Spellstorm (6 page)

The ghost of the princess scowled. “Words, always clever words that bring me to a standstill with their very rightness, as they always did from your mouth, but still …”

Elminster’s smile was sad. “Are not words cheaper than spilled blood? If I refrained from cozening with words because being manipulated upset thee—or thy father, or Foril—and armies marched, and lives were lost and lands laid waste, what price my silence then?”

Alusair sighed. “I yield. Vanquished once more. So tell me, Lord So Clever, what is your counsel in this matter, in the days ahead? What do you think we should do?”

“For myself,” Myrmeen interrupted swiftly, “I expected this meeting would be to receive our orders from Lord Elminster, blunt or wrapped up in words that made them seem otherwise than commands. That bothers me not. However, there’s a price for my obedience: Lord of Shadowdale, lay out your reasoning rather than playing the mysterious all-knowing archmage.”

Alusair and Vangerdahast nodded agreement.

Elminster inclined his head gravely to the living lady warrior, and said, “It is my opinion that we need to play unfairly against such a host of power-hungry spellhurlers. As Lord Halaunt is now a drooling husk of a man, his mind almost certainly burnt out, I propose that Alusair here go
into him, animate him, and speak through him. The Steel Regent acting the part of Lord Halaunt, in such a way that ‘he’ works with us to protect Cormyr—rather than being animated by every last ambitious guest trying to wrest the Lost Spell from him.”

Alusair was suddenly closer to the Sage of Shadowdale, and her eyes were blazing brighter. “And when they try to mindburn
me
?”

“Ye’ll be protected,” El assured her. “By me. A goddess has shown me how.”

Vangerdahast, the ghost of the princess, and Myrmeen all gasped out disgusted skepticism at his words.

“You can’t promise that,” Vangey added.

Oh, but I can
, El replied in Alusair’s mind.

She stiffened.
How
—?

The Weave
, he thought into her mind.
If ye were still alive, I’d have to cast a spell, or touch ye and use my mind
.

Your psionics
?

Aye. Those
.

Their flashing thoughts had taken mere instants, during which Myrmeen lifted her chin in a challenge and asked Elminster, “If Halaunt is a wreck, why impersonate him? What’s the point? Why not just blast every evil wizard who shows up looking for the Lost Spell, drive the nonevil ones away, then leave Halaunt’s servants to look after what’s left of him?”

“It is needful,” El told her.

“Oh? Why?” Alusair’s voice was sharp.

“Yes, why?” Vangey echoed.

“As you’ll recall, Lord Elminster,” Myrmeen added, “I mentioned my price …”

“There’s not a lot of
trust
in this room,” Elminster murmured.

“And why
is
that, I
wonder
?” Alusair mocked, suddenly floating nose to nose with him, her eyes two cold flames of anger.

El sighed. “Very well. Cards, as they say, on the table. I serve a goddess.”

“Mystra,” the only living woman in the room said flatly, her eyes, but not her voice, making it a question. Everyone knew Elminster served the goddess of magic, but Myrmeen wanted him to confirm he still served Mystra, and only Mystra.

“Mystra,” he reassured her. “And she wants this to happen—this gathering of powerful mages, that is. She needs to get them together for long enough that they can discuss how they’re going to conduct themselves in
the years ahead, in the wake of the tumult that is hopefully now behind us. That’s not something easily achieved among such energetic, power-hungry, and suspicious folk.”

“And what does Mystra want them to achieve, aside from threatening each other and then starting spell duels like the one that destroyed the Dragon Rampant?” Vangerdahast asked. “For that’s what’ll erupt, if magic is unreliable within Oldspires, rather than nonexistent.”

“Mystra
hopes
,” Elminster replied slowly, his tone making it clear he wasn’t convinced that what Our Lady of Magic envisaged would come to pass, “they will come to some common agreements on certain things. So Toril isn’t ravaged by a war among archmages. And if they do make war on each other, let it be face-to-face, inside one building, and not slaughtering many innocents and ravaging realms in the process.”

