It took him some minutes, sitting alone on his throne, facing the open doors and pondering darker matters, to realize Laerekel had been the last agent of the day.
At last. He stood up, gestured to the guards to close the great double doors, and turned away.
Not that he would trust them. He never did.
Where he was headed was hidden behind two successive sets of doors he’d close and seal himself, with spells few of the mightiest arcanists of this city could breach, even with much time and trouble.
He did not want to be disturbed.
The inscription was pitted with age, but had been graven deeply enough that the words could yet be read: Handramar Ralaskoun.
Above the wizard’s name was a sigil unfamiliar to Amarune. Ralaskoun’s own. Below it was a rune she’d become familiar with this past year: the sealing rune that kept magic pent in and the dead at rest, the one she privately thought looked like three entwined and amorous snakes.
Rune used an improvised brush made of tufts of dead pine needles to finish cleaning out the inscription, not looking up when the bent back of the hunched-over crone who was Storm came swaying up to her.
Then brushed against her.
Rune tried not to stiffen as Storm’s touch sent magic crawling through her, but knew she’d failed. So she feigned a coughing fit instead, as Storm’s clear, sharp, and cool thoughts lanced into her mind.
This mindlink magic will enable us to converse by thought, so long as we keep close together. Say nothing that will betray who we really are. We’ll depart this place soon.
Rune almost nodded, but caught herself just in time. What shook her was not Storm’s words, but the fear that flared clear and cold behind them.
She hadn’t known that, after all her centuries, Storm could still feel that afraid.
The Most High of Thultanthar stood in the last and innermost room of his sanctum, dim and dark and private. The room he had just sealed himself in.
With every step away from the dying fire of the seal he’d just cast on the last door, the floor faded under his boots, and the darkness grew.
This most secluded of his spellcasting chambers was as dark as the void, and almost as cold. Telamont could feel its chill stealing into him as he strode on, seeking the place where the floor would be entirely gone, and it would seem as if he was floating.
The void swallowed echoes, so they came back strangely, and then muted, then not at all. When he reached the right spot, he waited, feeling the cold slowly and silently claim him, visualizing a serene and beautiful feminine face of dark beauty, whose eyes were utter pits of darkness.
My Chosen, the familiar whisper came to him, from everywhere around yet so close it seemed he could feel her icy breath in his ear, have you completed the task I set you?
“Which one?” he dared to ask.
He did not quite dare to add the bitter thought that flared in him then: my sons are not endless in number.
Had he dared, he suspected the Mistress of the Night would merely command him to sire and rear more, orders that would come wreathed in cruel laughter.
One more task, that would be, among the many that continued, both large and small. The one that had recently consumed most of his time was the hunting and slaying of Chosen. All Chosen but Shar’s own-especially the Chosen of Mystra-were to be destroyed so her ambition to finally command and reshape the Weave in her image could unfold unchecked.
Is the training of your special agents complete? Are they ready?
Shar did not sound angry, merely eager.
Telamont swallowed despite himself. He hadn’t realized how strong relief would feel, flooding through him. “I trained five. Doing so slew one; another engaged in treacheries and was eliminated; a third was found lacking and again was destroyed-but two are ready.”
Good. Use them as I have commanded. You are to leave the slaying of Chosen to the underlings you have already set to the work, and take up the task of seizing and draining the mythal of Myth Drannor and the mighty wards of Candlekeep. You shall use the power they yield up to gain control of the nascent Weave, so I can transform it into a new and more powerful Shadow Weave.
Telamont managed a smile. “To give You dominion over magic everywhere.”
Of course, Shar replied, and was gone, leaving him falling through the icy void.
The tomb was somewhere behind them in the deep, trackless forest. At least seven ridges back … or was it eight?
Rune helped the two bent, waddling old crones on, over tree roots and through the slimy mats of dead leaves between. They trudged with slow and grunting care through the trees, setting many small unseen things to scurrying away into hiding behind the moss-girt trunks and the fallen, toadstool-infested hulks of long-fallen duskwoods and felsul.
El, she dared think at the noisier of the two old women with her, who are we hiding from?
The Sage of Shadowdale sighed heavily. His reply, when it came, was grim.
Neither Storm nor I have any idea who compelled the wards from afar-but whoever did so has more power than either of us possesses.
We want to get to cover. Quickly. Storm’s thought was just as gloomy.
They were upset.
Rune suppressed a shiver, and helped them hasten on. Slowly.
Telamont suppressed a shiver. He still felt cold.
The bone-deep chill took longer to leave him every time.
The doors of the audience chamber were closed, so he’d made the dais itself glow with enough amber radiance to let the two men standing before Telamont see their Most High as more than the deepest shadow, like a dark flame on the throne of black glass.
It suited him for those summoned before him to see his face and feel his power.
They faced him impassively, all dark and slender menace. Silent and still, as watchful as two cold-eyed snakes.
Maerandor and Helgore, the two agents he’d trained, wizards he’d plucked from youthful ambition and raised right past the ranks of the arcanists, forging them personally-and separately-into blades as deadly as he could manage in the far too little time he’d been given.
Still, they would have to do. Time waited not even for the gods, despite what those deluded fools who called themselves “chronomancers” were wont to believe.
He watched them give the tammaneth rod the briefest of curious glances, then fix their gazes on him. He smiled inwardly.
Curiosity is a razor-sharp blade with two edges and no hilt. It slices us even as we wield it, yet we cannot resist swinging something so sharp.
He passed his hand casually over a particular spot on the left arm of the throne, causing the secret way in the wall to the left of him to slide open, and watched them both start to look in that direction, then school themselves to keep their gazes on him.
Better and better. He’d forged them well.
He locked eyes with Maerandor and ordered crisply, “Depart at once for Candlekeep. Follow the plan; it stands unchanged.”
Then he turned to Helgore, and commanded, “To Myth Drannor. You know what you are to do.”
He looked meaningfully at the way he’d just opened. Turning from him and seeing the great doors they’d come in by standing closed, they took the hint and strode across the room, departing by that secret way.
He passed his hand over the arm of the throne again, closing the way behind them, and permitted himself a sigh.
Then rose in haste, fighting down another shiver.
Age was riding him down at last.