The Herald Page 2

  She cast one swift glance in his direction through the fall of an errant lock of hair that always escaped her browband, just to make sure he carried no bow.

  There was no sign of one, so she returned her attention to her work, not looking up again.

  After all, he was just one man, and she could hear the wheeze in his breathing—and no matter how many others were skulking unseen out in the trees, the tomb had thick stone walls girt with much earth and gnarled tree roots, and only this one door.

  Rune kept on scraping away the muck of centuries with her trowel. Gods, but small furry forest things shat a lot. And went to a lot of trouble to gnaw twigs and weave them into nests that—

  “Well met.”

  The old man’s greeting was flat and unfriendly. The sort of “Well met” a warrior tosses before him like a gauntlet, in challenge. He might as well have bluntly demanded to know her name and what she was doing—

  “Who are you, and what’s your business? Here in the tomb of a wizard dead these three centuries?”

  Rune straightened slowly to face the man, brushing her hair back from her face. Her two companions kept right on with their cleaning, bent over in their respective dark corners of Ralaskoun’s crypt. Leaving this to her.

  “Tennarra,” she replied, giving the name she usually used when dealing with strangers. “I am, as you can see, cleaning.”

  The old face was unfamiliar, adorned with old scars, and more unfriendly than ever. “Aye, girl, but why? Most folk leave wizards’ tombs well alone. Are you a tomb robber? Or one of those who seek to raise the dead?”

  Rune gave him a frown back. “Neither. I work to cleanse tombs and bless them, so the dead won’t rise and walk as liches.”

  The old man nodded. “Wizards itch to walk, aye. But they don’t need help. Come out of there.”

  He wore homespun, and over it a leather jack that had once been part of some modest warrior’s war harness. A belt knife and a short sword rode at his belt. He was burly, and had hands as hard as his face, but no gauntlets, and nothing drawn and ready.

  “Come away now,” he snapped, stalking closer. Rune could hear other footfalls in the forest now, to her left and right.

  So could her two bent-over companions; she could tell from momentary pauses as they turned their heads to listen.

  Rune sighed and drew back into the crypt. Away from its mouth, where she could be rushed from either flank or easily shot down with arrows. Into the damp, musty darkness of the unlit stone room with its plain, high stone-block casket, like the altars in many a way shrine.

  “I said come out of there!” the old man snarled, drawing his sword.

  Amarune backed along the casket, moving to her left. “The wizard Ralaskoun never married, and died childless. He can have no kin. So by what right do you tell me what to do and not to do, old man? Who are you?”

  The old man ignored her question, advancing on her slowly. He’d taken but three slow, menacing steps when five men waving swords suddenly burst into view, three rushing out of the trees and bushes behind him to charge straight at Rune, and one coming around either front corner of the crypt to race along its walls right at her.

  “How many?” one snapped at the old man, as he sprinted past.

  “Her and two feeble old women behind her, inside,” the old man called, as the first swordsman reached Amarune—and hacked at her face viciously.

  She sprang back, flicking her trowel full of twigs and old dirt into his face, and swept out her dagger. Trowel and dagger were feeble defenses against a broadsword, but—daggers came whirling past her ears out of the crypt behind her like darting wasps, and the swordsman thrusting ruthlessly at her was suddenly shrieking and clutching at his face.

  Which meant he left his throat unprotected.

  Amarune rushed forward to cut it open, but another dagger flashed past her arm from behind her and got there first.

  Gurgling and spurting gore, the hilt jutting from under his chin, the swordsman sagged back into another rushing up right behind him, into a brief, stumbling collision. More swordsmen were heading the other way, rushing around the massive stone casket in the other direction—to promptly crash to their knees, gurgling and clutching their throats, though the flying daggers had come nowhere near them.

  The foremost swordsman had fallen; Rune watched the second go down with the swarm of daggers stabbing at his head from all directions.

  Beyond them, the old man had planted his sword point down in the trampled ferns, and was raising his hands to work magic.

