The Herald

by Ed Greenwood

  The great wards of Candlekeep were gone.

  CHAPTER 14

  Seeking the Next Crypt

  THE MOST HIGH LOOKED AS IMPRESSIVE AS EVER. SO CALM AND casual he was frightening. Behind him, the cavernous audience chamber looked as nigh empty as usual. Huge expanses of empty marble, around …

  The great throne, of course, flanked by that bare metal table and the tammaneth rod, floating in its corner, its black spheres as empty and dark as always.

  Gwelt had never seen anything on the table, nor any radiances of risen magic in the rod’s spheres.

  But then, he’d only been in the room a handful of times, and always when preoccupied by matters that frightened him and ensnared his attention far more than mere furniture.

  He was deeply preoccupied right now. With trying to keep his own temper—and life—and yet make the High Prince of Thultanthar see that what had been done and decided thus far amounted to … sheer folly.

  Why by the untasted delights of Shar were such things always left to him?

  “Most High,” Gwelt heard himself saying carefully, “it is with the utmost respect that I say this, but say it I must, however unwelcome. You must be told of it, for the good of the city, and for our best hope of success and victory! We are on the wrong road!”

  “Convince me, arcanist,” Telamont Tanthul said coldly. “Persuade me how I and all the senior arcanists and she whom we all serve are mistaken, while just you are correct. It is in your own interest, I must warn you, to persuade me both well and swiftly.”

  “Forgive me, Most High, but I decry not the goals the Divine Mistress of the Night desires us to achieve, but the means—and only the means—by which we are attempting to reach them. Specifically, this siege of Myth Drannor.”

  “Be more specific, Gwelt.”

  “We seek the might of its mythal. As I see it, no host of unwashed mercenaries can master the Art to achieve this, so they must be mere distraction, occupying the elves so that those who can drain the mythal’s power can work unhampered. Yet the siege itself will inevitably destroy much of the magic that is—yes?—our only reward for winning the city. After all, who but elves would want a good handful of old, poorly repaired buildings plus rather fewer new ones, in the heart of a deep and overgrown forest? It is so remote as to have no great strategic value, and hurling it down or capturing it is far less impressive to others than, say, the taking of Candlekeep or Athkatla would be. Why—”

  Sudden black light flashed in the empty air to their left, and Gwelt’s argument faltered. Black light? He turned in time to see a star of leaping rays that faded and dwindled as swiftly as they had appeared, to leave behind something floating upright in midair.

  Something grisly. A dead, scorched man in what was left of the cassock of a lowly monk, his head lolling on a broken neck. The blackened head had lost all its hair, but the face was still clear enough.

  It was Relvrak, a Shadovar arcanist of no small accomplishment, who had been Gwelt’s tutor for a time, and was still his friend.

  Until now. Relvrak’s eyes were melted, as if by a fire that had raged within his skull. Even as Gwelt stared up at the ruined shell of his friend, one of those eyes slid out of its socket and began a slow slide down the blackened face, like the most bulbous of tears.

  “Where was—?” Gwelt gasped.

  “Candlekeep,” came Telamont’s calm reply.

  “But-but—surely that’s impossible! Do not the wards there prevent translocation magics from …”

  Gwelt ran out of words, awed at the implication.

  Telamont nodded expressionlessly. “Exactly. The wards must be gone.” He turned to look at the great black rod floating in its corner, and saw that its globes remained empty and dark.

  He added coldly, “And their might has not flowed into my hands.”

  He turned back to Gwelt. “Begone now. I have work to do. You can rant later, when I’ve time to pretend to care about it. Go.”

  “But—”

  “Go.”

  Gwelt took one look at Telamont’s face, then hastily bowed low and backed away. By the time he was passing out through the audience chamber doors, he was almost running.

  The baelnorn did not bother to glow. There was no one to impress or frighten away from that which he guarded.

  The passage around him was as deep and dark as ever, the air stale and undisturbed. Which was good.

