“Have a good journey,” Manshoon said politely to the horse, gentling its mind with one of the spells he was proudest of, one of the few restorative ones he’d ever mastered.
Then he teleported back to Sraunter’s cellar in Suzail, but left his awareness mentally riding Wizard of War Jarlin Flamtarge. His newest mind pet, now riding on alone along Orondstars Road, bound for Castle Irlingstar.
The Simbul plunged down out of a midnight sky feet first, her silver hair billowing behind her.
Rushing up at her was a desolate, ruined keep, standing in a rugged vale deep in rocky wilderlands, a lonely riven fang.
It was not unguarded; malgodemons and nabassu in great numbers flapped up from those crumbling dark parapets to challenge her.
She plummeted, surrounded by a sphere of glowing blue radiance that faded into sudden visibility, a whirling open-work sphere outlined by the tightly curving orbits of many flying objects-no two alike, but all blazing with blueflame.
The dark flying guardians came at her from all sides in a vicious storm, but she smote them from the sky with spells hurled forth from her ever-swifter-whirling cage of blueflame, a cage that seared and melted to sighing tatters every demon that blundered into it, keeping them from reaching her. The cage fell with her, to touch and melt through the keep’s stone walls as if they were but air and shadows.
The cage descended still, drifting down, down through the heart of the ancient and riven fortress into an eerily glowing well in its depths. Yet another rift in the Realms, through which more demons were appearing, boiling forth in an endless fell stream.
The Simbul clawed at the air around her to pull the cage in tight, and make of it the rift-rending dagger she would need.
“As El would say,” she murmured aloud, “here we go again.”
Dagger and all, she slid into purple-white agony.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Demons clawed at her, tearing at her hair and the smooth flesh of her shoulders. She heeded it not, lost in the icy fire of the rift as she fought it … quenched it … destroyed it.
Leaving herself empty and weary, the blueflame items dulled and circling her slowly.
Claws raked her again, more and more of them, as emboldened demons flooded in at her from all sides, erupting out of the dark recesses of the ruined fortress, trying to pounce on her, to drag her down, to rend her …
Ducking and turning, slapping and entangling and tugging with her long silver tresses, The Simbul fought to keep from being overborne and buried under murderous demon bodies. Battling to stay on her feet, she blasted her assailants with spell after spell.
And they died. Talons and grotesque barbed limbs and many-fanged jaws rained down on her in a grisly downpour of black and burning ichor as her magic made demon flesh boil and demon bodies burst.
The wounds they gave her stung like fire and wept not just her blood, but licking flames of silver fire.
She lashed them with that leaking fire, striping it across snarling faces and sting-studded tails and cruel clutching claws alike. And where silver fire touched demon hide, that darksome meat melted, collapsing into wisps of stinking smoke with astonishing speed, burning demons to nothingness as readily as the blueflame items had. And still they came.
She spent her spells, one by one, taking down a small army but facing an endless, ever-growing one. Spending precious silver fire to bend a spell for opening wards into a spray of disintegration, and a magic for sending messages afar into a flesh-dicing whirlblade storm … her arsenal was almost spent.
“El,” she cried aloud, as more and more demons fought through the sagging, slowing web of blueflame objects, now drifting darkly and trailing only the faintest blue glows, to claw at her, “where are you? I need you!”
Despair came quickly as shrill demonic laughter was the only reply, her attackers gathering thick and deep now, crowding each other in their hunger for her destruction.
“Elminster!” she screamed. “Oh my love, hear me!”
“I really don’t think any true Cormyrean needs lessons in how the realm should be governed from some sly outlander Harper who can make her hair silver,” Lord Breeklar said coldly. “I’ve heard quite enough of your prattle. Begone.” He turned. “Guards, throw this woman out. No need to be gentle.”
“If you don’t mind, Auldus,” Lord Hamnlaer snapped, “I’ll command my own guards, in my own house. I want to hear more about these new rights. If Foril’s willing to trade some of his powers over us all for new laws every citizen must follow, let’s be hearing the details.” Behind him, his guards, who’d hastened forward at Breeklar’s call, hesitated and peered around at the faces of all the seated nobles.
“Lord Breeklar,” Storm said calmly, “Lord Hamnlaer is right. Trying to silence a messenger whenever you don’t like the sound of a message, without hearing what the message truly is, is to leave yourself forever unprepared for everything life hurls at you. That’s merely a fast trail to many bruises and a swifter grave than necessary.” She raised her glass. “And for your information, Lord Breeklar, I am the Marchioness of Immerdusk. Every whit as noble, and as ‘true Cormyrean,’ as you are, and of older lineage. The Breeklars, as I recall, came from Westgate less than four generations ago …”
“Do you dare insult me?”
“Do you dare try to act insulted?” Storm replied, in perfect mimicry of Breeklar’s fury. Then she fell into chuckles, shaking her head. “Apologies, my lords,” she told the table at large, “but I just can’t play the haughty overblown noble as well as Breeklar, here. I grew past that stage long, long ago.”
“Oh,” Breeklar said nastily, “this’ll be your ‘I’m centuries upon centuries old and knew Baerauble and King Duar and the Immortal Purple Dragon personally, and I know what’s right for you’ pose. Which is either a pack of lies, or you’re some sort of foul demon or swindling elf who can put on human shape long enough to cozen us! Well, I’ll not fall for such-”
He paled and grabbed for the ornate half-basket hilt of his sword, because Storm had stood up abruptly, upsetting her goblet of wine across the table. Nobles all around it tensed and reached for handy weapons, and Lord Hamnlaer’s household guards started forward again.
The Lady Immerdusk seemed oblivious to them all. She was seeing things far away, her face going pale and sad, and-though her parted lips didn’t move at all-she was murmuring something soft and small, that issued from her throat with the shrill high ring of a distant scream: “Elminster! Oh my love, hear me!”
That great, dark, warm and magnificent mind was suddenly gone from Gelnur Farland’s. Leaving him overwhelmed and … desolate.
He was on his hands and knees, sobbing like a little lass, himself again but … abandoned, all those rich memories and loves and delights all gone, taken from him all at once.
In a whirling trice the sweet memories had ended in a greater rising rage than he’d ever felt before, a rage not his own that had begun with a distant scream: “Elminster! Oh my love, hear me!”
Demons overwhelmed her, tore at her, driving sharp talons deep into her, trying to tear her limb from limb by sheer strength.
They were starting to manage it, too. Tendons and sinews began to fail, tresses were torn out by the roots, and agony kindled all over, dragging a scream out past her clenched teeth. She was going to die here, going to fail Mystra …
Oh, no, Alassra. You fail me not. Call the blueflame to you. Will it to you.