Elminster Must Die sos-1

by Ed Greenwood

  “Well?” Marlin asked curtly.

  “Why? Why all the secret meetings, the hunts for hand axes, the men in flames?”

  “I … I seek a better Cormyr. I deserve a better Cormyr.”

  Arclath nodded. “As do I. Unfortunately for friendly accord between us now, that does not mean we agree on what ‘better’ is. You desire a Cormyr that is better for you. Yet you lack the vision-and honesty-to even admit this.”

  Marlin Stormserpent flourished his sword, snarling an insult.

  Arclath sighed. “Ah, the besetting fault of the nobility-having temper tantrums whenever someone disagrees with them. Such shining leadership for the realm.”

  “And you think House Delcastle is better than House Stormserpent, I suppose?” Marlin sneered.

  “I think nothing of the sort. I know I’m a wastrel, and freely admit it. Would such candor cost you so much? Oh, wait, I was forgetting. Candor is your greatest foe, given the laws of the realm and the presence of war wizards in it.”

  “How did you learn so much?” Marlin hissed.

  Arclath regarded his fingertips idly and told them, “In conspiracies, someone always talks.”

  “Do you mind,” Marlin asked coldly, “leaving my home, so I can enjoy my hired company?”

  “Not at all,” Arclath replied with a smile. “I have the answers I came for. You need not fear the dawn on my account.”

  “Good,” Marlin snapped, ringing the bell for Whelandrin.

  Arclath did not wait to be escorted. When the trusty appeared, Marlin snarled, “Make very sure the man you brought in is gone from our house and grounds, and the gates locked against him and all others. Be swift.”

  Whelandrin bowed and hastened away, and Marlin shot a look at the chalice and blade, wondering if he should send his slayers after Arclath.

  No. Not with the lass there; no one must see him calling them forth.

  With a shrug he turned to her charms, pouring his anger into being brutal to her. “Strip!” he ordered harshly.

  She promptly doffed cloak and gown and started on her boots, but he grabbed her elbow in an iron-hard grip and snapped, “Leave them on, and get you to yon bed!”

  She gasped in pain but managed to murmur, “My lord, be gentler!”

  By way of reply he backhanded her across her chest with all his strength and snarled, “Get on that bed! Think of twenty golden lions, and keep your mouth shut.”

  “Yes, Lord,” she whimpered, hurrying to obey.

  “A moment, lad,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said sharply from the far end of the room.

  Marlin spun around. “Who-”

  “Call back thy slayers,” his gaunt old visitor snapped. “Half the Dragons and war wizards in Suzail are fighting them right now-and being led here as they do.”

  By way of reply, Marlin Stormserpent sneered and strode to snatch up the Flying Blade from a sidetable. “Get out! Whoever you are, get-”

  “Elminster’s the name,” the old man told him cheerfully as he tossed a handful of metal vials under the noble’s boots.

  Marlin slipped, smooth metal rolling under his feet. He made a wild grab for his sword, got it-and went down helplessly, dragging the table down atop himself.

  A moment later, the Wyverntongue Chalice came down on his head, and Cormyr went away very suddenly.

  “Satisfyingly solid,” Elminster remarked approvingly to the woman on the bed. “Ye might want to leave now, before-”

  “It’stoo late?” a coldly malicious voice said in his ear out of a sudden roiling glow, just before it claimed him in a savage roar of unleashed magic.

  “I’ve business inside, look ye,” the old man in battered leathers with the sword in his hand said truculently. “Stand aside.”

  The Purple Dragons stopped smiling tolerantly and lowered their spears to point at his chest.

  “Saer wizard?” one of them called to alert the duty wizard of war behind them.

  The response was a grunt and several swift thuds, as if something heavy had fallen. One Dragon started to turn.

  Only to grunt in his turn and topple forward. His fellow soldier had just time to stare at him, before joining him.

  “Mirt,” Storm Silverhand said delightedly from behind the men she’d felled. “Come in, and be welcome! It’s been years!”

  Elminster opened his eyes, feeling weak and scorched.

  He was in the royal palace, in a small stone room he’d seen a time or two before. A chamber with stone benches built along two walls, closed doors in the other two, and a table in the center of the room.

