by Ed Greenwood
Mirt gaped. “You have?”
“Ye should watch sly old men a mite more closely. We’re apt to be dangerous, ye know. Yes, I found it; his lordship isn’t—wasn’t—a very imaginative man. Under his pillow, for the love of Mystra! A pillow embroidered “Here rests a Talking Skull, nightly,” no less! At least Halaunt could poke fun at himself. And the spell is now safe. Mystra knows that, and I’d say she’s therefore ready to let our, ah, guests in.”
He closed his eyes, frowned in concentration, and twisted the nearest threads of the Weave over, pulling light through them and then fine-tuning and drawing them together so … he could share what he could see through it with the others, riding its shimmering flows of force—Myrmeen gasped in throaty pleasure as they became visible all around her, and Mirt threw back his head in amazement—out through the solid walls of the mansion and the thick, swirling fog of the spellstorm, to the clear and breezy air above the fields beyond.
Where quite a few haughty and confident men and women stood, none too close to each other, facing the spellstorm.
Most of them were shifting restlessly from foot to foot, obviously unaccustomed to being kept waiting. One of them, robes swirling, had struck a grand pose and was working a mighty magic that caused an intricate tracery of glowing lines to appear in the air above and in front of him, and hang there as immobile as a castle wall—but infinitely prettier.
“Alammath druawh ilbrue taraunt-tal,” he intoned, his hands shaping intricate gestures that made the glowing lines brighten and thicken. “Resurmregard!”
And he flicked his raised fingers in a shooing gesture that made the glowing lines roll away from him through the air, into the shifting smokes of the spellstorm.
Murmurs arose as the fog obediently parted, drifting aside to lay bare a narrow passage through them.
As wizards started to converge on it, peering and looking excited, its creator walked warily forward—and the fog obediently receded before him, extending the passage to reveal more of Lord Halaunt’s goat-cropped lawn.
The triumphant wizard raised his hands on both sides, to be ready to hurl back the fogs if they closed in on him, and strode along the passage he’d made.
Mirt made a wordless growl deep in his throat, and pointed to a mage far back across the lawns, whose hands had just darted through a swift spellweaving.
“Seeking to dispel the work of Laragaunt and doom him,” Elminster announced, watching. “I doubt Mystra will let him succeed.”
The effect of the surreptitious spell was immediate; the outer opening in the great hemisphere of fog, where the new passage began, started to fill in, the spellstorm tumbling forward like smoke let out of a window. Several of the boldest mages, on the brink of following Laragaunt along the passage he’d created, recoiled hastily. In a matter of moments, that end of the passage was gone, lost in thick fogs once more.
Laragaunt looked back, then turned and started to hasten—and obligingly the spellstorm continued to yield before him. He came out of the fogs in haste, into the open area right around the stone walls of the old mansion, gasped in relief, and made for the doors.
Only to find them closed and locked.
Almost contemptuously he worked a minor spell, to work the lock rather than damaging the door … and they all watched his face change as nothing at all happened.
He looked doubtfully over his shoulder at his passage, just as the last of it faded away, the fogs drifting in from both sides to swallow it. He stood on a narrow strip of lawn that stretched away along the walls of the mansion for as far as he could see in both directions, presumably encircling Oldspires like a green ribbon—that might now be his prison. For the roiling fog now stood like a great, unbroken hedge or fence around the strip of grass, walling him in.
Laragaunt tried the doors with all his strength, then sighed, stepped back to peer up at Oldspires, then set off around the house in search of other ways in.
“All doors and windows closed, locked, and barred or shuttered,” El remarked. “I made sure the servants obeyed thy orders.” He looked at Lord Halaunt.
Alusair snorted. “ ‘My’ orders.”
“Has a ring to it, hey?” Mirt offered, and received a withering look from her that would have been far sharper if made with her own features. Lord Halaunt’s expression was forbiddingly withering most of the time.
Myrmeen went to a massive high-backed seat along one wall, and cautiously seated herself. No clouds of dust or storm of scurrying rats arose, and it didn’t collapse under her, so she relaxed, and after a moment moved to one end where she could recline into its padding.
