Crown of Fire ss-2 Read online

  "Have they begun?" There was cold amusement in Lord Manshoon's voice as they turned through an archway guarded by two stiffly alert guardsmen.

  "Of course," Sarhthor replied. "Some took bold leave of me, with grandly sinister half-promises and hints of dark plans. Others simply slipped away."

  Together they stepped into a large, empty chamber, then turned sharply right into a dark alcove. Its dusty, cobwebbed back wall was an illusion; as they strode through it, Sarhthor added, "You know they've started, Lord. Once you spoke of spellfire, you could have forbidden them to seek it-and still they'd have tried. Magelings who last this long are ruled by their lust for power, however much they might pretend to command wisdom and shrewd reason."

  The two archwizards squeezed past a motionless golem and strolled down the dark passage beyond it to a featureless door. Sarhthor drew it open, and Manshoon strode through, his black cloak swirling about him.

  The room beyond was small. Two closed doors faced them, and in the center of the room stood a wooden plinth; on it lay a small gold key. Manshoon ignored all these features, turning sharply left to a door beside the one through which he had entered. He strode forward as if that dark wooden door did not exist and as the toe of his boot touched its surface, he vanished, leaving Sarhthor alone in the room.

  The Zhentarim archmage carefully closed the door they had entered through and looked around the room. Death awaited those who touched the key or the other two doors, he knew-for he had helped arrange it so. Smiling faintly, he followed Manshoon.

  One of his boots left the floor in that dark room deep inside Zhentil Keep as the other clicked down onto glass. smooth marble in a grand, high-vaulted chamber in the heart of the Citadel of the Raven. It took hurrying warriors two days or more to make the trip they'd just covered in a single step. Sarhthor hoped it would never be necessary to reveal the existence of the magical gate to the Zhentilar. They'd not be pleased, and he hated unnecessary violence.

  Ahead, Manshoon ignored the faintly glowing tapestries that hung in midair all around, like the vertical war banners carried on the spears of Zhentilar horsemen. He looked only for what shouldn't be there and found nothing out of place. He strode across the vast, high hall to stand facing one of the elaborately painted windows, then halted, watchful and coldly patient. The window was as large across as three stone coffins placed end to end. It depicted a scarlet dragon coiling around the pearly-hued moon, its emerald eyes glittering and jaws opened to devour the pale orb.

  Manshoon stood impassively and dispassionately regarding it as Sarhthor made his own way across the gleaming marble to stand behind and to one side of the high lord. As he came to a halt, the window began to slide aside.

  Their arrival had been watched, as usual.

  Still glowing with false sunlight, the window slid open, revealing a dark hole behind it, like the eyesocket of a gigantic skull. Out of that darkness floated two spherical creatures, their dark bodies surrounded by sinuously coiling tentacles that turned restlessly to point in one direction and then another. From the end of each stalk, a cold, fell eye looked out at the world.

  Each beholder slowly turned on end to gather all ten of its eyestalks in a sinister, watchful cluster: a forest of eyes stared at the two Zhentarim wizards as the beholders drifted into the room.

  The eye tyrants floated on in silence until they hung above the wizards, well out of reach and comfortably separated from each other. Then they rolled slowly upright, revealing their many-toothed mouths and large, central eyes. One was slightly larger than the other.

  "Something is amiss here," the larger one hissed in its deep, echoing voice. "Strange magic is present." Manshoon turned wordlessly to Sarhthor, who frowned, shook his head doubtfully, and said, "If you'll allow me a few breaths and a spell, Lords…"

  "Proceed," three cold voices said together, and the archmage had to hide a smile at how like the eye tyrants Manshoon sounded… how like an eye tyrant he had truly become.

  Slowly and carefully, Sarhthor made the gestures and mutterings of a powerful and thorough detection spell. Thousands of tiny motes of light erupted from his robes, swirling around the chamber like a school of startled fish, prying into every corner. The conspirators waited patiently as the lights swooped, darted, hung in corners, and finally faded away.

  Sarhthor shook his head again. "Many enchantments adorn the tapestries, walls, ceiling, and floor-as always, and some of them have been laid so as to shift and change, over time-but as Mystra is my witness, I can find no trace of scrying, spies, or magical traps in this place. There are, however, two spiders alive here, and a scuttlebug-by your leave?"

