarding it as Sarhthor made his own way across the gleaming marble to stand behind and to one side of the high lord. As he came to a halt, the window began to slide aside.
Their arrival had been watched, as usual.
Still glowing with false sunlight, the window slid open, revealing a dark hole behind it, like the eyesocket of a gigantic skull. Out of that darkness floated two spherical creatures, their dark bodies surrounded by sinuously coiling tentacles that turned restlessly to point in one direction and then another. From the end of each stalk, a cold, fell eye looked out at the world.
Each beholder slowly turned on end to gather all ten of its eyestalks in a sinister, watchful cluster: a forest of eyes stared at the two Zhentarim wizards as the beholders drifted into the room.
The eye tyrants floated on in silence until they hung above the wizards, well out of reach and comfortably separated from each other. Then they rolled slowly upright, revealing their many-toothed mouths and large, central eyes. One was slightly larger than the other.
“Something is amiss here,” the larger one hissed in its deep, echoing voice. “Strange magic is present.”
Manshoon turned wordlessly to Sarhthor, who frowned, shook his head doubtfully, and said, “If you’ll allow me a few breaths and a spell, Lords …”
“Proceed,” three cold voices said together, and the archmage had to hide a smile at how like the eye tyrants Manshoon sounded … how like an eye tyrant he had truly become.
Slowly and carefully, Sarhthor made the gestures and mutterings of a powerful and thorough detection spell. Thousands of tiny motes of light erupted from his robes, swirling around the chamber like a school of startled fish, prying into every corner. The conspirators waited patiently as the lights swooped, darted, hung in corners, and finally faded away.
Sarhthor shook his head again. “Many enchantments adorn the tapestries, walls, ceiling, and floor—as always, and some of them have been laid so as to shift and change, over time—but as Mystra is my witness, I can find no trace of scrying, spies, or magical traps in this place. There are, however, two spiders alive here, and a scuttlebug—by your leave?”
Manshoon nodded, and the beholders blinked all their eyes, once. Sarhthor strode across the floor to crush the three intruders underfoot. “Done,” he said simply, then walked back to stand with his lord.
“You called for me with some secrecy,” Manshoon said flatly, looking up at the beholders, “and I have come. Speak.”
Eyestalks curled, and many glances flickered silently back and forth high above the two men; an unspoken agreement was swiftly reached. The smaller beholder drifted slightly lower. “We have become increasingly mistrustful of the loyalty of Fzoul and his underlings to any causes and authority but their own. Prying priests are everywhere in Zhentil Keep; we dared not meet with you there.”
The other, larger beholder spoke. “We have also,” it rumbled coldly, “begun to despair over the ineptitude of the current crop of magelings. Many of us would like to see wizards firmly in control of our Brotherhood again, wielding spellfire so as to rule or destroy the priests. But most of the lesser wizards lack the self-control to govern themselves, let alone control anything else.”
“Aye, this spellfire is the key,” said the smaller eye tyrant eagerly. “If you are to keep our support, Manshoon, your hand must come to wield it, or hold a firm grip on whoever does.”
The High Lord of Zhentil Keep shrugged. “Tell me how, with the losses we’ve suffered so far trying to seize spellfire, I am to ensure our wizards will be powerful enough to win it at last—and still be strong enough to tame the priests.”
The rumbling reply sounded a little triumphant, and somehow amused. “With the unlooked-for aid we have brought you. Meet Iliph Thraun, a lord among liches, as you are a lord among men.”
Something small and white moved in the dark opening from whence the beholders had come. It turned and rose. A yellowed human skull drifted into view, looking down at the two wizards.
Both of them stared expressionlessly up at it, thinking the same old saying of Faerûn: surprises seldom grow more welcome as one gets older.
The skull drifted to a halt in midair, floating below the two beholders. Two pale, flickering points of light hung in its dark sockets; its gaze was cold but somehow eager as it looked down at the two mages.
“Well met,” it said formally, in hollow tones punctuated by the faint clattering of its teeth. “In life, long ago, I had the power of spellfire. I can drain it from this Shandril, if I can catch her asleep.”
“And if she wakes before you are done?”
