by Ed Greenwood
Two darker figures stood unafraid in their midst, a man and a woman. “Enough talk for now, I fear,” Elminster was saying reluctantly, raising his staff. “You’ve quite filled my brains with old spells and lost lore—and I’m sure you must be more than weary of my gossip.”
“Nay, man,” the closest baelnorn said in swift reply. “You two are the only visitors who bring us news of the passing world—the only ones to remember us. Even we grow lonely.” He turned to face Storm Silverhand and added fiercely, “Lady—oh, ’twas good to hear songs again! Your voice is lovely.”
“Aye,” several other ghostly figures sighed in eerie unison.
The Bard of Shadowdale turned to give them all a smile, and replied, “My thanks. I cannot hope to match even a fair singer of Cormanth—”
“Ah, Lady,” another of the tomb guardian spirits said, waving a dismissive hand, “our spells can bring back at any time the sounds of past songs sung to us. What we lack is new songs, and the singer alive and here, performing for us. Your kindness will give us much joy ahead, much to talk over—”
A sudden radiance of sparks kindled about Elminster’s forehead. The wizard stiffened and swayed, pain flashing across his face.
“What befalls?” a baelnorn snapped, raising hands that glowed suddenly bright and dangerous. “Can we aid?”
Elminster’s gaze rolled down, and he shivered. “N-nay, friends. A new peril has come to light. We shall return in time to come, if we can. For now, we must go. Farewell.”
Blue sparks swam before Storm Silverhand. She barely had time to be startled before they washed over her. The world became a place of endless falling through a blue glow.
Her boots were suddenly on uneven ground. Blue sparks were fading, and the smells around her were now dung and the sea, rotting fruit and cooking smoke.
“An alley near Piergeiron’s Palace, in Waterdeep,” Elminster explained as her hand went to the blades at her belt. “Laeral farspoke me.”
“And?” she asked simply, putting hands on her hips and pivoting to look around.
“Time to use thy tracing spell, lass—take thyself to any Harper pin in this city that’s been tampered with or had other spells laid atop it. There’ll probably be a man there who’s good with blades. Keep thyself alive until I teleport to thee.” He kissed Storm while she was still blinking and frowning at him, then whirled away, striding along the uneven cobbles toward the palace.
Its grand and lofty entrances seemed strangely—deserted. The doors to the private wing, however, were closed and guarded by two huge men who stood like expressionless titans in their closed helms and mirror-bright armor.
The Old Mage strode up to them without hesitation and reached between them to lift the ring-bar from the doors—and almost lost a hand to the halberds sweeping down.
The point topping one followed him as he scuttled back. Its wielder’s voice was less than kind as he said, “None may enter without leave.”
Elminster sighed. “Leave I have, goodsirs. Pray stand aside for Elminster of Shadowdale. I am in great haste, and for good reason.”
“Elminster?” The guard’s voice dripped with the skeptical sneer hidden behind his helm. “Aye, and I’m the Grand Pasha and Vizier Most Mighty of all Calimshan!”
“Who are you, really,” the other guard snapped, his own halberd leveled menacingly, “and who gave you leave to pass? Of those not known to us by sight, our pass-list is very short, and I very much doubt you’re anyone on it!” He backed to where he could easily and swiftly slap an alarm-gong with one swing of his gauntlet. “Well?”
“I am Elminster in truth,” the straggle-bearded man replied quietly, “and I have leave to pass anywhere in the city—leave given to me by Lord Ahghairon of Waterdeep, long ago.”
“Pah!” the first guard responded, throwing back his head. “You expect us to believe that?”
“I care not what you do or do not believe,” the old man told them mildly, “but if you delay me longer, know this: I’ll send you forthwith to where you’ll end up anyway, if you retain the stupidity to deny an archmage anything.”
The first guard drew himself up in triumph. “You would dare to threaten a Guard Confirméd of Waterdeep, in the very palace? Why—”
He thrust ruthlessly with his halberd at the old man—and the world suddenly changed.
Elsewhere, in dusty near-darkness, the two guards found themselves blinking at each other over their halberds, and then, slowly, trembling in fear.
They both knew very well where they were: the trophy hall that gave entrance to the Hall of Heroes, the warriors’ tomb in Waterdeep’s City of the Dead.
