by Ed Greenwood
The old man held the brass scepter and spoke a certain word, clear and echoing and unfamiliar. There was a flash of golden, metallic light. The charging Wolves, who were almost upon him, staggered suddenly back. They scattered helplessly, arms and blades flailing, propelled away by magical hands that shoved and grasped and flung—hands as big as shields, each having three long fingers between two hooked thumbs.
The old man’s hands were empty now as he dove nimbly forward to take the feet out from under a Wolf. They crashed to the ground together, a magical hand spread out over the black-armored chest like some gigantic spider. The old man swarmed along the writhing warrior to snatch the sword from his hands.
The Oversword saw the stolen steel descend into the helpless throat of its former owner an instant before the constraining hand melted away into the air from whence it had come. All the other hands also quietly faded, pulsed, and vanished.
The old man stood calmly hefting the blade he’d seized. The Wolves recovered themselves, bellowed their fury, and came for him.
Heart in her throat, Sharantyr ran as she’d never run before, knowing she would not arrive in time, or do much good if she did. There was only one of her, and these warriors looked trained, strong, and fit. The one Elminster had hurt with magic missiles was still on his feet, moving with less pain than before. Six Wolves came on with murder in their eyes, the Oversword bringing up the rear with a sudden, snarling charge.
The armored forms closed in around the old man, and despite herself Sharantyr screamed. The sound brought a warrior around to face her. With desperate savagery, Sharantyr flailed away at him with her blade, hammering him so hard and fast that he had no time to do anything except fend her off.
Beyond, Wolves roared and swords clashed. Sharantyr murmured a prayer to Tempus to aid the Old Mage as her own sword slid in under the edge of her opponent’s helm and came back dark and wet.
The man fell heavily, and Sharantyr sprang aside, peering desperately to try to learn Elminster’s fate. Another Wolf was already running toward her. Despite that approaching danger, the lady ranger stood for an instant in amazement.
Elminster was still on his feet amid all those armored giants. Steel flashed in his hand, and he was laughing. She shook her head, struck aside the blade reaching for her, and stared again.
For a moment the image of the gaunt, sharp-tongued old man in tattered robes seemed to fall away, and she saw the impish, snake-quick youth he had been many long years ago.
His eyes blazed. He dodged, lunged, and ducked under a reaching blade with the easy agility of youth. He laughed.
Sharantyr watched him in amazement, while almost without thought or effort her blade found the throat of the Wolf who had charged her. She no longer saw the Old Mage, but a man strong and supple, with the defiant pride of youth. A man of power delighting in the fray, the Laughing Hero of the North spoken of in legends, greatest of the carefree blades in the alleys of Waterdeep, slayer of fell things, prankster—and fearless fighter, even when alone against a host.
Elminster, half-naked and scrawny, whirled and leapt among the blades. Around him, the black-armored Wolves coughed or cried out and fell in their blood. Always there came that low laughter, except when Elminster rose up to bury his blade in the face of the Oversword of the guard and cried, “For the dale! Let there be freedom again for the High Dale!”
When the last man fell, there was no sound from the watching men and women. Most of the village folk seemed to have emptied out of the huts and shanties beyond the keep. A score or more had gathered to watch, and in a few hands Sharantyr saw axes, pitchforks, and clubs. She looked down at the huddled black hulks, shook her head again, and walked toward the Old Mage.
Elminster stood leaning on his blade, looking suddenly old again. He was panting, great shuddering breaths that shook his body, but none of the blood on him was his own. He looked at her with two eyes that were very blue, and managed a smile.
“M-my robes, Shar,” he gasped. “Old bones feel the cold an’ all.” Sharantyr embraced him, rubbed his shoulders briskly, and hurried to snatch up his robes from where they lay.
The Old Mage dressed, throwing down the sword as if it were something diseased and foul. He shook his head.
“That draws deep,” he said, eyes distant. “It gets … harder every time.”
Sharantyr put an arm around his shoulders. “I’m still amazed,” she said softly, “but shouldn’t we be going? With all that noise, they must have been alerted at the keep.”
