by Ed Greenwood
His eyes narrowed. He turned it over in his fingers, finding nothing illuminating on the obverse, and—the light dimmed behind him.
Pheldemar of the Fireballs made sure he turned around fast enough this time, in a crouch and with his rod ready—
Two helmed horrors were floating along the trail toward him. They came to smooth halts, their enchantments recognizing him as a commander rather than a foe. Pheldemar frowned down at the gewgaw in his hand, lifted his gaze to the nearest helmed horror—and on an impulse tossed the oval lazily at the chest of the armored sentinel.
The singing of his shielding, still in place around him, flared into a high shriek as the helmed horror blew apart, tumbling its still-intact fellow end-over-end through the air for an impressive distance. Shards of twisted silver-blue battle armor crashed and rattled off branches in all directions, pattering down through dancing leaves. Several pieces sped into his shield and were slowed to a snail-drift by it. Pheldemar stepped out of the way of the only one of these that was proceeding into a collision with him and peered at it with interest as it ghosted past.
The surviving helmed horror was upright again, flying impassively back toward the trail with its sword raised. Pheldemar looked at it then down at the wreckage at his feet, and lifted both of his eyebrows aloft in earnest.
“Well, now,” he said thoughtfully, hand straying to the alarm-horn at his belt. “Well, now …”
* * * * *
Ah, Great Mystra? Goddess? Are you here, in my mind?
If so, what should I do?
Narnra smiled wryly. And if you’re there, WHY are you lurking in my mind, without telling me? Are you a Cormyrean, perhaps?
She expected nothing but silence in reply to that.
Silence she got, but also a stirring in the darkness of her mind.
Seven sparks winked, just for a moment, as if amused … and that was all.
* * * * *
Something like a wavering shadow appeared in the air of the room Rauthur had first brought him to, thickened, and grew an arm and an alertly peering head.
“I come from Suzail with urgent news for the Lord Vangerdahast,” it announced excitedly, and then waited. Silence was the reply.
The head smiled, and surged forward, growing a body. It did not look like the customary handsome form Harnrim Starangh was wont to wear, but then he wasn’t called Darkspells for nothing.
Aside from himself, the dim room was deserted. He cast a swift spell and nodded in satisfaction. “Off that way, where the shield-spells grow strongest,” he murmured, “I must not go … but here, these shields I can work with.…”
That fool Rauthur’s mind had been fearfully a-bubble with rushing memories during their visit together, wherefore the boldest Red Wizard in Cormyr now knew there were scrolls in plenty beyond that door down this passage and also that one, which also led to a closet that held some wands and a rod or two better left undisturbed because hidden tracer-enchantments could well have been built into them. The really powerful—and experimental—magics Vangerdahast kept hidden behind shields that could slay, shields attuned only to him, but there’d be chances enough to gain those later. First, the—
“Blaedron? Is that you?”
Starangh sent a slaying-snake spell through the air even before he melted his body back into a shadow flickering among the pulsing shields. The War Wizard coming around with the corner with a frown on his face and a wand in his hand walked right into the fangserpent and managed only the choked beginnings of a scream before his face was sucked away by the magic—eyes, breath, flesh, and all.
Blood-drenched bone stared with empty sockets at Starangh for a moment ere the man toppled.
Darkspells smiled and cast another magic that made the body a flickering shield-shadow like himself. It’d reappear when the shields were banished, of course, but until then …
He left the wand lying right where it had fallen and hastened on.
There was a flash of blue-white fire, and Vangerdahast laughed aloud.
“Yes!” he spat in delight, hands spread wide in the last flourish of his casting. “Done—and perfect!”
He chuckled in triumph, scribbled a note on his parchments with some panache, and rolled his eyes when Myrmeen asked from behind him, “Time for a break, Master of All Magic? Just a few moments to sip water, stretch, and wipe noses?”
Vangerdahast whirled around, robe swirling grandly, and made a very rude gesture he’d seen Purple Dragons present enthusiastically to each other on several occasions.
Myrmeen decided it was her turn to roll her eyes.
