The Herald

by Ed Greenwood

  Their owner was murmuring something soft and low, strange words that bore the hum of power. An incantation.

  As it came to an end Arclath felt suddenly rigid, hard and cold and somehow at the same time detached from himself, distant from the smoke-muffled din of battle. He couldn’t move, not a muscle, even his breathing came with a struggle, through a tightening chest and throat.

  And now, he was tight all over.

  Helpless. Immobile on this battlefield sharp with the stink of charcoal, of trees gone half to ash and brush scorched away into windblown cinders.

  Storm’s hair was gone, her reassuring touch absent too … and now the very ground beneath him had left him.

  He rose into the air, ascending smoothly. Straight up, if the eddying and swirling smoke around him could be trusted.

  And then he was rising no longer, but sliding forward through the air, horizontal and feet first, scudding along rigid through thinning smoke … yet into air that was somehow thicker, heavier and yet alive. His heart thudded and the air all over his body jutted out on end as a tingling within him grew and grew and … he was briefly aware of a soundless burst and a roiling of impossibly bright blueness, a spray that washed over him like water yet left no wetness upon him that he lanced through as lights flared and pulsed silently around him and then were gone in his wake.

  The air thinned, and the thrilling, tingling vitality left him—left behind in that place in his wake where the air had been thicker and heavier. Suddenly Arclath knew what had happened. The mythal. He’d just flown through the magical walls of Myth Drannor without harm.

  Not alone, of course. Storm had done it and was with him, and somehow he could feel Rune beyond her, the three of them arrowing on in unison.

  Over flashing swords and struggling men and elves, and what was briefly a grisly carpet of the sprawled and bloody dead below, ere they all raced into a dark, riven shell of stone, and slowed as abruptly as if an unseen giant’s hand had barred their way and started to drag them down.

  Down they sank, through what had been a magnificent upswept tower before boulders the size of warehouses had been hurled into it, to crash against and then through its walls. What was left of the tower was a mere shell, broken open to the sky and all down one flank.

  They sank past a collapsed floor hanging in tatters, and amid the wreckage he saw more bodies, many so battered and smeared that they were more bloody splatterings on the old stones than corpses. Beyond that was another floor that no longer existed and sweeping stairs, which lay shattered and dangling in splintered claws, ending in nothingness. Then they sank past a mirror, in which Arclath saw not a silver-haired bard flanked by two younger humans, but three ballista shafts, the great sleek iron war lances fired like giant arrows by wagon-sized ballistae.

  Then they passed into deeper darkness, as a great stone floor rose to meet them, and the jagged roots of the tower walls hid the forest battlefield from view.

  And they were human again, stumbling as their feet met shattered flagstones and abundant strewn stone rubble atop that floor.

  Storm’s strong arms steadied them, and Arclath couldn’t keep himself silent any longer. “Ballista shafts? You fired us into Myth Drannor disguised as ballista shafts?”

  “Flew us, actually,” the Bard of Shadowdale murmured. “Yes. And through the mythal—the Mythal—yes. Some centuries back Elminster showed me how to pass through it without visible display or taking harm. So …”

  She raised a warning finger to her lips and tilted her head warningly in the direction of the stairs leading up out of the dimness around them. Down them had come a clinking sound. They listened to it in silence, and when no sounds of someone moving closer came, Storm leaned close to Arclath and Rune and added a quieter whisper. “Welcome to the besieged remnants of Myth Drannor. Specifically, to the ruins of an old watchtower recently shattered by the besiegers, in the part of the city where all races mixed: Dlabraddath.”

  Arclath and Amarune gave each other reassuring glances that became an embrace. Lord Delcastle wasn’t just reassured to see his ladylove’s face and know she was unharmed, he was reassured to find Storm’s conjured darkness gone, so he could see Rune at all.

  “And now?” Rune asked Storm, from the sheltering warmth of Arclath’s arms.

  The ageless bard smiled rather impishly. “Now we try to slip out of here into the city proper. Which probably won’t be all that easy.”

