"It is an outrage," Brindarry burst out when his patience reached an end. "By Corellon's sacred blood! The Gray elves rule in Evermeet, and you simply drift along with events, as unconcerned as the clouds on a summer breeze."
The mage lifted one brow, and Brindarry flushed as he remembered that his friend's great-grandmother, the High Mage Ava Moonflower, had been a member of that maligned race.
"Gray elf" was more than a mildly derisive term for the People who were usually called Moon or Silver elves. A slight inflection of Elvish transformed the insult to the word for "dross," that which was common and low, the waste product left over when objects of precious metal-by implication, the "Gold" elves-were created. From the lips of another elf, "Gray" was a deadly insult.
But Vhoori seemed inclined to let it pass. He gracefully unfolded his limbs and stepped down to stand on the floor. "And what would you have me do, my impatient friend? Strike down the new High Councilor with a fireball, or perhaps lay him low with a single blow from a phantom sword?"
"It would be better than doing nothing at all," muttered Brindarry. "You certainly have the power to take action!"
"No, I do not. At least, not yet."
Those cryptic words were as close as Vhoori had ever come to giving voice to the ambitions they shared. Brindarry's eyes glinted with excitement as he regarded his friend.
"It is about time you thought of taking your due!" he exulted. "You have been playing the role of messenger boy for far too long!"
A wry smile lifted the corners of Vhoori's lips. "A messenger boy. Never have I heard it put quite that way," he said mildly. "I suppose I should point out that the sending of messages from one tower of High Magi to another is an important part of the Circles' work. It is true that this is my primary task, but considering my youth, the Elders think it best that I learn one thing very well before moving on."
Brindarry threw up his hands in exasperation. "How do you expect to rule in Evermeet if all you ever do is chat with the magi of Aryvandaar?"
"Ah, but there is power in information."
"Power that is shared by every other elf in your Circle," the warrior retorted.
"Even so," Vhoori said with a small, secretive smile. "But there will come a time when that is no longer true. Come-there is something I want you to see."
The mage led the way up a tightly spiraling stair to the very top of the tower. In the center of the small, dome-shaped room was an alabaster column, from which rose a scepterlike object. It was about the length of an elf's arm and made of some satiny metal that was neither gold nor silver in color, but some subtle shade for which even the precise esthetics of Elvish had no name. Intricate carvings seemed to lie beneath the surface, which appeared to be utterly smooth. It was a marvelous work of art and magic, justly crowned by a large, golden gem.
"The Accumulator," Vhoori said, stroking the smooth metal with a lover's hand. "With this, I can store power from each spell that I cast. In time, I will have stored so much power that I can act alone, and cast High Magic as a Circle of one."
Brindarry let out a victory whoop. "And then you need no longer answer to the dotards who rule and restrict the use of magic! Your power will be tremendous. It will be an easy matter to oust the Amarillis pretender," he concluded happily.
"Not so easy as you seem to think," Vhoori cautioned him. "Tradition, my friend, is a powerful thing. Tammson Amarillis is armed not only with his own merits, which are considerable, but also all those of his illustrious forebears. Even if every disgruntled Gold elf upon this island were to rally under my standard, we would have little hope of staging a successful coup-at least, not by traditional methods of warfare. No, it is time to find not only new powers, but new ways. And perhaps," he mused, "new allies."
The Nierde snorted. "And where will you find these allies?"
"By doing what I do best," Vhoori said dryly, "by being the very best 'messenger boy' that Evermeet has ever known."
The elven ship was dying. Captain Mariona Leafbower knew that even as she gave the order for a reciprocal attack.
She felt its death as a physical pain. Not in all her decades of travel among the stars had she known a ship that was its equal. In appearance it was rather like a titanic butterfly, with its two sets of sails that glimmered every shade of green known to her verdant homeworld. So vast were these winglike sails that the body of the ship-a sturdy structure with a keel length of over one hundred feet-was almost lost from sight among them. Mariona had inherited the graceful man-o-war from her uncle, who had grown and nurtured it himself, and she had carried on the Leafbower tradition of exploration, trade, and travel for the sheer joy of the journey. She knew this ship as well as any mounted warrior knew her pegasus, and she felt its dying agonies as keenly as if it were in fact a beloved steed.
The captain watched stoically as her crew cranked the ballistae into firing position and loaded the catapult with grape shot. Hers was a well-armed ship, with two mounted ballistae that shot enormous metal bolts with the accuracy of an elven archer's longbow, and a catapult capable of delivering a large load of scattershot missiles with devastating force. Even so, it would not be enough, and she knew it. The ship would die, that was certain, and the elven crew, as well. But at least they would take a few of the Q'nidar with them.
Mariona cursed under her breath as she watched the next approach of the Q'nidar. A flock of them flapped toward the ship in precise, single-line formation. The Q'nidar-hideous, batlike creatures with a fifteen-foot wingspan and long, barbed tails like those of a wyvern-were as black as the wildspace in which they hunted, but on their crystalline wings glittered every color within both the light and heat spectrums. Q'nidar were heat-eaters who traveled the vast spaces between the stars. They spoke by breathing intricate patterns of heat and energy that were detected and understood by others of their kind. Disaster usually occurred whenever they attempted to "speak" with star-traveling ships. Indeed, they were often drawn to such ships, attracted by the heat and light and activity.
These Q'nidar, however, were not merely curious. This was a hunting party, and they desperately needed to feed. Mariona could tell this from the unusually close-knit formation of the flying monsters. They flew nearly nose-to-tail, so that each Q'nidar could feed upon the heat emitted by the creature in front of it.
Their first attack on the ship had been unexpected-from a distance they unleashed a blast of breath so hot that it had ignited the protective bubble that surrounded the ship and kept the life-giving envelope of air and warmth in place. The off-duty helmsman, a wizard of considerable power, had drained his magic to put out the flames. He had succeeded-but not before their air supply had been dangerously heated and thinned.
It was still hot on the ship. Mariona's hair clung to her scalp in lank silver strands, and the pain in her blistered hands and face was intensified by her keen awareness of the ship's ills. The ship's crystal hull had been cracked by the sudden burst of heat, and the wings were seared and brittle. Her ship yet lived, but barely. It could not survive another hit. And the Q'nidar were closing in, eager to ignite the ship and feed upon the energy of the flames.
Mariona waited until the lead Q'nidar was within range, and then screamed out the order to fire. The first ballista thudded, sending a giant bolt streaking toward the creature. The weapon caught the Q'nidar squarely in the upper chest, sending it hurtling back into the ranks of its followers. A few of the Q'nidar at the far end of the formation managed to peel off in time, but for several moments most of the creatures struggled and thrashed in a tangle of bat wings and barbed tails.
At that moment, the elven fighters fired the catapult. A spray of small spiked metal balls, lengths of chain, and odds and ends of nails and scrap metal burst toward the tangle of Q'nidar. The shrieks of wounded and dying monsters reverberated through the ship's atmosphere like a chorus from the Abyss. Some of the less-wounded Q'nidar took off in rapid, desperate flight toward the nearest star. A few of the creatures, torn and silent, began to drift off into the blackness of wildspace. One of these floated directly toward the man-o-war.