  Rune drew back her trowel for a throw, but he, too, was suddenly clutching at his throat and struggling to breathe, his eyes and then cheeks bulging as his face slowly went purple—and he toppled like a felled tree.

  Silence fell. Rune trotted swiftly around the wizard’s casket to make sure all of their assailants were down. They were—and by the time she’d returned to the mouth of the tomb with the crone who’d been working on that side of the crypt, the other crone was standing in it, head lowered in concentration and hands spread.

  They stopped and waited. It wasn’t long before the first crone’s head rose, eyes opened, and hands fell. “No one with a thinking mind near. Hold silence, though.”

  She turned to look at the other crone. They met each other’s eyes, nodded, and lifted their arms in smooth unison like two tavern dancers embracing phantom lovers on a stage, both shaping empty air as if caressing it. Then they murmured wordless whispers of concentration and effort … and the forest in front of the tomb seemed to fade away beneath sudden, swift-spreading mist.

  Mist that was neither damp nor clinging, but tinged with a luminous blue radiance. Mist that made Amarune’s hair stand on end all over her body. Including up her nose.

  Fighting down the urge to sneeze, she asked, “I recognized the war-daggers spell, but El, what did you do to them?”

  “A very old and ruthless spell. Expands the tongue swiftly, and chokes its victim. Doesn’t work on most mages these days, as the incantations they speak linger just enough to guard their tongues against such meddling. Everyone else, though …”

  That crone had straightened to become a white-bearded, beak-nosed old man, gaunt and sharp eyed. The other became a tall, shapely woman with long, flowing silver hair that moved restlessly around her shoulders as if stirred by many breezes, or as if each tress had a snakelike mind of its own.

  The man was Elminster, the ancient and infamous Sage of Shadowdale, and the woman was Storm Silverhand, the legendary hearth mother of the Harpers. Archmage and harpist, both fabled Chosen of Mystra. Traveling companions many a novice mage would not have dared to even approach.

  Nor tarry within half a realm of.

  Rune smiled a trifle bitterly. For her part, she hardly dared step out of their sight, for fear some fell foe watching them from afar would pounce on her and rend her with claws or spells or magic before she could draw breath to scream.

  She’d been helping them as an unskilled laborer helps master crafters, handing them what they needed, cleaning up in their wake, and doing grunt work. Dirty dishes, for instance. She’d seen a lot of those, these past three tendays, as they trudged the backlands, from tomb to tomb and ruin to ruin, from overgrown and forgotten altar to hilltop way cairn. A young woman and two feeble old crones, ostensibly cleansing and blessing old graves to prevent undead from arising from the earth—but in truth, rebuilding the Weave.

  It was like a vast and invisible web or intricate tapestry, its strands torn and snarled, whipping restlessly in the shifting winds and in need of anchoring.

  Which was what they were doing: crafting new strands of force to bind the Weave to the few wards that had survived the ravages of the Spellplague, and repairing others that could be salvaged until they could serve as anchors. This tomb was one of a handful of unscathed wardings. Mystra or no Mystra, war or fresh spellstorms or wrathful Chosen or not, a stronger Weave meant a stronger world in the time ahead.

  This mist now hidi
ng the forest was no ground fog born of dampness nor weather magic, but something El and Storm had just spun from the wards of Ralaskoun’s tomb to hide them from anyone magically spying from afar.

  “Come back into the shadows,” Storm bade Amarune. “We must take a look at our enthusiastic would-be murderers.”

  “Brigands?”

  El shrugged. “Those three, perhaps. But the old man who confronted ye, and this last of the sword swingers, here …”

  He spread his hands in a way Rune knew was calling on the Weave to dispel all enchantments, stripping away disguises as well as protections and contingencies.

  Looking down at the result, he nodded grimly.

  “Shadovar. Minor arcanists, to be sure, among the least of Thultanthar. Thine own magic outstrips theirs. Possibly they sought magic in this tomb, and wanted no one else getting to it first.”

