None of them saw a figure watching from atop one of the ruined towers, a crooked smile on its face. "Laugh while you can," Issaran told the four standing far below him, and faded away.
A moment later, an oak leaf spun lazily down from that height, which was odd, for there were no oak trees near.
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 15
"Issaran goes to ground, would you say?" A goat-headed Shadowmaster chuckled, looking into the scrying portal.
"At least he's wiser than this flamebrain," rumbled a giant whose head resembled a warrior's helm, rising from his shoulders without pause for a neck. He was looking down at the smoking form of Taernil, shifting in slow pain from a puddle of black leather to something that had lizardlike legs. "By the Doomstars!" they heard him gasp. "It hurts!"
"I can send you back there, if you'd prefer," Kostil said calmly, watching the young Malaugrym shuddering at his feet.
"If any of you truly cared, you'd do something about this pain! Gods on their thrones!" Taernil spat, shifting slowly into something that had teeth to clench and eyes to glare around.
"Care, youngling?" The goat-headed Malaugrym sounded amused. "We do take care, which is why we watch and think before we rush in, trusting to a few spells that our foe learned to cast an age ago!"
"Clever, Yabrant… you're so clever, all of you," Taernil gasped, swaying upright and seeing Huerbara watching him mutely from the shadows not far away. He redoubled his efforts to quell the trembling in his limbs and look grim, calm, and strong.
The goat-headed Shadowmaster bowed his head sardonically. "At least you have progressed far enough to recognize cleverness, youngling. Keep at it, and perhaps in a century or so you'll have progressed far enough to be able to converse civilly with me for a moment. Add another century or so on top of that, and spending that moment with you might start to be worth my time."
"Well said, Yabrant," Kostil commented politely, taking a glass from the grasp of a paralyzed slave creature as it drifted past. He sipped delicately at the bubbling mint-green contents, his eyes shifting to match the hue of the drink, and turned to stroll away.
"You think so?" Taernil hissed, face white with fury, al-most spitting the words in his rising rage. "You agree with him?"
"Why not? He's right," Kostil said serenely, walking unhurriedly off across the marble floor.
The helm-headed giant guffawed, and the recovering Malaugrym mage stiffened, turned, and snarled, "You too, Eldargh?"
The giant sighed and rose up to the full height of his snakelike lower body. He looked down at the young mage expressionlessly for a moment before he muttered, "Mature a little, Taernil. You're overdue for it," and slithered away into the shadows.
"All is not lost, lad," Bheloris said suddenly, stepping from behind a nearby leaning pillar shrouded in spiraling shadows. "You've learned something of value to us all."
"Oh?" Taernil asked bitterly, wary of more sarcastic criticism, his eyes on the grave admiring face of Huerbara as she approached.
"The spells he used against you told us all that you faced Elminster." He inclined his head toward the scrying portal. "Yonder is no false image or impostor, but a servant of Mystra."
Taernil's eyes narrowed.
Bheloris smiled ruefully. "Don't believe me?" He swept a hand at the shadows around. "They believe. See them go to work on their spells and schemes, now they know truly who they face?" Taernil turned to look at the misty gloom where the far reaches of the Great Hall of the Throne faded away to limits unseen, and saw his kin walking away, some drawn together in excited groups, others striding briskly.
The young Malaugrym drew himself up with something like pride in his eyes. "They are, aren't they?" His eyes flashed. "I traded spells with Elminster-and lived," he said quietly.
"Well, I wouldn't preen overmuch about that," Bheloris said mildly. "I've done that myself, as have most of us who style ourselves Shadowmaster. It's one of the ways we measured ourselves, when the kin were more rash… and more numerous." He turned to look at the scrying portal. "Why, I reca-"
The scrying portal flashed blindingly and burst into bubbling motes of light. There came a rumbling that shook every Malaugrym there, and the floor of the Great Hall-the very castle itself-heaved, shook, and tilted slowly and ponderously to one side for a moment. Abruptly, a score or more scrying portals burst into bright being here and there around the hall as an ancient web of spells responded wildly. The awed Taernil and Huerbara clutched each other instinctively, staring around, and were shocked to see naked fear on the faces of elder Shadowmasters as the legion of serenely floating portals showed them all the bright flash of something huge and fiery slashing through the sky of distant Faerun. The shadows all around them rocked again, to the sound of many thunders, and someone screamed, "Elminster! The Doom is upon us!"
Someone else shouted, "Flee! Flee, or the House of Malaug is lost!"
"Not So!" roared a voice that echoed and re-echoed from every stone, goblet, and pillar of that vast chamber. Dhalgrave's voice shook with fury, and Malaugrym all over the hall cowered at the sound.
"This is no work of our foe, but something greater! Look, all of you, and behold: The gods of Faerun are come, descending upon their worshipers in wrath. The land is torn! Look well, for this may be our best chance to seize as much of Toril as we can!"
Even as that great voice rolled out over them, one of the scrying portals burst into sudden blue-white fire, causing the nearest Shadowmaster to leap away from it and frantically shapeshift into something winged, flap-ping untidily in its haste. The portal spun around, blazing, and consumed itself, even as another portal exploded into a cloud of purple… flowers?
The Malaugrym barely had time to gape and peer at it before another meteoric descent rocked the Castle of Shadows, and its flash burst forth from every portal. Somewhere a pillar cracked, toppled, and fell with a thunderous, rolling crash. Shrieks of fear arose, and the tattered shadows were suddenly full of flying shape-shifters, adopting any form they could think of that flew and was fast.
Alone amid roiling mists, Huerbara and Taernil suddenly realized they were clinging to each other and hastily drew apart. Then they smiled at each other, tentatively, and joined hands again in a frantic dive for safety as another portal burst forth a gout of many-hued flame.
"Another god falling?" Bheloris murmured, strolling calmly through the ruins of rent portals and fallen drinkables. "Are we going to be able to trust any magic, in times ahead?"
"Ah… not all the wits of the kin have drained away or shriveled up," Milhvar murmured from the heart of a pillar nearby. "One, at least, has seen or felt the heart of the matter this swiftly."
Had a Malaugrym passed by the pillar in all the roaring chaos, it might have seen two dark, hooded eyes staring out of the stone. No more of the watching Shadow-master could be seen, but somehow the entire stout stone pillar seemed to be smiling. Not that it was a particularly reassuring smile.
Daggerdale, Kythorn 15
As Toril rocked around them, Elminster stood watching the rain of stars with a smile on his face. Not that it was a particularly reassuring smile.
Belkram glanced at him once, as the flash of a star coming to earth somewhere south and east of them-in the Vast, perhaps-lit that craggy old face, and through the snow-white beard and moustaches saw that smile.
The Harper ranger shuddered, drew a deep breath, and announced to the Realms around, "Adventure… I know I asked for it. Thanks. Handsomely done. No more-got it?"
Sharantyr heard him and laughed rather wildly as the sky split apart above them and bright things fell in legions from a roiling rainbow sky that a moment before had been the soft purple of dusk stealing in.