Cloak of Shadows asota-2 Page 14

  "You had each other," Sharantyr pointed out. "I was paired with Elminster."

  "There're ladies across Faerun who'd swoon for a chance to be where you were," Belkram reminded her.

  "Right, you can call some of them in next time… but enough," Shar said briskly. "We'll trade salacious stories another time. Correct me, please, if I err in the following admittedly brief analysis. We have a handful of half-spent magic items and Sylune's wisdom and watchfulness to use against an unknown number of powerful shapeshifting wizards who come from another plane… and presumably can flee back there, out of our reach, whenever they desire."

  "No, I think you've said it pretty well," Belkram agreed. "Despite our cause being heroic and our hearts pure, we've been very lucky to survive thus far. Sooner or later, if they bother with us, we'll be caught and overwhelmed… as we almost were before the Simbul showed up."

  "As we were, I must remind everyone, by nothing more than hobgoblins," Itharr put in soberly. Then he laughed, a sudden light dancing in his eyes. "Why not take the battle to this mysterious castle hideaway of the Malaugrym? If we're dead anyway, what's to be lost? Why not take some of them with us?"

  "Spoken like a true Harper," Belkram agreed.

  "Spoken like a true idiot," Sharantyr retorted.

  "There is often a great similarity, yes," Sylune said diplomatically, and they all chuckled. After a moment of silence, an owl hooted somewhere off in the woods, and Itharr asked, "Well?"

  "Well, what?"

  "Who's for attacking this castle on the morrow?''

  "Are you crazy?"

  "Why don't you sleep on it until morning, all of you?" Sylune suggested. "We can talk again then, when there isn't food spoiling."

  "Itharr!"

  "Sorry!" Itharr promptly burned his fingers at the fire, nearly dropped most of the food into the flames, and gave vent to almost as many colorful suggestions as were offered to him.

  The scorched rabbit was, surprisingly, very good.

  Hawkgauntlet, Kythorn 18

  Across the gloomy taproom of the Hawkgauntlet Arms, the balding bartender stared at Elminster and slowly grew pale. "Burn them alive?" he gasped. "Right… here?"

  "Would ye prefer I did the deed?"

  Galdus gulped. "I'd prefer… it didn't happen at all."

  Elminster nodded at him. "I hear ye," he said softly. "I'll take them far away instead. If I leave them nearby- believe me-ye'll have them back here soon, carving up thy folk, looting thy tavern, and then going on to the next place."

  Galdus nodded. "No doubt. Yet if you burn them here, I'd have to move on myself. I couldn't walk past their ashes every morn… I just couldn't."

  The Old Mage nodded. "I understand," he said quietly. "So be it." He murmured something and waved a hand, and the struggling brigands were suddenly gone.

  "Are they… dead?"

  "Not yet. If they behave, not for many years yet. But I'm afraid I don't expect them to behave."

  The bartender gulped. "I… ah… you have my thanks, friend."

  "Fair fortune follow thee and thine," Elminster said in formal reply. Then he smiled, went to the bar, and extended his hand.

  Galdus took it. "Thanks for saving our lives-myself and the wife and the three lasses the other side o' that door, my two daughters and one I hire in. Thanks for the magic, too."

  "Oh, aye," Elminster said, and leaned forward to touch the old man's shoulder.

  Galdus stiffened. "What did you do?"

  "You have a year, now, of taking no harm from slung stones and fired arrows and cutting blades of iron and steel. A year, mind. Use it well to make the folk who're going to be fleeing here from Westgate in the months ahead respect ye."

  Galdus tried to smile. "Those brigands… You have to slay like that often?"

  "All the time," Elminster said simply. "Today's been quite a busy day for it, but yestereve was worse." He turned toward the door.

  "Is all this slaying the price of becoming an arch-mage?" Galdus asked from behind him, almost whispering.

  "Nay," Elminster said, fixing him with tired eyes. "This is the price of keeping the Realms alive. I've been paying it for more than a thousand years."

  Galdus paled again but held up a hand to stop Elminster's departure. He drew two tankards of bitter from a keg and wordlessly slid one across the bar. Elminster took it, and from his empty hand a stack of gold coins slid onto the polished wood.

