Spellstorm

by Ed Greenwood

  The tiny bells affixed all around the inner edge of the door to her outer receiving room chimed their cheerful little cacophony to announce her apprentice’s arrival.

  “Runemaster,” Imbra announced a moment later, coming to a stop just beyond the space that the door swung through to shut itself behind her, with open and empty hands spread wide and pointing at the floor, as she’d been trained to do, “I am here. Command me.”

  “Report,” Calathlarra replied, seeking her favorite seat. “Just what’s new, not all the mind-numbing details of which young lordling called another a bad word or disgraced himself in some tavern or club thanks to imbibing overmuch. You know what’s important; convey to me just those things.”

  “The Dragon Rampant club in Suzail burned to the ground after a wild spell duel that began after someone calling herself Shayan the Serpent Queen—”

  “Shaaan,” Calathlarra corrected, trying to hide how interested she suddenly was, but failing. She settled for trying to seem thoughtful.

  “—and the Suzailan resident calling himself Manshoon traded spells over the mind of Lord Sardasper Halaunt, an old noble of Cormyr who’s fallen on hard times. Halaunt came to Suzail to try to sell—dearly—something he calls the Lost Spell.”

  The Runemaster’s eyebrow rose in surprise, but she asked merely, “So who died?”

  “Servants, a few lesser diners down on the street level who got trampled; no one of consequence. Halaunt’s mind, however, is said to be ruined. His servants whisked him back to his country mansion, Oldspires, as a drooling idiot, the rumors run.”

  “Ah, yes, rumors always run …” Calathlarra drummed her long and still-beautiful fingers on the arm of her chair. “So has rumor galloped far enough afield, this time, to tell us what happened to the Lost Spell?”

  “No,” Imbra replied promptly. Then asked, “Runemaster, what is this Lost Spell? The rumors are many, wild, and contradictory.”

  Calathlarra smiled. “Of course. They commonly rage around the truth without ever truly grasping it. Know then that the Lost Spell enables its caster to store what may best be termed ‘echoes’ of other spells in their mind. When active—and used with certain obscure but simple cantrips that enable the caster to wrest magical energy from items they touch, spells they memorize, and even spells memorized in the heads of humans they touch—such energies can be willed to fill the echoes, as molten metal fills a mold.”

  “Making new spells?”

  “Making new spells; as many duplicates of the stored echoes as a Lost Spell caster desires and has energy to empower. In other words, anyone competent who wields the Lost Spell gains an ongoing supply of their favorite spells that they can cast at will.”

  Her apprentice whistled. “So someone who has the Lost Spell can rule over all Toril, if they conduct themselves wisely. They’ll be all-powerful.”

  “Yes to your first,” Calathlarra replied coldly, “but no to your second. The Lost Spell was one of the crowning achievements of the god Azuth—and bear in mind what happened to him.”

  THIS DEEPEST AND dampest of the cellars hidden beneath the Royal Palace of Suzail was dominated by utter darkness and the slow and echoing drip of water seeping down from the low ceiling. It was a room Elminster remembered, and he had reason to know Vangerdahast recalled it too, but it was quite likely unknown to most current courtiers and Purple Dragons guarding the palace. In fact, he was counting on that.

  He was standing in three fingerwidths of water, and its presence allowed him to maintain an old, old spell that should shield what was said and thought here even from the Royal Magician of Cormyr.

  The pale glow given off by the ghost of Alusair was enough to illuminate the faces of the other two he was conferring with: Vangey and Myrmeen Lhal. Now that Ganrahast and his oh-so-earnest Lord Warder were safely elsewhere, it was time to make some decisions regarding what they were going to do about Lord Halaunt.

  Halaunt’s mansion, Oldspires, was reputed to be haunted. Not by your typical, angry, grieving, or fell undead, but by spirits snared and caged by the Weave inside the mansion—a result of being built on a particular site by a long-ago Lord Halaunt who’d been something of an expert in the Art.

  “That Lord Halaunt,” El explained to Alusair and Myrmeen, “chose the site of Oldspires so the mansion would house and hide several ancient gates to other worlds—portals that, these days, can only be opened with great difficulty. Long, complicated, and partially experimental rituals are now necessary, being as the ‘right’ ways to open them have been forgotten down the passing ages.”

