The Realms of the Elves a-11

by Коллектив Авторов

  "In truth, we know not," Merith replied.

  The glowing eyes nickered at that, and blazed with sudden fire. "So you intrude, and must be slain!"

  The scepter flashed up, Jhessail hissed in exasperation and ducked aside-and Florin's long sword stabbed low and swift over her shapely back and through a bony blue wrist before that scepter could be aimed precisely.

  The baelnorn struggled to move its hand as it desired, to bring the scepter down, but Florin's transfixing steel and strength prevented it-and Merith's blade struck its other hand aside.

  There was a flash from somewhere behind the undead elf, in the curling mists, and Jhessail and Merith shot glances that way in time to see a second baelnorn, some thing its wielder had not expected.

  The baelnorn facing the Knights chose that moment to voice its own frustration with a hiss very like that Jhessail had made. Still wrestling against Florin's brawn, it triggered its own scepter.

  There was a flash, a flood of drifting sparks, and… nothing but empty air, the mist shrinking back as if afraid or revolted. The baelnorn gaped at the widening drift of fading, winking-out sparks in shocked dismay, its face a mask of bewilderment. It vanished-scepter, astonishment, and all-half a breath before the distant baelnorn winked out of existence too.

  Their disappearance left Florin wincing and shaking his numbed hand, the sword it held frosted over and thrumming no longer.

  Jhessail was already looking around, rather wildly, in all directions-at nothing but mist, mist, and more curling mist. "I'd give a lot to know why Elminster brought us here, where and what 'here' is, and just what we're supposed to do. If we're going to be facing one foe after another, translocating in under our noses out of nowhere, it's only a matter of time before-"

  " 'Ware!" Florin snapped, whirling around.

  It was another lich, shorter and more withered and gaunt than the previous ones. Florin's blade sliced into the hand it was raising, and bit through a staring eye that had just opened in its withered palm. The lich vanished in a burst of blue flame and acrid smoke, taking the tip of Florin's sword with it.

  The ranger studied the clean, squared-off end of his shortened blade just long enough to be sure the metal wasn't melting away further or trying to turn into something else.

  Then he turned to Merith, who looked ashen, and asked, "What befalls?"

  The elf Knight sighed. "Did you see the sigil in that lichnee's palm? Around the eye that was trying to get a look at us?"

  "Not well enough to draw it properly, no, but I'd probably recognize it again," Florin replied. "What of it?"

  "It's one of the signs of Larloch," Merith said grimly. "That lich was his, and he was probably looking through that eye."

  Jhessail winced. "Did we blind him? Or just cut off his view through that lich?"

  "Just cut off his view, most likely."

  Merith delivered that judgement as if it comforted him not at all. Reaching a long arm around Jhessail's shoulders, he drew her close, hugged her tight, and kissed her fiercely and swiftly-'ere whirling away, sword up, to glare all around, as if expecting an onrushing foe in the next breath.

  He didn't have to say a word to tell her: I want to do this, because for one or both of us, this kiss may be our last.

  His lady sighed. "So there are liches, and then there are liches. Baelnorns don't seem pleased to find us here, but don't know where 'here' is, and their magic fails them in this place. And then there are Larloch's liches. Marvellous. That brings us not a stride closer to knowing what's going on, or what we're supposed to be doing."

  "Ride easy, Jhess," Florin said as they returned to standing back to back, looking outward with weapons ready. "There are worse fates than not knowing what's going on. After all, that's the life most folk in Faerun live, almost all their days."

  "Your words are both clever and utter failures as reassurance," Jhessail told him, but her voice was more amused than angry. "At least that baelnorn stood in the same boots as we do: not knowing what was going on."

  "Yet it should not have attacked so swiftly," Merith mused. "And its eyes seemed to change then."

  "Aye, I saw that too," Florin agreed. "Could something- or someone-be controlling it?" He peered into the mists for a few moments then added, "I understood its speech well, old stylings, flutings and all, save for one word. What means 'thaes'?"

