He mind-guided the Shadow Sword to hang horizontally in the air, its star-kissed edge outermost, a dark and deadly barrier to anyone rushing up on him from behind. He willed it to flare its dark reach outward on either side of its blade as much as possible, to ensnare passing magic any elf might unleash at his back, and watched its darkness spread and loom obediently.
There. A shield nothing should be able to pass without his being warned.
Helgore smiled and went to the double doors of the crypt. Again, the device on it was unfamiliar, but really, what did it matter? One more forgotten family of elves too highnosed and haughty to have survived Toril’s last few centuries. Even if one or two elves fighting in the forest above him right now still bore the same surname, they’d be dead soon enough. They all would.
Elves or titans, beholders or alhoon … none could stand against the arcanists of Thultanthar for long.
No coldly defiant baelnorn faded into view to challenge him. Well, perhaps some of them were learning prudence at last.
Helgore blasted the doors to pebbles and powder, enjoying the destruction. There were a few doors back home he’d not mind doing this to, so he could gloat over those cowering behind them ere sliding the Shadow Sword hilt deep through a few Thultanthans too haughty for their own good.
Yes. That was something to look forward to. After all, he knew the secrets of the Shadow Sword now. Telamont could hardly reach in and take away memories, so …
Well, now. Look at that. Riches at last.
Through the swirling dust, he could see many blue glows. Bright and strong, many layered … and mighty.
Oho. The Most High would be pleased.
Helgore strode forward. Yes, this crypt was packed with harps and swords and gauntlets-and all manner of gewgaws beyond his naming at first glance, each one of them aglow with the blue radiance of powerful magic.
This crypt was so crowded with loot that the dead lay not on their backs, but stood upright, the remains held vertical by magic that shaped truly lifelike effigies.
Helgore sneered. Well, they’d collapse into bones and dust swiftly and satisfyingly enough when all their magic was drained awa-
The centermost of the three effigies facing him had just opened eyes the hue of mithral flame, and stepped out of the soft blue glows to face him.
Copper-colored hair, pale skin, an elf female he knew from the training the Most High had given him-except that the real thing looked far angrier than Telamont’s mind-portrait. He was face to face with Ilsevele Miritar, the Coronal of Myth Drannor.
Helgore stepped back hastily, ducking low and willing the Shadow Sword to turn and thrust into the crypt point first.
The coronal strode to meet it, blazing eyes fixed on him. “If you’d cared to learn some of the mysteries of the Tel’Quess before destroying them, Shadovar, you might have survived longer. The coronal can feel the breaching of any crypt in this city.”
Whatever she unleashed then, howled into and through Helgore of Thultanthar’s hasty wards and shieldings as if they didn’t exist-and then into and through him.
He didn’t even have time to scream as he met his doom.
So there was no one at all to see the coronal let the Shadow Sword slide into her and through her. Shuddering in agony, she embraced it, tugging at its great hilt to pull it hard against her breast as blue fire flared up around her in a snarling inferno.
And raged in that crypt mouth and out into the passage beyond, hot and bright and blue, racing away down the passage and then rebounding.
It roiled, spat, and became dimmer and smaller, fading … dying away.
When it was all gone, there was no Shadow Sword at all, and the coronal stood tall and unwounded, blue lightning crackling here and there in her copper hair, swollen with all the magic the sword had held.
Yet there was no pride in her face, only sorrow. She shook her head and went out into the passage, weeping softly.
Her tears glowed blue as they fell, dancing like little dying flames on the stone floor in her wake as she went, weeping for those now lost forever.
Deadly magic was still howling and snarling around the high-ceilinged chamber deep in Candlekeep, with dead or dying or frantically fleeing monks among it, and the grim Prefects of Candlekeep staring down from their balcony with the powerful tomes of magic floating around them, directing the death they’d just unleashed.
“Die!” the Keeper of the Tomes had shouted, and the echoes of his cry were still reverberating around the hall, borne on the roiling, spark-studded backwash of deadly energies.
“Die yourself,” Maerandor muttered in reply as he finished his spell, locked eyes with the Keeper of the Tomes up on the balcony above, and unleashed death.
That end of the balcony vanished, the very stones becoming tentacles that should flail and batter even before they crushed and tore.
Farewell, Keeper. Good farruking riddance.
Other Shadovar spells were stabbing up at that balcony, too, and other monks up there were reeling. An orb exploded with a shriek and a bright flash, and Maerandor saw what was left of the monk who’d been wielding it stagger and then topple, now headless and armless …
The Most High was watching.
Maerandor smiled, chose another Prefect along the balcony, worked a deft spell-and killed the man. Harper or Chosen or Red Wizard impersonator, or genuine Avowed of Candlekeep consecrated to learning and Oghma the Binder … it mattered not. They all had to die, and the sooner the better.
Smiling a colder smile, Maerandor chose another target.
El had reached the doorway he’d sought, but didn’t go through it. The Shadovar were both swift and obviously unimpressed by threats from massed old men on balconies who should have cast aside honor and struck first rather than hurling warnings from on high.
Now, every last one of the Prefects looked likely to be slaughtered in short order if nothing was done.
And if you want something done in the Realms, you call on Elminster …
Pah. El did a working he hoped no one would even notice that thrust an invisible tongue of the wards of Candlekeep straight across the room, right in front of this Maerandor of Thultanthar. The arcanist’s next hurled doomspell should strike it and rebound right back on its caster-
Like that.
Grinning ruthlessly up at the balcony, Maerandor had flung a spell Elminster remembered from long, long ago. A magelord of Athalantar had been fond of that same bone-rend spell, the distinctive red-and-black cloud of grisly destruction as a living man’s bones were torn right out of his body, bursting through flesh in an invariably messy explosion of wet spattering blood and innards.
The wet red heap that had been Maerandor looked no cleaner than any of the other victims El had seen.
Elminster looked down at what was left of the arcanist for a moment, then turned away. He’d seen little enough of Telamont Tanthul, but what he had taken in should be enough to convincingly feign being High Prince of Thultanthar for a little longer.
“Another traitor falls,” he announced loudly, keeping his voice cold and calm, “failing himself and Thultanthar alike.”
Shadovar were turning to him, listening. Telamont must have them well whipped.
“Leave these old fools for now!” he ordered. “Time enough to destroy them later, when the Moonstars are dealt with! The Moonstars who are creeping up behind our backs even now!”
And he spun to face the door he’d been crawling for, and blasted it open. Its shards were still hurtling and clattering down off walls beyond when he sent a second blast through the space where it had been-and blew apart an innocent statue, several rooms away.
“Spittle of Shar,” he snapped, “I missed that one! After him!”