  “Within the mansion,” Vangerdahast put in, “the Weave is … ah …”

  “Twisted,” El offered.

  “Twisted, yes, in part because of leakage from the gates, and in part due to the decay of protective magics cast long ago to seal them off.”

  “As a result,” Elminster interrupted smoothly, “some spells don’t work, or take effect in strange, unpredictable, and uncontrollable ways. Just which spells are affected isn’t known, and they shift at random from room to room and over time—so in general, magic isn’t reliable inside Oldspires.”

  “The leakage from the gates causes the frequent and recurring spellstorms,” Vangey added brightly.

  “They make quite a team, don’t they?” Myrmeen observed to Alusair.

  The ghostly princess smiled, nodded—and swung around like shifting smoke to confront Elminster.

  “How did Halaunt get the Lost Spell in the first place?” she demanded. “Has it been here in Cormyr for decades—centuries—just lying around for the first lucky finder to pick it up and try to rule the kingdom—gods spit, the world?”

  Myrmeen shrugged. “Does it matter? Methinks Lord Elminster here will destroy it or hide it very securely upon his person, about three breaths after he gets inside Oldspires.”

  El shook his head. “That’s where ye’re wrong. Hiding and denying to folk this or that magic would save all Toril a lot of trouble, time and time again—but denying the Art to anyone isn’t Mystra’s way. Magic belongs to all of us, and we must use it and develop it, and better ourselves and others by doing so. Greater evil flourishes whenever a few control it; they inevitably use it as a club against others.”

  “Princess Alusair’s question,” Vangey put in darkly, “stands. How does a magic-blind, sedentary old widower and reclusive noble get his hands on the Lost Spell?”

  “By being what all too many nobles are, and non-nobles would be if they could,” Elminster murmured. “By presenting a fair face to the world and behind it being the sort of weasel who’ll do anything to collect things of power, for profit and to trade and to threaten. He buys all sorts of things from unscrupulous adventurers, and the darker and more magical, the better. Being a dastardly villain in the shadows was what excited Lord Halaunt, and he enjoyed being so. If anyone can be said to deserve such a horrible fate, he does.”

  Alusair gave El a hard look. “And you knew what manner of snake he was, and told us not? Ganrahast and Vainrence and Glathra should all have been told about this peril to the realm! If you truly loved Cormyr—”

  “Ah, lass, but I do truly love Cormyr. Every last crofter and shepherd and blustering noble of it. And most of the nobles aren’t much better than Halaunt, if truth be told. And if I laid full details of every last one of them before the wizards of war, what would those Crown mages do? Imprison nigh every noble in the land, or worse? Ruining the very land they profess to guard and hold dear? And relying on Elminster the All-Seeing to espy the next foul threat to the land, and the next? How, tell me now, do I love and serve Cormyr by so weakening it?”

  The ghost of the princess scowled. “Words, always clever words that bring me to a standstill with their very rightness, as they always did from your mouth, but still …”

  Elminster’s smile was sad. “Are not words cheaper than spilled blood? If I refrained from cozening with words because being manipulated upset thee—or thy father, or Foril—and armies marched, and
lives were lost and lands laid waste, what price my silence then?”

  Alusair sighed. “I yield. Vanquished once more. So tell me, Lord So Clever, what is your counsel in this matter, in the days ahead? What do you think we should do?”

  “For myself,” Myrmeen interrupted swiftly, “I expected this meeting would be to receive our orders from Lord Elminster, blunt or wrapped up in words that made them seem otherwise than commands. That bothers me not. However, there’s a price for my obedience: Lord of Shadowdale, lay out your reasoning rather than playing the mysterious all-knowing archmage.”

  Alusair and Vangerdahast nodded agreement.

  Elminster inclined his head gravely to the living lady warrior, and said, “It is my opinion that we need to play unfairly against such a host of power-hungry spellhurlers. As Lord Halaunt is now a drooling husk of a man, his mind almost certainly burnt out, I propose that Alusair here go into him, animate him, and speak through him. The Steel Regent acting the part of Lord Halaunt, in such a way that ‘he’ works with us to protect Cormyr—rather than being animated by every last ambitious guest trying to wrest the Lost Spell from him.”

