“Ye think she didn’t know that? Just what d’ye think a goddess is, anyhail?”
“A larger shark, a larger wolf, among all the rest of us. You’re a fool if you think otherwise.”
“Can ye really see only wolves, Manshoon?”
“There are only wolves-and sheep. And when the sheep are gone, it’s a wolf-eat-wolf world out there.”
“Is it? Well then, we should be doing something to change that, shouldn’t we?”
“Change! Everything changes, Old Fool-but nothing truly changes. Just the names and faces of those on the thrones, until they’re hurled down by the next names and faces!”
“Ye can change thyself, Manshoon. Ye can be better. We can all be better.” Elminster turned away, then added over his shoulder, “Some of us try that, from time to time, in our lives. Most of us don’t bother.”
Manshoon bared his teeth in a wordless snarl of defiance, and raced across the room to the shelf. That bottle, and that one, all he had to do was smash them, drink splinters and all, and-
He was half an instant away from the shelf when it vanished in a racing flood of silver fire, a flood he crashed into a moment later, rebounding off the sagging, softening remnant of what had been a solid cellar wall, and-
Staggering until he fell, his very limbs melting, caught in a ravaging he couldn’t escape, couldn’t fight, couldn’t withstand …
“I did not come here to taunt with ye and let ye escape, Manshoon. I came here to destroy thee.”
Manshoon heard that, but no longer had lips or tongue or mouth to reply. He was going … he was joining the silver roaring … he was torn away into it …
CHAPTER THIRTY
You have a visitor, lord,” the heavily armed Harper at the door murmured, as gently as any palace doorjack.
King’s Lord Lothan Durncaskyn looked up from his desk without even bothering to sigh. He was in a far better mood than usual, with things finally getting done around Immerford, its folk happy, the-
The man who strode into the room was clad like a forester. Or rather, the rare sort of forester who liked to wear a long sword at his hip. His face seemed familiar, somehow …
He gave Durncaskyn a nod and a rather sour grin.
The king’s lord stared back at him, frowning. “Sunter? Is that you? What brings you here?”
The man nodded again, and without waiting for an invitation he plucked up a chair, sat down on it, and put his boots up on Durncaskyn’s desk. “It is, Loth. And to answer you, a long and dusty ride brought me here; got anything to drink?”
“But … well, of course-here, the last of Braeven’s Best-but why aren’t you at High Horn? Keeping the realm safe against orcs and invading armies, and worse?”
Lord Sunter raised his eyebrows as he accepted a flagon. “Guard our borders? When we have all too many of our own nobles riding to war right in the heart of Cormyr-and the likes of Elminster on the loose?”
Durncaskyn shrugged. “I’ve heard the rumors, too, but …”
His voice trailed off as he caught sight of something on the wall and started to stare at it. His mouth dropped open.
Sunter turned his head to see what was so gripping and did the same thing. Before snarling out a curse, draining his flagon, and slamming it down on the desk with the words, “That’s it. I quit. It’s farming for me, from now on. Somewhere on sleepy back lanes, far from any of our borders. Got any sheltered sisters I can marry?”
Durncaskyn was still staring at the wall too hard to think of a reply.
That particular wall of his office sported the usual fine map of Cormyr. An official one, issued by the palace; both men had seen dozens of copies of it before. However, neither was used to seeing such a map silently burst into flames, all by itself.
Flames that were a vivid, dancing blue.
What had been Manshoon slumped, like logs crumbling in a fire, then melted and was gone. Hard-eyed, Elminster watched his old foe whirl away into silver flame that blossomed and grew.
He clawed at it with his own fire, raking as much as he could of it into himself, wresting Mystra’s power from one unworthy. One who would see other days beyond this one.
Even before an eerie wisp swirled out of that fire and raced up out of the cellar and away, El knew why destroying Manshoon was beyond him. The vampire who as a man with many bodies had ruled Westgate, and Zhentil Keep before that, and founded and led the cruel Zhentarim, had carried Mystra’s silver fire in himself for too long. It would take a god-perhaps two of them, acting together-to destroy Manshoon utterly and forever. Unless, like his Alassra had, Manshoon sacrificed himself willingly.
Hah. As if that would ever happen.
El let the silver fire roar straight up, consuming the building above him, making the shop of Sraunter the alchemist a neat pit between the neighboring buildings, a gap in a row of dingy teeth. And then he brought it down again, taking the fire that was forever back inside him-his own, and Alassra’s, and what he’d torn out of Manshoon.
It was too much.
He’d known it would be. Yet he dared not let more leak out. Not when the likes of Manshoon were lurking, to take it and empower themselves and work worse mischief. So he drew it in, fought to hold it, and the real agony began.
Up from the ravaged cellar he soared, a silver comet seeking the sky, up and over the great green sward of Jester’s Green, heading north.
“Arrrrrgh!” he shouted into the wind of his own racing flight. Oh, he’d known it would hurt, but this …
He was diving, racing down out of the sky, startled riders on the road scrambling for the ditch. There were carts and wagons rushing up to meet him that couldn’t move-he veered into the trees, fighting to slow himself. It would be a poor gift to the Forest Kingdom to burn a great scar through the King’s Forest, or to shatter trees from here to Mouth O’ Gargoyles …
Snarling, El fought for control. Enough, at least, to be able to jet out silver fire with some precision and slow himself, so as to drop down gently.
He managed it. Somehow he won that fight and landed gently on rotting deadfall wood and leaves without any flames at all … and found himself lurching dazedly through the fallen-tree-littered floor of the vast wood.
And stumbling over the first such rotting obstacle and falling on his face. Aye, fittingly greet the glorious conquering hero …
El got up again, though he didn’t remember doing so. Too much fire … it was leaking out of him at every staggering step.
“Too much,” he groaned aloud. “Oh, Mystra, the pain!”
He fell against a tree, silver fire splashing out of him to race up and down its trunk, charring it in an instant.
“Mystra,” he gasped. “That’s it! Mystra will know how to help me …”
He staggered a few steps, leaking silver fire in a smoking rain as he went, then sprang back into the air on a jet of silver fire, to fly on through the King’s Forest. Seeking a certain waiting cave.
Gasping in pain, breathing out silver fire and leaking it from fingers and knees to scorch everything he touched, Elminster landed in a whirlwind of crisped and crackling leaves, staggered a few steps, fell to his knees, and stayed there.
Just here … aye … he crawled into muddy, stone-studded darkness that still smelled faintly of bear. Through the tapestries of tree roots, over the bear’s moldy old gnaw bones, and down into the stony cavern at last.
Where those great, keen silver-blue eyes of fire hung in midair, awaiting him.
“Goddess,” El gasped, still on his knees, “I … I …”