He gave his own ward shield a slicing edge of pure force, and slashed the undead guardian with it, as if it was a great drover’s whip.
Causing the baelnorn to waver, leaking blue fire in all directions and reeling back-right into Mattick’s flames of the sun spell, that made its undeath burn like a pyre.
It blazed up with a sudden roar, and was gone before the two princes could draw another breath.
Mattick and Vattick regarded each other sourly over the last wisps of the vanishing baelnorn. They were both bruised, cut, and bleeding, their contempt for elves gone and anger in its place.
“You look like an arcanist who’s just won his first spell duel by sheer luck,” Mattick panted.
Vattick nodded grimly, and spent some of the elven magic they’d drained on a healing that left him gasping, trembling, and leaking blue fire from his dozens of cuts-but standing straighter and freed from pain when it was done.
Mattick did the same thing. Then they both looked back at the sprawled corpse of the last arcanist, with his shattered hands dangling from his splintered wrists, shrugged in unison, and turned to the now-unguarded doors of House Alavalae. Two rampant pegasi faced each other, wings and hooves raised, but neither of the twin princes was in the mood to appreciate skilled elven sculpting.
They each flung out a hand and sent blasting blue fire at the doors. The stone shuddered, wavered, and swung open a trifle.
Vattick sidestepped as he advanced, and sent another spell against the now-exposed lip of one of the doors, driving it fully open with a heavy grinding rumble.
Revealing a line-no, a wall-of blue fire in the dim interior of the crypt. Literally heaps of magic.
“Ah,” Mattick purred, striding eagerly forward, “that’s more like it.”
Vattick hastened too. Only for the blue fire to fall away like a cascade of spilled water, revealing the grim-faced Coronal of Myth Drannor flanked by a quartet of elf mages.
Without wasting a word on greeting, parley, or challenge, they all hurled ravening spells into the faces of the twin princes of Shade.
The purple-eyed face hanging in the darkness was almost as large as the wall Telamont could no longer see behind it, and was wreathed in restlessly whipping and coiling black tresses like the tentacles of the giant octopi sometimes called “the Devourers of the Deeps.” Shar’s choice to give that face the features of one of Telamont’s first loves, dead and gone centuries ago, was merely her usual cruelty; that she’d chosen to manifest in person to speak to him rather than her usual mindspeech in his head was a measure of her fury. Even her nimbus of awful darkness wasn’t as bone chilling as usual, thanks to the warmth of her anger.
“Both of your agents have failed,” the goddess told her servant coldly. “For all their training, they accomplished little. So now, amuse me: try to justify your failure in Candlekeep.”
“I cannot justify, Mistress of the Night,” Telamont said swiftly, “but I can explain. Even without Maerandor, our agents among the Avowed could, I believe, have accomplished what we intended and overcome our enemies among the monks, had not an unforeseen power moved against us.”
“The meddler Elminster was not unforeseen,” Shar snapped. “He is always present, at nigh every great play of power in Toril, outside of Thay, these last four centuries. Such is the chaos he wreaks that I never send servitors directly against him, for time and again he furthers discord, and visits loss, despair, and destruction on many, better than those sworn to me. Prate not to me of Elminster.”
Telamont Tanthul dared to raise his voice to his goddess. “I did not presume to blame Elminster, and do not. By ‘unforeseen power,’ I meant the one called Larloch. The Last Chosen of Mystryl.”
“Who has never deserved that title, but let it pass. Why did you not foresee his involvement? I expected it.”
“I, too, anticipated that he would take a hand-but I foresaw that he’d work through his servitor liches, to seize what books and items of magic could be stolen amid the chaos, as he’s reported to have often done in the past. I had no idea he’d try to seize the power of the wards of Candlekeep for his own, to share the folly of the most crazed arcanists of Netheril and try to make himself into a god!”
“The wards of Candlekeep might make a toad or a pixie a guardian demigod of Candlekeep, but no more.”
Telamont shook his head. “Larloch goes now to Myth Drannor, or is there already, seeking to snatch its mythal. With that much power, he seeks to remake the Weave and root it in himself, and so ascend.”
“That, I did not foresee,” Shar admitted, her words rolling across the room as if from a great distance. “So, Telamont Tanthul, your fear tells me you believe he can achieve this. That he is likely to achieve this.”
Telamont started to pace, cursing softly under his breath without thinking, though his every oath was an insult barbed against Shar. The coldness around him seemed somehow amused as his profanity faltered, then quickly gave way to an admission.
“The archlich has always been stronger in the Art than I am- possibly stronger than all the massed arcanists of this city, even without the liches who serve him. Goading him out of his seclusion and researches by the bold actions we’ve taken was always a risk … which we’re now facing.”
“You don’t seem to relish the coming confrontation, High Prince of Thultanthar.”
“No,” Telamont whispered fiercely, turning away.
Not that it was possible to turn his back on the Mistress of the Night, in a chamber filled with her dark presence.
What do you seek to run from, Telamont Tanthul? Her whisper was far louder and more terrible than his, seeming to sigh through his head like a tidal wave racing across hard-day’s ride after hard-day’s ride of unprotected fields.
“Goddess,” the ruler of the Shadovar mumbled miserably, “I am afraid of Larloch.”
“Fear is the lash, the goad,” Shar told him, as gently as any mother. “Freeze and cower not when it descends on you, but embrace it, and know me more closely, and use the fear you feel to spur you to greater service.”
Telamont winced, nodding but still hunched, his teeth set.
“Show me your mettle, High Prince. Show me why I should still rely on you to serve me.”
The clear warning in those last words took Telamont by the throat and shook him out of his dark fear.
He straightened, flung out an arm as if he could dash down mountains with it, and snapped, “Your intentions are not thwarted by the archlich, Divine One. If I can drain the mythal before Larloch can, it should be power enough to raise the Shadow Weave.”
“It should,” Shar agreed, her approval an arm of warm darkness that seemed to wrap around his shoulders amid silent thunder.
“See that you succeed,” she added, drawing away again.
“H-have you any instructions?” Telamont asked quickly, sensing Shar’s presence receding.
“No one is unexpendable, Telamont, son of Harathroven,” the goddess warned softly, as if from a great distance.
And with that, she was gone, leaving the Most High of Thultanthar standing alone in empty darkness, sweating and pale.
“This-this is utter chaos!” a Moonstar protested, white faced in revulsion. Amid the trees, the smoke of countless fires drifted, some of them reeking pyres of the dead. Bodies were heaped and strewn everywhere, swarming flies buzzed, and from all sides arose the clangor, shouts, and shrieks of battle.