  Manshoon nodded, and the beholders blinked all their eyes, once. Sarhthor strode across the floor to crush the three intruders underfoot. "Done," he said simply, then walked back to stand with his lord.

  "You called for me with some secrecy," Manshoon said flatly, looking up at the beholders, "and I have come. Speak."

  Eyestalks curled, and many glances flickered silently back and forth high above the two men; an unspoken agreement was swiftly reached. The smaller beholder drifted slightly lower. "We have become increasingly mistrustful of the loyalty of Fzoul and his underlings to any causes and authority but their own. Prying priests are everywhere in Zhentil Keep; we dared not meet with you there."

  The other, larger beholder spoke. "We have also," it rumbled coldly, "begun to despair over the ineptitude of the current crop of magelings. Many of us would like to see wizards firmly in Control of our Brotherhood again, wielding spellfire so as to rule or destroy the priests. But most of the lesser wizards lack the self-control to govern themselves, let alone control anything else."

  "Aye, this spellfire is the key," said the smaller eye tyrant eagerly. "If you are to keep our support, Manshoon, your hand must come to wield it, or hold a firm grip on whoever does."

  The High Lord of Zhentil Keep shrugged. "Tell me how, with the losses we've suffered so far trying to seize spellfire, I am to ensure our wizards will be powerful enough to win it at last-and still be strong enough to tame the priests."

  The rumbling reply sounded a little triumphant, and somehow amused. "With the unlooked-for aid we have brought you. Meet Iliph Thraun, a lord among fiches, as you are a lord among men."

  Something small and white moved in the dark opening from whence the beholders had come. It turned and rose. A yellowed human skull drifted into view, looking down at the two wizards.

  Both of them stared expressionlessly up at it, thinking the same old saying of Faerun: surprises seldom grow more welcome as one gets older.

  The skull drifted to a halt in midair, floating below the two beholders. Two pale, flickering points of light hung in its dark sockets; its gaze was cold but somehow eager as it looked down at the two mages.

  "Well met," it said formally, in hollow tones punctuated by the faint clattering of its teeth. "In life, long ago, I had the power of spellfire. I can drain it from this Shandril, if I can catch her asleep."

  "And if she wakes before you are done?"

  The skull drifted closer. "Once enough of her spellfire is gone, the lass will lose control over what is left. She will become a wild wand whenever she unleashes spellfire-a menace to allies and those she holds dear. Soon she will destroy them… and, in the end, herself."

  Lord Manshoon nodded slowly. "I thank you, lich lord. Your powers may bring victory for us all." His words held the finality of a farewell.

  As the skull made a polite reply, the smaller beholder turned and drifted a little way toward it. Obediently, the skull drifted out through the opening it had entered by. When it was gone, Manshoon calmly asked the beholders, "What good is this? I trade a young, reckless girl who scarce knows how to use spellfire for an old, wise, mighty-in-Art lichnee who is sure to defy my orders? Where's the gain in that?"

  The larger beholder's mouth crooked in a slow smile. "In becoming a lich, this Thraun used a flawed process; its unlife is maintained by magical energies provided b
y magelings whom it tutors, then destroys when they grow too powerful. It feeds on certain spells cast for it-if you modify them in the right way, you or any wizard can command the lich lord with absolute precision."

  The other beholder spoke. "Would you know these magics?"

  "Of course." Manshoon did not even look at Sarhthor as he added, "Speak freely."

  "The energy can come from any of the spells that drain lifeforce, or from those that create fire or lightning. Thraun needs them modified so their effects form a sphere, the energies spiraling to its heart where this lich lord waits. If you work a governance over undeath and a masking charm employing the name `Calauthas' in your modifying incantations, you can control Thraun from a distance-an absolute control that compels the lich lord's nature. If you choose to do this through a lesser mage whose mind you control, you can even command the lich lord without its knowing who you are."-

  "So Thraun, who doubtless intends to destroy us all when it regains spellfire, becomes our helpless pawn. A nice twist." The High Lord of Zhentil Keep took two thoughtful paces across the gleaming marble, and then looked up again.

