by Ed Greenwood
Then, with Old Ghost chilling his spine, it was too late.
The mage found himself forced upright with a strangled gargle, and reaching to pluck up a rod that “felt” metals and minerals from among his treasures.
Holding it stiffly, Whisper turned and walked, heavily and unwillingly, to his hidehold’s waiting portal.
His hopes that whatever had him in its thrall would be stripped away during the translocation were dashed when the blue mists fell away and he was standing in a dim passage in his crypt.
Useless wand in hand, the helpless Zhentarim began the slow, unwilling trudge toward his storeroom, where the adventurers would almost certainly be by now. The walk to his own doom.
Other eyes widened in surprise over another scrying orb.
Then Horaundoon’s eyes narrowed again.
Whisper’s reluctant return had been astonishing enough, but his fareye was showing him more. The faintest of glows was riding Whisper: another sentience!
Grinning, Horaundoon leaned forward, not wanting to miss a moment of what was about to unfold.
This should be very interesting.
“Naed!” Doust gasped, scrambling to his feet. Whisper stood menacingly in the doorway, wand aimed at them.
The rest of the Swords looked-saw-and froze.
Slowly, very slowly, almost as if small segments of his upper lip were separately being pulled back from his teeth, the Zhentarim smiled.
And one of Pennae’s daggers spun out of nowhere to stand forth, hilt deep, from his right eye.
The Swords erupted, weapons flashing out, but Whisper moved not at all.
Until, still smiling, he toppled forward to crash onto his face, limbs bouncing loosely.
As the Swords all stared, something ghostly and pale rose from him in wisps, to gather eerily in the air, ignoring the swords that thrust and slashed into it. When it had gained the strength and shape of a tall, broad-shouldered man, it turned its head slowly to regard each of the horrified adventurers. Though it had no mouth, it seemed almost to be smiling smugly, alight with glee… as it rose and drifted away, as lazily purposeful as a great shark.
Jhessail shivered as she watched it go, and none of the Swords said a word or lifted a hand to do anything until it was out of sight.
Whereupon, inevitably, it was Semoor who stirred. “What the tluin was that?”
No one had a reply.
Horaundoon reared back from his scrying orb as if someone had thrust dung in his face-then leaned forward again to peer intently.
The wraith-thing that had gathered above Whisper’s corpse-and had come out of Whisper, he was certain-looked at all of the Swords of Eveningstar, slowly glided away.
As he bent his will to move the scrying orb’s field to follow it, he realized what he was looking at and gasped.
“So the mindworms can be taken that far,” he whispered, “and that is what their user becomes.”
He shivered involuntarily, but it was the hargaunt that spasmed, squalling in fear, and wet his head.
There’s a singing in the air here,” Pennae said tersely. “Magic.” The passage turned dark ahead of her, but in the light of the glowstones the Swords had taken from Whisper’s rooms, they could see dust-covered human statues standing clustered in the passage.
“The way on looks… unused,” Florin mused. “Perhaps the magic is some sort of barrier, and yon is ‘wild country,’ for lack of a better term.”
Pennae shrugged. “One way to find out.” She strolled forward, despite his swift hiss of protest, into the singing magic.
Nothing befell her, and the magic did not change or vanish-but the moment Pennae stepped beyond it, the dusty statues moved, raising their arms to reach for her. She retreated hastily, watching them shuffle after her, and returned to the watching Swords.
“Zombies,” she said. “Let’s look for another way out.”
“Six-no, seven portals back there,” Semoor reminded her.
Pennae nodded. “I’m afraid we’re going to end up stepping through one of them.”
“And if one of them turns out to be a death trap, so we’re stepping into fire or whirling lightning?” Islif asked.
The thief gave her a sour look. “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”
“I am the Lady Narantha Crownsilver,” Narantha told the old, whitebearded war wizard, ignoring the lesser wizards who’d escorted her to this soaring stone chamber so deep in the palace.
Every chamber of this fortress around her was starker and more brooding and unfriendly than the rooms of the palace in Suzail. She was beginning to truly hate Arabel.
