by Ed Greenwood
Maerandor sighed theatrically. Truly, Toril had become a wallow of common deceit these days …
He took the time and concentration to make sure his personal wardings were ready to turn back both hurled weapons and mighty magics, then turned and walked away from the monk he’d just killed without a backward glance.
Wendarl had been a superb calligrapher in his day, but Faerûn held thousands of skilled scribes, and the sooner there were no monks left to hamper the cause of Thultanthar and the wards of Candlekeep could be delivered to the Most High, by far the better …
He still had no way of knowing who was friend or foe. Telamont had put into his mind images of the faces of the monks who’d been covertly slain and replaced by lesser Shadovar agents—but who knew how many of them might have been killed in their turn, and replaced by Moonstars, or ambitious independents?
After all, the legendary Larloch, mightiest of liches, was very real, might well be interested in all the magic within Candlekeep, and could well seize upon this time of tumult to try to take it all for his own.
Or for that matter, the renegade Chosen of Mystra, the Elminsters and Manshoons, were always on the prowl for more magic.
To say nothing of Szass Tam of Thay, or the mysterious Ioulaum and the shadowy mages who served him, or more than a dozen others the Most High had warned his arcanists to beware.
Telamont hadn’t bothered to mention what he and Maerandor both knew—that even if every last one of these threats was accounted for and foiled, wizards lowly and mighty had a habit of lurking and waiting for opportunities to snatch powerful magic, and any one of several thousands of archmages could step out of the shadows at any time and make their own bids for the mastery—or swift plunder—of Candlekeep.
Nor were hedge wizards and archmages the only rogue dangers he must beware of just now. Long ago, Melegaunt Tanthul had warned several young arcanists that certain dragons thirsted for human magic, and had assembled their own secretive forces of agents to steal or seize spells and magic items whenever possible. Many of those agents would be long dead by now, and a handful of their masters, too, but wyrms lived long, their hungers ran deep, and agents could be replaced, generation after generation …
Maerandor had been one of those arcanists. Some of the others had been revealed as traitors to the Tanthuls, or driven by too-dangerous ambitions of their own, and were now dead. Others were missing, out there somewhere in Toril or elsewhere, on missions the High Prince had sent them on, or gone rogue and pursuing their own aims.
All of these perils meant damned near anyone and anything that hungered after magic could appear in these dim and dusty halls around Maerandor, and he had to be ready to defeat them. And swiftly, too, for while he was fighting one foe, he was necessarily inattentive to the plots and covert deeds of others, not to mention a trammeled, easy target for a second or third enemy—or just too preoccupied to see foes arriving, and what they might do and take.
Of more immediate concern were the known foes whose faces the Most High had shown him and informed him were here in Candlekeep, posing as monks. They had to be hunted down and destroyed, right now, before—
“Hold!”
That snarled command came from one direction, at the same moment a spell lashed out from another, catching Maerandor between them.
His wards flashed as the spell that had been meant to slay him was flung back at its caster in a shrieking spray of white sparks, leaving a monk reeling and moaning in pain. Maerandor turned a layer of his wards hard and solid, and used it to shove that man back against the nearest wall, pinning him there, gasping for breath and sobbing from the pain his own spell had caused him.
Then he ignored his attacker, to concentrate on the one who’d told him to halt.
“You hold,” he commanded coldly, “or die.”
Maerandor could see the monk who’d spoken. Who should be a fellow Shadovar, but …
“Send any magic my way, and you’ll die horribly—and without delay,” he added tersely, and lowered his wards enough to use a spell the Most High had given him.
It was a minor magic that identified persons Telamont had long ago magically marked—no guarantee of loyalty, only of identity; those the spell “found” would be arcanists of Thultanthar, no matter who or what they might now look like.
A silver flare kindled around the eyes of the man who’d challenged him, and in those of the man who’d just tried to kill him.
Which meant both were Shadovar.