  The baelnorn was content, not bored. He had so much to contemplate, so many matters to weigh and speculate upon. When an intruder did come—and they always did come, in the end—he hoped to plumb their knowledge and memories of what the world now was, to compare his conjured possibilities of what might befall with what had actually occurred, so he could contemplate anew. Such thinking he greatly enjoyed, and had lacked time enough to indulge in, back in the busy, crowded, emotionally ruled days of his life.

  Deep in these oldest crypts of Myth Drannor, there was no converse that was not with other baelnorns, and talk among baelnorns was rare and tended to be dry, for they shared the same ignorance of what had happened since the last interment in the halls they guarded.

  Which had been long ago, even as tireless baelnorn judged passing time. So far as he knew—as everyone alive in Myth Drannor at the time of Aumarthra’s passing had known—House Iluanmaurrel was extinct. There would be no new arrivals to come and rest behind the double doors sculpted with the two-headed dove whose wings were maple leaves, no new—

  The baelnorn of House Iluanmaurrel faltered in his thoughts and flared a bright blue, startled as he had never been startled before.

  The sealed double doors he had been sadly contemplating had started to open.

  Dust swirled as the seals broke and crumbled. The doors were opening from within, one faster than the other, which meant they were being moved by unseen hands, rather than a spell.

  Bewilderment giving way to rage, the baelnorn swooped toward the widening gap between the two doors, and darted between them, ready to—

  Come to an abrupt and strangling halt, as bony hands that could somehow grasp the incorporeal undead as if they bore solid flesh took him by the throat. And tightened ruthlessly.

  He did not know the owner of those hands, smiling into his fading face as he was throttled and drained, but Larloch gave the baelnorn of House Iluanmaurrel an almost merry smile and announced, “I’m discovering I quite like the taste of elven magic. Elegant craftings. Most elegant.”

  There was a horribly long groan from overhead, a groan that sank into a swift series of sharp cracks like the lashes of lightning strikes.

  Elminster didn’t waste time looking up, at a ceiling that had just shattered and would be starting to fall—in great chunks the size of wagons, by the sounds of things. He just rushed at Laeral and Alustriel with his arms spread wide to sweep them into his grasp—and rushed them out of the room, running hard.

  They slammed through the doorway just in time. Behind them, the domed ceiling of the chamber crashed down with a mighty thunder that jarred teeth and shook the walls all around. The floor sprang up beneath their hurrying feet so hard and fast that they had fallen and bounced before they could even draw a breath.

  The thunderous echoes died away swiftly, leaving them lying in a panting heap among eddying dust and gravel.

  Elminster cleared his throat, and rolled off Alustriel’s pleasantly soft chest. “ ’Tis not often,” he growled, “that I must needs beg ye two, but now is very much one of those times. I beg ye to forgive my foolheadedness. I’ve been roundly duped. Luse—Laer—ye were right, and I was wrong. So wrong.”

  “Heh,” Laeral coughed, rolling over. “Have I waited a long time to hear that. Yet I’ll not gloat, Old Mage, but merely ask: So, what now? Wrong, duped, and how to mend it? Just so we know if we must fight you to the death again to stop you, or not, what will you seek to do now?”

  She conjured gentle handfire. Enough dust had swirled away that they could see each other’s faces.

  “M
yth Drannor’s mythal now must be destroyed,” Elminster said grimly, “to keep Larloch or Telamont from gaining its energies. No matter what the cost to the Weave—or the world—from the flood of released magic.”

  “The things gods and villains must do to make this man see sense!” Alustriel joked, and the three of them laughed together in sheer relief at being able to be full friends and make common cause again.

  Laeral stopped laughing first. “How do we stop him, El? Without the Lady, we are poor champions—and the Shadow King was powerful an age ago, and has built his power while we’ve been spending ours.”

  “He didn’t help raise the mythal, nor repair it,” El reminded them. “I did.”

  And he scrambled to his feet, slipping on loose rubble, and hastened along a passage he could barely see, through the drifting dust. The silver-haired sisters hastened to follow.

  El looked back at them and growled, “Nor can he drain a mythal so swiftly and easily, alone, as he could the wards with my help. In the midst of a siege and in the presence of elves who’ll fight fiercely to defend it, even if doing so dooms them. Come!”

