Spellstorm (36 page)

Yet for now, gone. So these liches could dare to act for themselves for the first time in a long, long while. Their minds bore their master’s dark yoke—that was what made them feel different than the minds of other liches—but Larloch was not there to curb or guide them.

So why were they opening an old gate in the cellars of a noble’s country mansion in the deep countryside of Cormyr?

His own presence had obviously been a surprise to them, so they hadn’t been seeking him, nor scrying beforehand …

Liches? Larloch?
Myrmeen was awed. El winced. Usually he veiled his innermost thoughts from those he was mindtouching, but either his strength was failing or he subconsciously trusted Mreen enough to share …

Liches
, Mirt thought in disgust.
Always want to rule the world, always making trouble. We have entirely too many of them back in Waterdeep
.

Right
, Elminster thought firmly.
First, I very much doubt these liches will dare to come through the gate—not with the Weave chaos they can easily detect reigning here right now, and the leakage from the other gates. I can feel it even when trying to ignore the Weave rather than sensing by means of it. So they are not our foremost problem. This army of warriors they sent is, followed by Shaaan, followed by our other murderous guests—Manshoon and Tabra. And who knows, perhaps Malchor will surprise me! So for now, we salvage swords and daggers and axes from these two here, unless ye really prefer the cleavers, and turn back. If we turn south in that first cellar, at the bottom of the stair, and grope our way to the door I know is there, we’ll find a servants’ storeroom on the far side of it. A lantern each, get them filled and lit, then I’ll lead the way
.

Lead the way where?
Myrmeen asked gently.

Around this cellar where the gate is, and on to the bottom of the grand staircase—which will take us upstairs very near Malchor’s room. And let me, if I’m careful, examine this gate from its backside
.

Can’t they see you just the same from all sides of the gate?

Some gates, aye, but not this sort. This one’s old; the Imaskari used to call these ‘shuttered’ gates. We can’t see into it from outside, and they can only see out of one face of it
.

I’m getting older
, Mirt thought.
Let’s gather weapons and go
.

They shared the last braerwing in the darkness, exchanged their cleavers for swords and as many daggers as they could comfortably carry—the warriors had borne four each, and Mirt could drop three sheathed daggers down the insides of his floppy old boots—and went.

T
HE CELLARS CLOSEST
to the base of the grand staircase were given over to the mansion’s bulk food storage—there was a distinct smell of moldering carrots—and Oldspire’s furniture-repair workshop.

Elminster left Mirt and Myrmeen waiting there with all three shuttered lanterns and groped his way slowly and carefully the length of what his nose told him was the apple-storage cellar, to a door that thankfully didn’t creak when he lifted its peg latch and eased it open.

Far away, down a cluttered pathway of old broken furniture and rotting chairs and tables now so out of fashion that they betrayed the cruder tastes and lesser wealth of the Forest Kingdom’s nobility back then, was the endless deep blue glow of the gate. From the back, its upright ring gave off less light than the front, but still enclosed utter darkness.

El walked cautiously closer, then stopped, closed his eyes, and reached out with slow, careful stealth, to let the Weave tell him what he needed to know.

He learned what he’d expected.

What he’d feared.

He wanted to close the gate again, but even if there’d been no spellstorm nor leaking gates nearby, and the Art had been reliable and he’d been standing before it ready for battle wrapped in his full gathered power, it was a trap.

The five liches behind the one peering through the gate and keeping it open were linked to all the other liches who’d served Larloch, whenever they wanted to be, mindspeaking through the mental yoke they all shared. They visualized it as a dark skullcap crowning their heads and running down the backs of their necks and curving over their cheeks like the ramhorn leather caps some monks favored, and it was always with them.

So when they were on Toril, what one lich saw and thought could be communicated to all the rest.

And what the lich guarding the gate, and the five liches beyond him, and presumably all the others beyond that wanted was to keep the gate open. There were more than a hundred of those others, still. There had been five times that, not so long ago, but in his last moments of agony under the Srinshee’s goad, Larloch had reached out to many of his liches to let her ravening magic sear their brains instead of his, so many of his liches had been destroyed, snuffed out in mere instants. These hundred-some survivors intended to lie in wait for anyone who tried to use magic to close the gate, and then use its magic to suck that hapless being into the gate and through it, to be brought before them buffeted and helpless by their whirling journey—and there mindream them before draining them of all vitality.

Charming.

El withdrew his scrutiny with the same slow, exacting care and returned to Mirt and Myrmeen, who interpreted his grim silence correctly, and asked no questions.

Silently he led them on through the cellars and up the grand staircase, watching warily for more warriors—or anyone else.

They hooded their lanterns before they reached the ground floor, because they could hear the movements of something large and heavy and many-legged through the open door to their left, which led into the Chamber of the Founder.