  Merith's head turned far enough that the ranger could see one end of his frown. "An exact translation is difficult, but… 'young stranger-elf?' "lis a neutral word, but wary, combining 'I know you not' with something of'there is no hostility between us-yet.' However, the Revered said something far more interesting than one old, little-used word. It spoke of its duty to guard the Weaving of Raulauve. Now, Raulauve is the name of an elf, not a place-but by 'Weaving', I tell you true, he meant a mythal."

  "So the baelnorn was a mythal-guard," Jhessail murmured. "And surprised to find itself away from its mythal. Wherefore it did or experienced nothing unusual to bring itself here." She stared into the endless mists. "I wonder if someone else fetched it here, and tried to turn it against us?"

  "Larloch, you're thinking," Florin said.

  Jhessail spread her hands. "Does it not seem more than merely possible? Yet its master could be a thousand-thousand other beings, or a chain of old spells, or other causes entirely, I grant. To be certain, we'll have to see if all the liches bear some mark of Larloch, or proclaim allegiance to him. If other baelnorns-or anyone or anything else-appear, we must try to learn by sign or speech if anyone is compelling them."

  Merith nodded. "Baelnorns do not usually behave thus; that much is certain."

  Florin gave him a sudden sidelong grin. "Oh? You've met many?"

  The darkly handsome moon elf did not smile back. "Ask me not. Please."

  "I'd give a lot to know why my spells turn to harmless flames," Jhessail muttered, "but all manner of creatures seem able to translocate here freely-and at least one creature is able to farscry through a lich, and at least one creature can magically or mentally control a baelnorn." She looked from Merith to Florin and back, and added, "And spare me the clever comments about every mortal desiring to know the whys and wherefores of their life, but only the gods being cursed to understand such things."

  Obligingly, the other two Knights gave her silence-in which they shared a wink.

  Jhessail rolled her eyes at that, and observed, "As I started to say earlier, it's going to be but a matter of time before one of these sudden arrivals manages to slay or wound one of us-and if we all stand wary with weapons ready, we'll eventually grow too tired to defend ourselves, and-"

  "My, you're in a dark mood this even, my love," Merith said, stroking her cheek in the manner he knew she liked. "Stand easy, whilst Florin and I think awhile. Our wits move more slowly than yours, mi-"

  A drift of mist not far from them turned golden, a warm glimmering that became firelight. The Knights found themselves peering, as if through a window in thickly-swirling mists that seemed for a moment like the falling snows of Shadowdale in deep winter, into a firelit study. There an elf with skin like silver metal, wearing a strange upswept tabard, sat upon a floating-on-air couch, intently studying a tome bound in dragonhide.

  Jhessail leaned forward in quickening interest, angling her head to try to catch a glimpse of what was written on those pages. The elf seemed to sense he was being watched, and lifted his head to glare at her-or past her, not quite seeing her-with rose-red eyes that were sharp with anger.

  He waved a long-fingered hand in an intricate spell-weaving none of the Knights recognized. They hastily scattered, out of long habit, only to watch whatever it was flare up golden… and turn to rippling silver flames that faded away in an instant, a mere handspan away from the hand that had birthed them.

  The elf sprang from his crouch, anger turning to real alarm at what his spell had become, and flung his spellbook away. It grew fins or spines that looked swordblade-sharp, and flew away, swooping in a tight arc like a swallow, to
vanish from view beyond the edges of the window in the mist.

  The elf mage snatched up a staff that crackled with power. The staff grew blades, glittering with moon-runes, from both ends. He brandished it, silently shouting something at the adventurers he could not see.

  The window drifted closed again, leaving the Knights blinking at white mist, and at each other.

  "Hey-hah," Jhessail muttered. "Wondrous strange. Was this scene sent to us as some sort of message, or are we just standing in a place that touches many other places, often, and-" She shrugged in bewilderment.

  "Your guess," said Florin, "is as grand as mine own. That elf mage was familiar to none of us, right?"

  Merith and Jhessail both started to shake their heads- and the light changed behind Merith. He whirled around to face the flare, and flung up a hand in warning.