  Arclath gave her a wry half grin. “Why do I know you’re right about that?”

  “Possibly because you’ve learned the trifling beginnings of a sense of how the world works during your years thus far, Lord Delcastle,” she replied, as haughtily as any dowager duchess of Cormyr.

  Arclath grinned at her. “You’ve never stopped being a marchioness of the Forest Kingdom, have you?”

  Storm smiled back at him. “I’ve never felt the need to stop. It comes in useful. Briefly and every century or so.”

  Rune sighed. “If you two ornaments of belted nobility are quite finished being arch …” She indicated the stairs with an elaborate flourish that would have done the most flamboyant servant proud.

  Storm chuckled as she strolled to the worn stone steps. “Lady Delcastle, you’re a fellow belted ornament now.”

  “Don’t remind me. Bad enough that I seem to be some sort of echo of Elminster.”

  Storm snorted. “I’ve heard similar sentiments a time or two before, from others.”

  “And what befell those others?” Arclath asked.

  “They’re dead. Of passing years, not some sort of curse or inevitable lurking doom. Now belt up, I pray you. This is a battlefield, remember?”

  And with that, Storm led the way up the rubble-choked stairs, her silver tresses holding swords and daggers at the ready and swirling out to probe the walls, steps, and ceiling ahead.

  Beams had fallen, to lean and slope in a crazy maze, but the lady bard picked her way calmly through them, stepped delicately over a crushed body from which a lone rib jutted up like a dagger, and headed for a narrow strip of daylight where a door stood ajar, jammed half open by what had fallen on it from above.

  The two young Cormyreans joined her, halting abruptly as she flung out a wall of silver tresses like a barrier in front of them. More of her hair had drifted past the edge of the door to hold up a polished silver vial from her belt to serve as a mirror.

  Storm studied what was reflected in its tiny side, sighed so softly they could barely hear her, and drew her hair back in around her into a sedate mane that would arouse no comment until she passed someone who happened to notice its sheer size; it was as if she was wearing a large trader’s carrysack down her back, but all made of solid hair.

  She shot them a silent, severe “Behave!” warning look over her shoulder, then stepped smoothly around the door.

  They came out into leaf-dappled sunlight and found themselves in a field hospital of sorts, a litter of cots among the roofless remnants of a hall that had been attached to the tower. On all sides wounded elves lay in suffering silence or murmuring pain, tended by elves, half-elves, a dwarf, and two humans.

  One of those humans was a lame, badly limping barrel of a man, a warrior or former warrior by the looks of his sword scars and the filthy remnants of what had once been a leather war harness. Standing in the path that led down from the tower door through what had been the main aisle of the hall, he turned quickly at the sound of footfalls in the rubble before the tower door, snatching at a long, wicked dagger at his belt and growling wordless challenge like a dog.

  At his first sight of Storm he froze, jaw dropping open in astonishment that became a wide smile of joy. He left off drawing his dagger to put hands on hips and stand and stare, grinning.

  Storm strode toward him serenely, having seen his jovial, crude and worldly wise sort a time or thousand before.

  “Hoy, now!” he exclaimed. Then, catching sight of Arclath striding just behind Storm, he grinned. “Snuck off into the tumbled stones f
or a bit o’ privacy, hey? Well, can’t say as I blame—”

  The warrior broke off as he espied Rune behind Arclath. He sidestepped, leaned, and peered hard to make sure there were only three people coming toward him out of the fallen tower where there should have been no one. He hadn’t seen any women among the besiegers before, but …

  Then his leer returned, even more broadly. He gave Arclath a wink and growled, “Well, if some jacks don’t have all the luck in fair Faerûn! Still, if you’re man enough …”

  “Crude oaf,” Rune commented, but almost fondly.

  The man chuckled. “Well, lass, if you ever wear him out, keep me in mind, hey? Thardyn Hammerhar; ‘the Hammerer,’ they call me, and it’s not for—”

  “Your subtlety,” Storm completed his sentence for him dryly, striding past. “Now, where is the coronal most likely to be found?”