  Storm Silverhand was lying on it, faceup, dead or senseless.

  Elminster staggered to her to see which.

  Her eyes opened, her gaze seeming different from Storm’s, somehow, as he bent over to murmur, “Lass?”

  Needlelike pincers erupted out of her to impale him.

  Spewing blood, eyes wide in disbelief and pain, Elminster staggered back-and up through the body of the woman that wasn’t Storm, bursting it apart like so much wet custard and rending the table and floor from beneath, came a gigantic beholder.

  Large and dark it loomed, surrounded not just by its long, writhing forest of eyestalks, but by tentacles that ended in grasping pincers.

  “No more meddling, Elminster,” it purred in a wet, gloating voice. “No more guiding your precious Forest Kingdom this way and that, sneering as you move men about like pieces on a chessboard. All your schemes and strivings end here and now.”

  Two pincers snared Elminster’s hands-and snipped them off at the wrists.

  Blood spurted, and the old man reeled.

  “Yes, the moment of my revenge has come at last, Elminster of Shadowdale. As you die your final death-your oh-so-overdue passing. All your mantles and wards and contingencies stripped away, drained, and used, down long and patient years of watching and sending you foes, and ‘accidents,’ and unfortunate concidences. Outwitting you, arrogant Aumar. There were more of me than you thought there were-so this last one of me will outlast you. Now embrace oblivion in fitting agony, knowing it is I, Manshoon, who has slain you!”

  Magic lashed out from eyestalks to blast Elminster, driving him to his knees. He fought gaspingly to find breath enough to scream, his arms seared off at the shoulder, his body aflame. And failed.

  “I kill you now in the name of Symgharyl, and so many of my selves, and much of the best blood of the Brotherhood. Die, old fool!”

  More eyestalks let fly, and the kneeling man was reduced to ashes-

  — that slumped down into swirling ruin, even as the eye tyrant bellowed out mighty laughter and teleported away, leaving only the rolling echoes of its mirth behind.

  “Stormserpent’s behind it all,” Arclath panted as they sprinted for the palace together. “The flaming men-all of it. We’ll just have to hope Glathra’s there-or someone who’ll listen to me!”

  “I wonder where Elminster is,” Amarune gasped. “He’s crazed enough to step in, where our precious wizards of war won’t!”

  Alusair raced like a furious whirlwind. Storm rushed after her, Mirt pounding along at her heels, into a little stone room where … human blood and innards were spattered everywhere.

  And a heap of faintly glowing enchanted trinkets she recognized, amid ashes … Elminster.

  Or all that was left of him.

  Silver fire was winking and glowing like fireflies among a swirl of ashes on the floor, and her own body winked and glowed in response; she had no doubt she was gazing at his remains.

  “No,” Storm whispered, lips trembling. “No. Damn you, El, not like this! Not without giving me a chance to bid you farewell! I loved you, Elminster Aumar! Mystra damn me, but I loved you!”

  Elminster’s ashes rippled over the floor and rose into a spike that became a faltering pillar … and took on a vaguely manlike shape.

  “And I love ye, too,” he whispered hollowly. “Though perhaps I should say ‘What is left of me’ loves ye.”

  He
’d survived! In undeath or something like it, but-Storm burst into tears and rushed to embrace him.

  Causing him to be reduced to swirling ashes-which promptly streamed down her bodice and the rest of her, making her gasp in startled pleasure ere they raced down one of her legs to the floor. There they rose again into a little hump, from which lifted a headlike shape.

  “Always wanted to do that,” Elminster said in satisfaction.

  Behind them arose a strange chorus of mirth. Mirt the Moneylender and the ghost of Alusair were both chuckling.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  A NEW BLADE DRAWN

  S omeone felled those guards,” Arclath snarled. “Treason! Slayers seeking the king! I-”

  “Save your breath for running,” Amarune puffed, “or we’ll-”

  “Run right into the new ruler of Cormyr before you have any clever plan ready?” A triumphant, liquid voice bubbled from a dark open door ahead.