“I speak with the full authority of the Most High,” Maerandor informed them, “and you will accompany me now, and obey me as you would him.”
He did not have to add “Or die.” He made certain his quiet voice held that flat promise.
“And who are you,” the one who’d challenged him asked sharply, “to claim the supremacy of the Most High? I’ve never seen you before; how do I know you’re not one of these Moonstars, up to tricks? Or Old Elminster the Meddler?”
Maerandor gave the man a brittle smile. He’d been waiting for this.
And he was ready. Telamont had made certain he would be ready. The spell he was using to identify Thultanthans had another facet to it. The Declaration. He stepped back to where he could readily meet the eyes of both men, and used it on them.
Telamont Tanthul, High Prince of Thultanthar, was not a man who often raised his voice. He didn’t need to, when his calm, cold, quiet voice carried doom enough. The Declaration was no shout, but the spell made it roll into their minds so powerfully that it might as well have been.
I am the High Prince of Thultanthar, and my word is law in Shade and all lands under the dominion of the matchless city of Thultanthar. I am Lord Shadow, and when I go to war, the mightiest arcanists of Netheril serve me, and when I am at peace, the most brilliant Netherese kneel to me and do my bidding and exalt my city. I am the ruler of the greatest city of Netheril, and I am the most powerful in Thultanthar. I am the rightful ruler of all Netherese; there is no other. Obey this my servant Maerandor, or face my wrath.
The mental echoes of that mind-voice had both men on their knees, half in awed obedience and half in dazed collapse, beaten down, by the time the last word smote them.
“Well?” Maerandor asked them, into the near silence of their labored breathing, his challenge barely more than a whisper.
They looked up at him like whipped dogs, wary and yet eager to obey. “I—whatever you command, Lord Maerandor,” the unwounded man said hastily.
“Y-yes,” the man still pinned to the wall managed, swallowing blood.
“Come,” Maerandor snapped briskly, and he strode away, loosening his ward hold over the man and returning it to full defensive mettle.
He might well need it.
They stalked through a labyrinth of dim and cluttered chambers, walled in books and roofed in hanging maps, dominated by stout wooden tables and crude wooden benches.
Everywhere underfoot there were ribbons of sticky, starting-to-dry blood—and at the end of each one there sprawled the body of a monk.
Other Shadovar joined them as they went, none needing the hammer of the Declaration. Six, eight, eleven … Maerandor smiled, feeling powerful enough to swagger at last.
Which meant, of course, he’d best gird himself against real danger.
He let go of Telamont’s recognition spell in favor of the far more widely known magic of true sight. It would go ill if he missed a real foe among the still-living monks he met.
They heard shouts, and more than one booming echo of a burst that was almost certainly a spell hurled in anger—but thus far, in room after room, they found no living monks.
So Maerandor turned and used his augmented vision on the Shadovar with him.
And with a grim and utter lack of surprise, saw that one of the purported Thultanthans was an impostor. That is, someone who must have murdered a Shadovar, impersonating a quietly slain monk.
For he could see now that this false Shadovar had a face Telamont had warned him
belonged to one Saerlar Stormwyvern, a half-elf Moonstar.
Maerandor pointed and snarled, “A Moonstar! That one—kill him!”
There was a rush to do just that, as Stormwyvern’s hands flashed through a desperate incantation—but before any magic could erupt, Candlekeep around them gave a mighty shudder, the stones rumbling and groaning so violently that everyone was flung off their feet.
Bouncing bruisingly, shouting in fear, or snarling out curses, the Shadovar bounced from wall to wall, shattering lanterns.
The great shaking seemed to be welling up beneath them, the floors bulging up and then falling back.
“Earthquake!” someone cried.
“We’re doomed!” another Shadovar shouted.
“The ceiling’s falling! It falls!”
A few stones and tiles and a lot of dust did fall, pelting and bouncing down, but no general roaring collapse came down on them.
