All Shadows Fled asota-3

by Ed Greenwood

  She guided the three rangers to a bench and rang the nearest gong furiously. To the first servant who appeared, she snapped, "Send everyone here at once! Then fill my lord's bath-the new big one, and mind the water's hot! Get help, but do it fast!"

  To the second she snarled, "Three carry-chairs, and men to bear them, back here as fast as you're able!"

  Then she turned her head as the kitchen door opened. "Purk? Bring whatever you have roasting-and all the breads and cheeses you can lay hands on, and the best wine you can get-to my lord's chamber at once!"

  "Impressive," Belkram murmured to her just before he fell asleep.

  "Indeed," Shaerl told him gently. She looked down the hall to the doors, where armsmen were carrying in seven limp armored forms under Thurbal's coldly furious eye.

  Itharr woke once on the stairs, swaying in his chair to murmur, "Killed a lot of Zhents for you…"

  "Eat first," Shaerl told him, guiding the chair across the parlor. "We'll talk later."

  "Bathe first," Sharantyr announced firmly.

  "Nay, Lady," one of the armsmen said gently as he set her chair down. "For ye, it's sleep first." The lady ranger's head lolled to one side as she began to gently snore; she heard him only in her dreams.

  "Get this armor off them," Shaerl told the armsman, unbuckling and tugging at Sharantyr's body for all she was worth.

  "Haste or care, Lady?"

  "Care for them… haste otherwise," she replied briskly, hurling a vambrace across the room. It struck the far wall with a crash that made a serving girl wince-and when the armsmen enthusiastically followed Shaerl's example, the maid covered her ears and fled. The air quickly filled with flying pieces of armor.

  Amid the clangor, puffing relays of servants speedily filled the gigantic copper tub. Shaerl herself added the soap and wyverntail oil, then turned back to the armsmen. "Get some rope," she ordered the nearest one. "I don't want them drowning."

  "Aye, Lady."

  Striding to her wardrobe, Shaerl snatched the doors open and took the first three garments off their pegs without looking. Sliding them under the arms of each ranger-gods, the reek! — and across their chests, she flipped the ends of the three gowns up for the armsmen to tie the ropes to, noticed that one garment was a favorite of hers, shrugged, and began to disrobe.

  An armsman hovering uncertainly nearby gulped, looked away, and a sash slapped into him. He caught it reflexively, then looked up to see his Lady's gown coming his way, mastered a calm expression as he fielded it, and stepped forward to take the rest as they were offered.

  The Lady Shaerl was stepping unconcernedly into the hot depths of the tub as the other armsmen rushed back in with coils of rope, goggled at her for an instant, and wisely set about their task without comment or delay.

  "More soap!" Shaerl ordered briskly as servants scurried, "and that scratcher!"

  The wooden back scratcher was handed to her, and she set to work. Lice floated away almost immediately atop the scummy water. "Bethra," she said, without looking up, "Draw Lady Sharantyr's hair out over the edge, put a bowl under it, and start washing! Use my seafoam ointment!"

  So it was that when Purk bustled up at the head of a procession bringing platters of hot fowl from the kitchens, he found three rangers, grimy and snoring, slumped over asleep in the huge bath, and the lady of the tower in their midst, as bare as the day she was born, scrubbing and rinsing for all she was worth.

  "A feast is served, my lady," he announced with quiet dignity-and was most startled a moment later when Shaerl looked up at him through her dripping hair and snapped, "Well, off with your clothes and get in, Purk! Wake them up and feed them-the others can pass you the platters as you need them! And have wine ready so that no one chokes-ah, gods, give a bottle here first! This is thirsty work!"

  A grinning kitchen-boy uncorked a bottle and handed it to his lady, who winked at him and said, "You're small enough! Pick up a brush, off with those, and get in here!" She took a swig of wine, gasped in satisfaction, looked at one of the armsmen, and snapped, "More hot water!"

  Hastening down the stairs to obey, the armsman met one of his fellows hastening the other way with a basin slopping in his hands. The first said, "The lady's passion for bathing is crazed! Have they all washed their wits out of their heads in Cormyr? What's wrong with just going down to the millpond when your stink starts to drive the dogs away?"

