The Realms of the Elves a-11

by Коллектив Авторов

  Florin and Storm looked up sharply-and froze, letting silence fall and deepen like an unrolling cloak.

  The cloaked figure standing on air a few strides away across Storm's garden was tall, terrible, and a-crawl with chill power. A ring of floating, faintly-glowing gem-stones that fairly throbbed with power drifted in a slow, patient circuit in the air above the apparition's gray head. Eyes like twinkling pits of white fire regarded the three sisters and the trio of Knights on their knees around them, and a hand that was little more than withered gray flesh over bones tightened around a staff that crackled with power.

  Merith hefted his sword, strangely thrilled that it was no longer humming, and opened his mouth to spit words of defiance.

  "Larloch," Storm said in greeting, as calmly as if she'd been identifying the sort of tree a leaf blowing by had fallen from.

  "Who never risks himself," Jhessail whispered. "So why…?"

  The lich-king kept his eyes on the Bard of Shadowdale. His withered hands spread slightly, as if in entreaty, nothing about the gesture suggesting fragility or enfeeblement.

  "This was… not my doing," Larloch said, his voice dry and deep. "From time to time I… test the lichnee who serve me by showing them a measure of freedom, and observing what they do with it. This time, they did foolishness."

  "This is no sending," Florin murmured. " 'Tis truly him."

  Merith nodded. "His want-or need-must be very important."

  Swords ready, the two rose slowly to their feet, each out of long habit stepping to one side to spread out and so offer this new foe more widely-spread targets, and a broader field of menace.

  Larloch ignored them. Those chilling eyes regarded Dove and Storm as they stepped forward in slow unison, hands empty of weapons and hair rising to swirl around them restlessly.

  "And now?" Storm asked, her words a clear challenge.

  Silver fire danced in her eyes, and those of her sister.

  The Shadow King made no reply, and Storm did something wordless that made a tear of silver fire drop from her eye to her breast-where it became a thin line of silver flame that raced up to her shoulder and down her arm, consuming and darkening nothing, to fill her palm and rise there in restless hunger, flickering and blazing.

  Even stronger hunger rose in Larloch's eyes as he gazed at what danced in Storm's palm. "And now," he replied, lifting his gaze only reluctantly from silver flames to Storm Silverhand's eyes, "I tender my apologies and depart. I seek greater Art, always. I do not seek battle with you, or any who serve the Lady."

  "No?" Dove asked, lifting her empty hand as if to hurl something.

  "No," Larloch said, bowing to her. Emerald fires crackled from nowhere to trail across withered gray flesh. "I am not a fool. No matter how powerful one becomes, there are always those who are stronger."

  "Yet you tarry," Storm reminded him, as politely as a lady of minor nobility conversing with a king.

  "Lady, I go," the undead lord replied. "I confess I… " He sighed, and announced in a near-whisper, "Looking upon the silver fire is precious to me."

  Storm regarded him wordlessly for what seemed a long time then slowly stepped forward, her face solemn. In breath-held silence the Knights watched her walk to him.

  The Shadow King took a step back in the face of her calm, lilting advance. Then another.

  Where he held his ground, an errant breeze stirred the long, stringy white hair that clung to the tight-stretched gray flesh on his skull. His eyes seemed to burn with rising white fire, and green lightning leaped out of his skin to race restlessly across him at Storm's approach. They heard him murmur, "I know my peril."

  The Bard of Shadowdale came to a stop almost touching Larloch, and lifted her hand slowly between them. He held his staff hastily aside, out of the way, and stared down.

  Storm let silver fire leap and dance in her palm, and Larloch bent to peer at it until his nose was almost touching the tallest licking silver tongues. He trembled with desire, his hands rising almost involuntarily.

  Dove seemed to rise with them, gathering herself to do something, and Jhessail licked her lips and lifted her hands to be ready to work what would almost certainly be an utterly futile spell.

  And Larloch straightened up, looked at Storm eye to eye, and said, "Thank you. It has been a very long time since someone has shown me kindness."

  He stepped back, bowed deeply, and said, "Fear me no more. Inspired, I return to my Art."

