Spellstorm (6 page)

Alusair sighed. “I yield. Vanquished once more. So tell me, Lord So Clever, what is
your counsel in this matter, in the days ahead? What do you think we should do?”

“For myself,” Myrmeen interrupted swiftly, “I expected this meeting would be to receive
our orders from Lord Elminster, blunt or wrapped up in words that made them seem otherwise
than commands. That bothers me not. However, there’s a price for my obedience: Lord
of Shadowdale, lay out your reasoning rather than playing the mysterious all-knowing
archmage.”

Alusair and Vangerdahast nodded agreement.

Elminster inclined his head gravely to the living lady warrior, and said, “It is my
opinion that we need to play unfairly against such a host of power-hungry spellhurlers.
As Lord Halaunt is now a drooling husk of a man, his mind almost certainly burnt out,
I propose that Alusair here go
into him, animate him, and speak through him. The Steel Regent acting the part of
Lord Halaunt, in such a way that ‘he’ works with us to protect Cormyr—rather than
being animated by every last ambitious guest trying to wrest the Lost Spell from him.”

Alusair was suddenly closer to the Sage of Shadowdale, and her eyes were blazing brighter.
“And when they try to mindburn
me
?”

“Ye’ll be protected,” El assured her. “By me. A goddess has shown me how.”

Vangerdahast, the ghost of the princess, and Myrmeen all gasped out disgusted skepticism
at his words.

“You can’t promise that,” Vangey added.

Oh, but I can
, El replied in Alusair’s mind.

She stiffened.
How
—?

The Weave
, he thought into her mind.
If ye were still alive, I’d have to cast a spell, or touch ye and use my mind
.

Your psionics
?

Aye. Those
.

Their flashing thoughts had taken mere instants, during which Myrmeen lifted her chin
in a challenge and asked Elminster, “If Halaunt is a wreck, why impersonate him? What’s
the point? Why not just blast every evil wizard who shows up looking for the Lost
Spell, drive the nonevil ones away, then leave Halaunt’s servants to look after what’s
left of him?”

“It is needful,” El told her.

“Oh? Why?” Alusair’s voice was sharp.

“Yes, why?” Vangey echoed.

“As you’ll recall, Lord Elminster,” Myrmeen added, “I mentioned my price …”

“There’s not a lot of
trust
in this room,” Elminster murmured.

“And why
is
that, I
wonder
?” Alusair mocked, suddenly floating nose to nose with him, her eyes two cold flames
of anger.

El sighed. “Very well. Cards, as they say, on the table. I serve a goddess.”

“Mystra,” the only living woman in the room said flatly, her eyes, but not her voice,
making it a question. Everyone knew Elminster served the goddess of magic, but Myrmeen
wanted him to confirm he still served Mystra, and only Mystra.

“Mystra,” he reassured her. “And she wants this to happen—this gathering of powerful
mages, that is. She needs to get them together for long enough that they can discuss
how they’re going to conduct themselves in
the years ahead, in the wake of the tumult that is hopefully now behind us. That’s
not something easily achieved among such energetic, power-hungry, and suspicious folk.”

“And what does Mystra want them to achieve, aside from threatening each other and
then starting spell duels like the one that destroyed the Dragon Rampant?” Vangerdahast
asked. “For that’s what’ll erupt, if magic is unreliable within Oldspires, rather
than nonexistent.”

“Mystra
hopes
,” Elminster replied slowly, his tone making it clear he wasn’t convinced that what
Our Lady of Magic envisaged would come to pass, “they will come to some common agreements
on certain things. So Toril isn’t ravaged by a war among archmages. And if they do
make war on each other, let it be face-to-face, inside one building, and not slaughtering
many innocents and ravaging realms in the process.”

“Send four hungry panthers in a room, and wait to see which wounded one will stagger
out,” Vangey murmured. “Not a strategy unfamiliar to me.”

“Mystra
hopes
,” Elminster repeated, “that their time together will at least lead to frank discussion,
and increased understanding.”