  Alusair was suddenly closer to the Sage of Shadowdale, and her eyes were blazing brighter. “And when they try to mindburn me?”

  “Ye’ll be protected,” El assured her. “By me. A goddess has shown me how.”

  Vangerdahast, the ghost of the princess, and Myrmeen all gasped out disgusted skepticism at his words.

  “You can’t promise that,” Vangey added.

  Oh, but I can, El replied in Alusair’s mind.

  She stiffened. How—?

  The Weave, he thought into her mind. If ye were still alive, I’d have to cast a spell, or touch ye and use my mind.

  Your psionics?

  Aye. Those.

  Their flashing thoughts had taken mere instants, during which Myrmeen lifted her chin in a challenge and asked Elminster, “If Halaunt is a wreck, why impersonate him? What’s the point? Why not just blast every evil wizard who shows up looking for the Lost Spell, drive the nonevil ones away, then leave Halaunt’s servants to look after what’s left of him?”

  “It is needful,” El told her.

  “Oh? Why?” Alusair’s voice was sharp.

  “Yes, why?” Vangey echoed.

  “As you’ll recall, Lord Elminster,” Myrmeen added, “I mentioned my price …”

  “There’s not a lot of trust in this room,” Elminster murmured.

  “And why is that, I wonder?” Alusair mocked, suddenly floating nose to nose with him, her eyes two cold flames of anger.

  El sighed. “Very well. Cards, as they say, on the table. I serve a goddess.”

  “Mystra,” the only living woman in the room said flatly, her eyes, but not her voice, making it a question. Everyone knew Elminster served the goddess of magic, but Myrmeen wanted him to confirm he still served Mystra, and only Mystra.

  “Mystra,” he reassured her. “And she wants this to happen—this gathering of powerful mages, that is. She needs to get them together for long enough that they can discuss how they’re going to conduct themselves in the years ahead, in the wake of the tumult that is hopefully now behind us. That’s not something easily achieved among such energetic, power-hungry, and suspicious folk.”

  “And what does Mystra want them to achieve, aside from threatening each other and then starting spell duels like the one that destroyed the Dragon Rampant?” Vangerdahast asked. “For that’s what’ll erupt, if magic is unreliable within Oldspires, rather than nonexistent.”

  “Mystra hopes,” Elminster replied slowly, his tone making it clear he wasn’t convinced that what Our Lady of Magic envisaged would come to pass, “they will come to some common agreements on certain things. So Toril isn’t ravaged by a war among archmages. And if they do make war on each other, let it be face-to-face, inside one building, and not slaughtering many innocents and ravaging realms in the process.”

  “Send four hungry panthers in a room, and wait to see which wounded one will stagger out,” Vangey murmured. “Not a strategy unfamiliar to me.”

  “Mystra hopes,” Elminster repeated, “that their time together will at least lead to frank discussion, and increased understanding.”

  Alusair frowned. “If that’s the goal, why doesn’t Mystra just show up in their minds and threaten them into playing nice?”

  “Ah. Well, now. Listen, heed, and remember this, for ’tis what one might call one of the secrets of our world.”

  “And whenever a wizard says that, he’s trying to deceive you about something,” Alusair murmured.

  “Not so!” Elminster told her sternly. “Or at least, not this wizard, and not this time. Mystra has told me that she can force and compel, or destroy, like any other wrathful god—and so win obedience, but no change of attitude. Leaving wizards full of resentment of imposed authority, not cleaving to a way or idea or accord they have willingly been a part of—wherefore some, perhaps most of them, will be secretly seeking to betray or subvert, in future.”

  Three sets of eyes, two living and one ghostly, narrowed.

  “So even an apparently solid agreement or new spirit of cooperation would be short-lived at best, and likely an utter cynical fiction from the outset. So instead, what ye might call ‘manipulating from behind a tapestry’ is best. Wherefore, Mystra needs to stay in the shadows and let me, and others I can persuade, do the work she deems needful.”