The folk of Eastkeep stood watching them, not speaking. Sharantyr saw awe in their eyes, and leaping hope, and a little fear. Elminster did not seem to see them at all as he adjusted his belt and shrugged his shoulders several times to settle his robes comfortably.
In the stillness, they heard the faint sounds of weeping from the hut.
Sharantyr looked at Elminster. “The wizard,” she asked. “Did you—?”
The Old Mage shook his head and silently motioned her to follow him. Together they went to the hut, and the Old Mage drew the door curtain aside.
Within was the stink of fear and sweat and death. A sobbing woman, cold gray manacles still about her wrists and ankles, swung a jewelled whip to rain blows down on a bloody, huddled form. The manacles and a wild look were all she wore. The chains that had held her dangled empty from a beam overhead.
She looked up, saw Elminster, and managed a savage smile of gratitude. Then, deliberately, she turned and brought the whip hissing down again with all the strength of a blood-spattered arm, though it was clear that the meat she struck could no longer feel it.
“Fly now, lady,” Elminster bid her gently. “Flee before other wizards come to slay ye. Out, among the people, and throw both whip and keys into one of the streams as soon as ye can. Take nothing else or they’ll know ye.” Her dirty bare shoulders shrugged in reply, and he added, “Ye want to live, to see them all dead, don’t ye?”
The woman listened to that, still panting out her fury in great sobbing breaths. She abruptly turned and snatched up a ring of keys from the mage’s now-empty chair. Her eyes met Elminster’s in fierce, silent gratitude, then she was gone into the morning.
Elminster turned eyes that had grown old again on Sharantyr. “I bade him good morning and snatched up that scepter you saw me use. He sprang up to stop me, so I tossed it where he’d try to catch it, tripped him as he bent, and emptied a bowl of his wash water over his head. I got his keys and freed her before he could be up and hurling spells.” He smiled faintly. “She snatched up the whip before I’d even freed her ankles. I nearly lost a finger to it, plucking the wand out of his belt before he could.”
Sharantyr looked at him and then at what was left of a man on the floor. She shivered for just a moment, then asked steadily, “The wand? What sort is this one?”
Elminster sighed. “Well, it can make things larger or smaller. If we had a tenday or two to spare searching this place, the keep, and any other haunts this mala-spell may have had, I suspect we’d find all manner of missing coins, gems, and other finery made very small. We might also find argumentative or very beautiful folk that the guard stopped, shrunk to the size of thy smallest finger.”
Sharantyr stared at him, eyes large and round. “What a monster!” she hissed, looking around the hut as if every drawer and corner held coiled snakes waiting to leap out at her with hungry fangs.
Elminster shrugged. “Ever wonder why there are more evil mages than good ones?” he asked. As he turned to go, he added quietly, “It’s because power like that makes it so hideously easy to rule all about ye. Remember always, there is no such thing as a mage that is not dangerous.”
With a grunt of satisfaction, he took a handful of dusty, well-stoppered glass vials from an earthen jar by the door. “Healing quaffs,” he said. “The only thing I dare spare the time to take. Let’s be off, lass, before thy feared counterblow comes from the keep.”
He stepped out through the curtain and paused.
“Ye might pick up all the food ye can find—and wine, for that matter.” He looked out, seemed satisfied, and added, “Never forget the food. Coins, now, are hard on the digestion and don’t seem to restore a man like simple bread and cheese do.”
“Women,” his companion told him dryly, “are no different. And my name’s Sharantyr, ‘lad.’ ” She met his eyes challengingly.
Elminster laughed and replied, “My apologies, Sharantyr. Now hurry, will ye? I’ll be giving this wand to one of the folk here, to hide away and use to free shrunken friends later.”
A few hurried breaths later, they vanished back into the woods, Sharantyr’s belt heavier by eleven daggers she’d stripped from the fallen Wolves.
It seemed they’d left these trees very long ago, but up the road, the fat Sembian merchant in newly slit-into-rags clothing could still be seen, sweating pounds off his rotund frame as he fretted, clambered, and pleaded to get his wine-wagons safely away before more guards arrived looking for someone to blame for the fate of their comrades lying sprawled bloodily in the dust of the road. Sharantyr cast a last look around, found herself grinning, and followed the Old Mage into the concealing green depths of the woods.
