Shadows of Doom asota-1

by Ed Greenwood

  He sighed and then grinned. "It's all rather a mess, I suppose."

  "And I suppose," Saharel said archly, "you're going to try to pretend to me that you had no part in causing all this?"

  "Ah, indeed," Elminster replied. "For once."

  Two twinkling lights rolled in the skull's empty eye sockets, a sight that made Sharantyr and the Harpers burst into helpless laughter. The glowing eyes came down to fix themselves on the two young men, whose laughter rapidly died away under the eerie scrutiny.

  "And who are these two loud, handsome young men?"

  "These are Itharr and Belkram," Elminster said with a grand gesture, "of the Harpers."

  "Oh, so that caught on, did it? Welcome, gentle sirs, welcome."

  "That?" Itharr asked, guessing what she meant.

  At the same time Belkram said, "Lady, we have come here from the High Dale by means of a magical gate, to defend Elminster. We have been given to understand that his survival, and that of the Realms entire, are one and the same."

  "Well, ye don't have to be so melodramatic about it, lad," Elminster said testily. "It's not the first time around for me at this, ye know."

  "What?" the ranger and the two Harpers erupted, more or less together.

  "Oh, no," Saharel said, obviously enjoying this. "But come. Let us find a place where there's furniture left to sit on in some comfort-the Fountain Hall, perhaps, so you can drink your fill. This one, at least"-she poked the Old Mage again-"is apt to flap his jaw so much he gets thirsty."

  "Besides," the undead mistress of Spellgard added as she led the way from the balcony along a narrow, dark hall, waving aside cobwebs, and down a crumbling stair, "there are things I must tell you before I grow tired of your fearful looks, you young three. I'm an archlich, not one of your evil lichnee. I don't eat people, or chill the life from them, or steal their spells or souls, or suchlike. It's quite safe to touch me."

  "Aye," Elminster agreed absently. Saharel favored him with a look. Elminster's companions all saw it, in the darkness, by the light the archlich had begun to shed. Her hair and white flesh seemed to glow with a faint silvery radiance.

  They noticed another curious thing. As Saharel walked along, her arm now linked with Elminster's, she seemed to grow more substantial with each passing breath. Her silvery skin seemed to expand into the smooth curves of a tall, beautiful woman. Her face now seemed almost whole, and her eyes more the orbs of a living maiden than two weird, twinkling lights in the empty eye sockets of a skull.

  "If I may ask," Sharantyr ventured as they turned into a rubble-strewn gallery and walked on over the fallen, dusty ruins of arched double doors into a darker chamber, "what did that look mean, Lady? Or is it something private between you?"

  The archlich, who swept along like a silvery beacon in the gloom before her, looked back. "It was, once. This old rogue of yours had the temerity to break my defensive spells and walk in upon me one night. In time, we… came to be lovers."

  One silvery hand, not quite all flesh yet, stroked Elminster's cheek. Itharr shivered despite himself as they strode on in the darkness, and his hand crept to the hilt of his sword.

  "It seemed the best way to end our rivalry," Elminster murmured.

  Saharel laughed. "So calculating, Old Spellhurler? You seemed rather… warmer, at the time."

  Elminster came to a sudden halt. Three swords grated out of their scabbards in response, but Saharel scarce had time to look her reproach their way before Elminster swept her into a tight embrace and kissed her. The tensely watching Sharantyr reflected, with sudden rueful amazement, that this is what bards meant when they sang "kissed deep, and with passion." Their lips met and clung, and Saharel began to moan and murmur in Elminster's embrace, and move against him, her tall body swaying.

  Itharr coughed loudly and said to Belkram, "Did you notice, back in the dale, that the price of potatoes was a full two coppers above what the merchants were selling them for in Shadowdale?"

  "Aye," Belkram agreed brightly. "That I did, and commented on the fact to one shopkeeper. A bad harvest, he told me, and higher transportation costs. They ship entire wagonloads of manure up from Sembia, you know, to dress their fallow fields."

  "Wagonloads? Sembia has that to spare?"

  "Well, all those people, crowded together in the coastal cities. It can't all flow out to sea, you know. When the gratings and sewers and all back right up, they set to work with shovels, and start thinking of the High Dale. Then, of c-"

  "Do you gentle sirs mind?" Elminster asked testily. "You're worse than Azoun's jesters! I'd like to kiss my old friend a time or two in dignified silence… if it's not too much trouble."

