The Malaugrym with the sword arm only smiled coldly. "I've heard such words from several generations of kin before yours, rash one. Some of those who spoke thus still live… but no longer speak so foolishly." He turned and addressed his next words to the young Malaugrym by the archway. "Are you of the same mind as she?"
The young Malaugrym stared at him defiantly for a moment and then said boldly, "I am!"
"Come, then. You attack the human mage, and I'll watch. If you need aid, I'll pluck you to safety, so you at least will live to learn this lesson and not join our fallen too swiftly to think on it all."
"Trust you, Kostil?" the young Malaugrym sneered.
Kostil raised an eyebrow. "Trust, among us? Just how naive are you younglings?"
There was another stir, and at least one clear and deep chuckle from Bheloris. The young Malaugrym mage by the archway stiffened, eyes blazing, but said nothing.
Silence stretched for a breath, and then another, before Kostil added lazily, "Of course, if you're too afraid to strike at a mortal mage, I'll just have to find another of your contemporaries more willing to do so."
Almost spitting the words in his rage, the Malaugrym at the archway snarled, "Taernil son of Oracla fears nothing! Watch me, then, and render whatever aid you see fit-if you can find any way to aid me. I've not seen many elders wield spells that impress me."
Kostil smiled slightly and indicated the archway with a grand, leisurely gesture. Taernil gave him a wordless snarl of defiance, spun around, and charged through the archway.
Neleyd glanced quickly about the Great Hall and saw many older Malaugrym wearing smiles like the one on Kostil's face and shaking their heads. He turned away among the shifting shadowsmokes thoughtfully, seeking his own chambers and a scrying spell of his own. He must see this Elminster fight, if he or any of the blood of Malaug were ever to prevail against the wizard. As he left the open hall through an old tunnel that seldom changed its winding way, he passed two of the elders, standing in the shapes of griffon-headed giants, quietly wagering on the outcome of Taernil's foray. The bets were on how much magic he'd manage to loose at Elminster before being destroyed. Neither granted any chance that he'd survive.
Milhvar nodded. "The payment is accepted." He waved a hand behind him and the mists parted, swirling open in a softly widening whirlpool until Issaran could see the spell-stones that were going to cost him so much, winking and sparkling with their stored power. As he'd expected, they hung in a field of guardian magic. It would have been the sheerest folly to try any treachery upon the older Malaugrym who had hired him.
"I am ready," Issaran said, striving for calm, level tones. "Let it be now."
Milhvar nodded and waved his hand again. Another hole opened in the mists, revealing an empty, flickering upright oval of light. In size and radiance it seemed very like the scrying portal in the Great Hall.
Issaran strode toward the hole without hesitation.
"You recall the word for return?" Milhvar asked from behind him.
"Arthithrae," Issaran replied, not turning or slowing.
"Good. May you have Malaug's own luck," Milhvar said as the younger Malaugrym stepped through the magical gate — and vanished.
White sparks chased briefly up and down the portal's radiance. They were joined by others dancing in the emptiness within the oval, lights that grew swiftly into a glowing window on a scene of four familiar humans riding along a forest trail. The lights flickered once and then settled into silent immobility, identical to the scrying portal that many of the kin were now watching in the Great Hall.
Milhvar watched the scene within the portal shift as Issaran — no doubt walking on air for stealth — moved through the trees, following the four riders. Even if the bold youngling's Art-which Milhvar granted was stronger than most older kin expected or would readily believe-discovered Milhvar's conjured eye, Issaran could not destroy it without shattering the gate and stranding himself in Faerun. Stranding him away from his spells, his kin, the protection of the castle-and the Shadow Throne he so obviously sought. One side of Milhvar's mouth crooked into a mirthless, twisted smile.
He would have been less confident had he been able to see Issaran's face. At that moment, in the woods of Daggerdale on a chilly morning, it wore the same ruthlessly assured expression.
Daggerdale, Kythorn 15
The sun was descending in the west when Elminster turned in his saddle. His pipe floated obediently out of his mouth. "We'll spend the night up ahead, in what's left of Irythkeep."
His companions nodded in silent acceptance and they rode on, as they had all day, through the ravaged wilder-lands that had once been a proud and prosperous dale.
Rent by war for ten summers and more, Daggerdale was fast vanishing as the woodlands spread swiftly across untilled fields and deserted steads alike, reclaiming the land from the rule and hand of men who no longer lived to hold it at bay. In swampy places the trail they followed, once an important trade road, was almost gone.
Elminster, however, rode with the easy manner of a bored tour guide, never slowing to choose his way or change direction but proceeding as if strolling around his own garden, pointing out once-prominent landmarks as they went. Earlier, a gargoyle had risen heavily from the crumbling rampart of a small keep as they passed, but it had only circled once, high above them, and then descended again to the ruin, thinking better of attacking so purposeful a band.
The shadows were beginning to grow long when Elminster pointed at a pair of fingerlike stone pillars ahead. "Unless a dragon, lich, or something similarly energetic has decided to dwell there, that's our camp for the night."
"That's Irythkeep?" Itharr asked, peering through the trees. "There's not much left of it, is there?"
"A Harper needs no roof nor servants," Elminster told the sky overhead innocently, "but is happy to sleep under the stars, where the air is fresh, the living earth is closer, and the body has no chance to become pampered and weak."
Belkram and Itharr chuckled together. "Trust you to know that passage from the Code of the Harpers," said the taller of the two rangers, his eyes on the ruins ahead.
"Know it? Who d'ye think wrote it?" Elminster replied in aggrieved tones. Behind him, Sharantyr sighed theatrically, but when the Old Mage shot her a coldly meaningful glance, he found her staring skyward with a look of innocence surpassed only by his own recent performance. Elminster snorted and spurred his mount on, ignoring the cautious, weapons-out advances of the Harpers.
In the dust raised by the old wizard's hurrying horse, Belkram, Itharr, and Sharantyr exchanged glances, shrugged, and urged their own mounts on toward the ruins.
Irythkeep may once have been grand, but the winds and winters of passing time had not been kind to it since a besieging orc band had battered its walls from without, and the Zhentarim mage with them had summoned and let loose a fire-spitting hydra within.
All that was left now, amid fast-growing duskwood, pine, and shadowtop saplings, was a ragged stone ring outlining the outer walls, a few overgrown outbuildings and stables still clinging here and there to their roofs, and those fingerlike remnants of towers. Birds roosted on the stony pillars, and the crows that took wing as the four riders approached cried their anger at the intrusion loudly enough to alert ears anywhere near. Belkram cursed and then shrugged. What point stealth now? Several small furry brown shapes darted away from rocks where they'd been catching the last of the sun, and hurried off into the woods. Elminster watched them go, then rounded on Itharr.
"Well? Ye got that grand blade out and waved it about, lad. Aren't ye going to chase yonder scuttlers and do some carving to show thy manhood and deadly prowess?"
"No," Itharr replied brightly, and urged his mount ahead into the ruins. He tossed his grand blade into the air as he went, let it flash end over end up into the sunset, and then deftly caught it and sheathed it without slowing in his saddle or looking back.