Belaerus shook his head. “Who’d a’ thought it?” he said, staring at the bodies sprawled all around. “Just one old man.”
Durvin the cellarer slid the wand he’d just been given into his boot and looked at his friend sharply. “I saw only a young man, a man with a long beard, braver than we. Young enough and brave enough to fight an entire guard of Wolves for the dale. To win back our homes for us.”
Belaerus nodded hastily. “Aye, brave enough.”
“Brave enough,” echoed another merchant, and there were nods and murmurs there on the road. Men straightened and set their jaws. Durvin remembered old words, long unsung, and began, his rough voice rumbling loud along the road.
Six breaths later, when mounted, full-armored Wolves swarmed out of the keep and thundered down the road like a black wind, they found men with fierce, hard eyes and no fear in their faces standing amid the black-armored bodies on the road, singing the old Shieldsong of the High Dale.
Men rode hard that day, galloping importantly here and there about the dale. Longspear’s message riders, hard eyed and quick, spurred from castle to keep and from keep to posts and barracks. In their wake, the aroused Wolves gave the High Dale a waiting air of armed alertness.
Bands of soldiers rode the roads, peered into inn rooms and farm kitchens to check again what had been checked many times before, and plunged repeatedly into the dark cloak of trees that covered the northern slopes of the dale.
Longspear himself, stout and hook-nosed and massive in his worn and well-used armor, sat on an armor-plated war steed as big as some cottages in the dale and eased himself around the streets beneath the frowning walls of the High Castle. Commanding and stern he looked, eyes hard and jaw grim, as he waved and pointed with huge iron-gauntleted hands. Attentive message riders galloped in obedience to his every order. But for all his authority and their energy, the intruders who’d hurled spells enough to destroy half a handful of the lord’s feared mages and sent twenty or more Wolves to their graves in blade-to-blade battle remained uncaught.
Heladar Longspear surveyed the mountains fearlessly. Unmoving, uncaring of the might he commanded, they walled in the High Dale to the north and south, at once protecting him and shielding his newfound, mysterious foes. Was Sembia behind this? Cormyr? Outlaws trying to seize a home? Or worse?
Deep inside, a chilling whisper repeated the thought he’d been pushing down since the first blood had spilled on the Daggerdale side of the supposedly secret gate that linked him with the Zhentarim. Was a rival priest, mage or faction within the Brotherhood seeking to bring him down, to work some dark and hostile plan?
It might be someone here in the dale. Angruin, perhaps, angry that he’d not been given open rule. Or one of the lesser mages, ambitious and impatient to better his standing in the Brotherhood. That would be bad. Danger close at hand, and skillful enough that he’d not seen it until twenty or more blade-brothers had fallen.
Perhaps the alternative was worse. Someone—it could be anyone—in the Brotherhood striking from the shadows, pursuing an unknown plan with unknown strength. A beholder, half-a-handcount of liches, a rebel cabal of priests … all such had happened before. It was even whispered that Manshoon cold-bloodedly worked behind such intrigues, keeping rivals down and everyone afraid of each other—and of him.
Heladar found himself sweating and forced his thoughts to more comfortable matters: affairs of war fought with swords, with no magic more than priestly healing and a few flash-and-bang spells cast by obedient magelings. Scouring the High Dale was his task right now, then a good evenfeast. After the meal, the council would gather. He’d called the moot, and he’d have to see past the masks of smooth words and stiff faces that each man there always wore. His own life might well depend upon it.
Not for the first time, Heladar found himself thinking of the high constable he’d deposed, and wondering if his own fall would come as swiftly as the one he’d arranged for Irreph Mulmar. He felt the weight of watching eyes on him: the dale folk, who hated him as much as they’d loved Mulmar. He kept his face hard and fearless as he looked slowly around at the patiently watching mountains. Then he directed his mount unhurriedly toward the castle. Though the sun was still high and the day fair, a cool breeze seemed to come out of nowhere, tuck cold fingers over the high collar of his armor, and wind its way slowly down his spine. Heladar Longspear rode into the High Castle and wondered how much longer it would be his.
