By then, the Srinshee was thrusting ruthless mental barbs-long black lances of her contempt and revulsion-deep into the mind of the eye tyrant Xoraulkyr, shattering its arrogant confidence that it was superior to all other minds, and had been ensnared by the human Elminster only through luck and deceit. While it was still reeling mentally, too aghast at being so wounded to gather the will to slap down any of the four minds riding it, it was suddenly no longer in the bricked-up Waterdhavian cellar Elminster had put it into stasis in, but-elsewhere.
Specifically, a glade in deep shade, roofed over by the interwoven branches of a thick stand of duskwoods, where shades and arcanists of Thultanthar were arguing over where to send their “idiot troops” to most swiftly smash what elf resistance remained.
“I’ve always hated commanders who led from the rear,” the Srinshee whispered into Xoraulkyr’s mind confidingly, her words carrying into the thoughts of her three companions. “Let them taste unleashed beholder, and learn a little!”
An instant later, Xoraulkyr thudded heavily to the trodden moss of the forest floor, eyestalks writhing in pain. It sought to soar, to lash out at these astonished humans before they could work the magics they were even now frantically calling up-but found, as the Thultanthans scattered, fleeing for the encircling trees, that it couldn’t even rise off the ground. At all. It was what it had always been: a beholder of massive size for its kind, a sphere the size of a small human coach. Which meant it was so heavy that if it rolled without great care, it crushed its own eyestalks under its bulk.
Xoraulkyr painfully rediscovered this very flaw just before the first spells tore into it. Their force awakened agony and flung it away in a clumsy, bouncing roll, to fetch up against the trunk of a large duskwood where the eye tyrant rested, stretching its eyestalks in a swift wild spasm and then unleashing its magic back at those who’d just harmed it.
The glade erupted in magic so ferocious that trees started to topple, or were blasted to shards that were flung far away through the forest.
By then, the Srinshee was dumping another beholder into another group of commanders, a gathering of mercenary war captains who were strolling and chatting idly, pursuing war in far idler fashion than the shades and arcanists. To a man-and they were all men, ruthless louts of veteran killers, every one-they were most interested, at the moment, in emptying wineskins as fast as their servants could pour them into flagons. The war captains were toasting their guests, a dozen hired mages, but the Srinshee made sure none of those wizards would be fleeing with all that much alacrity, by breaking one ankle of each mage she saw.
And then she let go of El’s hand to break the ring and give them all a moment to breathe and collect their own wits, while she called on the mythal she’d helped shape, to let her far scry the four centers of mayhem they’d just kindled.
“Mayhem,” she commented with some satisfaction, after she’d looked for a few moments at each fray, “is certainly spreading. It might just become widespread among the besiegers of Myth Drannor, if you can find us four more champions as powerful as that quartet among your bindings, El.”
“I believe I can,” Elminster replied, managing a slow grin. It felt good to be rid of burdens, and he was carrying so many.
“Good. Do so. Then I’ll leave you three to get on with destroying Weave anchors, and-”
“Destroying Weave anchors?” El came to his feet in a wild rush, aghast. “We’ve been renewing them, and crafting new ones! Why, the Weave may collapse, and cause all magic to go wild, if we take away its anchors! What-”
“Madness is this? Desperate times, desperate measures, my fire-sword! You’re right about the danger, of course, but Larloch-and Shar-expect you to rush around strengthening anchors. They are depending on it. Only if the Weave holds strong here, around the mythal, can they drain the one and take over the other. They need someone else to hold the Weave steady so they can snatch it all, whereas if you sever it from its local anchors here, it becomes not a target stretched and held taut for their snatching, but a ragged bit of cloth blowing in wild winds that they can scarce see, let alone seize, as they rush past. Trust me.”
El winced.
“Yes,” the Srinshee told him softly, “I know you have just trusted and been betrayed, but I am no Larloch. Trust me. Destroy anchors, just hereabouts, as swiftly as you can-but take care to choose and destroy those that anchor both the mythal and the Weave, first. Wise crafters would have overlapped none, but … elves and humans alike are all too often unwise.”
“And lazy,” said Laeral.
“And in a hurry,” Alustriel added.
“Indeed,” the Srinshee agreed. “And have not all of us been all of those things, betimes? Yet let us not be those things today. Too much rides on victory. Which is why I’ve come back. Myth Drannor stands imperiled, so I am here.”
Laeral regarded her unsmilingly. “You truly believe the city can be saved?”
The Srinshee shrugged. “Buildings are just that-buildings. The community has already been lost, turned from lives unfolding freely into waging constant war … but the people can be saved, some of them, to return and refound and rebuild once this threat is past. I’m here to salvage what Tel’Quess I can, and friends to the elves too. I came back because I could not bear to see it all be lost, while I did nothing. You three have brought me hope; with your meddling, perhaps Shar and the Shadovar who serve her, and Larloch who seeks to exalt himself, shall not prevail.”
She looked into their eyes, one after another, and then added, “Now enough grand words. El, yield me up some more monsters!”
And she plunged right through his eyes into his mind, plucking at the minds of the two silver-haired sisters as she passed, and dragging them down and into the warm and familiar murk of Elminster’s busy mind along with her. Images flashed past them, one melting through another with bewildering rapidity, some half familiar, some very strange. El steered the racing meteor that was the Srinshee, taking her down, down to where runes glowed and wrote themselves over and over in his remembrances, secret words were whispered, hiding places under stones and behind concealing spells were revealed, and-a mind flayer came striding.
It had baleful eyes, as it reached out its tentacles in another place and another time, uncoiling to stab into both Elminster’s ears, to feed-but was instead ensnared in his waiting trap, stiffening in dismayed disbelief as its intrusion plunged into waiting magic meant to hook it alone, setting mental barbs deep so that to tear away would be to lose the greater part of its intellect. It tried to tear free anyway, tasting terror for the first occasion in a long time, but the leaking chaos washing across its thoughts, that lessened it and bewildered it, left it powerless to resist the tightening spell … and so it was that the illithid Qhelaraxxalarr was frozen, its mind whirling in an endless loop, its muscles locked. Shoved into a closet, hooded, and as the endless darkness began, sunk into a torpor by a chilling spell it had never felt before, even as it heard the thudding echoes of the closet being boarded up, blows that seemed to come from a vast distance, and that were followed by fainter hammerings that went on for a much longer time, as a false wall was built in front of the closet.
“Perfect,” the Srinshee decreed. “Mind-wounded beyond recovery, but goaded by fear and anger into the feeding hunger. It won’t last long, the moment the mercenaries see what’s in their midst and any Shadovar with them decree it not of their recruiting.” She whirled it away as Laeral and Alustriel worked busily on lifting Elminster’s spells, and it was gone.
“Next!” she commanded briskly.