Ed Greenwood - The Herald

“The accident that befell him was … no accident,” Draethren muttered. “I have always known that.”

“Yet you learned nothing from that knowledge? Then you are more foolish than I’d thought. That you despise your elders has been clear enough for some time now. Young princes of Thultanthar are seldom subtle-and even less often able to hide their aims from their older kin. Thankfully, most of them eventually come to see that working together for the good of our city is preferable to defiance and poorly thought-out, airy schemes.”

“How is moving so slowly to conquer best for Thultanthar?”

“Those too hasty to snatch prizes often damage what they grasp for. Why bleed the lands that shall be ours in pointless warfare, when we can work smaller violences and steer those realms into our control without all the destruction? Lay waste when you must, but never casually ruin or consume what may be useful in time to come.”

“I do not see in such lofty platitudes any justification for idle inaction.”

“Draethren,” his grandfather said grimly, “you do not see. Now go, and think on what I’ve said, as you perfect that ward-drain spell for us all. You may even live long enough to grow wiser.”

The son of Lamorak stared at his grandsire for a long, silent time, then nodded curtly, turned on his heel, and strode out of the audience chamber.

As he swept past the door guards, he took care to ignore the trace of a smile hovering on the lips of his uncle Aglarel.

His grandfather’s coldly contemptuous smile was like an icy dagger between his shoulder blades at every moment of that long, lonely walk.

The Most High of Thultanthar indulged himself in a cold little smile as he watched Draethren go. Then he awakened one of his rings to bolster his mantle before he turned his back on the young fool.

He really did want to study his map right now. The ever-shifting Weave had been collapsing for a century, yet somehow it never crashed entirely, nor faded away-and increasingly it seemed to him the reason for that seemed to be its many small local anchor points.

Some of which were here, here, and here .

Could it be that to truly understand the Weave, and come to govern it, one had to know all of its anchors, and so see how to best grasp it?

Telamont recalled with distaste his utter failure to bend the Weave to his bidding the last time he’d tried to work with it directly, rather than calling on it with spells. It had been like trying to grapple with a great wave crashing over a harbor rampart, or a gale that was shattering stout trees-and it had crashed over him in a great dark whirling that left him helpless to influence it or even work any magic at all, shattering him into an oblivion that had taken a long time to recover from.

He sighed. To find and mark every last anchor of the Weave, not to mention the moving ones that were creatures, would take a handful of days less than forever, and …

He smiled sourly. If Draethren thought matters were taking too long right now …

Telamont let his wraith-slaying mantle fade back into invisibility, and called on the little ward that cloaked the room to carry his words to Aglarel, outside the doors.

Fetch the next hotheaded young traitors. Dethud’s daughters, I mean; I’m well aware our kin harbors a large and growing collection of the seditious. Those two are easier on the eyes than the Prince of Peerless Sorcery who just marched out of here .

Aglarel was close enough to the open door for Telamont to hear his snort of amusement, even before he leaned in to give the Most High a nod.

The two female elves facing Storm were as tall as she was, and more splendid of face and figure. They had a presence to match her own.

Yet the senior Myth Drannan elf-a male who strode between the two female guards, to the fore, and stood a head taller than them all, and as straight as an upright grounded pike with robes wrapped around it-was grand enough to awe even Arclath Delcastle. Arclath and Amarune were sheltering behind Storm and holding hands for comfort, as she faced the haughty Varorn Irrymgalis, Steward of the Southern Gate.

She was trying to offer her services-and those of Amarune and Arclath-in the defense of the city, and it was not going well.

The steward was clearly dubious.

“A longtime Chosen of Mystra, an untried young woman of uncertain magecraft, and an equally young member of the restive nobles of Cormyr,” he said dismissively, his careful courtesy somehow anything but. “You must appreciate that our usual suspicion of N’Tel’Quess who serve other masters before our coronal, within our city, is necessarily heightened now, while we are besieged. Tell me, how is it that you passed through the foes surrounding us, if you are not of them, or sent by them?”

“Magic,” Storm replied dryly. “And a little base guile. Elves are not the only dwellers in Faerûn to indulge in either of those things.”

Varorn’s gaze went colder. “I have little patience for bandying words with children, and even less so with those who offer me evasive answers.”

Storm gave him a sad smile. “I felt old when your grandsire Imlarren first asked me to dance, here under the leaves in Shimaeren’s Glade-when there still was a Shimaeren’s Glade. Yet your prudence is only right, in time of war. So many of my fellow Chosen have fallen and yielded their fire and their knowledge to me that my magic is better now than it was but a short time ago. It sufficed to hide our true natures from the army that besets you, and enabled us to pass over the fighting unrecognized.”

“Through the mythal? Human, tell a better lie!”

“The mythal knows me, Varorn. I had a hand in its repair.”

“That’s hardly a better falsehood.”

“It’s the truth , son of Orblyn. And if you knew the true character of my companions, you’d not so swiftly dismiss-”

“Ah, but I do not know them. Nor you. Only the words you offer me, words so far beyond belief that I can scarce-”

“By the First, Var!” interrupted one of the female elves. “We need every sword, every spell, every healing hand, every pair of eyes-and you spurn this brave handful? If you’re suspicious of them, our spells can see their thoughts, true likenesses, and root natures easily enough. Even if they came awash in mischief, they’ll hardly have time to indulge in it, if we put them to fighting in the trees where the Shadovar hirelings press us!”

Arclath sidestepped to peer past the haughty elf lord at the exasperated female. So that must be Narya Ilunedrel, whom his mother had once met and grudgingly spoken highly of …

“You do not command here, Narya,” Varorn snapped without turning.

“Nor do you,” said a new voice, deep and grim.

Fflar Starbrow Melruth, the High Captain of Myth Drannor, came into the chamber, lurching in weariness, his armor scarred and stained, reeking of sweat and blood and the emptied innards of those who’d recently died on his sword.

Striding past Varorn, he regarded the three newcomers for a long, silent moment, and then said, “Be welcome, all of you. As Narya says, we need every sword, or Myth Drannor is doomed.”

In the silence that followed, every pair of elf eyes in that room held the same knowledge.

Lord Arclath Delcastle was too polite to voice it, but could read it loud and clear:

Myth Drannor is doomed anyway .

Dethud’s daughters were the sort of tart-tongued and darkly beautiful femme fatales who preferred to have the world think they passed their time in the languid sway of indolent boredom and were incapable of being awed or impressed by anything their mere elders did or wrought. Yet the High Prince of Thultanthar was amused to see how their eyes darted around the audience chamber whenever they thought he wouldn’t notice. Their restless gazes passed over the table from which his conjured map had vanished, and returned again and again to the towering throne and especially the tammaneth rod-despite the glass globes enclosed within its black spheres being empty and dark.