“You wanted to see me?”
The war wizard inclined his head to her. “Not me, Lady.” He stepped aside, indicating the curtain behind him.
With an exasperated sigh Narantha stepped forward through its parting, into an audience room where a plain stone throne was flanked by two towering candlesticks. Two war wizards stood under those flickering flames, and one look at the seated man had her knee-dipping deeply.
“Narantha Crownsilver?” Baron Thomdor asked her.
“Lord Baron, I am she,” Narantha replied. Aside from distant glimpses across rooms at revels and state occasions, she’d not seen the warden since she’d been a little girl. What interest could he have in her now?
“I regret the bluntness of this,” Thomdor said, rising and extending his hand to her, “but your father stands in urgent need. Your mother has died, and Lord Crownsilver very much desires your presence, right now.”
Narantha could only stare at him.
“These loyal servants of Cormyr stand ready to take you to him,” the warden told her gently, indicating the war wizards. Narantha stumbled toward them, blinded by a sudden waterfall of tears.
Someone was weeping bitterly; she was burying her head in a stranger’s breast before she realized it was her.
In their tenth dark passage, the Swords stopped-and stared. Disgustedly.
Whisper’s tenth ward sang in the air before them. Beyond it stood the tenth silently waiting group of undead.
A dozen skeletons lurched forward, raising rusty swords. One overbalanced a handwidth too far-and fell into dust as the ward flared up through it, into a glittering wall of sparks. Beyond that deadly glow, something that might have been the skeleton of a giant came down the passage, hefting an axe larger than Florin.
“That’s it,” Islif sighed, as the Swords retreated. “Either we step into a portal to depart this place-or starve here, trapped.”
There were reluctant nods.
“Should we try some of Whisper’s wands?” Doust asked doubtfully, lifting the one he held.
“Triggering powers we don’t know, into a spell that’s holding back undead right now, but might well explode? Or shoot lightnings? Or turn us all purple? At undead that it might blast, but then again might make them grow, or come back to life? Or-?”
And with those words, Pennae turned to lead the way to the nearest portals: a pair flickering in what had probably been Whisper’s storage cellar.
Everyone followed, without a word.
“Mine,” Florin said, stepping into the waiting glow.
And through it, to stand frowning on its far side, still in the cellar. He stepped through it again in the other direction, toward the rest of the Swords-and found himself standing facing them, as if he’d been walking through nothing but empty air.
“Jhess,” Pennae said, “doff your belt and try. Perhaps ’tis the metal that keeps it from working; I’ve heard of portals like that.”
Jhessail handed over her belt and stepped through the first gate. Like Florin, she simply ended up on its far side, still in the cellar. She stepped through it again, in the other direction. Still in the cellar. With a shrug, she went to the second gate and tried it. With the same result.
“Could be we’re lacking a password,” Islif suggested. Pennae nodded.
Semoor sighed. “Well, Whisper’s just a little too dead to ask, now, is
n’t he? Come on; let’s try them all.”
Much trudging and fruitless stepping through glows ensued, until they were back in the room of now-empty paintings and sprawled, dead monsters. Whisper still lay as he’d fallen, under the ettin. Rats scattered from the carrion as the Swords came down the steps and stopped in front of the glowing oval.
“Think it’ll work for us, back to Arabel?” Semoor asked.
“Or will it take us somewhere else, I wonder?” Doust put in.
“ Thank you, cheerful holynoses,” Pennae said with a grin. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
Florin hefted his sword and strode forward. “Mine. Again.”
Silently, the glow swallowed him.
“ Quick, now,” Islif snapped, trotting forward. “And keep those wands ready!”
The Swords hurried.
A spell cast long ago, that showed the watchful apprentices on duty who stepped through particular portals, flickered once more into life.
The master of those apprentices, crossing the room behind their desks, stopped in mid-stride to see who was departing Whisper’s Crypt for Arabel. He nodded, saying nothing, as a succession of images flowed across that part of the wall.