  “The coronal?”

  “Yes,” Storm said crisply. “Ilsevele. Or Fflar, if he’s not too busy fighting at the moment.”

  The man gaped at her. “Who are you?”

  “Just one of many you should treat a trifle more politely,” Storm replied gently, as several of her long silver tresses darted out to encircle the wrist of a half-elf healer at a nearby cot, and forestall his stealthy drawing of a dagger. She whirled to confront him.

  Thardyn Hammerhar grabbed again for his own dagger—but froze once more as he felt Arclath’s sword tip at his throat. The young noble watched him sternly from right behind it.

  Amarune stepped past them all to regard the rest of the wounded and those tending them, and announced, “No trouble, please. We are not here to do you harm.” She raised her hands as if she was a mighty—and calmly confident—archmage, and stood waiting.

  Behind her, the half-elf healer tugged with all his might, but couldn’t make his sword arm more than tremble in the grip of silver hair that was suddenly as immovable as a wall of iron, as he and Storm stared expressionlessly into each other’s eyes.

  More of her tresses were moving, doing other things. One of them was plucking up a stone, a shard of the ruin, and holding it beside her face, in front of his gaze.

  Still other tresses reached out as gently as a windblown feather to a wound that was seeping blood through its bindings, to return blood smirched, and with the wet gore draw a symbol—two vertical lines bracketing two identical ovals—on the stone.

  Storm watched the eyes she was gazing into closely, but saw no recognition there. Her tresses smeared the blood across the stone to obscure the symbol she’d made, and she released the healer.

  Arclath watched. Had that been a Harper rune, or an old sigil of the elves? He knew better than to ask Storm, even as he tried to fix the symbol in his memory for later. If there was a later …

  “Ilsevele?” Storm repeated, to all of the silently watching, astonished healers. “Fflar?”

  One of the elves among them shook his head a little helplessly, but offered her a bowl. “Broth?”

  “An acceptable alternative,” Storm replied with a smile as dazzling as it was sudden.

  He’d seen the monks frowning after him as he’d hastened back out of the kitchens. Obviously, it wasn’t like Chethil to journey down into Candlekeep’s extensive cellars and forget to fetch back anything at all needed for the evening meal. Not to mention something so large, obvious, and awkward to carry as onions …

  Maerandor shrugged. His fellow workers in the kitchens would be noticing other small and no doubt odd changes in their senior cook, henceforth; he couldn’t help that.

  He took care not to look back as if he was checking to see if he was being followed. The creaking door at the head of the second stair he’d be taking was all the alarm he needed; if he heard it not, there was no pursuit.

  Not that he cared overmuch, though it would have been very inconvenient to have to kill Rethele or Shinthrynne just now, and be saddled with even more cooking.

  All he needed was long enough to hasten along this old, well-worn hall, and back up the other stair into the Long Passage—he could tell it was deserted just now because he couldn’t hear the Endless Chant echoing along it—to do what must be done next.

  Before he returned in triumph to the kitchens with the sleeves of onions he’d hidden ready earlier, that is.

  The passage was indeed deserted, and here was the stretch of wall he sought. Here where the everglow was strongest. He slid the hood off the old candle lamp, raised it, and started scorching and blackening the stone with care, making a certain mark—two vertical lines bracketing two identical ovals—thus.

  And it was done, that swiftly. He spun around and strode back to the stair that had brought him there; standing back and taking time to admire your handiwork was an apt-to-be-fatal mistake of the rash and inexperienced.

  He knew it stood out dark, fresh, and clear behind him. The symbol that would alert other monks who’d been subverted by the Shadovar long ago that it was at last time to rise, and act.

  “Act” as in eliminating all other monks and seizing control of the monastery. With no monks left to try to wield the wards against foes—such as revealed Shadovar, when the time came—the wards would hum unaltered, and could be drained all the more easily. And that time would be soon.

  So, now, take the next step closer.

  Maerandor smiled as he went to fetch his onions.

  Time to loose the prowling beast.