  The other shrugged. "Overcrowding?" he jested innocently, and went on up the stairs, redoubling his speed as they heard the faint but imperious call:

  "Where's that water?" Tower of Mortoth, Sembia, Flamerule 26

  Bralatar and Lorgyn stepped back into the privy chamber of the Tower of Mortoth and exchanged coldly triumphant smiles. "Worked perfectly," Bralatar announced, setting down his chest. It clinked.

  Lorgyn raised an eyebrow at the sound. "I went back for my wand and some favorite food… I thought you were getting your best spells."

  Bralatar raised a decanter into view. "And some real wine, to celebrate!"

  Lorgyn chuckled and set down his own coffer to study the four spread-eagled, motionless figures hanging in the webwork of cold fire.

  "Hmm… see? It drains the mage first," he said, indicating the shrunken, nearly skeletal body of Mortoth the Mighty.

  "Is that because we put him in it first, do you think, or because he wields the most magic?"

  Lorgyn shrugged. "We'll have to gather some more wizards to see… and we'll need more, anyway, to keep this open. If these apprentices here don't work properly or hold enough life-force, we could be stranded here after just one more back-and-forth trip."

  "Plenty of time to go mage-gathering after we've mastered a little more magic and had some fun," Bralatar said, picking up the chest again and starting toward the door.

  He stopped and turned, indicating the female apprentice with a jerk of his head. Irendue stared endlessly and sightlessly at the privy wall, her mouth agape. "Shall we free her for a little dalliance tonight?"

  "I don't know if that's such a wise idea," Lorgyn said with a frown. "I thought of that myself-she could show us the magic of this place, for one thing-but then I thought of the chance it would give her to turn some spell we don't know about against us. There're so many enchantments in this place, one overlaid atop another, that I can't see any way to keep clear of them all."

  "We still have to find a way out past those things in the moat," Bralatar pointed out, "and the stone golem, and the cat on the lawn, to say nothing of whatever servants he's got in the house, and any magic they can call on! I think we've no choice but to pull this one out of the thrall and question her."

  "What's to stop her hurling a dozen spells at us the moment her wits're her own?"

  Bralatar frowned. "Strip her to take away any magic she carries, tie her hands together to stop her casting spells, and with the same rope hang her down the privy shaft. Dangle her just above the water, where we can threaten her with the things in the moat. Then each of us stretch a tentacle down there with her; mine with an eye to watch her closely-so she knows we're seeing what she does-and yours to hold your wand trained right on her!"

  Lorgyn thought about it, then began to smile slowly. He looked over at the unseeing female apprentice and said, "First, we'll have to find some rope…" Shadowdale, Flamerule 27

  "Shadowdale… a fitting name indeed," Argast said, peering through the leaves of the last tree on the west bank of the river Ashaba. "Where the Great Foe lived," he mused, "and so many of our kin died. We'll conquer this place first."

  "And rule it as a slave farm, anon," Amdramnar agreed, looking across the water at the twisted spire of the Tower of Ashaba. "Pretty, this… all these trees, and the water…"

  Argast looked at him. "That's not what you said when we were in the swamp."

  Amdramnar snarled. "If I hadn't shifted fast enough, I'd be dead now. What was that?"

  "'Quicksand,' they call it. Didn't you hear the nice man who hauled me out?"

  "Not un
til he screamed when you started to eat him," Amdramnar replied archly. "I was too busy washing the mud off… I can feel grit inside me, even now!"

  "We only lost a day," Argast said. "Should we cross the river here?"

  Amdramnar shook his head, putting an entire day of floundering through the mud-choked swamp west of them out of his mind… hopefully forever. "Let's work our way around and come in from the east. That man I talked to most of the night-"

  "Before you ate him," Argast reminded, just as archly.

  "— was from Hillsfar. I can talk as he did, and say the same things about Great Lord Maalthur and the cursed Zhents and all that. We have to talk our way past guards no matter how we get in."

  "Why not just turn to eels and swim down to the millpond? Up onto the bank, take human shape, and-"

  "Get challenged by the first guards we meet, or a wench in the tavern, or a shopkeeper," Amdramnar finished the sentence for him. "I want to talk to someone, to confirm that Elminster's dead… and this Hillsfar place is east of here, so we'd best be coming from the east."

  "And doing what?"