  " 'Tis free, El!" Galdus said almost angrily, looking down at the coins, then up at the Old Mage, and then down at the coins again, mouth dropping open.

  "Ye have two daughters to raise, and maybe three, if the year ahead is cruel to the parents of the other," El said. "Put those away-bury 'em in a pot nearby-and ye'll have what ye need, later on." He grinned suddenly. "Perhaps even enough to rebuild that outhouse."

  Galdus turned very red and then, a long moment later, grinned back.

  "Right, then," he said, carefully taking up the coins. His hands trembled slightly as he put them in a sack and tied it at his belt. Then he took a pull at his tankard and looked at Elminster with almost pleading eyes.

  "I'm a fool for asking this," he said quietly. "You could burn this place down, and me with it, probably by uttering a single word."

  El inclined his head in a slow nod. "But ye're a man and were once a mage, so ye'll ask."

  Galdus grinned slowly, shook his head, and said, "Yes. Well… Right, then. Why is all this killing necessary?"

  Elminster shrugged. "Because I haven't yet succeeded in talking anyone to death."

  "What?"

  "I can't get folk to agree with others in peace. Always swords, spells, poison, or just fists come out… and are used." He sipped thoughtfully at his beer and said, "For several hundred years I tried to forge treaties here and handshakes there across Faerun, and trust rulers to keep 'em. Some did so for as long as a year or two, seldom more."

  He stared into his beer and added, "I grew tired of threatening and pleading, over and over again. Folk lied to me, smiled, and laughed at my back the moment I'd left. So I did what I had to: told folk clearly what the price'd be if they didn't keep peace in this or that way they'd agreed to. And I made them pay the price when I had to. Sudden respect, or sudden death, was the result. Some folk learned, and that won us peace enough for humankind to rise above scrabbling in the dirt to feed ourselves between goblinkin raids and monster attacks."

  El drained his beer. "So men grew rich, and arrogant, and spread across Faerun, making me wonder if I'd really done wrong, as the glorious old peoples, the elves and the dwarves, grew few and hunted. I started to worry about having to slaughter entire realms of men to keep us from laying waste to all Toril, burning down every tree for fuel, and eating all else, and finally each other-and then starving in the desert we'd left, dying off with a world wasted."

  Galdus stared at him, swallowed beer without tasting it, and waved at him wordlessly to continue.

  "I needn't have worried," Elminster went on, rubbing his sharp nose and looking off into the distance. "Humankind took advantage of its power and leisure to go to war with itself… and still does, year after year. I sometimes wonder if they've managed this any better, in other worlds where there are men, elsewhere in the multiverse."

  The Old Mage fixed Galdus with calm eyes. "My job now-with the other Chosen, and the Harpers I helped found, and all the rulers I can dupe or threaten or bargain with-is to keep wars small and the real villains in check so that little folk, like thy family, can grow just a little better off year by year."

  Galdus finished his own beer and held out his hand for El's tankard.

  "From anyone else," he said heavily, refilling them both, "I'd call this deluded raving. A thousand years…" He shook his head. "Yet I believe you." He said it almost wonderingly and shook his head again as he set a full tankard down in front of the Old Mage. "Say on, please."

  Elminster raised his beer in a silent toast. As the two tankards clinked, he asked the bartender, "Hav
e ye never wondered why, year after year, the cruel mages in Thay, Zhentil Keep, Calimshan, and half a hundred other places don't destroy half the Realms in spell duels? Or just lead armies to roll over all of ye and meet to hack each other up in the smoking ruins that're left? Or why those orc hordes out of the northernmost mountains, that cover the land for mile upon mile of grunting goblinkin, don't just sweep over everyone?"

  He drained his beer at single gulp. "Slaying," he answered himself, "that's why. Slaying when needful, and only when needful. Some realms have armies to do such dirty deeds. Shadowdale has Elminster."