Shockingly, though, the floating, magical glowing globes that provided general overhead illumination in this room of Candlekeep as in so many others all winked out in unison, plunging the chamber into darkness, as all around Maerandor, men grunted, grappled, and screamed as they were wounded—or stabbed to death.
There had been time enough, but only just.
The shield of force Elminster had spun from the Weave was large and curved enough to keep him from being flattened—as it was slammed to the floor and battered down by a thunderous deluge of falling rock, with him beneath it.
The roaring torrent became a syncopated hammering that gave way to individual stones crashing, bouncing, and rolling … and then to echoes and swirling dust.
Out of which Elminster’s shield came whirling, hurled across the cavern with the full strength of the Old Mage’s will and the wards of Candlekeep.
To slap Alustriel and Laeral as if it was a great paddle, batting them head over heels across the echoing expanse of the cavern.
El sought to pin the sisters against the rocks of the far wall—but skidding on knees and elbows, eyes flashing, they both called on the wards too.
Wards they’d been attuned to and living with far longer than Elminster ever had, wards now very familiar to them—and responsive to their will.
The shield racing at them slowed abruptly, came to a stop … and started coming back at Elminster, ponderously at first, but then with ever-quickening speed.
Elminster gave it a disapproving look, and it slowed abruptly. A ripple ran down his jawline, and the shield stopped.
And started back to where the two sisters stood side by side, glaring at him. They gave the shield a mental shove, and it shuddered, slowing abruptly. Elminster shoved back.
Alustriel’s eyes glowed, flaring like two lamps, and the shield shook in the air. Elminster thrust at it with all he could call up from the wards.
And all light flickered and then failed, the cavern around them and under their feet shuddering as the Weave convulsed, shockwaves rippling.
El felt a drift of dust and fine sand falling on his face as Candlekeep groaned above him, a yawning slow and loud and deep, that fell into the rumbling of an earthquake.
He took six swift crouching steps to his right in the utter darkness—and that proved to be wise, because as the rumbling died and the magical radiances faded back into being, the shield was racing right at where he’d been standing.
And it was coming edge on, this time.
It swerved around in a slicing arc as Laeral and Alustriel saw where he now stood, and came at him again.
Elminster lifted his lip in a mirthless smile and strode to meet it.
The spell that would serve him best right then was already taking hold; a magic that would cleave the shield and anything else solid sent at him, leaving a path of emptiness before him wreathed in shimmering magical fire.
It did just that, smoothly slicing the shield asunder, and El left it seeking new things to devour as he used the Weave to call on the wards of the keep again, trying to bring down the cavern wall behind Alustriel and Laeral, so rubble would rain onto their heads—just as they’d sought to serve him.
His call became ineffectual tugging. They were using the Weave, two to his one, and their control over the wards remained firm.
The cavern wall didn’t even tremble.
Not that they’d been idle. He raised his cleaving fire and tried to twist it to intercept magic, but it was still transforming when the spells they’d just cast tore through it and struck him—a roaring burst of flames enveloping his head and hands, as ice seared and rimed him below the waist.
El had to fight for breath enough to scream.
He writhed in agony, trying to cry out and blinded by scalding steam billowing up from the roiling, clawing meeting of fire and ice right across his chest. He was vaguely aware of falling backward, legs frozen and rigid, the silver fire within him leaping out of half a dozen raw wounds and licking up and down his limbs.
He landed hard and bounced, only his silver fire keeping his lower body from being shattered. He could not even squirm. Shudder, yes, but that was his ravaged body’s doing, not something he could control. He lay there shaking and helpless, in whimpering agony.
“Sorry, old friend and mentor,” he heard Alustriel say sadly, from somewhere close above him. “We didn’t want to do this. We never wanted to have to do anything like this to you.”
“Yet do it we must,” Laeral wept. “Finish it, Luse. Finish him now, before we weaken and change our minds. Still alive, he’s a peril forever. Do it!”
