Eldroon shrugged, rose, looked at Yellander, and went to the silently flickering portal. Yellander hastened to join him. They looked at each other, then drew their swords.
Together they stepped through the cold blue flames—and together gaped in astonishment at what they saw through the common room door.
Unseen men shouted, and a surging magic of tumbling velvet night shot through with roaring sparks flooded across the common room. They saw it wash over some support pillars and melt those stout timbers away.
Chairs and tables sighed into nothingness as the dark magic passed through them, rolling right on through back pantries, off to the left.
In its wake, daylight flooded the riven room, leaving them gazing at distant roofs in Halfhap.
With those pillars gone, the ceiling began to loudly groan and sag.
Yellander and Eldroon exchanged astonished, fearful looks—and hastily retreated back through the portal again.
Eirhaun found himself standing in the sunlight on the top step of the entry stair into the Oldcoats Inn, in Halfhap, staring through a blasted-open hole that had presumably recently been its front doorway. And blinking in astonishment.
Had all of the Brotherhood mages he’d sent gone mad? They were leaping around the room they’d obviously destroyed, hurling spells at each other! Well, he Bane-be-damned knew what would happen the moment they noticed him; they’d all turn on him. No one likes a ruthless, devoted-to-humiliation teacher.
But then, he’d never liked any of them, either. His shielding was singing around him now, fully up and working.
So Eirhaun allowed himself a smile of anticipation, raised his hands, and quietly and precisely cast the most powerful battle-spell he knew.
Had there been no spell-chaos roiling and grappling in the room in front of him, they’d probably all—or all but the two or three most accomplished, perhaps—perished as that spell smote them.
As it was, one burst apart like a rotten fruit, another burned like a torch, howling in helpless dying agony—and the others all staggered, turned with hatred in their eyes, recognized him, and started casting their strongest remaining battle-spells.
Eirhaun called up a magic in his mind that should slay one of them. He was still debating which one he should fell when half a dozen Zhentarim spells howled into his shielding.
And the world around Eirhaun briefly vanished.
His shielding flared into blinding radiance, searing whiteness that faded into rainbow hues. He was still struggling to peer through them when his legs started changing, bulging and flexing into amorphous bonelessness, all at once. The pain made him sob involuntarily, it was … so great, so horribly …
His shielding was going wild around him, as spells fought for supremacy within it. It was clawing at him, and he was still changing, barbed wings sprouting from his breast in a sickening struggling of knees and elbows that shouldn’t be there, but were bursting out of him, sliding through his ribs … it was agony, it was terrible …
As he sank to his knees, or rather collapsed into wriggling tentacles, his ribs and all twisting into snakelike things that he stared at with revulsion, Eirhaun became aware that one of his eyes was growing very large and thrusting forward out of his face, while the other stayed its usual self and stared in horror. He also became aware that someone was shrieking in agony, long and raw howls and wails of agony and terror.
Then, at last, he became aware that the shrieking someone was him.
Which crystal had chimed had told Sarhthor where the trouble was. He had teleported to his favorite tower in Halfhap, intending to use magic to locate the precise location of the summons, but one glance across Halfhap had told him the Oldcoats Inn was the place to be.
Or rather, not to be. Frowning, he’d teleported again, to a spot he knew, right behind the hotel desk. He’d taken care to arrive crouching, and that thoughtfulness had served him well.
It seemed his arrival hadn’t been detected, and his personal wardings had thus far passed unnoticed as he crouched in hiding behind the hotel desk—and warring Zhentarim blasted most of the Oldcoats Inn down into sagging, perilously hanging ruin in front of him.
He’d watched them, thrusting two tendrils of his shielding around the edges of the desk to serve him as eyes, and seen Eirhaun’s arrival—and their unison attack on him. He harbored no love for Eirhaun—no one in the Brotherhood did, not that any Zhentarim dared allow friendship or kindness to weaken their schemes for an instant—but this … this was madness.
Something was afflicting these magelings, who hitherto had smoldered in waiting maliciousness, not daring to hurl their every spell as they were doing now. Something was forcing them to dare this much.
Wherefore that something had to be hurled out of the Realms, to protect all mages everywhere. If it cost the Brotherhood every last one of these ambitious magelings, what of it? Faerûn bred no shortage of ambitious magelings.
Frowning, Sarhthor spun a particular ring around on the middle finger of his left hand, until its customary display was beneath, and its band uppermost. He kissed that band, carefully murmured a word, and kissed it again.
Whereupon the ring spat itself off his finger, into his other (waiting) palm, and became a shield-shaped, rigid scroll. He touched two of its many runes in the right sequence to awaken it to life and make its words appear; when he could see them, he slowly and carefully cast the spell laid out before him.
Ere long his words boomed and rolled, forcing a hush over that battling room by the sheer weight of their power. Sarhthor spoke on, his body starting to shake from the power racing into and through it, streaming out into a roiling something that became a darkness in the air, a waiting, reaching darkness that plucked at the startled warring Zhentarim.
Then he finished the spell, completing the last gestures with nary a tremble. It was done, now, and the howling darkness of his creation snatched all of his fellow Zhentarim out of the shattered room before him.
The Abyss would take them; they would be whirled away into it, there to fend for themselves, hopefully taking that cursed something that was afflicting them with them.
The darkness was roaring now, hungrily, whirling away wild-eyed and shouting Zhentarim, and wispy wraiths that came clawing up out of the eyes and mouths of two of them too. Then Eirhaun, struggling to grow a tail and fins to go with his mismatched, feebly-flapping wings—was whirled up and away with a name on his lips.
“Sarhthor, curse you!” he cried. “Ar auhammaunas dreth truarr!”
And to his horrified and helpless fury, Sarhthor felt himself plucked up from behind the desk and snatched across empty, crackling air into his own waiting darkness.
The Abyss opened many-fanged jaws and hungrily swallowed them all.
Azuth, Mystra, and fire in the Weave!
It was the only curse Ghoruld Applethorn could remember in his blind agony.
His scrying crystal had burst in front of him, spraying his face with deadly shards.
He roared in pain, spewing out thick, choking blood as he reeled back, blinded and sliced open in a hundred places.
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
Many 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 s
taff. “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!”
Swords of Dragonfire Page 17