Rauthur’s mind held very clear directions on how to open the armory shields for someone not keyed to them. Merely mutter the right phrase, make the correct gesture, and step forward.
Into a chamber where two War Wizards turned startled faces toward him.
“Laspeera sent me!” Starangh told them anxiously. “There’s—”
By then he was close enough to touch one of the men, releasing a spell that twisted the man’s only active enchantment—a personal shield; by the kisses of Loviatar and of Shar, these Cormyrean mages lived like scared rabbits!—into a quivering paralysis field.
The other man gaped at him, hands flashing up to shape a spell. The Red Wizard reached into his sleeve, plucked a poisoned dart from a forearm sheath that held two of them, and tossed it into the man’s face.
The man shouted and clutched at his eye. Starangh lunged forward and punched him hard in the throat. The War Wizard went down gargling, and by the time he hit the floor the foam was coming to his mouth and the spasms had begun.
Starangh stepped clear and let him thrash. He’d deal with these two after he’d snatched what he’d come for.
The closet door had no lock. He used a daggerpoint to draw it open and moved aside with it, just in case, but no doom lashed out. Inside were dozens of pigeonholes labelled with unfamiliar glyphs, stuffed with scrolls. He selected three at random, peered at them, then pulled out a sack from his belt, shook it open, and started to fill it. There’d be time to find out what magics he’d gained later. Tarrying here would not be wise. He took the rolled parchments from the niches that held the smallest number of scrolls, stuffed the sack until it was full then—paused in mid-reach.
Something was winking in an empty niche: a tiny star of activation. The Red Wizard stepped back. He’d seen the most powerful of zulkirs use such things. Unless touched by the right being or counterspelled in precisely the right way they visited disaster on anyone disturbing them. Its presence meant that Vangerdahast had a second array of scrolls behind this first one—and that he was far more powerful in his Art than Starangh had thought.
The Thayan frowned, whirled, and carefully cast the spells that would burn out the brains of the two War Wizards from within and take with them all remembrance of his own appearance. He plucked his dart from the bubbling flames and took it with him, just in case. It had taken two years of retching weakness to build up a resistance to killing doses of staeradder, but he could now employ it without fear of dying from a casual scratch.
The man War Wizards called Old Thunderspells was not a doddering old fool but a graybeard magically much stronger than anyone in Thay gave him credit for. Defying him with taunts and a flourish of spells would be the act of a fool—and Harnrim Starangh would not leap into the recklessness that had taken so many ambitious young Red Wizards to their deaths.
It was time for the velvet glove, not the fist of fireballs. He’d arrange for Joysil to learn about Vangerdahast’s scheme. In her dragon shape, her enraged attack should destroy or weaken the old wizard. Whatever befell in battle, more magic should be uncovered for Harnrim Starangh to oh-so-casually find.
Darkspells of Thay departed the sanctum as hastily and stealthily as he knew how.
The whirling flames collapsed again, taking a small and inoffensive three-legged stool with them this time. It was flaming kindling in an instant and drifting ashes the next.
“Bla
st! Damn and blast!” Vangerdahast said wearily, leaning on his worktable. “There’s something wrong with this last bit.” He tapped two lines of runes then brightened. “Hey, now! If I change—”
“Into a pumpkin? Perhaps, but tomorrow’ll be soon enough for that,” Myrmeen Lhal said firmly, springing up from her chair and sheathing her blade with a flourish.
She took the former Royal Magician firmly by one elbow and turned him from the table, the pain causing him to blink at her, scrabble wildly to keep hold of his notes then give up and stumble along as she towed him, snapping gruffly, “You don’t have to treat me like some witless sack of grain, lass!”
“No, of course not,” she replied fondly, leaning close to him with her eyes dancing, “and I’ll soon stop doing so just as soon as you stop behaving like one!”
“Lass! Uh, lass! Myrmeen, damn you, girl! I’ve just a few tweaks more to work with it and ’twill be done, damn it!”
“Of course—as you work right through the night and the next morning and much of the day that follows it, doing those few little tweaks!”