  "Going to ask Elminster-about some strange shapeshifting beings our master Dundifolus of the Sixteen Unlit Black Candles saw. He'd come himself, but they changed both his feet into fish fins, and he hasn't yet managed to reverse the strange enchantment!"

  Argast smirked. "You expect them to believe that?"

  "I'll tone it down… but we should ask for Elminster, and say we've been sent by some mage. How will they know we aren't telling the truth? Their magics can't read the minds of any of the blood of Malaug!"

  Argast nodded slowly. "Your plans are sound. Lead on."

  And so it was, not long after, that two footsore wizard's servants from Hillsfar trudged into Shadowdale along the Voonlar road-and passed by three leather-armored folk who were quietly taking a woodcutter's trail out of the dale due east into Myth Drannor. The three rangers were refreshed and reprovisioned after a day-long sleep and a bath personally administered by Lady Shaerl of Shadowdale. With heavy packs on their backs, they were setting out on another patrol and wondering when they'd meet with lurking Malaugrym. By the humor of the gods, neither band saw the other. Tower of Mortoth, Sembia, Flamerule 27

  "M-Mercy," Irendue sobbed as they hauled her up through the privy hole she'd sat above so many times before, holding her bound wrists back behind her, over her head, so that she could barely keep her balance. "Mercy!"

  Bralatar smiled at her as his tentacles took her by the throat and around both elbows, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe through her aching throat. Her eyes were large and dark in terror as Lorgyn's tentacles untied the ropes that cut into her wrists. He thrust her back, back once more into the cold embrace of the flames that did not burn…

  Irendue's body trembled as the spell energy raced through it, and she whimpered once before the surging energy drove away her wits once more. "You see?" Bralatar told her as the light in her eyes slowly died, "you are untouched. This is mercy."

  He chuckled coldly while Lorgyn arranged the apprentice's limbs apart as they had been earlier. The endless hum of the spell flames grew stable once more.

  "The gate is unharmed," he said at last. The two Malaugrym exchanged a smile and went to the study, snaking out tentacles ahead of them to uncork the wine and bring out some roast shadowbeast.

  "Profitable, that," Bralatar said, flopping down in an old armchair that until recently had been the exclusive preserve of Mortoth, and raising one of Mortoth's best glasses in salute to Lorgyn. "The wench certainly knows how to talk with a wand nearly down her gullet."

  "More to the point, she's seen Faerun shrewdly, and knows what lies behind what can be readily seen," Lorgyn replied, sipping at his own glass.

  "Ah," Bralatar said slyly, "do I hear the tones of a Shadowmaster looking for a mate?"

  Lorgyn looked at him levelly. "No," he replied, "you do not. I merely meant that what she knows makes her too valuable for us to destroy. How else would we have found out all that about the Realms and the wizards in less than a day?"

  Bralatar nodded, levity gone. "You speak truth… she yielded much to us, and swiftly. Enough for me to conclude we'd best avoid Thay, the islands Lantan and Nimbral, and the slave keepers-Calimshan, that was the name-until we know a lot more about Faerun. These Red Wizards'll bear a lot of watching. They could be almost as much trouble as Elminster was. The Zhentarim, on the other hand, seem more persistent than competent. Would you say that sums up what she said?"

  Lorgyn nodded. "I would… and so long as we keep these things in mind, and keep humans from realizing that there are shapeshifters among them, nothing and no one stands between us and our ruling any part of Faerun that we please. You'll take your preferred lands, and I'll take mine."

  "I want to see those lands for myself first," Bralatar replied as they shared a grin. "And what better way than to have some real fun hunting this time, across half Faerun!"

  "Chasing down wizards?"

  "Chasing down and slaughtering," Bralatar said with a sudden flame in his eyes, "any humans we fancy."

  16

  Shadows So Sharp

  Only the eyes of the two guards moved to follow him as Lord Mourngrym of Shadowdale strode past the door of the forecourt, heading for the kitchens. He'd come straight in from a patrol in the northern reaches of the dale, and there was fresh blood-Zhent blood-on his mud-spattered armor. He was bareheaded and unshaven, and his reddened, sunken eyes told of little sleep and hard going.