  Out of it drifted something round and many-tentacled, some of those tentacles ending in pincers. There were eyestalks among them, too, and a huge single eye in the flying central body, above a wide, crookedly smiling fanged maw.

  “Name of the Dragon!” Arclath gasped, skidding to a halt and throwing out an arm to stop Amarune. “It’s a … a beholder!”

  The passage exploded.

  Flung headlong, Amarune was vaguely aware of Arclath being hurled past her and a woman’s voice snapping furiously, “Not anymore, it isn’t!”

  Then she slammed into something very hard, and Cormyr went away in a hurry.

  “Well done, Raereene,” the manlike shape of ashes whispered as they watched a dark, wraithlike thing of tatters flee wailing from the spattered ruin of the eye tyrant’s body, with the ghost of Alusair flying in hot pursuit, teeth bared.

  The beautiful young wizard of war managed not to recoil, this time. She aimed the great scepter in her hands at the new menace-before the firm hands of a silver-haired woman and an old man in floppy boots and battered leathers took it away from her.

  “Yon’s a friend and defender of Cormyr,” Mirt told her. “Don’t be blasting him, now.”

  Storm turned. “El, your lass! Is she-?”

  “Just dazed. Her young gallant’s out cold, though.”

  Cormyr came back, confusingly. Amarune blinked up into a smiling face framed in long, flowing, silver hair. Gentle hands were cradling her.

  “Y-you’re Storm, aren’t you? Storm Silverhand?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re thousands of years old.”

  “Not yet, Amarune. I just feel thousands of years old, most days.”

  “Whereas I am thousands of years old,” said an eerie whisper in Amarune’s ear. She turned her head and found herself nose to nose with a vague man-shape of ashes that was staring right back at her.

  She fainted again.

  “You’re sure she’s ready?” Storm asked wryly.

  “I’m sure,” Elminster snapped back. “Cast the spell.”

  “What spe-oh, no. El, no. You can’t do this to her.”

  “No, I can’t, not when I’m reduced to this. So ye’ll have to do it.”

  “No, El. No, I … no.”

  “Do ye know of anyone else who can-and will-try to save the Realms? And if ye do, do ye trust them? Hey?”

  Storm shook her head helplessly, looked down at Amarune-and burst into tears.

  “We can’t, El. We must not.”

  “There is no ‘must not,’ lass,” El told Storm. “We must do whatever we must, or this young maid ye’re trying to defend from me-and everyone else we care for-will be smashed down and slain and swept away, sooner or later-”

  “Must not what?” came a soft mumble from the floor. Amarune was gazing blearily up at them. “Is … is that you, Great-Grandsire Elminster? Something made you … undead?”

  “Yes, ’tis me. Though call me ‘El’; we’re family, lass, family! And I’m busy trying to convince thy great-grand-aunt-or whatever she is; I could never keep all those terms straight-to cast a spell that I can’t, now that I’m ashes.”

  “What spell?”

  “A spell that will let me ride thy body. Sit in thy mind and move thy limbs and voice to my bidding.”

  Amarune stared up at them-the eerie mask of ash and the pain-racked, silver-haired woman. As their eyes met, Storm nodded sadly, in confirmation.

  Amarune went pale. “Will it hurt?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Only if I make thee fall over,” El replied.

  “Will it … drive me mad?”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I do not use the clumsy mindpryings of war wizards, which drive the caster mad as often as the owner of the mind they’re ruining. I promise ye, lass, that I’ll treat thee like the greatest treasure, the most exalted princess, the most precious infant in all the Realms, if ye let me ride thy mind.”

  “And …” Amarune stared steadily up into the face of ash floating above her and swallowed. “And what if I have thoughts I’d rather not share with anyone? What then?”

  “Those thoughts will be thine own. I’ll not listen to them,” Elminster assured her solemnly.

  Beside him, Storm turned away so Amarune would not see the roll of her wise and weary eyes, but Rune’s dark stare never strayed from the shape of ash arching over her.

  “How I do I know I can trust you?” she whispered.

  “Ye can’t, lass. All ye can do is decide: Will ye have me-or will ye have the pryings of war wizards and madness?”