Elminster strode straight through lofty halls, anger and magic crackling around him. He scattered guards and courtiers like so much dust. As chamber gave way to chamber, the guards he faced were older. Not a few of them recognized him and stood aside with salutes. “Piergeiron,” he snapped at the first pair of them not to do so. They swiftly opened the doors they were flanking and waved him in.
“No, Lord, I cannot,” Laeral was saying firmly. “There are too many enchantments hereabouts, layer upon layer, hundreds of them, and many old and forgotten. If I could but touch him, I could put a tracer on him that few mages could break, but—”
Heads turned as Elminster joined the small, tense group of folk. They gathered by a lone lamp, within a watchful ring of silent Tower apprentices. Laeral, Mirt, Piergeiron, and Durnan nodded to him.
Asper bowed her head and murmured, “Lord Elminster, be welcome.”
At her words, Aleena and Durnan’s wife and daughter stared at Elminster as if he’d suddenly grown several heads, each of them spitting flame.
“I may have a solution to that,” the Old Mage told them, “but we must move swiftly; Storm is our bait, and stands in peril. All who would see battle and this affair done, gather around me now, touch me, and hold that contact steady. Apprentices, back to the Tower.”
The ring of novice wizards wavered.
Laeral turned her head and said crisply, “Do as the Lord Elminster directs, please. Now.”
The Old Mage did not wait for pleasantries or to watch the apprentices hasten out. Brief magefire flashed. The room was suddenly much emptier than before, leaving only Mhaere and Tamsil staring at their father, who stood alone by the lamp.
Mhaere frowned a little at her husband. “You … didn’t go,” she said, a question in her voice.
Durnan strode over and put an arm around her and Tamsil. “You left your crossbow behind,” he replied softly. “What might have befallen if the slayer had come here, after we’d all gone?”
With his free hand, he drew his sword. It gleamed in the lamplight. “Whatever else befalls in this world, I’ll not lose you, if I can prevent it.”
BAH! WEEPY SENTIMENT EVERYWHERE! THIS HUMAN’S WITS ARE ADDLED—ADDLED! WHAT SORT OF FOOL LIVES HIS LIFE WRAPPED IN LOVE OF OTHERS?
The human sort of fool, Nergal. It’s what we are, just as ye are the creature of Hell ye are.
GRRRR! FALL SILENT, CAPTIVE WIZARD!
They were suddenly elsewhere—a dark and cold elsewhere, with dust rising around them and the smell of stone strong in their nostrils. Underground.
Piergeiron slapped his armor, startling his daughter rigid, and willed it to come alight. It awakened in a pale blue glow.
By its radiance and Laeral’s glowfire they could see they were standing in a high-ceilinged hall that looked empty but for the drifting dust. Many dark archways marked led to passages that ran off into gloom.
The radiance coming from Laeral’s hands flared to almost blinding brightness. The Lady Mage of Waterdeep reached up to touch Piergeiron’s head.
He gasped, shuddered, and stumbled away from her.
Laeral reeled and sank down to her knees. Aleena bent to catch hold of her, but Asper was swifter.
“Lady?” she asked quietly.
“I’ll be fine,” Laeral said calmly. “Piergeiron needs to be hale and whole right now, and I�
��ve made him so. I’ll just be a little weak for awhile.”
“Aleena,” Asper said, “stay with her. Guard her—and if anyone wearing a mask comes anywhere near, scream your head off.”
Piergeiron’s daughter looked at Mirt, Elminster, and her father, collected their nods of assent, and knelt down by Laeral with an audible sigh of relief.
Mirt slapped Piergeiron’s chest gently. He rumbled, “You know where we are, don’t you?”
Piergeiron was staring at a coat of arms carved over a nearby archway. “I think so,” he replied quietly, “and I begin to suspect why.”
He drew breath to say more—but Storm’s long, raw scream came echoing down to them from somewhere far beyond the arch.
Asper, as always, moved first, racing like a dark wind through the archway. Piergeiron soon caught her up, his consecrated blade glimmering as he willed it to shine. Elminster sprinted along close at hand, leaving behind the puffing and astonished Mirt.
Along a passage they ran, then through two chambers of cobwebs and dust, and a third where a lone, scuttling spider fled their furious approach. In the fourth, light shone amid vaulted pillars, casting forth the shadows of two dark, struggling figures in leather. One was masked. His sword, glistening with blood, stood out of Storm’s back. Impaled, she was struggling forward in agony, trying to reach him.