“I think not,” someone else said then.
It was a cold and calm voice that Elminster had heard before.
“Oh? And who are you?” Alustriel asked sharply—and there followed an ear-shattering explosion.
“Is that the best you can do?” the newcomer asked contemptuously. “Truly, Chosen have become lesser beings than they were in my day.”
“And when was that, bone lord?” Laeral snapped, and through swimming tears El was aware of a blindingly bright flash of emerald light.
The cold voice laughed. “You seem used to destroying far feebler liches. I am Larloch, the First Chosen of Mystryl, and her herald. Some call me the Shadow King. You may call me—Oblivion.”
You grew used to the gentle singing of the City of Song after a time, Amarune had discovered. It was as beautiful and softly ethereal as ever, but it faded in your awareness to an ever-present background. Until something louder and more strident drowned it out.
War horns blared, deep and menacingly mournful, through the trees. Mercenaries’ horns. They were coming now, a widespread crashing of leaves and dead twigs underfoot amid the thunder of many rushing warriors’ boots, pouring through the forest in an all-out charge. The armies of Shade, striking in unison at last.
Converging not just on Storm, Amarune, and Arclath, nor the elves who stood with them, but closing in from all directions on the core of Myth Drannor that the elves still held, the war horns dying away in mournful echoes as a cacophony of shouts, war cries, and bellowed orders arose.
“Steady,” Arclath commanded no one in particular, as he stood beside his beloved. Storm was on Amarune’s other side, sword ready and the long silver tresses of her hair stirring around her shoulders like so many restless snakes. On either side of them stood a line of elves—a line only one defender deep, a pitiful handful to stand against so many onrushing mercenaries.
“Strike to disable,” Arclath added quietly, “and let their fallen become a barrier we can defend.”
Storm nodded. “Wise words, but—”
Then there was no more time for nervous talk. The charging mercenaries had reached them, roaring.
In half a breath the world became a confusing, bloody chaos of hacking swords. The shriek and clang of steel was deafening, birds fleeing from branches overhead squalling but utterly unheard.
Rune and Arclath stabbed and parried and sidestepped, but the footing soon became treacherous and they fell into the same attacks as their attac
kers—hacking wildly and frantically, like unskilled wanderers trying to cut their way out of a forest thicket. There wasn’t room to do anything else; the few spears thrust high and tangled in branches overhead, their wielders reeling back, too wounded to keep hold of them. Blood sprayed blindingly in all directions as sword hands were lopped off and throats laid open, men reeled and fell, and … suddenly it was over, and the mercenaries were falling back.
Leaving mounds of heaped dead and moaning, writhing wounded behind them. Ruthlessly the blood-drenched elf defenders advanced to stab the stricken into silence.
Everyone was panting hard, covered in sticky blood—and Storm was working hard alongside the elves, tendrils of her hair plucking daggers from mercenary sheaths and swords from under bodies or out of failing hands, tossing the gleaned weapons back among the elf lines.
The besiegers hadn’t gone far. They were within easy bowshot, through the trees, though no shafts were flying.
The surviving high mages had boosted the city’s mythal to quench flames and slow arrows, spears, and other missiles in midair, but it had been done in haste, and they lacked skill and might enough for the augmentation to be permanent. The new abilities rode the age-old mythal uneasily, flickering and fitful.
A proof of this came hurtling: a spear arcing through the air from among the milling mercenaries. It deflected off a tree to crash to the forest floor, rattling and sliding … but didn’t stop until it found heaped bodies.
“Our mages must be getting tired,” a bladesinger panted, leaning back against a tree trunk beside Storm. “When they falter, so do the new mythal powers.”
“At least the mythal work keeps them from getting underfoot when swords are swinging,” Storm replied.
That brought a wry and weary grin to the bladesinger’s face, but Storm didn’t echo it. Rather, she turned and beckoned Arclath and Amarune, looking thoughtful.