Vangerdahast blinked at her as they went out into the passage. “But of course, lass. ’Tis magic.”
“Indeed,” the Lady Lord of Arabel agreed, still towing him firmly along. “And magic of a different sort will soon unfold in the kitchen, once you’re sitting there resting with a good stiff drink and I get started on the cooking. Gods above, man, you’ve waited decades to play with your spells—this one can wait for a single night longer.”
“Oh, but …”
“Oh, but you’re almost falling-down weary. Take a seat.” The ranger practically shoved Vangerdahast into a chair, clunked his best drinking-horn down in front of him, and filled it to the flaring brim with—
“Gods, woman! Old Amberfire! Where did you get this?”
“From your cellars,” Myrmeen told him sweetly. “ ’Twon’t keep forever, you know—and neither will you. When you’re dead, you’ll wish you’d opened a few more bottles of it instead of always leaving them for ‘the right time.’ The right time is always now.”
The mighty innermost shields of the sanctum hummed and pulsed around them as she unconcernedly started unbuckling straps and shucking armor in all directions.
Vangerdahast blinked at the sight and swiftly looked away. He cleared his throat loudly, took another swig … and slyly looked back at her again.
Ignoring him, Myrmeen plucked out the towel that all wise Cormyrean warriors keep strapped inside their breastplates beside the spare dagger, towelled herself dry, and reached for the largest skillet.
“It astonishes me,” she observed as she murmured the word he used to ignite whatever she’d left ready in the firebox, and went to the pantry cold-shelf for the crock of hog-fat and the string-sack hanging near it for some onions, “how you managed to keep such a round little belly on you, eating as you did.”
“Well, lass,” Vangerdahast grunted amiably over his drinking-horn, “I was alone and therefore relaxed. However tardily I thought of victuals and clumsily I prepared them, I could dine at leisure. No stress, see you?”
Myrmeen plucked down one of the kitchen knives she’d sharpened and commenced to do deft murder upon the onions. One thing for the old windbeard’s magic: His cantrip made the stove hot in a hurry. She cast a glance at the wood ready at hand, judged it wasn’t time to add any yet, and made busy greasing the pan. “How often did you end up groaning your guts out over the sink or yon bucket? Thrice I’ve scrubbed it and still can’t get rid of the sick smell! No stress then, I suppose?”
Vangey sipped, cast a surprised eye at how little remained in his horn, and observed to the low-beamed ceiling, “The trouble with overclever lasses is their tongues. Sharp like swords, and always jabbing jabbing jabbing at a man.”
Myrmeen snorted as the first onions hit the pan with a loud hiss and replied, “The trouble with overclever wizards is their hogheaded-stubborn insistence on always being right, which really means the world must do everything their way. Now, if they were really brilliant enough to choose the right way as their way, those tongues of their lasses could get a rest, and there’d be no jab jab jabbery at all!”
Vangerdahast chuckled and brought his booted feet up on the footstool. It had been months since it had been handy to do that with. Someone—Mreen here—must have cleared all those old scrolls off it, taken it out of the corner, and put it ready for him. Thoughtful lass.
He leaned back at ease and toyed with thoughts of what barbed comments he could make next to hear her laugh again and bring another thrust back his way. He hadn’t chatted this way for years.
The retired Royal Magician of Cormyr sighed with contentment and drained the last of his amberfire, as the warm smell of frying onions rose around him.
* * * * *
The blind-shield behind him flickered as someone passed through it, and an anxious voice asked quickly, “Huldyl?”
For the briefest of instants, Huldyl Rauthur froze in fear—then clenched his fists, drew in breath, and turned, face serene and eyes widening in unruffled inquiry. “Yes?”
Pheldemar Daunthrae stood in the guardroom, slightly out of breath and sporting the beginnings of what would soon be splendid bruises. He held his rod ready in his hand as if expecting a fight.
Huldyl eyed it then looked up at its bearer. “Some sort of fight?”