  Alusair’s face now held something like pity. “And your own heir?”

  Elminster’s face was suddenly a mask of stone. “I want to keep Amarune out of this as much as possible,” he said slowly, as if reluctant to let the words escape his lips. “She won’t stand a chance in a house full of powerful evil archmages. Still less, her impetuous young consort, Lord Arclath Delcastle.” He turned away and started to pace, his steps stirring ripples across the dark water. “Storm will take them somewhere to do something-or-other Realms-shakingly important. ’Tis how we’ve hoodwinked kings and dungsweepers alike, all these centuries.”

  Myrmeen Lhal swallowed more mirth with a snort, and turned her head to give Vangey a level look, eyeball-to-eyeball. He coughed and shifted a little.

  “And how will we get into Oldspires?” Alusair inquired. “Through this mind-shattering spellstorm?”

  “I know how to open one of the gates,” El replied smugly.

  “Oh? And how is it that you know that?”

  “It’s a Weave gate, and below Mystra herself, I am now the Weavemaster. Be awed by no competing pretenders.”

  Myrmeen snorted again.

  “As for the spellstorm,” El added, “Mystra will let all of these grasping archmages through it when we’re ready—and let them believe whatever clever spells they worked created their own short-lived tunnel through the chaos.”

  “I,” Vangerdahast commented, “just want to know how by all the gods—every last prancing one of them—you’re going to get all of these crazed, me-first, power-hungry and supremely independent and professionally difficult archmages to agree on anything, change their minds about anything, and tell you even a smidgin or two of truth!”

  “Ah,” Elminster said with a wry smile, “as to that, I have a plan.”

  Vangey wasn’t the only one in the room to roll his eyes then.

  “You’re going to make things up as you go along,” the ghost of Alusair murmured. “As you always do. Charge in and ruffle feathers and ride out the hazards. You sly old rogue.”

  Elminster’s gaze held a twinkle. “Eh, lass. Careful with the compliments, there; ye’ll turn my head.”

  “Make you preen, more like. Old bastard.”

  “Shadow of a woman,” El replied, just as affectionately.

  “Still want me to go prancing off into a mansion of twisted magic with this, ah, personage?” Myrmeen asked Vangerdahast.

  He shrugged and looked sheepish. “You’ve always loved adventure, and chafed when it wasn’t on offer.”

  “You,” Myr
meen returned, “know me too well.” Then she looked across at Elminster. “Let’s get going.”

  THIS DEEPEST ROOM beneath his tower was persistently damp, which was why its owner, who stood looking down at four robed men spread-eagled on a stout iron frame before him, used it only for butchery. Usually there were dead boar or cattle on the frame, but it seemed to work on men well enough,

  “W-who are you?” one of the chained captives gasped, when he’d stopped shrieking long enough to pant his way back to framing words.

  The dark-haired, handsome, and imperious man who was the source of the agonies being visited on the four captive arcanists smiled coldly. “My name is Maraunth Torr, but it’s no doubt unfamiliar to you. I am an archmage of some power, and arcanists of Thultanthar seem to believe powerful wizards who do not hail from their city are … mythical. But then, the arrogant fools of Thultanthar believe so many incorrect things. Such a pity. It always leads to their undoing.”

  And as those gentle words left his lips, he gestured lazily and sent fresh ragged lightnings through the iron frames that held his captives fast. Skin sizzled with a reek akin to roast boar, and a sound almost lost amid the din of their raw, throat-stripping shrieks.

  Maraunth Torr gave them a wintry smile and strolled back to his goblet of wine and the maps he’d been studying when his flying-chain spell traps had entwined and bound them—so easily that they might just as well have been common thieves bereft of magic. More easily, perhaps, for thieves might have been more suspicious of adornments, around the doorway of a room where powerful enchanted items were stored, that took the shape of chains than these four dolts had been.

  When their screams had died away into panting groans, he raised his goblet and remarked to it, “I remain curious as to why arcanists of Thultanthar would dare to intrude into a wizard’s tower in the wilds near ruined Starmantle that’s widely known to be formidably guarded.”