Who was this, by …
An old bearded mage walking alone, long of Shadowdale. Old Mage, Old Sage, he of all the tales about the Doombringer of Mystra, the man who’d been a maid and a …
He could see more and more of the intruder’s mind, and was being shown ever more of it, memories splendid and terrible, devils and dragons in the sky and the City of Song and terrible battlefields beyond counting …
Elminster am I. Aye, ye know me. I am the one of thy grandsire’s tales, and one of the stories told in the taverns about the Chosen of Mystra.
“By the fabled kisses of Alusair!” the lord constable gasped aloud.
Oh, a fitting oath, for they were sweet, they were indeed …
Whimsically, Elminster shared two vivid memories, thrusting the scenes into Farland’s mind like two turning, winking gems, one after the other.
The first … a fireside, by night, in the open forested wilds of northern Cormyr, among many laughing men in armor, making camp and hobbling mounts-splendid horses. Then walking among these merry noblemen in their bright armor to a tall woman who was unstrapping and tossing aside her own gleaming, firelit plates of armor, plate of the finest make, curved and molded to fit her sleek body … bared in the firelight. She turned to him with a bright smile and embraced him to take a kiss, not grant it … Alusair, young and warrior strong and proud, the spirited, wanton, wild princess …
The fireside faded, and in the darkness beyond it the second gem rushed up and swallowed Farland, plunging him into the dark stillness of an empty, cobwebbed, echoing high halclass="underline" the royal palace of Suzail, in the infamous haunted wing. And out of the gloom came a gliding shadow with the gleam of spectral armor and the same tumbling fall of hair and the same face, but older and etched by sadness and loss and fury after driving fury. It stole up swiftly, in a rush that embraced to take a kiss, but at the last moment hesitated to plead wordlessly for it … and cried what were but ghost shadows of tears when a kiss was granted. Followed by lips that hungered and brought icy searing pain as they stole the warmth of life from Elminster as he kissed her, Alusair the life-stealing ghost.
There ye go. Now ye know what ye swear by: Alusair’s fabled kisses, indeed.
Farland cursed then, shaken-and the oaths he used were far fouler and more colorful than the splendor he’d been shown.
He flung away his dagger and started to weep.
The tomb was far colder than he remembered.
Especially on this chill sort of morning. Ground mists were rising and streaming knee deep through the trees as Manshoon strolled out of the tomb and went looking for a distant spot in the right direction, to teleport to across the Wyvernwater, and from there east and north, from high place to high place. The Crown mages might have been foolish enough to ride all night, but more likely they’d made camp beside the road, slept just long enough to rest the horses, and would be journeying again about now.
Manshoon stretched and smiled. Choosing a high and distant field, he cast a teleport to take himself there. Then again, from Nuth Tammarsaer’s high east pasture to Rauntaun’s Tor. Thence to the ridge behind Lockspike Fang. Standing atop it, on wind-scoured rock in a chill breeze with a startled eagle taking wing from its favorite lookout perch away from him, he could look down on Orondstars Road.
There. Twelve Purple Dragons riding in a ring around two mounted men not in armor: his war wizards. His prey.
He chose the next bend in the road, so he could be standing nonchalantly waiting for them.
His captors were back, and terror was like a cold white arm coiled through him, chill fingers tight around his heart.
Mreldrake swallowed, then swallowed again. His throat was as dry as old bones, and he was trembling violently. He knew that they knew just how frightened of them he was … and he no longer cared.
At least they were smiling.
“We are pleased with your continued successes in the use of your new magic,” one said.
“You’ve become quite adept at murder,” another added approvingly, like a tutor praising a young child.
As he stared at them, standing facing him in the room they’d made his prison, almost close enough to touch, Mreldrake found himself suddenly longing to be back in the royal palace of Suzail. Even being under Manshoon’s hand had been better than this …
He was quailing inwardly just as much as he was quaking outwardly. They could slay him at will. How then could he, dared he, try to delicately inform them he’d made himself essential to working the magic he’d developed, and therefore-he hoped-unexpendable?
They were smiling at him now, almost fondly. Yet in their eyes, he could see it, yes, there was a glint of glee …
“Your attempts to save your own hide by working yourself into your new spell have amused us greatly. Be aware that we’ve no intention of killing you.” Not yet, the tone of the captor’s voice added.
Well of course not yet. Not when what he knew would be so useful in enabling them to swiftly and quietly conquer Cormyr.
They came around the corner, riding easily in the brightening morning.
Manshoon stood wide-footed, his arms folded across his chest, smiling faintly.
“Power is mine, and I am power incarnate,” he murmured to himself as he watched the Purple Dragons frown, rein in, and bark a halt.
One man, alone in the wild borderlands, by his pose so insolently sure of himself, either meant an archmage or the visible decoy for a hundred hidden outlaws waiting in ambush.
“I am the ambush,” he announced politely. “All by myself. For I am an archmage, the mightiest you’ll ever meet in your lives. Which-with one exception-will be ending now.”
Nonchalantly he released the spell he’d cast and held ready while waiting for them to ride into view.
Twelve Purple Dragons and their mounts were suddenly shrieking, tumbling carrion, their cries dying abruptly as his whirlcone tightened around them and its unseen blades of force started dismembering them in midair. Bloody limbs bounced into the ditch behind them, where the road curved back toward civilization.
“Ah, civilization,” Manshoon murmured, watching the two wizards survive unscathed thanks to their wards. Spent in saving them, of course, leaving them defenseless against his next spell. “We are far from it these days, aren’t we?”
Their first frantic magics flared and burst against his shield as he calmly and unhurriedly cast another spell. When it was done, one of the war wizards stood scorched and dazed on the road, his robes aflame and his horse gone. Only the untouched Crown mage managed a second spell against Manshoon’s shield, taking it down. By then, the future emperor of Cormyr had unhurriedly worked another magic-and the scorched wizard of war had become two booted legs surrounded by ashes, standing in the middle of Orondstars Road.
The surviving war wizard cast his strongest battle spell, rocking the road around Manshoon, whose conjured mantle absorbed the death sent so desperately to claim him. Its job done, the mantle sighed into nothingness, leaving him unguarded. By then, of course, he’d hurled a mind doom at the lone surviving Crown mage, and was inside the hapless fool’s head.
He shattered and conquered his mind in less time than it took his victim to sigh.
So this was enthusiastic young Wizard of War Jarlin Flamtarge. Well, well. Manshoon burned out his new minion’s war wizard ring until it had no powers left, and could no longer be traced from afar. Hultail was a remote post, neither important nor busy; Flamtarge hadn’t possessed a team ring.