9
Death to the Tyranny of All Mages
The great doors boomed shut, causing torches to flicker up and down the walls of the high-ceilinged great hall, reflected flames glimmering on the motionless helms and breastplates of the lord’s honor guard. The Council of the High Dale was in session.
Lord Heladar Longspear looked glumly down the great table. The searchers had so far come back empty-handed. Their mysterious enemies had slid away from seeking blades as a breeze loses itself in the woods. An old man and a girl, if the report just in from Eastkeep was to be believed. Only two, with swords and some magic, against all his warriors and the mages of the Brotherhood.
Yet there were almost thirty fresh graves up behind the barracks. Worse, the arch-backed chairs halfway down the table where the lesser mages sat were empty. Mrinden, Kalassyn, and Sabryn were not here. Of the three, only Kalassyn still lived—and he lay abed, still too near death to walk about or sit in a chair half the evening. No one looked at the empty seats.
Silence fell over the murmuring councillors as Heladar’s gaze ranged over them all. Twelve pairs of eyes looked back at him. Longspear did not bother to rise, smile, or utter empty words of welcome. They all knew why he’d called them here.
“Councillors,” he said heavily, his eyes on the few faces he did not know as fellow agents of the Brotherhood, “I thank you for your swiftness in answering my call. Haste is of importance in dealing with any violence, unless one wants open war to erupt. We must deal speedily with the mysterious attacks and lawless outrages that have occurred in our fair dale this day and the night just past.”
He left a little silence then. As usual, the most stupid of the local merchants rushed in to fill it. Fat Jatham, they called the wheezing, heavy-lidded, pudding-bellied weaver. He wore a splendid tunic, his own work no doubt.
“Hem—ah, Lord,” Jatham breathed, “we’ve all heard wild rumors of battle, and spells, and many of y—our brave warriors slain. But I daresay most of us—as I, myself—were abed, asleep, for most of what went on. Will you tell us what befell?”
Longspear stared at him, not letting anything show on his face. Was the little man’s slip about the sword brothers deliberate or merely slow wits? Everyone in this room and the dale around knew with cold certainty that the men-at-arms—his Wolves, the people called them—obeyed only Longspear and the m
ages. It was not polite, however, to say so. If open defiance started, it would spread like a wind-driven fire in dry grass. And if stamping it out meant a weaver’s body swinging on the newly built gibbets on the castle walls, what of that?
He raised his hand to indicate Angruin. The cold-eyed mage brought him orders from Zhentil Keep, often making it clear he thought swordsmen like Longspear were just barely intelligent enough to obey them. He made it clear that Heladar was to take orders from him, in private, or suffer the wrath of Manshoon—after the pain of whatever dark magic Angruin Myrvult cared to inflict on him.
Well, then, let Angruin obey Lord Heladar in public, and do it well. Called himself Stormcloak and thought himself a big man because he could work a few nasty spells on folk, did he? Let him do some work.
A long-ago memory came to mind: an old Zhent warrior drinking himself to death, telling Heladar, “Priests and mages both are deadly to ye, boy. Deadly to us all. Mind ye keep ’em busy, for they’re most apt to get into trouble and do ye ill with underhanded work when they’ve time to plot and scheme and skulk. Keep ’em too busy to dig ye a grave.”
Angruin dragged his cold eyes only slowly from Longspear’s face and said to the weaver, “Unknown persons—at least two and probably many more—have somehow entered our dale. They used magic against our loyal troops, so we suspect magic allowed them to sneak in among us. Our patrols first met with them in the practice field above the barracks, just north of here”—he nodded toward the window, but not a single head in the room bothered to turn and look—“last night, and there was a battle.”
He paused for effect, looking around the table. “Magical fire was hurled against our forces. For safety, we advise that no one approach that place. Spread the word among the people: Avoid the upper field. There’s nothing to see there, in any case, and the magic that still lurks there can twist the unwary into the forms of snakes, newts, or worse. Our soldiers have set a guard to discourage the curious.”