The masked man saw the new arrivals and raised his other hand. The many-hued flames of a ready spell were racing around it.
“Sssambranath,” he said clearly and carefully, the first word of an incantation that would define what part of the chamber erupted in a racing storm of lightning bolts. “Naerth—”
His incantation broke off as Storm spat blood into his face, making him choke. The hilt of his blade was almost against her breast, now, and she clawed weakly at his masked face. He shook his head violently, ducking away from her as much as he could without letting go of his sword—but his spell was ruined.
No such misfortune befell Elminster. Swinging around a pillar to a panting stop, the Old Mage caught his breath and cast a careful spell.
The room suddenly fell shimmering and silent.
Striding past where Asper was frozen in midleap, the Old Mage reached the two bodies joined by steel. He cast another spell with the same fussy care, touched Storm Silverhand to visit its effects on her, and gently took hold of her shoulders and tugged.
Wetly, she slid back along the masked man’s sword, her eyes unseeing and her face twisted in pain. Elminster kept on pulling, wincing at the feel of the steel sliding out of her.
The longer he kept this ancient Illuskan spell going, the more pain he would feel. Yet it could be nothing compared with what Storm must be suffering. He’d sent her into this—the most rebellious of the three lasses he’d raised as his daughters, albeit centuries ago.
Gods above, but he’d forgotten just how much this could hurt.
The Old Mage set his teeth and dragged the Bard of Shadowdale a few unsteady, trudging steps farther, past the statue that his spell had made of Mirt. The Old Wolf was frozen in midstride, arms swung wide for balance and drawn steel in both hands.
Elminster knelt beyond him, wrestling with a snarl against the rising surges of agony that made his hands tremble. Mystra, how many times had he done this for this lass? And she for him? On her riven breast, he carefully laid out what he’d need for the healing spell. When he was done, teeth chattering with pain, he banished the spell.
At once the world was all loud, racing movement again. The pain was abruptly gone. For him.
El let Storm half-crush his hand in her own as she stared up at him, agony like fire in her eyes. Then he drew a deep breath and drowned out her scream with an iron command of his own. As Asper, Piergeiron, and Mirt charged at the masked man, the Old Mage’s voice rang out over them like a battle trumpet: “Don’t kill him. Yet.”
FIRES OF NESSUS. A ROOM FULL OF CLEVER-TONGUED HUMANS! DO I GET TO SEE THEM DIE?
No, but ye get to hear their talk of powerful magic—and I do mean powerful.
AH! ABOUT AVERNUS-FREEZING-OVER TIME!
Helpless the man hung in the air above them, masked no longer. Spread-eagled and furious, frozen in the grip of Elminster’s spells, he was running out of obscenities to spit down at them.
That seemed almost fair, because fewer and fewer questions were occurring to those below. His answers thus far—most given proudly—revealed him to be Amril Zoar, of the noble family exiled from Waterdeep long, long ago. He’d armed himself to destroy all the lords of the city with the spells and an enchanted sword he’d gained from a man who bore a silver harp badge, and he wondered how to reach them ere they gathered together to hunt him down.
For years he’d schemed and brooded until by chance his spies found a book. It turned out to be a lost tome of Ahghairon, the “Founder of Waterdeep,” that detailed how to create “ring of fire” gates. These short-lived gates were but echoes of certain ancient, long-hidden portals moved into the cellars of early Waterdeep by Halaster Blackcloak. Echo gates could be created only within a short distance of the ancient portals, but—Mirt’s eyes gleamed at this news—they could bypass many modern barriers and defensive enchantments. Once a master of echo gates, Amril had taken his tutor’s harp badge as his own and begun slaying lords of Waterdeep.
Mirt peered up at the floating man and said grimly, “Right. Enough. Kill him. We can spell-talk to his corpse about his kin and kill them, too.”
“No!” a voice rapped out from behind him. Storm’s face was pale, but she strode forward as swiftly and smoothly as if she’d never felt the bite of cold steel. “I must know more of the man with the silver harp, who taught this Amril magic!”
Elminster looked up. “What happened to your tutor, and who was he?”
