by Ed Greenwood
The dirty, trembling man she’d been torn away from lay forgotten on the tiles. A titanic crash nearby roused him to wakefulness. He peered around at the spell battle, shook his head in disgust or despair … and started to crawl forward. He passed among sprawled bodies and the rubble falling from the ceiling. The walls of the room were rippling, goaded by wild, clashing magic.
The Simbul struggled against determined devils. Bolts of dark magic spat from the Shar-worshipers and smote the tiles around the crawling man, showering him with stone shards.
He seemed not to notice, but struggled on, slithering across the room in a manner not all that different from the maggots of Avernus.
“Who—?” shouted a Sharran mage, as he caught sight of the crawling man. “Stop him!”
That cry came too late for those who trust in dark dreams. Elminster Aumar, who long ago had herded sheep in the forgotten land of Athalantar, fell forward. His battered, pain-racked face touched the silver tray that had fallen from the hands of Mystra.
A roar echoed around the throne room. Everyone stopped and turned. Even spell blasts and the screams of the dying hushed. It was the roar of massive magic unleashed, Mystra’s power left behind for her Chosen.
In its blue, raging heart stood a man, a wizard made whole again, a figure of white fire tinged with blue around its edges.
He strode from where the tray had been, swaying in the throes of power that made the very air throb.
Beams lanced out from Elminster’s trembling fingers and glaring eyes—to smite devil and Red Wizard, Malaugrym and Sharran alike, consuming them in sighing instants until none were left in the throneroom.
The Old Mage leveled both his hands to point at the shadowy web filling the end of the room. Blinding flames of blue-white and silver roared forth from his palms.
The explosion that followed left only bright sky and crumbling ashes in that end of the palace. Elminster blinked at the destruction with the same awe felt by the others still alive in the throneroom. In the ringing silence that followed, the shattered roof above them groaned loudly and started to fall.
Blocks of stone rained down, ponderous and deadly. If it hadn’t been for bright bolts fired so frantically by the crouching Seven and the blasts emitted by the Blackstaff, the roof might have claimed the lives of everyone in that place.
Instead, dust rained down, thick and choking, bringing with it an almost ominous quiet.
* * * * *
The sky was darkening into purple dusk before true peace came to the dust-shrouded throne of Aglarond. Gone were the courtiers, corpses, and those sent by Mystra. The throne room stood open to the sky. Fallen stone blocks lay strewn here and there beneath the winking stars.
Elminster and the Simbul stood together in each other’s arms. Three regals knelt a little distance away, awaiting their queen’s command. The fourth regal was missing, but they kept their thoughts away from her face and name. There would be time enough for grieving yet.
“Oh, my love,” the Simbul said fiercely, “When I thought I’d lost you …”
“Gently,” Elminster murmured, kissing her nose and brow and ears. “ ’Tis done—and hear this, lady of my heart: I vow henceforth to spend more time with thee and let Faerûn run more of its own affairs without my meddling.”
“That shall be my vow, too,” the Queen of Aglarond said in a trembling voice. She reached for his lips with her own.
“Well said,” hissed a voice from rubble nearby.
Phaeldara lay trapped with Thaergar of the Doors, pinned under a slab of roof thrice their combined size. It had been prevented from crushing them outright only by the twisted ruin of his sword and a shield he’d snatched from the wall in the heart of the fray. Even so, the weight upon them prevented their calling out. “Let this … be a vow both of you … keep!”
“Aye,” Thaergar gasped, wincing as Phaeldara squirmed beside his shattered arm. “I cleave … most heartily … to the same view!”
The three kneeling regals heard them and shrieked—cries that brought Elminster and the Simbul running.
As the spells that would free them were hastily chanted, the fainting man and the woman under the fallen stone thought they heard something else.
A strange echoing mirth that just might have been a god and goddess of magic chuckling, not so far away …
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When he created the FORGOTTEN REALMS® universe almost forty years ago, Ed Greenwood had no idea (despite always working with the best of intentions) that he’d wind up exploring Hell in a novel. Yet it’s occurred to him that, given the real estate in these pages, things can only get brighter for him (and the wizard Elminster) from here onward.
Ed hails from a book-crammed farmhouse in Ontario, Canada, where he writes many game adventures, short stories, and books. The former have won awards, while the latter have been translated into over twenty languages and taken him all over the world, where he delights in meeting fans. His recent books include the novels Silverfall, The Kingless Land, and The Vacant Throne.
FORGOTTEN REALMS, WIZARDS OF THE COAST, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc., in the U.S.A. and other countries ©2001 Wizards of the Coast LLC
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