  Galdus swallowed. "When I was young and thought I could rule the world in just a few years, with just a few more spells, I used to talk about the way of the world and how I'd change it. I think all young wizards do, if they've someone to talk to. Later on, I never thought it'd all be for real, or that any halfway sane wizard spoke so, when he grew older." He shook his head and looked up at Elminster. "I thought they all just got twisted with power and greedy for more, and spent their days selling scrolls for gold or stealing spells from tombs or their enemies, or locked themselves away to go slowly mad making spells to open doors silently, or get wet laundry dry, or open stuck corks in old bottles… or blew themselves and their towers to the skies trying to perfect army-reaving magics."

  "Most of them do just that," Elminster said softly. "Yet their very self-interest helps the rest of us. They're turned inward to small things, not trying to change the world, but they're in the way of conquerors and monsters. Intelligent folk rightly fear that they'll awaken and do battle if threatened, and beasts find that out the hard way."

  Galdus grunted. "It makes one want to have more to drink, thinking about it."

  Elminster grinned. "A lot of wizards do that, too."

  He straightened in his seat and said, "My thanks for the bitter, Galdus, and the converse. 'Tis seldom I get to talk so freely to someone who'll understand, and more seldom yet that I find someone I dare say such things to. All too-"

  And then the very air around him danced with blue sparks, and Elminster saw the bartender freeze in mid-step, mouth hanging open to speak, eyes fixed on nothingness. The front door groaned.

  Elminster found that he could still move in that surging web of magic-more than he'd ever felt unleashed before-so he turned toward the door to see who'd wrought it. He might as well see whatever god his words had angered, before they destroyed him.

  A thin woman in a black gown was just closing the door behind her. She was alone, and her raven-dark hair, red-and-black eyes, and ivory skin made her look like a vampire. Her gait and movements, too, echoed the sultry, almost pouting manner of many she-vampires Elminster had met, but her eyes were somber as she walked toward the Old Mage.

  "Your words have saved you," she said quietly, "and found me the teacher I need-and need to trust. Well met, Elminster."

  "Well met, lady," Elminster said, bowing to her. "Who are you?"

  "Midnight is the name I am known to most by, but you may call me… Mystra. We must talk."

  11

  Two Edges to Every Sword Blade

  The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 18

  The three Malaugrym stood waiting like patient statues as Milhvar said, "The Shadowmaster High had great hopes for this project. Try not to let him down. But above all else, we want you back safely. If anything goes wrong — anything — use the power of your belt buckles to get back to us. Even if the foe is under your blade or in your hands, break off rather than be taken — or slain. There will be other forays, and other chances."

  The three kin nodded, and one of them added a visibly nervous swallow. Milhvar did not smile or shrug. If they lived through this, perhaps they'd grow into Shadow-masters of some use. Huerbara almost was already, only her inability to bridle a too-oft-blazing temper holding her back. But Kuervyn and Andraut were nothings, all swagger and undisciplined thrill-seeking. They still found nightly fun in shapeshifting their ways through Faerunian brothels, and took their greatest satisfaction in leaving without paying!

  Dead growth, the pair of them. Milhvar let nothing of this judgment show as he told them all to willingly draw at least a drop of their own blood with a talon, claw, body spur, or other part of their own shape, and signaled the team of Shadowmaster mages to begin weaving the cloaks.

  He'd deliberately woven the chain of interlocked spells to be more complex than it need be, take longer — and require more mages — than it needed to, and to be more than a little unstable. He'd no wish to unleash an army of unbeatable flamebrains like Kuervyn and Andraut on Faerun or anywhere else.

  When the long chanting and gesturing was done, and a shimmering and dark singing in the air above the three told him the spell-cloaks were done, he stepped forward and added the "secret spell" that linked each magical construct to its wearer, through the drop of blood. This false enchantment added nothing useful to the process, but kept Milhvar essential to the Grafting of every spell-cloak of the Malaugrym. A useful, if dangerous, status to hold.

  But then, there were no safe positions to hold in the ranks of the blood of Malaug. Milhvar lifted his lip in a mirthless grin at the thought-and seeing this, Kuervyn toppled over, fainting dead away.

  Milhvar laughed aloud as he strode toward the fallen Malaugrym, ignoring the smoking glare Huerbara gave him. There were still amusements to be found, if one waited patiently for them. It would be funnier still if these three went into Faerun and found Elminster waiting for them. Perhaps he could arrange it sometime.