Alusair frowned. “If that’s the goal, why doesn’t Mystra just show up in their minds
and
threaten
them into playing nice?”

“Ah. Well, now. Listen, heed, and remember this, for ’tis what one might call one
of the secrets of our world.”

“And whenever a wizard says
that
, he’s trying to deceive you about something,” Alusair murmured.

“Not so!” Elminster told her sternly. “Or at least, not this wizard, and not this
time. Mystra has told me that she can force and compel, or destroy, like any other
wrathful god—and so win obedience, but no change of attitude. Leaving wizards full
of resentment of imposed authority, not cleaving to a way or idea or accord they have
willingly been a part of—wherefore some, perhaps most of them, will be secretly seeking
to betray or subvert, in future.”

Three sets of eyes, two living and one ghostly, narrowed.

“So even an apparently solid agreement or new spirit of cooperation would be short-lived
at best, and likely an utter cynical fiction from the outset. So instead, what ye
might call ‘manipulating from behind a tapestry’ is best. Wherefore, Mystra needs
to stay in the shadows and let me, and others I can persuade, do the work she deems
needful.”

Alusair’s face now held something like pity. “And your own heir?”

Elminster’s face was suddenly a mask of stone. “I want to keep Amarune out of this
as much as possible,” he said slowly, as if reluctant to let the words escape his
lips. “She won’t stand a chance in a house full of powerful evil archmages. Still
less, her impetuous young consort, Lord Arclath Delcastle.” He turned away and started
to pace, his steps stirring ripples across the dark water. “Storm will take them somewhere
to do something-or-other Realms-shakingly important. ’Tis how we’ve hoodwinked kings
and dungsweepers alike, all these centuries.”

Myrmeen Lhal swallowed more mirth with a snort, and turned her head to give Vangey
a level look, eyeball-to-eyeball. He coughed and shifted a little.

“And how will we get into Oldspires?” Alusair inquired. “Through this mind-shattering
spellstorm?”

“I know how to open one of the gates,” El replied smugly.

“Oh? And how is it that you know that?”

“It’s a Weave gate, and below Mystra herself, I am now
the
Weavemaster. Be awed by no competing pretenders.”

Myrmeen snorted again.

“As for the spellstorm,” El added, “Mystra will let all of these grasping archmages
through it when we’re ready—and let them believe whatever clever spells they worked
created their own short-lived tunnel through the chaos.”

“
I
,” Vangerdahast commented, “just want to know how by all the gods—every last prancing
one of them—you’re going to get all of these crazed, me-first, power-hungry and supremely
independent and professionally difficult archmages to agree on anything, change their
minds about anything, and tell you even a smidgin or two of truth!”

“Ah,” Elminster said with a wry smile, “as to that, I have a plan.”

Vangey wasn’t the only one in the room to roll his eyes then.

“You’re going to make things up as you go along,” the ghost of Alusair murmured. “As
you always do. Charge in and ruffle feathers and ride out the hazards. You sly old
rogue.”

Elminster’s gaze held a twinkle. “Eh, lass. Careful with the compliments, there; ye’ll
turn my head.”

“Make you preen, more like. Old bastard.”

“Shadow of a woman,” El replied, just as affectionately.

“Still want me to go prancing off into a mansion of twisted magic with this, ah, personage?”
Myrmeen asked Vangerdahast.

He shrugged and looked sheepish. “You’ve always loved adventure, and chafed when it
wasn’t on offer.”

“You,” Myrmeen returned, “know me too well.” Then she looked across at Elminster.
“Let’s get going.”

T
HIS DEEPEST ROOM
beneath his tower was persistently damp, which was why its owner, who stood looking
down at four robed men spread-eagled on a stout iron frame before him, used it only
for butchery. Usually there were dead boar or cattle on the frame, but it seemed to
work on men well enough,

“W-who
are
you?” one of the chained captives gasped, when he’d stopped shrieking long enough
to pant his way back to framing words.