Amril Zoar glared down at him and said bitterly, “I never knew his name. He was killed by a knight of Waterdeep, who came seeking my father’s death—and mine. He found my father’s, but my tutor bought my life with his own.”
Elminster let his hand fall to his side, and the spread-eagled noble sank, still spellbound and motionless, to hang a few feet off the dusty stone floor.
Mirt stepped forward in grim silence, axe in hand, and looked to Piergeiron.
The First Lord nodded. “For Waterdeep, then. For Tamaeril, and Resengar,” he intoned.
The axe swept up, glittering.
A leather-clad form sprang in front of Mirt, bare hands raised. “No!” Storm protested. There were tears in her eyes. “Do not kill this man. His cause was just in his eyes—and his task nigh impossible, for one alone. I would have him for the Harpers.”
Mirt frowned at her. His gaze strayed to Amril’s sword, still lying in a dark pool of Storm’s blood, and then back to the Bard of Shadowdale. “Why?” he asked bluntly.
“He saw his cause as just and did what he thought he had to,” Storm replied. “Who are we to think ourselves better than he?”
Mirt’s frown grew. Something that might have been a growl stirred deep in his throat—then, slowly, he stepped back, lowering his axe, and bowed to Storm.
“Methinks yon youngling enjoys slaying overmuch, Lady,” he said darkly, “but enough. I grow sick of killings. Mind you get that book of Ahghairon’s from him, though … I don’t want his cousin or squire or trained dog coming through a gate beside my bed in the midst of my snoring time, one or two nights from now!”
Storm nodded. “If he cannot or will not change his ways,” she said softly, “he will find death. At my hands.”
“So be it,” Piergeiron said, almost wearily. “Just take him far from Waterdeep.” He looked down at what he was turning over and over in his fingers, as if seeing it for the first time. “A silver harp,” he said thoughtfully. “I thought the badge of the Harpers was a silver moon and a silver harp.”
“The silver moon was my mother’s badge … her kin came from the city of Silverymoon,” Storm said softly. “But Harpers have a better answer. Mirt?”
Mirt s
miled. He put his arm around Asper and growled, “The harp is the Harper. The moon need not be part of the badge—for as the motto says: Harpers hunt by moonlight.”
SO WE SEE SOME WHISPERS OF MAGIC, BUT HARDLY THE SILVER FIRE I SEEK OR ANYTHING I CAN SEIZE AND MAKE USE OF? I WEARY OF LASHING YOU, IDIOT WIZARD—SO I’LL DO NOTHING TO YOU, NOW? TRY NOT TO FOOL YOURSELF INTO THINKING I’LL FORGET THIS AND THAT YOU’RE GETTING AWAY WITH SOMETHING.
YOU’LL LEARN DIFFERENTLY SOON ENOUGH.
Mirt found himself blinking at the ceiling, all silver in moonlight. “No!” he gasped hoarsely. “Gods, no!”
He was still dressed. The hilt of his sword was ready under his clenched hand. Amril Zoar’s blade dripped with Storm’s gore … He’d half forgotten the details, but they came flooding back, with a face behind them: Elminster. Or rather, what was left of Elminster.
A desperate, wavering mind, less than it had been, pleading, and in a ruined body … in a stinking stony waste under a blood-red sky. Avernus. It had to be.
“When I’m ready to look for a place to die,” Mirt told his sword as he drew it and watched the moonlight gleam along its bright length, “Hell will not be where I start. Just so long as that’s clear.”
With a grunt he rolled off the bed, stamped his feet to settle them in his boots, and set off down the passage. This might be one walk he didn’t come back from, and he was damned if he was going to leave before he saw—
Asper, a pale flame in the gloom, burst bare out of her bedchamber. Her hair was wild. She held a sword in one hand and boots in the other. “Thieves?” she gasped, almost falling in her haste to bar his way. “Lord work?”
“Worse than that, lass. Elminster needs me.”
“Elminster? Why?”
“Because he’s trapped and in torment in Hell,” the Old Wolf growled. “Where I dare not go.”
“No, Mirt,” Asper cried. Her face went bone-white. “Not to Hell! You’ll never even get near him before the devils get their talons on you, and you’ll be—you’ll be—”
She flung away her boots and clutched his arm. “No friend is worth dying for—when your death isn’t going to help him!”