  "The time to use Thraun is not yet," he said. "To gather our mages or to have the lich lord widely seen will arouse Fzoul's suspicions. If you agree, I'll send a mageling to serve Thraun, a wizard this lich lord believes it can easily destroy-but one whose mind I control. We tell Thraun our difficulties in capturing Shandril continue, and it's best not to reveal a lich lord whom others may fear and attack, unless we have the maid in hand."

  "I have noticed," the larger beholder observed, "that the priests of our Brotherhood regard all undead as things to be either their slaves or swiftly destroyed."

  Manshoon nodded. "That is why there have always been very few liches in the Brotherhood." He began to pace again. "If Thraun grows restive, or Shandril eludes us for too long, we allow it to go after her-exerting our control only when necessary."

  The beholders drifted toward the dark hole, and the false window began to slide out over it again. "We are agreed," the larger eye tyrant said simply. "This meeting ends."

  "We are agreed," the two wizards echoed, "and this meeting ends." They stood together in silence and watched the dragon window settle back into place.

  Manshoon looked at Sarhthor. "Useful news."

  "If kept secret, Lord. As it shall be." Their eyes met for a long moment-dark, steady eyes set in expressionless faces.

  Then Manshoon nodded and turned away. They strode together across the marble to where the unseen gate waited to take them back to the High Hall of Zhentil Keep.

  "One thing occurs to me," Sarhthor said thoughtfully, a pace or two before Manshoon would have vanished. The high lord looked back at him silently.

  "Others use this place besides us," the wizard said. "If I were to leave a tracing spell behind to record changes in Art, we'd know precisely what castings had been done here between our meetings. No spying magic could escape our notice."

  Manshoon was already nodding. "Do it." He turned away and disappeared.

  Left alone in the chamber, Sarhthor took a few steps back the way he had come, and then cast a spell with quick, precise movements. A faint, sparkling radiance seemed to gather out of nowhere to coil around his wrists and then leap outward in all directions, streaming away until it faded back into nothingness. Wearing the faintest of smiles, the wizard looked slowly around the chamber, turned on his heel, took a few strides, and vanished in his turn. Silence fell.

  Then the marble floor seemed to ripple and flow, like the farthest tongues of water that waves throw up onto the sands of a beach. Gathering in one corner behind a tapestry, the ripples rose up smoothly into a man-sized pillar, spun for a moment, and sharpened into the form of a tall, thin, bearded man in plain, rather shabby, homespun robes.

  Elminster of Shadowdale dusted himself off, looked around with a critical eye at the glowing tapestries, and then stared thoughtfully up at the dragon window. Scratching his beard, he grunted, "Tis high time, indeed… for certain folk to set down their harps and get their hands dirty. Again. Just as its time old Elminster got walked all over, again. Tis not the first time, this tenday, the world's needed saving."

  Three

  Swords Gathered In The Shadows

  Stormy weather is always with us, somewhere in Faerun. Beneath it, all too often, swords are out, the hand that wields one seeking to bury it in the body that wields another Part of the way of things as the gods order, perhaps-or just the way of all of us flawed beings who walk this world I fear I'll never see a day when no swords will be drawn-or needed. But then, perhaps my sight fails too soon.

  Alustriel, High Lady of Silverymoon To Harp and to Help Year of the Deep Moon

  It was, as the minstrels say, a bright and beautiful morning in the forest. Birds sang and swooped in the branches as three Zhentilar warriors, whose faces and backs ran with sweat, bent to their work. Grunting under its weight, they lowered the stout frame of wooden poles into the pit where they stood. "How're we to know she'll come this way? Aye?"

  "Not our worry, Guld." The swordmaster's voice came from above them at the lip of the pit. "We're just swordarms. When the cover's done, we just hide by it and wait with blades out and that's exactly how Lord Manshoon said it."

  The swordmaster had meant to awe them into silence with his last words, but the three sweating men now climbing out of the pit and struggling to drag the dirt-andbrush-covered wooden lid properly onto the greased axlepole-were young. They still owned tongues that wagged faster than the muzzle applied by prudence would allow.-

  "What makes high-an'-mighty Manshoon think we can do what he couldn't? Him with a dragon and all his spells and wands, too!"