“We should enjoy this leisure, I’m thinking,” she said. “There’ll be precious little once all that lot are in here with us.”
Mirt joined her. “Good idea.”
Elminster’s Weave vision worked well no matter where they were, so they all took seats and watched the powerful spellhurlers out on the lawn one by one hurl mighty spells at the spellstorm, trying to pierce it and get in.
And one by one, Mystra let them succeed.
Laragaunt of Threskel trudged into view several times, making increasingly gloomy circuits of the outside of the rambling mansion. By the last one, he was peering up at high windows, trying to judge what could be climbed to—and forced open, once one was somehow perched precariously up there.
“That’s all of them,” Myrmeen murmured. “Eleven strong, I see.” Out of habit, she looked around for a weapon.
Five women and six men milled warily by the walls of Oldspires, peering all around and glaring at each other. The fogs were unbroken again, walling them in and stretching up overhead in a dome that enclosed the mansion. The sun shone down through the dome as if through a light haze, but for the height of two tall men up from the ground, the spellstorm was like thick, dark roiling smoke.
The Weave vision allowed the four inside Oldspires to see outside as if the walls were transparent, so they all noticed as Manshoon hastened around the mansion to where he was out of sight of the other ten who’d just passed through the spellstorm, espied a high balcony, and almost casually started to swarm up the stone wall.
His descent was as violent as it was swift; a hand slipped and he scraped once against the stones on his way to a solid, thudding crash onto the ground.
Elminster’s chuckle was the loudest.
Manshoon winced, groaned, clambered to his feet feeling at one arm and then the opposing thigh, and tried again to climb but with far more caution. Only to come right back down with a jar, and stand shaking his head. Rage and terror were clear on his face. After a moment, he wandered back toward the other ten wizards.
“He’s gotten used to his vampiric powers,” El muttered, “so now their sudden loss confounds him.”
“They’re gone?” Myrmeen asked.
“While he’s here, inside the spellstorm. Thanks to Mystra. So no spiderlike climbing for him—nor flying around as a bat, either. He’s never been vulnerable to sunlight, as most vampires are, but then again, he can’t charm as a true vampire does, either.”
And with those words, Elminster got up from his seat and added briskly, “Cooks, to the kitchens—where you’d best secure all knives. Lord Halaunt, with me. Time to greet our guests, before they get so restless that mischief erupts.”
“Me, I like mischief erupting,” Mirt replied, but headed for the door the Weave vision showed led to the kitchens, even as it started to fade.
Myrmeen chuckled as she went with him, murmuring, “We’re going to get along just fine, I’m thinking.”
“How much can you use magic in here, Old Mage?” Alusair asked softly, as they went to the front doors together.
El shook his head. “Reliably, not at all. The Weave vision is just that: seeing things. If I tried to do anything through the Weave …” He shook his head again.
The front door was fitted with large cradles to hold beams so it could be barred from within to withstand anything short of the mightiest giant, but it was
also fitted with stout, well-oiled iron bolts. El and the Alusair-animated lord unlatched them and slid them back into the walls together.
“Look haughty,” El muttered when they were done—and pushed the doors wide.
Eleven wizards peered suspiciously at him from outside.
He gave them a broad and affable smile, and spread his arms wide. “Welcome to Oldspires!”
“Elminster!” Manshoon snarled. “What’re you doing here?”
“I,” Elminster replied mildly, “have retired from wizardry, and accepted the post of steward to Lord Sardasper Halaunt. Who stands here within, to welcome you into his home.”
He stepped back and with a broad flourish indicated the lone figure standing in the gloomy hall waiting for them.
Who, if glowering could be described as “welcoming,” was silently welcoming them into Oldspires.
Laragaunt and a young mage, who looked by his robes to be a Red Wizard, both snapped out, “It’s a trap!”
And flung a spell and leveled a staff, respectively.
Nothing happened.
