by John Shirley
The new arrival was a tall woman whose fine features were known to everyone in Innarlith—from the coins in their purses, if from nowhere else—but who wore only a crown and a scepter. As she pointed that scepter at Lhoreld, it was already glowing.
“I trust you recognize me, High Constable,” she said softly, ignoring the trembling, retreating constables to stare steadily at Lhoreld.
He went pale, fought to keep his gaze above her chin, then flushed and hastily looked away, stammering, “Y-yes, Great Spaerenza. I—”
“As it happens, Lord Elminster did spend the night with me. And my husband. After agreeing to my request, relayed by the Marquavarl—”
Right on cue, the Lord Wizard of Innarlith appeared in the doorway beside the Spaerenza. His nakedness was only partially concealed behind an unfinished portrait he was carrying, of an entwined naked couple whose features—though not yet entirely limned—were unmistakably those of the ruler of Innarlith and her husband. Straightening the painting, he gave Lhoreld what could only be described as a sheepish smirk.
The High Constable swallowed, looked at the floor, and firmly turned his attention back to what the Spaerenza was still saying.
“—to paint us, something that was overheard and applauded by all three of our royal offspring, and the Dukes Henneth and Porlandur, just as the Lord Elminster has informed you. I trust you will believe me, despite your reluctance to extend the same courtesy to him?”
“I—ah—uh—yes, Your Exaltedness! I—ah—most humbly apologize for—”
Lhoreld’s clumsy attempt at groveling was interrupted by a soundless thunder that smote every brain and stilled all sound for as long as it took a bright blue mist to arise out of nowhere and wash through the Fortress Royal.
Everyone trembled from the sheer force of magic rolling through them, as lightning raced through the mist.
Hair stood on end, all over everyone’s body, as the awed constables went to their knees, followed by Lhoreld and the Lord Wizard … and then, weeping in ecstasy, the Spaerenza herself.
They were all staring at two eyes in the mist, eyes the size of warriors’ shields that were drifting nearer in the air, heading unblinkingly for the paint-smeared man who was still on his feet.
Elminster, you are needed urgently in Zhentil Keep.
“Goddess,” Elminster murmured, going down on one knee.
The force of Mystra’s divinity had driven the constables face-down on the floor, as the royal couple of Innarlith gaped at the great face now shaping itself out of the air.
Manshoon has altered the Darkways, making passage through them fatal. The dead include many of the Art, including accomplished mages like Ardroth Thauntan, Hoal of the Stormwands, and Handreth Imbreth of Waterdeep, the latest of Sarbuckho’s hirelings. Mend this crime, El.
“Lady, I will,” Elminster promised, rising and reaching a hand toward the bedchamber door. His robes, clout, boots, and belt of many pouches raced to him.
Wizards must not be slain out of hand, be they the cause of this or not—yet destroy not the gates.
Elminster nodded, boots in hand—as blue light flared around him, and he was gone.
And with him went mist, lightning, Mystra, and all.
Leaving the folk of Innarlith blinking at each other across a suddenly empty passage.
Rising unsteadily, tears still raining from her chin as if from a downspout, the Spaerenza gave her High Constable a rather rueful grin.
“I’d say it’s a good thing you didn’t actually arrest our guest, Lhoreld. It makes it far easier for all of us to forget any of this happened, don’t you think?”
An Unlooked-For Messenger
The alleyway was deserted, fortunately, but the cold and the distinctive reek—an unhealthy mix of smelting, woodsmoke from a thousand-some chimneys, and rotting fish—told him he’d arrived in Zhentil Keep.
“Thank ye, Mystra,” Elminster murmured, hastily pulling on his boots. The goddess was, after all, why he had a deserted alley to dress in.
Right behind Fantharl Halamaun’s mansion, too.
He went round to the front as he cast a hasty spell to make his garments smarter and darker, to go with the younger and more prosperous face he was giving himself. After all, a messenger from Halamaun’s Sembian backers would either come through the Darkway, or seek entrance at the front doors.