  “Or possibly, they were hunting us,” Rune said quietly.

  Elminster shrugged dismissively, but Storm looked past him at Rune and nodded, slowly and silently.

  “This is not the first time these last few months Shadovar have been observed seeking magic,” the Old Mage murmured. “I wonder what they want it for?”

  “Shar’s preparing her mortal armies to conquer all they can, and destroy what they cannot?” Storm hazarded.

  Elminster sighed. “She’s been doing little else these last few centuries.” He shook his head. “Would that more of the gods would take up some hobbies …”

  He sighed again, looked around the dark tomb, and announced briskly, “We, however, still have our work to do. So we can move on to Heatherhill and see what’s left of Galmark Tower. Good wards it had, back when Vangerdahast was my ’prentice.”

  “El,” Storm said gently, “we won’t be able to do this Weave work in hiding for much longer. Things are getting worse across the Realms, not better. If half the gossip we hear is true, Chosen—or those who proclaim themselves Chosen, however deluded they may be—are being murdered as casually and as often as men stamp on cockroaches … and all too many of their slayers kill in the name of this god or that. All too often, Shar.”

  El grunted. “Mayhap, bu—”

  He broke off midword and crouched down hastily. Amarune turned to peer at him, startled, and saw that he was hiding his face in his hands. Hands that were returning to the knobble-jointed and age-spotted look they’d had when he was playing crone. Storm was resuming her crone shape just as swiftly.

  The light in the tomb was changing. Rune turned to stare at the mist—and discovered it gone, the forest back at her feet again.

  The two bent old crones scuttled back to the corners of the crypt, wheezing and humming, to resume cleaning as if they’d never stopped.

  Amarune went from startled to frightened in one chill instant, realizing what she’d just witnessed.

  Someone from afar had just magically turned off the wards, so as to see and hear everything inside the tomb.

  “Who—?” she started to whisper, then hastily swallowed her words, and asked the rest of them to herself, in the silence of her own thoughts.

  Who has the power to do that?

  She stared at the crone she knew was Elminster. Just for a moment, one eye met hers—and one hunched shoulder lifted and then fell again, in a shrug.

  Elminster didn’t know. And dared not try to find out.

  Rune stared into the depths of the forest for a moment, feeling very alone and yet very watched. By unseen, unfriendly eyes.

  Then she drew in a long, shuddering breath and bent to use her trowel to collect all the dirt and twigs she’d flung in the face of the man who was lying, very dead, right beside her.

  She tried not to look at him. Or the second dead swordsman, beyond him.

  Not that avoiding looking at things made them go away.

  Even young children knew that.

  Did archmages?

  CHAPTER 2

  A Darkness in Thultanthar

  EYES OF FLAT AND BALEFUL PLATINUM REGARDED THE MAN BELOW the dais coldly. “Am I understood?”

  “Y-yes, Most High.”

  “Good. Go.”

  The man went.

  Telamont Tanthul, Most High of Thultanthar, suppressed a sigh. He was getting tired.

  And these days, when he grew weary, his temper shortened.

  He was getting old.

  His lips thinned at the thought, causing the next Shadovar agent marching into the chamber to hesitate, measured footfalls faltering momEntarily.

  Telamont let his mouth go calm, forcing himself to almost smile, and stared the man down, keeping his face expressionless.

  The agent went pale, but kept coming.

  Telamont quelled another sigh. He had ordered these reports, but had now heard enough of them in unbroken succession to grow weary indeed—and the agents yet waiting to make theirs were still lined up clear across the city from the other side of that door. The door of his—well, call it what it was, an audience chamber. An overly formal place he seldom used, but that suited his purposes just now. A great long and high chamber sheathed in gleaming white marble, that at its rear rose to a dais where a high-backed seat fashioned of one great piece of gleaming black obsidian stood facing the door. A huge bare metal table flanked the throne on the right, and the tammaneth rod floated upright in the air in the corner far behind to its left.