“Send four hungry panthers in a room, and wait to see which wounded one will stagger out,” Vangey murmured. “Not a strategy unfamiliar to me.”

“Mystra
hopes
,” Elminster repeated, “that their time together will at least lead to frank discussion, and increased understanding.”

Alusair frowned. “If that’s the goal, why doesn’t Mystra just show up in their minds and
threaten
them into playing nice?”

“Ah. Well, now. Listen, heed, and remember this, for ’tis what one might call one of the secrets of our world.”

“And whenever a wizard says
that
, he’s trying to deceive you about something,” Alusair murmured.

“Not so!” Elminster told her sternly. “Or at least, not this wizard, and not this time. Mystra has told me that she can force and compel, or destroy, like any other wrathful god—and so win obedience, but no change of attitude. Leaving wizards full of resentment of imposed authority, not cleaving to a way or idea or accord they have willingly been a part of—wherefore some, perhaps most of them, will be secretly seeking to betray or subvert, in future.”

Three sets of eyes, two living and one ghostly, narrowed.

“So even an apparently solid agreement or new spirit of cooperation would be short-lived at best, and likely an utter cynical fiction from the outset. So instead, what ye might call ‘manipulating from behind a tapestry’ is best. Wherefore, Mystra needs to stay in the shadows and let me, and others I can persuade, do the work she deems needful.”

Alusair’s face now held something like pity. “And your own heir?”

Elminster’s face was suddenly a mask of stone. “I want to keep Amarune out of this as much as possible,” he said slowly, as if reluctant to let the words escape his lips. “She won’t stand a chance in a house full of powerful evil archmages. Still less, her impetuous young consort, Lord Arclath Delcastle.” He turned away and started to pace, his steps stirring ripples across the dark water. “Storm will take them somewhere to do something-or-other Realms-shakingly important. ’Tis how we’ve hoodwinked kings and dungsweepers alike, all these centuries.”

Myrmeen Lhal swallowed more mirth with a snort, and turned her head to give Vangey a level look, eyeball-to-eyeball. He coughed and shifted a little.

“And how will we get into Oldspires?” Alusair inquired. “Through this mind-shattering spellstorm?”

“I know how to open one of the gates,” El replied smugly.

“Oh? And how is it that you know that?”

“It’s a Weave gate, and below Mystra herself, I am now
the
Weavemaster. Be awed by no competing pretenders.”

Myrmeen snorted again.

“As for the spellstorm,” El added, “Mystra will let all of these grasping archmages through it when we’re ready—and let them believe whatever clever spells they worked created their own short-lived tunnel through the chaos.”

“
I
,” Vangerdahast commented, “just want to know how by all the gods—every last prancing one of them—you’re going to get all of these crazed, me-first, power-hungry and supremely independent and professionally difficult archmages to agree on anything, change their minds about anything, and tell you even a smidgin or two of truth!”

“Ah,” Elminster said with a wry smile, “as to that, I have a plan.”

Vangey wasn’t the only one in the room to roll his eyes then.

“You’re going to make things up as you go along,” the ghost of Alusair murmured. “As you always do. Charge in and ruffle feathers and ride out the hazards. You sly old rogue.”

Elminster’s gaze held a twinkle. “Eh, lass. Careful with the compliments, there; ye’ll turn my head.”

“Make you preen, more like. Old bastard.”

“Shadow of a woman,” El replied, just as affectionately.

“Still want me to go prancing off into a mansion of twisted magic with this, ah, personage?” Myrmeen asked Vangerdahast.

He shrugged and looked sheepish. “You’ve always loved adventure, and chafed when it wasn’t on offer.”

“You,” Myrmeen returned, “know me too well.” Then she looked across at Elminster. “Let’s get going.”

T
HIS DEEPEST ROOM
beneath his tower was persistently damp, which was why its owner, who stood looking down at four robed men spread-eagled on a stout iron frame before him, used it only for butchery. Usually there were dead boar or cattle on the frame, but it seemed to work on men well enough,

“W-who
are
you?” one of the chained captives gasped, when he’d stopped shrieking long enough to pant his way back to framing words.

