A line of black-robed and glaring-eyed liches stood along the brown back wall of the chamber like the menacing members of a street gang, regarding Elminster as if he was a worm they itched to crush brutally in an instant.
Larloch made a casual gesture without turning to look at them, and they all hastily turned and filed out of the room through a modest door El hadn’t noticed until then, behind the archlich’s looming form.
“Your line, I believe, is ‘Where am I?’ ” Larloch informed El pleasantly.
The Sage of Shadowdale shook his head, and found he needed to clear his throat before he could speak. “I was going to begin with ‘Why did you save me?’ ”
Larloch smiled. “So we ride hard right at what is most important. Very well. I saved you, mage of Shadowdale, because you are the wisest and most capable of the Chosen-and always have been, with the possible exception of the Srinshee.”
“And so? You’ve taken to collecting wise and capable Chosen?”
Larloch’s smile went a trifle colder. “I need you, and the Realms needs you. You are the best tool at hand, to put it bluntly. And I cannot do this alone, for if just one spellcaster, in one spot, tries to call on the wards of Candlekeep to strengthen the Weave, the wards will surely collapse-like a man dropping and marring a long and heavy table he tries to carry from one end, whereas two men can readily manage the same transport, by lifting the table from both ends at once. The strengthening needs two of us, standing well apart, so we can draw on that part of the wards between us in a controlled manner, and so manage it.”
El nodded. “And what,” he asked carefully, “does the Shadow King-who weathered the Spellplague so handily-care about the Weave?”
Larloch tendered a cold, considering look, as if a pet had displeased him and he was reconsidering his acquisition of it.
And then he began to speak, leaning forward and speaking in earnest, as if El was a vital pupil who had to be clearly told something of utmost importance.
“Mystryl in my time, and two Mystras in yours, have been the goddess of magic-have been the Weave. The goddess Shar, in her pride and folly, believes that as Mystra is dead and there is still a Weave, the two are separate and can remain so. In this, she is wrong, but she also holds a belief that is correct: that control of the Weave, in the grasp of one with power enough, grants dominion over magic.”
Larloch started to pace, the floating staff moving with him to always hang just behind his right shoulder.
“Her Cycle of Night failed here, and Sune defeated her attempt to have the Shadowfell flood into Toril and give her mastery over the other gods-have you not noticed that the tremors that shook the ground beneath your feet have now died away? — so Shar now desires to be the goddess of magic, and use it as her sword and war hammer and whip, to cause chaos and loss and destruction upon her whim. She believes this will deliver her from Ao and the order of things, by shattering that order, so the world shall become her plaything, under her absolute-and of course arbitrary-reign. Those sages who insist that we are all the playthings of the gods will finally be correct, to their despair, as we all learn what it is to be not the pawns of a more or less balanced group of many deities with opposing interests and techniques, but the pawns of one goddess. Who is mad, cares nothing for mortals, and exults in causing torment in all lesser beings. Some folk hate and fear magic for its devastating power. If Shar has her way, we will all hate and fear it, be we village idiots with no talent for the Art or archmages who might presume to challenge gods in our mastery of it. And we shall be but an afterthought to the Mistress of the Night, to be cast down and toyed with after she serves the other gods we venerate likewise. She wants to see gods suffer and despair, and slay themselves and each other, until she is the only god left, and her supremacy can never be threatened.”
El nodded. This sounded like the Shar he knew, as much as any long-lived and alert mortal can come to know a deity.
Larloch came closer, his dark eyes still fixed on his guest as if they were blades or hooks that could pierce and hold sages of Shadowdale. “She will begin by subverting the least among the divine, while she manipulates the rest into making war on Ao. When he is destroyed or at least cast out of reach of our world, and the way he was sent sealed behind him, the ravaged survivors among the gods will become her toys, to be tormented at leisure, their destruction savored and prolonged. We mortals will be unregarded casualties in this endeavor, and only rise to her primary interest when there are no other gods-nor primordials, nor near-gods who might in time become gods-left, and the ways by which gods of other places might enter this world or influence it from afar are sealed or shattered.”
Larloch halted right in front of Elminster, and points of light winked into being in many of the hitherto dark eye sockets of the yellowing skulls encrusting the floating staff-many fell and silent gazes that fixed coldly on the Old Mage, gazes that seemed to hold accusation and scorn.
“And all of this madness and wanton destruction begins with seizing control of the Weave. Working through her mortal servants whose ambition far outstrips their reasoning faculties-or they’d see the mad all-destroying folly they’re attempting for what it is-yet who have skill enough in the Art to so serve. The arcanists of Thultanthar, who just might be numerous enough to achieve her first goal before they fail her or turn on her, as all of her previous magically mighty agents have done.”
The archlich fell silent, and he and Elminster regarded each other expressionlessly as the silence stretched and deepened between them.
Finally Larloch asked, “Well?”
“Thy every word rings true,” Elminster replied gently, “and I believe it. Yet what’s befallen me down the years has schooled me to be suspicious of everything. Know that I am fully mindful of thy great experience and brilliance at the Art, yet feel moved to ask: how know ye all of this?”
Larloch nodded, betraying not the slightest hint of anger. “Telamont Tanthul, the High Prince of Thultanthar, is a vain man. As are many rulers, not to mention all too many archmages and archsorcerers. To me, he is one more arrogant young fool-and there’s never been a shortage of those.”
“A judgment he’ll not welcome,” El said dryly.
“His cold reception of it would not make it one whit less true. This self-styled ‘Most High’ has a habit of collecting trophies from those he’s defeated-those he considers worthy foes, at least. One such is a ring he’s proud of and wears all the time, as a mark of his defeat and destruction of a fellow Chosen of Mystryl, Araundras Othaun.”
“And while he wears it, ye are closer to his thoughts than he knows,” El concluded.
Larloch nodded. “While he wears it, I can see and hear what he does, though not touch his thoughts.”
“And how came the ring to aid ye so?”
“A very long time ago, I doubted Othaun’s loyalty to the goddess we both served-without cause, as it turned out-and altered the magics of that ring so I could eavesdrop on him.” Larloch smiled mirthlessly. “Telamont has as yet not discerned this passive property of the ring. Much of his successes and survival, since Thultanthar’s return to Toril, have been covertly aided by me and by those who serve me, often in light of what I have seen and heard through the ring. I saw Shade as a useful hand to shake many throats that should have been shaken long ago, without involving myself directly and publicly in current matters. Now, though, I have come to see differently. Now I see that Telamont must be stopped.”
“As this shaking of throats will never end,” Elminster interpreted aloud. “Progressing from specific targets to anyone whose downfall will benefit the High Prince or Thultanthar, and then to shaking every throat the Mistress of Night fancies shaken … which will eventually encompass every last throat that can be found.”