  Three mouths opened to reply, but their chance was forever swept away from them in the tumult that abruptly followed.

  The floor ahead of them erupted into a rising pillar of red, swirling flames-flames that wailed with the tortured voices of unseen men. The room shook, and dust and small stones fell from the unseen ceiling above.

  Three swords flashed back reflected firelight before blue-white, blinding lightning spat out of the pillar and snaked three long, frighteningly fast fingers out to kiss the drawn steel.

  Three swords blazed with cold fire, and three throats screamed in agony. Dazed and burned, scarcely clinging to life, Sharantyr and the two Harpers dropped their smoking weapons, staggered, and fell.

  Deep laughter roared and echoed from the flames, and a voice that boomed around the chamber bellowed, "Ah, but it feels good indeed to fell those dear to you, Elminster of Shadowdale! I'll make you suffer before I steal the very wits from you!"

  "Manshoon!" Elminster said in disgust to the archlich in his arms. "He'll never grow up, I fear. All this grand voice and needless cruelty… like a small child playing at being a wizard."

  "A small child, Elminster, is what you'll be," the booming voice continued, an edge of anger in it now, "after I send a mindworm into your mouth to eat its way up into your brain and steal all your thoughts, to make them mine!"

  Elminster made a rude sound and waggled his fingers in a certain old gesture much used by small children everywhere. Gently he disengaged himself from Saharel and took out his pipe.

  A bolt of lightning snatched it away from him.

  "Oh, no, you don't, 'Old Mage.' I watched you earlier. Think yourself clever, don't you, with your rings and your spheres and your little pipe? Stumbling along from droll little joke to impressive little phrase, hiding your lost Art behind cryptic words and wands that are almost drained now, aren't they? What a feeble fool you've become! Scarce worth my taking on the spells to defeat you." As the great voice rolled across the room, the faint cries in the flames died away. Manshoon's cruel magic had drained the last life energy from certain unwitting Zhentarim mages-those he deemed his most powerful rivals-all over Faerun. Their energies had brought him here to triumph. The flames drifted nearer and grew brighter. "You can't trick me, Elminster. And you can't hope to stand against my magic. This is the end of you, finally. The defeat and utter destruction of the much-vaunted Elminster at the hands of the Zhentarim he hates so much. At the hands of Manshoon."

  There followed much laughter. Sharantyr, lying in darkness with the healing ring Elminster had put there earlier glinting on her finger and the stench of her burned hair heavy in her nostrils, heard it faintly as she struggled back to consciousness.

  "You won't trick me as you did Bellwind. I'll take your power and your knowledge both, through the worm, and not link our minds. You cannot escape, Elminster. You are doomed."

  "Oh, no," came a soft reply. "Doom will come here, indeed, but I believe you have mistaken the being who will fall."

  Not far from the shaken, smoldering Old Mage stood the archlich, tall and erect, a silvery glow around her wasted, bony form. She stood proud and fearless, and from her outstretched hands streams of silver radiance erupted, arcing toward the pillar of flame.

  "That is not your only mistake, Manshoon," the soft voice continued. "Your first was comi
ng uninvited into my home. Here, my power is supreme."

  The silvery radiance was expanding into a gigantic shield of light, englobing the flames. Bolts of lightning and great blades of shimmering white force sprang out of the fiery pillar, but the silver glow absorbed them, growing ever larger and stronger. The very air crackled with power.

  "Your second and greatest mistake, Manshoon," Saharel continued calmly, "was in daring to attack my beloved, a man who is also my guest and thus under my protection. And your third, if you must speak of fools at Art, was to so dismiss his magic-and mine."

  Silver radiance shrouded the flames now and hid them from view. The light grew and grew until it seemed like the moon itself shone in the chamber. Saharel stood like a small, silvery flame, flickering at the base of it all. Her voice wavered with her light and came more faintly.

  "It is given to every archlich to choose his or her passing, and to spend all the force of life and love and Art in a task. Mine is thy death, Manshoon."

  The silvery shroud grew suddenly blinding in its brightness. On the floor, Belkram cried out and covered his eyes.

