And more than that, although Fzoul was quite sure that he’d never seen this particular adornment before—had in fact never seen anything unexpected in his lilypond before— it seemed so familiar, somehow.
Fzoul knew quite well how deadly a failing curiosity was, and yet…
His hand went out, drew back for a moment, then stretched forth again. And yet…
HOW WISDOM CAME TO THE MAIMED WIZARD
Know, O mages, that there is learning and there is wisdom —and they are very far from being the same thing.
Eirhaun the Maimed sat alone in a dark, ruined tower and thought dark thoughts.
Thinking dark thoughts was, after all, his job.
Detecting traitors among the ranks of the Brotherhood would turn a mind to vile darkness if it were not that sort of mind to start with. Eirhaun’s was.
Cold winds whistled through the empty windows, stirring the dead, dry branches of a long-abandoned gorcraw nest. No birds were bold enough to visit the tower now, through the dark singing of his wards. Nothing living was.
Wherefore the feared Maimed Wizard of the Zhentarim came to this forgotten shell of a keep high in the Storm Horns when he wanted to be alone. To craft magic, or to hide, or to find utter solitude in which to think.
Or all of those things, as he was doing now, his four eyes floating like glistening, pale grapes around his eyeless head. His empty eyesockets stared at nothing at all, but his just-healed hand itched abominably—and worse luck, Alustriel’s curse held. Despite all the spellweavings he could think of, his regrown fingers were tiny coiling serpents, as before. They bit at each other idly and restlessly now, reflecting their owner’s mood and stealing from him even his old habit of drumming his fingertips on the arm of his chair.
Yet he supposed he must count himself lucky to be able to sit anywhere and be restless about anything. Spellfire had come reaching across a good slice of Faerun at him, despite being deflected by its real target—Hesperdan—with force enough to shatter Eirhaun’s stronghold.
A dozen great caverns, the heart of a mountaintop, with all of their hundreds of interwoven enchantments, guardians, wards, and shieldings. Brought down by a thrust of magic stronger than anything he’d ever felt before, even when Dread Bane himself had walked Faerun … stronger magic than should have been possible.
A dying thrust? Perhaps. Some folk were saying the lass was dead now. But everyone who’d been snapping hungrily at her heels a-seeking spellfire was dead, and a long-established caravan encampment transformed into a smoking crater. The “they” who were saying Shandril Shessair was gone were the survivors who’d been safely far away, sending others in to snatch spellfire… and to get slain.
Survivors who now had a very good reason for claiming her dead: the saving of their own skins. They had their own
superiors who could order them to try to snatch spellfire instead, and so swiftly find their own waiting graves.
Even he, the most feared Zhentarim, had his superiors. Yet thus far he’d had no sending from Manshoon, nothing to urge old Eirhaun to go seeking spellfire. Yet knowing the truth was part of his job. How else could one pounce on treachery?
‘Twould be good to know just what had happened to Shandril of Highmoon. That meant looking, just looking. ‘Twasn’t as if he had to reach out his hand—serpents and all—into the light to foolishly make a grab for the fire that ate magic.
Yet if he never peered and learned, he might be letting a chance at spellfire slip away. Spellfire that could sweep away all the Manshoons, Hesperdans, Elminsters, and Larlochs Faeriin could furnish and make the lonely man “they” called the Maimed Wizard as powerful as he deserved to be.
Powerful enough to sweep away his disfigurements and bind all women he fancied to him, to banish all loneliness forever.
Ahem.
Nay, these were the sort of dreams of mighty power novice mages indulged in, ere their most foolish—often fatal—pratfalls.
Yet merely looking and learning would be no more than prudent…
… and fulfilling his duties…
… and was, after all, something that could do no harm at all.
And therefore… Yes.
* * * * *
Narm stiffened as something brushed his mind like a soft and questing worm. “What—?” he gasped aloud, lifting a hand as if he could reach inside his head and wipe away… something…
Alustriel of Silverymoon reached out a long arm with the speed of a striking serpent to lay the tips of her long fingers
on Narm’s shoulder. She frowned at what she sensed. Digging in her nails, she drew the young mage back against herself. He sagged into slumber there without ever knowing it, and Alustriel turned and smiled at her sister Laeral. It was not a nice smile.
Thoughts flashed between them, eye to eye.
Silent agreement was reached, and their minds reached out together…
* * * * *
So this bumbling lad was really the lass Shandril, her mind kept asleep by the Chosen of Mystra—of course!
Why, the cunning witches! Silver fire not enough for them, eh? They just had to have spellfire, too!
Well, now, perhaps a little surprise lay fittingly in their immediate future. These strutting Sisters had gone their way in serene, victorious arrogance for far too long behind Mystra their shield. Yet surely sleep-quelling the mind of a young novice she-mage was against the teachings of the Lady of Mysteries? How can a captive wizard, forcefully kept in slumber and her body reshaped into the guise of another, spread the use and influence of magic?
Yes!
Let the maid of Highmoon be snatched thither—now! [spellweaving flourish, satisfaction unleashing] [bright moment, victory, success!] [smile]
Now find me, you silver-haired freaks! Your treasure snatched ha ha! Let you look for the mighty hand that took her, and find—
Nothing.
* * * * *
The hall was vast, dark, and dusty. Impossibly tall and thin feminine-shaped statues flowed up smoothly from pedestals, or lay in rubble here and there among the cracked and tilted flagstones … stones of erreat size and formerly create smoothness. Truly a Hall of Dead Queens.
Elves, or humans akin to elves in taste, limbs, and hauteur, had made this place in softly swirling shadows beyond a hidden portal long before Eirhaun Sooundaeril’s great-great-grandsire had first drawn breath. It seemed to the Maimed Wizard, when by chance he found it, that it had lain abandoned, its wards faded to mere whispers, for longer than his lifetime.
No water nor sunlight touched this place, wherefore it was unsuitable as a refuge. Yet men less coldly suspicious and unloved than Eirhaun looked for hiding places and caches in which to keep their magic, and this one seemed perfect for both. Into it the Maimed Wizard built spell after spell, linking the failing magics of yesteryear with strong new enchantments of his own devising. The silent, half-seen web he built obeyed only him, and lay upon the darkness as a listening heaviness, a cold awareness that matched its maker.
Stronger he built it, and stronger still, until its vaulting shadows filled the chamber, fanning out from broken pedestals like thick trees of darkly humming magic. Items he seized or found in tombs he built into its web, to lurk until he needed them—and he’d long since pronounced it, with some satisfaction, a cage strong enough to hold any archmage. The bones of some Zhentarim who’d thought themselves clever and mighty in Art floated among its whispering wards, proof of its power.