  “Certainly,” Alustriel replied as they hastened along the passage, conjuring her own handfire to use like a lantern, “but come where? We can’t teleport through the mythal!”

  “No, but we can use a portal to get inside it.”

  “But the mythal now prevents …,” Laerel began, and then she started to chuckle. “Trust you. Didn’t even tell the elves, did you?”

  “Myth Drannor has fallen before. I knew they’d need a way out sometime,” El replied. “If the coronal has looked in the right places, she’ll have found my warning notes about it. So be prepared to face down guards, or some such.”

  Alustriel rolled her eyes. “The story of my life …”

  “The other Moonstars—” Laeral said urgently, plucking at his arm.

  “No time,” El snarled. “I’ll not be too late this time!”

  He rushed down a stair, and they pelted after him. Through a door and—

  Into a jakes.

  Alustriel rolled her eyes. “Your sense of humor, El, needs work. Serious work.”

  The Old Mage snorted, by way of reply. As he clambered up to stand on the garderobe seat.

  Where he bent his knees, and jumped high into the air.

  He waved one arm wildly as he leaped—and a sudden blue-white glow enshrouded them all.

  When he landed, El’s boots were on quite different stones, with Alustriel and Laeral right behind him.

  They seemed to be in quite a different privy. As deep and disused as the one they’d just left, but smelling more of forest earth, and less of the salty sea.

  This one had many stalls, and great tree roots running overhead and plunging like pillars down between the stalls, into the tiled floor. Sea-blue tiles, as beautiful as—

  “We’re in Myth Drannor,” Laeral observed.

  “Aye, indeed, and come this way!” Elminster replied over his shoulder, hastening.

  He led the two sisters to the entrance of the room, an archway that opened into a fork of two tunnel-like passages, both smelling even more strongly of damp forest earth and green growing things than the garderobe, and both veiled behind rich tapestries of royal blue inset with sparkling silver stars.

  Stars that moved seemingly by themselves, and gave off the faintest of musical chimings.

  “Well, that’s different,” Alustriel murmured. “I wouldn’t mind having the likes of those in my—”

  Stars boiled up from the tapestries and into a racing tangle of winking silver lights, hanging in midair and framed in that empty archway.

  Then they coalesced into someone they’d not seen for some time, and the archway was empty no longer.

  A diminutive, shapely female elf floated, facing them, surrounded by a nimbus of purple-white light.

  “The Srinshee!” Laeral murmured in surprise.

  The Srinshee smiled and nodded, but her face held more menace than mirth.

  “Going somewhere?” she asked, her words a clear and sharp challenge.

  The bored prince of Thultanthar at the head of the file of Shadovar walking along the stone-lined elven underways drew his sword and trailed it idly along one stone wall, making a grating, scraping sound. His brother sighed.

  “We can have haste and stealth, Brother,” Prince Vattick reminded his twin a little testily. “The quieter we are, the farther we can get before we’re battling elves at every step.”

  Prince Mattick sighed. “Yes, yes, but after all this time spent planning and posturing, I want to smash something.”

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt we’ll have opportunities enough for that. More than we’ll want, I’m thinking, and sooner than I’d prefer too.”

  “You’re probably right, but it’s been nigh deserted down here. Our hired armies are probably keeping the longears so desperately busy fighting for their lives that they can’t spare the time nor swords to—”

  From around a corner ahead, an elf in eerie blue armor floated, to bar the way in menacing silence, drawn swords raised in either hand.

  Vattick gave Mattick a disgusted look. “You had to say it, didn’t you? Couldn’t just keep your jaws shut for once, could you?”

  “Brother,” Mattick replied, “this is what I’ve been waiting for.” And he showed his teeth to the waiting baelnorn and drew his sword with a flourish, letting it sing and watching the runes crawl like black flames up and down its blade.

  “Arcanists,” he ordered, “have fun. Let fly!”