The skull drifted closer. “Once enough of her spellfire is gone, the lass will lose control over what is left. She will become a wild wand whenever she unleashes spellfire—a menace to allies and those she holds dear. Soon she will destroy them … and, in the end, herself.”
Lord Manshoon nodded slowly. “I thank you, lich lord. Your powers may bring victory for us all.” His words held the finality of a farewell.
As the skull made a polite reply, the smaller beholder turned and drifted a little way toward it. Obediently, the skull drifted out through the opening it had entered by. When it was gone, Manshoon calmly asked the beholders, “What good is this? I trade a young, reckless girl who scarce knows how to use spellfire for an old, wise, mighty-in-Art lichnee who is sure to defy my orders? Where’s the gain in that?”
The larger beholder’s mouth crooked in a slow smile. “In becoming a lich, this Thraun used a flawed process; its unlife is maintained by magical energies provided by magelings whom it tutors, then destroys when they grow too powerful. It feeds on certain spells cast for it—if you modify them in the right way, you or any wizard can command the lich lord with absolute precision.”
The other beholder spoke. “Would you know these magics?”
“Of course.” Manshoon did not even look at Sarhthor as he added, “Speak freely.”
“The energy can come from any of the spells that drain lifeforce, or from those that create fire or lightning. Thraun needs them modified so their effects form a sphere, the energies spiraling to its heart—where this lich lord waits. If you work a governance over undeath and a masking charm employing the name ‘Calauthas’ in your modifying incantations, you can control Thraun from a distance—an absolute control that compels the lich lord’s nature. If you choose to do this through a lesser mage whose mind you control, you can even command the lich lord without its knowing who you are.”
“So Thraun, who doubtless intends to destroy us all when it regains spellfire, becomes our helpless pawn. A nice twist.” The High Lord of Zhentil Keep took two thoughtful paces across the gleaming marble, and then looked up again.
“The time to use Thraun is not yet,” he said. “To gather our mages or to have the lich lord widely seen will arouse Fzoul’s suspicions. If you agree, I’ll send a mageling to serve Thraun, a wizard this lich lord believes it can easily destroy—but one whose mind I control. We tell Thraun our difficulties in capturing Shandril continue, and it’s best not to reveal a lich lord whom others may fear and attack, unless we have the maid in hand.”
“I have noticed,” the larger beholder observed, “that the priests of our Brotherhood regard all undead as things to be either their slaves or swiftly destroyed.”
Manshoon nodded. “That is why there have always been very few liches in the Brotherhood.” He began to pa
ce again. “If Thraun grows restive, or Shandril eludes us for too long, we allow it to go after her—exerting our control only when necessary.”
The beholders drifted toward the dark hole, and the false window began to slide out over it again. “We are agreed,” the larger eye tyrant said simply. “This meeting ends.”
“We are agreed,” the two wizards echoed, “and this meeting ends.” They stood together in silence and watched the dragon window settle back into place.
Manshoon looked at Sarhthor. “Useful news.”
“If kept secret, Lord. As it shall be.” Their eyes met for a long moment—dark, steady eyes set in expressionless faces.
Then Manshoon nodded and turned away. They strode together across the marble to where the unseen gate waited to take them back to the High Hall of Zhentil Keep.
“One thing occurs to me,” Sarhthor said thoughtfully, a pace or two before Manshoon would have vanished. The high lord looked back at him silently.
“Others use this place besides us,” the wizard said. “If I were to leave a tracing spell behind to record changes in Art, we’d know precisely what castings had been done here between our meetings. No spying magic could escape our notice.”
Manshoon was already nodding. “Do it.” He turned away and disappeared.
Left alone in the chamber, Sarhthor took a few steps back the way he had come, and then cast a spell with quick, precise movements. A faint, sparkling radiance seemed to gather out of nowhere to coil around his wrists and then leap outward in all directions, streaming away until it faded back into nothingness. Wearing the faintest of smiles, the wizard looked slowly around the chamber, turned on his heel, took a few strides, and vanished in his turn. Silence fell.
Then the marble floor seemed to ripple and flow, like the farthest tongues of water that waves throw up onto the sands of a beach. Gathering in one corner behind a tapestry, the ripples rose up smoothly into a man-sized pillar, spun for a moment, and sharpened into the form of a tall, thin, bearded man in plain, rather shabby, homespun robes.