  “If I choose you, what life will be left to me?”

  “Just as much as I can aid thee in having,” Elminster replied. “I’ve had centuries, but ye may not want that long. I promise thee, by the grave of thy mother, that I will not hasten thy time of dying.”

  “And how do you know where my mother’s grave is?”

  “I came too late to save her,” Elminster replied, “but not too late to cast a spell on it that keeps grave robbers from despoiling her bones.”

  “Do it,” Amarune said suddenly. “I want-I want not to have to fear war wizards or those who want Arclath dead or-or anyone else. Do it!”

  “Thank ye, Amarune Aumar. Thank ye,” Elminster replied and surged at Storm.

  Who reluctantly cast a swift and simple spell, murmuring an incantation, kissing her own fingers, then putting them to Amarune’s lips, breast, and loins.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she did so. “Oh, Amarune, I’m so sorry.”

  The spell washed over Amarune with a faint singing sound and the briefest of flickering white glows, and was gone.

  “Finally,” Elminster growled, moving forward.

  Storm grabbed at his arm, but her fingers passed through his ashes, stopping him not at all.

  “El, no!” she hissed fiercely. “How much more can you stoop to embrace evil? This is nothing less, and daring what we must not! Yes, we’re in desperate straits, but-”

  “I’ll ride her only briefly, to do what is needful, and then come out of her,” Elminster hissed back. “Ye have my body as hostage to compel my obedience.”

  “Two handfuls of ashes? How can I hold that hostage?”

  “Lass, lass, trust me. How often, down the centuries, have I failed ye?”

  “I have lost count of the times,” Storm replied bitterly, but the eerie shape of ashes slumped-and Amarune stirred, limbs flopping, jerked to her feet, and began a shambling, dragging walk around the room, arms flailing clumsily when they weren’t dangling … a walk that smoothed out into more natural movements as Elminster slowly gained control.

  The next circuit of the room looked like Amarune the dancer moving normally; she turned her head and carried herself as she usually did, and moved her hands as Amarune, not as an old archwizard trying to decide how a graceful young woman used her hands.

  Storm Silverhand said fiercely, “You must ride her only when needful, and tell no one-and repay her for the use you make of her body … no matter how much she comes to hate us.”r />
  “Agreed,” El replied solemnly in Amarune’s voice but with Elminster’s manner. “Now gather up my ashes in something, and we’ll be out of here. So much magic has been hurled around that even wizards of war can’t help but notice.”

  Ruthgul often thought he might not be the only grizzled old swindler in Suzail, but by the gods, he was one of the most successful.

  Recently, he had even had some legitimate business errands. Which is what he was out and about seeing to at the moment, scuttling along various alleys.

  He was growing increasingly astonished at what he was seeing in the streets of Suzail. Purple Dragon patrols were everywhere, and he was challenged repeatedly. Thankfully, his wagon held nothing but wine casks for various taverns, and he was searched and allowed to continue. Many times.

  Returning to his wagon when it finally held nothing but empties, Ruthgul found himself astonished anew.

  Amarune Whitewave was waiting for him, with a young and slightly bedraggled noble he knew by sight: Lord Arclath Delcastle. With them was a tall and strikingly beautiful silver-haired woman, who held a small coffer in her hands.

  “We want to hire your wagon-and your discretion-to hide us and our friend, here, among your casks, until you’ve rumbled well out of the city,” Amarune said crisply.

  Ruthgul grimaced. “I–I’d like nothing better than to accommodate you, lass, but truth be told, I’m not going out of the city!”

  Lord Delcastle stepped forward with a broad smile. “Ruthgul, perhaps the lady didn’t make your choices clear enough.”

  He hefted a small cloth bag. “These gems can be yours, if you make the trip-or you can refuse and take this instead. Every finger of its bright and very sharp length.” He hefted the point of his drawn sword meaningfully, smile never wavering.

  Ruthgul swallowed then brightly observed that he’d just remembered he did have to leave the city on urgent business, with his wagon.

  He leaned closer and added in a low growl, “But I fear for my life-or the custody of my wagon-the moment we’re out of sight of the walls. What’s to stop you just killing me?”