  In the distance, roiling mists flickered ruby-red, and shone green for a moment longer. In that moment, two silent, dark-robed figures strode out of the emerald rift. The next moment the mists were white again, but the two newcomers were still there, striding toward the Knights.

  "More liches," Merith said with disgust, seeing noseless faces that were half withered flesh and half yellowed bone. The two tall once-men loomed up and long, gaunt arms reached for him.

  The elf hacked aside one arm with his thrumming long sword, and struck aside the clawlike reaching fingers of the other with his dagger. As the second lich leaned in to rake at his face, Florin's humming blade thrust over Merith's shoulder. Jhessail ducked down and out from between them, to shear off fingers and send their owner reeling away.

  "They're not even trying to work spells," Jhess murmured, hefting her dagger and peering into the mists all around for signs of other attackers.

  The two liches reached for Merith again with the dogged mindlessness the Knights usually saw in shuffling tomb-zombies. Baleful eyes glared out of their palms.

  Jhessail drew a long stabbing-bodkin from its sheath down the back seam of one of her boots and put it through one of those eyes as Florin tangled the fingers of that lich's hand in his blade.

  The eye of the other spat something at her that turned into flickering, short-lived silver flames.

  She gave those wriggling tongues a brittle smile and said, "Well, at least it's not just me."

  "Useful lore," Florin agreed, as his blade slashed one way and Merith's sliced another-and the head of a lich toppled and rolled through scudding mists.

  The decapitated undead bent to retrieve its lost part- and Merith sprang into the air and kicked its bent-over shoulders with all his might, hurling it back into the other lich. They fell in a softly-thudding tangle together, and he and Florin pounced on them, hacking like butchers in a frantic hurry. Glancing only fleetingly at their viciousness, Jhessail stayed between the thickened strands that were Dove and Elminster, casting glances into the mist.

  Almost immediately there came another bright red flash in the mists right behind Florin. Jhessail cried a warning, and the ranger whirled and drove his long sword into another lich, just as it stepped out of an emerald rent in the drifting mists.

  It clawed the air, flung up a hand in which an eye was opening, and Florin's backswing cut that hand into ruin. Shards of dry flesh, dust, and tumbling fingers sprayed back into the lich's silently-snarling face.

  Merith whirled from his completed butchery to chop Florin's lich down, muttering, "No spells, and not a word do they speak! This seems… unsubtle for Larloch. Too stumble-headed."

  Florin nodded. They dismembered their silent foe, turned its remains over with their swordpoints to peer in vain for items of interest, and hastened back to Jhessail.

  "Far more fumbling than Larloch's reputation suggests," Florin agreed, as they turned back-to-back once more. "And why offer themselves to our steel so? Without their spells, we can destroy them readily enough. Why attack us? If they're compelled, whoever commands them must be slow-witted indeed!"

  There was another red flash to Jhessail's left, and another to her right-and two more liches strode forward. The more distant one winked out of sight again, even as another two appeared, not far from Merith.

  "Huh," the elf grunted, "this is more what I'd been expecting. Perhaps he's just been testing us."

  "Costly way to test a foe," Florin commented, lunging out from the cluster of Knights to hack at a startled lich's arm, and drawing smoothly back before it could even start to reel.

  Jhessail frowned. "Perhaps that's just it. Impress our livers out of us, as we gasp at how many liches the foe sending them can afford to lose."

  "That's minstrels' thinking," Merith said, holding off a glaring lich with his sword and kicking it hard in the belly-if it still had a belly-to send it stumbling away. "Taunt and gloat time. Why impress someone you're going to slay?"

  More liches stepped out of rifts all around the Knights-a dozen or more-and they were joined by a baelnorn, tall, gaunt, and bewildered. It stared all around in seeming anger, and stumbled toward the Knights, shuffling reluctantly. As it came, it grimaced, convulsed, and trembled, murmuring something inaudible and visibly struggling.

  "At war with itself," Jhessail murmured.

  "Fighting Larloch or whoever's bidding it, you mean," Florin murmured. He raised his thrumming-anew blade and took a step to one side so he and Merith-who stayed right where he was-could flank the guardian.

