"At least we're putting this wizard to good use, not just slaying him and seizing his magic, as Lunquar did to all the Zhents he could find in the brothels of Sembia."
Bralatar commented, watching cold fire race up and down Mortoth's motionless limbs.
"Lunquar's gathered a lot of magic, don't forget," Lorgyn reminded him.
"Yes, but the risk!"
"The Great Foe is dead! What is to stop us ruling over all?"
"So why did Lunquar counsel us to subtlety?"
"It's his way. Lunquar's always been a fierce loner; he refused to work with Dhalgrave himself, once. He's as bad as Ahorga."
"The probable difference between them is that to get home, Lunquar's going to have to do what we have-or use our gate, at whatever price we set-and old Ahorga can no doubt travel freely back and forth between Shadowhome and Faerun. He must know the old gates and the traps our kin set on them ages ago."
"Are there any gates known to our kin, that we've not trapped?"
Lorgyn shook his lovely blonde head. "Not so far as I know; the doing was deliberate and absolute, to prevent the use of all gates known to us by any being not familiar with our guard spells." The Castle of Shadows, Shadowhome, Flamerule 23
"And we intend to keep things that way," said Amdramnar softly, staring through his hastily cast scrying portal. He'd only caught this utterance and the last few words of something about Ahorga, but it was clear which of the kin were involved: they'd found Bralatar and Lorgyn.
It had been sheer chance that he and Argast had passed through the little-used Hall of the Eyes to avoid the well-traveled Hathtor's Gallery. The gate had appeared right in front of them, lines of white fire drawing themselves in the air.
Amdramnar was fast with his magic, but he was more used to hurling slaying spells in haste than spinning a scrying portal at speed. It had taken some time to call up a view of the other end of the unfolding magic.
"So we know of four kin active in Faerun now: Ahorga and Lunquar, operating independently, and these two," Argast mused aloud. "Shall we place a slaying trap on their gate?"
"I think not," Amdramnar replied. "Given the right spell-I'll have find it in my libraries-we can divine the trigger word Bralatar used in the casting. Then it can serve us as a route that Ahorga and the other elders don't know about, if we have to bring someone into Shadowhome undetected."
"A mate, for example," Argast said softly. "Your lady of the sword."
Amdramnar regarded him, unsmiling. "You seek a lady too, I know. With a world open to me, Sharantyr may not be my choice."
If the two Malaugrym who stood beside the scrying portal could have used it to look into each other's minds, they would have seen that Amdramnar burned with the need to have the mortal Sharantyr-and no other-and that Argast had a deeper need. His mother had fled the Castle of Shadows long ago and successfully hid, somewhere in Faerun, from the seeking magic of the House of Malaug. She was then pregnant; Argast son of Halthor must have siblings now. If one could be befriended and manipulated, or bred with… a new dynasty of Shadowmasters could rise to rule the shattered House of Malaug…
But it was very much a good thing that scrying portals-and most other magic, even wielded by kin-couldn't pry at the thoughts of Malaugrym.
"Let us go to your chambers," Argast suggested. "I'll wait without while you prepare your spell, and we can return here without delay."
Amdramnar nodded. He passed a hand across the scrying portal; it rippled and was gone, leaving the Hall of the Eyes dark and apparently empty.
"I have little liking for hunting mage after mage for their magic," Lorgyn said carefully as they stood in the room with the helpless wizard floating between them, "but we should take steps to ensure that this one doesn't have an apprentice or three who'll find and free him."
"Hah-if I know apprentices, more likely they'll slay and rob him, and take away all the magic they can." Bralatar replied.
Lorgyn looked thoughtful. "That brings to mind another thing," he said slowly, frowning. "There have always been rumors that Malaug left powerful magic hidden on Faerun before he came to Shadowhome. It was one of the reasons old Stannar grumbled so much about the prohibition on forays into Faerun. If we can find it…"
Bralatar lifted an eyebrow. "Is that why you ransacked Candlekeep?"
Lorgyn smiled faintly. "You know about that? Aye, but I found nothing there… not even in the minds of the eldest whitebeards. Are Malaug's writings truly lost, or forgotten-or are they just hidden in some grasping wizard's tower?"
"Elminster's tower, of course," Bralatar said grimly. His eyes alight with a sudden dark fire. "And with Elminster destroyed…"
13
Shadows roiled around them, sliding past in an endless murmur of green and gray motes, streaming between the massive stone pillars. Each pillar, some of the kin whispered, held an unfortunate Malaugrym, entombed alive as part of the cruel magics Malaug employed. These traitors thus kept the very foundations of the Castle of Shadows from being swept away by shadows.
Argast and Amdramnar both suspected those whispers held truth. There was something eerie about the Undercrypt. One felt the scrutiny of an unseen presence here. As the Malaugrym stood facing each other in the stream of ever-shifting shadows, they could feel it very strongly. Was the watcher all that was left of Malaug himself? If it was the First to Walk Shadows, he must be truly ancient… and he never broke silence or gave any sign that he knew what befell his descendants. Other Malaugrym believed the castle itself was sentient, that the Undercrypt was where it was most truly awake and aware.
"I am ready," Argast announced calmly, "but I have one question: how much greater is the risk to us, traveling to a place neither of us has actually been?"
"Oh, but we have," Amdramnar said with a smile. "That's the beauty of it. Moreover, when we visited, I let fall a focus token there. The risk is vanishingly small."
Argast frowned. "You say I have been to this place?"
"Yes. We stood in the sky hurling spells down at the Great Foe and the three rangers with him when they were encamped in a ruin, and-"
"There? The ruin?"
"It's as good a place as any," Amdramnar said. "Close to places we've viewed, but in the wilderlands. We're not likely to be seen arriving, nor be swiftly called upon to shift shape or act at being something we're not-until we choose to do so. Let us smell and feel Faerun first."
A faint smile crossed Argast's face. "Good points, all. Let us be going, then. I have waited a very long time for this."
"I, too," Amdramnar said, and reached out his hand to touch Argast's shoulder. He spoke a single word, there was a momentary falling, spinning sensation-and they were suddenly standing in the long grass of upland Daggerdale, with the ruins of Irythkeep around them.
"See how easy it is?" Amdramnar said, shaking his head. "It seems incredible that all of our clan has been kept from this for centuries, for fear of one old man!"
A helmed head promptly bobbed into view above a section of crumbling wall, and a voice roared, "Enemy mages! Strike-strike to slay, for the greater glory of the Dead Dragons!"
The two Malaugrym exchanged startled looks, then ducked away in opposite directions as a ball of flame hissed through the air, divided into two smaller balls, and chased them.
"By the blood of Malaug, who've we stumbled into this time?" Amdramnar snarled, somersaulting over a jagged wall and falling down the steep drop-off beyond with a jolt that rattled his very teeth. A moment later, there was a flash and a ground-shaking roar. The fireball struck the wall and blew it apart; it promptly toppled, burst, and plummeted down on top of him.