The waylord’s guards—two mountainous hulks in full armor overlooked by four crossbowmen who looked more than ready to fire—were expecting trouble.
“Emrayn Melkanthar, from Sembia, to see Fantharl Halamaun. Immediately,” Elminster made crisp reply to the guards’ challenge.
“The lord is not at home,” was the flat reply.
“I’ll await him in his forehall,” he responded, just as flatly.
“We are to admit no one—”
“You will make an exception, or your master will be far less than pleased.”
One of the crossbowmen vanished from the balcony above the doors, and returned with a handsome, richly dressed man with a styled and curved mustache.
“Valandro!” the Sembian greeted him, before the wizard could say a word. The Tethyrian frowned.
“I know you not, saer. Who are you, and how is it you know me?”
“I am Emrayn Melkanthar, and I am come from certain men in Sembia Halamaun does business with. Men who like to know with whom they deal—wherefore I was shown your likeness, and told you were Valandro the Mysterious these days, though I know you of old as—”
“Enough,” the Tethyrian said sharply. Drawing two wands from his belt, he leaned over the balcony rail and said curtly to the guards below, “Let him in. I’ll be responsible.”
He hastened down to meet the Sembian, wands aimed and ready, but was seen to go quiet and fall into step beside Melkanthar, leading the Sembian away from the forehall and along passages toward the rear of the house.
When they reached the chamber that held Halamaun’s Darkway, Valandro the Mysterious dismissed the guards there, closed the doors to keep them out and himself and the Sembian in, then stood like an impassive statue as Melkanthar strode slowly around the glowing portal, nodded, and cast a swift, tentative spell. Only to frown and cast another.
“There,” he said aloud. “Manshoon’s enchantment now no longer transforms the blood of users, but instead works on their minds, promoting one of the most feeble spells they already know how to cast—and making it the only spell they can cast. Vulnerability, but not instant death. Aye, that should do it.”
He strode past the motionless and unseeing Valandro to the door, but was still reaching for its handle when it was flung wide, and four guards with leveled glaives thrust forward into the room, an angry Fantharl Halamaun right behind them.
“Die, foul Zhentarim!” the waylord snapped. “Not content to—”
“Hold!”
Magic lashed forth from the intruder with force enough to send Halamaun’s guards staggering back, dropped polearms clanging and clattering.
“No Zhentarim am I,” said the stranger. “I am of the Vigilant Ravens.”
Fantharl Halamaun blinked. The Ravens were a powerful Sembian cabal that opposed Manshoon’s rise to power, but he’d thought they’d not do anything beyond offering him bad prices and a chill welcome in Sembian markets.
“Your wizard Ardroth Thauntan died using your Darkway,” the Sembian continued, “because Manshoon cast a spell on it that turns the blood of anyone passing through it to acid. I’ve countered his spell; it is safe to use again.”
Halamaun glowered at the intruder, then nodded grudgingly. “I—I just heard from some fellow traders of their Darkways becoming deathtraps. You know Manshoon is behind this?”
The Sembian nodded. “By way of payment, Halamaun”—the builder stiffened, but the Sembian waved a contemptuous hand and continued—“suppose you tell me the name of one of Manshoon’s worst, ah, enforcers. The warriors he sends to do his open slayings. I feel in need of some … sport.”
&n
bsp; Fantharl Halamaun drew his lips back from his teeth in a mirthless smile. “Ornthen Kelgoran. He won’t be hard to find—he fears no man of the city who isn’t his master Manshoon or an upperpriest of Bane.”
“That will change,” was the calm reply.
Neither knife nor spell tested Elminster’s wards as he stalked out of Halamaun’s house. He turned two street corners before he relinquished his hold over the mind of Valandro the Mysterious, leaving behind whirling confusion as to what Emrayn Melkanthar of Sembia had looked like.
Not that the Tethyrian would have much time to ponder. Unless Halamaun was far less scared than El had judged him to be, he would keep Valandro and his overdone mustache very busy spreading word to his fellow waylords of what Manshoon had done.