The dark-haired, handsome, and imperious man who was the source of the agonies being
visited on the four captive arcanists smiled coldly. “My name is Maraunth Torr, but
it’s no doubt unfamiliar to you. I am an archmage of some power, and arcanists of
Thultanthar seem to believe powerful wizards who do not hail from their city are … mythical.
But then, the arrogant fools of Thultanthar believe so many incorrect things. Such
a pity. It always leads to their undoing.”

And as those gentle words left his lips, he gestured lazily and sent fresh ragged
lightnings through the iron frames that held his captives fast. Skin sizzled with
a reek akin to roast boar, and a sound almost lost amid the din of their raw, throat-stripping
shrieks.

Maraunth Torr gave them a wintry smile and strolled back to his goblet of wine and
the maps he’d been studying when his flying-chain spell traps had entwined and bound
them—so easily that they might just as well have been common thieves bereft of magic.
More easily, perhaps, for thieves might have been more suspicious of adornments, around
the doorway of a room where powerful enchanted items were stored, that took the shape
of chains than these four dolts had been.

When their screams had died away into panting groans, he raised his goblet and remarked
to it, “I remain curious as to why arcanists of Thultanthar would dare to intrude
into a wizard’s tower in the wilds near ruined Starmantle that’s widely known to be
formidably guarded.”

Weak moans and nigh-incoherent pleas for mercy were the only replies he got, so the
archmage drank deeply, sighed out his pleasure as the Shalassalur burned its silken
way down his throat, and strolled back to match gazes with his nearest captive.

“Well?” he asked mildly. “I should hate to, ah, have to press you on this point.”

“I—we—ahhh …”

“A promising beginning,” Maraunth Torr said amiably, “but my patience is not infinite.
Pray continue.”

“We were following orders,” the closest wizard blurted out.

“And who gave you these orders?”

“Our commanders,” the third wizard down almost sobbed.

“Who are?”

“Ah … er …”

“Come, come, you are like guilty children, caught but playing for time,” Maraunth
Torr told them, almost tenderly. “Be more forthcoming, and be so swiftly. Or, as they
say, else.”

“You’ll have heard of the fate of our city,” the nearest wizard told him. “Not many
of rank survived its destruction. We answer now to three—their names may mean nothing
to you—Lelavdra, Manarlume, and Gwelt. The Three, we call them.”

“We begin to get somewhere,” Maraunth Torr said approvingly. “And these orders were?”

“To plunder the country mansion of Oldspires, in Cormyr.”

“Why?”

“We, ah, former Thultanthans need to rebuild our magical power, and swiftly, for Faerûn
has become dangerous, seemingly full of too many mighty mages.”

“Become? It became so before there was a Thultanthar, so far as I can tell. Why Oldspires?”

“The three who command us recently heard that its owner, Lord Halaunt, owns the Talking
Skull.”

“Humor me,” Maraunth Torr said as jovially as an affectionate host, “and inform me
what the Talking Skull might be.”

“A—a flying, horn-headed human skull,” said one of his captives.

“Purportedly that of an undead archmage millennia old,” the farthest one added brightly,
sounding almost eager to volunteer information.

So Maraunth Torr strolled in his direction to ask, “And why would a talking skull
be valuable? I have sixteen of them, if I recall rightly, and find them frankly more
‘nuisance’ and less ‘prized valuable.’ ”

“This talking skull knows the Lost Spell!”

“Splendid! Delightful! And what is the Lost Spell?”

“You’re an archmage, and you don’t …?” The captive Thultanthan faltered under the
weight of Maraunth Torr’s tender smile, and added hastily, “It’s a—a mighty enchantment
whose details are unknown to us, but it’s the opinion of our superiors that it could
bolster their power, possibly enabling them to swiftly destroy formidable arcane spellcasters,
and seize their magic.”

“Ah, I see. So why came you to be upon my doorstep rather than at Oldspires?”

“We … failed,” sighed another arcanist.

“Failure is the best teacher,” Maraunth Torr informed him merrily. “So how did you
fail, exactly?”