The Red Wizard grounded the staff with both hands, crying out an incantation—and it flickered briefly, pulses of light racing up and down it like ripples in a pond … and faded to nothing.
Laragaunt turned in a whirl of robes, rushed back to the roiling fogs of the spellstorm, and worked the same spell that had forced a passage through it before.
The moment the fogs parted again to let him through, he started to run, and the Red Wizard was right behind him, staff flickering into fresh life.
Some of the others started to back away from Elminster and toward the fleeing pair, warily trying to keep an eye on both and each other.
Laragaunt’s voice rose in sudden fear, words rushing out of him in increasingly frantic haste, and more heads turned his way.
In time to see the fog roll in to close over the wildly gesturing mage and the Red Wizard in his wake. That staff flashed once, and falteringly spat lightning about the length of a man’s forearm … and then fell from view as its owner howled in despair.
As that howl died waveringly away, roiling fog hid both men from view.
After a few moments of silence, the gibbering began. Wordless slobbering that rose into wild, shrieking laughter; high, discordant, and somehow full of despair, even before it turned into sobbing.
Keening wails died away as the witless men wandered, stumbling in different directions through the fog.
“Mystra forfend,” one of the women outside the mansion door gasped.
“Be welcome in my home,” Lord Halaunt growled. “So come in, if you’re coming. With the door open, there’s a decidedly unpleasant draft. Come in, or go back out into the spellstorm, I care not. Sounds like they’re having fun out there, those two.”
A tall, bald-headed, strikingly beautiful woman in an ankle-length gown of emerald green glared daggers at him, with eyes that matched her gown but had vertical, snakelike black-and-gold pupils. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
“I planned nothing. I escaped with my life from a fire I still don’t recall any details of, and came home here to clear my lungs—only to find all sorts of strangers seem to want to visit me. Come for the Lost Spell, have you? Well, accusing me of things is a poor way to start negotiating with me, Scalyface.”
Shaaan’s face tightened in anger, and she raised one pointing finger and hissed something that made a snakelike tattoo that spiraled up her forearm move, undulating around and up to fill her palm.
As the tattoo snapped back into its former location, a bright green glow erupted from the end of her long-nailed finger and raced through the air at Lord Halaunt. Right in front of his face it … faded away, and—nothing happened.
Shaaan’s eyes went a little wild.
There were in fact no scales on her face, which bore subtle shiny areas if one peered closely.
“I see you managed to restore your looks in the wake of the fire,” Manshoon murmured, from close behind her. “Pity about your hair.”
She turned hastily to face him and backed away, hissing wordless hatred.
He gave her a brittle, mocking little smile, hissed out the same incantation she had, and pointed his finger at his own head before shrinking back in mock dismay.
“You shall pay for this!” Shaaan hissed at him.
Manshoon yawned in her face—then swayed back swiftly as she struck out at him, trying to rake at his eyes. He was just out of reach.
“Much as I enjoy free entertainment,” a dark-haired, handsome man in fine clothing—his gold belt buckle was worked into an intertwined “MT” monogram, his stylish overvest of supple black leather was trimmed with long rows of matching rubies, and the shirt beneath it was of the finest silk—commented, “our host has invited us inside, and I’d not mind a glass of something, after all that time in the hot sun, hurling futile spells. Can we take hold of our tempers, please?”
Somewhere out in the fog, one of the feebleminded men wailed like a child lost in grief.
“If I lose my temper, Maraunth Torr,” Manshoon said coldly, “you shall not be unaware of the fact.”
Maraunth Torr yawned, in perfect mimicry of Manshoon’s treatment of the Serpent Queen, and the vampire reddened and snapped, “Such mockery betrays insecurity—or imprudence.”
“Of course it does,” Maraunth Torr agreed tenderly.
Behind them, the last few wizards edged through the door, and Elminster closed it and shot the bolts home.
“Are we prisoners, Sage of Shadowdale?” Alastra Hathwinter asked him, her voice somewhere between curious and challenging.
