“Excuse me,” the Gatewarden broke in, his voice just a trifle below a bellow. His unaccustomed fury and volume drew every eye on the gallery-so they all saw that he was pointing down at the floor below, where all the Shadovar had been standing quite a short time ago. “We are not alone.”
All of the Prefects looked down. Amid the litter of broken Shadovar bodies stood a lone man looking back up at them.
A man who looked like the High Prince of Thultanthar-but was melting, as they stared, into someone else.
Someone now holding up both hands in surrender or to show they were empty, and saying earnestly, “I come in peace!”
Wands and scepters were hurriedly trained on him. None of them were drawn back when his new likeness became apparent.
The Prefects stared down at the beak-nosed and white-bearded Sage of Shadowdale, and he stared back up at them, asking urgently, “Can we talk?”
“I suspect a trick,” the First Reader announced coldly, “or a ruse to buy time or distraction for your fellows to attack us in circumstances most advantageous to them. In any case, I will not debate with anyone actively engaged in altering the wards of the keep, until they cease doing so.”
“Such inflexibility is neither wise nor prudent,” observed a cold voice from behind the Prefects, “but perhaps the Avowed of Candlekeep don’t deserve the mastery of either that their reputation bestows upon them. Will you debate with someone who can destroy you at will, yet chooses not to do so?”
Even as the monks started to whirl around, they felt the wands and scepters they held snatched from their hands by irresistible rushing magic that numbed and paralyzed their hands in an instant.
Tingling, their arms flailing beyond their control, they lurched around to face the back of the gallery-and found themselves staring at a tall, withered, nigh skeletal figure, surrounded by the wands and scepters that had just been torn from them and were now floating in midair. Untouched by any hand they could see, each and every wand and scepter was aglow with risen power, and aimed directly at them.
“Well met, Prefects of Candlekeep. I am the one your lore tomes call Larloch. Or the Shadow King … or less fitting names.”
The lich gave the monks a smile that was soft as it was grinningly sinister.
“Down below us is the man your books name ‘Elminster Aumar.’ Neither of us are Moonstars nor servants of Thultanthar. We are here for a nobler purpose than most visitors to Candlekeep, and we need your help, Avowed of the keep. We are trying to call on the age-old wards of the keep to stabilize the Weave.”
Silence fell.
“The Weave?” Larloch added mildly. “I believe you’ve heard of it.”
The First Reader was the first to rally. “Well, yes, of course, but-”
“This is highly irregular!” the Chanter protested.
“The more you live outside the routine and order that usually hold sway within these walls,” the Shadow King replied, “the more you’ll discover that high irregularity is frequent in most lives. Unwelcome to most, but frequent nonetheless. I am well aware that you embrace tradition, and seldom reach decisions swiftly, but our errand carries more than a little urgency. May we count upon your assistance?”
“Assistance how, exactly?” one of the Great Readers asked doubtfully.
“And by what right do you frame decisions and press us for answers within these walls?” asked another. “We serve the Binder, and only He can do that with our implicit and wholehearted acceptance. All others would seem to need to submit to our judgment.”
“Elminster and I can proceed with this needful work with you,” Larloch replied coldly, raising a hand meaningfully, “or without you.”
Silence fell again.
“Well,” ventured the Gatewarden, “when you put it that way …”
The Shadow King’s smile was as soft as his purr: “I do. Oh, I do.”
A Great Reader shuddered visibly, and the First Reader cleared his throat several times before he managed to say, “I believe that in these circumstances we can see the, ah, utility of aiding you. I know I can.”
“Yes,” several Prefects agreed.
“Then leave off attacking either of us, and sit down. Yes, here on the gallery floor. Lean back against the walls, be at ease, and bend your minds to the wards. Each of you Prefects is attuned to them. All you need do is will their power-the thunder, I believe your late and lamented Keeper of the Tomes called it; that silent and heavy weight that rests on your minds every moment you are within them-to slowly flow, like a tiny trough of water, into this, my mind-mouth held ready for you. As Elminster’s vigilance keeps the flow both small and stable. Through me, the power will flow into the Weave, strengthening and reanchoring it, and I shall return it, in just as slow and careful a flow, back into the wards again. Leaving neither drained or lessened, but both restored. I am the only one here who knows how to do this, so I must be the focus, and none other. This is the service Candlekeep was founded to render, so long ago. This is the salvation you can bring to all Toril, both the lands of Faerûn around you and the distant lands across the seas. Yes, you can save the world.”
One by one, eyes fixed on Larloch, the Prefects sat down, settled themselves against the wall, and acquired that head-bent stillness that accompanies intense and careful concentration upon the wards.
Larloch cast a look down at Elminster, and with it came the silent mind-message: You make this possible by stabilizing their minds. Guiding them. Do it.
The feel of Larloch’s mind was somehow familiar.
Ah. This is who had quenched and compelled the wards from afar when he and Storm had been hiding in crone shape and working with Amarune on mending the Weave.
A fellow meddler. As if he’d needed more proof.
In his mind, El saw a door opening, and beyond it was a bright, swarming chaos of mental images and sounds, remembered conversations and moments. He was looking into the mind of one of the Great Readers. Across that whirling maelstrom another door opened as he watched, revealing a more ordered whirling mass of memories, this one driven by an insistent rhythm, a many-voiced chant that went on and on. Ah, yes-the Chanter’s mind, of course. Beyond it, another door swung wide into greater chaos.
“Not too many doors, now!” Elminster mumbled warningly, more in his mind than with his mouth. “Let me master these, first …”
“Are Chosen of Mystra so much less than Chosen of Mystryl? I can ride them all, and at the same time watch over and command every last lich who serves me. And most of them have minds both stronger and much nastier than these monks. Surely, Old Mage, you can manage a mere eleven minds? Trained and disciplined-but sheltered-minds, at that?”
“Despite what ye may have heard, brutalizing minds is not something I have overmuch experience with,” El growled.
“Ah, yes, you prefer to be loved. I find it far more efficient and practical to be feared. Do it your way, then-but no more slowly than you must. And forget this not: you will need to encompass all eleven before we’re done.”
Mind to mind, they gazed at each other, and Elminster gave the archlich a slow nod. Larloch smiled like a dragon surveying prey, and withdrew to the far end of the row of eleven imaginary rooms, leaving those vaults of whirling, flashing thoughts brighter in front of Elminster.
Who sighed, recalled a beautiful tune an elf had harped to him on a soft summer night far too long ago … and drifted gently into the first room.