Hah! Of course! He’d begin by hunting down Elminster’s three companions: Storm Silverhand, Lord Arclath Delcastle, and the dancer Amarune Whitewave. None of them could hide themselves as the Sage of Shadowdale could, with all his magic-and whatever remained of Elminster, be it a clone or offspring, would not be far from them. Or from Storm, at least. So she and the other two would readily lead any seeker to Elminster, time and again. It was simple, really, the moment one stopped to think about it.
Right. Settled. Yet he had his own long-cherished schemes to set in motion first. He’d mind-touch his most recently subverted nobles-Crownrood, Andolphyn, Blacksilver, Loroun, and the rest-into doing this work for him. It was high time to start working in earnest on asserting control over suitable war wizards, too. Using both nobles and Crown mages to isolate the royal family and their few remaining trustworthy and effective courtiers, until they stood alone against those more loyal to him-and Manshoon could conquer his kingdom with ease.
Yes. Ah, but it was time at last …
“I haven’t noticed much eagerness on your part to seek my counsel before,” the spiderlike thing told her flatly. “Or even to accord me the minimum respect of addressing me, looking my way, or granting that I exist at all-when the king or Royal Magician aren’t present.”
“So you admit you’re no longer Royal Magician of Cormyr?” Glathra snapped.
Vangerdahast sighed. “Attacking, always attacking … young lady, d’you know how to do anything else?”
Glathra Barcantle gave the little monster a sour glare. In truth, she was afraid of the infamous Vangerdahast. Not to mention revolted by what he’d become. A blackened human head trailing wisps of hair and beard, balanced atop an unpleasant wrinkled black sack of a body like an untidy collar, sprouting a spidery cluster of gray-black human fingers on which it scuttled along like a confident shore crab. She was looking at something that resembled a heap of human remains salvaged by a priest or wizard after a fiery death, for identification purposes. No longer a man or a “he” … no, this was an it.
She hated it as much as ever.
“I know how to do all that’s necessary to safeguard Cormyr,” she snapped, “and I’m doing so right now. Quite capably, despite whatever you may think. Kindly stop evading my question. I ask you again, thing: do you admit you are no longer the Royal Magician of the realm?”
“I will always be Royal Magician, so long as I am Vangerdahast,” came the swift reply. “Yet I grant that Ganrahast is also Royal Magician of Cormyr. You seem unable to accept that state of affairs. Tell me, are all wizards of war so inflexible these days?”
“And if we are?” Glathra spat.
“Then I must needs test every last one of you, dismiss most of you, and begin training and rebuilding until Crown mages are once more fit to serve the realm. I’ve done it before.”
“Oh? And you think we’ll just heed and obey, I suppose? Accept your judgment, you who are a monster and not a man, who could be any devil or undead horror that has plundered the memories of Vangerdahast? You who demonstrate such a flexible grasp of Cormyr’s laws and rules and chains of command? I think not.”
Snatching two wands from her belt, Glathra shook them in front of the thing on the shelf. “These are power! These can blast you back to whatever Hell you came from, if I so choose! These are very like the scores-hundreds-more, wielded by dedicated wizards of war all across this realm! Dodge mine, and you’ll be blasted down by wands aimed by the next loyal Crown mage! These make me every bit as useful to the Dragon Throne as some scuttling black thing from years gone by, who-”
“Made all of those wands, and can master them,” Vangerdahast said softly-and sprang off the shelf, right at her face.
With a shriek of rage and terror Glathra triggered both wands, frantically trying to blast the monster before it touched her. Staggering back, she tripped and fell over backward, aghast.
The wands hadn’t awakened. She was clutching two sticks of whittled wood that bore no magic at all.
Someone touched her bosom, fingers on her bared flesh. The spider-thing was walking along and up her body on its fingertips …
The black, bearded face loomed over her, staring at her nose to nose, eyes afire.
“Lady,” it said sternly, “I do not require you to like me, or be my friend-though it would be easier. I do require you to serve Cormyr, alongside me-or get out of the way. Don’t make me have to hurl you aside. Forever.”
The fingertips moved past her collarbone, drawing near her throat. Their noses were almost touching.
Vangerdahast gave her a wide, warm smile. “I can be charming, you know.”
Glathra fainted.
Mreldrake looked around at bare, yellowing walls that were by now all too boringly familiar, and couldn’t help but sigh. This was a prison, all right, a cell as secure as any deep dungeon lockhole-and he’d walked right into it. Willingly.
Yes, he himself had kicked aside the last shreds of any doubt as to what sort of fool he was. Yet it was the first trap in which he’d ever been excited to be caught.
Yes, excited. His despair had faded, and most of his bitterness at the narrowing prison his life had become was gone, too.
Swept away in the mounting thrill of the magic he was working. For once, ideas for refining and manipulating the Art flooded into his mind, his thoughts often outracing his scribbling pen. Experiment after experiment was working, or at least shaping the unfolding enchantments well enough to reveal the way onward.
For the first time in his life, he was truly excited at his own magical prowess.
In this litter of notes and runes and scribbled incantations, with these powders and jars and braziers, he was creating magic-real magic, far beyond the silly make-yon-chamber pot-glow cantrips of his youth.
Magic that could change kingdoms, change everything. Magic that could make its wielder the greatest mass murderer ever …
The glaragh was in a hurry. Elminster raced along, his ashes swirling and tumbling in their own wind of haste, just to keep it in sight. Ahead, the passage was rising, and becoming well lit by frequent patches of overhead and high-wall fungi that the great worm ignored in its relentless race onward.
What was the monstrous worm seeking? Or had it been there before, and had a destination?
El tried to shake his head ruefully, though he had no head to shake. Well over a thousand summers, and I still know so little about Faerun. All my time I’ve spent fighting, worrying, or manipulating so I need not fight and so a few more folk may live rather than die … and failing in my strivings, too often failing …
The passage hooked around a corner, and he heard sudden yells. Liquid, fluting voices-drow.
By the time El got to where he could see them, they were all dead, crushed and bloody smears on the rocks, spears and handbows splintered and strewn about.
The glaragh had burst right through a guard post and out into a great cavern beyond. It was headed straight for a dark prow of rock that jutted out into open space like the bow of some gigantic entombed ship of the gods-a wall of stone pierced by many balconies and ramparts, eerie glows of worm lamps and glow fungi showing through hundreds of windows.
A drow citadel, its arraugra-the swifter and more elegant dark elf equivalent of what most humans called ballistae-cracking forth a rain of racing lances at the oncoming glaragh.
El dodged one hissing lance instinctively, though a line of ashes really didn’t need to avoid anything, and peered at the rushing worm to see its reaction.