  "He obviously knows your true worth better than I do, Alorth." The swordmaster's tone was biting.

  Guld bent to slide the thin twigs into the sockets provided for them, taking care. The branches would hold the trap-cover up until this Shandril's weight was on it. Giving the last one an extra tap, he looked up, wiping sweat and hair out of his eyes. "Seriously, Sir: what leads Lord Manshoon to send swords against this lass, where spells fail?"

  Swordmaster Bluth bent his critical gaze on the finished pit trap, watching as Alorth spread a basketful of earth and leaves over its edges, kicking them into place with a practiced boot.

  Then Bluth shrugged and looked up. "We're only intended to wear this Shandril down so she's tired and hurt and has used most of her spellfire before the magelings attack her. I'd like to surprise a few wizards, though, by capturing her ourselves."

  "Ourselves being those of us who're still alive, you mean." Alorth's voice was hard. "Why attack her at all if we're just going to our deaths? Why not leave her for the wizards-tell them she's slipped past us somehow?"

  The swordmaster walked all around the pit trap and nodded his acceptance; it was well-concealed. He stepped back to look at the trees around, searching for any signs they might have left of their presence, then replied, "Duty, lad. Duty to orders. It's what we live for-and die for."

  "So lords can sit safe in their towers," Alorth replied bitterly.

  Bluth turned a cold eye on him. "Dangerous talk, Alorth. Taking the venomed dagger of your tongue to the plans and deeds of your betters is a sport that was oldand deadly-long before you were born."

  He looked around one last time, and then drew his sword and said to the other men briskly, "Best we get dressed again and ready. If the other lads do their work as well as we have, they'll be here soon."

  "I'm done, Shan." Narm shut his spellbook with a snap. "Mighty magic once more up my sleeves."

  "At least you're not as overblown about it as most mages," Delg said, looking up at him. "Though you're not much better than most of 'em at walking, or cooking, or digging latrines… or anything else much useful.."

  "Delg!" Shandril and Narm protested together. The dwarf laughed and settled his bulging pack on his sboulders. As usual, he carried far more than his larger companions.

  "We'd b
est be off before some more Zhents find us," he said merrily. "North as before, then?"

  Shandril shrugged. "You know better than I. Lead on." Without further words, the dwarf set off into the waiting woods.

  "How do you feel today, love?" Narm's voice was low. Shandril gave him a smile. "Better than I have since we left Shadowdale. About time, too-it's a long way to Silverymoon. From what Storm said, if we walk and have to avoid Zhents more than once or twice, winter could well find us before we're halfway there."

  "See Faerun," Narm said, gesturing at the trees around them. "Know high adventure. Meet strange and fearsome beasts, the like few folk have ever seen-"

  "And slay them." Shandril's voice was wry. She seemed to be looking at something far away. "I never dreamt, back at the Moon, that when I finally got my taste of adventure, it would mean I went around burning powerful wizards and veteran warriors to ash-and that the Cult of the Dragon, the Zhentarim, and just about everyone else I met would attack me."

  Narm hastened to head off her darkening mood. "Who else your age, though, has fought dragons-undead dragons, even-and lived?"

  He caught his lady by the shoulders, eyes dancing, and went on jovially, "Has been rude to Elminster the Sageand lived? Blasted Manshoon of Zhentil Keep and the dragon he rode out of the sky, and sent them fleeing for home? Blown up entire castles? Made friends with the Harpers, with Elminster, and with the Knights of Myth Drannor? Walked the ruined streets of Myth Drannor, that folk all over Faerun talk of?"

  Shandril smiled ruefully. "Yes, and hasn't had a spare moment to draw breath, yet alone enjoy any of it."

  "You married me-and seemed to enjoy that," Narm protested in mock hurt.

  "She must have been deaf, then," Delg put in, ahead of them. 'Me way you babble day and night through." Narm favored the dwarf with a certain rude sputtering noise made by small children throughout Faerun. "You'll have to be a little closer to kiss me, lad," the dwarf replied, eyes twinkling. Then his face grew more grave. "Shan-are you having thoughts against this journey?"