At the Drowning Hippocampus
In Zhentil Keep, richly dressed strangers attracted unhealthy attention in far safer drinking and wenching clubs than the noisome, dimly lit Drowning Hippocampus, so El altered his guise again, becoming a filthy, stooped old man in fittingly foul robes.
Besides, the Sembian’s coins had served their purpose, buying the news of Ornthen Kelgoran’s present whereabouts from several eager tongues. It seemed Kelgoran wasn’t well loved, or was well feared, or both. Probably both.
Now, the man would either be dominating the bar with goblet in hand and tongue a-wag, or abed somewhere with a lowcoin lass. Or two.
El shuffled through the doors, into near darkness and an all-too-familiar din and reek of spilled drink, unwashed bodies, spew, and burnt cabbage. Why all of these places had to smell of scorched cabbage was beyond him, but …
To the owner of the first hostile glare directed his way, El mumbled, “Urgent message for Kelgoran—where be he?”
“Rutting in the back,” was the reply. “Best wait for him to—”
El stumbled past, and down the hall his informant had nodded toward. At its very end he discovered a guard sitting against a door with a loaded crossbow across his knees.
That bow got aimed at his crotch with menacing speed. “Go away,” its owner suggested tersely.
“Message for Kelgoran from Lord Manshoon,” El growled back. “Still want me to go away?”
“How do I know you speak truth?”
“You’ll know,” El replied, thrusting his head forward, jaw first, “when Manshoon rewards you—either for helping me reach Kelgoran, or for being less than helpful.”
He let two dancing flames kindle in his eyes, just for a moment, and the guard recoiled with comical speed, swallowing and trying to claw his way upright and seeking to slide sideways along the wall and out of the way, all at once. “R-right the other side of the door, S-saer Zhent!” he offered breathlessly.
“Good,” Elminster replied with a gleeful grin—as he plucked up the crossbow to aim it back down the passage, and trigger it.
Its loud clack was followed by a groan from the Zhentarim enforcer back down the far end of the passage, as its bolt sank deep into his chest.
Then Elminster kicked the door open and whirled the door guard around in front of him as a shield in one whirling motion, his hand clamped like a steel trap on the bones of the man’s elbow.
The room beyond was almost filled by a bed. It was creaking as a naked, cursing, and very hairy man scrambled out from under a hissing-in-fear woman, reaching for his sword.
He stopped when El’s spell took hold of his mind.
Almost absently El flung the guard into the coinlass as she came at him furiously, her hands like claws. There’d be time enough to compel her mind later—and the guard’s, too, if need be.
Right now, he had something more urgent to do. His sudden arrival in the dark and raging cesspit of Ornthen Kelgoran’s mind had alerted Manshoon, just as he’d expected.
Smiling savagely, El destroyed the First Lord’s “eye” in Kelgoran’s mind, searing Manshoon’s magic swiftly enough to leave its distant owner not knowing who’d burst into his enforcer’s mind, or why.
That should bring Manshoon out of whatever bed he was sporting in, right now, and set him to doing things that would add decidedly more fun to the unfolding proceedings.
The guard and the coinlass were still shrieking and tumbling on the floor when Ornthen Kelgoran burst past them, sword in hand but not bothering to snatch up and put on anything more than his boots, to hurry out into the streets with the strange old man.
The Zhentarim slayer was more than a little drunk, and was a cruel, unsubtle brute at the best of times, but he knew exactly where all of the waylords dwelt.
Under Elminster’s mental goading, he loped through the streets with a no-longer-stumbling old man right beside him, heading for the nearest Darkway just as fast as he could.
Guidance Gives Out
Elminster shuddered at the sudden burst of mental pain, then sighed. It was too late; Ornthen Kelgoran was toppling, almost beheaded, his mind dying with dazing speed.
Elminster broke contact and let the Zhentilar fall, spraying blood as his head wobbled loosely on what was left of a thick, hairy neck. Thrice he’d held Kelgoran unmoving at each Darkway, to keep the man helpless as he altered Manshoon’s slaying spell to his own.