  "Remember me, El! Remember me!" came the archlich's wavering voice.

  "Aye," Elminster said, through sudden tears. "I shall never forget thee, Saharel."

  There was a sudden sigh, perhaps of satisfaction, and the light winked out.

  Somewhere across the room, amid faint, fading silvery motes, the bare bones of Manshoon fell to the floor with a clatter.

  Elminster watched them shatter and crumble, and stared at the last silvery motes until darkness came again.

  Then he said roughly, "I can never forget thee, Saharel. So I will remember thee… with honor."

  His voice caught, and when it returned, it was bleak. "Along with the others. All the others."

  He stood in lonely silence among his fallen companions for a long time.

  Of Saharel of Spellgard, no trace was left. Sharantyr could see clearly again long before she was able to move, and she saw the glistening spot on the stones in front of the Old Mage, the spot that grew and grew with each tear that fell.

  Then there was a sudden burst of light behind her-warm, golden light, like sunlight.

  Elminster turned a face wet with tears toward the light before Sharantyr could. Upon his face she saw a look of recognition, then of pleasure, then of faint exasperation. His voice, when it came, was calm and gentle, as though he'd just looked up from a soothing book while at ease beside his beloved pool.

  "Noumea," he said, "why must ye always be just a little too late?"

  Elsewhere, deep and dark, something stirred in musty gloom. A hand slid out from under a shroud thick with dust, pushing the fabric aside, and took up the rod it knew would be there. The rod of rulership. Just in case.

  The hidden crypt was dark, its air stale and bad, but only a few steps were needed to cross to its door, pull down the ornate handle, and shove hard.

  Thick wax broke and fell away in crumbled ruin, and light flooded in. A startled man in black armor turned with a curse, hands darting for a scabbarded sword.

  The hand that did not hold the rod shot out of the darkness and closed around the man's throat before that blade could be drawn. A slow, cold voice said, "You know my orders. You are never to be without a weapon in your hand. Seal up this place again and await the doom I shall pronounce on you. After dinner."

  The speaker released the man, heard him fall to his knees with a strangled cough, and strode on. The cobbles ahead rose up in a long ramp toward the sun and the streets of the city above. He was halfway up the ramp when the guard far behind him managed to call hoarsely, "Yes, Dread Lord. Your will be done."

  He did not look back.

  The streets of Zhentil Keep were crowded. The weather was fair and trade brisk. Startled looks were many, but even the thickest crowds parted or melted away, as if by magic, at his approach.

  Manshoon strode steadily across the city toward the Tower High. This long walk in dusty garments meant that his enemies-accursed Elminster doubtless among them-had won. Again.

  The black-robed, dark-eyed Lord Archmage of Zhentil Keep checked then, half turning to look back. Had there been other bodies-more waiting Manshoons-lying in the crypt beside him? How many times had he made this walk?

  How many more times would he make it, in seasons and years and ages to come? And would it ever seem less lonely?

  24

  The Void, Love, and Doom

  Gentle hands touched her shoulder. Sharantyr stopped her agonized struggle to sit up and sagged back thankfully into the comfort of those hands. Looking up, she saw Elminster's old, bearded face looking down at her, lined with compassion.

  She moved her lips, found them very dry, and managed to ask, "Do I look that bad, Old Mage?"

  Elminster smiled then. It came slowly but stretched his face with pleasure for a long time before he said, "Well, ye are certainly better than I'd feared, lass-Shar. Lie ye back awhile and rest. I need the ring that is healing ye now, to use on these two impetuous Harpers, or we may lose them."

  Sharantyr managed a nod and smile, though pain still raged within her at every movement, and she felt weak and sick. Itharr and Belkram must feel far worse.

  Elminster's slow, careful hands turned her on her side, pillowing her head on her arm, before he drew off the ring. Its loss left a cold tingling in that hand. Then slow waves of pain came from her other arm, her sword arm, where the wizard's bolt had burned.

  "Lie easy, Shar. We've given Manshoon a death this day. Not his final one by any means, but he'll be a weak wizard for a time, and that is something."

  Past the kneeling archmage, Sharantyr saw what was left of her sword-a half-melted, misshapen sliver of twisted metal. Her eyes went to Elminster's hand, where Manshoon's lightning had struck. She swallowed and looked away. The fingers handling her so gently were only ashy stumps.

