El called up his lantern again and made of it a blinding sphere, a brightness that seared and tore at the unyielding darkness, forcing it to shrink back and melt away and-collapse utterly as El hurled the radiance into the heart of it. That mind fled, shrieking, in all dark directions at once, leaving El wincing in the barren heart of it and wondering what damage he’d done.
He felt the cold edge of Larloch’s amusement as he freed a carefully small amount of ward energy as quickly as he could, and raced on. Through a mind that wavered on the brink of collapse, clawing at Elminster until he dimly saw the chamber he was in again, and the source of that clawing.
(On the balcony, a Prefect shuddered, hands twitching and then clawing the air in a sudden frenzy, foam bursting from bitten-through lips as a whispering, wordless snarl erupted through clenched teeth, eyes staring at nothing as the head jerked from side to side, as if staring fixedly at things that were not there. The Avowed on either side of the stricken monk shrank away from him in fear and disgust-ere he collapsed into a lolling, almost lifeless heap.)
“Idiot,” Larloch said in disgust.
El rode the echoes of the lich’s comment onward out of the ruined mind, and plunged into two more monks’ minds in swift succession that were both brighter and more cacophonous, yet fought him not. He swerved and banked and slowed at will in their chaotic midst, deftly unleashing trifling amounts of ward energy from each, to add to the flow already accompanying him, and raced on again, into a seventh mind.
And into a sudden mental assault, his heart pounding as maleficent dark lances of thought thrust into him, ward energy leaking like golden gore … El fed those blades silver fire and had the satisfaction of seeing them vanish into smoke, their shafts recoiling to a source that shrieked in pain. The wild screaming went on and on as the mind of its owner shuddered and yawed and shrank back in a wet, crimson retreat. Again El took what he wanted, quickly and ungently, and moved on.
He could see the end of his work ahead, just four minds remaining between him and the coldly waiting presence of Larloch, and could feel the power of the ward energy he was riding, the first sense he’d had of any sort of inevitability to his success. He was rolling into minds that weren’t expecting to withstand him now-and so probably couldn’t.
Another Great Reader, who was more fearful than anything else, and only too happy to let the invading shadow glide to where it needed to go, so it would be gone all the sooner.
Into a very different sentience. Pride here, and real power. The First Reader’s mind was alert and watchful, aware of his every movement within it and accompanying the shadow that was El like a watchful armored sentry with spear held ready, keeping pace with El, crowding close to peer as the ward energies this mind controlled and was fully attuned to-only the Keeper of the Tomes had known more-were tapped, then ushering him carefully out, and on.
Into the mind of the Gatewarden, who was friendlier but no less aware and vigilant, escorting El’s shadow like a smiling light. There was real power here, too, but it was might that was kept largely hidden, roiling and shifting and pursuing other matters at the same time as it shared ward secrets.
Last, El flowed into the mind of the Guide. This mind was both curious and suspicious at once, offering no resistance but massing so as to offer battle the moment it seemed needed. Some thoughts the Guide snatched away, to be kept hidden from the intruder, others the Guide advanced like armored knights to form a defensive wall. El glided past as much of it as he could, then proffered the bright lantern when he needed to turn into the massed-against-him wall and reach through those close-clustered thoughts to the ward memories. Which proved even more extensive and useful than the Chanter’s: attunement plus mastery without the strong defenses of the First Reader or the Gatewarden.
He was almost done and out when the mind around him spasmed as if struck by a gale-and then blew apart in bright and terrible ribbons and the roaring blackness of lacerating annihilation whipping past.
The mind he’d been in had just died.
El flung the ward flow to Larloch, but spun his own consciousness up and out and away rather than plunging into the depths of that darkly waiting and coldly amused intellect. Seeing only enough of Larloch’s thinking to see a deeply hidden connection with … the mythal of distant Myth Drannor?
Oh, no! He had to … had to …
Return to himself enough to perceive what was happening in the chamber.
He did that, just in time to see what was left of the Guide’s body-a head and limbs loosely attached to what had become a great hole of gore and burned robes and wet flesh-toppling from the gallery to splatter on the floor right in front of … himself.
El realized his neck was stiff, and his arms and shoulders felt numb. When he moved, to break off staring up at the gallery, he discovered why. He had been standing like a statue all this time, and now-
Now the room was full of angry Moonstars, different Moonstars than he had flung the Shadovar at, with Alustriel and Laeral at their head.
Their spells had slain the Guide, though their target had been Larloch, and the unfortunate Prefect merely the archlich’s helpless shield. More spells were crashing into the gallery, shattering it as the gallery above it had been blasted. This was no safe place to stand, when all that stone came hurtling down.
And other spells were leaping at him!
El dashed them aside with the wards in an instant, but even as he did so, felt that there was something not quite right.
Something clawed at him, commanding his attention-ah! The ward flow he’d harvested, small rill by small rill, was a vigorous stream when it reached Larloch, and rushed through the Shadow King into the Weave. Yet after that-
El felt through the Weave to try to see what it was from another vantage than his own place along the flow, and saw what was amiss.
He’d been duped.
And Luse and Laer might have come too late.
The ward flow was reaching the Weave, but invigorating and brightening just this local bit of it-because Larloch controlled the entry of the ward energies, and their path, too-which was to circle in this fringe of the Weave and depart it right back into … Larloch!
The Shadow King had played him for a fool.
And won.
Larloch gave Elminster that soft, knowing smile, and with a spell, sent all the Prefects hurtling down out of the gallery. Then he released the spell that held up the shattered gallery, so its shards tumbled after the screaming monks.
Standing unconcernedly on empty air, the archlich gave El back some of the ward energies-in the form of a great, rolling wave of thrumming force that plummeted from the gallery to crash onto the floor where the Guide had landed, hurling Prefects through the air like dolls to smash down into Elminster, Alustriel, Laeral, and all the Moonstars, before dashing them all back against the far wall.
El slammed into a layer of several Prefects, and felt broken bones grating under the force of his solid arrival. Where the ward energies continued to pin him, the Moonstars, and the Prefects, holding them all helpless against the wall.
“I must thank you, all of you,” Larloch told them mockingly, “for your assistance in giving me most of the power I need to remake the Weave as I see fit. I’ll collect the rest in Myth Drannor. Farewell, fools.”
And the tall, dark figure standing in midair abruptly vanished.
Leaving Elminster, Alustriel, and Laeral to stumble away from the wall caked in dead and dying Moonstars and Prefects, in a swiftly darkening room.
They all knew why the light was failing.
They could feel it.
The great wards of Candlekeep were gone.