“Was personally inspecting the den of dalliance established by your nieces Manarlume and Lelavdra so important, at this precise time?” Telamont asked coldly. “I would remind you that we are at war.” He turned back to the arcanists, and added over his shoulder, “And before you protest that we’re always at war, be advised that such an observation would be most unwise. At least you remembered your swords.”
Telamont surveyed the carefully expressionless arcanists, and so did his twin sons.
Who saw that all nine were wearing identical crystal pendants- before their father leveled an imperious finger at one.
A thin line of ruby fire sped from his fingertip to strike that arcanist’s crystal. It pulsed once, and then the fiery beam was gone and racing fire curled in swift loops within the stone-only to leap across the room and stab at the uppermost glass globe of the tammaneth rod. Its dark glass flared, and a moment later red fire whirled within it.
Mattick looked back at the arcanist’s pendant. It was dark and clear once more; the fire that had visited it so fleetingly was gone. His father had already repeated the process with the next arcanist, and was starting on the third. Mattick noticed that the fire streaking from each pendant went to a different sphere of the rod than the previous one, but otherwise … he shrugged. Father’s magic had always been well beyond him. He was happier with a blade in his hand, anyway, magic relegated to useful service such as keeping off the rain.
Eight, nine … the last arcanist’s pendant had relinquished its fire to the rod. When he saw that, the Most High turned to his sons, satisfaction clear on his face.
“Our forces continue to advance through Myth Drannor, taking more and more of the city,” he told them, “and letting us reach increasing numbers of elven burial crypts. You will accompany these loyal Shadovar, and protect them as they destroy guardian baelnorn, then seize and drain the magic of crypt after crypt. Guard these two”-he lifted a languid hand to point-“above the rest, for they know where most of the crypts are. Slaughter any disloyal and disobedient among them without hesitation.”
The Most High turned back to the arcanists. “Obey these two princes as you would me.”
Then he waved a hand, and the audience chamber was suddenly empty of arcanists and twin princes of Shade.
The High Prince of Thultanthar turned away and allowed himself a sigh.
From behind him, Aglarel asked quietly, “How much do you expect them to achieve?”
Telamont snorted. “Less mischief than if I left them idle. And the small victory of denying desperate elves the magics they might otherwise seize for valiant last stands against us.”
He turned to face his most trustworthy surviving son. “It is time, and past time, for us to deliver to Shar what she desires. And claim our reward: dominion over all cities and lands of the Realms.”
A smile rose to his lips. “There are so many of them I want to destroy.”
If there was one thing he disliked more and more about serving Mystra with every passing year, it was all the damned running.
Elminster puffed and panted his way along, sprinting through Candlekeep with far more bruising haste than prudence. He doubted any of the Shadovar had ever seen their High Prince run before, but then again, that would mean they wouldn’t know what Telamont Tanthul looked like when running.
He was trying to get well ahead of them, anyway, but even if he’d been young and fresh and not seeking to maintain a disguise of Art, Candlekeep’s layout didn’t make that an easy thing to do. Rooms gave in to rooms, with a minimum of passages, the lighting tended to be dim or worse, and there were always odd steps just where you didn’t expect them or had forgotten there were any, and-
He burst out into a room where monks stood waiting. Six of them, grim faced, in front of open double doors at the far end, all facing him. He saw no weapons, but they were standing like veteran adventurers, well enough apart so no one would unintentionally get in the way of a comrade’s sword being drawn in haste, and-
That one, dead ahead, shared a face with one of the corpses he’d found on his way into the keep. So, a false monk, and almost certainly not a Shadovar. Which left independent agents of all stripes, and-the Moonstars.
The six were glaring at him as he pounded up to them, their arms lifting and faces tightening-
El gave them a wide and genial smile and caused twelve tiny blue-white stars to wink into being in a circle around his face.
“Make way,” he gasped, “please.”
Three of the monks drew aside, but the one he knew to be false and the two monks on either side of that false monk stood their ground.
As, back behind El, the Shadovar started pelting into the room.
Elminster drew in a deep breath, threw back his head, and bellowed, “Moonstars! All of these!”
Then he threw all his will into wrapping himself in the wards of Candlekeep and bringing up his own mantle to its utmost inside those wards-as he crashed into the false monk shoulder first, got both hands on one of the man’s elbows, and spun him around, hard. He’d be drawing a dagger or worse, of course, but any spell El should be able to hold at bay for a few moments at least, and hopefully-
The false monk did have a dagger out, but had made the mistake of raising his arm high to bring it down in a forceful stab, so all El had to do was shove the force of the wards into the man’s face and throat and hold it there, to keep that arm from being brought down.
The elbow grab and spin had flung them both around to look back down the room El had just run the length of, and had done so in time to see the first Moonstar spells strike the Shadovar, and the swiftest Shadovar who weren’t flung off their feet hurl magics of their own back at the Moonstars.
Great bright bursts of force erupted among the Shadovar, spattering some of them back against the walls-and then a full and proper spell battle was raging.
A scene that abruptly vanished in blue mists that El was softly and silently falling through, all alone.
Mists that were gone again just as abruptly as they’d come, leaving Elminster blinking away the half-seen cold smile and raised bony hand of Larloch, to stare around a room he knew.
So the Shadow King had just teleported him away from the battle between the Shadovar and the Moonstars-and right back into the tall chamber in Candlekeep with the wall of galleries.
El looked up. Much of the highest gallery was gone, blasted away, and its remaining stonework was scorched and crisscrossed by a webwork of cracks.
The surviving Prefects had descended a level, and were crowded in one corner of that lower gallery, keeping well away from the ruined end of the one above. Eleven strong, still in their robes and still clutching their rods and scepters. They were deep in angry, worried argument.
“May I remind you,” the First Reader was snarling, “that they are all within our wards and walls! Among us! The fiercer the magic we hurl, the more we endanger tomes that cannot be replaced! The work of centuries!”
“Yet if we don’t regain mastery of our halls swiftly and decisively,” a Great Reader replied heatedly, “we risk losing our lives and all chance of expelling or defeating these foes-and then they’ll have every last tome to take away or destroy at whim!”
“Fellow Avowed,” the Chanter broke in, sounding genuinely anguished, “we don’t even know who these intruders are! Most of them wear our faces, so they can obviously take on many guises by magic, and it follows that we can’t even trust-”
“Don’t say it!” another Great Reader interrupted. “That way lies madness! I refuse to let us be ensnared in the trap of none of us trusting an opinion or an observation because we think the mouth uttering it belongs to an impostor! It is possible to overthink everything, you know, and-”