“Nay, of course not,” Elminster replied, giving her the briefest of stone-faced winks. “This door doesn’t even have a lock. Now if ye’ll accompany the Lord Halaunt into the parlor, I’ll see about drinks. Traveling in the countryside is always, I find, a thirsty business.”
At the other end of the wary group of wizards, Lord Halaunt waved one beckoning arm and set off through the gloom through one of the high, arch-topped doorways.
Slowly and with seeming reluctance, the nine remaining wizards followed him into a low-ceilinged room filled with couches, chairs, sidetables, a long sideboard along one wall, and a large fireplace across from it. The stuffed, severed heads of an astonishing variety of rather moth-eaten monsters thrust out from the wall above the sideboard.
“An impressive multitude of death,” the disfigured woman with the lurch commented with some distaste, making her slow and less than graceful way down the chamber.
“What,” another of the female mages wondered aloud, peering at one of the wilder stuffed heads, “is that ?”
“A shapechanger caught in midshift,” Elminster offered brightly. “Takes a magic weapon to manage that sort of slaying. The work of Lord Halaunt’s grandfather, I believe. Now, how about a little winter wine? Jhuild? Or perhaps a nice firedrake?”
A panel grated open in the dark carved wood above the nearest sideboard, causing wizards to whirl around and hands to rise instinctively to work magic. Yet it revealed nothing more sinister than a pair of gloved hands—Myrmeen’s, El recognized—placing a tray of decanters on the sideboard. And then another.
As a gleaming forest of drinkables grew along the sideboard, Elminster—who was keeping a sharp watch over them all—saw the guests start to really study each other, eyes darting here and there as they helped themselves and then sought seats.
There was Manshoon, of course, settling himself well away from both Maraunth Torr and Shaaan.
But who was that, carefully positioning himself at Lord Halaunt’s elbow? A beardless man with a receding hairline, and two gray-going-white daggerboard sideburns? Carrying himself with the confidence of a mage, he wore classic wizard’s robes, but of plain beige homespun rather than sporting the usual rich fabric and fancy adornments.
Alusair had noticed his attentions, and wanted to know more about him. “So,” Lord Halaunt asked, “And who are you?”
“S
kouloun is my name,” the man replied, and added grandly, “I am an Elder of Nimbral.”
“Nimbral, eh? I suppose rumors of its ruination were greatly exaggerated?”
Skouloun shrugged. “I know not—I was on another plane of existence when the Spellplague hit, and learned of it from a dying mage who barely escaped with his life, so I stayed away from Toril for some eighty years.”
“Huh. If you could stay away in a place hospitable enough to host you for a lifetime, why’d you come back?”
“For my lifetime,” Skouloun replied. “I spent much of those eight decades perfecting a longevity magic, but was forced to return to Toril when that ritual started to fail, aging me. I hadn’t realized some of the materials I’d used must come from Toril; their equivalents from other planes won’t work.”
“And having prolonged your life, are you now willing to share?” a buxom lady in homespun robes very similar to Skouloun’s asked teasingly. Her eyes were a merry honey brown, the same hue as her hair.
“This should not be discussed here and now,” Skouloun replied sharply.
“I can see you two know each other,” Lord Halaunt observed. “Care to share?”
He looked to Skouloun when he asked this, so it was Skouloun who replied, with a sour sigh, “Behold Yusendre, a fellow Elder of Nimbral. She’s … a bit of an imp.”
“Which is Skouloun’s way of saying I have the sense of humor he utterly lacks,” Yusendre told Lord Halaunt sweetly. “And before you ask, I survived the Spellplague, and the century that followed its advent, by fleeing through a gate into another world, and there finding a cozy little cave and employing the classic sleep-of-ages spell that Phezult gave us all. Eventually, once the magic had consumed the gems, I awoke from my stasis and returned here. Just in time for the real chaos, Tymora grant me better luck!”
Elminster dared not listen any further for fear of offending those standing nearer, evidently awaiting access to the decanters to which his body was blocking their reach.
“May I pour ye something, Lady?” he asked the gaunt, disfigured lady who had one eye higher than the other in a lopsided face, and mismatched breasts and hips, too.