“The Swords of Eveningstar,” one of the apprentices reported excitedly.
“I am unsurprised, Alaise,” her master replied. “Please take over doorguard from Thander now. You may soon be seeing the Swords in person.”
He walked on, his mind already on scores of larger matters.
Not that the Swords lacked interest. Indeed, to an archmage who talked often with Dove Silverhand and betimes with Hawkstone the ranger, and at other times eavesdropped undetected on the minds of the herald from Espar, Lord Elvarr Spurbright, and Dauntless of the Purple Dragons-to name but three-these fledgling adventurers were interesting indeed.
Not just for who they were and what they were doing, but for who was trying to manipulate them.
The wizard ascended a winding stone stair to a higher level of his tower, passing many storage niches let into the walls. His gaze fell on a curious twisted pendant hanging in one niche, behind the warding that would sear all hands but his to the bone, and the Swords came back into his thoughts.
He had plans for the Swords of Eveningstar. Oh, yes, indeed.
Florin stepped out into-grain shifting underfoot, in a familiar warehouse that was now brightly lit indeed. Forty Purple Dragons, or more, were staring impassively at him over leveled spears, in a wall that extended around him in-yes-a ring.
A ring of Dragons at least two deep, that was broken in only one place: right ahead of him, where an officer stood with a drawn sword in his hand, looking both weary and profoundly unamused.
“Take them,” Lionar Dahauntul ordered flatly, as the Swords emerged to stand with Florin.
“Alive?” a veteran Dragon asked.
“Take them,” Dauntless repeated grimly.
Chapter 26
TRUE TREASURE
In life there are three real treasures: loving partners, true friends, and your brightest dreams. The trick is to avoid losing them along the way.
Elminster of Shadowdale, Runes On A Rock published in the Year of the Morningstar
"No,” Horaundoon murmured, “I dare not use a mind-link now. Not when one of these fools is so likely to get slain while our minds are touching.” He sat back with a sigh to watch what unfolded in the scrying orb.
If the gods smiled, he might not lose all of his tools this day.
If.
The orb glowed brighter, rising. In its depths, the Zhentarim saw Florin snap, “Jhess, behind me! Pennae, behind Islif! If they throw those spears-”
A spear sailed through the air, and his sword smashed it up and aside. Another flew, as the Dragons started striding forward.
“The wands!” Jhessail cried, reaching around Florin to aim the one she held. “Use them- now! ”
More spears flew, Swords chanted strange words-and fire, lightning, ice, and dark tentacled shadows exploded outward. The gate’s silent whirling built into a roar that towered over everything.
The air itself seemed to boil, Purple Dragons were flung in all directions like rag dolls, and Semoor screamed as his wand exploded, taking most of his hand with it. Doust’s wand started to spit sparks and glow, and he flung it away and ducked, reaching out an arm to take Semoor to the ground with him.
The wand exploded against the nearest warehouse wall with a fury that sent everyone flying, timbers creaking and groaning, and grain and dust whirling up into a blinding cloud.
Horaundoon peered vainly at the dark roilings for a time, then shrugged. He could, after all, trace Florin at any time through the mindworm.
If, that is, the noble foolhead of a forester was still alive.
In a dark, chill chamber far underground, a lich turned in surprise as its crystal ball glowed into sudden life. How Something that glowed palely darted past its moldering workbench, darting among grimoires that had been old when the lich yet lived, and raced up into the lich’s bony face before it could lift one withered hand.
The lich stood abruptly, overturning its highbacked chair, and flung out its arms wildly, bony limbs flopping and clashing together like the arms of a doll shaken hard by an angry child. It shuddered, bending over sharply and then arching back, and hastened across the chamber, babbling half-words that spilled over each other, sometimes rising into shouts. Parts of its body grew fur, or scales, or bulging muscles, and lost them again just as swiftly.
Then it shook itself all over, as a moose reaching a riverbank shakes off water, and stood still, an almost-skeletal lich once more.