  Daggerdale, then Myth Drannor, Kythorn 18

  The face bending over her was a ghostly mask. "Shar," the familiar voice said kindly in her mind. "Shar, awaken. Quietly, lass. There is a deed you alone must do."

  "Sylune?" she whispered.

  "As always." The voice was warm and reassuring. Shar sat up and looked around at the blue, moonlit dimness. One of the horses shifted slightly, but the two Harpers lay still, breathing softly, a blanket thrown over each of them. Sylune stood beside her, a pale wisp of shifting nothingness in the night, like the memory of a white flame. Something called in the woods off to the north, something small and mournful that she didn't recognize. Shar laid aside her blanket, took up her blade-its grip cold and hard, bringing her fully awake-and got up as quietly as she could.

  The ghostly figure beside her reached out, offering something to her. A ring. "Put this on."

  Shar did so, her fingers tingling as they touched what was left of the Witch of Shadowdale. Sylune smiled at her reassuringly. "Come."

  "I don't know why I do these things," Shar breathed as they walked west into the woods. "I get into more trouble…"

  Sylune, her bare feet walking in utter silence an inch or so off the ground, turned and smiled at her reassuringly. Shar rolled her eyes in response but followed, blade at the ready.

  Far, far away ahead of her, a wolf howled. It was answered, from somewhere much nearer, off to the left. Shar shivered and cast another look all around her at moonlit Daggerdale. She must be crazy, to follow a ghost into the woods, away from their camp. She looked back at it searchingly, half-expecting to see another ghostly form standing guard over it while some false shade led her to a horrible, lonely doom.

  "Be not afraid," Sylune said softly, as if reading her mind. "Just go well out into that meadow, there, and touch the ring with your free hand."

  Sharantyr looked ahead at the moonlit clearing and then back at the ghostly face beside her. "Will I see you- and Belk and Itharr-again?" she asked.

  Sylune smiled. "Of course. We all need to get a lot more work out of you yet."

  Shar made a face. "Of course," she replied, a grin playing about her lips. "Silly of me…"

  " 'Twas, yes."

  Shar shook her head at that, lifted her hand in salute-Sylune returned it-and walked away into the meadow. The moonlight was bright on the grass, and the night was very beautiful. Shar looked around at it, drew a deep breath, and smiled. Some folk never get to see this.


  Sylune's voice came to her, as if borne on an unseen wind. "Plant your blade in the ground before you touch the ring. Don't take it with you."

  She found a spot she liked and stopped, planting her booted feet firmly. Then she looked back over her shoulder.

  Sylune was still standing there, a frozen flame floating in the nightdark under the trees.

  Shar took another deep breath, thrust her sword upright into the turf, watched moonlight gleam down its length-and laid her fingers over the ring.

  There was a wink, and the world changed. She was standing in a smaller, darker glade, dim blue moonlight filtering down to her through the tangles and mossy boughs of huge, gnarled trees much older than the woods she'd left in Daggerdale. It smelled… like the Elven Court woods, near Myth Drannor.

  She looked around, not moving. Mosses glowed eerily here and there, and the trees stretched away into utter darkness all around. She was in the heart of a large forest.

  Something winked, softly, between two trees. She stared at it, shifting slightly to get a better view, and obligingly it drifted nearer, sparkling as it came.

  A will o' wisp, beautiful but deadly. Her hand went to her empty scabbard and then drew back. She hadn't a hope, even with her sword. Scrabbling after daggers and boot-knives just didn't seem worthwhile. She hoped Sylune hadn't made a mistake, and that her awakener had been Sylune. Could a Malaugrym take a ghost shape?

  Why not?

  Too late to wonder now. The will o' wisp, blue-white and awesomely beautiful, shone like a little star in front of her. "Take out thy dagger," it said, in soft, feminine tones.

  Shar stared at it for a moment and then did so, never taking her eyes from the floating sphere of light.

  "Follow," it said softly, and retreated across the clearing the way it had come. Shar did so, casting a quick glance around as she crossed the damp, fern-studded ground. There was no sign of other life.

  The wisp was hovering above a tangle of brambles. "Cut away enough to pass," it told her, "and go down."