  Telamont’s only amusement of the long day had been watching each pair of eyes—those of every Shadovar agent entering the room to make their report—dart to the great black rod, hurriedly look away from it, and then try to keep their gazes locked on him.

  They all wanted to know what it was.

  What it was, was a great black rod—studded down its length with black spheres enclosing empty, dark glass globes—that floated vertically off the floor in that corner.

  That was all they needed to know about it, for now. As for the rest, let them speculate. And fear.

  Fear was a handle that moved many men.

  Even the best agents of Thultanthar. Who were, after all, men. Of greater lineage and learning than the lower, coarser rabble of Sembia and Cormyr and the lands beyond they might be, but underneath … still human. And beneath all airs and graces, humans were still clever beasts. Talking herd animals.

  Witness this long queue. Shadovar agents filing in, one at a time, for an audience with their Most High. They’d come rushing back to report their successes in murdering all sorts of Chosen, across the world, at his command.

  A herd, none quite daring to be first—but frantic not to be last once they knew one of their fellows had returned to Thultanthar.

  Telamont spread his hand to the latest arrival, silently gesturing for the man to speak.

  He cared little about the details. Even if he’d gone hunting himself, or sent someone whose competence he could truly trust, like Aglarel, some Chosen would escape. Others would be inspired to think and call themselves Chosen for the first time, in days yet to come. A few would even have real standing, however paltry, in the eyes of some god or other.

  Nor would any of this long line of worms dare to honestly tell their Most High how many Chosen had eluded them, or why.

  He was most interested not in their achievements, but in the alacrity of their obedience, for busy Shadovar are Shadovar too enwrapped in their work to accomplish elaborate treacheries.

  He asked this latest one the same question he’d asked them all, and received the same answer. “Oh, no, Most High, I have been most careful to adhere to your clear command, and have not tried to work any magic that touched another’s mind, oh, no.”

  Telamont believed him.

  All of the agents, in turn, had assured him of that.

  His memory told him this one’s name was Laerekel, and that he was one of Thultanthar’s better agents. Diligent and loyal—to a Most High who showed no sign of weakness, at least. Show no weakness, yet display not your every weapon, as the old saying put it.

  Telamont knew well that his keenest
weapon was his memory. Without it, he’d have fallen from his high place centuries ago. Dragged down by those waiting for the chance.

  Yet none who’d tried had lasted long enough to succeed, or try a second time.

  He recalled what he wanted Laerekel to do next, crisply gave the man those orders, and dismissed him, as he had all the previous agents.

  It took him some minutes, sitting alone on his throne, facing the open doors and pondering darker matters, to realize Laerekel had been the last agent of the day.

  At last. He stood up, gestured to the guards to close the great double doors, and turned away.

  Not that he would trust them. He never did.

  Where he was headed was hidden behind two successive sets of doors he’d close and seal himself, with spells few of the mightiest arcanists of this city could breach, even with much time and trouble.

  He did not want to be disturbed.

  The inscription was pitted with age, but had been graven deeply enough that the words could yet be read: Handramar Ralaskoun.

  Above the wizard’s name was a sigil unfamiliar to Amarune. Ralaskoun’s own. Below it was a rune she’d become familiar with this past year: the sealing rune that kept magic pent in and the dead at rest, the one she privately thought looked like three entwined and amorous snakes.

  Rune used an improvised brush made of tufts of dead pine needles to finish cleaning out the inscription, not looking up when the bent back of the hunched-over crone who was Storm came swaying up to her.

  Then brushed against her.

  Rune tried not to stiffen as Storm’s touch sent magic crawling through her, but knew she’d failed. So she feigned a coughing fit instead, as Storm’s clear, sharp, and cool thoughts lanced into her mind.

  This mindlink magic will enable us to converse by thought, so long as we keep close together. Say nothing that will betray who we really are. We’ll depart this place soon.

  Rune almost nodded, but caught herself just in time. What shook her was not Storm’s words, but the fear that flared clear and cold behind them.