The crystal ball, its aging cloth cover fallen away, showed a tumbling cloud of dust and debris. The lich waved a hand, and the cloud seemed to move, showing dark heaps-bodies-and a brightness with ragged edges. A hole in a wall that folk were stumbling through.
Folk who’d have been strangers to the lich, but whom Old Ghost, now master of what had been the lich, knew. He watched the one called Semoor swig a vial as he ran, fling it away, and hold out a ruined hand to watch it heal.
“Swords of Eveningstar,” he told the darkness, his newly stolen jaw creaking. “You shall prove useful to me. Live a time longer, until I reach for you.”
Then his jaw crumbled-and fell off.
The sound of a woman crying was sufficiently rare in the Royal Palace in Suzail that it made Vangerdahast turn his head from talking to Laspeera outside the tall doors of the Soaring Dragon Room, and look.
Two impassive war wizards were leading a weeping Lady Narantha Crownsilver down Longwatch Hall toward Vangerdahast.
The two highest-ranking Wizards of War watched her pass in silence. In the wake of that passing, Vangerdahast told Laspeera rather grimly, “I wish I had time to attend to this one myself, now, but…”
Laspeera gave him a look. “I’m sure you do,” she murmured teasingly. “I’m sure you do.”
“Down here!” Pennae hissed, pointing-and disappeared.
The Swords ducked after her, around a heap of rotting crates in the reeking alley and down a flight of worn steps that seemed carpeted in shrilly squeaking rats, into-a stone-lined, refuse-strewn room that Pennae had already crossed, to beckon them from a dark doorway beyond.
“Cellars,” she called, low-voiced. “Come on! ”
They sprinted across the room, through another, and were halfway across a third room when a cold light burst in the empty air in front of them. Out of it, almost touching Pennae as she fought to halt without falling, stepped a tall, dead-looking man who seemed to be holding his jaw on as tiny blue bolts of lightning encircled it. He was tall, bald, and strong-featured, and wore dark robes that left his pale, dead-white chest bare. He stank of death and mildew.
“Hold, Swords of Eveningstar!” he said hollowly, his half-healed jaw drooping. “I-”
Pennae launched herself from the floor into him, daggers glinting in both hands.
Before either of those meta
l fangs could hit home, an unseen magic had hurled her away. Her outflung body smashed Doust and Semoor to the floor.
“Hold, I say!” the lich snapped, raising his hands.
Florin and Islif were already moving. Hurling themselves against unseen magic that made them grimace with the effort of fighting their ways forward, they thrust their swords… right through the lich.
Its mouth gaped in pain, but no scream came forth. Instead, a teardrop of fell glow shot out of that withered maw, flying wraith-stuff that swooped, darted, and circled around the Swords-Doust missing it with a twisting swing of his mace from where he lay-as it grew.
The lich stood unmoving until Islif’s mighty slash sent it toppling to the floor, where it lay still. The flying thing, however, ducked under Florin’s fierce attack, shooting under his arms as he swung and swung again, only to soar up above them all long enough for Jhessail to set herself in a stance and raise her hands to lash it with a spell.
They could see through its glow a bearded, severe-browed human male head trailing away into a tail like a falling star. It glared at them, swerved suddenly to avoid Islif’s reaching blade, then plunged down at Jhessail.
Who gabbled her spell desperately, and never knew if she’d cast the magic properly or not as the racing head plunged into her.
She gasped. There was no crashing impact, but merely a chill that stabbed up past her heart into her head, and left her breathlessly staring at inward darkness in something of a daze.
Behind her, Semoor shouted in alarm more than pain, and stiffened. The head tore right through him as it had through Jhessail-and as she watched, it did the same to Doust.
The wizard who answered to the name Amanthan raised his head sharply, as if sniffing the air. He’d been hearing the boots of running Dragons, short horncalls, and shouted orders, this last little while, over the wall that kept all Arabel out of his garden, but this-this was something more.
Strong magic. Strange magic. Mother Mystra, what now?
In this city of folk who could smell as well as see, the lich was best abandoned anyhail. It had served his needs, and a living body would make a better host for several reasons.
