He rolled over, almost absently spending a little more of his seized energies to banish the bruises of his fall, and settled himself on his back, listening hard.
There were no sounds in the passage outside, no sign that anyone had heard. All that was audible was his own breathing. Around him, the crypt was still and silent, the Erembelores sleeping the slumber from which no one awakens.
Good.
Now for the spell the Most High had devised just for him. Now that at last he had gained excess energy enough to fuel it, and didn’t have the more pressing need to heal himself.
Lying on the floor, Helgore cast that magic with slow and exacting care … and just as slowly, something dark and edged in purple formed in the air above him, half seen and menacing.
The dark outline of a sword, floating horizontally. A sword large enough for a smallish giant, nine feet long and utterly dark, with no hint of light reflected back off metal-or of metal at all.
A Shadow Sword. Just as Telamont had crafted, and just as had formed when he’d first practiced the spell. Helgore released the stolen energy roiling in his body into it. Blue-white fire silently streamed out of him, flaring into brief tongues of flame, ere it vanished into the blade’s all-devouring darkness.
Every moment brought relief, less pain, and the opportunity to relax. So relax he did, at last, indulging himself in a long moan of bliss.
Then Helgore rolled over and up to his feet, feeling marvelous. He chuckled and pointed the sword-and stood watching as it drained the wards and magics of this second crypt, family treasures sighing into little heaps of ash and dust as the Shadow Sword drank all their magic, effigies fading and the bones beneath them sighing into eddying dust.
This time, the darkness flared momentarily blue-white around its edges, seeming more solid and a trifle larger.
Then it subsided into darkness that verged on invisibility again.
Soon would come the time to slice at the mighty mythal above and around him with it, to sever it from most of its anchors so its energies could be drained quickly. Soon.
But not yet. To do so now would be to alert every elf of Myth Drannor to the doom yawning before them.
For now, the Shadow Sword would slay baelnorn and drink in more elven magic.
Helgore went hunting more prey. Haughty elves who’d lurked down here for centuries, serenely confident in their hollow achievements and service. The world was better off without them. Was better off without any toothless posers, least of all those who lorded it over humans as inferior barbarians, uncouth and dim-witted and …
Lip curling, Helgore stalked on. Following the passage around several scalloped curves, as the ancient way snaked around the mighty roots of age-old forest giants, to yet another double door carved with the device of an elf House. Its baelnorn faded through the closed doors to confront him.
Smilingly, he sketched a mocking bow.
“Who are you?” the undead guardian asked sternly. “You are no elf, and I fear you intrude here for no good or honorable reason. What is your purpose, smirking human?”
Helgore made no reply to this tiresome challenge, but merely willed the Shadow Sword forward. It glided down to transfix and drain the baelnorn in midspeech, destroying it before he had to lift a finger.
Helgore didn’t bother to even look at the House carving this time. After all, what did it really matter?
Just another tomb full of dead elves, already forgotten. The sword drank them, and Helgore smiled and headed for the next crypt, his great weapon a silent silver line rippling with shadow in his wake.
Only to find his way barred, this time, by elves in armor. Faces furious, and hastening to form a line, swords out.
“Foul despoiler, your life is forfeit. Go greet the gods!” one of them cried.
“After you, elf.” Helgore sneered, dropping to one knee and letting the Shadow Sword pass over him.
Sped by his will, it raced forward to devour.
Living, unliving, magic; what did it matter?
CHAPTER 10
"Oh,” the monk sighed, shoulders sagging in relief. “It’s you. Sorry, Chethil, I thought you were-”
He tried to choke and sob in the same moment, and managed only a strangled eep as his eyes bulged, staring at Norun Chethil in shocked disbelief.
Maerandor chuckled. “And you thought that the head cook of Candlekeep could only kill with what he served forth on platters, didn’t you? My, my, Wendarl, for such an old and wise man, you’re as naive as a green young lad!”
By then, old Wendarl was sprawled at his feet, far beyond hearing jeers and witticisms, so the false cook fell silent. As was most prudent, considering that fighting had broken out in many of the rooms and passages around him. The other hitherto-hidden Shadovar agents among the monks had seen the sign he’d left, and begun murdering monks-only to encounter a few instances of suspiciously strong resistance. More than a few “monks” of the keep who seemed to have become powerful wizards and sorcerers when no one was looking.
Maerandor sighed theatrically. Truly, Toril had become a wallow of common deceit these days …
He took the time and concentration to make sure his personal wardings were ready to turn back both hurled weapons and mighty magics, then turned and walked away from the monk he’d just killed without a backward glance.
Wendarl had been a superb calligrapher in his day, but Faerûn held thousands of skilled scribes, and the sooner there were no monks left to hamper the cause of Thultanthar and the wards of Candlekeep could be delivered to the Most High, by far the better …
He still had no way of knowing who was friend or foe. Telamont had put into his mind images of the faces of the monks who’d been covertly slain and replaced by lesser Shadovar agents-but who knew how many of them might have been killed in their turn, and replaced by Moonstars, or ambitious independents?
After all, the legendary Larloch, mightiest of liches, was very real, might well be interested in all the magic within Candlekeep, and could well seize upon this time of tumult to try to take it all for his own.
Or for that matter, the renegade Chosen of Mystra, the Elminsters and Manshoons, were always on the prowl for more magic.
To say nothing of Szass Tam of Thay, or the mysterious Ioulaum and the shadowy mages who served him, or more than a dozen others the Most High had warned his arcanists to beware.
Telamont hadn’t bothered to mention what he and Maerandor both knew-that even if every last one of these threats was accounted for and foiled, wizards lowly and mighty had a habit of lurking and waiting for opportunities to snatch powerful magic, and any one of several thousands of archmages could step out of the shadows at any time and make their own bids for the mastery-or swift plunder-of Candlekeep.
Nor were hedge wizards and archmages the only rogue dangers he must beware of just now. Long ago, Melegaunt Tanthul had warned several young arcanists that certain dragons thirsted for human magic, and had assembled their own secretive forces of agents to steal or seize spells and magic items whenever possible. Many of those agents would be long dead by now, and a handful of their masters, too, but wyrms lived long, their hungers ran deep, and agents could be replaced, generation after generation …
Maerandor had been one of those arcanists. Some of the others had been revealed as traitors to the Tanthuls, or driven by too-dangerous ambitions of their own, and were now dead. Others were missing, out there somewhere in Toril or elsewhere, on missions the High Prince had sent them on, or gone rogue and pursuing their own aims.