  “Please do nothing of the kind,” the baelnorn said sadly, its voice low and gentle yet carrying to every ear with clarity. “I’m charged to guard House Velanralyn, and I’ll do just that. You proceed at your own peril.”

  “Well, of course we do.” Mattick sneered. “Arcanists!” He pointed at the baelnorn with his sword. “Blast her down!”

  Obediently the Shadovar spread out in the passage, took up stances, and hurled spells.

  Only to shout in pain and reel back, staggering, as their own magic rebounded from the baelnorn’s blades to strike at them. One arcanist blazed up like a torch, shrieking, and another was flung headlong back down the passage they’d traversed, to slam into an unyielding wall with a bone-shattering thud.

  The baelnorn shook its head, sighed, and backed away around the corner.

  Vattick looked disgusted. “Just a little care on our part would have avoided that.” He watched the arcanist who’d slammed into the wall slide down, broken and senseless, then beheld the burnt arcanist toppling to the floor trailing wisps of smoke, little more than ashes around blackened bones. “Years of training gone to waste.”

  “Just when did you become such a wistful philosopher, Brother?” Prince Mattick demanded. “When you go to war, you know there’ll be losses. The trick is making certain you’re not one of them.”

  The baelnorn leaned back around the corner, pointing a sword as if it was some sort of wand. Blue-green fire spat from its tip, and Mattick sprang hastily back from its snarling beam with a curse, clutching the seared knuckles of his sword hand. The fire raced past him and slammed into the chest of an arcanist, who was driven back on his heels, and then fell, his despairing shout ending in a horrible wet wail as the fire roared into and through his face—and on into the arcanist behind.

  More Shadovar spells were hurled, but the baelnorn was gone from view back around its corner again, and only a few of the magics swooped around it after the undead guardian.

  “Idiots,” Mattick growled at the arcanists. “Must we do this all ourselves?”

  He strode to the wall and stalked along it toward where it turned the corner, muttering to himself as he worked a magic that would hurl any nastiness this undead guardian served up right back at her. Two could play such games, and this blade of his held some nasty powers of its own …

  He thrust it before him, to round the corner first, but nothing happened. Still silence. Cautiously he peered with just one ey
e around the edge of stone, and saw the baelnorn floating in calm, deep blue silence, quite a few strides distant down its passage. Its upper armor, still glowing, hung floating behind it, leaving its body shrouded from the waist up in some sort of gauzy gown. Just behind its shoulder were the double doors the baelnorn was no doubt guarding.

  Was this some sort of strange attempt at seduction? It was shapely, but an elf, and visibly beyond death at that. Not to his tastes. Perhaps this was some sort of strange elder elf custom.

  Well, pah.

  Prince Mattick had never heard of House Velanralyn before this day, and cared nothing for its history or former greatness. He had his father’s orders; there was magical might here to be seized and drained, and the more he and Vattick took in, the more invincible they’d be when the next annoying elves showed up to offer battle. These arcanists were expendable. Unless too many of them fell through his folly, or his brother’s. Then the Most High of Thultanthar would be too furious for comfort.

  “Arcanists, attend me!” he ordered, trying for the calm coldness of his father’s customary voice, as he strode grandly around the corner.

  Let it try its worst, this lingering dross of elfkind. Then he could watch it humbled by its own battle spell, and step in for a little vicious hacking while it was still on its ghostly knees. This sword of his could cleave incorporeal undead as if they were solid meat; he’d enjoy its astonishment, for the fleeting moments before pain and death replaced that surprise.

  Why—

  The baelnorn was doing nothing as he strode up to it, nothing at all. Suspicious, Mattick slowed, bringing his blade up warily.

  “Is there some problem, proud human?” the baelnorn asked, as gently as any Shadovar nurse. “Your own deceits disappoint you, so you expect some from me?”

  “Oh, shut your over-clever mouth,” Mattick snarled, slashing at it two handed, in a great swing that it parried with apparent difficulty. As both its swords clanged aside, struck wildly by the force of his blow, he grinned savagely—and thrust his sword home into its unprotected breast, low and angling up, up through ribs and through its heart and up into spine and brain.