  Sudden tears blurred her sight, and she stared at the sword until she could see again. Beyond it stood Noumea.

  The Magister's face was happy as Elminster rose and turned toward her. "It's all right, Old Mage," she said. "I've used my magic on the two Harpers. They sleep, but they'll be fi-" She broke off, eyes widening in horror. She was staring at Elminster's burned hand.

  Sharantyr felt fresh tears welling up in her eyes. The image of Noumea's shocked, wounded face would be with her forever.

  Nothing should ever happen, to make folk look like that.

  A burning rage began to build in her, bringing a lump to her throat. "Manshoon," she snarled through her teeth, "one day you'll pay for Saharel and all the other pain you've caused, if I have to cut my way through an army of your lackeys to get to you. This I swear."

  Elminster turned to look at her. His face wore surprise and anxiousness, and just a hint of pity.

  Sharantyr lay there in rising pain and gasped, "Don't look at me like that, El. I can… protect myself. I–I can stay on my feet long enough to cut down Manshoon, when my chance comes."

  Elminster just shook his head and knelt to put the ring of regeneration back on her finger. "Oh, Sharantyr," he said softly. "There are such better things to do with thy life than to waste it in ending his." He stroked her hair, as Noumea came hesitantly closer. "I've lost Saharel- and others, before her-to him. Don't add thyself to his take. I need ye, lass."

  He knelt then to kiss her cheek, and Sharantyr felt a wetness on her forehead as he straightened up again. A tear had fallen on her.

  The Magister came to stand over them both. A blue-white glow was growing around her slim hands, and her eyes were very dark.

  "Elminster," she said quietly, "I would heal thee, if I you would allow."

  The Sage of Shadowdale peered up at her, beard bristling. He looked very old just then. "Do ye dare, Noumea?" he asked. "The power I hold can be deadly to those who touch me with magic. One Zhent wizard died when he tried a stealspell on me."

  He waved his charred hand at her. "Ye hold much of Our Lady's power. What if ye tou
ch me with it and release what I hold? We could both be slain, and the Realms laid waste around us."

  The Magister wavered, seeming a very frail and unsure young girl for a long breath.

  Then she said, as quietly as before, "If that is the price, then let it be so. I would not want to live on as a mage if Mystra's power will let me topple towers, deal death, and blast apart peaks but not let me heal one I am honored to count as a friend, who has rendered this world such service as few understand and none I know can equal."

  She faced him while Sharantyr clenched her hand around the familiar tingling of the ring and held her breath. Silence stretched.

  Then Elminster thrust his charred hand toward her and said simply, "Thank you. Do it."

  Noumea stepped forward, extending her own hand. The blue-white glow around it grew stronger. She reached out slowly.

  They touched, and the radiance was suddenly blinding. Sharantyr closed her eyes, shaking her head against the searing white light in her head.

  She heard Noumea gasp raggedly, then hiss in pain.

  "Easy," Elminster rumbled, and Sharantyr heard the Magister moan in reply. She opened her eyes again but could see nothing.

  She heard Noumea stagger backward, and heard the panting breaths that followed.

  "By Our Lady," the Magister said unsteadily, "but that was close, as close to disaster as I ever want to be. I never knew… Art could… hurt so much."

  "I did," Elminster said, and Sharantyr heard pride in his voice as he added, "I am pleased, indeed, Lady, that ye stood so much pain and stuck to thy task."

  He chuckled. "I also find it hard to be displeased that thy task was to make me whole."

  The Magister laughed then, a little unsteadily, and said, "I don't know if I'm strong enough, after this, to go chasing Manshoon."

  Elminster shook his head. "Don't waste thy Art. Ye are so much better at healing and aiding, Noumea. Healers and helpers of power are so much rarer, in this and other worlds, than those who can rage and slay and lay waste with little effort. Manshoon will spend time now fending off rivals in his own Brotherhood who'll see his weakness as a chance to destroy or supplant him. Yet if ye go into Zhentil Keep after him, they'll all strike at thee for the glory and the power they'd hope to win. The Realms have only one of thee, but they seems to have an endless supply of evil, power-hungry magelings. Don't throw all away fighting them, for ye'd surely go down in the end."