“The Most High gave it to me, so I could reach him without delay or dispute if ever I saw the need,” she replied crisply, “as I do right now.”
The two guards stared at Manarlume, then at each other. The one who’d touched the token reached behind his back, to the dagger sheathed at his belt there, and firmly depressed the stone set in its pommel.
That gem glowed momentarily as its magic flashed forth-a silent summons for the prince who oversaw the guards.
Aglarel arrived very quickly, cloak swirling. He was frowning as he strode, his hand on his sword. When he saw the token, he took it, jerked his head in a signal to the guards to open the doors-and as they swung open, stepped through the doorway, beckoning Manarlume to follow.
He ushered her to her grandfather in silent haste, gliding to a stop to stand watchfully right behind her, ignoring the hand she held out for the token’s return.
The audience chamber looked different. It was still sparsely furnished with the high seat, the large and bare table, and the great black rod studded down its length with black spheres enclosing dark, empty glass globes, floating vertically off the floor in its corner. However, the High Prince of Thultanthar was busy watching the siege of distant Myth Drannor, gazing at a usually bare wall of the chamber.
The wall was aglow from corner to corner with many images, all of them views that looked down on the elf city from various heights. Scenes that were constantly moving-sometimes swooping. It was swiftly apparent to Manarlume that her grandfather was using spells to look through the eyes of birds flying over the besieged city.
Ah, of course. Scryings couldn’t pierce the city’s mythal from without.
Telamont turned from this glowing spell-spun tapestry of scenes, raising his brows in a silent question.
Manarlume met his gaze, then turned and pointedly looked at Aglarel-and then back at Telamont.
Who almost smiled. “Speak freely.”
“Most High, among many petty transgressions and minor treacheries, we’ve found an immediate danger. The arcanist Gwelt.”
“And he is dangerous why, exactly?”
“He’s recruiting fellow arcanists who feel the ambition to replace princes of Shade!”
“As I told him to. Does he know you’ve discovered this?”
“No. That is, he may have his suspicions, but …”
“That explains the spell he cast on you. It’s gone now.”
“You told him to? But-”
“Granddaughter, you passed the test. Don’t as swiftly lessen your standing in my eyes.”
“Of course, Most High,” Manarlume replied, and she looked at the floor.
“Aglarel, give her back my token. She’ll have cause to need it again, I have no doubt.”
As Aglarel did so, Telamont raised a hand to catch Manarlume’s attention, and asked, “Tell me, what do your amorous arcanists say of two called Helgore and Maerandor?”
“That they are gone, undoubtedly on some secret mission or other for you, Most High. Most expect them to perish very swiftly-if they are not dead already.”
Telamont’s face betrayed no reaction. “Your arcanists are wiser than I’d thought.”
Elminster found himself in a room he knew in Candlekeep, a lofty chamber whose walls bore gallery above gallery, each marking where an upper floor passed along the wall of the tall room.
He was standing face to face with Maerandor of Thultanthar. Who was busily snapping commands at his fellow Shadovar, telling them to seek here and there and over there for Saerlar Stormwyvern. The half-elf Moonstar was nowhere to be seen, and had evidently vanished during the brief darkness accompanying the earthquake, as they’d all been charging at him.
“Most High?” Maerandor gasped. Then his face hardened, he snapped, “Can’t be!” and his hands swept up to hurl slaying magic.
Elminster calmly drew the sigil Larloch had shown him in midair, and murmured one of the secret phrases.
This had better work.
CHAPTER 12
Staring at Elminster slack jawed in astonishment, Maerandor flung his arms wide, abandoning the spell he’d intended to hurl, and stammered, “M-my most profound and humble apologies, Most High!”
“Accepted,” El replied coldly, and without the slightest pause, demanded, “Where are our other agents here at the keep? Revaerel and Tolorn?”
“Revaerel and Tolorn, Most High?”
“They have assumed the guises of the monks Hemmeth and Pelsrand, respectively.”
“I–I know not. Forgive me, Most High, I didn’t even know one of us was Pelsrand!”
El favored Maerandor with Telamont’s best coldly disapproving frown, and watched the agent visibly cower.
He didn’t give the man time to recover, but raised his voice a trifle so all the gathered Shadovar heard.
“We’ll achieve more as a force rather than scattered skulkers,” the false High Prince of Thultanthar decreed. “Let us go and find our missing two, then set out together to hunt down Moonstars. When we’ve scoured them out of Candlekeep, then it will be time to work on its wards. Properly, and with unhurried precision.”
“Die!” a furious voice shouted, and a beam of ravening fire lashed down out of the dim heights of the room at Elminster.
Who flung himself headlong, down behind the nearest Shadovar. A moment later, the fiery magic incinerated the unfortunate Thultanthan.
As the deadly flames died away, the dead man toppling and then collapsing into swirling ash, the other Shadovar all whirled around and stared up.
To behold the Prefects of Candlekeep, standing on the highest gallery, frowning back down at them. Each monk was aiming a rod or staff, or holding up an orb-and every one of these enchanted weapons was glowingly awake with roused and ready magic. The highest-ranking monks of the keep had fetched the monastery’s most powerful magics and come to make war.
They let fly.
Fire and frost and snarling lightning rained down, followed by the whirling chaos of more arcane deaths. Men screamed, convulsed, and died. Past the raging of unleashed magic, the fleeing false monks below-Elminster among them-could see tomes floating out into view from behind the shoulders of the Prefects, open grimoires and spellbooks from the libraries of Candlekeep, each wreathed in a rippling aura of risen magic. And from book after book, one by one, glowing beams shot down to immolate running monks below.
Elminster kept on crawling, trying to put solid stone between himself and what the Prefects could hurl. Preferably where he’d find a door out of this chamber straight ahead.
It didn’t feel like the right time for parleys or explanations.
It seemed the Shadow Sword didn’t care if it drank undeath or magic or the vitality of the living. Helgore had slain the last two elves by parrying their furious attacks while his dark conjured blade flew around to slide into them from behind-slicing into armor and flesh alike in silent ease, as if drifting through empty air.
Not that he’d resisted stabbing them when they were already dying. Shadow Sword or not, they were his kills. The latest in a count he’d already lost reliable track of, after a day of walking along in stone-lined underways, busily slaying.
Cormanthorian elves weren’t so formidable, after all.
He looked around at all the lifeless darkness.
The glows of the armor had died with their wearers, leaving him alone in a corridor littered with dead elves and pools of their blood.
Helgore wiped his blade clean on a corpse’s half cloak, sheathed it, and headed for the next crypt doorway. This was almost too easy.