The dark-haired, handsome, and imperious man who was the source of the agonies being visited on the four captive arcanists smiled coldly. “My name is Maraunth Torr, but it’s no doubt unfamiliar to you. I am an archmage of some power, and arcanists of Thultanthar seem to believe powerful wizards who do not hail from their city are … mythical. But then, the arrogant fools of Thultanthar believe so many incorrect things. Such a pity. It always leads to their undoing.”

And as those gentle words left his lips, he gestured lazily and sent fresh ragged lightnings through the iron frames that held his captives fast. Skin sizzled with a reek akin to roast boar, and a sound almost lost amid the din of their raw, throat-stripping shrieks.

Maraunth Torr gave them a wintry smile and strolled back to his goblet of wine and the maps he’d been studying when his flying-chain spell traps had entwined and bound them—so easily that they might just as well have been common thieves bereft of magic. More easily, perhaps, for thieves might have been more suspicious of adornments, around the doorway of a room where powerful enchanted items were stored, that took the shape of chains than these four dolts had been.

When their screams had died away into panting groans, he raised his goblet and remarked to it, “I remain curious as to why arcanists of Thultanthar would dare to intrude into a wizard’s tower in the wilds near ruined Starmantle that’s widely known to be formidably guarded.”

Weak moans and nigh-incoherent pleas for mercy were the only replies he got, so the archmage drank deeply, sighed out his pleasure as the Shalassalur burned its silken way down his throat, and strolled back to match gazes with his nearest captive.

“Well?” he asked mildly. “I should hate to, ah, have to press you on this point.”

“I—we—ahhh …”

“A promising beginning,” Maraunth Torr said amiably, “but my patience is not infinite. Pray continue.”

“We were following orders,” the closest wizard blurted out.

“And who gave you these orders?”

“Our commanders,” the third wizard down almost sobbed.

“Who are?”

“Ah … er …”

“Come, come, you are like guilty children, caught but playing for time,” Maraunth Torr told them, almost tenderly. “Be more forthcoming, and be so swiftly. Or, as they say, else.”

“You’ll have heard of the fate of our city,” the nearest wizard told him. “Not many of rank survived its destruction. We answer now to three—their names may mean nothing to you—Lelavdra, Manarlume, and Gwelt. The Three, we call them.”

“We begin to get somewhere,” Maraunth Torr said approvingly. “And these orders were?”

“To plunder the country mansion of Oldspires, in Cormyr.”

“Why?”

“We, ah, former Thultanthans need to rebuild our magical power, and swiftly, for Faerûn has become dangerous, seemingly full of too many mighty mages.”

“Become? It became so before there was a Thultanthar, so far as I can tell. Why Oldspires?”

“The three who command us recently heard that its owner, Lord Halaunt, owns the Talking Skull.”

“Humor me,” Maraunth Torr said as jovially as an affectionate host, “and inform me what the Talking Skull might be.”

“A—a flying, horn-headed human skull,” said one of his captives.

“Purportedly that of an undead archmage millennia old,” the farthest one added brightly, sounding almost eager to volunteer information.

So Maraunth Torr strolled in his direction to ask, “And why would a talking skull be valuable? I have sixteen of them, if I recall rightly, and find them frankly more ‘nuisance’ and less ‘prized valuable.’ ”

“This talking skull knows the Lost Spell!”

“Splendid! Delightful! And what is the Lost Spell?”

“You’re an archmage, and you don’t …?” The captive Thultanthan faltered under the weight of Maraunth Torr’s tender smile, and added hastily, “It’s a—a mighty enchantment whose details are unknown to us, but it’s the opinion of our superiors that it could bolster their power, possibly enabling them to swiftly destroy formidable arcane spellcasters, and seize their magic.”

“Ah, I see. So why came you to be upon my doorstep rather than at Oldspires?”