“We’ve lost about eight of the sentinel horrors, as far as I can tell,” the older War Wizard reported tersely. “Intruders—at least two, though I saw only one of them. Didn’t look like warriors or mages or—or anything except Marsemban merchants, actually. They were carrying some sort of enchanted blast-bombs.”
“Bombs?”
“Throw one, hit helmed horror, horror blows apart. Little circular silver disc-things, with runes on them in Thayan or some other Eastern script. No fuse, no trigger words, just throw, hit, and—boom!”
“They got away, these intruders, without leaving any of these, ah, bombs behind?”
“I found one, tried it out, cost us a horror. One of them got stunned by his own blast, I think—I heard the explosions, came looking, found him, and was just bending closer when another one burst out of hiding and ran me over from behind. By the time I had my wits again, the stunned one was gone too.”
“Eight sentinels? Gods forfend.”
Pheldemar nodded grimly. “Possibly just a foray to damage as many sentinels as possible, but if they’d been carrying sacks of these bomb-things and I hadn’t come to see, they might have blasted their way right to Lord Vangerdahast’s front door.”
Rauthur nodded. “Certainly seems a determined attempt to reach the sanctum. The Highknights must be told.”
“Aye. Shall I—?”
“If you would, yes—and have Thaerma take a look at you before you seek rest, just in case they did you some harm you haven’t noticed yet. Those bruises look nasty.”
“Thaerma? Go back to the Court?”
“Oh, yes, I think so,” Rauthur replied, in tones that made it clear he was issuing an order. “Tamadanther took over your duty-guard as usual?”
“Aye,” Pheldemar growled, departing with a none-too-pleased look on his face.
“Come, come!” Huldyl said jokingly. “In a short time the gentle hands of Thaerma will be …”
“We go way back, lad, she’n’me. ’Tis not the joy for me you imagine it to be.” Pheldemar turned the corner and was gone.
Huldyl shrugged, half-smiled, and turned back to his game of plundercastle. The cards that showed the attacking Witch-Lord wyvern-riders had struck him with damnable luck, and most of his turret-warriors were dead already. Gloomily he moved one of the survivors along the ring of turrets.
I’m just choosing which one he’ll die in.
He stared at the board with more foreboding than he’d felt since just before the last battle with the Devil Dragon.
Very much like the choice I’ve just made for myself.
Which is when he heard the
running footsteps. Someone frantic, coming fast and crashing into things along the way in his haste.
“Huldyl? Huldyl?”
Darthym was one of the few half-elf War Wizards, and he prided himself on being pleasant, soft-spoken, unassuming, and a mage of no gossip and few idle words. Now, however, he was wild-eyed and panting.
“Huldyl, Jandur and Throckyl are dead! Dead, blasted down with spells!”
Rauthur erupted from his seat, spilling pieces and cards in all directions. This must be Starangh’s work—but he had to make his reaction look right, and he’d been losing the damned game anyway. “What?” he roared, trying to match Darthym’s fire-eyed look.
“I-in the armory! Blown apart! Throckyl’s head is just sitting there, all by itself, looking out the door at me! I—”
“Thank you, Darthym. No sign of who did it, I suppose? Look you: Go and wake Sarmeir and tell him in my name that he’s to stand duty-guard with you here. Tell him all you want about what you found, but direct the sanctum defenses if any of the outside guards report troubles to you. You’re in charge. I must report this to Laspeera without delay!”
“Y-yes, Rauthur!” The half-elf leaped away down the passage, glad of something to do and direct orders letting him do it. Huldyl shook his head and smiled grimly. Ah, such troubled times.…
He ran a hand through his thinning hair, wiped his sweating brows with a knuckle, stood still, and cleared his mind.
It was still in place, as strong as ever. The mindcloak spell Starangh had given him was whispering ever so faintly at the back of his mind, a ready wall to block all probing magics.
Even those of a suspicious second-in-command of all the War Wizards of Cormyr. He was ready to go and make his report.
Seventeen
MINDPLUNGE
The most punishing spell I can think of is one that hurls you into your enemy’s mind, and he into yours. Minds rubbing raw on each other—now there’s true agony.