  The Shadow King turned, whipped his cloak around himself-and it fell to the ground, empty, fading to nothingness as it touched the earth of Storm's freshly-turned roseberry bed. There was a faint chord of chimings, like a flourish on the highest strings of a harp strung with metal, in the wake of the departing stones that had floated above Larloch.

  Storm stood watching, twirling her fingers in a swift spell… and turned, visibly relaxing, to announce, "He's gone. Quite gone, with no spying magic nor lurking peril left behind."

  "What?" The whisper was raw and horrible, but the fire in the Simbul's eyes, as she lifted her chin from the ground, was as fierce as ever. "Without even giving me a chance at him?"

  "Alassra," Dove said with sincere tenderness," 'Twould have been no chance at all."

  The Queen of Aglarond whirled and stiffened in an instant, like an aggrieved cat. "Sister, are you implying-?"

  "No," Dove said, effortlessly plucking the Simbul up by the shoulders and holding her upright, "I'm saying it straight out. No matter how broken or weary you may be, you can turn yourself into leaping lightning-I've seen it often enough, Mother Mystra knows-and nothing Larloch can muster can stand as a barrier against silver fire. As sheer silver fire, you couldn't help but reach him, and at a touch destroy him."

  Storm nodded as she rejoined them all in the trampled beans. "That's what he meant when he spoke of knowing his peril. You saw the green fire crawling all over him? That's the spell he's crafted to maintain his unlife, quickening as Mystra's fire came close."

  "He dares not have silver fire, but desires its power so much," Jhessail said. "He knows 'twill bring him oblivion-and longs for that, too-yet cannot bring himself, after so fierce and long a struggle to cling to life, to let it all go in an instant."

  The three sisters all nodded, in their own ways.

  "While mere young, vigorous brutes watch," Florin added. "Seeing through his dignity."

  Merith gave his friend a sidelong look. "Not so much of the 'vigorous,' there. I'm feeling a touch weary, myself. Perhaps 'tis all this listening to high-tongued jabber."

  "Perhaps," Storm agreed, a familiar twinkle in her eyes. "Tea, anyone?"

  "Tea?" The Queen of Aglarond twisted that word into a dripping symphony of disgust. "Is that all you can offer?

  After I destroyed nigh on a hundred liches, the replacement of which should keep Old Shadow-wits busy for a few decades at least?"

  "I can manage wine if Merith and Florin yet have strength enough to stagger down to my cellar, and soup if you've patience to wait till 'tis ready," Storm chuckled. "But as to something more substantial, I fear Torm and Rathan have taken to dining here every evening in your absence, on the pretext of being ready-to-hand upon your return, and there's not a joint of meat nor a barrel offish left in my larder."

  The Simbul frowned, sighed, and frowned a little harder. And an entire roast boar-spit and all-sizzled and dripped onto the beans, floating in midair right in front of her.

  She smiled in triumph, spread her hands in a flourish, and reeled. The boar sank, and Dove flung an arm around her shoulders to steady her. The Simbul winced and shuddered, white-faced.

  Storm's hair stirred around her shoulders like a whirlwind, and the boar's descent halted. "I suppose you'd be offended if I asked where you thieved this from?"

  Leaning into Dove's shoulder, the Simbul gave her sister a dirty look and muttered, " 'Tis mine. From my kitchens, I mean, and taken with a spell that tells my cooks whose hand removed it."

  Dove examined her own fingernails,
and said to them, "My, working in your palace must be fun."

  The Simbul rolled her eyes. "Don't bother fighting to win a throne, and defend it by slaughtering Red Wizards year in and year out," she told Florin, straightening and stepping away from Dove's arm with a determined effort. "See the respect it wins you?"

  "Lady Queen," the ranger replied, offering her his arm like a grave courtier, " 'twas not foremost in my personal plans, no."

  With a smile, the Simbul leaned on him. She was surprisingly heavy, but Florin saw no safety in commenting on that or even betraying his realization of it. With stately tread he led her along one of the garden paths in Storm Silverhand's wake.

  Behind him, Jhessail shook her head. "Sunrise, sunfall, and as inevitably, here we go again!"

  "What," Merith chuckled into her ear, "there're more liches? Where?"