  "Belmer!" he called back, turning, as he went on. "Get something hot from the kitchens, and a bottle of zzar, and take it to the Old Skull as quick as you can. A lady guest is giving birth, and the father needs a good meal and a walk with someone who's been a father not long past-so the gods've chosen you!"

  "Aye, Lord," Belmer said with a smile, and left his post just inside the front doors to rush down the hall. Guthtar, who'd heard the exchange, was already moving to take his place.

  Mourngrym stuck his head through the kitchen door, dipped a flagon into the stew pot, brought it out dripping, put a towel underneath it, and turned back down the hall, armor rattling in his haste.

  "That too, Lord?" Belmer asked, hesitating.

  "No, this is my evenfeast," Mourngrym told him with a grin. "Sylune tells me the audience chamber is full of folk with troubles, so I'll be eating on the throne again. Just tell the cooks to send someone to the chamber a little later on to see if any of the supplicants are in need of something hot to eat."

  Belmer turned pale at the mention of the Witch of Shadowdale, and muttered some prayer or other under his breath as he went into the steam-filled, noisy, bustling kitchens.

  For a moment, Mourngrym stopped beside Guthtar with the steaming flagon in his hand. "Good Guthtar-tell Thurbal from me that I want all of you men to do half shifts until I order otherwise. You've been done out of a lot of sleep, and it's time someone gave some back to you."

  The normally terse Guthtar practically bounded into a salute. "Aye, my lord!" he said.

  Mourngrym chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. "I thought you'd find those orders rode easier than most." He turned to the forecourt and nodded to his two new guards as he stepped between them. They stiffened in salute.

  When the double doors of the audience chamber boomed closed and they heard the guards within thunk their spears on the stone floor, Argast turned his head to be sure the forecourt was now empty. Finding it so, he said to Amdramnar, "In spite of myself, I begin to respect this young lordling. If one is to be a weakling, why not go all the way and serve the people rather than commanding them?"

  Amdramnar nodded. "I like him, too-but 'tis too early to tell… until we can spend a session or two in there, hearing him sit in judgment."

  They fell hastily silent as Guthtar moved closer to open the door for the departing Belmer. Though they'd slain two of the newly hired Westgate men and taken their shapes, the two Malaugrym hadn't had a chance to hear either of the
ir victims speaking-in a sober state, at least-and didn't want anyone to overhear them now and think the speech of Aunsible and Haratch had suddenly and curiously changed.

  Belmer went out of the tower, and a magnificently robed, bearded man of middling years came in, with the Lady Shaerl on his arm. The holy hammer of Tyr, worked in silver, rode on a heavy chain around his neck. "I find Shadowdale dispirited for the first time since the Knights of Myth Drannor rode into it for their first time," he was saying in a rich, sonorous voice, "and that is ill. Have you had much trouble in this time of strife?"

  "We are only days away from turning back the armies of Zhentil Keep, good justicar," Shaerl said gently, "a victory that cost us greatly. The Witch-Queen of Aglarond-"

  The two guards clearly heard the priest's hiss of indrawn breath as he was turning to walk between them at that moment. He looked awed.

  "— tells us that the Zhent troops were led by the god Bane himself. In the fight against him, the temple of Lathander, which formerly stood across the way, was destroyed, along with the archmage Elminster and, some have testified under oath, the goddess Mystra, herself."

  The priest came to an abrupt halt. "You credit this to be true?" he asked, his voice incredulous.

  "I do, holy lord, and can produce witnesses whose testimony will, I know, impress you," Shaerl said firmly.

  The priest waved a dismissive hand. "Well enough, so let us grant that the tales are true. Bane, Mystra, and Elminster all destroyed along with that temple over there." He drew a deep breath, shook his head, and bid gruffly, "Say on."

  "Over half of our soldiers fell in defending the dale," Shaerl told him, "and are now pyre ashes; scarce a farm in this dale did not lose someone. Moreover, magic has gone wild here, and Storm Silverhand, the Bard of Shadowdale, has been missing for five days."

  The priest suddenly looked very old, and felt behind him for the bench he knew was there. Shaerl smoothly guided him to it, keeping hold of his hand as the justicar of Tyr sank down onto the bench and whispered hoarsely, "Storm. I… we were very close, once. I'd hoped to see her this night, after my audience with the youn-with your Mourngrym."