“Salt?” Arclath asked. “And share what you’re snarling?”
His lady halted at the far end of the kitchen, hands on hips, and snapped, “We shouldn’t be cowering here, when the Realms- literally, this time, not mere bardic overblown claims-hangs on the brink of utter destruction. Why should I keep myself safe to carry on tomorrow, when there won’t be any tomorrow if Elminster, Storm, and the others fail?”
She marched across the kitchen to fetch up against Arclath’s chest.
“Well, Lord Delcastle? Answer me that! Why are we languishing here when every blade and spell is needed? Why?”
“Because if they fall, you are their only hope. They can fight better knowing that, knowing you are out of harm’s way.”
“But I’m not, Arclath, and neither are you. The two of us can’t even defend every door and window of this kitchen! We’re safe only so long as none of the Shadovar or their hirelings and beasts notice us! The moment one of them so much as looks in this direction, or happens to blunder up yon path and through that door …”
Arclath stared at her, looking grim.
Rune put her arms around him, drew him so close that their noses touched, and stared into his eyes. “You haven’t any answer for that, do you?” she asked softly.
Slowly, very slowly, Arclath shook his head.
CHAPTER 15
Blue lightning stabbed briefly out into the passage as the last rubble fell away. Mattick and Vattick regarded each other across it, smiled, and when the lancing death was done, stepped through the archway with one accord, boots crunching on the rubble where Mattick had breached and shattered the crypt doors.
House Velanralyn had died out a long time ago, by the looks of things. Corpses sighed into dust at the most delicate of touches, and Vattick swiftly gave up on trying to see what sort of dead elf was wearing or holding what-he just started snatching things of magic as fast as his brother was, and draining them.
Briefly flaring blue glow after silent blue glow, they worked their way across the crypt. It was larger and dimmer than most, and they went to the highest, grandest biers and catafalques, one after another, leaving the lesser interments until later. The two arcanists watched uncertainly for a moment, and then one took up a guard’s stance at the shattered entrance, and the other-the one afflicted with scales migrating around his body-joining the harvesting of magic items, collecting them rather than draining them as the two Tanthuls were.
As the draining went on, Mattick felt more powerful than ever in his life before, swollen and tingling and itching to hurl spells and blast screaming elf faces to nothingness. Then a stealthy movement seen out of the corner of his eye made him turn, in time to see the scaly arcanist slip a glowing blue ring into a belt pouch.
A moment later, the kneeling arcanist gasped and swayed forward-as the point of Vattick’s sword burst out of his breast.
Mattick’s brother had run the Shadovar through from behind. He twisted his blade to make the sobbing, convulsing arcanist feel more pain. Then pulled it out-and slid it back into the shade’s body at a different angle and twisted it again.
The raw shrieks and gurglings were impressive.
The other arcanist came from the crypt entrance to watch, reluctant and white faced, as his scaly fellow Shadovar died slowly and horribly on Prince Vattick’s magical sword.
When the thieving Thultanthan was still and silent at last, Vattick kicked the body off his steel, wiped the blade clean on the dead, staring face, and drawled, “I knew we’d have to make a lesson of someone. It was just a matter of who.”
He slashed open the dead arcanist’s pouch, hooked the ring on the tip of his sword, flung it into the air, and caught and drained it, letting the dust the ring crumbled into trickle out of his palm onto the dead man’s face.
Mattick looked at the sole surviving arcanist. The man’s face was the color of old bone, and he was swallowing repeatedly, as if something was caught in his throat.
A curse, probably.
“Next crypt,” Mattick ordered him briskly, and followed his words with an impish smile.
The last arcanist shuddered and swallowed again. Hard.
“Beloved teacher,” Elminster said gently, “we are indeed going somewhere. Up out of here, to the heart of Myth Drannor. I think ye know why.”
The Srinshee nodded.
“The hour of need is come,” she said sadly. “Being as some are contemplating destroying the mythal.”
“Olue,” El asked gravely, “ye aren’t going to resist us, are ye?”
“No. What you are attempting is needful. It tears at my heart to lose this bright city again-oh, how it hurts-but I would lose a thousand Myth Drannors if the loss could save Faerûn. We elves can go to Semberholme, or find trees elsewhere. If the dwarves can abandon all their homes and travel far and do whatever is needful to endure, so can we. So shall we. Yes, El, I’m with you.”
“Oh, thank Mystra!” El exclaimed in relief as he rushed to her, arms flung wide.
The Srinshee smiled, and burst into a rush of her own. They ended up in each other’s arms, and El swept the small guardian off her feet in a fierce embrace.
Laeral gave her sister a sardonic look. “This is why he never gets any work done!”
“Oh, I’d not say that, Sister,” Alustriel countered, watching El and the Srinshee weeping softly and murmuring to each other, rocking back and forth in each other’s arms. “We all have our talents. I’ve accomplished much, doing that and more.”
“This one yet lives,” one Moonstar announced to another, who hastened across the high-vaulted and now blood-spattered room in Candlekeep, slipping on the rubble underfoot.
On all sides, glum-faced Moonstars were tending injured monks or moving the bodies of the dead.
“The wards gone …,” one muttered in head-shaking disbelief.
More than a few of his fellows peered at the stone walls soaring up into dimness above them, as if expecting Candlekeep to collapse on their heads without warning. Soon.
“I,” said another quietly, “find myself wondering what we should all do, after these needs have been seen to … for what is to be done, now that we’ve failed?”
“Much,” a new voice said firmly, from beyond a dark archway. A woman’s voice, but deep and rich as many a man’s. Moonstars all over the littered room looked up sharply, and more than one hand sought a sword hilt.
The speaker strode into the room, and they beheld a warrior woman, tall and broad shouldered and clad in silvery coat of plate. Her close-cropped hair was of the same hue. “If you would serve Khelben’s vision still,” she said, “and do great service to all the world, come with me now. There’s still vital work to be done.”
“And who, exactly, are you?” a Moonstar asked warily.
“I am Dove Falconhand. Of the Seven. Chosen of Mystra.”
Several Moonstars stirred, and some of their faces darkened, but before any spoke, Dove added as sternly as any battle commander, “If we are to defeat the Three Who Wait in Darkness-the very purpose for which the Moonstars were formed-we must go to Myth Drannor and fight the Shadovar there. I understand there’s no shortage of them there right now; there’ll be foes enough for each of you.”
“I lack the spells to take more than a handful of us there,” another Moonstar objected.
Dove gave that man a smile. “Portals will serve us. I know three within the keep, all of them an easy stroll from here.”
Another Moonstar frowned at her. “I’ve lived and worked in this monastery for more than thirty years, and have never seen nor heard of any working portals.”