  "Oho ha hearty ha," she replied. " want tea, if no one else does. I'll stay for that soup, too. Right now, I could eat a-"

  "Boar?" Merith suggested.

  "The problem with elves," the Witch-Queen of Aglarond observed from behind him, "is how easily their clever senses of humor rule them."

  Storm Silverhand turned in her kitchen doorway, eyes dark and twinkling, and said, "Ah, no, sister, there you have matters wrong. That's not the problem with elves. That's their glory."

  THE BLADESINGERS LESSON

  Richard Baker

  Flamerule, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

  Daried Selsherryn prowled through the warm green shadows of the ruined palace. Cold hate gleamed in his perfect eyes. He was attired for battle in a long shirt of golden mail so fine that it might have been made of snakeskin, and in his hand he carried a deadly elven thinblade imbued with potent magic. He was strikingly handsome, even by the high standards of the sun elves, but in his wrath his fine features darkened into the image of an angel wronged.

  He measured the damage he could see-the black scars of an old fire, the ruined courtyard, the broken windows and holed roof-and slammed his sword back into his sheath without a flourish. He simply could not see the reason for it, and that angered him until his head swam with bright rage.

  "They have made a ruin of my home!" he snarled, then he took a deep breath to compose himself.

  Seventy summers ago he had left the old manor of his mother's family warded by strong spells against weather, time, and thieves. But it seemed that his careful labor had been for nothing. His spells had been broken, and strong young trees stood in the overgrown courts and halls amid thick undergrowth and the damp smell of rotten wood.

  Root and rain had wreaked their damage on the old manor, but that was the way of growing things and fleeting seasons. What was the point of finding fault with nature's work? No, he would be wiser to save his anger for the plunderers and looters who had battered down the ancient doors his grandfather had made, dispelling the enchantments woven to preserve the Morvaeril palace for the day when once again an elf s foot might tread its marble-floored halls.

  Daried turned in a slow circle, studying the manor's empty rooms. Nothing to do now but learn the extent of the damage and try to piece together what happened in the long years the house had stood silent and empty in the forest. The tale of the front hall was easy enough to descry. The strong old doors had been battered down. The beautiful carvings of his grandfather's hand had been bludgeoned and dented by the impact of a rough-hewn timber that still lay just outside the entranceway. Nothing remained of the improvised battering-ram except for a ten-foot long outline of rotted wood, but the splintered doors were just inside the hall.

  "How long for a fresh-hewn tree to molder so?" he wondered aloud. "Forty years? Fifty?"

  Evidently, the thieves had come not very long after he and his family had Retreated, abandoning Cormanthor for the green haven of Evermeet. He would have hoped that a few generations might pass before the humans set about despoiling the old places of the People. But patience had never been a human virtue, had it?

  Daried followed the old signs into the house. The front hall itself had been turned into someone's stable, at least for a time. Low heaps of rich black compost showed where straw bedding and animal dung had been allowed to fall. Thick greasy soot streaked the wall above a haphazard circle of fist-sized stones, telling of campfires long ago. Daried poked around in the old ashes, and found charred bits of bone, the remains of a leather jack, a wooden spoon carelessly discarded. Human work, all of it.

  He straightened and brushed off his hands. Then he followed the trail of damage deeper into the house. Each room showed more of the same. Not a single furnishing remained in the old elven manor; everything had been carried away.

  He came to the steep stone stair that led to the vaults below the house, and there Daried smiled for the first time in an hour. One of the old invaders had fallen afoul of the house's magical guardians. The chamber had been warded by a living statue, a warrior of stone animated by elven spells. The statue itself lay broken into pieces nearby, but against one wall a human skeleton slumped, blank eye-sockets gazing up at the holed roof overhead. One side of the skull had been staved in-the work of the stone guardian, Daried supposed.

  "At least one of you paid for your greed," he told the yellowing bones. "But it seems your comrades didn't think enough of you to bury or burn you. You had poor luck in choosing your friends, didn't you?"

  He knelt beside the skeleton and examined it closely. A rusty shirt of mail hung loosely over the bones. Beneath the mail a glint of metal caught his eye, and he carefully drew out a small pendant of tarnished silver from the dead man's tunic. A running horse of dark, tarnished silver raced across the faded green enamel of the charm.