  Its lack of wrinkles had told him that Andannas Dalkur’s face seldom wore a scowl, to say nothing of a frown, so Elminster took care not to let his inward frown reach the borrowed face he was wearing.

  It was the twelfth day of Marpenoth today. Which meant he couldn’t deny that it was taking him a very long time to uncover which tomes Khelben had secretly taken a hand in crafting, or written outright, without being overly obvious about it.

  It was taking him even longer to find any of them.

  Might even take him forever.

  Thus far, he’d laid eyes or hands on not a single one.

  In room after room, he’d found the titles he knew to look for were missing. Even The Beneficial Flows and Their Mastery, a book the monks often copied for various rulers and civic officials because it was so exhaustively practical a work on sewers, drainage, and fertilizer. The keep had owned more than thirty copies of that particular tome … yet he could find none of them.

  Obviously someone who’d arrived in Candlekeep before him shared his conclusions about Khelben—that the Blackstaff had hidden clues within his works here at the keep. Possibly in the form of invisible-under-normal-circumstances magical writing, or more likely by means of a skip spell that—once triggered by the utterance of the right word or phrase, or the touching of the right sequence of separated words on a particular early page of the book—would illuminate specific words of the text throughout the book, in a particular sequence, to form different sentences than met the eyes of any casual reader.

  He had come to this hunt too late. Someone, or someones, had struck first, removing the books he sought.

  Still carefully not frowning, El did not turn away from the shelf that hadn’t held the Arunsun-penned tome that should have been there, but instead peered along it, as if interested in the nicely bound dross that filled out its run. He could feel the weight of suspicious scrutiny from behind him, like a spear boring through his back between his shoulder blades, and from his left, like the searing flame of a too-close fire. There were multiple monks in both directions, apparently lost in their own silent, contemplative study of various tomes he’d already noticed weren’t by Khelben.

  He had taken great care, of course, not to obviously search for any book, least of all title after title by one author, and had broken off seeking Blackstaff books to peruse all manner of unrelated tomes whenever he thought he was in the presence of a monk who was the double of any of the bodies he’d found … yet some time ago he’d become aware that certain of the monks were covertly watching him.

  Regarding him with increasing susp
icion.

  So now he feigned finding something that delighted him. He reached out and seized a tome with a loud and pleased, “Aha!”

  His find wasn’t entirely a random book; he’d pounced on a volume that had nothing to do with Khelben, but that was old enough, and written by someone who dwelled in the right location in the Realms, to have possibly had something to do with Khelben. The Blackstaff’s publicly known offices, residences, and concerns, that is.

  Tucking the tome under his arm, El scurried out of the room and down a back passage, departing the busier areas of that part of Candlekeep.

  His find happened to be something that should be required reading for all practitioners of the Art, and that thieving guilds and cabals often stole on sight: Shield and Sentinel: Observations on Warding Magic, by Alais Maeraphym. Not a spellbook, but a workbook of half-spells and incantations that could augment the well-known castings. Useful and well written; Alais had been a warm, affectionate woman, and her prose was too. A book any novice wizard would lust after.

  He hurried along dimly lit back passages and down worn but little-used stairs, heading deeper into the rocky roots of the monastery, where the spellcasting caverns were. And that very haste caused someone behind him to hurry, and so make a few little noises—scuffs and scrapes of soft leather soles on stone. There, again. Yes, someone was following him, he was sure of it.

  Skulking, taking care not to make overmuch noise or show a light, but stalking him, to be sure.

  El smiled tightly, and kept on going, slowing now so as not to lose his shadow.

  “I thought I’d be done saving the world by now,” he murmured to himself, closing and barring the one door he could so fasten behind him, to force his foe to take a longer way around. “Saving, heh. No shortage of overweening arrogance here … yet that is what I do, and know it. I strive for the better, albeit all too oft by lawless or ruthless means. Yet I can’t stop, not until my oblivion comes.”

  He descended another stair, and added, “Because what I do must be done, and aside from the bare handful of my fellow tested and true Chosen, I can trust no one else to do it. No one.”