This fourth time, the guards of Torlcastle Towers had been just a bit too swift and bold. He hadn’t even begun the spell, yet here they were, with Kelgoran cut down and eight uniformed slayers charging at the one remaining intruder, howling all sorts of unpleasant things as their swords sought his life.
Elminster ducked away from one, almost collided with another who’d raced around to gut him from behind, and flung himself flat on his back. The startled Torlcastle guard stumbled over him, off balance and trying unsuccessfully to stab downward with a sword that was too long to draw back far enough to stab, and ran right into the guard who’d been hounding El.
Lying on the smooth, polished, cold stone floor, Mystra’s man sighed and worked a spell that plucked all the guards off their heavy-booted feet and flung them at the ceiling high above.
They slammed into it with gratifyingly heavy thuds, swords and daggers fell from various hands—and then they all came crashing back down.
El stayed on his back amid the groans, knowing this wasn’t done yet. He had to prevail swiftly, or servants and guards from all over Torlcastle’s mansion would be in there, and readying crossbows, and he didn’t have time for all of this foolishness—
Four guards came swaying unsteadily to their feet after their journeys aloft and back again; one of them even had hold of his sword.
Elminster rolled to his feet. “Keep back,” he warned them. “I have no quarrel with any of ye. Just let me be, and—”
He knew his words were wasted even before he said them, but Mystra expected her agents to wield their Art with some sense of responsibility. Four guards came charging—and a fifth was crawling toward a fallen weapon, giving El a murderous glare.
Elminster sighed again, worked a simple spell, and watched as the closest guard got plucked to his death, hurled through the portal that would boil his lifeblood into acid at its far end. Well, certain Sembians did need fair warning of all of this.
That bought him time enough to use another spell on the others to fling them away into battering collisions with the walls of the room. Then he threw one into another, and hauled the crawler up off the floor to crash into the faces of two reeling guards.
Everyone went down, buying him enough time to circle around behind the Darkway, to where he could keep an eye on them all, and work the spell he needed to cast.
Fresh shouts came from the doors of the room as the portal flared, but Elminster’s next spell had snatched him away out of Torlcastle Towers even before the crossbow bolts came singing through the spot where he’d stood.
He was in a hurry. Manshoon would be roused and at work by now, and a certain servant of Mystra had to find another Zhentarim who knew where the rest of the Darkways were.
And as every wayfarer knows, good guides are always hard to find.
Sit
ting Alone in Highturrets
Morlar Elkauvren was a waylord, and lived in a towering pile of stone, a great rising prow of tall windows, balconies, and spires that would look most loomingly impressive against the winking stars, to someone who had time to stand in awe.
Elminster wasn’t such a someone, just now. It was enough that he knew Elkauvren and the location of his home—Highturrets, an apt name if there ever was one—and that somewhere in that vast mansion was a Darkway.
And if he knew his Zhentarim, word would have spread among them by now that some stranger was tracking down Darkway after Darkway. They would be hunting for this stranger, and massing defenders around each portal to watch for his approach—or, for the Darkways they didn’t yet control, around the mansions that held such portals.
Which was why Elminster now looked not like a bearded man, but a slender, rather dirty young woman clad in a hooded cloak, high boots, and not much else.
“Warm you, saer?” she husked hopefully, to the parade of dark-armored men striding swiftly down her alleyway.
One of them whirled, sword half-grating out of its scabbard. “Get gone, sister!” he barked. “Well away from here, and come not back, or it’ll be the last thing you ever do!”
Her reply was to duck her head, hiss angrily, and—once the Zhentilar were past—scurry hastily out of the alcove she’d been loitering in and flee the way they’d come.
“Who’s yon?” someone barked, from ahead.
“A streetskirts,” another man replied. “They’ve turned her out—let her go.”
El paused for a moment at the cross street where those two Zhents stood, and murmured fearfully, “Which one of you is the wizard?”
Why?” the first Zhent snarled.
“F-for later,” she quavered. “I was told to find him, another night, so I need to know what he looks like. Then I’ll go.”
Cold eyes measured her for a moment, ere the second Zhent turned and pointed. “There. He’s called Cadathen. Likes redheads.”
