Wherefore Harlammus of Zhentil Keep, heart-high with the excitement of his first real Brotherhood foray, found himself lying dazed and blinking against a wall, with the splintered ruins of the table he’d just been hurled through on top of him, and a welter of broken legs and riven wood that had been its chairs tangled on top of that.
Trapped, barely able to breathe, and just beginning to be aware, through crawling numbness, of agonizing pains in his legs and gut, Harlammus frantically cast the new spell Eirhaun had taught him, the one that would alert his teacher that something had gone badly wrong in Halfhap, and the Zhentarim he’d sent there needed aid. Urgently.
“Master,” he mumbled, when the spell was done, eyes refusing to focus on the splintered table leg standing up out of the bloody ruin of his gut, that rose and fell with his every gasp amid bloody bubblings, “Come swiftly, or…”
Then numbness claimed him. He never finished that thought, as he sank slowly into a nightmare world of racing wraiths and Zhentarim wizards turning on their fellows, of sinister cowled figures turning suddenly to grin at him with cold, ruthlessly gleeful faces out of nightmare, of beholders floating in the distance watching over everything and laughing… always laughing…
The chamber was dark. It was always dark, save for temporary radiances of awakened magic. Magic was awake there now, a robed wizard lounging back in his chair studying spells in a tome.
Glowing runes floated in the air above the open pages of that book, runes that turned slowly and changed hue as he stared at them and murmured, seeking to understand them and shift them to his will. Their power aroused little crackling radiances, that danced and played along the edges of other tomes stacked nearby.
Sarhthor of the Zhentarim slowly rose from his lounging, leaning forward more and more intently as he started to understand this magic at last. Three seasons he’d struggled to master it, understanding four constructions of the Weave at once so they could be shifted and fitted together in combination- thus — and There came a chiming behind him that broke his unfolding glee and collapsed the spell in bright chaos above its pages. Sarhthor murmured a curse-just which one, he never knew-and leaned forward again, fighting to regain that fourfold understanding, that visualization that was just so, with every The chiming came again, shattering all and leaving Sarhthor blinking at the stack of tomes as the one he’d been perusing started to sink down, its floating runes fading. He cursed again, loudly and fervently, and spun his chair around to see what neglected duty of the absent Eirhaun had disturbed him now.
The teacher-wizard’s desk bore a row of crystal balls, each resting on its own black cushion.
Except for one, that had winked into life and risen off its cushion, glowing and pulsing as it spun slowly. As he beheld it, it chimed again.
Sarhthor glared at it. Then his eyes narrowed and he rose suddenly up out of his chair like a storm wind to snatch up his untidy belt of wands. Buckling it briskly around his waist, he strode across the room to firmly shove the errant crystal back down into place-it chimed again, and then went dark-turn, and wink out, leaving the room entirely empty of wizards.
Thus abandoned, the books all went to sleep again.
The floor of the cavern glowed with runes Eirhaun would never have been able to conceive of. He stared at them hungrily as the beholders-tiny monsters, none of them larger than his own head-rose from crafting them to hang in the air and gabble and hiss among themselves, glaring at him from time to time.
He knew how contemptuously the eye tyrants regarded humans in the Brotherhood-all humans, probably even Lord Manshoon himself. These “little manyeyes” were doubtless little different than dogs. The small, yapping sort were always the most aggressive. And the most insecure.
Yet Eirhaun hurried not at all. He’d been invited to work this magic with them so that he could learn, and he had no intention of their rushing things to a conclusion so they could later dismiss him as “deficient of wits” when he couldn’t work this spell himself under their coldly sneering scrutiny.
Ah, so that was how such power was leashed, and then twisted to achieve this rather than that. He nodded, trying to sear the runes into his memory, seeking that mental stillness inside himself wherein he could be certain of remembering all, and A chiming sounded within his head, startling him out of all concentration. No! Not now! Not when he was so close to The chiming rang again, loud and cheerful and insistent. Eirhaun clenched his teeth and growled out wordless anger, trying once more to frame the spell.
Abruptly he became aware that a beholder was hanging in the air right in front of him, glaring at him with its central body-eye. “Go,” it hissed coldly at him. “You are summoned. Shirk not your tasks: Go.”
Eirhaun opened his mouth to protest that another Zhentarim had been left on duty to respond to such a summons-and another chiming sound rolled out of it, loud and bright.
All twelve of the human-head-sized beholders were staring at him now. “ Go, ” they hissed in unison. “If you are loyal to the Brotherhood, go.”
Eirhaun sighed, nodded, and murmured the word that would whisk him away.
Lord Eldroon set down his goblet. “Something’s awry,” he said firmly. “They were to report right back. We’ve been waiting now far too long.”
Lord Yellander glared across the table. “You think I’ve not noticed? What’s taking those dolts?”
Eldroon shrugged, rose, looked at Yellander, and went to the silently flickering portal. Yellander hastened to join him. They looked at each other, then drew their swords.
Together they stepped through the cold blue flames-and together gaped in astonishment at what they saw through the common room door.
Unseen men shouted, and a surging magic of tumbling velvet night shot through with roaring sparks flooded across the common room. They saw it wash over some support pillars and melt those stout timbers away.
Chairs and tables sighed into nothingness as the dark magic passed through them, rolling right on through back pantries, off to the left.
In its wake, daylight flooded the riven room, leaving them gazing at distant roofs in Halfhap.
With those pillars gone, the ceiling began to loudly groan and sag.
Yellander and Eldroon exchanged astonished, fearful looks-and hastily retreated back through the portal again.
Eirhaun found himself standing in the sunlight on the top step of the entry stair into the Oldcoats Inn, in Halfhap, staring through a blasted-open hole that had presumably recently been its front doorway. And blinking in astonishment.
Had all of the Brotherhood mages he’d sent gone mad? They were leaping around the room they’d obviously destroyed, hurling spells at each other! Well, he Bane-be-damned knew what would happen the moment they noticed him; they’d all turn on him. No one likes a ruthless, devoted-to-humiliation teacher.
But then, he’d never liked any of them, either. His shielding was singing around him now, fully up and working.
So Eirhaun allowed himself a smile of anticipation, raised his hands, and quietly and precisely cast the most powerful battle-spell he knew.
Had there been no spell-chaos roiling and grappling in the room in front of him, they’d probably all-or all but the two or three most accomplished, perhaps-perished as that spell smote them.
As it was, one burst apart like a rotten fruit, another burned like a torch, howling in helpless dying agony-and the others all staggered, turned with hatred in their eyes, recognized him, and started casting their strongest remaining battle-spells.
Eirhaun called up a magic in his mind that should slay one of them. He was still debating which one he should fell when half a dozen Zhentarim spells howled into his shielding.