  I've seen that emblem before, Daried realized. Some of the Riders of Mistledale wore such a device. In the fly-speck human village not far off from the Morvaeril manor, there stood a rough and grimy taphouse with that symbol hanging above its door.

  "Dalesfolk pillaged my house?" he muttered. He tore the pendant from the skeleton's neck and stood with the tarnished charm clenched in his fist.

  The sheer ingratitude of the thing simply stunned him. Daried Selsherryn had returned to the forests of Cormanthor with the army of Seiveril Miritar, in order to destroy the daemonfey who had attacked Evermeet. The wretched hellspawn hid themselves in ruined Myth Drannor, threatening all the surrounding human lands with their conjured demons and fell sorceries. Daried and all who marched in the Crusade hazarded their lives to oppose that evil. Elf blood and valor stood as the only shield between those same Dalesfolk and a nightmare of hellfire and ancient wrath. Not five miles from where he stood twenty more elf warriors in the service of Lord Miritar's Crusade guarded that miserable human village. Yet he could see all around him how the wretched human thieves and squatters who'd inherited stewardship over Cormanthor had treated the things Daried's People had left behind.

  Did they forget us in less than a hundred years? he fumed silently. Why should a single elf warrior risk harm in order to protect such creatures? What sort of fool was Seiveril Miritar, to waste even one hour in seeking out the goodwill and aid of the Dalesfolk, or any humans for that matter?

  Grimacing in distaste, Daried wrapped the dead thief s pendant in a small cloth and dropped it into a pouch at his belt. He meant to ask hard questions about that emblem, and soon. Then he ducked his head beneath the low stone lintel of the stairs leading below the manor-house, and descended into the chambers below.

  The air grew cool and musty, a striking change from the humid warmth of the summer woodland above. He didn't bother to strike a light; enough of the bright midday sun above glimmered down the stair for his elf eyes to make out the state of the vault below.

  It, too, had been despoiled.

  Jagged pock-marks of bubbled stone showed where some fierce and crude battle-magic had been unleashed. The old summoning-traps that would have confronted the intruders with noble celestial beasts, loyal and true, had been scoured from the walls.

  Five pointed archways led away
from the room at the foot of the stair, and the adamantine doors that had sealed each one were simply gone. Destroyed by acid, disintegrated by magic, perhaps carried away as loot-it didn't matter, did it? What mattered was that the old vaults stood open, unguarded.

  Daried's clan had not left any secret hoards of treasure behind in a manor they abandoned, of course. But they had certainly thought that the long-buried dead of the family would be safe behind walls of powerful magic and elven stonework. One by one Daried glanced into each vault, and found dozens of his mother's ancestors and kin stripped of any funereal jewelry they might once have possessed. Their bones lay strewn about in thoughtless disorder, rummaged through and discarded like trash.

  Hot tears gathered in Daried's eyes, but he did not allow himself to avert his gaze. Having come this far, he would not allow himself to turn away until he had seen all that there was to be seen.

  It was not the elven way to send the dead to Arvandor with roomfuls of precious jewels or wealth for use in the next life. Sun elves were not humans, so frightened of death that they hoped such rites and treasures promised dominion in ages to come. Most sun elves of high family were interred in their finest clothes, wearing the jewels and diadems that went with such formal dress, as a simple matter of reverence. But that did not mean that the remains of the honored dead were to be picked over by whatever scavenger happened along.

  He came to the last vault, and there the loss was bitter indeed. It was the resting place of his mother's cousin Alvanir, last of the Morvaerils. He had been interred with the ancient moonblade of House Morvaeril, since with the passing of the last of the line the sword of the Morvaeril clan had itself faded into powerlessness and slumber. Each moonblade was meant for one elven House, and if the House failed, the moonblade was of use to no other.

  The ancient sword had been taken too, of course.

  Even though the blade was dormant or extinguished outright, it was still a treasure of House Morvaeril, and through Daried's mother, House Selsherryn as well. All else Daried could bear, bitter as it was, but the theft of a dead moonblade left a deep, hot ache in the center of his chest.