  The baelnorn halted and gazed at them sadly, well aware of the peril prepared for it. Then, with a sigh, it reached over its shoulder and from an unseen baldric reluctantly drew forth some sort of long, very slender, black-bladed sword that bent readily-and nickered, but did not start to hum. Runes flashed up and down the sable length of that strange sword as the guardian swung the supple steel around itself at shoulder-height, as if limbering up for a fray.

  As it stepped forward, blade still whirling, four liches were flanking it, bearing long knives in their hands.

  Florin thrust his sword up high to parry that black blade-and ducked his body low, hurling himself into a forward roll even as sparks showered him. His arm went numb, and his sword shrieked in protest overhead.

  A moment later he was slamming into the baelnorn's shins, and it was toppling, black blade whipping wildly- into the nearest lich. Florin rode it to the ground, twisting himself to bring what was left of his own sword around in a slash at the closest lich that had stood on the baelnorn's other flank.

  He caught a momentary glimpse of a malevolent eye glaring out of one of its palms. Then he bounced atop two struggling bodies and the twisted stub of his sword could no longer reach the lich he'd swung at-and it bent forward.

  Jhessail hurled herself through the air like a thrusting sword, feet first. The lich folded up around her with a startled crunch, and fell, leaving the lich beyond them both to stare down in what would have been bewilderment if there'd been enough flesh left on its skull to express any emotion.

  Jhessail bounced to her feet out of the writhing limbs of the lich she'd felled, slashed the throat of the staring undead with speed and savagery enough to send its skull whipping around on its shoulders in an unsteady, bobbing wobble, and hissed at it, "Shall we dance? If'tis my death you seek, care to try again?"

  It glared at her and brought its hands up, its fingers lengthening like talons, so she sliced each of them off, wondering how soon her blade would grow dull-or one of them would loom out of the mists and serve her the same way.

  Behind her, Merith finished dismembering the lich she'd first taken down, and murmured, "Ladylove mine, would the flames your spells become burn lich-flesh, d'you think?"

  Florin hacked at liches' shoulders, thighs, and necks, ignoring the baelnorn. He was aware of Merith doing the same, off to his left, and… the last lich left standing faded away. The baelnorn sank into nothingness with its black blade writhing like a lashing-tailed snake, and there was another gods-blasting disturbance in the white mist. A rift of dark, raging red laced about with flickering green radiance spilled down for all Faerun
as if it was a glowing green waterfall.

  In its wake was a bright green gulf-out of which strode yet another pair of liches. These stalked purposefully, menacing, their hands up to cradle glimmering eyes that glared out of their palms as they came.

  The moment Florin met the gaze of one of those palm-eyes, he felt a sudden deep iciness stab through him as if driven like a thrusting sword blade.

  He staggered, and found himself shuddering-an uncontrollable shiver that wrenched at him more and more slowly, his spasms becoming slow driftings, his limbs heavy, his…

  They strode toward him, dark and terrible, and beside him Jhessail sobbed with effort, struggling against the same fell cold.

  Florin heard Merith curse, close by on the side his head was turned away from. He could not hope to turn his head to see before the liches reached him, their hands raised like claws to rend and tear.

  Sister?

  The mind-voice snapped into Storm Silverhand's mind with such savage force that she gasped and almost spilled the herb-brew she was dipping her fingertips into, to gentle into a sick child's mouth.

  The little lad's mother drew back in alarm, whirling her ailing son behind her. All Shadowdale knew that when the Bard did something sudden or unexpected, magic was apt to come roaring forth from her-and people died.

  "Yes?" Storm answered, speaking aloud to try to reassure the farmwife. "What troubles the Queen of Aglarond this fair night?"

  Ethena Astorma, HAVE DONE! Where is my Elminster, and why can I not reach him, or feel his presence anywhere?

  Storm drew in a deep breath, beckoning to the farm-wife to put the sick infant into her arms, and thought back: Alassra, back in Alturiak, El led Dove and three of the Knights So frightened and furious was the Simbul that she broke all courtesy and sent her mind racing along the link between them, flooding unbidden into Storm's own consciousness in her impatience to see all the Bard of Shadowdale knew.