The rooms of Malchor and Manshoon both opened into the chamber, where the forbidding bronze statue of the first Lord Halaunt brooded endlessly over its couches and side tables.

Myrmeen laid a hand on Elminster’s arm and then on Mirt’s, to tell them the same thing.
I’ll go see
.

Handing Mirt her drawn sword, she went to her knees and crawled up the last few steps to where she could peer. Then she rose to her feet and sidled to the door, keeping to one side of it until she leaned out to see—for but an instant.

She came back to them in some haste, and found them standing with hands touching, so she could mindspeak them both by adding hers atop theirs.

She shared her swift glimpse with them: a creature with its back to her, larger than the biggest pair of yoked oxen she’d ever seen. It had a stinger-tipped tail like a scorpion, thrusting up from an eight-spindly-legged body like a spider’s—and its head was like that of a rat, only with a boar’s tusks. Its eyes were large and dark and full of malice, as it faced … Malchor Harpell.

Who stood in the open doorway of his bedchamber frowning up at it, mouth already shaping a spell.

Never seen one like
that
before
, Mirt thought grimly.
Came through that gate, d’you think?

Nor have I
, Elminster mindtold them—as there came a flash through the open doorway, the air rocked with that soundless fury they were getting used to, now, and—there came a deep, shuddering groan of pain.

They hastened up the last few steps and advanced warily to where they could peer through the doorway together.

Malchor Harpell was pinned against the far wall of the Chamber of the Founder, impaled on that stinger—which was as long as he stood tall, and so large around that it was almost as wide as his torso.

Which meant that he was almost cut in half, and dying. Blood spilled from his mouth as his eyes darkened, motes of light like restless fireflies still winking around his hands from where the spell he’d tried to cast had failed. Leaving him helpless before the monster.

The stinger pulled back out of him, dark and glistening, and the patriarch of the Harpells collapsed.

As the door beside Malchor’s opened, and Manshoon stepped calmly out into the hall, gave the giant spider-thing a cold smile as it turned to confront him, and raised his hands to work a spell.

“I suppose,” he told the monster conversationally, “it’s doom time for one of us.”

T
HE GENTLEST
wisp of a cold breeze caressed Elminster’s cheek.

Well met, Old Mage
, Alusair’s voice stole into his mind. It was weak and faint and wavering.

Luse! Ye should not be here! Yon mage
—

Is about to hurl a spell, or have it go wrong, I know
. The mind voice of the ghost princess was wry.
El, I have been through utter agony, and am back. Thanks to you. You gave me enough of a shield against the buffeting of spells, cast or miscast, to at least fly again, and spy. I can’t carry things, yet, nor become visible, but that’s returning. It’s all coming back. Such a wonderful world you who work with the Art inhabit, beyond what we mere swordswingers can perceive
.

True. Aye, Princess, very true. But let me see ye up close …

Alusair drifted into his nose, chilling him so utterly that he struggled to breathe. It was like a chunk of ice, numbing all it touched, behind his eyes …

And then the pain was gone, and she was outside of him again.
Well?

’Twill serve ye well enough. And this should serve ye better
. El thrust power into her, so much and so swiftly that she gasped aloud, even as he staggered, feeling weak and sick.
Alusair Obarskyr, I need ye to do a thing
.

El, I owe you—Cormyr owes you—more than I can ever repay. Command me
.

Elminster reached out to her again, and felt her stiffen in the enthralling collision of ecstasy and agony he’d just visited upon her.

Ohhhh, what is this?

Silver fire. I need ye to race across yon room—fast and dodge, because Manshoon at least will be able to see its glow—and plunge into the wound in Malchor Harpell, tarry there until the fire leaves thee, then hasten back to me. He must live. Do it swiftly
.

It would have to be fast, or it would consume her utterly; a non-Weave ghost wouldn’t be able to do this at all. Just as a recipient who didn’t have a long mastery of the Art, as Malchor Harpell did, couldn’t survive the silver fire’s sudden and ungoverned arrival inside them. He really should tend Malchor himself, gently guiding the silver fire through him and taking the time to do things properly—but with Manshoon and an unfamiliar and murderously hostile creature from another world in the same room, he dare not try that either.

Alusair moaned in rapture, her mind shuddering in his, then collected herself enough to tell him,
I go!

And then she swooped through the doorway, a twinkling silver star.

“E
LMINSTER
,” M
ANSHOON SAID
calmly, “I know you’re there. An assist, if you would. Steady me with the Weave—and this just might work. To all our benefit.”

The monster was towering over the founding lord of the Zhentarim now, its stinger drawn back to strike, its foremost pair of legs thrust forward like pincers, bracketing him to prevent his escape.